sleep

All I want to do these days is sleep. It's as if my body has clued into the fact that I'm on sabbatical and is saying, "About bloody time!" Yesterday, Jeff and I went out for brunch with some friends, and then hung out at Parki's place after. My favourite piece of furniture in his place is the armchair in his living room; I proved this by spending most of the afternoon there. My second favourite piece is the Defender machine he has in his dining room. I tried playing it, but sucked bigtime. As I recall, I sucked bigtime when I played it in back in 1980, too.

It was the most relaxing afternoon I've had in...well, in a very long time. Jeff and Parki talked about all kinds of things while I dozed in my favourite armchair. From time to time I'd get up to snoop through Parki's fridge for food, stuff my face, then stagger back to The Chair. Jeff and Parki mocked me, of course, but I ignored them.



In the evening, we had dinner at my sister's place. We did crafts and puzzles after, and Annie asked if she could sit in my lap. She burrowed her head against me. "You're snuggly, Auntie Debbie!" I wrapped my arms around her, hugging her, savouring every second. I know it's only a matter of time until she becomes like Sara and starts squirming out of adult hugs.

On Saturday, I went to Allison's place for an Urban Tapestry practice. We ran through our concert sets for Ad Astra, finalized our concert set for Consonance, did more prep for our workshops. Amazingly, we're all feeling pretty confident, and really looking forward to upcoming conventions. After, we had dinner at Montana's (I think that's what it's called...it's the kind of place where you get water in glass jars, and the waitress writes her name in crayon on your table -- yummy "comfort" food). Saw "Chocolat" after and really liked it.

Today's Blatherpics:
First picture -- self-portrait.
Second picture -- Brian Parkinson ("Parki"), me, Jeff, yesterday at Parki's place.
Bottom picture -- me in The Chair.

life after inkspot

Thanks for the support and kind words about the end of Inkspot, everyone; they're much appreciated. I've also been getting a ton of e-mails from Inkspot users; I've posted some of them online. The outpouring of support from the online writing community has been overwhelming (in a good way :)).

It will take me a while to tie up loose ends, sort paperwork and finances, purging and reorganizing my home office so I can finally finish unpacking. Jeff has been extraordinarily patient with the pile of boxes in our living room.

Then I'm taking a long sabbatical. :-) I've promised myself to take a holiday for a while. The stress and overwork has had a toll on my health and my marriage, both of which need attention.

It's going to be tough; I'm too much of a workaholic. Jeff says he anticipates at least one argument between us, when I start wanting to start work projects again and he has to remind me of my promise. He might even write up a "contract" for me to sign! I laughed at him, of course, and told him he didn't have to worry, but part of me knows that he has a valid point.

Mainly because I can't wait to throw myself fulltime into my writing. It's like an itch, deep down, that I've been waiting to scratch for way too long. Writing these Blatherings have helped, but I want to get back to my fiction writing as well as continuing to do some nonfiction. Speaking of my nonfiction...Last night, Jeff and I went out for dinner and a movie. Very relaxing evening, and we didn't talk about work! (well, not much :)) Dinner at a Thai restaurant, then we went to see "Thirteen Days". I was disappointed to find that they are no longer running the Lord of the Rings trailer. :( Afterward, we book-browsed at Indigo.

And guess what? I found my book on the shelves! It was the first time I had actively looked for it in a bookstore. I confess I just stood there for several minutes staring at my book, a silly grin plastered across my face. I felt like turning around yelling to everyone in the store, "Look! That's MY book!" Instead, I looked for Jeff and dragged him over to see. :)

Anyway, the next two weeks are going to still be hectic, but in a different way. Urban Tapestry has some musical commitments coming up very soon. We're Filk Guests of Honour at Ad Astra next weekend (we have a concert, a variety show, two workshops), and the following weekend is Consonance in California, where we're the Guests of Honour.

