Ceilidh for the gays.
Monday, October 31, 2005 , 10:32 AM
On Saturday, the flatmates and I went to “Highland Fling”, a fundraising ceilidh for the local gay and lesbian switchboard — which I’m assuming is a crisis line, though I can picture Lily Tomlin at a telephone operator’s desk connecting calls from queer folk.
It was fun to do something with the boys, and Dave’s visiting friend Becks was really good company, too. It’s easy to be busy all the time, and forget to stop and celebrate the life we have in progress. I was bummed because I’d received one of my manuscript packages back in the post with a rejection letter, but Geoff had just received noticed that his dissertation received an outstanding mark, so he’d bought champagne and nibblies for us. So the party started early.
The ceilidh was at The Assembly Rooms, which proved to be an excellent venue, with disco music in one ballroom, and a ceilidh band in the other. The latter were funny, though, playing traditional music interspersed with strains that made me think, “Hey, isn’t that?” Things like the Mission Impossible theme would sneak in while everyone was dancing the Gay Gordon.
And were they! So many people knew the dances, and got right into them. It was a real adjustment, seeing two kilts spinning around each other for a change, but there was something really wonderful about the evening, a real sense of gay community like I’ve rarely seen it before. It was a Saturday night dance down at the hall, and everyone was being nice to each other. The nasty, self-destructive, meat-market tone was replaced by a genuine enjoyment of each other’s company. If this happened every Saturday night, I’d be there.
If you click on the picture above, you can see a few pictures from the evening. (Some of them are crap-snaps from my PDA, but it’ll have to suffice.)
Doodling, and structures for existence.
Monday, October 24, 2005 , 5:40 PM
Anyone who’s spent any amount of time in my company knows that I draw cartoons. Or rather, that I can draw cartoons. I just tend not to.
I generally find writing a much more fulfilling exercise, but what’s fun is that this bookbinding I’ve got into lately has given me an outlet for all sorts of my work. So yesterday I drew and wrote a little illuminated manuscript.
A lot of it has to do with my desk. In the workshop workI did way back when, they talked about “structures for existence”. For instance, you say, “I’d like to go to Paris.” Well, in that moment the possibility of you-in-Paris exists. But then it immediately goes out of existence unless you put structures into your life to support its happening.
My desk is a great structure for the existence of me as someone who creates things. I have markers and rulers and cutters and hole-makers and stitching gear, so now it takes very little for me to have an idea and immediately execute it.
It’s also a matter of habit, I suppose. The more projects I make and bind, the easier and faster the process gets. And it’s freakin’ fun!
~
As you may or may not have noticed, I had big server issues over the weekend, both with my mail and webhosting. Everything’s been moved, the DNS address has propagated, and so on. I don’t think I lost any messages, but then, I wouldn’t know if I had, would I? So I’ll just be a good Canadian and apologise anyway.
My Soundtrack
Thursday, October 20, 2005 , 10:47 PM
She got it in that one, my whole raison d’etre. I know she’s weird. I know my friend Lori fixed her car, and as a thank you, Jane gave her a cassette… case. But I love her.
Her song “The Valley” is also a favourite. I just found a version by k.d. lang, and much as I like the woman who shares a name with Canada’s favourite meal, no one should ever cover Jane Siberry. And it seems a bit mean when someone more successful does a cover. But they’re friends. Or something. They sang one of Jane’s songs together for the soundtrack of Pay It Forward, which Geoff and Dave were watching when I got home. Geoff was sniffling very cutely at the end of the movie, but I wasn’t in the mood. I feel like I fell down the stairs, but I can’t really cry about breaking up with people anymore. There’s way worse stuff. Doesn’t mean I’m not sad — I hate the idea of not getting to have that adventure with that person — it just doesn’t push the cry-o-meter over into the blue. Funny, ’cause I’m normally a suck.
No dumping zone.
, 8:36 PM
I’m sitting the Filmhouse Bar. A group of plain-looking women with severe hair and crookedy teeth are discussing “That environmental film, The Day After Tomorrow” and how “the countries are moving. Pakistan is shifting up into India and suchlike.” I didn’t know about that. All I knew about was the chickens who are supposed to kill us all. Or so the media are saying lately, in their endless zeal about the idea of us all perishing horribly.
I got dumped today. It wasn’t a surprise, and it went as nicely as these things can go (being circumstantial rather than a matter of taste). And I shouldn’t have talked about any of it here anyway. I was just excited.
What I can say is that suffering is boring, so I’m not going to do it. Is my heart broken? Sure. So what? I’m more committed to having a good life, so let’s pitch into that.
