preposterous transitions

Winter Shenanigans: Potlucks, Murakami and Hitchcock

Ah, man, since I became a working stiff there is just never enough time in the day. I never take pictures, never write about what's happening. And this site used to be such an important part of my routine!

Cold this morning and it's been a strange winter of mild temperatures with occasional bursts of bitter cold. Today was a perfect morning: I woke up at 7, made coffee, grabbed two donuts and crawled back into bed with both and read the news and my Google feed all morning. Now it's pushing 10.30 which means it's high time I get up!

Just finishing up a very stressful five weeks back at work since the holiday break and only now the last few days have I started sleeping properly again. Why when I am stressed does sleep just become impossible? I dream about work, wake up at 3am thinking about something I should have done or may have forgotten. Sometimes it's just a "good idea" which occurs to me and robs me of my precious beauty sleep!

M is off to Tokyo in a few weeks for three entire weeks, the first time he's been in Japan since November of 2007! He is so happy about but man it's going to be weird to come home every evening for three weeks and not have him here.

No real plans this weekend. Taxes, ugh. Maybe a bit of reading. Been slowly working through Murakami's 1Q84 which I've been dipping in and out of. Finished with book one but I should try and read book 2 this next week now that things at work have calmed down somewhat. At the same time, M's reading the version in Japanese so we've had a few chances to talk about it which has been interesting since we never read the same books or even types of books. A few months back he found a Japanese copy of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood and I was thinking I'd re-read it at the same time for another Japanese/English literary book club chez nous.

Spent the evening last night at Marie's place, chatting with her, drinking some beer, and playing with Mags. She adores the dog and always asks if he can stay over but when M's working (as he was last night), I want him around! Anyway, it was nice, walking home at almost 10, a bit buzzed from the beer and dancing around the living room with them both.

Today I think I am going to go see an Alfred Hitchcock film at Cinema du Parc. M has something to do on the West Island this evening. I have a potluck for tonight but I could probably even squeeze in a movie or two and then still have time to make an appearance at the potluck.

So that's it. Not much else going on. Just happy that a very busy period at work is over for now. Smooth sailing for the rest of my life!

 

My Latest Occasional Update

Nothing much that's new, really: work is good. I have these moments of total stress but then a friend told me the other day that when he feels stressed out, he remembers that it's HIS fault and not his job's fault that he's stressed. That he has the power to either be stressed or not be stressed. For some reason this really hit a nerve and I've been actively trying to let it all go. It has worked decently, too. I still have my moments (I dream about work constantly) but if I can I just take a deep breath and force myself to think about something else! I blog for work on this site.

Warm fall this year: it's been in the low teens the last few days. Mid November! Crazy. Not complaining because the shorter winter is, the better. But I imagine it'll stop any time and we'll  have snow.

Since the time change, I've been getting up at six, ostensibly to go to the gym though only actually manage to make it there twice a week or so. But it's nice having a long leisurely morning without rushing around (since I don't usually need to be in my office until 9).

A friend in town this week for a conference, someone I was once very close to. We would spend days together because I was living downtown (in Guangzhou) and she was working at my school and lived way out in the suburbs, so she'd stay at my place. We'd stay up late watching Ally McBeal or The Practice on Hong Kong tv, cook dinner together many nights a week, go out to clubs in the city. But then we both left China and despite having been super close for almost a year, we've exchanged probably 7 emails or letters in the last 10 years. It'll be interesting to see if things just pick up where we left them or if time has changed us too much...

Not much traveling though I do get to Ottawa and Toronto quite a bit (and New York, too). Still tossing around a few ideas for summer 2012 but work feels like too much planning already so it's hard for me to do anything but think  briefly about the summer (which I should have off). Maybe France. Maybe Asia. Not sure yet.

Pete's hair all grew back. Cooper is almost full grown now and still a ton of energy but less naughty than he was as a puppy so I hardly ever have to yell at him (though I did last night for digging in the plants). He's fun and LOVES everyone...

So that's it. The last year my life has been about work. Hopefully not forever!

 

Sayonara, Tokyo, Latin America and my so called career....

Dinner last night for our friend who is leaving in 10 days back to Tokyo. Man, I can't believe how upset I am about it. We are going to miss her so much, especially Masa who talks to her almost every day. We saw some people we've not seen in several months, reminisced, laughed, and drank wine. A usual event, but tinged with nostalgia, knowing that it was most likely the last time. Damn. As we left the apartment, the snow was coming down  in gusts, cars sliding up and down Sherbrooke. In the taxi going home, it struck me how grounded and rooted we are here, despite one of our closest friends leaving. We could go to Japan for a while, take a leave of absence from work, get out of Quebec for a few months. But we'd always come back here. Though I love Tokyo (and would love to spend some time there in the next few years), it's not our home anymore. It's far away. I don't even think Masa would want to move back if we had the chance (though I could be wrong about that), despite the fact that it's where he's from. Maybe Yuko being back would make it more appealing but Tokyo is...well...it's hard to imagine having the same quality of life there that we have here. 

