Year: 2015

  Oh man, sweets. I am a certifiable chocolate-holic and baked goods addict: donuts, cake, pie, brownies — if it’s baked and it tastes good, I’m there. And naturally, working in foodservice has a bit of a crappy side effect. You see, we sample stuff. Mostly pizza-related stuff like dough and pepperoni, but sometimes sweets, too. We once had a cannoli line. And once we taste tasted pies. And cakes. And…well, being that I sit all day at the office and I lead a pretty sedentary life, I’ve put on some weight. Okay. Quite a lot of weight. (In fact, the joke when I started working for this company was, “Heh, you’ll gain 25 pounds your first year here.” I thought it was a joke. Nope. It was the truth. I’ve been there for almost 15 years now….)

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Have you been anywhere remotely related to books or writing lately? A book store, a library, websites across the web, mailing lists. You’ve probably noticed a trend lately. Write a novel fast. Plan a novel in 30 days. Be ready. Nanowrimo is coming. Sometimes it is weird to see what a huge thing Nano has become. When I first did it, back in 2003, there were only a few thousand people participating. You could easily keep up with the entire forums, if you wanted to. Your friends had never heard of it, and thought writing 50,000 words in a month was crazy when you brought it up.

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It’s nearly the end of another gardening season where I live. We’re lucky enough to have a longer summer and fall than the even more northerly city where I grew up, but it does eventually come to an end. (There’s a reason Canadian Thanksgiving falls more than six weeks earlier than its American equivalent…) To be honest, I’m a bit relieved. Not because I like winter (I really, really don’t) but because I got overambitious this summer. I planted too much, had too many high-maintenance plants, and set my expectations for myself too high while at the same time feeling constantly behind. Problems came up and I didn’t deal with them effectively, or sometimes at all. Then what was supposed to be fun and relaxing became stressful instead. Wait, was I talking about gardening, or…? Anyway, some things I learned this year:

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  Like many writers, I haven’t always had the friendliest relationship with my muses. Actually, that’s a very diplomatic (and less than honest) way to put it. I’ve been known to throw bricks at them. I have threatened them with fire, called them obscene names, and sang a certain unmentionable song from a certain DisneyWorld ride at them over and over and over until they coughed up a scene I wanted. Yes, it’s childish, but they started it.

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Thought I’d talk about books. I am a voracious reader. I’ve been known to read 3-4 books at one time, and devour 700+ page books in a few days. I read fast. (And, yes, I retain it all). I figure it this way: I don’t think I’ll ever be able to read my entire TBR pile in a lifetime, so I will read as many as I can as often as I can and see what happens. (Yeah, we’ll see how that goes. I’ve got bookcases and shelves filled with actual paperbacks and hardcovers, at least half that I haven’t read yet, and at least 2,000 ebooks on my Kindle. And that is growing daily).

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Like Siri, I have fond thoughts about this time of year. Not just because hints of autumn are starting to show up, and there’s the promise of hot chocolate and golden leaves and peppermint-flavored drinks. Not just because it’s back to school time and I can hoard notebooks for cheap. But because it is library book sale time.

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Happy September! Here in Toronto, Canada, we’ve just come off a sweltering Labour Day long weekend…but even still, whenever the wind blew, there was the faintest of chills in the air. Autumn is coming. The biggest sign of this: all across Canada, Labour Day means back to school. Mind you, nobody in my household actually attends or works at a school. But I’ve never lost the sense that September marks a new year, a new beginning. (I celebrate January 1, too. Why not have an opportunity for two fresh starts a year?) Now is the time to step out of vacation mode (or “spend the glorious summer weekends pretending you’re on vacation” mode, as the case may be) and move into Getting Stuff Done.

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In Tucson, we get the monsoon. That goes something like this. “Ugh, it’s hot. And bright. And–wait, where did that cloud come from? Oh, it’s coming this way. Maybe we’ll get some–“ And that’s when the attack comes. Not from the front, but from the side. FWOOSH!! from the other two clouds you didn’t even know were there. Okay, it’s maybe not that sudden. But if you’re walking north, especially if you’re listening to your Walkman personal music device, you could totally get blindsided by a storm from the south. Once I was in a house and it was pouring rain on one side–and the sun was shining on the other. You could not even see the clouds from the windows on the west side of the house. Other times, it’s deceptive. The clouds start building around lunch time, and you’re keeping an eye out the window, thinking of the glorious storm to come, watching those cumulonimbus climb higher and higher…and then nothing. One spectacular sunset, but no rain, and by ten the entire clear sky is staring down at you going “gotcha.” But as soon as you decide that if you see it coming, it’s not actually coming–then it really gets you.

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So, if you remember, I finally got a diagnosis of trigeminal neuralgia and was put on medication a month ago today. Life has been…interesting. I’m on a schedule – I take a half a pill at 9am and again at 9pm. I have alarms set on my phone so I don’t forget. I also need to eat something with it so I need to always have some type of food handy. I try to eat healthy things. The nausea has gone away.

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