Well, now I’ve dried my eyes and got a beer from the fridge and Shazz called to see whether I was okay and I was as soon as I talked to her of course and there are millions of people in the world in worse shape than us, so it’s time to get on with it.
So, what’s Queenie been up to?
Lots and lots.
New Room
First and foremost, Psycho Bruce is GONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Queenie got his room, which is FANTASTIC. Why he spent a minute downstairs is beyond us. We love this room. I love this room.
It runs almost the length of the house, with sloped ceilings that I bang my head off all the time, and four windows, two of them skylights. There’s a walk-in closet and a little bathroom. There are four large cupboards, two at either end, in which you can sit. Missy told me the last tenant but one used to smoke weed in one of them.
I have a new rug, and loads of new mirrors and candles and all kinds of nautical collectibles and stones from Nova Scotia and glass bottles scattered round, and some paintings that I acquired this year, and all my windchimes, and my books, and an aloe vera plant Himself’s sister gave me.
And the fish of course. They love their new room. Although the tank is pitifully small and I will buy a new one this weekend.
And Missy gave me her television when she left, which was just class of her, so now I can eat crisps in bed and watch tv whenever I feel like doing just that.
Of course, that’s why Psycho B didn’t spend much time up here, as he was too cheap to buy a tv despite the fact that he worked in an electronics shop.
New Roomies
So PB is gone. Missy is gone. Off to Toronto to live with her man. Swept in for a flying visit last week and went off again tonight.
Now Melanie has moved in. She’s Acadian and she watches French tv all the time. She’s very nice. We get on well.
So it’s all good. Missy’s room is up to let at the moment, so fingers crossed.
And the two guys downstairs are subletting for the summer, but they are subletting to clones of themselves so that shouldn’t be a problem.
We are now a two car household. Mr. E. next door is going crazy. This morning he tried to block us all in with his old VW, because otherwise we would drive on his tarmac to get out and it ‘gets scuffed’.
Whatever.
As Himself says, ‘old people can be very strange’.
Writing workshop
This was very exciting. Halifax had a Writers Fest, which was a bit small and too packed into five days to be much use to someone with other things to do. But they had one or two good authors in attendance, and I should give a plug to Frog Hollow Books on Spring Garden Rd., who organised it – well done for bringing some much-needed literary culture to the city. I’m about done with the music scene and the theatre here is very dull.
Although the gallery scene here is pretty good I must say. Lucy Liu had an exhibition of her work here a couple of weeks ago and it was very interesting stuff.
I attended a workshop held by Joseph Boyden, author of Three Day Road which was my favourite book last year, and two other guys, neither of whom could hold a candle to his comments.
Joseph told me the book is out in paperback in the UK now so you should all buy it. Well, I’m telling you to buy it on his behalf because he’s far too nice to say it, but he’s a real writer in the sense that all he cares about is selling his book. Which is good.
The workshop was very laid back, more a conversation about writing. We mostly talked about mixing reality and historical fact with fiction and what you could get away with and stuff. I forgot Margaret Atwood’s name, referring to her as ‘yer one that wrote the new book about Penelope’, to which it seemed the very room exhaled margedadwood in that really fast way in which people say it here.
Which was a bit embarrassing, but they let me away with it because I was Irish but really, I should know better. I mean, I do know better.
Anyways, Boyden made some really interesting comments about developing characters that I think will help me, as all the things he said not to do are what I always do. Like mapping things out too much for them. And he talked a lot about splitting characters that are too unwieldy into splinters and freeing the splinters into the map of the story to find their own path. Which sounds like a total buzz. If I could pull it off. It was comforting to hear that I am not experiencing anything new to a scribbler.
Anyways, I have a new, mental idea for a plot, which is so close to the soap opera that is my life that I can definitely write it I think, and hopefully I will get something down on paper in the next few weeks if my head is not wrecked by an election.
Election
Which it most likely will although I am not going to speculate online as people get fired for less these days.
Christ on a bicycle, am I the only political hack in the world that hates the things? Up early every day and bed late every night, not that it matters because there’s no sleep apart from tossing and turning-type dozing because you’re worrying about the next day. No proper meals for weeks because you never get to the supermarket; that constant grimy feeling of dust on your skin, because you’re in some cheap and nasty makeshift office surrounded by signs and annoying volunteers and printers that stop working at nine pm when you’re so tired you can’t see and then you have to call someone in fucking Kentville and drive the CD over there. Because the letter has to go out tonight. Except you have to find a Staples open first because one of the volunteers borrowed the box of CDs.
Knocking on doors. Knocking in signs. Being blinded by every opposition sign for weeks and weeks. Endless conversations with people who couldn't give a shit about voting despite the fact that the reason why they’re Canadian is because their forefathers actually did. Remembering to check the car in the driveway for a Veterans sticker. Commiserating about the price of gas with some biddy who has an SUV parked in the driveway of her forced air heated home.
I have radiators. I don’t count.
Endless conversations about whether it’s Vision of the Future or Future of the Vision or whether it should just be Future Vision, and me sitting there trying not to say ‘they put the fucking things in the BIN without reading them’.
Because they don't know what I mean when I say bin. And I'm not saying trash. Or store.
Ever.
Data entry. Putting the results of each day’s canvass into the database. Waiting for the printout. Poring over the numbers. Never enough numbers. Will we peak too late? Or if there’s a miracle and there are enough numbers, are we peaking too soon?
The voices of the phone canvassers in the background. The same pitch over and over again. Until I want to SCREAM!!!!!!!!! Getting really stroppy when yet another volunteer who hates the fact that I don't like her and don't bother hiding it wants to know why I won’t phone canvass – with my delightful accent.
Because no one in this country can understand a fucking word I say on the phone.
Being shushed for swearing in the vicinity of the phone canvassers. The campaign worker getting her own back by putting up a No Swearing sign.
What? What? Do you think they think politicians don’t fucking swear? I suppose we all shit glass too, do we?
Going to the smelly toilet down the back, that the vegan just used, for a weep. Going outside for a smoke in the rain. Bitching about everyone inside. Emptying the coffee pot for the fifteenth time that day.
Sigh.
Himself says he doesn’t know how I do it. He did it once for a couple of weeks. He couldn’t remember anyone’s name. He didn’t even try. He did that thing he does when he’s in a room full of egos. He just sat there waiting for input. And then he decided how to react.
And of course everyone loved him as they always do because he's got such a gentle soul. And such a kind wit. Not hard-edged like mine.
I wish I could do that.
Unfortunately, I turn into one of the egos when he’s not around to remind me it's just the work I do that makes me brittle. And that it will be all over soon. And I can just be me again.
Another sigh.
Swig of beer.
Time to post. Then I’ll tackle Easter.
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