We had two practices this past week, and are practising again today at Allison's place. We called Paul and Beckett during our last practice; Beckett was still recovering in the hospital. Both sounded tired but Very Happy! The twins are doing wonderfully; we're going to be seeing them when we go out to California in a couple of weeks. Anyway, Allison, Jodi and I are going to see "Chocolat" after dinner tonight. I've been dying to see this movie, for obvious reasons. :-)

Jodi's site was picked as Cool Site of the Day yesterday!

end of inkspot

Inkspot closed today (see Inkspot main page). :-(

I found out that Xlibris was shutting down Inkspot on Monday. I was online and in ICQ on Monday morning when suddenly I was inundated with "UH-ohs"...all three of my in-house team (in Philadelphia) were letting me know they had just been laid off, and given until noon to clear out. Shortly after, they had to sign off because someone had arrived to shut down their computers. It was incredibly depressing, watching their ICQ ids drop off my screen, one at a time. Xlibris laid off 22 people that day, including my supervisor and his supervisor.

Yesterday, my Managing Editor and I had to send out e-mails letting the rest of Inkspot's staff know that everyone was laid off, and that Inkspot was being shut down. I sent out the last issue of Inklings this afternoon, and posted the announcement on the page. Within a few minutes, I had e-mails and phonecalls coming in from people who wanted to buy Inkspot (I sent them to Xlibris) or talk to me about what had happened. There was a lot of shock and confusion.

I still haven't fully absorbed the fact that it's really gone; it's been so much a part of my life for six years.

What am I going to do now? Take a sabbatical. A long one. The past few years have been unbelieveably stressful...I'm burned out. I'm looking forward to spending more time with Jeff. And then, I'm going back to fulltime writing. I'm looking forward to that, too. :-)

The one bright spot this week was hearing that Paul and Beckett are new parents!! :-) Casey Beckett Kwinn is 5 pounds, 6 ounces, Riley James Kwinn is 6 pounds, 13 ounces. Congratulations, Paul and Beckett!

Today's Blatherpic:

Where I want to be right now...our cottage up north. Jeff and I built this
one summer, from mixing and pouring the foundation to putting on the
roof tiles.

pop rock candy floss

Went to my sister's place last night for dinner. Ruth is still in the Northwest Territories; Kaarel said she has bronchitis right now. :-( Also, the airline lost her luggage, though it was returned two days later. Ruth called during the evening, and so did my Dad (who is Japan right now).

Jeff brought pop rock candy floss for the girls. He had bought some at Tokyo World, a Japanese store beside Wow, the sushi restaurant we go to for lunch once a week with friends. Tokyo World is full of interesting-looking packages of children's treats with Japanese labels. Each week, Jeff buys a new type of mystery treat ("mystery" since none of us can read Japanese). Last time, he bought what turned out to be disc-shaped candy that tasted like lemon yogurt.

I remember my mother used to go shopping at a place in downtown Toronto called Sanko for sushi ingredients as well as fresh tofu, green tea leaves, and other supplies that were difficult to find in our local grocery store in Bramalea. Ruth, Jim and I would wander the aisles looking for treats. My favourite was Botan Rice Candy, a jelly-like candy wrapped in an edible cellophane material. I remember taking some to school and purposely freaking out my schoolmates by casually popping the candy pieces into my mouth, wrapping and all.

Anyway, turns out that Tokyo World has exactly the same candy. Even the packaging is exactly the same, with a small prize in an extra compartment on one end. The prize used to be a plastic toy, but nowadays, this is just a sticker. Tokyo World is also our main source of Pocky. Pocky is worth an entire Blathering on its own, of course. :-)

Today's Blatherpic:
Sara, showing me how she can climb the doorframe without any help. She is wearing her Pocahontas costume.

autographs

I collected autographs when I was a teenager. I'd look up addresses in the Who's Who book at my public library, or (in the case of an author) write c/o the publisher. Today's Blatherpic is a letter I received from Stephen King, complete with "white-out" corrections made with typewriter correction paper (difficult to see this in the scan). He had published five books by then. I'm amazed that he made the time to write a personal letter.

Years later, I wrote to him again, c/o his publisher. I enclosed a photocopy of the letter, said that I had been a longtime fan, asked if I could interview him for Inklings. Not surprisingly, I received no answer. :-)

I'm going to start posting the occasional autograph in my Blatherings, except for the embarrassing ones (like Rex Smith, for example).

Hey, check out Jeff's and my personal homepage. Jeff's revamped it. We'll be adding more content (especially to the main page) over time.