Gutted & retarded.
Tuesday, August 30, 2005 , 10:07 AM
I just got an e-mail from a publishing house of the editor who loved Idea in Stone: He doesn’t work there anymore. And they’re not commissioning any new fiction.
So, there’s two years of correspondence and waiting down the toilet. I begin again. A few weeks ago, I sent a cool letter to the publisher he’d recommended the book to, with little tear-off responses and a stamped envelope. No reply. This is a bastard of an industry to try to have a relationship with.
~
Lately I’ve been getting into bookbinding. It’s a real craft, and I love it. For one, it’s very rewarding seeing my work — like this collection of my short stories — bound together, made readable in a form I could just hand to someone. What’s also very motivating about doing this is how much improvement I’m able to make in the process with each subsequent effort.
~
You know, about all this business of wanting to be published, and whatever other goals haven’t happened yet, I had a thought last night in bed: Yes, but if you’d already figured out how to do everything you want to be able do in life, you wouldn’t still be here.
~
Last night I was out with my friend Robert. I met him through the ‘citizen’s advocacy’ group Powerful Partnerships. Thing is, though, now we’re really just friends. Yeah, I’m helping him get moved out — slowly but surely — to a place of his own, in the community. But last night I got some perspective on the friendship we’d formed.
We were at a pub, having our usual weekly night out, over a drink and some nibbles, when a woman tottered over to us. She was young and fairly well put together, but she was steaming drunk. She blurrily introduced herself to us, then proceeded to stare at Robert, at me, at Robert, at me…
She was trying to suss out why we were together. “So you’re a befriender?” This is a term Powerful Partnerships really tries to play down. I’m not sure what the connotations are, historically, but for me, it’s an icky word, like you’re doing someone a favour. “I’m condescending to befriend you [because otherwise you would be friendless].” She asked at one point if we wanted a drink, and said she could get a receipt for me — so I could write it off, you see, because she’s a social worker, and she understands that I’m doing charity work.
Only I wasn’t. I was there with my friend.
Then it got worse: She started hitting on me, asking me for particulars about my life. I squirmed, turned red (she informed me), but she wouldn’t let go. She asked me out, I gently declined. “Why not?” Now, a ‘no’ in this situation is not something you should ever ask for more detail about.
I didn’t want to get into the whole “Because I like men” thing, because Robert and I haven’t had that conversation, and don’t need to, ’cause it’s got f*-all to do with our relationship.
Then she asked for my mobile number, letting me know that she was going to call it right away to see if it was real. So I gave it her, but I felt comfortable enough doing so, because she was so blootered she had no memory. She’d asked the same questions of us at least three times each. “Where do you stay? Where do you work? What do you do?” and answering “That’s so exciting; I’m so jealous” to whatever the answer was.
The real object lesson for me here was that here’s someone with me who’s labelled as having a learning disability, and he’s handling the situation better than either of us other two, keeping conversation going, redirecting it to comfortable topics, asking questions. Then Drunk Sharon would repeat herself, or completely lose her mental bookmark and just stare.
In short, she was acting retarded.
w00t! w00t!
Friday, August 26, 2005 , 9:28 PM
How interesting…
Friday, August 19, 2005 , 10:56 PM
But once I got talking to Sergio Lupia and Phil MacLean, the two Dunderheids who showed up, I got excited about the idea of creating something together again, a creative collective work of invention. Sergio had tons of ideas that sparked my imagination and Phil immediately had ideas for photos he could take (and he takes good photos). I left the meeting charged, and with my mood changed.
I left them after our meeting and went to Palmyra Pizza for a feta salad, where the staff greeted me as soon as I went in the door. It’s fun to have places where the staff know and like you. That’s a good part of the urban experience.
Then I walked to George Street and went to The Assembly Rooms, where I had a drink upstairs in one of the bars. I started reading the book that my editor, Cath, finished yesterday, called “The Laws of Lifetime Growth”. Not surprisingly ’cause it’s hers, the book is beautiful, like a poem celebrating the least junk-cluttered, most alive version of this existence.
I walked from there along George Street, stopped by a group of people gathered around a pipe band. The pipers wore wild kilts like camouflage and plastic. They soon piped up with big, blaring, rousing traditional Scots tunes, and a group of us followed them into the Wetherspoons bar (an old bank) and listened to them blast stirring tunes until they finished, and we all hooted and whistled our appreciation.
