I don't want to go

When I was 10, I started a list of items I would take on car trips and taped it to the back of my door. I got to 60 items easily by including each object separately - socks, underwear, toothbrush, etc. but eventually I had to think extremely hard to find new items - binoculars, folding chair, maps, string, etc. The list grew and grew until I was at 300 items. I would close my door and stare at the list for an hour, trying to think of something new. In my mind, I was a pioneer heading out on the plains for a 3-month trek, and I would need all the tape, glue, and sparkles I could find. My bags were crammed with enough useless materials to recreate every episode of Inspector Gadget with authenticity.

I never used everything I brought, but I felt compelled by some force , some sense of creative survival, to lug all those objects. Just in case Leonardo da Vinci sprung into my mind with a new invention, I needed to be prepared. I needed mirrors, in case I felt like writing mirrored style. I needed 14 different kinds of pencils for sketching. But it was also for a fantasy of packing up with everything I owned and in that nest of ideas, that familiar context, seeing the world anew. I had to have everything I owned with me, just in case I found a new picture of the world and could rid myself of the old immediately.

Things have changed. Instead of the trip, I'm now moving. Bringing everything that matters to me makes a little more sense. And I'm sure my list exceeded 300 items (not included: binoculars, string, sparkles).

I made a sign for the back of our mini van, the back tires of which are already half deflated from all the weight. The sign reads, Just Moved.

May we have a happy moving.

Crack raisins

I realized the extent of my addiction to Shopper's Drug Mart chocolate covered raisins today, when I rounded the corner of aisle 4 to find chocolate covered almonds and chocolate covered peanuts flanking a very empty row where my chocolate covered raisins should have been. This isn't possible, I thought, they must have some in the back. When I asked the young woman at the counter to check for me, her attitude was not, "Yes, miss, I shall check this instant" but rather, "who is this lady, and why do her chocolate raisins mean so much to her that she must have them right away?"

I was asking myself the same question.

I was asking myself, Laura, if you met yourself right now, what would you think of yourself? Do you realize that you spend as much money on chocolate covered raisins as some people spend on cigarettes? A pack a day my friends, that is what it's come to.

Chilling self-reflection aside, I did not get my raisins, and was forced to stop at Extra Foods, whose chocolate raisins are cheaper, but not as good. I am a connoisseur. Neither Safeway, nor Extra Foods, nor the organics brand, are as good as my Life brand chocolate raisins. Nothing will compare, so don't even try to convince me. It's like trying to convince someone addicted to Players to try Gauloise.

But I am willing to share - if you're a friend. Although before I pass the bag to you, I may pop a couple handfuls into my mouth and let them dissolve into a sugary mess while you do the talking. I want to feel the sugar buzz relaxing my nerves before we get any further.

I would go to bed but I'm still shivering, WAM!

I arrived at Diefenbaker park at 4 pm. The wind was so cold, the guy beside me in the literary tent was making the table wobble with his elbow. Put on your hood! I scolded, as I shoved my hands further into my armpits.

Yann told us to do a writing exercise and then left the tent to stand in the sun with his arms held into the air like a prophet hailing the creator.

Nine hours later, and I'm wondering what my ancestors did. Did they stay by the fire the whole time? I suppose their clothing was better. They probably wore mitts. Nevermind that it's August. They were more prepared than I.

I find that eating high-fat foods is not as efficient as burning high-fat foods and warming your hands against them. Not that I did this, but frankly I should have. I was security! Who was going to stop me!

Well, the cops, presumably. Or the "commissionaires," 90-year-old men they dropped off at 11 pm presumably as traffic obstacles. How else would they tame the fray?

Horse Races at Marquis were well underway by the time I started directing traffic at the festival entrance. Directing traffic was fun, as I got to re-direct those heading to the race track and give them uninformed advice on who to bet on. Everyone bowed to my authority. Besides that I got to make lots of hand movements, and ask cops for their license and registration. I would have asked them to please step out and walk this line if they hadn't blazed past me so fast. Those cops!

Tomorrow is supposed to be warm, but I'm bringing a toque. Despite the warmth, I'll need it as I nurse a fledgling case of pneumonia.

Concession

Dear Yann Martel,

I understand you didn't pick my story in the WAM fiction contest. I just wanted to let you know that I feel okay about it and am not going to hang myself like I said I would.

Laura

When your little brother throws a party...

Rope some steers!

Montage

On Friday the smoke alarm woke my brother and I up at three in the morning. Even the deaf dog heard it. It seemed to be telling us something.

"Go watch the opening games, you sleepy fools! Go!"

