Author: hamishmacdonald

This is my last night on PEI. Normally this part of my travels is a fun and relaxing break, but I have to admit that I haven’t been as present as I’d have liked for the festivities. My family is really important to me, but every night my brain has been tilling up worms of worry in my brain over my work situation.

I fly out of Charlottetown Airport tomorrow afternoon… hopefully. They’ve forecast a snowstorm — about the fourth since I came here — but I have an eight-hour layover in Toronto. Normally the thought of that would turn my stomach, but at least it gives me some room for delays. If all goes well, I’ll be back in Edinburgh by the 3rd. Ugh, 24 hours of travel is not something I look forward to, but I want to sleep in my own bed!

So this was not the postcard holiday, but maybe there’s more value in spending real-life time with my family, letting them contribute their ideas and support. And this is not to say that I didn’t have fun. I did lots of reading, napping, eating, and playing with my family — as evidenced by this silly video my sister-in-law took of my brother and I trying to beat hell out of each other in a boxing videogame: (Warning: Clip has audio.)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkfIrwFjBpA&rel=1]

As a contrast to my previous freaked-out post…

Lisa’s band, Dirty Dishes had a “Jamboree and Bake Sale” on Tuesday night and they rocked the house down. Their act was polished smooth, and the banter between them was so warm and lighthearted that you just had to laugh and clap along — and try to not sing! The songs are all so eminently singable, even if you couldn’t hope to match the intricacy of the Dishes’ harmonies. There’s nothing worse than paying to see a good act then having some person trying to join in from the crowd and hear themselves. I didn’t want to be that guy.

Problem solved: I bought their demo CD, so I can have them at home. And the girls raised a wagon-load of money — enough to record and produce a full CD.

~

Last night was the Strategic Coach holiday party, which was a lot of fun. We went again this year to the Steamwhistle Brewery, a converted old brick railway roundhouse near the lakeshore whose giant windows look up at the glass monoliths that make up the skyline. The beer was free and free-flowing, everyone pulled out the best and handsomest version of themselves, and we had an opportunity to celebrate what a great and rare thing we have there as a team. I also had a laugh when I found my friend Gary there: turns out he was the caterer for the event! (I must tell him at Lisa’s party tonight that the food was great.)

Afterward, Margaux and I went to one couple’s house party, where I had great chats with the folks there (some of whom I’ve not had many opportunities to connect with before).

Our swell legal guy Jonas and I sat in front of a laptop for a while and he pulled all his favourite musicians off the ‘net to perform for me. I was pretty blurry by then, but I know I’ve got a list on a notepad to follow up on. I’m grateful, ’cause I like music, but I never know where to find more of what I’d like. Jonas is one of that new breed of social influencers with this, as well as in art and literature. I often feel like I’ve been asleep in class when I’m around him — but he makes it fun, like there are exciting, original things to catch up on.

We stayed at the party until some sick time like 6:30AM, when Jonas had to leave to get his things, catch another taxi, and move to Chicago! Moo and I shared a cab, and she dropped me here on her way home. Sleep hit me like a train as soon as I put my head down.

So, the work thing, since I brought it up the other day: I won’t be writing for Strategic Coach anymore. Instead, they’ve asked me to take on being “Storyteller-in-Residence” full-time, gathering the lore about the company that is their best possible marketing and proof-of-concept. To be honest, I’m scared ’cause it’s a shift and I might suck at it. But Lisa, Alvaro, and Cosgrove talked me out of my tree yesterday afternoon and I had a nap, after which everything looked different. After all, my former editor (I need a new name for our relationship now) did everything but use skywriting to send me the message that I’m going to be completely supported and that everyone from the top down wants this to work.

I just had to grieve for a bit about the loss of a role I’d really enjoyed. I still get to write anything and everything I want through my own press, and maybe it’s time to concentrate on keeping my output for myself. I am also going to take on some freelance writing: this change was a lesson in eggs and baskets.

Over the course of last night’s parties, I found myself concentrating on story, and the people around me — whom I already liked — took on an added dimension and became fascinating.

So here I declare it: For me, 2008 is The Year of Listening Closely.

Change is scary (especially when it’s a reminder that everything is actually always in flux).

I tend to freak out at first, the my self-righting mechanism kicks in — which has just happened, so I’m fine. Things’ll work out, whatever that looks like. Historical precedent in my life says that each progression is even better than what went before.

Sorry for being vague; I have the liberty here to share my inner state but not the details.

My first week here was easy and fun. I was healthy, I was visiting with people at work and during social time, things were falling together spontaneously and easily…

Then I got sick. I wasn’t sleeping properly and caught the office cold everybody has.

My friends’ dog ate my handmade greeting cards.

