It is the first night in a decade that I've not spent Christmas Eve keeping vigil.

For the first time in ten years, I am not stretched out on the living room couch at my parents' home in the country as the fire slowly dies, watching the moonlight roll across the frozen creek in the ravine below.  It's something I did every year. Listen to the same song over and over, consider the year that had passed, weighing the moments and finding the balance between them. You do not know how ingrained a tradition is, until you break it.

This year I am in my beautiful condo looking at the most amazing Christmas tree I've ever seen. It's stuffed full of memories and newness; little crocheted bells and snowflakes and icicles from Drew's grandmother; the teddy bear balls I got one year from the kind, drunk lady who lived on the first floor of my apartment building in Mission; the 120 crystals Drew managed to find for next to nothing after scouring the city, dripping like jewel from the branches; the silly salt dough ornaments we've made for each other. Glittering white lights reflect in the French doors and the big silver mirror on the wall. The whole tree radiates light. It looks so... happy.

I have spent many Christmases lonely, even though I've never spent them alone. And despite this, they almost always felt happy. I love this time of year. But this year is so special. My first married Christmas. It's quietly amazing. I never imagined I would love like this, and I am still so humbled and grateful that reality is finally better than all the fantasies I created.

Tomorrow, instead of walking on the frozen creek with my family, Drew and I are baking gingerbread men. Instead of Eggs Benedict, we're making fresh biscuits with molasses. And instead of holding vigil with the moon and remembering with faint wistfulness the things I have lost, I am sleeping in the arms of my husband, the best man I have ever loved. They are the beginnings of new traditions. The are the beginnings of a new life.

It is a beautiful night. Blessed be.

Have you ever met someone and felt like you already know them? Or maybe not that specific --not like you've already met-- but feel a sense of familiarity, maybe even affection. Like you want to be in their company even though you don't know them yet.

There's a dessert shop I go to with Cheddar and LeeBee whenever we're planning a girly-catch-up-get-together. It's a comfortable sort of place, the kind where they don't mind if you stay for hours and chatter away over organic blueberry tea and red velvet cake (not surprising given how expensive everything is; they aren't anticipating high turnover).

There is a woman who works there, with black hair and bright shining eyes and a smile that pulls you in. When she smiles, it's like she already knows you and she's happy you're there. It's a really real smile.

I like seeing her. She makes me feel welcomed. But nervous, too. Like.. I want her to like me. I want to be my most winning, appealing self. I make excuses to talk to her a little bit, try and start a bit of conversation. It never lasts too long but I always feel a bit of anticipation in my stomach -- the twisty-turny kind, when I'm trying to think of something clever and engaging to say. It's the way you feel when you want to make a new friend, or you have the beginnings of a crush and you can taste the nervousness in your mouth.

It wasn't until today that I realized what it is about her. Where the sense of affection and familiarity, shaken up with a dash of nerves, comes from. She looks like Nico.

Not exactly. Not a ringer. But they could be sisters. The kind of sisters where you immediately know they are related as soon as you see them together; same bone structure, the same hair, same rounded, curved shape. God help me, the same smile. I know that smile. I remember that smile.

She might actually be her sister, I don't know. They could be related. I never met her family. And then this stupid urge came over me, and I knew it was dumb, and I didn't do it, but for a moment I imagined asking her, "Are you Nico?" and I know she isn't Nico, I know Nico is dead, but it looked so much like her and it reminded me of her so strongly, and in my head anything is possible and this could be a parallel universe where she really is Nico, and Nico isn't dead and we haven't even met yet, and this could be her.

I wanted to ask if she'd had a sister named Nico. So I created this little conversation in my head, where I ask, and she says no, and she asks who Nico is, and I tell her She was beautiful. She was passionate, and profoundly sensitive, and a champion of the underdog. She was funny, with self-depreciating humor and poignant insights. She was an artist. She thought she was a failure at love, but she wasn't. She just loved too much, too easily, and it hurt her more than it healed. She tried to be tougher than she was. She had stars in her eyes and sparkles on her face, and bouncing pink dreadlocks, and a smile that pulled you in. You look so much like her it hurts.

I realized then that I never really knew Nico. I just got one piece of her puzzle. I had a.. sense of her, but I didn't know her well enough to tell her secrets, or describe her in anything but poetry and generalizations and little moments.

