so, surprise, i’m in california. i hardly had time to mention that i was coming, let alone to be here, but there you go. about a month ago i got my first ever paycheck for writing, and i’d promised my friends Jess and Joe that as soon as that happened I’d come visit.
they are an incredibly dear couple but the sense of obligation that got me here (kicking and screaming and not delighted at all of course) pre-dates Jess+Joe. Jess has been travelling for work since she was eighteen (7 years ago) and i’ve been trying to visit since then. cash is always tight, timing is always bad, but eventually you’ve got to know when to have follow-through. i promised, so i came. and so now i’m on vacation.

their house in in laurel canyon, up the hill from west hollywood. the natural environment is just how i remember it from being here in california as a kid- sweet air, cool breezes, hot sun, dry ground and incredible seething plat life- but this is a whole new hood. I walked up to mulholland drive today and then hiked into the san fernando valley. i’ll get some pictures up later.

the houses that edge up on laurel pass and mulhulland are either low lying, stretching back beyond what you can see from the road, or they have their bums pushed up against the sharp incline of the canyon and are treehouse-like, standing on stilts. Many have signs that warn of armed patrols, and the enormous cacti spiralling hard and sharp and garish out of lawns and hillsides increase the feeling you get that you are treading close to elaborate, unseen defenses.

There are other signs warning drivers to go slow, watch for children, watch the road, but no one heeds them. Everyone goes barrelling straight up the winding roads as though this thrust of exhaust and gunning noise is the only way to keep pace with the wealth around here. The way these fine old houses cling to the hillside moans and whispers something of this same feeling of intensity- like in any naturally lovely place where humans have staked their extravagant and messy claims, there is a subtle sense of strain. But this all begins to fade as you turn onto the narrow dustry path that sways down into the canyon.

more later, the kids just got home with lunch
r

we had a little at-home pre-launch premiere last night for our brand new website- indyish.com. we set up a a couple of laptops and outputted el’s main computer to the big tv we recently inherited from him mum.
it was awesome and chill and i like to imagine that someday people will wonder who was there at the first indyish at home. we had cookies from cocoa locale, which were awesomely good, and wine donated by my sweet fam.

we got to hang out with folks in a pretty good one on one style and get tons of feedback on the way they would try and navigate the site. it’s fascinating to watch someone hit up against things that make sense to elran’s brain. because once they understand what it’s doing, they get good at using the site quite quickly. there’s an order there even if it’s not the order you were expecting. there’s also tons of tricky stuff we’re going to need to fix, and last night talking with people definitely inspired some big and good ideas for how our baby can grow.

i think my next milestones for ‘er now are :
make fad page a blog.
make ed picks a blog.
sell some ads to get liquid a bit.
throw a ginormous party.

This is just a list of some of the greatest books ever. They are at this place in the layers of stuff accumulating in my brain that’s linked to an age where I was thinking about so many things for the very first time. Or, if I read them later, they’re linked to the piece of me that’s still that age. When I reread these books part of me is able to see the strangeness that’s in the world before habit builds up sets, costumes and props and drapes the known world in them. And it’s strange how they are all profoundly sad.

I’m going to write something about each one of these eventually, and I’ll probably keep on adding to list, but here it is for now.

1: Bridge to Terebithia
2: The Trumpeter Swan
3: Dr.Dolittle
4:The Golden Compass
5: Haroun and the Sea of Stories
6: The Fledgling
7: Charlotte’s Web
8: Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe Series- all of them, but especially Voyage of the Dawn Treader
9. Harry Potter

more…

The pressing need for software
only happens to come to you
as you are approaching
the swell
of a new project or a
new stage. Time gets quicker
as the complexity of thoughts and looming tasks adds up.
At this point your mind begins to divide, or to slip more quickly
back and forth between perspectives: you are the delicately balanced master of your own destiny,
charting an exhilarating course through the moment you are making; and you are also
cascading dangerously, losing possibilties at quick increments.
So the next time the wave comes, you quickly assemble the best of your tools and abilities
to try and make a better showing out there in the public wash and spray.
This is the endless repetition,
the pulse
of all invention.
The story of everything new.
It’s press and swell and need followed by
the catharsis
of creation, and if you can keep your eyes open and learn to ride
the feeling will be beautiful.

el and I obviously spend some time blogging, and we often hit up against the old blogger’s block. (and yes i’m embracing the usage of the word blog. we can’t just laugh in a superior and vague way whenever the word is mentionned forever, ok montreal?) The RSS reader is very useful for its ability to keep you closer to up to date, and for helping you seek out those new perspectives that add dimension to your brain, and you can read all about what they are and which ones are good if you like, but my word to the wise is this: an inundation of information does not a good blogger make.