So here we go. It’s official: I’m working on new novel. Number Four. It’ll be finished sometime just over a year from now. (I know, National Novel-Writing Month is next month, but my process is a bit slower and more organic than that.) I’ll be serialising the book as I finish chapters, so if you’d like to be in the group of readers, let me know. I’ll be outlining for a while yet, but early next year I should start sending it out.
What’s the story about? A under-qualified parole officer and the three men trusted into his care.
There. My hat’s over the fence.
~
I talked to my brother on Skype yesterday. He was in Charlottetown at a cafe in The Confederation Centre, using their wireless “since,” he said, “I already paid four bucks for a coffee”.
Walking home tonight, looking up at the broad west shoulder of the castle, which was lit from below and had a star over its crowned head, I thought briefly about Charlottetown. Ian took the bus into town. I could take the bus into town. I could hide out at Mom and Dad’s and make as much money as I make for a change. Nothing I’ve done here has stuck.
I knew I wasn’t serious, but it was kinda fun to mentally exercise the option.
~
The women are gone. A couple is now sitting in front of me, looking through a real estate newspaper.
I wonder if I’ll ever go out with someone for longer than three weeks.
Interesting, though: the flipside of disappointment is a new awareness of what it is I wanted.
Want.
Or maybe what I want/need is not so much a permanent relationship, but one like a favourite vacation spot. All of the joy, none of the issues of residency.
I dunno. I’m a sucker for the idea of what Mom and Dad have.
Phone bother.
, 2:39 PM
“Is there anything else I can help you with today?” should be the new Indian national anthem.
“No, because you didn’t f*ing help me with my first problem!”
Have a nice day.
Skinny hamster and friends.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005 , 8:35 PM
I’ve been back in Scotland for just two months — Scotland of all places! — and I’m skinny again. Maybe it’s from eating my own cooking, but I’ve lost all the weight I packed on this summer.
~
Patrick and Philip just left. They were here for supper and for Drawing Board, our regular meetings in which we plan out our projects for the time ahead.
I have very good friends. And you know what? Sometimes other people have more perspective and better insights on my life than I do.
Pip’s about to take off and travel around Europe for a few weeks. I’m so proud of him for doing it. It makes me realise that I’m a bit scared of travel — the cost, not being good at making travel plans. But Philip is so good at talking to strangers, organising on the fly, and enjoying himself, that he’s going to be great. I can’t wait to hear the stories.
Meanwhile, I’ve filled my schedule with more to do. More outlining of stories, more book-making, more sorting out life-stuff. And like I said, my friends’ insight was a balm for my soul.
Holes.
Sunday, October 16, 2005 , 9:52 PM
I’ve been cranking out Xmas presents. I’m just oozing creative energy these days. This is how I like it.
This afternoon has been Writing Time. I’m trying to pull together all the thoughts I’ve scribbled down over the past few years and join them up into a new novel. This one hasn’t gelled into a story yet. I’ve got one predominant idea, but I still feel iffy about it. It’s got to be fun, ’cause I’m going to have to stick with it for a year and some.
Fried-day.
Saturday, October 15, 2005 , 1:17 AM
~
I received my final bill from Orange: 28 pounds. My base rate is 15 pounds, and I barely use the thing, yet every month they manage to wiggle it up that much. No more! The switch to EasyMobile has gone through painlessly.
~
I’m just waiting for the lecture to start. This is fun, sitting at a desk in a lecture room, looking out at a sunny autumn day.
~
I’m tired. This has been a mentally challenging week. Last night, Geoff and I talked last night before retreating to our rooms. I’d given an editorial read-through to his paper on the Terry Schiavo case versus UK law on permanent vegetative state cases (nice and clear; he’s a good thinker about complex issues). He listened to me blather on about issues in my personal life.
During this talk, an aphorism emerged: Magnifying glasses can start fires.
~
I’m now in bed at the end of the day. The talk was about “reconfiguring the author in today’s literary marketplace”, and more or less confirmed what I thought the state of the industry is.
I wrote a piece for work before and after the lecture, and thought it decent. Then met the Friday Gang for a yee-haw great meal at the new Monster Mex, a Tex-Mex spinoff of our much-loved Monster Mash (all manner of bangers and mash for cheap).
I’d already been feeling morose and paranoid, and alcohol just plugged that into the mains power, so I cut my evening short.
On arriving home, I found messages mistakenly sent to an obscure e-mail account that further suggested I’d imagined a worry out of thin air.
That’s the trouble with caring about things.
I feel like an asshat.
Making with the crazy.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005 , 12:14 PM
I spent yesterday morning making myself crazy. I’m going back to my previous policy of not talking about romantic stuff here, but it was about that, and about my tendency to go off the rails when communication lapses. I need lots of reassurance, and I hate that.