After the first time she spent the night, I spent the morning cleaning up shards of broken glass, still sticky with wine, from the glass we'd kicked off the table while we devoured each other on the couch, and the trail of clothes like breadcrumbs leading from the living room to my bed, and the catastrophe of pillows and rope and toys scattered across my room.  When I finally went to my car, I saw the heart she'd drawn in eyeliner on my driver's side window. I think it was the most romantic thing someone had ever done for me. I never washed it off, not even after we broke up. Six months later someone hit my car while it was parked on the side of the street and shattered the window, and it wasn't for days that I realized the heart was gone. Such a stupid little thing, but I still cried and cried, because she was dead and she wouldn't draw a heart in eyeliner on anyone's window again.

She died two and a half years ago, and I spent six weeks with her, and I still cry because I saw a girl who reminded me of her in a dessert shop in Inglewood, a girl with the same eyes and the same smile.

How does this still break my heart?

I have a diary I’ve never written in.

It’s beautiful. Dark red binding, the word "Desire" sprawled lazily in gold across the front. Inside it has sketches of lovers tied with ropes of fire and angel wings, snippets of literotica. A thousand years ago, a Chinese woman wrote inside "my thighs are weak and trembling from a night of cloud dancing " and I exhale.

I keep telling myself I’ll write when I have something real to say. The book has been empty for years.

Sometimes I feel so inarticulate. I hate it. I hate it most when I feel stuffed with words, lines, whole paragraphs and I can't figure out how to get them out.

Be hollow.

Now fill the space inside you with slivers of thought, wispy smoky fragments, ideas that linger in the air like her perfume after she's left the room. Imagine it shapeless and powerful like wind building until the air feels thick with electricity, the way it does when a storm gathers.

All of this is inside you, howling, it's trying to explain everything . But you can't speak its language. You have forgotten all their names. It's begging you to understand in liquid and shadows, whispering dark green secrets -- and you? You are just the grown-up remains of a kid who read too much fantasy, the one who reached for the back of the wardrobe for years with trembling fingers in the furtive dark, hoping to cross to Narnia. But all you got was an empty pen as a broken talisman. It is inside you, and you cannot hold it, and you cannot set it free.

You can kill anything if you neglect it enough.

Years later, an icicle of fear will trickle through your mind: perhaps it's gone . You don't know which to feel more, grief or relief. It is hard to feel so much. Hard to be so filled with words. It has been quiescent so long you thought maybe it was sleeping like some reticent beast. But maybe it isn't sleeping. Maybe it died. Maybe you didn't believe hard enough, you didn't clap your hands when they asked if you believed in fairies. Or maybe you just unexpectedly grew up and set it aside, and it's lost somewhere with your old bear Tilly and the pink flower earrings you had when you were six, the things you forgot.

All the words you have are thin and insipid and not nearly enough.

Mad as a March hare. That never made sense to me. Should say mad as a poet, word-struck. Intoxicated by possibility and scrabbling in the dust.

Writers have a touch of madness. One foot in this realm, and the other caught in the wilding. Clotho, the first of the three Fates, pulled handfuls of chaos and twisted it into the thread of life. It is not so different with writers; plunging arms deep into vats of thought, hands dripping with imagination, coaxing it onto paper. It is not our fault if you cannot always understand.

Inside me is a secret mouth that devours words. I have a voracious appetite for books. I savour the good bits over and over like sweet wine, intoxicating. It’s poetry that owns me though. Four words strung together in a way I’ve never thought and always felt can stop me dead.

I’ll admit it: I’m seduced by words. I am the kind of girl who has secret crush on Leonard Cohen, master of erotic despair. All that poetry and that raspy voice like whiskey and smoke and gravel. It does something interesting low in my hips.

I want to tattoo Michael Ondaaje's poem The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife on my skin in dark red ink. I want to cover my body in provocative poetry, wordstrings full of connotations the likes of which you've never seen. I want to make you read me like braille.

You will understand this or you won't.

In yet another swoop of random good luck, courtesy of the Universe and her ongoing project to conspire in my favor, I HAVE A NEW JOB!

I will pause to gracefully accept your applause. *insert applause/accolades/hugs of congratulations*

Ironically, I was on the phone with Cheddar discussing my jobless state when the phone chimed -- incoming email. It was from an old boss of mine, The Captain, and screamed: "Call me ASAP!" with his cell number.

I gave him a shout and I already knew what it was about. When I ready to leave the law firm, The Captain had contacted me with a job offer to help the legal and project management for a massive horse-racing/Indy car racing/entertainment/convention center complex that was proposed for the Crossfield area. I'd interviewed with the CFO and CEO and they'd really wanted me to come on board, but I ended up accepting a marketing position with my more recent boss instead -- the job where I recently gave my resignation.

