Red Cedar

Gosh. I’ve got so many things on my mind at the moment. House-hunting, the psychological value of a good pair of boots, the blatant cronyism of Flaherty’s new economic advisory panel. Where to start? What to leave off this little Friday rant of mine? It’s a head full of stuff and I’m feeling a tad unsettled, mostly due to the sugar I ate at lunch. Woahya!

I’m at work for the first time in a week, having just come off a union tour that included Prince George, Terrace, Prince Rupert, Kamloops, Victoria, Sidney and New West. Suffice to say I’m glad we did the north before the weather got really bad, and that mostly people seem okay with the negotiated agreement. We’ve got until the 22nd of January to finish the vote which means more dates in the new year, many of which I seem to have finagled my way out of (in exchange for doing some other union work in February, not just because I’m lazy).

So it’s weird being here after all that bouncing around and I’m a scatterhead today, despite the fact I have lots to do over, what with a Mach 31st deadline on my project and all. I think mostly I just need a weekend off to let things settle, which is probably not going to happen this weekend after all.

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Brian and I have been looking at houses and thinking about offers lately, despite the fact his house has just now been listed for sale. Of course we’re talking conditional offers, which give almost no promise of being able to close anything until Brian’s house is signed and sold. And although conventional wisdom says it’s a difficult time to sell, we also know a number of people looking to buy at the moment – which means the market isn’t quite as dead as the media would like us to believe. It’s just not hot like it was two years ago when people were psychotically buying dodgy real estate for outrageous prices. Fair enough, I would hazard to say that while we will get less for Brian’s house now, the market is a tad more relaxed and a lot more accessible than it was. Which is nothing to get hysterical about unless you thought you were going to do 10 k of renos and turn your house over for 100,000 more this year – a practice I’ve got little sympathy for.

So we’ll see. We’re lucky that we’ve got a little room to move on the price point, and we are listing at about 20,000 less than the next closest thing in his neighbourhood which should at least get us some people into view the place.

Either way, we’ve identified the home of our dreams and are seriously considering making an offer – which means a visit to the bank and another tour of the house are on order this weekend even though all I want to do is curl up and sleep until christmas eve at the moment. If it wasn’t for having to sell the other house first I’d be a bit more enthusiastic, but I’m afraid to invest too much of myself here in case someone else comes along with a better offer in two weeks time. On the plus side, there’s lots of interesting stuff for sale right now and this little exercise is forcing us to get the credit checks and mortgage rates in order.

Despite all that, I am feeling pretty confident that Brian’s house will sell in the new year as the price should attract some interest.

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Doing a little digging along these thought lines, I’ve found that my credit score is way higher than it used to be even with the error I found on it – and apparently I’m considered a good lending risk.

I’ve also just discovered that my house on the Sunshine Coast seems to be holding its value if the other MLS listings are anything to go on.

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This week I’ve been wearing a pair of Daytons I bought back in the summer for the first time (the tall brown pair for those of you who remember the photo) – twenty-two holes of surefooted leather, I’d forgotten how much a kickass pair of boots changes one’s stride and demeanor. I’m quite liking the extra smidge of self-confidence I’ve been experiencing the last couple of days, particularly as I’m otherwise exhausted and a bit crabby. The boots are the little bit of magic I need to get through the next week of running about and holiday prep, after which I can take them off and retire to a cozy bed with Brian for a few days. It’s the runup to Christmas I hate, getting to the 25th being an olympic feat rewarded only with the fact no one expects you to do much for a few days afterwards. (At the very least, Brian has elected not to put up a tree this year which is one less thing for us to fret about right now.)

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And so it’s Friday and I’ll be poking out of here soon enough to go see if I can find some picture frames for my brother’s gift and a few nice cards to distribute next week as we make our rounds. This fall has been crazy and I’m hoping that work will relax its grip by spring so I can move house and take some small holidays over the summer. Camping, kayaking, the things I was not able to get to last year – with all these vacation days saved up I should be able to get some small days of peace in the not to distant future.

I’m in a hotel in Prince Rupert drinking one of those powdered hot chocolates they set out alongside the coffee machine. This morning I flew from Prince George to Terrace, this afternoon I drove through the snowy pass from Terrace to Rupert, and this evening I ate dinner at Herby’s Vietnamese Family Restaurant. A glamorous life indeed.

I’m having one of those nights where I’m a bit bummed out for no particular reason, feel old even though I’m not, and am wondering exactly why I bother, why I’m here at all. Perhaps it’s just because this is the end stage of bargaining (ratification) and I’d rather the whole process was just over with. Or maybe it’s the looming christmas season. It could also be that I’m just a little tired and that makes everything seem that much bigger and more dire than it really is. Whenever I tell people I’m going to take a short break from doing *everything* in February, they laugh at me. No one believes it, but man I need some time for myself (and with Brian, not to mention everyone else in my life).

It probably won’t happen anyways. At the very least I can’t take a real vacation from work until the spring, but I do think it would be nice to only do one job for awhile instead of two.

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Brian is putting his house on the market this week which I think is part of my vexation. I want that to happen, of course, but it also signals the beginning of a long, complicated process that involves selling, buying, and moving. None of which will happen as quickly as we want it to (as in right now) and all of which could be thwarted by the escalating economic crisis. There are so many things wrapped up in that, our desire to live together, to make the payout to his ex by the time it’s due in the spring, the fact that our busy schedules already divide time and shuttling back and forth between houses just makes that exhausting. But mostly it’s about moving forward, sealing our relationship in cohabitation, continuing to build our nest of family and friends together. A bulwark against the scary times we live in. It’s security I seek, in the arms and bed of my loving partner. I want home.