It’s tempting to digg deep into your rss reader for a news item to blog about. But the thing is, you never produce a nice piece when you do this. You produce a hurried piece, because you feel how quickly news is moving through your reader; or a weightless piece, because you basically quoted and regurgitated what people said before. In either case, the problem started when you decided to start writing a post by looking out into the world. Instead, what I find seems to work best is to start out by looking at what is already, though you may not have had time to notice it, taking space up inside your head.

Today my little visit counter thingy with the flags is only showing love from China. And the visits are all coming from almost the exact same IP addresses. Part of me really really believes that these are just an awesome gang of Chinese Risa fans. That I have struck some chord with some tiny percentage of the folks over there and now they stream happily over here to check out my goods. Daily. Like 10 times a day.

Are you lonely out there China? Do you wish we could be friends? Are you waiting for me to do something really cool and hilarious, or do you think I have some wicked secret and that I’m holding out on you? Do you love reading my thesis, or maybe my lists of stuff?

Or, as another small part of me with a forrowed brow likes to think, are you in fact some robot-hacker-cloner-worms?

I’m thinking that the story will be told more from Emilie’s perspective as it develops. There will still be portions of the story told from her parents’ perspective- i think the parents will be more developed characters then they sometimes are in young adult fiction. There are some things these parents are trying to protect Emlie from, and from her perspective it makes the world seem shadowier and more mysterious. Gaelle (mum) just gets evasive and vague, but John (dad) becomes a very imaginative storyteller. He makes everything around them like a fairytale, and so Emilie sees the world like that for a while. The lion statues on the mountain flicker from the corner of her eyes and she imagines them stalking the paths at night with the moonlight on their cement hides.

Gaelle met John when she was twenty-five working as a secretary at a telemarketing firm. For one week he smiled at her in the mornings on his way into the cold, cubicled call center. Then, on Monday, he spent twenty minutes talking to her with his back to the clock and his eyes never leaving her face. Inside she twisted thinking she should tell him how late it was. Finally she said: “I’m sorry, but you have to go in, you’re going to be, I mean you’re already late.” And the phone on her desk started to ring. “It doesn’t matter” he said “This place, what they do here sucks, and I’m awful at it, I don’t think I’ll ever make money doing this.” He took a big breath and said “I quit last week.” The phone rang again and he blushed but didn’t look away. And neither did she, you know, when she said “Well. Then let’s not waste anymore time here. On y vas.” And they just walked out like that, laughing. John and Gaelle have a baby now. Even in this old world some things are brand new.

***

Gaelle walks up St. Laurent slowly despite the cold. The bakery where she works will only open in another twenty minutes. She’s not supposed to get there early, Miguel doesn’t allow loitering in front of his place. It is not good to draw attention. Of course, it is also unacceptable for her to be late. She has survived at this job for almost 3 years only because of her ability to understand the rules and subtle tensions packed inside the small hot room. When the door opens at the back of the bakery, the door half hidden by the giant ovens, she never lifts her eyes. She’s never glanced inside. She is entirely non-threatening. In fact, she’s pretty sure Miguel and his wife Helena think she’s slow.

more…

Public opinion for Innis is best defined by the great pains he took to make it known that his own ideas about public opinion were, by definition, distorted: “since the student is so completely influenced by the phenomena he describes. Objectivity may be improved by considering (public opinion’s) development over a long time but even a description of this character must register the results of an astigma adjusted to present environment.” 1 This is the defining feature of public opinion: it is made up of individuals who are subject to bias.
Public opinion is at the foundation of government and changes in government, and so Innis wonders how balanced systems come about. He traces incredible histories, doing his best to shift through and stitch together unbelievable stretches of time, seeking an understanding of how public opinion becomes oriented toward balance, equality, and creativity or toward violent control. “As force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and military of governments as well as to the most free and popular.”2
All states are related by the fact of their existence over time to some kind of acceptance of them by the public. So Innis questions the conditions of that acceptance.
more…

hhmmmm. grumble. so, i’m stoked to have a writing job, and there are millions of other jobs out there that i’m glad i’m not doing, but i still feel grumbly about it all today. I called my first five businesses to profile this morning, and everyone was too busy to talk- which is fine, i made appointments- and one guy was flat out rude. snippity, pompous lackey-type who’s been left in charge and is stressed out and kind of power tripping. poor dude. it was tough to get him to understand that i wasn’t trying to sell him anything. people are understandably wary, given that at least 70% of the people who call a business are trying to sell them something. dealing with this is not the biggest deal, though. the truly stressful part is mentally preparing to interview people in my second language.