From there, I went to the Edinburgh Book Festival grounds, a series of temporary walkways and tents set out in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square. Everything was shut except for a wooden big top nightclub that had been called the Moulin Rouge (in much the same way that the Fringe Festival this year has a Las Vegas theme: the place doesn’t know how to celebrate its wonderful self), a signing tent, and a book store.
I wandered around the book store, learning more about the state of Scottish publishing than I could have from hours of poring over publishing guides and websites. My deduction: No publisher in Scotland but 11|9 is producing the kind of book I wrote. Time for me to write them again, rather than doing a scattershot appeal to people who…
At work we do this thing called “The Experience Transformer”. Dan Sullivan wisely says “You can’t change the past, but you can change the value of it by learning from your experiences.” So in this exercise, you capture the lessons of an experience and turn them into a new way of doing things for the future. What have I learnt from submitting my novel to people who’ve liked it and people who’ve rejected it? Don’t send my work to people who haven’t already shown that they like other kinds of work! It seems obvious, but in my zeal to share my stories, and with the market so thin, it’s tempting to send to every shop that’s still open. But that’s pointless if they’re not the sort of people who like that sort of thing.
I bought a glass of appley-tasting white beer and continued reading “The Laws of Lifetime Growth”. A woman next to me was complaining to a man about some relative of his, and the whinge of it was jarring, so, eager to hold onto the spirit of my evening, I moved outside and kept reading until I got too chilled.
And now I’m in a Starbucks (less interesting, but a lemonade is a pound cheaper than a beer). Fireworks exploded over the castle as I walked over here.
I’m waiting to hear from Flatmate Dave, ’cause the plan is to hook up with his friend Karen and her friend Allen — two comedians in Edinburgh for the Fringe whom I’ve got to know. From Karen I’ve got a glimpse of how serious a career comedy is, like acting, but more raw (bookings, blacklistings, and stolen jokes). And from Allen I’ve got a glimpse of what it is to be on the cusp of becoming a favoured son of the media. He’s funny (very funny — a relief, when we saw his show, after already having had many drinks with him on Sunday), and his star is rising.
“Just to let you know, we’re going to be closing up very soon,” a barista said to us just now. Gotta go.
P.S. Ran out of stuff to do on my own; looks like plans have fallen through. Two pints serves either as a primer or a sedative.
It’s a full moon. Feels like it.
F*!
, 4:42 PM
BT screwed up: no broadband for another week.
More standing outside the café down the street, picking up and sending my messages through their window. That, or enduring the endless BobMarley-thon of The Forest Café.
The rain from my ceiling has stopped: I left a letter for the people upstairs asking them to stop using the shower in that room until the plumbing is fixed. That was such a relief, getting to sleep through the early morning.
This is surprisingly draining, this business of arguing with people on the phone. I need to have a nap.
Goodbye, Patrick
Sunday, August 14, 2005 , 2:51 PM
Each year I had a different teacher, due, I suppose now, to university politics. While disruptive to the school, it was good for me, because each year I happened to get exactly the right person for that stage in my development.
In first year, it was Kelly Handerek, who smashed my teenage identity on the floor and made me consciously reconstruct something new — an accountable, intelligent, dedicated person who had his own personal sense of taste. Kelly was vicious in his methods, but I can’t deny that I’m better for his influence in my life.
My prof in second year was Brian McKay, who taught me how to be a showman. His background was musical theatre, and at that point that’s the kind of work I was being hired to do each summer. I saw a videotape a while back of my first professional performance, the summer before I studied with him, and I looked like a plank of wood in a costume. Brian showed me how to turn up the volume and have fun with the work.
Patrick, though, he taught me to be an artist. I just reread my notes from my year with him — surprisingly little written down, given how easy it still is for me to conjure up his instruction.
The thrust of his teaching was that we must have something at stake in the work to transcend it and make it into art. You can’t fake it or “act”, he insisted. “Actors in Canada, you’re all trying to reduce it, to do this Japanese flower arranging acting. You seem to think that it’s a war. You win when you have control and you only make little sounds with your mouth and little indications with your arms, and you lose when you lose control. It’s the opposite. You want to lose this war. You have to sit out there, saying, ‘Lose it! Lose it!’”