We are happy for our friend who has found a great job. And losing friends is a part of life. But we're sad...

Hoping that things at work calm down a little after last week when we had a big deadline. It'll still be busy, naturally, until the Festival in April, but hopefully things will get a bit more manageable now. It's nearly too much and working all weekend doesn't help. Had a few super tense days last week with fussy writers and pushy editors and academics with no social skills. But I got through them. And made the deadline. And a few new projects for later this year and early next are kind of exciting.

Been reading the last of Stieg Larsson's Millenium, The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest which I find tedious and impossible. He really is not a good writer, in most ways, despite his books being popular. Yes, the first two were entertaining but his characters are all so flat and predictable, even Lisbeth Salander. And this third one is full of all this Swedish government intrigue that is more yawn-inducing than intriguing. I don't care about 70s Swedish cold war politics and some obscure conspiracy that involved no one outside Sweden. I'm halfway through the book now and reading it now is starting to feel like work. Not a good sign.

So C&I are off to South America this week for 7 weeks. With a 6 month old baby. I admire them. And how fun. They have this great trip planned, time away during this cold (there is so much snow out there right now), a chance to do something new. And I don't see us doing anything like that in the near future. Sigh. It's OK. I would like to go back to Argentina but now my focus seems to be my job and for a few years, that's OK, especially if it'll open other doors for me down the road. I'm not terribly ambitious but I do have a specific vision for the work I want to be doing in five years (and, more importantly, the fact that I don't want my job to be my life as it is right now).  It's funny because for all of my 20s and most of my 30s, traveling was a major focus of my life and interests. And now it's not. I still love to travel and there are still places I really want to go. But I have other concerns now and I feel strongly that traveling will pop back up onto my radar in a few years. Now my focus is my career. Meh. I hate typing that sentence because it makes me seem all smarmy and obsessed with money. And that's not it at all. But I do want to have a certain level of financial security and have a job that I enjoy and where I feel valued. Ideally, it'll be working from home but doing something that is not so mind-numbing as what I was doing before. Anyway, we'll see. In the meantime, with Yuko leaving, C&I in Argentina and Chile for the next two months, 70% of our social life is now gone! 

Good thing I am busy with work until May...

E-book Readers, Christmas, and my so-called vacation

I`m a big fan of the book, the paper book I mean. But for my birthday, M broke down and got me a Kobo book reader. I did some shopping around earlier this month and this one seemed like the best one. The iPad at $600 is too much to just read books. I realize it does a lot more than that, but I don`t need an iPad and can`t really work on it to any large degree. So that seems out. The Kindle can only read Amazon books which is annoying. And Kobo is small and easy to use. Apparently it`s been a great success for Chapters/Indigo (Canadian book chain) so more and more newspapers & magazines (plus books of course) are being made available each month.

They are sold out of it so mine won't arrive until mid January. Something to look forward to.

Six days into my Christmas break and while I am getting some stuff done, I am not nearly as productive as I should be. I am doing a project for a UK publisher due at the end of January but it's hard to work on it when I am going into the office every day but having a hard time focusing. Out of 22 pieces I am writing, I have completed one. Sigh. I still have five or six more days of vacation left so now is the time to step up! 

In addition, I have two book reviews to write. One book is seriously slow going...this is going to be a trick.

And then I have two other companies asking me to do project work for them. I keep saying NO but then they ask if I can just do like 10 hours a month. And it's hard for me to say NO. But I think I have to. I have two emails sitting in my inbox now with detailed questions that normally I would answer with the expectation that the questions will turn into long-term projects. But now those emails just sit there and I can't even be bothered to respond (after saying NO repeatedly).

Christmas was nice. We had a great dinner with some good friends. I made a ham, soup and we just stayed up late drinking, eating, laughing, watching "The Princess Bride" and "Airplane!" Not very Christmas-y movies but the point was just to hang out and have a good evening. That it was.

Then Monday night and last night we had dinners to go to, seeing other friends who we haven't seen in a while. 

And in two more days, my 40th birthday. Big party and dinner at K&Y's house. I still can't get my head around the fact that I am going to be 40! I'm cool with it (some of my friends, I think, expect that I am going to have a breakdown but I feel great about it): what will the next 10 years hold?!