Without any preamble, The Captain said, "Look. I'll be blunt: I need you here. Our billion dollar project in Crossfield? It's going ahead. I need someone who's quick and organized and can think, and keep on top of things. You're the first person I thought of and the only one I've called. I need you to do contract negotiations, legal research and review, and marketing for our massive entertainment complex. What do you say?"

It's more money than I was making as the Marketing Manager for my last job, and comes with benefits and three weeks' vacation. Oh, and I get my name attached to the single largest project in Alberta that isn't in oilsands. Well golly.

So, COME CELEBRATE WITH ME!   Wednesday night, Ship 'n' Anchor on 17th Avenue, 7:00 p.m. for drinks, nibbles, hugs, catching-up, and madcap revelry! 

I'd love to see you there! Swing by and say hi, and have a drink with me.

*happy dance*

Well, it's that time of year and some people have been asking what I'd like for Christmas.  (Clear skin? Perseverence? World Peace?)

So, here is a little list if you're looking for ideas.



White wine glasses. I have an enormous collection of red wine glasses. The irony is I almost never drink red wine. (BellaDawna's legacy lives on in the liquor cabinet. *hic*)  But I do like white wine. So some white wine glasses would be really nice.


Champagne flutes.  I love drinking champagne and it's just plain wrong to chug it out of a chipped coffee mug, I tell ya. A $60 bottle of Veuve Cliquot just doesn't taste them same in a stained mug with no handle.


An area rug. I have no rug. I have so shamefully abused the cream rug Cassa lent to me (never, never buy a cream area rug, you're just asking for trouble to come stomp its muddy feet all over it) that I'm actually embarrassed. It's become a repository of ground-in dirt, spilled wine, pizza crumbs, ashes, candle wax, and other shameful fluids I need not mention, lest my more delicate of readers swoon. So, a new area rug would be swell. It doesn't need to be large (maybe 4' x 5'? Maybe less?) Just pretty. And please god, not cream.


A hand mixer.  I used to have this Braun hand mixer. Actually, my mother used to have this Braun hand mixer that I convinced Dad she would just love for Christmas many years ago, which she never used, and I inherited it when I jaunted off to college. It was perfect. Small. Portable. Powerful. Whipped cream, frothed milk, turned mashed potatoes into a delectable mouthful of velvet, mixed cake batter, mixed margaritas, and cleaned up in mere moments under running water. It was, in short, the wunder-appliance. And I.... ah, misplaced mine.

    Translation: Cassa and I have this ongoing joke about how we "misplace" things. The story goes, she lost her house and everything in it in her divorce. I lost my apartment and almost everything in it in my last big break-up. We both had to replace, well... everything. It got tiresome having to always say "A potato-masher? Sure, I have one of... oh, wait a minute."  So, we smile tightly and say: "I had one of those. But I misplaced it." Like in Cassa's case, her house. "House? I had one of those. But I misplaced it." Hey, whatever gets you through.


Nutmeg Ginger lotion/bath gel by Barefoot Venus.  It smells divine. It's as luscious as warm gingerbread, as inviting as a cozy bed on a cold winter night with snow falling like a soft whisper, as enticing as satin sliding down bare skin, as delicious as a kiss filled with cinnamon and lust. Get me some. Please.


A tea ball. I misplaced my last one.


A USB Port.  They're just plain useful.


An 80G iPod.  Yeah, I know. Dream big. But the 80G is only $100 more than the 30G, and for 150% of the space?! Honestly.


Someone with a hammer drill to come over.  If you come drill three holes in my concrete wall (I have the lead anchors already) I will make you hot chocolate with peppermint shnapps. Or mulled wine. Or a nifty paper airplane. I will show my gratitude through interpretive dance. Whatever you like.


Big white fluffy bath towels.  I have a couple but could use more. I misplaced the others. I'm just so darn forgetful.


Picture frames.  I have two amazing pieces of art I need to put up, and both need frames. I haven't found the right ones (they need to be specific sizes, and in expresso-colored wood), but if someone were to say "You know, I'd love to help make your home beautiful. Let me get you those two picture frames for Christmas. Let's go shopping," then we could make a day of it and I'd even drive and possibly buy the coffee.


A pedicure.  I hate my ugly feet. Pedicures make me hate them slightly less.




Oh yeah, and World Peace.

"Nothing is as constant as change." ~ Anon

The thing about being overwhelmed is you're exactly that: overwhelmed. Like having an avalanche of snow fall on you with a graceless "whump", there you are, completely covered in the stuff wondering exactly how much air you have left to breathe before you slip into the long dark.