Thinking in another language hurts your brain- hopefully only until you get used to it again. I used to be so good in French. Back when I was working in retail and had to flip back and forth between the two tongues all day long, I knew all the right words and could joke and communicate and get useful information out of people. Now, not three years later, I feel like I have heaps and stacks of english communications/academic-specific lingo in the way, gumming up the works. I translate my questions into french to ask them, then translate their answers back into english to write the little article. i know this will get easier, but today it feels like gymnastics, and i am not particularly known for my coordination.

when i take a breath and think rationally, i’m quite glad, of course, to be able to speak these two lovely languages, and thankful that I get paid to make use of this hard-earned ability. Multi-lingualism is a feature of life here in Montreal, but not to the degree it is in many other places of the world. People who live in places where more cultures have attempted to coexist in closer proximity learn to speak five or six different languages while they are growing up. And I wonder if they always feel that one is their ‘Mother tongue’? I wonder whether polylinguists settle into one homey language that feels closer to their thoughts and feelings and selves then any other?

more…

So, I’ve got a job, actually, 2 jobs, I think, but fortunately I’ve managed to steer clear of much adult-hood still bc these jobs are not the buckle-down and be professional every day sort. I’m a freelancer and a substitute teacher. Freee as a birdd. The freelancing gig involves calling up business owners, interviewing them a bit about their business, then writing a 250 word profile for the Montrealplus website. So basically, I don’t have to leave my house if I don’t want to. I do have to speak in French a lot, but I have been quite good at that in the past, and have had no problems, aside from nerves, in doing it so far, and I’ve done two of these profiles already. So- good for the old bilingual in me, plus it pays 25 bucks a pop, and I can usually do them in under an hour.

And then, just when I was thinking, “man, all those work-type clothes which I bought in abeyance to the ‘built it they will come’ philosophy did the trick, got the job to come, but turns out I don’t need them for it, crap.” I get this phone call from the principle of the high school where I submitted my resume to sub.

Ok. I admit it. It’s my old high school. But I’m not going to regress into a sticky-sweet nostaligic bubble of grossness, I swear. I just think sub-ing is kind of an ideal job for a writer: it’s unsteady (just like a writer) and the pay is pretty good, and there’s usually a lesson plan all laid out that you can either follow or not. You can just sit and watch them pass notes, if you like. Or you can do a dramatic reading of The Waste Land for an hour, or teach them how to make origami penguins, or lecture on the importance of free software. Or, if, like me, one of the projects you are working on is a young adult novel for teenage girls, and you are sub’ing in an all girls school, you can do direct market research, and even, if the kids are cool, get them to help you map out the story.

A few nights ago i went to an AIDS benefit organized by my best friend’s other best friend. My nemesis. Just kidding. I happily invited myself along, ponied up my 20bucks, put on a gown and some cowboy boots, and went head-on into somebody else’s community. The event is organized annually by a group that calls themselves the International Aid Organization (or something quite like that). They seem to be a collection of neighbors, friends and extended family- with a core of South East Asian women from Montreal’s South Shore- who get together to raise relatively small amounts of money and do the most good they can with it. They support the fight against AIDS in several countries as well as individuals surviving radiation from Chernobyl. You get the feeling that they’d like to help out everyone. The wide and bewildering range of causes supported felt like a shoulder shrug at the enormity of help needed, and an unbiased desire to pitch in wherever seemed best.

The whole night was fun. Seeing your friends, and their friends, dressed-up is always good, and seeing them dressed-up and dancing for a friend’s cause and shmoozing happily with her Mum and neighbors is sweetness itself. But the real highlight of the night was the entertainment. You know the sort: someone’s daughter who can play the violin blushes and works her bow for five minutes while the crowd smiles; someone speaks briefly and earnestly about the good work they do; and then a pack of middle aged ladies crowds the central dancefloor enthusiastically belly dancing. You mean that doesn’t happen at your parties?

Suddenly all the women in the room whipped out belly dancing scarves and rushed the floor to join their jiggly leader: a woman “all the way from Toronto” who shimmied and gestured with professional precision and a wide, giggly smile while the crowd, myself included, cheered and clapped and stamped in time.

That, plus eggsalad sandwiches and, ok I admit it, a flask in my purse for my totally broke self, equals best party ever.