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and how will i know which one is me?

Two days off last week. Sick anyway but really more a case of being psychically exhausted. Did say no to a few people, which felt good, and helped somewhat. Working a couple of jobs and playing several roles for quite awhile now and this constant switching between kitchens, all of which demand at least smoke coming out of the chimney, is spiritually pauperizing. You have your lists but the cupboards are bare.


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Knew I'd get sick. The week before the office was regularly twelve, thirteen, fourteen degrees Celsius. Then they got the heat on, and within an hour it was thirty-two. At one point, a co-worker in the next cubicle coughed for two minutes straight. I've avoided going that low, with sleep and massive doses of zinc, apple cider vinegar and ginseng, but by eight at night my eyes have more soft focus than a dream sequence from Dallas.


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My wife washed my notes journal for me (yes, I am that kind of nerd). It was in the front pocket of a shirt hanging over a chair. No, I did not ask her to wash it. And before you all start stomping around like Germaine Greer after too many estrogen treatments, I am more than capable of doing my own laundry. My wife likes to do laundry (I do the cooking, she does the laundry). Unfortunately, she likes it a bit too much, and grabs everything in sight -- she will often wash all the towels in the house, all at once, so that I'm left walking around with my wet hands in the air like a blind surgeon.


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Blind or not, having walked countless miles throughout the downtown, at all hours of the day, it strikes me as misguided for people to be afraid of going there at night, when really your only trouble is with drunks, and even those are just Queen's students. Sure they're loud, and grossly stupid, and they love to pee on things and dump chips with gravy on your car. But in the end they're just middle-class spaz-wads. People ought to be much more afraid of the early morning, when the *real* mental deviants are stumbling around, in droves, like zombies, with no place to go, and no idea how to get there. These are the kind of people who blow their nose into the sidewalk, who shuffle into oncoming traffic, and stare at grocery items that aren't there. So what hesitation would they have about sharing the magic sharpness with you? At least at night they're safely tucked away into their shelters, basements, cells and insane-o pods, dreaming of aliens and an endless supply of cigarettes.


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Congratulations to Tony Burgess, winner of this year's ReLit award for short fiction. I had an outside hope for this, thinking all the stars had lined up in my favour, since there was no money attached to it, and they were having trouble finding a sponsor for the trophy (a ring), but hey. My friend Jenn Farrell was also on the shortlist, and her book was much more deserving than mine. It's called The Devil You Know, and you can buy it here.


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Besides, getting notes like this are just as satisfying, especially when they magically appear under your studio door. Good reviews are fine, and sometimes even the faffle of chasing grants or the fromage that is writer's festivals (Q: "What were you thinking about when you wrote your book?" A: "Murder, mostly. Alien murder. And I was spending quite a bit of time dancing around in my grandma's panties. Woo. Wooo-ooo."). But I don't need black jeans, a motorcycle jacket and the tweaked applause of stuffy, middle-aged room to renew the faith. Just a note, from an actual reader, here and there. That's all.

Comments

  1. Nice to meet you. You have a unique blog. Your book looks interesting as does your artwork- especially the cigar tin books. The Canadian flavour/sense of humour in your writing is also appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, that line "she likes it but a little too much" about laundry made me laugh! :-D

    Nice blog! :-)

    ReplyDelete

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