In the space of a week, the following occurred:

1. Some drug-addled, witless dolt broke into my car and tried to hotwire it. Thankfully he was the most inept of car thieves, since despite popping off the ignition cap and jamming a screwdriver into the ignition column, he didn't manage to actually steal the car. Just, you know, wreck it a little. And that made me angry.

2. Dragon and I had an argument in which two things became clear. First, while he says he doesn't mind that I have other lovers, he came unglued when he saw a platonic friend give me a shoulder massage. This does not bode well. And second, he told me he has fallen in love with me, and those two things in tandem tell me we can't do this. And that makes me sad.

3. I gave notice at my job. A long story short, it wasn't a good fit. It was an amicable ending, and they wrote me a very big cheque as a sort of consolation prize which means I'm in no dire financial straits -- but it still sucked. It sucked flaming donkey whang. I had such high hopes for this new job and it lasted all of four months. And that made me feel like a failure.

4. I helped angadeon move and left my car parked on the street.... where, in the middle of the night, an incompetent moron (driving a 2005 white Dodge Ram duli with welding gear in the box - help me find this cretin) smashed into my car, breaking the drivers' side door and window.  Glass was everywhere. Thankfully, the car was just barely not a write-off. A guy from angadeon's building heard the accident and saw the truck drive away, and left me a note -- unlike the hit 'n' run guy who backed into my car and then sped away. And that made me lose faith in humanity.


I decided I'd had enough.

So, I ran away for a few days. Went to Edmonton for a lovely and decadent weekend, then to the country house to quiet my head, but all I was really doing was distracting myself so I wouldn't have to think too hard about my craptacular week. 

I came back to Calgary for the weekend... and suddenly there was nothing as a distraction and all the sad came down and smothered me, so I hid from reality at angadeon's place. 

I need to hide from my life, I told him. Can I come over?

Of course you can, daring. What do you want to do? he asked.

Nothing that requires any kind of thought or decision-making process.

Video games? he asked.

Perfect.

It was a nice break from thinking and feeling, but you can only play a game so much before you kind of need to move on and Do The Next Thing. And in my case, the next thing is supposed to be looking for a job. Thankfully I'm in the hottest job market in Canada right now. I will have a reference letter shortly. I don't think it will be hard to find something else that I enjoy, that will have good opportunities, that will pay for my lifestyle. All I have to do is, you know, start looking.

On the bright side, the extra time has meant I've had lots of time to clean the whole condo, catch up with friends, organize the storage room, sort my Tupperware, rearrange furniture in preparation for putting up the Christmas tree, and spend time with people I've neglected over the last couple of months. That part has been good. For a while I was so caught up with work I had no time for anything else. Now I'm made of time. Strange.

I'm tired a lot. Granted, I missed a lot of sleep in the last month, but I'm pretty caught up now. And I got sick sick sick last weekend, which meant spending most of Saturday and Sunday resting. Am mostly better now, though.

The weather is bringing me down, too. I can handle the cold, but these bleak grey days feel barren and desolate, devoid of hope. They always leave me with an air of melancholy. At least we have snow, though. Snow means skiing! Yay!

There's more to write - there always is, but that's all I'm up for right now. Must go fetch the Christmas tree from it's year-long purgatory in storage and bring out the decorations. Christmas usually cheers me up immeasurably. Must be all the sparkly things.

Sometimes it's the little things that get you through.

Last week, when work projects rose like leviathans from the deep and blocked out the sun, I called my friends. Some to let me rant and rail and wail melodramatically. Some for professional advice. Some for whispers of support and encouragement, and some for occasional midnight snuggles.

I called friends in the dead of night, overwhelmed and feeling too small. They gave good, frank, realistic advice. I stopped by at late hours, bleary-eyed and reeking of stress, eyes dark after too many nights of too-little sleep. They sent encouraging emails and positive little notes.

Friends with no time made time. Friends with lots of time shared it. I got hugged a lot.

Then, late last week, I got a special delivery from chainsofchaos : an enormous bouquet of tropical flowers. It's practically a jungle stuffed with purple-spotted spider orchids and birds-of-paradise, fragrant yellow lilies the color of spring, violet thistles, other strands and stems of flowers for which I have no name but beautiful. It's sitting on my counter dripping with scent. Lush.

It's been years since someone sent me flowers. I'd forgotten how wonderful it feels. It coaxes a smile from my face every time I see it.

Then, last night, I slipped out at midnight to clear my head and stopped dead. My beautiful bike --the one that had its cover stolen a week ago -- didn't look right. Closer inspection revealed someone had covered it with a tarp, using bungie cords to hold the tarp tight to the frame. Apparently Dragon had seen me wince when I saw my naked bike cloaked in snow after last weekend's storm, and bought a tarp to cover it.

