Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
it seems nutty, but here i am….
i’ve decided to do nanowrimo this year – which is a curiosity even to me. i wasn’t even sure until last night at 12:01 (couldn’t sleep – fireworks), when i started penning my novel, to reach 50,000 words by month’s end.
no doubt – it seems really stupid, but the premise behind nanowrimo is actually sound – which is to get the first shitty draft of a book done without thinking about it too much – to suspend the internal editor in a fit of deadline-panic – and to just force the self to sit down every day to write. so far i have 2406 words between last night’s short burst, the ferry this morning and a mid-morning wait for file transfers that gave me another 40 minutes of writing space.
will i actually make the rest of the 47 594 words? that i’m really not sure about. so far i’m amazed i have got some sort of a story on the go, with characters and a plot direction and everything, and i didn’t start with much more than a general idea – but we’ll see. i’m sure my enthusiasm will wane somewhere in the first few days.
i will not be posting my nanowrimo work to this blog, though i will post my word count occasionally (or perhaps even daily) for those of you who want to cheer me on (and please do, cheer me on that is).
besides that, my swimming routine seems to have increased to 30 freestyle laps from 22, which i’m quite pleased about. whoooo! tuesday.
some dating advice
had a walk and dinner date on saturday with someone who i know from the commute, and was skeptical from the outset because of what appeared to be some tendencies to exaggerate self-accomplishments. nevertheless, the benefit of the doubt is good, even when allowing it does confirm what you thought to be true in the first place. now, since i am pretty sure this is going no further than a single date (and the occasional conversation on the ferry), i’m probably not going to get a chance to say these things to the saturday-night date in person (nor would i want to), so instead i will post them here (where he remains anonymous, and which he does not read).
since you profess to want marriage and kids pretty much immediately, here is a little advice i would give you about starting out on the right foot with a potential mate:
- do not stretch the truth about yourself to the degree that it becomes a lie, particularly in a field i actually know something about. (ie – do not call yourself a “marine biologist” when in fact you simply have an undergrad in biology. i work with marine biologists, i know something about this).
- do not assume you are smarter than me, and thus i will not catch your slight omissions and aggrandizements (ie – why tell me that a certain prof almost became your post-doc advisor when you haven’t done any doctoral work? i’m going to ask about your doctoral thesis and then it’s just going to be awkward).
- do not talk about your former career in “law enforcement” only to have me find out that you served one year as a park warden before quitting.
- do not assume also that my job is “just a job” in comparison to yours. i’ve been at my job for 6 and a half years, and it’s only partly because the pay is good – mostly it’s because i’m into what i do and good at it.
- do not give me a comparative view of sea life in the atlantic versus the pacific, when it will quickly become apparent that your understanding of pacific sea life is so dismal that you are not even aware of the presence of edible clams in the pacific (despite the fact you are a “mollusc expert). again, i know a few things about this.
most of all, recognize right off the bat that i’m pretty damned smart, not easily fooled, and not looking to be “impressed”. mostly i just want to be interested, and that means interested in your real life and knowledge, not some embellished one (yes, we all embroider our tales a little bit, but there’s a fine stitch that shouldn’t be crossed, and it’s pretty obvious where that is). i suspect if this is true for me, it’s true for lots of women out there.
terrible am i? picky? i’m not sure, but i have learned it is easier just to back away slowly than call someone on this type of shit, particularly when it happens from the get go. in any case, saturday wasn’t a total bust – he cooked me a good dinner and he’s not totally unejoyable company, but the small dishonesties made me uncomfortable enough that i ended up wanting to leave.
learning to sew
after the length of time it took me to hand-hem the chinese brocade tablecloth last week, i decided that it really was time to bite the bullet and purchase a cheap (but useable) sewing machine. this was decided partly because i have lots of little things like curtains i want to make for my house, but also because i have got it in my head that i am going to learn how to quilt this year and a machine makes that process a lot easier.
so, i purchased a machine last week, and on saturday found myself in the local quilt shop looking at fabrics and asking questions about technique. lucky for me – there was a beginner class scheduled for that very afternoon and one space left in it – and so i found myself spontaneously learning how to quilt this weekend and made myself a badly malformed potholder in the process:
keep in mind that i don’t even really know how to use a sewing machine, and the crooked sewing makes a lot more sense. besides that accomplishment, i did learn a lot about the basics of quilting technique and the importance of accurate cutting and sewing – and i’m pretty sure that with some practice i will be turning out expertly-made potholders in no time….