I decided to leave the house and do something useful. So I bought some mounting board and some groceries. I’d been using cardboard left over from the delivery of Geoff’s headboard to make cover-boards for books. For the last project — my little bound partial manuscript sets — it worked nicely. But for something I tried the night before, it created a puffy, bendable mess.
When I got home, I deconstructed what was going on in my head, untangling the knot with mind-mapping. (I learned this one weekend in a writing workshop I attended with Cosgrove, and I swear I use it every day now.) I sorted out the junk, discovered the genuine thoughts and fears, and freed myself to go on and have the rest of the day.
Actually, the process started happening on the way home, as I carried the two sheets of mounting board in the high wind (anyone else wondering if our planet is coming apart?), listening to an upbeat song. Music is powerful medicine. And I was on my way home to create something, so everything was okay.
I cooked, I chatted with the flatmates, I made a book. I sat in bed reading Soil and Soul, an amazing book by Alastair McIntosh about spirituality, community, entrepreneurship, corporate power, crofting, and other facets of life in Scotland. McIntosh’s words reconnected me with my inner motivations, the reasons behind everything I do.
This was why I’ve been feeling so disconnected lately: there’s been lots of action, but without reason. Lots of outer life, but no corresponding inner activity. Some people don’t need that, but I do.
As Joseph Campbell said, “We’re so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.” Reconnecting with that makes me feel grounded. There are too many things to read, see, and hear, to do, to achieve. It overwhelms me. But this focus turns that on its head, letting me know that the inner direction is the one to go after. It puts me back in charge of my powers, and lets me know what I’m supposed to do with them.
I sent off a manuscript yesterday. Today I’m sending off some things I made to the fella. It’s enough to drive one crazy, this being in the grip of others’ responses. At least this inner business gives me something interesting to play with — and, I suppose, provides all the substance that the world responds to anyway.
~
The building I live in makes noises. They wake me up, and that makes me cranky. Lately it’s been a banging in the walls, like a wrench hitting a two-by-four. This morning, though, it was a sound like a constantly-boiling kettle. I think it has something to do with rain overflow. But you know what? I don’t care what causes it, I just wish I could sleep through the whole night without interruptions emanating from the walls. The worst thing about them is that they’re all at a frequency that travels through earplugs.
From where I stand.
Sunday, October 09, 2005 , 12:24 PM
Last night, I went to a Gaelic music night at a little hotel pub/function room nearby with Flatmate Geoff. A woman he works with is in the Gaelic choir that provided most of the evening’s entertainment. She’s German, actually, and when she sang her solo pieces demonstrated that European thing, where they start learning languages and before you know it they speak everything. The choir was strong, and the music pretty and melodic.
Female Gaelic singers don’t sound like the women I’m used to, my friends who work in musical theatre. The difference seems to be deliberate, a stylistic choice to fit the music. Traditional female Gaelic-singers have voices like wooden flutes which can sometimes be very nasal, where my musical theatre friends sing more from the chest, and trail their notes off with a vibrato instead of pinching it away in their noses. Hm.
Celtic music also features odd intervals and progressions that defy what my ears expect, and Gaelic — depending on the speaker — alternately sounds to me like Russian, Hebrew, Klingon, and Elvish.
The crowd was very friendly, and Geoff and I had a shared “Where am I?” moment as we sat drinking pints in-between numbers. There was a little bit of chit-chat in Gaelic, and everyone but us was wearing a kilt or tartan dress, including the rugged man who sat at the opposite side of the room with what looked like pink teabags showing under his kilt. It was difficult not to glance over, since it’s such an unaccustomed sight. The sound of a band playing came from the downstairs pub, with an accordion carrying loudest. The sound reminded me of the tapes my grandparents used to play in their kitchen.
Geoff and I are both outsiders, culturally, to all this, yet it’s in our bloodlines, and, we agreed, we both love it. Geoff’s been asked as often as I have, “Why Scotland?” Neither of us can articulate it. Scotland certainly has its detracting features, yet when you ride the train down to England, you can tell when you’ve passed the border: magic disappears.
The evening wound down, and Geoff and I were both stricken with a craving for Pringles. We dashed around, finally finding a late-night convenience store on Lothian Road, then went back and ate them while we watchedThe Apartment on DVD (Jack Lemmon hamming about and Shirley Maclaine being surprisingly, irresistably subtle — both for the era, and compared to the later-her).
~
The night before, I went out with the Friday Gang for the first time in a long while. Everyone was looking good and being fun to talk to, though each of us was bothered at some point by our collective inability to make alternate dinner plans when our first choice was full. In the end, we wound up at The Panda Inn, where we had a good Chinese meal with lots of fun banter.