And today --the day when I found out my project wasn't going to meet its deadline and spent the morning feeling profoundly inadequate-- another delivery, courtesy once again of chainsofchaos.

This time? A dozen Crave cupcakes. The man has style. He knows his cupcakes.

Now for those of you philistines not privy to the ambrosial glory that is the Crave cupcake, I fear mere words cannot convey their toothsome divinity. Suffice it to say that a Crave cupcake feels as a velvet pillow to the tongue, before melting into a symphony of sweetness. They have been known to make grown men weep with gratitude and send women into mild convulsions. One woman, after eating a Crave cupcake, did nothing but moan gently for three hours before fainting into post-coital bliss. It is, in short, a culinary orgasm.  And I have twelve!  Okay, eleven.    *shifty eyes*

[ED: Okay. Fine, I have ten.]

I feel loved. Still a little inadequate, still a little down, but loved in spite of it.

I just got word from on high that we will not make the deadline. The projects will not get done for the San Francisco trip.

We'll keep working on the marketing materials (or "marketing collateral", as the new lingo apparently goes - who comes up with this stuff?) but we won't have them for our San Francisco trip. The big boss said he wasn't going to have enough time to look at the draft content and get it to a place we'd be happy with, and rather than rush something to production that isn't up to snuff, we'll take our time and come up with something good.

Logically, I know that is the best decision. Emotionally, I feel like a failure.

My first shot at being a project manager ends with the project not getting done. Pretty hard to spin that into something good.

I keep running through everything in my head: We should have started sooner. Should have gotten better buy-in from everyone. Should have had a timeline that started much earlier and built in time for people who never got back to me at all,  Should have met with the design team sooner. Should have known more about the industry by now so I could have done more of the writing myself. Should have developed a clearer understanding of our projects so I wasn't so reliant on other people's words. Should have gotten the drafts back faster.

Should have gotten it done. Should have, could have, would have, whatever, it feels meaningless now.

Part of me is still railing against this. We could still get it done, if you could just look at the drafts this morning and get me your comments ASAP.  If you didn't feel so much ownership of authorship, didn't waste so much time dithering and just told me what you wanted, didn't change your mind all the time, didn't take two days to get back to me on the layout which you now want to change, didn't keep changing the plan, or the rules -- now this person needs to review it, now that person needs to be consulted.  But I'm just blaming now. Which is, of course, easier than feeling like a failure: this is why people do it, right? Easier to say it's someone else's fault, or the situation's fault, rather than your own.

I can't remember the last time I failed this spectacularly. Oh, wait. I can.

It was a couple of Christmas' ago when I still worked as a legal assistant. We had this huge reply brief that had to be filed by a certain deadline. Bossman wasn't in the office but we did get the reply brief filed in time... unfortunately, I didn't realize that "filed" also meant "served", so it sat on my desk for a couple of days, until opposing counsel actually called and asked if we were planning to file a reply brief?

 I sent it out, but it was too late. We'd missed the deadline. In the result, our court date was pushed back a few months and by the time our case was heard, the political mood had shifted to such that there was no way we were going to be successful in court. Oops. My fault. We lost the case - which was precedent-setting, no less.

But that was just a foolish mistake with far-reaching consequences. Here, I was the person in charge of a project that didn't get done in time.  I wanted challenge, but when I got it I didn't measure up. Maybe I've slacked off in my life for so long that I've lost the ability to rise to the occasion. Maybe I am not cut out for this.

I'm tapped out.

I am so bone-tired my vision is blurring. My head feels like I've slammed it in a door. Repeatedly.  My brain has fallen on the floor and is slowly crawling into the closet where it's dark and quiet. I need sleep desperately.  Must... have...nap.

Why do I need a nap, you ask? Because our company has sponsored a hockey team, and I was told in no uncertain terms it'smy corporate obligations to attend each and every one of the remaining games this season.

Not that I'd mind so much, but the games start at 10:00 or 11:00 at night, and often during the week. And like my life isn't busy enough. Seriously.

There's a game tonight at 10:15 p.m.  It's going to last a couple of hours. And all I want to do is curl up in bed and be snuggled and have someone stroke my hair and whisper me to sleep. I'd pay money for it. I am not joking.

Work is tentatively under control. You may all cheer. I would, but I'm exhausted.

I spent most of yesterday either in meetings, setting up meetings, having phone meetings, or driving to meetings. Wow.

More meetings today with the print team, and our photographer for our display. So actually there are four projects, in addition to the myriad of odds and ends that clutter the corners of my day. I am trying so hard not to let anything fall through the cracks.

