In mourning

I always get restless and sad when fall begins.  Start to tally up the lists of things I didn’t do, garden plans that never came to be, places I didn’t manage to visit. 

I know that it’s not rational- I know that on paper things are pretty dang peachy… but there it is, again. 

probably time to get the old sun lamp out…

 

Linky-Loo

Why yes, I DID just request my Ontario NUANS conflicting-business-names report while wearing my bathrobe.
Because I am biz-lady like that.
I have purchased domain names and contacted potential wholesalers… I have a lead on fridges for sale at the BLOOD BANK!
My money and my mouth are currently in the same location!
Want to check out that wedding I did earlier this month? Want to know about everything I don’t know about flowers?
http://www.sageflowers.wordpress.com

It’s just a placeholder for now, I’ll be migrating everything over and integrating wordrpess with my actual website pending acts of magic by graphic designer and online shopping cart expert-friends.

106 days until I open for business!

In more writing-reading related news, reread Room by Emma Donoghue, A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright, and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers. All hold up, all are still excellent, all are un-put-downable (I have yet to pick up Room and not read the whole thing in one go.) I can super-recommend all three, should you be on the lookout for something awesome to read. Currently midway through Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, which is much more my speed than Hawking’s Brief History of Time. I’m too dumb for dumbed-down Stephen Hawking, as it turns out. Bryson is as interested as I am in the 19thC paleontologist/geologist bickering and pranks, so far, so good.

Best/worst excuse.

I started talking to someone who reminded me of a character in my novel.  My super unfinished going on two and a half years novel.  So I decided I better not do it any more.  Again.

What’s your best/worst excuse you’ve used to talk yourself out of something?  (may not apply to anyone I interact with here, actually.  What a bunch of stick with it finishers you all are.)

 

On a side note, I do some things that ARE awesome.

For example, I threw a pair of pants into my hotel trash can in Paris, because I wanted more room in my suitcase for wine, cheese, and foie gras. 

The end.

Wedding flowers

For my sister.

Next July.

I shall be maid of honouring and doing the flowers.

Near York in merry olde UK. IN A FUCKING CASTLE. 

That is all!

flower fail

I have one sad little sweetpea plant in bloom, and three anemic, very short larkspur.  They are in a mason jar with queen anne’s lace, yarrow and anise hyssop which have taken over my garden.  No picture- husband took the camera to the cabin in the woods and left it there.  I left my seed-starting much too late this year, and my garden has reflected my job turmoil as I throw up my hands and wonder ‘what’s the point’?  But do you know… those green tomatoes are looking pretty good, and they’ll be ripening soon.  That single sweet pea flower has no right to be here in a drought and in this heat… and it smells gorgeous.  Those too-tiny larkspur are an irredescent, almost purple blue.  Beauty even in the failed experiments. 

The only writing I do is here.

I went to a movie gala with my husband.
I wore weird mutant jelly fish silicone pasties on my tits.
Then I wore a dress on top of those, don’t worry.

A friend of mine started a new events and promotions company. She was organising the gala, and asked me to do tissue poppies for decor and bouttonieres for the guys in the film.
Total bouttoniere failure- the roses I used were too heavy and big. They would have been marvellous back in the 70s, when men had enormous lapels and moustaches to balance out such things. But in our day and age, these bad boys hung crooked, then they blew open and became even more comically large. The guys in the film all wore them with good humour. My husband chose the biggest, craziest one and wore it with genuine pride. It’s the stupid little things that remind you why you love someone.

Also felt better when I found out one of the theatre staff liked the paper flowers I made so much, she asked if she could have them for a party the next day.
Floral disasters aside, I can’t stop smiling. Can’t stop looking at everyone’s pictures. It was a magical evening, no hyperbole. Everyone in tuxes and evening gowns. We took a limo from the bar to the door, then there were pipers and a red carpet. Photographers. Tons of people. Felt so Hollywood.

At the after party, I drank a little too much celebratory champagne and demanded that a group of friends take me out for fucking hamburgers. We stumbled down the main street trying to find a place that was open, saluting other formally dressed wedding and bar mitzvah guests we passed. Found a place that was open and ate the best hamburger of my life.

Still on a high from the evening.

My friend who organised the event asked me to become a partner in her new events company.

I said YES. xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

summer wastin’

Zero writing.  Oh, my dears.  Oh, my ducks.

But I am making hundreds of paper flowers for a movie premiere gala.

Then I am making 24 rose bouttonieres for gentlemen appearing in the movie at the gala.