Toronto was hit by a major snowstorm and everything was cancelled.

Riding the TTC streetcars and subway lines across town started giving me panic attacks.

The hardness of Toronto’s water has made my torso react as if someone splashed me with acid.

And this morning I had a conversation with my editor that represents either a transition or an ending, depending on how my brain spins it from one minute to the next. One thing is decided: I won’t be travelling to Toronto anymore for work.

P.S. Apologies if I’ve not been very communicative. Sending e-mails here involves connecting to UK mobile roaming data services, which costs a lot.

I’m in a little coffeeshop on Roncesvalles, a long street with streetcars rumbling up and down on the far west side where Toronto tumbles off into the highway and Lake Ontario.

Waves of cool urban life splash westward; this area is the latest, it seems, to be inspired with the breath of reinvigoration that eventually gives way to the halitosis of commercial gentrification. Still, Toronto retains a character all its own, with the little post-war houses and pockets of local and indie culture amid the glass and steel towers.

~

For any Finitude readers, I stole this evening to slip back into the world of the book. Who knows? I may get Chapter Twelve finished and out before the holidays are over. I’m imagining eighteen chapters altogether, so we’re getting close to the end.

I’ve been working hard here, really enjoying the company of the great souls I have the pleasure to work with. The community around Strategic Coach is such that I can talk about the weirdest of my weird notions with them and they don’t bat an eye. In fact, they usually respond with a book recommendation.

I had to bail out of today’s workshop because I had too much writing work to do. I managed to get everything done and distract lots of people from their work so we could chat. It’s good I don’t work in an office. In fact, this afternoon I had to leave and go to a nearby coffeeshop to get an article written — after which I went back to wreak more social havoc. There are too many people I like there; what can I do?

Outside of work, some great spontaneous plans have fallen together, like veggie dinners with Margaux, watching movies on the couch with Alvaro, or watching Lisa’s band rehearse at home for their concert next week. And last night turned into a reunion of the old Algonquin Park winter camping gang at the Alias:Wavefront offices, where our old Coach-mate Bill now works. (They make the software most film and videogame production companies use to create their CG images.) We used one of their enormo-projectors and watched Full Metal Jacket — life-sized,with sensurround audio, pizza, and beer. Real boy-stuff.

~

I’m eating too much. Ah well. As Patrick pointed out in an e-mail, “That gives you a project for the new year, and you like that.”

~

An awful lot of my friends here are married and now having children. Sometimes I feel I’m falling behind. Enviable freedom and independence? Or just lonely, headed for sad irrelevance?

Yikes, best not dwell there.

This is one of my favourite views in Edinburgh.

It’s +13C here today. They’re getting snowstorms in Toronto and Charlottetown. Ah well.

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Planes, my experience tells me, are bad for people. Not the elevation to impossible heights, not being moved from one place to an unwalkably far away one. No, it’s the darned air in those things that utterly vanquishes me.

I don’t know if it’s that they don’t circulate it enough, or people are just poxy, but the last few times I’ve made trans-Atlantic flights, I’ve wound up losing my first few days in Canada to a cold. I drag myself to work, then drag my carcass home (my friend Lisa‘s home) to collapse and sleep like Tutankhamen.

This time I want it to be different. I’ve got my ginseng, vitamin C, and echinacea, and I’m dosing myself in advance. Do you have a favourite preventative? Please tell me!

Yeah, I’m writing a novel about climate change, and I’m flying overseas. The irony is not lost on me. I’ve bought carbon credits, but I know that’s lame. I’m not sure how to do this one.

~

I don’t want anything for Christmas. I don’t know who said it, but this expression sums up my feeling: “I want for nothing. I need nothing. I am complete.”

No malls, no trying to buy everyone the same amount, no $CDN bargains. I want to come back lighter, uplifted even, not heavier.

I’ve got a lot of great people in my life, and that’s what I’ll be celebrating in a thing-less way at the end of this year. If you’re reading this, thanks for being part of my tribe.

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I feel impossibly sleepy. It’s 4 in the afternon and the light is growing dim.

This morning I had a dream that I had a pet mouse or vole or something like that — just a little scrap of fur skittering around. I loved it. Then I woke up, and… no vole. I miss my vole.

I had an appointment with my dentist this morning. Once more, she waved me out of her office, because there’s nothing wrong with my teeth. She did warn me, though, that my gums had receded in places because I was obviously brushing too hard.

I guess my first clue should have been when my toothbrush snapped this morning.

Oh, wicked! The game design program at George Brown College has created a Half-Life:2 mod based on the downtown core of Toronto.

I’ve just installed this thing, and I can’t wait to go blow people up on the subway. If you’ve been on the TTC, you know the urge.

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