I got home, ready for a quiet, early night, when I got a booty call from Mr Fella, asking if I’d like a visitor. Of course I did, if it was him. He’d been at a work function and was a bit loopy, which was funny to see.
The night before, I’d gone out to the little town where he stays, and felt quite honoured to see his home and get to stay there. We drove back early the next morning before it was light, passing through little towns of stone and whitewash and stretches of rolling farmland. He said he really likes me. As good as it’s going, we both know from experience not to say more yet, but to hear that — and to already have known it — well, I feel like I’ve accidentally found everything I could have hoped for in that one last part of my life that was sitting empty.
It’s scary this, having to ask the question “How good can you stand it to be?” He’s not doing the vanishing-date number, he’s got feelings and isn’t afraid to express them, he’s sane, sorted, and solvent… And I’m resisting that Scots-Calvinist tendency to worry when things are too good. Maybe things are supposed to be good.
Friday afternoon, I lay in the grass on the side of Arthur’s Seat, looking up at the grey clouds that blew past in the wind and changed shape with surprising speed. I was working, actually, listening to an audio interview between my editor Cath, and Dan, who owns The Strategic Coach. I’m endlessly impressed by Dan’s ability to distill his experience into wisdom — especially since he uses language so well to do it, twisting each insight into a little lozenge of thought to use as a remedy some later time.
Something he said made me think about the future, and I realised that mine is a blank at the moment. The interviews were for a book we’re producing (the first we’ve worked on with a third-party publisher — Berrett-Koehler — and it looks like it’s going to be a big thing). It’s called The Laws of Lifetime Growth, and the first law is “Always make your future bigger than your past”.
My present life is perfect. Work, family, friends, a great place to live, and now this latest development with a really great guy I’m completely falling for. Maybe I’m afraid of losing all this stuff, so I don’t want to peek at what’s ahead. So I wind up coasting along without a future.
Happily, it’s Sunday, which is a great day for making things up.
Death to Mr Moneybags.
Thursday, October 06, 2005 , 11:10 AM
I just switched to EasyMobile yesterday. The same people who brought us EasyJet (-Hotel, -Hostel, -Cruise, &c.) have just introduced unbundled, no line rental, no minimum contract mobile phone service.
As one who’s not particularly enjoyed being held hostage by the UK mobile phone cartel and its ridiculous pricing schemes, I welcome our new EasyOverlords.
I’m not changing my number, just getting it transferred to the new company. I don’t anticipate any breaks in service, but if anything goes amiss — well, at least you’ll know why.
Oh, and you’ve probably noticed that I’m using the URL with my full name in my e-mails. It’s ’cause there’s another Hamish MacDonald in print here, so I’m making a conscious effort to distinguish myself from him. I know it’s clunky. Sorry.
Those who forget history…
Monday, October 03, 2005 , 3:51 PM
<
p>
Good performances, though, including a very funny turn by William Hurt, but not enough to justify five stars, dots, or whatever.
I gave up hope as soon as I read the opening credit “Adapted from the graphic novel by…” If there’s a filmic equivalent of diabetes, I’ve developed it, and Hollywood is a sugar-factory. There was so much effort to the terse dialogue, the words really should have been in bubbles above the characters’ heads.
~
So now my houseguest is gone back to Canada, a good friend, but I’m happy to have some mental space to myself and the luxury of sleeping in my own bed again instead of on the living room floor. Happily, I did also get a chance to visit briefly with The Beau with My Name and two of his friends while I was out with Gord yesterday. I’ve dated people in the past then met their friends and thought “These are not my people.” Never a good sign. But the mates yesterday were very nice guys, and easy to get along with.
I keep talking about this, and I’m not supposed to talk about that stuff here. Hm, who made up that rule? I did, but in the past it’s always been a bit dodgy, going on publically about the overlap between my life and someone else’s. I’ll hold off just yet.
It’s nice, though. I’m happy, and feeling uncharacteristically relaxed. That latter bit is because of him: I know exactly where I stand, so I don’t feel any need to do weird things to evoke a response or a declaration from him. That’s good, ’cause I’ve scared people off that way in the past. Occupational hazard, that, with being expressive for a living. It’s also my family: every conversation we have could be our last, and because of the way we verbally care for each other, there’s nothing left unsaid. I think that’s how it should be, and it’s difficult to make myself be any other way.
I’m still talking about this, aren’t I?
New topic: It’s autumn.
New new topic: Happy 5766 to my Jewish friends. May the new year be good to you.
<
p>
<
p>