besides that i worked on my bedroom curtains friday night and got them all hemmed up. now i am hand-embelishing them with some simple embroidery stitch – so until that’s done and they are hung, i won’t be posting a picture of them….
but as further practice on the machine, i used some fabric i happened to have around and an old pillow and sewed up this pillow-slip to accent my living room sofa:
i have some more fabric and another pillow, so i’m thinking of making a matched pair since i really like this fabric and my living room is otherwise without printed textiles.
and as a project update, i am almost finished the north-indian-design decorative pillow i started cross-stitching in wool on canvas last spring. i took the summer off from it (wool is far too hot for summer work), and picked it up again in september as i intend to have this finished for xmas as a gift to my mother. here is the progress so far – i only have about another week of dedicated work to get the stitching finished:
you get a better idea of the colours from this detail shot:
i’m already thinking about what my next stitching project should be since this type of work travels so well on my commute and makes nice gifts (but takes an incredible amount of time which is why sewing and quilting seem like good things to take up). i’m thinking of working with a fine-count linen for the next project since i have not worked much with fabrics that require that much attention and am interested in how the process translates (a standard cross-stitch fabric size is 14 count. the fabric size shown above is the much larger 8 count. i’m thinking of trying something along the lines of an 18 or higher count which means much smaller holes and finer finished work). i’ve got lots of ideas in any case….
writing and doing
i’ve been feeling a bit too worn out to write seriously the last couple of days – had a meeting last night with the resist! collective at the wise and then drinks with some of the local radical girlies who happened to come by. that was fun. the ferry-commuting post is still in the works, awaiting my energetic attention (perhaps tomorrow?)
i’ve been thinking i would really like to participate in nanowrimo this year which starts next tuesday – and i’m even thinking it would be worthwhile doing sans plot and character outlines – just to force myself to write 1660 words a day of fiction (was thinking to use the collapse of civilization as a jumping off point – i’m so into apocalyptical fiction these days). i don’t really have any free weekends in november or anything, so it might be a tad foolish to believe i can write 50,000 words in 30 days without any extra free time – i will only know by trying i suppose.
this is part of me attempting to take my ability to write a little more seriously, develop it somewhat and perhaps eventually turn out something a little more grand than a blog. i would really like to find some writing instruction on the sunshine coast i could fit into my schedule in the new year. however, i know it is more about the willingness to just *do it* (and edit later) than anything else. how true that is for all of life!
so many things to do — as my kayak instructor said to me on saturday — how can anyone possibly be bored in this world? mostly i can’t even stay on top of the list of things i *want* to do.
kick-ass
was too tired to blog yesterday, and then because of an accident on the bridge, didn’t get home until late – so quick post and instead of writing a word essay today, i thought i might write something about ferry-commuter-culture instead in honour of the fact we got a new boat today which highlights everyone’s neuroses.
mostly the reason i wanted to write this update is to report that i just swam 40 laps – a whole kilometre – on my lunch break. 28 laps freestyle (no backstroke), and 12 with a kickboard. i’ve also noticed lately that 1) my limbs seem longer, which i am chalking up to some muscle-lengthening effect and 2) my ankle is much straighter, which i owe to the work on the kickboard – it might hurt now, but it will do good in the longterm. i’m really happy with my progress in the pool so far, and am definitely going to invest in some dive lessons in the spring to take advantage of my developing water skills.
when i got back to my desk, there was an email waiting from a commuter-friend (who will hereon be known as “the hunter”) which was pretty unmistakeably asking me on a date (want to go for a walk, maybe have dinner, maybe watch a movie this weekend?) i have responded in the affirmative, though as i have expressed to people around me, i am hesitant if only because he recently had a partner who returned to her home country and i’m not sure that the relationship has really ended formally yet. i’m also uncertain about whether he’s really the right type of person for me – but that i’m willing to test out a little before making my mind up. in the meantime, i think discretion (when it comes to other people on the coast) is the key – it is a small town after all, and the ferry-riding population is pretty gossipy. talk about high-school dynamics!
Red Cedar 