Wednesday 30 September 2009

And so it is

Shortly after 11am today, I was informed that The Globe and Mail will not be offering me my old job. 
It was, they said, purely a matter of paperwork. They felt they could not rightly address the visa paperwork required, nor soundly argue a Canadian couldn't do the job. Thus, my future is entirely open.


Four hours later, it hit me. Ten years of effort, in six cities, for five newspapers, has come to this. I've been dumped.

I look at my Walkley on the mantel and think back to all those stories, to all those people and lives, the murk of courtrooms, the frustration of politics, the heartache of trying to do the world justice. So much poured into it, and this is where I end up?


I know I should see it as an opportunity: to create something better; to reapply at the paper once my residency arrives; to build a life of my choosing. I should harness the discipline and drive that has helped me start and restart and restart my life over and over, as I built what I thought was a career to make a life around.


But the honest truth is, I'm tired. I'm tired of everything this job has demanded of me, with so little -- lately -- in return. This game here, it's not one I want to play any more.


It's not procrastination that has me so meek and homely of late.
I've lost the will to fight.

Monday 28 September 2009

Give me a B! Give me an R!

Give me an E-A-D! I'm back to making bread, this time combining T's mum's recipe with the sage advice of Edna Staebler, an awesome Canadian author and seriously down-home cook whose cookbook we were given for our engagement. I suspect my last loaves were overly dense due to a) not enough kneading at early stages of preparation, and too much at the end; and b) insufficient warmth during the dough-rising time. The experimentation begins. A massive bowl of dough is in a warm oven, rising as I type.


During a recent wine-soaked evening at the WWF (Women's Wine Federation, for the uninitiated), it was suggested I create a blog listing a free activity or outing that I do each day. I am considering making that my project for October. Stay tuned!

Wednesday 23 September 2009

Myers Briggs and Me

This enforced housewifery has got me doing two things: Experimenting with my newfound favourite cookbook, The Produce Bible, and deeply contemplating my career direction. 


The first helps create yummy things like the fennel and tomato gratin T and I devoured last night.
The second highlights my latent discontent with journalism, or at least journalism as I was being made practice it. Art, fiction, science, politics... I'm toying with many ideas right now. (I'm also open to suggestions, if you want to send me some.)


To that end I borrowed a library book called 'Do What You Are' recommended to my by T's big brother. After a few hours of doing pseudo-Myers-Briggs personality tests, and slotting myself into one of 16 personality profiles (I am apparently an 'ENFP' Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving type, who runs mostly on intuition), I turned to the long list of recommended career pursuits to see the first one listed is...
Journalism.


Hmmph. 


The 'creative' list also includes such things as Screenwriter, Character actor, Artist and Community Theatre Director. Could I combine them all, and write a character piece for myself to perform in the local playhouse? 


There's also some waffle about marketing and PR, ombudsman/social scientist/anthropologist (which sounds all right, although the last may be due to a mental link to pretty dresses...), and some optimal health and business pathways.


But creativity leads the way. Now, if only I could harness some of that good stuff myself to create a dashing way out of this career malaise!

Friday 18 September 2009

Making myself useful

I'm tempted to rename this blog to 'What I Did Today: One woman's bid to justify her existence'.


Today's installment would include this amateurish drawing of an imaginary waterworld, inked into existence on a park bench beside Lake Ontario:




... and three loaves of Marg Bread, so named because the recipe comes from T's mum. There was an hilarious spill-over of yeast, and I forgot to add the vanilla, but if you won't tell, neither will I. ;)







I know which I think looks better....

Wednesday 16 September 2009

H2O

There is one immediate, obvious difference between Canada and my beloved Aus: There is water here. Lots of it. Lake-loads. About one-fifth of the world's fresh water is apparently Canadian (or so said a random article I read once, and now quote to anyone who'll listen).
What that means is Canadians will turn the basin tap on before they even put soap on their hands, will wash dishes under a running faucet, and don't get a guilt complex for using a lawn sprinkler.
It also means they do not have any need for ingenious inventions like the Shower Timer.


For the uninitiated, it's basically a small four-minute egg timer with a suction cap attached. The shower timer acts as the angel on your shoulder, telling you to get out of the shower after four minutes.
One arrived in my mail box today, sent by my wonderful Aussie friend as part of a birthday gift of uber-funky reusable shopping bags. (They, needless to say, are almost as awesome as the gal who sent 'em to me.) My wee egg timer is now stuck on the wall of my shower, waiting for morning so I can start recapturing my Aussie water frugality. 



Tuesday 15 September 2009

Tea time!

I can no longer resist the siren song of my adorable wedding tea set, completed this week with the arrival of four saucers. This is my first mini tea party. I'm happy to host more, should anyone wish to pop by.
 


(And a big shout out to Gini and Sheila, the grandmas of our friend Virginia, who made shortbreads for the favour bags. Yum!)