However, we have selected a design and print team! They're working on our projects as we speak and said they can get everything done by our deadline. It's tight, but it can be done as long as we don't waste any time and nothing goes wrong.

   A thought: if time is infinite, how is it that I never have enough? Hm.

I'm still feeling overwhelmed. It's going to be a tremendous amount of effort and a miracle of coordination to get this done, and I've already been working past midnight the last few nights running.  My nightly cocktail of stress, eyestrain, and insomnia, on the rocks with a sleeping pill chaser, is running me down.... which may explain the faint burning behind my eyes and sore throat  that refuses to go away.

I can feel it plotting my downfall. It's lurking like a thick, swollen ball weighing me down with the sly promise that sometime in the next week, when I've been lulled into a false sense of security from my volleys of Vitamin C, it will burst forth like an alien lifeform and drown me with its army of mucous monsters.

Cassa pointed out that for the last few years I've been working in jobs that were way beneath my level. Not that I didn't have to work, but  wasn't hard to shine. (I think this is a nice way of saying I've gotten lazy.)

Now I'm in a job that actually asks something of me. It has much higher expectations, far more autonomy, huge opportunities for challenge and growth. It's a good change. This is what I wanted.

But the thing about challenge is, by definition, it isn't easy. Now I have to really work in order to shine. It means more, but it also takes more. Coupled with the learning curve, it's...uh...well, challenging. Oh, I'm so articulate on four hours of sleep. No, really.  *insert manic laughter*

I'm used to coasting by and I can't do it anymore. Ah well. No one ever said it would be easy, just that it would be worth it.

I suppose I am managing in every sense of the word.

Manda came down for Cassa's baby shower on the weekend. It was great. The floor was littered with gifts: clothes, blankets, baby slings, all the things you need for a new little one. We all cooed and ooh and awed over Ryer, and noshed on Mayberry's spectacular feast: Avocado and mango Thai wraps, anyone?  Shrimp and cilantro? Homemade spinach and feta ravioli? Perhaps something with black bean and chicken? Le Yum.

And, it being the weekend of Hallowe'en celebration, it wouldn't have been right if I hadn't gotten in a little painting...

We were tight on time since we didn't get started until about 8:30 p.m. and wanted to get to the club by 11:00, before it was too packed to breathe.  So, I smeared paint and imagination over us for just under two hours, and came up with this...

Presenting Manda as La Tigressa:

     

Manda was stopped ever few feet by people checking out her paint, which held up amazingly well.  She made a wonderful tigress. And yes, that is a piercing in her cleavage. Oh how I miss thee, Cleavage Bar!


And me as the Dark Faerie, wrapped in flowers and thorns and only granting wicked wishes...

      

Yes. You can see my heiney in this outfit. I'm such a tart. I did wear a pair of booty shorts to preserve what's left of my modesty. (It's something when a pair of lacy panties is your nod to discretion...)

You can't really tell from the photos, but the black vines were edged in metallic silver thorns and the flowers were brushed with iridescent glitter that shimmered when I walked. Looked really flashy.

I wish I'd had more time to really get in some detail and do some highlights and shadowing around the vines and thorns (my usual complaint -- not enough time), but the truth is it's unbelievably hard to paint yourself; you're always twisting and torquing and coming at your skin from odd angles. Don't even get me started on trying to rewire your brain to paint backwards using a mirror for the face.

Four weeks until I paint Laura as Air... seven months pregnant. It's going to be spectacular.

This really is the coolest hobby ever.

I had so many cool things to write about. Life has been pretty grand, if its usual chaotic whirlwind.

And then today, at 3:30 p.m., work turned into an ugly, slavering, all-consuming monster and it's staring at me. Hungrily.

I am ready to put my eyes out with a spoon, or drink myself into a stupor, or watch my head crack open and my brain fall onto the floor. Hey, why pick just one when you can have all three? I could have all three. Hell, I am starting on one already, self-medicating with a nice glass of wine. There must be a spoon around here somewhere.

I have three projects that need to be completed before I leave for San Francisco on November 17th. (It was two projects, until yesterday.) And it was all under control until this afternoon, when I suddenly learned that the person upon whom I was relying to handle a major portion of the project has neither the skill set, nor the software, to do it.

Both my boss and I had both assumed it could be done in-house -- but it can't, and while part of me wants to rant and rail and argue Hey! You thought the same thing as I did, we both made the same assumption here, the reality is that I'm the project manager and the buck stops directly in front of me. Such is the price of responsibility.

And I have to own some of this. I could have been checking some of these details two weeks ago, but I didn't. I thought I had it under control, and I was wrong.