“Grenade ping-pong” is how he referred to scenework. He had infinite patience for our discomforts, but burned to make us get the stakes in what we were doing. One day he had each of us hold a coin behind our back, and as we did the scene, we tried to get the other person’s coin. It was a perfect metaphor for dramatic tension. “Story is conflict,” as they say, and there’s an element of ‘schadenfreude’ to all good work: we want to see things happen that cost something for the people they’re happening to. I suppose this makes us feel better that life costs us, too.
“Never do yourself the disservice of not being connected, passionate,” Patrick said. “That’s why you’re doing it in the first place.”
“Even in the most passing conversation,” I wrote in my journal, “Patrick always sounds like he’s on edge, ready to have an EEK. How does he do that?” An “EEK” was one of my discoveries that year, a kinesthetic geyser-gush of emotion and presence, usually due in my case to the overstress of the workload — acting classes, dance, singing, and elective subjects, along with rehearsals every night and all weekend. I’d break down from not being prepared or being overtired, and suddenly find a new ability within a scene. But Patrick lived healthily in this place. He was an immensely tall and broad-shouldered man with a wavy mop of rust-coloured hair, and always spoke in a booming or urgently whispered voice as if everything depended on this… single… moment.
And it does.
Thanks, Patrick. I hope you’d still give the life I’m living a passing grade.
This morning I woke up thinking about what book I’m going to write next, and I had a distinct, clear thought in my head: You have to write about the things you love.
It’s so clear and easy, yet it’s been eluding me as I’ve been absently trying in the back of my mind to come up with clever or unassailable or culturally-relevant topics to write about. But this makes more sense than anything: The things I love are the only things I can write about with any kind of conviction or honesty.
I knew this when I was an actor, and I knew it because of Patrick. It’s good to be reminded again; I’m just sad it had to be because of this.
Happy, rainy Saturday.
Saturday, August 13, 2005 , 3:40 PM
I did, and the tenant there had heard nothing of this. He was very friendly, and resolved to me to get it fixed right away.
Yay! The wondrous power of communication.
~
Last night, the Friday Gang came around to Gardner’s Crescent, and ten people fit easily into the living room, and at one point four different people were chopping and cooking in the kitchen at once without so much as bumping elbows.
What a flat!
~
I had my Saturday call with my beloved parents. I got to interview my dad about a story that might be included in the new book from work, based on an episode from his life as a social worker. That man has such integrity, and he’s a great storyteller, too. I love him.
Now it’s quarter to three, and I’ve got the rest of the afternoon free. Wahey!
First week in the new flat.
, 10:19 AM
Last night, I put a ‘clothesline’ of my doodles up in my room. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it there — cartoons are not what I’m focused on — but at least I’m finally using all those old drawings for *something*.
I also wrote a cheeky and (I think) creatively-packaged follow-up letter to the editor I’d been referred to. I figure it’s been several months, so I’ve nothing to lose.
Instead of being all serious about it, I decided to have fun putting it together. I suppose this is how I should always approach these things.
~
Oh, and just to be clear (even though she’s dead and won’t have been offended), Brenda Ueland’s book on writing is one of the *good* ones out there. That wasn’t clear in my last post.
~
The Friday Gang is coming here this evening in just a little while, so I should close here and finish up the work I was doing.
Lunchmeat
Thursday, August 11, 2005 , 1:00 PM
~
I made a book!
Last night I had my first chance to try my hand at bookbinding, so I printed out my second novel and made a physical copy of it. From time to time, friends have asked to read it, but very few people are willing to print out a 300-page Word document, or to read it onscreen. Also, I wanted this story to exist in the world somewhere. And after several hours of printing, folding, cutting, stitching, and glueing, it’s alive!
Flatmate Dave scored big points by expressing excitement about reading it when I presented the finished product today.
Tonight I made a second book, a compilation volume of the short stories I’ve written, and bound that, applying what I learned from last night’s effort.
While stitching pages together at my new desk, I thought of the opening sequence of the movie Seven, and similar scenes from movies about people who are supposed to be dangerously obsessive and crazy. I know that these scenes are supposed to engender fear or revulsion in us, but I have to confess that they always make me think “How industrious!” Oh, they may be crazy, but they know their own minds, and (thanks to an art department) so can anyone who steps into their space. I like the idea of that. But I promise I won’t make anything out of skin.
~
My ceiling drips.
The landlord’s been told.
Meanwhile, tonight I’ve set up a bowl with a face-cloth — another attempt to dampen the sound so I’m not awakened by water torture when the people upstairs have their showers at 6AM.