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I know the answer lies in being good with where I am at, counting my blessings (of which I have many), and allowing events to unfold as they may. But when I am busy, stressed, working all the time – I get more rigid with my *needs* and frustrated with what isn’t being delivered when I feel it ought to be. It’s crazy privilege that even gets me to the place of believing I could have what I want, again with the blessings. I know in these times I am struggling far less than many people are.

Mid-January I am done these meetings and not taking on anything new and huge for at least a couple of months. I’m thinking of taking a writing class, celebrating my birthday, perhaps going to the desert for a few days – not ditching my union work of course, but cutting down my profile a bit for some weeks to restore myself and my relationships a little bit. That seems so far away, but the time goes fast when you’re working seven days a week, what with the holidays thrown into the middle and all.

Moving forward in the new year, I’m looking forward to leaving old projects behind.

On Wednesday I’m hitting the road to Prince George, Terrace and Prince Rupert for a whirlwind northern ratification tour and hopefully a visit with some friends. Really, I’m a bit of a wreck today – not terribly so – but angsty and restless. Lots of work, realtor appointment tonight, fingers crossed about some recent developments, more bags to be packed. I’m feeling light at the moment, but not unburdened. Like floating away in a balloon suddenly untethered. Not a breath out, but rather a sharp one in.

I am copying files at the moment. Web server to hard drive. That way I can take this audit of scientific holdings on the road, hole myself up with the secret document caches people think they’ve got away with. I’ve got to sweep it all out before I can beging the process of converting it into our new site format and architecture. A good project for dark northern nights, for the lull between christmas and new years.

Since last week I’ve been immersed back into this murk of creative organization, from which will emerge a new and better information hierarchy, a cleaner and faster-loading approach. What importance we place on finding what we want right now! When little more than a decade ago it was all libraries and microfilm. Remember the dizziness of sitting in the dark corner, speeding the film along in search of the article, the reference you were looking for? Sometimes I had to close my eyes, and it was always then that I skipped right over what I wanted, never realizing it until the end came up to catch in the spindle.

I didn’t even know such a wonder existed until I went to college – never having had occasion to research news articles, old government reports, magazine advertisements from the thirties before then. All those words and images and publications accessible to anyone who wanted to come in for a look. I miss the private wonder of that sometimes, though not the fact copies of the material cost a quarter and rarely came out light enough to read. The web is not quite such a wonder to me, I suppose because the fact of it grew with me, I’ve worked with it since it came into being.

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The weekend was good, I had a party for a friend that was very successful – we ate Saint Honore cake and danced in the living room until my downstairs neighbours banged on the ceiling at midnight. I split my time between party and quiet, took photos of Brian’s house to show friends of ours who might want to buy it, and drew a picture of the future in stick figure and scrawl which pleased me greatly. It’s not every day I give into the fantasy things are going to turn out alright after all.

Darren is home and settled in which makes me feel good, not only for him, but for the fact my house is not empty for a week at a time when I stay at Brian’s or hit the road. We had a bit of a plumbing emergency last week and I discovered that my upstairs neighbours really are as flaky as I thought they were – despite pipes that rattled like a generator for at least twelve hours straight, they never once bothered to call the landlady until their showerhead blew off. I had called, but somehow she never got the message. The weekend before, we had no hot water for four days – and again, not once did my neighbours call the landlady. Can a house of 4 people really go that many days and not notice?

I suppose they can.

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I worked on a poem this morning, questioning once again if I have to put a lot of effort into a poem will it really be any good? I mean, the ones that just come out as if inspired are always my favourites – I’m still not convinced how this one will be – but I’m trying my hand at writing a series of poems for submission. Two series actually. Two totally different themes. Which means I can’t just sit around waiting to be inspired enough to write or it could take me years to get 5 pieces out of thin air.

I look at the computer and realize that if I don’t leave now I won’t be home in time for the realtor. Damn. That was fast.

I have been trying to find time to write in the past week, not just here on the blog, but otherwise – and I’ve come back to the hard reality: finding time to write, and making time to write are two different things with wildly divergent outcomes. No matter how busy I am, when I make time to write it happens every day, often more than once. When I look for time to write, I’m lucky if I get “inspired” enough to be motivated a couple times per week.

Now, granted, it’s been a busy month and that’s all well and good – but I miss writing here and elsewhere – there’s something in having one writing project or another in the hopper that gives me a tad more grounding. And the blog gives me a sense of connectedness to others – both intimates and strangers – a sharing of stories between those of us who write our lives in public. So with three weeks of barely anything said, I’m starting to notice where the seams are wearing a bit thin.

Likewise, my body made me painfully aware last week that skipping workouts for ten days was not on. The thing I suspect is arthritis came back in my toes (pain that I started having last spring which prompted my renewed fitness commitment), and my overall resilience and energy had sunk to new all-time lows. A single workout later and I felt immediately better, and I’ve been to the gym almost every day this week as a result.

With the fitness back into my daily schedule, the writing must follow. Busy, yes. But a commitment to myself is one I know I should keep. No matter the schedule. No matter the circumstances.

This is really just a post to say, yes I’m still here and feeling quite a lot better. And yes, I’m coming back to share my stories and thoughts here.