I smoked my finger.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 , 2:31 PM
The other night I was making popcorn — using up a commercial bag of it that I had left over, rather than making it from scratch like I usually do. The thing burned so badly in the microwave that when I opened the bag, the index finger on my left hand got cured. I mean, like,smoked. It’s days later now, and the thing’s still discoloured like I’ve been smoking for twenty years and it smells like burnt popcorn.
Kind of gross, that it’s possible to do that to part of a living body. Thankfully, I’m good at regenerating. Call me Mr Salamander. Actually, don’t.
~
I know, I haven’t blogged in ages. I’ve been busy making progress on all the various booky-thingies I want to have ready for the 15 October presentation. I won’t list them all here ’cause it’ll just sound to you like I’m bragging, and for me, I’ll just get freaked out by how much still needs to be done.
So the next lesson in my life seems to be about balancing work-work, creative-project-work, and my personal life. I guess it’s not easy being involved with someone who, as it was put to me this weekend, “could think of something to do 24 hours a day” (or words to that effect).
Having been single for so long up until now, and having once gone through a major depression over losing a relationship, that’s by design. My life is stuffed full of projects and people that make me happy. I generate the whole thing.
So where does someone else fit in? Where can someone else fit in?
It is possible, given that I’m committed to learning how to do it rather than getting so set in my ways now that I’ll never be able to accommodate anyone or make it a priority to think of relationship as another adventure, rather than as a distraction from my work.
This life is great, but I don’t want to come back to repeat the grade, and I have a suspicion that knowing how to love someone will be on the finals.
Trees are good.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 , 3:40 PM
Well, mostly good: One of the plants in front of our house is a big stinky thing that smells like curry.
Last night, Patrick and I took our recycling out to a shopping complex (because recycling in this city is barely existent), and while out there we went to HomeBase and traded in an ill-fitting towel-rack for two pretty plants that will not stink, but will flower instead.
Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding
Friday, September 08, 2006 , 9:06 AM
On 15 October* at The Radical Book Fair in Edinburgh, I’m going to be heading a panel discussion about self-publishing/DIY culture. Following that, I’m giving a demonstration called “Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding”. In preparation, I’ve made a wee take-away guide that, hopefully, makes the process simple with some illustrations and instructions.
I’ve made a printable PDF of the guide, which you can download here. It just needs to be:
— Printed on both sides of the paper.
— Cut along the middle of the page (side to side, not top to bottom).
— Stapled.
Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding: A4
Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding: Letter
*I originally put the wrong date here. The “DIY Lit” and “Quick ‘n’ Dirty Bookbinding” sessions are on the 15th of October.
Of ju-ju.
Thursday, September 07, 2006 , 3:29 PM
Pleh. Just got a rejection letter from a press in Canada. A friend of mine is an author on their roster and her book has done really well for them. Despite the fact that she personally recommended me to them, they sent me a form letter. (Form e-mail, actually.)
It’s so long since I sent the book to them (ten months) that I’ve actually had time to forget I had and publish it myself.
Coincidentally, I got rid all my old rejection letters yesterday. For a while I’ve been thinking that these letters are full of bad ju-ju that I shouldn’t have around in my space.
I did keep a few that were supportive. And in all fairness, none of the letters was particularly bad. But even when a rejection is vague it hurts. I’m not in the business of sending out manuscripts anymore, so why was I keeping them? For reference? I don’t need that.
Patrick went out and bought a vicious cross-cut shredder so he could get rid of some old documents, and he let me use it first. I took each of the letters out of the envelope I’d labelled with a skull and crossbones and dropped it into the machine, which quickly reduced it to snow.
Karen came by later and eagerly snatched up the remains, which were like a puffy tickertape afro in a carrier bag, and took it home to turn it into compost, which, she said, she will turn into courgettes.
Demolition Mom!
Monday, September 04, 2006 , 4:13 PM
My mum was in a car accident:
She’s fine, though a bit bruised, but her little Mazda 323 had its face smashed in when the car was cut off by an SUV taking a shortcut. At least the wee red car had the fortitude to flip the offending SUV onto its roof as its last act.
I shudder when I think about what SUVs usually do to the passengers of smaller cars that get into accidents with them. Happily, that’s not the case here. Mom has another red car on order, though it’s a nuisance that she has to do this, as the other one was paid off.
~
Speaking of face-smashings, some hoodlums down in Brighton attacked my good friend Tomasz over the weekend. I refuse to get all Daily Mail about the event and decry the state of our civilisation, as writers such as the keeper of Anxiety Culture point out that, contrary to the hysteric cries of the media, crime is actually not on the rise.
When things like this happen, though, to someone you love, it’s difficult not to despair about the sort of person — group of people, actually — who are capable of being so vicious, unempathetic, and cowardly as to attack a lone individual for no reason.
~
It’s silly superstition, but I worried about the triune nature of bad news as Garry drove me home on Sunday. We’d had a great weekend, driving in a big loop through the countryside around Invernesshire. I also stayed at his folks’ place (which I suspect freaked us both out a bit), but that was fine.
Then I got a call a while later from an upset Garry: he’d hit a grouse on his way home. We’d seen some the day before, a foursome of these little birds, wandering straight toward the motorway like animated, befeathered American footballs.
I assured him it wasn’t his fault, just as he looked at his front bumper and found it splattered with grouse-blood. Still, not so bad as third bad newses go.
Oh, and here’s another picture from our day in St Andrew’s, just to prove that we look nothing alike:
~
Leith Stories
I received an e-mail from a fella named Shawn. He’s looking for stories about Leith for a neat local culture project called [murmur]. Here’s how he describes it:
We’ve done it in a few neighbourhoods in Toronto and other places. In case you don’t know about it yet, we record people talking about specific geographic locations, then we put up a green ear shaped sign in that location with a phone number on it that people can call with their mobile and listen to those stories while standing in the exact spot. You can listen to some of the stories here www.murmurtoronto.ca.
We’re going to do it in Leith. Judging by the address on your webpage I don’t think you live in Leith, but I’m wondering if you know and folks, writerly or not, who would be up for going for a little walk around the neighbourhood with me while I record them talking about a few places.
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p>He’s in town this month, so if you have any Leith stories, please contact him at shawn AT spacing DOT ca.
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p>