I felt like I had just recovered from a KO in a boxing match, and there was no question of staying awake. "What if it's Carbon Monoxide?" My sleepy hypochondriac brain screamed as I hugged my sheets. "Maybe it is..." my sleep-loving brain mused as I fell once again into dreamland. At 5 a.m. the smoke alarm went off again, this time alerting us to what he didn't know at the time - that Georgia had sent tanks into South Ossetia and hundreds were about to die.

We ignored it and returned to bed, crossing our fingers it would not go off any more.

But my sleep has continued to be disturbed by other things. Last night, I dreamt I was being chased by a man with a knife who I knew was going to kill me once he caught me. There were no "ifs" - I knew it was only a matter of time. According to a Google search, being-chased dreams (which are very common, I might add) point to unresolved conflicts and overall anxiety. Reading over the passages I wrote for The Book, I realized that the protagonist's thoughts are suspiciously like my own. Hmmm. Although I haven't exactly been feeling like an orphan with super-powers trapped in an oasis garden and given Martial Arts training. Or have I?

I've finished my 10,000 words of the book. It's frightening how quickly you can write 20 pages when you write two pages a day (Did you do the math? I just did.)

Now the battle is to make the book seem as though one person wrote it (which will take more than martial arts, let me tell you). We have to come up with a name for this combined author too. A compilation of our names won't make the cut, although I'll continue to fight for it. As my colleague Brennan suggested, Seaura Frattichgraw, anyone?

Back to the present, Diet Coke and beer does not make a bad combination.

Did I mention this post was a montage?

Montage is another way of saying: hey folks, my brain's a mess. Here's a painting I made.

2.5 weeks until I deliver this mess to Ottawa. Not in the delivering a baby sense - although according to one website about chase dreams, the dream is an episode hailing back to your own birth.

I'm pretty sure I was doped up when I was born, so that might make sense. The doctor probably WAS a monster with a knife. It all makes so much sense.

One of the triggers of this nightmare (other than the anxiety) was probably a story I read by Yann Martel called, "Manners of Dying." The story is a series of form letters from the warden of a prison to the mother of a young man executed by hanging. Each letter is slightly different, but each describes the last 12 hours of the young man, as though the warden was trying to figure out which version would give the mother the most closure and peace.

The trigger may have also been Buffy the Vampire slayer. They were trying to kill me with something that could have been a wooden stake.

So apparently Diet Coke will separate when added to beer. I've been drinking in the dark you see.

I've forgotten everything else I wanted to say.

Snake eyes

The Saskatoon Forestry Farm calls all bounty hunters.

They have a partial license plate and a missing Royal Python.

Somebody stole the snake. Though the snake is tame and probably not dangerous, which is too bad in terms of leveling Karma.

I hope it wasn't the homeless kids I chatted with down by the river the other day. I can't imagine roast Cobra being any good. The wishbone will be the venom sac, and sleepy time fullness will be eternal.

Who knows how many people in Saskatchewan are determined to make their properties oases for ex-southern hemisphere animals. The Touracos were not the extent of it, it's sad to realize. I just hope the robbers know that releasing the snake to pasture has an expiry date rolling in fast. Winters here are not any snake's dream. Unless, of course, the snake is being fed live crickets or gopher carcasses in a heated barn.

Note to readers: stealing snakes is not a good afternoon activity!

How long will it last?

I had some gin yesterday for the first time in a few weeks. I was immediately transported to the last time I uncapped the bottle: I was removing a tick from the dog.

Wonderful. Now I associate my favourite beverage with a bloated orange tick. I wonder how long it will last.

I should have used scotch. I hate scotch. But that's why I didn't have any around. It's a if-you're-a-man-born-in-the-forties drink. This is why I probably sold more scotch tonight than I made in wages at the 50th wedding anniversary I worked. There is nothing more disgusting than a double scotch on the rocks.

I wouldn't have minded pouring it so much if I'd at least made some tips. There were no tips to be had; everyone paid with tickets.

Later, I got yelled at for not doing, and then doing the identical task by different supervisers. I really wished they talked to each other.

One superviser sided up to me later in a genial way and told me a story about a Swiss-German woman who didn't know the word for getting old in French so she made up a new word. He thought this was a great joke that would mend any hard feelings between us. The problem was instead of laughing I looked at him dumbly and asked him to repeat the word she had made up. "What does that mean?" He stopped chuckling. "I means nothing at all!"

I was dumbfounded and forgave him for his erratic behaviour.

I have not forgiven the tick, though. But I better get busy with re-association.