Back to blogging

Well, who would know that a brief break away from my blog would cause me to hear complaints from people via email, telephone, and even my mother with her pronouncement on the back steps of their house this weekend: "you have not updated your blog since Wednesday, June 13, 2007". It's not like nothing's been happening. It has. I've been living life so much there's no time to blog about it. Of course, there's always time but blogging, like so many things in life, is easier to do the more you do it, and easier not to do the longer you're away from it. And it's not like I haven't had stuff to rant about. I mean there's Paris getting out of jail and her sudden finding of God in there, there's the fact that Michael Moore got bumped from Larry King Live so they could have the first post-jail Paris interview., there's Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence for perjury and much, much more. As for what I've been up to , nothing as exciting as being in jail but I have been busy. My Mom and Dad and Aunt Jackie were here for a few days, I was in Eastport for the Writers Guild writers retreat, and then last weekend we went home for the weekend.

Eastport was wonderful. It is such a relaxing place and we had a lovely house rented there. By "we" I mean five of the six of the Strident Women. We loaded up a van and all five of us drove out there together, stayed together all weekend (from Friday noontime to Monday evening when we got back). We talked about everything-- including stuff like religion, sexuality, gender-issues, abortion, politics--we played Trivial Pursuit, stayed up until at least 2:30 every night and got up again pretty early each morning, wrote, walked, read, laughed--oh my did we laugh, forced each other to listen to the music we loved and felt everyone else should love too, went to the pot luck and evening workshops of the Guild, ate, drank, and slept. We didn't argue about one thing. Even who got what room was a shrug and "okay" kind of thing where no one cared as long as they were there at Eastport. I still think that the fact that I got out of Lori's van on Monday evening, still as interested in being in the presence of these women as I was when we left on Friday, is quite an extraordinary thing. Any close quarters with people for such a period of time would usually cause some animosity, someone is anal about something or wants to be in control of the group or is horrified about someone's opinion about those controversial issues we discussed, or someone has an annoying habit that drives you nuts. But that didn't happen and we still all got along fine. I don't think I could be with my husband and son that long with no TV and not be annoyed with them for something. It was odd how we could all get up, arrange some kind of breakfast, gab for a while and then just, as a group but completely separate, sit down and write. Everyone quiet and then, after a time, we'd all gather together again and gab a while more and maybe go to Tellum & Things Café for a coffee, and then all just quiet down again and write. Someone would go for a walk or I would listen to my MP3 player but it was all so seamless. Never a hiccup (unless I caused the hiccup and didn't know it). I think it was, in part, the writing. The fact that you could say, while everyone else was waiting to go somewhere, "I just need to finish this section" and it was accepted. If you were staring off in space, it was understood that you were mulling a story or character or maybe just off somewhere else in your head and that was fine. No explanation was even necessary. Plus, the ladies are an accepting, understanding, open-minded bunch with nary a control freak amongst us, at least not that weekend. So I hope to do this again with these ladies. I look forward to it.

The next time I go to Eastport will be a more stressful time, I know. I'll be on the New Voices panel at the Winterset in Summer Literary Festival and will be frightened to death, at least until my panel is over. Then I can relax. But I still look forward to going. Besides the huge honour of being part of the festival, I get to go to Eastport again, a truly beautiful and relaxing spot I could totally see myself living much of the year.

And this past weekend we went out home, also a truly beautiful and relaxing spot. We had a gorgeous day at the cabin down on White Point on Saturday afternoon and the skies lit up with lightning that night for a little pre-Canada Day fireworks. As usual, Mom and Dad let Vince and I sleep in and they looked after Sam. He has such fun out there.

And then last night we went out to supper to celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday (Happy Birthday, Janice). Lot of stuff in between these main events, of course, but I think you're caught up on the big stuff now, at least the stuff I'm willing to share. I'll resume regular blogging soon enough. But it is summer and one has to enjoy summer, even if the weather makes it feel more like fall.