Red Cedar

All this detoxing (six days worth now) is making me anxious. Anxious about what the government is going to do in the spring, the banning of books on airplanes, the possible death of print, the coming Olympics, the seemingly downward spiral of our society. It’s awhirring I tell ya! But I just keep reminding myself that it’s *always* this bad, just that sometimes it feels worse than other times because of whatever is going on in the echo chambers of myself. And myself right now is drying out and looking for any excuse to imbibe – the more anxiety the better as far as addictions go right? Because then we feed them like the parasites they are.

Not that I’m giving up some monumental habit or anything – but even a lowgrade thing like smoking one cigarette a day or having a glass of wine takes its due when you cut it out. Those little things really *do* blunt the full force impact of the nuttiness of humanity, particularly when you’ve had at least a mild crutch in your life for as long as I have…. I think I might have to leave early today and hit the gym or go for a walk.

I have managed to start writing again at least, but it feels like a major chore at the moment, all grinding and no fun. I know it’s my own fault for taking a break in the first place, but the prospect of finishing this first draft is seeming distant at the moment even as I refuse to give up writing it. I know if I start on anything else I’ll have lost it and so I’m holding the opportunity for new work away from myself as a reward for finishing at least one draft of this damned novel. That is – with the exception of the poem I started before xmas which is almost done for the moment. I sortof just pick at it a little every other day. One word here moved there – that sort of thing. It’s not like the novel, so therefore it’s allowed.

I’m hoping that after another six days this will have all calmed back down inside of me and I can just go back to seething calmly about the Conservatives, the collapse and the uselessness of being vindicated when it’s all too late to change things back. Surely that will be better. I think I need to go and throw some rocks now. Damn.

A post on my facebook wall reminded me that I haven’t blogged about this Advent Bookblog recommendation that was posted earlier this week. Mostly just because I haven’t blogged at all since my last day of work. Been working on the novel a bit, but most I’ve been completely submerged in books and Christmas prep for the last week. Taking the extra time off this year really has made a huge difference in my overall hatred of the holiday – I’ve got to confess that last night as we were decorating sugar cookies I actually enjoying a Christmas experience! That practically has never happened in my whole life – starting with the annual parental Christmas tree fights of my youth right on up through my non-celebration of the holiday for the last several years.

Tonight is dinner with B’s brother, and tomorrow we drop M. off with her mother after Christmas morning present-opening and then head out to the ferry to Victoria to do Christmas Day dinner with my family (which promises to be insane this year – my mother invited a lot of people). A few days of visiting on the island and we’re back in Van on the 29th just in time to prep a little new year’s dinner for friends. I’ve got a stack of books that I’m determined to read over the holidays plus I understand that there just *might* be books in my gift pile this year….. so in between the festivities you know that I’ll be curled up in whatever strange beds B & I find ourselves over the next few days rapidly reading in order to get through some of the stack.

I’ll definitely post from the island. At the very least to update on the novel wordcount (61,000 or so at the moment). I am still working on it and I’ve got a goal of finishing in the next two weeks. We’ll see if that happens.

In any case Merry, Happy, and Good Cheer to all out there on the eve of Christmas. Hope to see lots of you during the holidays and in the new year 🙂

Thanks to my commenters on yesterday’s post. I felt weird about putting that story out there, and I appreciate the feedback on it (and support for the writing). I wonder if this story came out because of the novel I’m working on – set in the 1920s and 30s but close to the same stretch of dirt road I wrote about yesterday. This one five-mile stretch of dirt road is everywhere in my imagination. No matter what theme I’m writing from, this historic novel, the post-collapse novel I have already started writing in my head…. The times I remember most from my childhood. That place. That place. That place.

I haven’t been there since 2002 and before that I hadn’t been there since 1993. But every summer from birth until I was seventeen I spent time there and out of a very poor childhood memory it has left some of the only recollections I have of my youth. Which is a bit unfortunate since it’s quite a dark place in my imagination still. Cold, somehow. Judging. I can’t explain it exactly but my father thinks it’s a place of negative energy (and he’s no hippie flake) and always hated going there in the summer.

Whatever it is, this stretch of dirt road is the location of all my escape fantasies and my nightmares. I’m not quite sure why but I think I’m due back for a visit.