In it's best form, this will be a great learning experience. *sigh*   Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

I'm in a mad panic to try and outsource to a design firm, but the timeline just got critical and there is no room for mistakes, no leeway at all. And I've never done anything like this before. I don't have contacts or experience on which to draw, just instinct and a fight for professional survival.

There's this heavy calm that's fallen over me. It's so familiar. It's the same thick blanket of concentrated focus that always weighed me down whenever a deadline loomed like an ominous shadow, slavering in the dark. I used to feel it all the time when I was a journalist.

It's been years since I've felt this kind of pressure. It's both frightening and familiar. So much is at stake: my reputation at work. Our presentation at the San Francisco conference. Possibly my job. I cannot afford to mess this up.

The projects are still doable. But  I want to shine. I don't want to blow them away with a stunning example of mediocrity. I want to awe my team with amazing success. I hope that's still an option.

Think positive, affirming, effective, efficient, stellar thoughts of success for me. I will take help from all comers in all corners. And if you have a +5 Red Pen of Revisions and Pocket of Spare Hours, I'll take that, too.

The last few days it's occurred to me that I am finally creating the grown-up life I always dreamed of.

I have a beautiful home that I love to be in... a terrific job with growing responsibilities, opportunities to travel, and bosses who think I'm terrific... the sport bike I always wanted... amazing friends living joyous lives... wonderful lovers of whom I'm very fond (thank you, darlings)... intriguing new people coming into my life... and a fresh pedicure with screaming red toenails.

Damn. It's pretty wonderful.

And on that note, this is today's Note From The Universe:



I just' can't think of anything more important to tell you today, Lethe, than "Congratulations, outstanding, well done!"

You are now, officially, the person you once dreamed you'd become.

It always works,
The Universe.

P.S. Lethe, your courage and persistence have become as legendary as your cooking....


Well then. *smile*

I admit that what makes my cooking so legendary is not so much that I'm a good cook... it's that I cook wearing a men's tuxedo shirt, pinstriped gangster hat, 4" heels and nothing else, and dance around the kitchen singing along to old Ella Fitzgerald and Dean Martin while concocting savory culinary foodstuffs. It's sort of a whole cooking experience. (Move over, Emeril, there's a new kid in town!)

Life is good.

I flew home on Tuesday. *bliss*

I was trying to calculate how many flights I've been on this year and it's already been a dozen. This isn't counting the upcoming trips to San Francisco or the trip to New Brunswick I just found out about. I've got to start collecting travel points or something.

I spent a lot of time looking out my window on the way home. The flights out of Hermosillo are always on small planes and they fly low, so I can see the ground beneath me. We were flying along the coastline to L.A., and all I could see for miles was sand trickling into the ocean, pinpricked with little dots of sagebrush like poppyseeds scattered on the ground. The bushes tend to grow wherever there's water, so they follow the meandering inlets and tiny valleys in between the sand dunes where the rain builds up. From the plane I could see patterns: how the tiny trickles lead to streams, all filled with little black dots of sage. From up high, it looked like long strands of black hair streaming across the desert.

I ended up getting delayed at Customs for an hour and I kid you not, they went through everything I had with me.  Because clearly  "Manager, Marketing" for a junior minerals exploration company is code for Drug Smugging Mule, yo. Coincidentally, chainsofchaos had been teasing me about getting up close and personal with a customs border guard, so it seemed heartily appropriate when, of all bottles, they decided to crack the 26 of Kahlua I had bought for him as a gift. *grin*

By 10:30 p.m. Customs had finally established to their satisfaction that no, I was not a drug mule, yes, the Kahlua really was just alcohol, and I was free to go. By now I'd been in and around airports for some 13 hours; it makes for a long day. I walked out of Customs and into the airport.

Dragon was there. Waiting for me.

He'd gotten in from Vegas an hour before, and he and his friends waited so he could welcome me home. So sweet. It's always a little sad to get home and have no one waiting for you. I remember years ago, when Cassa came to visit me in South Korea for three weeks and take me home, no one met us at the airport. That's right. She was newly-married and had been gone for three weeks. I had been away for 14 months. We flew for some 26 hours to meet... no one. We actually planned to separate in the Edmonton airport and then go running to greet each other when we landed, but after three cross-continental planes neither of us had the energy.

It's so nice to be welcomed home. Have someone hug you and hold you and tell you it's good to have you back. To feel missed.

And it is so nice to be home.

I am heading home tomorrow instead of Friday! Woo hoo!

Wow, have I missed my condo and my soft white bed, and my lovely soaker tub, and my sweet sweet motorcycle, and all my friends. It's good to be coming back.