~
It’s weird having to walk across town to use the internet, like making trips to the local post office.
~
I just read a little book of tips on getting published. It’s one of two books on writing I bought when I was back in Canada. Both were rubbish. More specifically, they were filled with aphorisms and “insights” that are obvious to anyone who’s a career writer.
They’re also maddeningly vague. I thought I was going to get a bucketful of ideas to help me get into writing my next round of query letters, but instead I got all this high-flying doublespeak nonsense. Blyeech.
There are good books on writing, but I think I already have all the ones I need. I’ve learned a lot from them, and can keep referring to them. But this other sort…
Here. This is a bit from Brenda Ueland’s “If You Want to Write” (a title which should be italicised, I know, but I’m submitting this post by e-mail, and that breaks any HTML I put in; forgive me). In this passage, she perfectly describes this kind of airy, empty advice about constant rewriting and straining to please editors:
“But all this has absolutely nothing to do with you as a writer. It is a Committee that is writing. And just as somebody said that it must have been a Committee that made a camel, the finished result will not be any good. It will only be a great elaboration of an utter lack of talent. ‘Brain-spun,’ Tolstoy called it. Insincere, false, fake, untrue. But worse than that and utterly damning and most annihilating of all, it will be uninteresting!”(If You Want to Write, by Brenda Ueland, from the preface to the second edition)
It reminds me of the “How to Get Published” event I attended at the Edinburgh Book Festival last year, at which a prominent local agent and other industry folk spent the first fifteen minutes making fun of query letters they’d received — in front of the very people who write those letters. They went on to suggest that writers should spend their time reading publishing industry journals, reports, and magazines. Then they concluded by saying that they’re all too busy to read manuscripts — except for one, who seemed to remember where new work comes from and was young enough to still be interested. The talk was thoughtless and graceless, and beyond that, it presented very bad advice.
When I got back to Edinburgh this month, I found a rejection letter in the post. I’m still not sure how to take the editor’s remarks:
“I think you are a decent writer, and are clearly focussed on a writing career, but I’m afraid that this novel didn’t really work for me.”
Fair enough. And it doesn’t bear thinking about overmuch — a bit like asking someone out and being told they don’t fancy you. There’s nothing to do with that but move on; it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t exist.
Meanwhile, another editor had already said to me in our correspondence:- “I love Idea in Stone…”- “I love your wit, the subject matter and the perspective of the central character, and found some of the scenes really very striking…”- “I have faith in your work. I know I will see Idea in Stone in print some day.”
So the whole thing’s made up, really. There’s no point trying to second-guess or change my writing to try to be pleasing. I have a head full of possible worlds, and that’s the only thing I need to rely on in this career. Yeah, my stuff is weird, but I think there are a lot of people who like weird.
I said I wasn’t going to overthink this. Besides, I told myself that the next year is just about creating whatever I want to without thinking about the market.
~
Bedtime.
Gardner’s Crescent
Wednesday, August 10, 2005 , 5:30 PM
You know what’s fun? Company.
I just made a mullagatawny soup, desperate to eat plain grub after a month of seafood and rich restaurant meals. While I cooked, I had someone to talk with. Dave read on the sofa and we kibbitzed while I cooked. Of course, we could barely hear each other because the space between the kitchen area and the living room is a vast plain.
~
Yesterday morning, Patrick, Philip, and Liz came around to my place. All my belongings were piled in the middle of the living room at the Albion Street tenement — disturbingly multiplied since I came over from Canada with three kit bags and two boxes. The others and I filled Patrick’s and Philip’s cars, and in no time we’d moved everything over to the new flat.
I dreaded having to pack everything, and moving seemed even worse, but it went quickly, and having a lift on this end was a lot nicer than asking people to schlepp things up two flights of stairs.
Philip went to take care of his neice, and Patrick suggested a trip to Ikea. The thought had crossed my mind, but moving was as much as I’d hoped for. £300 later, and at 2AM, Patrick left my place, having assembled a giant desk with storeys of shelving to it, along with some bookcases and a unit to make a useless kitchen cupboard into a pantry. In-between Fringe shows, Liz also pitched in to help build things. These two sickos actually like doing this stuff.
I repaid them meagrely with a meal out at one of the many nearby restaurants, insisting on pizza and beer, as that’s the going rate for help moving. Throughout the day, I referred to them as my minions, but the truth is that I took a lot of direction from them.