There will be limos and photographers… which will come in handy for portfolio shots.  I Maaaaaay be opening my own flower design shop in the next year. No, you know what? Fuck ‘may’. Am. Will. Shall. Plans underway. I need to do this. I need to try something, even if I fail the something. I’m going to be 35. Then I’m going to be 40. It’s how these things work, you see.

Also, attending said gala with husband.  I wear sneakers and steel toes.  I must purchase heels.  I must purchase adhesive products and attach them to my boobs in such a way that said boobs will not spill out of dress.

Results TBA. 

Oi.

Costume shop!

I’m costuming a local fake-shakespeare production for an Evening of Coarse Acting.

(The Coarse Acting plays were written by Michael Green in the 1970s and 80s. They are short plays representing typical community theatre fare: murder mysteries, tense wartime dramas, Shakespearean nonsense tales of girls disguised as boys etc. The point is that all of these plays go wrong. Set pieces fall, actors get stuck in endless loops of dialogue, the costumes are hot-glued together and all tights are saggy at the crotch and baggy at the knees… if you’ve ever sat through a bad play, you will get the jokes!)

‘Costuming’ may be a strong word for what I’m doing! I’m turning sweatpants and tablecloths into knee-britches. I’m building lasagne-pan armour and fake swinging boobs.

I’m going back to my roots.

My first costuming gig ever was a community theatre production of The Compleat Works of Wllm Shkspr Abridged.
I had never costumed a play before, and was soon way over my head converting old Halloween costumes and cheap-ass broadcloth into quick-change costumes for a cast of three playing about forty roles. I ended up making a lot of dresses for my husband-to-be.

Little did she know…

Did I mention I didn’t own a sewing machine a the time? And didn’t know how to operate one. And was afraid of sewing machines.

After a few weeks of floundering and hand-stitching, a neighbour loaned me an ancient Kenmore and I learned to machine- sew on the fly.
Don’t ask me how, but I pulled it off, and all the actors fell in love with me because I laundered their disgusting tights and shirts every night and even febreezed the wigs.

My greatest compliment came from an experienced film costumer who caught the show and said I had a good eye for design.

Flash forward a few years, and I was paying for my BFA pressing shirts and making petticoats for the university theatre company. I spent the summer before my wedding living in a trailer, patching up old rep company wigs and washing sweaty dance thongs for a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

This current project is KILLING me, coming in on top of Mother’s Day at the shop. Another case of saying ‘yes’ before really looking at what the task would entail.

It’s funny though, I can feel the old me coming back, the one who would bite off more than she could chew and just muscle through all the work that needed to be done, improvising and learning along the way. This morning over breakfast I whipped together a costume out of an old towel and a length of leftover cotton jersey…and still made it to work on time. I think I’m getting back something I lost along the way.

Yes, my floors are dirty and I haven’t been to yoga class in ages, but you know.. it feels good to jump in to a bit of chaos again and force that creativity to the top.

Have a lovely weekend, all. It’s a three-day holiday for us Canadiennes, eh? Happy Birthday Queen Victoria, and thank you for this Monday off.

Sometimes when I am not writing

I am a junior designer at a local flower shop.
Sunday is Mother’s Day.
No. Sleep. Til Monday.

Oy.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

We were on the plane home from vacation. It was a four-screaming-baby flight, and I was enjoying my best purchase of the trip: a two euro set of foam earplugs. My husband reached over, popped out one of my earplugs and and said,
‘It’s a history book, but he ends each chapter with a CLIFFHANGER!’
‘Let me see!’
‘NO’.

He was reading The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

I tried to read over his shoulder, but he would have none of it. I kept a beady eye on him and stole it the second he fell asleep. When he woke up I would not give it back. He had to wait for me to pass out and pry it out of my hands.

Now we’re home, and there’s currently a three-deep line of friends who want to read it as soon as the previous person is done.

In Chicago in 1893, a team of world-class architects plans and executes the Chicago World’s Fair to impossible standards under an impossible deadline. They plan some of the largest buildings in the world, and search for an attraction to out-Eiffel the Eiffel Tower. There is a special guest appearance by my man Frederick Law Olmstead!

Across town at the new L-train stop on the main route to the fair, a con artist builds a two-storey hotel, complete with kill rooms and disposal chutes. While the world’s greatest exhibition takes place a few stops away, the con man grooms and murders single female visitors to the Fair.

Did you read Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s From Hell? Did you get creepy goosebumps, particularly at the sequence where Gull brings on the 20th century? Same feel. Real story.

I was late to work three times because of this book. Five stars!
Random House has a great site for the book including an interview with the author- http://www.randomhouse.com/crown/devilinthewhitecity/home.html