Home



*smile*

Friday I knew I would be here another week. 

I was looking forward to heading home on the weekend, but we're still waiting on a few maps and a legal opinion and we can't work on either one until Monday. So, a free weekend.

You know, a voice whispered in my head .... you could fly to Vegas.

I've always wanted to. I was there for a day when I was seven --the year my parents took me to see the Grand Canyon and Disneyland-- but that doesn't really count.

And as luck would have it, this happened to be the same weekend BellaDawna was in Vegas for a mother-daughter combination birthday trip, and Dragon was there on a combination business/pleasure weekend.

Hm, I thought. I could surprise them. I've always been impulsive. And I love surprising people.

There were no flights left on Friday, so I headed out Saturday afternoon and left a message for BellaDawna that I was coming to Vegas for 24 hours. She met me at the Bellagio: the hotel is so beautiful it's like walking into art.  It has this amazing indoor garden with enormous displays that they change with the seasons. I walked around for 45 minutes drinking it in. Sometimes I'm so grateful I live in a world that values beauty.

           
   

BellaDawna met me there -- when we saw each other, we both shrieked and ran into each other full tilt to the amusement of everyone nearby. I got to meet her mom and the three of us watched the water fountains dance to Elton John and Andrea Bocelli, then wandered along the strip and got dinner.


 


BellaDawna had scored a free ticket to O, the Cirque de Soliel show at the Bellagio, so after dinner she got ready for that... and I got ready to surprise Dragon. I knew the club he was heading to that night so I contacted the owners via e-mail, told them about my impromptu trip and plan to surprise him, and arranged to get on the list. The look on his face when he saw me standing at the bar was perfect.

Vegas is like Disneyland for Grown-Ups. The tagline should be "Nevada: The DreamState". It's amazing: all glitter and sparkle and energy -- the party never ends, never sleeps, runs on adrenaline and flash and promises. I wish I'd had longer. I want to go again.


 
 

I snatched a few hours of broken sleep, went for breakfast with friends, drove along the strip to look at the front-faces of the hotels I'd missed the day before, and was back at the airport by 1:00 p.m. to return to Mexico.

Somewhere over the Sonora desert, exhaustion cored me out and left me hollow. Everything felt surreal. The Sierra Madre mountain range unfolded a thousand miles below, like a crumpled red blanket faded from being left too long in the sun.  I thought I saw an enormous dark lake beside one peak, but eventually realized it was just shadows pooling in the hollow of the mountain.

Pools of shadows... Pools of water. Could you sink into a shadow like a pool of water, if it were thick enough? Could you slip under and let its surface close over your head? I tried to imagine what a shadow would taste like if you could drink it in. What if somewhere, deep below the surface, all the shadows connect together like an underground river and you could drift from one shadowpool to the next?

I mused on this awhile; when I get very, very tired, my head drifts into a sort of semi-waking dreamstate and I can get lost for hours pondering things like this. I'm a dreamer. (But I'm not the only one.)

I drifted off. Just before we landed, I opened my eyes and saw a colony of vultures circling in the distance, flying round and round and round, high above the ground. I wondered what was down there. The grass was sunburned yellow and dotted with sagebrush, dusty mountains pressed against the sky in the distance.  It struck me for the first time that it's beautiful out here. Everything felt like a revelation.

It already feels a bit like a dream. Next time I go I want to stay longer, see Zumanity, go to the Playboy Club. I want to wear something tight and low and blow on dice at the craps tables. I want to stay awake all night, then drive out of the city and watch the sun rise over the desert with a bottle of champagne and someone next to me.

I love that I have the freedom to do impulsive things like this. I just realized on the weekend that I'm creating the grown-up life I always dreamed of, and it's wonderful. All I'm missing is someone with whom to share these things.

It will come. I will choose to keep believing that. (And thank you for your relentless optimism and calm certainty, angadeon. You rock.)

I am totally going to make a ball pit in my soaker tub; angadeon is making a squooshy snuggly pillow room.  Our plans for World Domination using the seductive forces of giggling and snuggling are almost complete! You will all be my fort-building, ball-surfing, pillow-snuggling minions! BWA HA HA HA HA!

I love being a grown up because it lets me be a kid again. I probably play more at 32 than I did at 10. It's great.

This reminds me of the day I ended up as the impromptu babysitter for a friend. You should have seen the look on her children's faces when I casually mentioned I had sidewalk chalk and bubble blowing liquid in the trunk of my car...  

"You're kind of like a kid, aren't you?" the oldest girl said at the end of the night.

Absolutely.