Other high points of today: 
- Contritely apologizing to the huffy policeman  for running a red light on my bicycle this morning. That was fun.
- I get to take Tony's broken shoe to the cobbler, which is exciting because I actually get to use the word 'cobbler'.

This is what my life has become.

Wednesday 9 September 2009

Long enough to lose

Most Canadians probably don't know Margaret Philp beyond her byline and insightful reporting. They wouldn't know she stole my practical heart with her love of flat shoes, always wore the most individually stylish clothing, and was warm and generous as well as being a fearsomely good reporter.
They also probably don't know that she died this morning after a years-long battle with cancer.


I didn't get to know Margaret all that well (unlike Talbert Walters, a wonderful colleague who disappeared before our eyes last year and whom I was lucky enough to call my friend). But her death, like her work, has got me thinking deeply about what surrounds me.


When you arrive in a new place, it's hard to comprehend that as you start meeting people, knowing them and loving them, you'll start losing them too.

Tuesday 8 September 2009

Lily of the Valley

It's ironic that I'm having trouble finding the words to start this post. After all, I wrote 23,893 of them over the weekend.


On a whim of foolhardy bravery, I took part in the 3-Day Novel Contest from Sept 5-7. I hadn't even heard of it until last week, and entered two days before deadline. I had a vague plot idea, and then sat down at midnight Friday to get started.
And it was AWESOME! I've never had such fun writing in my life! I wrote the opening 10 pages on the first night, then barely move throughout Saturday. (T wisely dragged me out for a walk in the neighbourhood at 9pm.)   Woke up on Sunday itching to get back to it. 


For those outside Toronto, the Labour Day weekend also happens to include the annual Toronto Air Show, and T and I live directly in its flight path. So for four hours on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, I sat here typing as huge fighter jets buzzed our house. (Mental note: next year, write a novel set in war time.)
I couldn't wipe the smile off my face, though. Beer o'clock hit at 4 p.m. on the dot. I took lots of little snack breaks, and would wander around the house staring at some imagined horizon, trying to work out what was going to happen next. 


In the novel, something goes missing and I sat here for about 45 minutes wracking my brains trying to work out which character had it.  Not which character I would make have it, mind you, but which one actually did. I was all but interrogating them to work out why they would have taken it, and what implications it had. When I finally realized who it was, I let out a whoop of excitement, and was laughing aloud as I typed.
So if entering wasn't mad enough, I certainly was doing a good job of looking nuts.


In the end, I had usual 8 hour sleeps each night, and finished writing the novella on Sunday night. I spent Monday editing, and fleshing it out, then printed it up at 9pm -- three hours before I even had to stop writing! T was very proud, and a little frightened by my productivity. Actually, so was I!


Things I learned in the writing of Lily of the Valley (99 pages, now in the post en route to the 3-Day Novel judges):
- Characters live, but only if I actually write them down. I've had so many people come and go in my mind. I must stop being embarrassed of or flippant to my urges to write these imagined things.
- It's actually really easy to do, once you become obsessed with it.
- I don't have to know the plot before I write. After a while, the world itself and the characters in it dictate what goes on.
- I now have no excuses for not trying this again. Darnit.
- It's frickin FUN!




The Writahhh at work.

Sunday 6 September 2009

Tippety tippety type

35 hours, 44 pages, 10,695 words. 
About half way, I guess.
I'm having so much fun!!

Friday 4 September 2009

So I guess this is growing up

I've had costume parties, hamburger cakes, coffee martinis and schmoo pie misadventures. But this year, all I wanted for my birthday was peace.


I fell silent as we sat under the magnolia tree at the Fat Cat Wine Bar, me sipping a delightful Gewurtztraminer (I'm intent on squeezing the most out of what white-wine-weather remains), T a "bold and manly" red. 
After a moment, I began ruminating on the power of birthdays in making one quietly take stock of one's life.
"Are you sitting there with a list of what you should be doing, or should have achieved by now?" T asked. It's an appropriate question. Heaven knows, I've pounded him with such doubts and assertions plenty of times before now.
I looked inside myself, and discovered what had been puzzling me throughout the day.
The yardstick is gone.
I smiled with a newly-acknowledged serenity. He smiled back. "I'm so glad to hear it."


As we I strolled through the early-evening sunshine, hand in hand, it was exactly, utterly perfect. No big celebration. No demanding party. Just he and me. 
Birthdays rock.



Tuesday 1 September 2009

Humming a new tune

If you haven't had a chance to hear Tony's older brother Michael in person, treat yourself to a few moments on his Myspace page. www.myspace.com/michaelreinhartmusic.
My current favourite is Woman in the Window.


Which is kind of suitable. I changed all my passwords this week, erasing sweet nicknames from yesterdays, replacing them with touchstones of today. Funny how these things can linger.


Photo: Tory Zimmerman