I’m sitting in my new room now, and I have to say that I’m impressed. I always wanted to live in a hotel, and this kinda feels like that. My marbled bathroom with aworking shower, the clean lines to the walls and giant cupboards — it’s a big step up from what I’m used to. I was worrying a bit about sharing again after so much time on my own, but after seeing Geoff and Dave again, and getting to chat to each of them, I realise this is a good thing for me. This flat is so big, and we all have our own bathrooms, so we don’t really have to see much of each other if we don’t want to!
Good times.
It was a bit disorientating, walking across town to meet Dave for a Fringe show earlier this evening: I tried to take a shortcut and got a bit turned around. And I feel… unrooted, less real, like the wind could change and I would blow away. On the positive side, though, it’s like getting to move to Edinburgh all over again.
~
My last night in the Albion Road flat, someone decided to hold a “funky porn music” band practice at midnight. And the landings had a Hansel & Gretel trail of kitty litter to the other noisy neighbours’ flat. Buh-bye, neighbours.
As I lay in bed that night, I looked up at the ceiling and wondered what the ultimate fate of the building would be. Would it be demolished to make way for some modern dwelling? Or (and I preferred thinking about this possibility) might it stand until some day thousands of years from now when the sun expanded and burnt all life off the face of the earth?
I don’t know, but I have to remember to call the City Council, or else I’ll continue paying tax on it until then.
~
I’ve seen three shows in the Fringe this year, and —shocker! — I enjoyed them all!
The first was Pam Ann, a show featuring an airline stewardess comedienne. She was very funny, stringing together an brilliant sequence of well-observed moments about airline travel (complete with a few topical Air France asides), along with some clever audience interaction. I’d consider seeing this again, which is really saying something for me.
Friday night was Jeremy Lion, a children’s performer with a troubled past, who starts with good intentions, but is soon swigging actual cans of beer and shots from liquor bottles — which he passes through the audience, and damned if he isn’t drinking the real stuff. He may well die within the next five years, but in the meantime he puts on a funny show. “Funny-wrong” would be the category I’d put this in, and I like that.
Today’s show was called The Caesar Twins, and features a pair of Polish acrobat brothers who impossibly lift and twist and hold and hang and swim for an hour. The ethos of the show was hideously tacky — think Eurovision Song Contest meets a men’s freestyle mat competition. But the things they do are astounding — well beyond the human capabilities of, say, a writer who’s just come back from an extended vacation.
~
I don’t know when I’ll be able to post this. I managed to get everything unpacked and put away between last night and this morning — something I had to do before I could get on with my life — but the one last thing to sort out is an internet connection for the flat. EEEK!
Scotland is cool.
Thursday, August 04, 2005 , 1:15 PM
This morning I dreamt of zombies — and with good reason: yesterday I felt like one. My flight from Canada was four hours late leaving, due to extreme thunderstorms and an exploding Air France plane. The last of my summer snaps shows what that looked like to me as an eyewitness at the airport:
~
My last few days were packed with activity, though it was mostly all social and fun:
Friday: A final day in the office, writing a letter over and over again until it didn’t share needless backstage details about a policy change, but focused on the client-side view of what this change would mean. It was tricky, and loads of fun. I know, I’m sick.
Talking about backstage, someone needs to give a PR lesson to the Zoom Airlines captain who thought somehow this was a prudent speech to give us when we finally lifted off on Tuesday:
“We’re finally getting going here after some severe lightning earlier, and you may have heard about the disaster with the Air France flight. We don’t have many details just yet, but hopefully there was no loss of life. It’s come to my attention that some of you have been taking it out on the flight crew that we’re leaving so late. I’d like to remind you that it’s not their fault, so perhaps you might consider sitting there quietly with a smile on your face instead.”
Nice, eh? Glad I’m not prone to fear of flying, the talking-points “disaster” and “loss of life” wouldn’t exactly be a consolation. And being told to shut up — sweet.
Okay, back to the timeline. Friday night, I hung out with my friend Parker, and we wandered around town, chatting against various backdrops (such as gang-filled parks, deserted shopping malls, and concrete waterfalls). It was nicer than it sounds.
Saturday, I met Lisa and her gang of actor and post-actor friends for brunch. She was off to Spain that afternoon, and hectored me about joining her. I don’t think I can justify it, though, as I’m moving house on Saturday, and I’ve just been away for over a month. I want to settle down for a little bit. (My new address is in the column on the right under my picture.) We went for a walk afterward, talking about everything, as we always manage to. At one point we were walking behind a man carrying a big plank of wood. He turned slightly, and we had to duck. All three of us laughed about the comedy-routine moment. I love connecting with strangers like that. It’s something that happens a lot when Lisa’s around.
