Sox in the City

Hey. Here's a great way to help out. Drop off some socks for the Vancouver Coastal Health's drive for fresh socks for the homeless. Check out their link for places to do the sock drop. Their biggest need is for men's white tube socks, but I don't think they'd style you care to contribute. Feel the Santa love...

Letting Go

Lightening up, letting go, giving up, quitting, these are not such popular cliches in my world. Not big on the quitting of anything. However, the neck spoke louder than my usual discipline and I have officially fallen off the National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) bandwagon. Too much time on less-than-ergonomically perfect laptops and busted chairs made for interesting spasms down the right arm and perpetually buggered neck. So.

Now I'm just doing the VanMag job and some freelance stuff and it's feeling better. I did no computer stuff except for a few emails on the weekend, which is the first weekend that I really let myself not write something intensely.

I have to say, I could get used to giving things up. It's quite a load off. Went to see the movie Happy Go Lucky last night at Tinseltown. Poppy was a tad annoying with her endless optimism but I really liked the movie and can relate. Make your own happiness. It's hard work choosing to be happy. Anyone can rant and rave and me perpetually pissed off. That's the easy default position. It takes work to focus on what's good.  I liked that message. Two thumbs up on that one. 

Today I'm meeting Wendy Weir with her new LibreTea drinking glass. I will upload a photo later but the prototype I saw earlier was really cool. She's starting with selling it at Murchies in Vancouver & Victoria. I'm hoping we'll position it in the Jan/Feb 09 issue.

Bunching NaNoWriMo

I'm perilously close to letting the whole NaNoWriMo thing go. It kills me to think I'd quit something. Not very good at the quitting or giving up schtick. However, the neck is screaming louder and louder that it wants relief dammit. I finished up the two newspaper stories for Travel Writers' Tales syndication, so maybe I'll have more free time, but then I think I really want to do my "real" writing which does not include this very cheesy novel I'm creating.

Quite honestly, this whole working all day thing is getting in the way of my writing life. HA. But I really am enjoying the opportunity to work with other writerly types and it was fun to get to know of them a little better last night. The Vanmag website launch party was at Nu. Great snacks, probably too much wine and fun conversations.

I'm going to go meet my husband at Lolita's now. Perhaps a margarita and some fish tacos will switch things up a little. This much I know. When I go to sleep. I really go to sleep. Not quite sure I can keep this social thing up too much longer. I'm used to sleepy old Stalashen Drive, where the biggest action is the waves.

Dad's Summer Visit

This was in late August or early September. Sean came to visit his Grandpa for a bit. This picture makes me smile, thinking about how much healthier dad is and that Sean has finally had a chance in the last few years to get to know his Grandpa. I get downright sappy looking at this picture in fact, because of course it seems like everything has that bittesrsweet tinge to it. That whole mortality thing for a start...

Sunday night

It's 9:45 pm. I am semi-caught up on the NaNoWriMo world. 22,000 plus words. Sadly, I can't remember the exact number and I'm too whipped to go look it up again. Actually, I think it's 23,000 yeh, yeh, that's it. I want to get to 30,000 words by Wednesday. That was the suggested number by the little pep talk email sent 'round by Chris Bay, the organizer of NaNoWriMo.

Since I'm too lazy to do the actual math, I'm just accepting that 30,000 is key. The good news is that I have at least got my main character out of the Santa Fe hospital. She has no choice now but to be laid up and write her book. She has a broken leg that she can't put any weight on and a wonderful benefactor who has provided a nurse and her own New Mexican casita. Talk about projecting one's own fantasies...well, except for the nurse and the broken leg part. But I do love New Mexico....

I seem to have slid into quite a lot of deadlines and writing projects over this next week. The trick will be if I can move my neck at all by the time this is all over. I do have the name of a great physiotherapist that can do miracles in 30 minutes. I'm sure this neck and shoulders can provide a great challenge for her. Laptops, crappy seating arrangements and ridiculous word count goals are starting to add up. Saturday morning yoga is not enough to undo the week of abuse it seems.

I think ibuprofen is one of the world's wonders. I plan on getting a couple of those mommy's little helpers and propping myself into bed with the wonderful Tell It Slant book. I'm slowly working my way through it, between my other books.

The veal shanks are thawing while I sit here and by tomorrow morning Kevin will be prepping them for our dinner of shanks and lentils tomorrow night. I'm guessing Mr. Wine Geek has already figured out the appropriate red for the occasion.

It's a calm and crisp night outside the deck. The Molson brewery digital sign scrolling across on its forever spin. Can't quite read it, though I probably could if I got off the sofa and stood on the deck. But why?

Instead, I will sign off. Give my fingers a break. I'm looking forward to the week. I was asked on Friday to do the Shop with a Chef column and will be checking out the chef of Lolita's and their other Mexican eatery on Commercial Drive called Julio and me...or something like that. Since Mexico is one of my favourite places on the planet, I'm quite looking forward to the assignment.

Adios, Muchachos.