It's raining again

In constant fear that my internal organs are going to start tumbling out through my jitch, I’ve revived The Kegel Pole-ka^TM exercise regime.¹ You'll recall this involves a fair bit of walking, so I wisely decided to start yesterday, which happened to be the hottest, sunniest day we’ve seen for what seems like forever.² I walked pretty far in bad shoes, sweating and turning a bright and melty shade of red that had my satellite-office³ employees diving for the phone to call 911 when I arrived there looking all heart-attacky-ish.

So today I was working at Mount Saint Vincent University. (Note the name.) I didn’t have the car and had printed off a bunch of bus schedules so I could take the bus home. Unfortunately, in my printing frenzy I forgot to bring money or tickets for the bus, so I set out to track down some change. It was after 5 pm, and it’s summer, so the only thing open in the Seton Academic Centre complex was the library.

“Is there a bank machine here or would I have to got up to Rosaria?” I asked the friendly librarian, who must have been bored stiff and miserably lonely because she jumped up and ran towards me as soon as I opened the library door.

“I’m sorry, you’d have to go up to Rosaria.”

Rosaria is behind the library. It takes about three minutes to get there. But it’s up a hill. A steep hill. (This is where you recall the university’s name. The MOUNT.⁴) And there’re A LOT of crows there that time of day.⁵

So instead, in my infinite and ever-surprising wisdom, I opted to take the half-hour walk to the grocery store instead. In the rain.⁶ Actually it was more of a drizzle – one where an umbrella won’t even help⁷ because the drops don’t fall down, they just sort of hover and slide around through the air, making them impossible to escape. If you’re stunned enough to venture outside. Which I clearly am.⁸

Do you know what was going through my head as I walked? Yep, you guessed it: the theme music from Sex And The City. It’s not that I think I’m anything like Carrie Bradshaw (I wish), but it sure makes the walk more fun if you strut a little and pretend like you don’t know the bus with your picture on the side is about to come along and splash mucky water all over you and your pink-leotard-and-tutu dress.⁹

So I’m prancing (yes, prancing) down the Bedford Highway during rush hour, and it’s not the most picturesque sight – the railroad tracks on the left mar the view of Halifax Harbour and giant concrete retaining walls flank me on the right. But then I see this:

Here it is up close:

That’s right. It’s raining rose petals.

Be open to the happy, my friends. It’s out there – rain or shine.

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1. I’m also concerned that if I don’t start losing some weight, I’m going to need a new postal code now that Canada Post is back in action.

2. It’s been raining incessantly here for the past few months. We all have Seasonal Affective Disorder and want to kill each other. I’ve even taken to sniping at strangers on other people’s blogs and FaceBook about the stupidest things. I haven’t been this bitchy since I made a girl cry in Grade 10 debating. The topic was “smoking in bingo halls.” I have no idea if our team was pro or con. All that matters is that we won, bitches.

3. Starbucks.

4. Please – no nun sex jokes, k?

5. Like, thousands. No joke.

6. Did I mention that the hot sunny weather was short-lived? Mother Nature has a serious hate-on for us right now. I blame the NDP.

7. Not that I had the fucking foresight to bring an umbrella, of course.

8. By the time I reached Superstore, my hair had frizzed to such a size that I couldn't fit through the door.

9. Sorry – that’s the SAD seeping in.

WTF was I thinking?

More advice for you, my friends.

Say you receive an e-mail that says something like this: “So-and-so’s going to call and ask you to do something. Please say yes.”

My advice?

Run the other way.

For reasons I’m still trying to suss out, I did say yes when the call from so-and-so eventually came. And now my leg has a repetitive stress injury from continuously kicking my own arse over my own sheer stupidity.

What in the effin’ jay was I thinking?

Part of it was that, like many women, I have trouble saying no and an inexplicable need to help and/or please people.¹ All the time. Part of it was that I was flattered to be asked.

Ahhh, yes—pride. We all know what that comes before.

What I foolishly accepted was an invitation to be part of a panel of speakers at one of my almae matres, Mount Saint Vincent University. They are celebrating writing next week and asked me to be on the “Writers Talk Publishing” panel. Which is rather frigging hilarious when you consider that I am completely and utterly unpublished. Absurdly so. (Perhaps because I use too many adverbs? But I digress. Predictably.)

The line-up for the day includes Alexander MacLeod (yes, that Alexander MacLeod), Crystal Garrett and Chris Benjamin on the morning panel (“Writers Talk Writing”); uber-author-extraordinaire Sheree Fitch as the keynote speaker; and Jon Tattrie and Jan Morrison on “my” panel in the afternoon.
Well cluck, cluck!² Look at Miss Fancy Pants on the fancy panel! I’ll fit right in, right?

F*cking idiot.

You see, what all of these other people (with one exception³) have in common is that they are published authors. Some ridiculously prolifically so.⁵

Apparently, someone⁶ thought I could add to this discussion amongst these distinguished and accomplished people because I’m flailingly submerged in the lengthy, soul-wracking, ice-pick-to-the-brain process of trying to get published. I’m in the research phase—sorting out the mysterious and sick and twisted labyrinth⁸ that is the publishing world.

There’s just so much information out there. Of course, the same could be said for anything these days—everything is on the information-overload highway somewhere, so there’s no excuse anymore for not being able to find out about any conceivable topic. “I didn’t know” just doesn’t cut it. Read publisher websites. Read agent blogs. Read author websites and blogs. Learn how to fix your plot, your characters, your dialogue, your jitch—whatever. It’s all “out there.” In overwhelmingly choking detail.

So, WTF can I possibly bring these people that they haven’t already found out for themselves or heard from one of my learned and published co-panellists?

Ummmm... Comic relief?

OK. So I’ll try to bring the funny.

Wish me luck—I’m gonna bloody well need it.

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1. Hubby says WHAT?!?!? Where’s the line for that?

2. Props to my sister and her crazy friends for one of my favourite phrases ever.

3. I don’t think Crystal Garrett has a book published, but she’s a professor at Kings and the Mount, a broadcaster whose work has appeared on CNN, and she’s represented Canada internationally as a long-distance runner. Show off.⁴

4. Just kidding! About the show-off part. Yah. Kidding.

5. Adverb theme! Adverb theme!

6. ..who shall remain nameless here but is emblazoned permanently on my brain in the radically overdeveloped “revenge” compartment...⁷

7. Just kidding! About the dish best served cold. Yah. Kidding.

8. Polysyndeton, just for someone.