Saturday afternoon, I sat in a park, falling asleep under a tree, reading, enjoying the sun from a shady vantage-point. I wandered around the town, poking through Kensington Market, but ultimately returned to my spot with a slushie, hiding from the heat.
In the evening, I went to Cath’s, where we had a barbecue on her new rooftop patio. We were joined by her brother Dave and his wife Lisa, then their friend Shawn. We soaked ourselves in the hot tub and looked out at the Toronto skyline. It was beyond being a perfect moment. I’m blessed to know so many brilliant, funny people.
I slept over at Cath’s, camped out in her meditation room, which, along with the zillion threadcount white bedding provided the most restful sleep I’d had in a long time. In the morning, we went for brunch and said our goodbyes.
Sunday evening, I went for supper at Eric’s mum’s for Eric’s birthday, which was something of an immersion in Chinese-Ontarian culture. The food was great, and Eric’s mum is so cute. Afterward, we skipped downtown for a quick drink at Woody’s, where we met Heipel and my great friend Bert Archer, whom I’d not seen in a long time. (Bert’s blog contains a great post about the Air France accident.)
The evening concluded with… Nah, can’t say.
Monday-day was spent poking around with Cosgrove, then having a spontaneous drink with him, Bert, and Margaux, who’d just returned from an EarthWatch mission to Hawaii. (Yeah, she does the neatest things.)
From there, I took the subway out to its farthest reaches to have supper at my friend Robert’s restaurant. The “Domains Group” was having a reunion meeting there — a group of us who’d all done workshops with Landmark Education, and met regularly over the course of a few years to hammer out our various life plans together. Like so many of the others I’d caught up with in Toronto, just about everyone there was going through a remarkably good time in their life, or was about to have some Big New Thing happen. It’s difficult to not be all Scots-Protestant about good news and worry about it having to be followed by something awful, but so many people I spoke to there had simplified their lives, figured things out, or reached a new level of ability. It’s everything I’d wish for for them.
The same goes for Jordan, who picked me up on Tuesday and took for a last spin around Toronto, including brunch at Flo’s Diner and an fun excusion to the Vaughan Somethingoranother Mall, a giant, incoherent gigaplex full of things no one needs, presented in seizure-inducing colours. Then we headed out to the airport. All the while, he got calls about a commercial he’d just finished shooting. The old Jordan would have been driven crazy about going $100 over budget, but now he handled with ease calls like the one from the man who rented motorcycles to the production company — including one which a stuntguy had to drop and tumble from (in his excitement to get to his local Opal car dealer). The proposed bill was for $14,000, and Jord calmly said he’d look into it. He’s also got a new boyfella, so I’m overjoyed that my wee Squeaky has lots of good stuff going on in his life.
Then there was the sturm und drang airport adventure. To pass the time, I read. I’d been tempted to breeze through the new “Harry Potter” book, but it was $41 — way too much for something I’d read once. Instead, I decided to read an e-book I had of A Farewell to Arms. I tell ya, Hemingway’s dialogue is rubbish, but everything else about the book captivated me. It didn’t matter what was going on around me, ’cause I could escape to wartime Italy. I couldn’t sleep during the flight (sI’m a bad sleeper at the best of times, and being propped upright in a chair with my legs confined to a tiny space is far from “best”), so I watched the mediocre in-flight movies.
Patrick very kindly picked me up at the airport, where I stood waiting for him in the wind, loving the chilly grey day. Because of Patrick, I didn’t have to try to get my bags into Glasgow, then through to Edinburgh, then home. I could handle the lightning arcing across the sky, but that part of the trip had me worried.
So now I’m home, settling into work, looking at a pile of bags and books on the coffee table, my suitcase on the floor, and all the everyday stuff in my flat which I now have to pack up for my move on Saturday.
EEK!
<
p>The neighbours thumped music late into the night yesterday, though, so if I was looking for any reinforcement for my decision, I found it there.
<
p>
I’m sitting in the Charlottetown Public Library. There’s something very square, Seventies, and governmental about the buildings that form this block, which also includes the Confederation Centre of the Arts. Doesn’t that name say it all?
