morning run

Went for a longer run this morning. The advantage of running at 6 am is that there are very few people out, and it's cooler. The disadvantage is that I most of those I did run into seemed to have been up all night and were just coming back from their hours of partying. I didn't pass any other runners for the first hour, and admit I was somewhat nervous running through the still-shadowy Coronation Park. There were a few staggery-types who had obviously spent the night in the park, but they left me alone.

For safety reasons, I decided not to listen to my Rio for the first hour of my run; several women's runner resources have mentioned that 99% of female runners who have been attacked have been wearing headphones, which obviously make them easier to surprise.

It was the first time I had tried running without music. To my surprise, I enjoyed my run just as much, perhaps even more. I could hear the sound of the seagulls, a trawler's motor out on the lake, the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement, my breathing. I had figured that without the incentive of the music I'd get tired faster, but I was wrong. In fact, I was out for about two hours this morning.

I ran most of the first hour, did a run/walk during the second, and this time made it out to a park past Ontario Place, where the Martin Goodman trail splits into several paths, with one going briefly over a hill. I opted for the hill as my last big push, then turned around and headed home. Stopped for a short break near Ontario Place to watch the lake and eat a Lemon Zest Luna bar for breakfast (I'm hooked on Luna bars these days). Didn't share any with the interested-looking seagulls.

Hope you're all having a good weekend!

poll: favourite smells

Today's pictures are from one of my runs instead. The garbage workers have been legislated back to work (they've been on strike for a while), so looks like the parks are going to get cleaned up. Here's one of the scenes I've been passing during my runs which, as you can imagine, got more and more fragrant with each passing day:





The legislation back to work likely has something to do with the fact that World Youth Day is approaching quickly (see photo at the top of this page). The Pope's coming to Toronto!

I try to plan my run home so that I go through the Toronto Music Garden, which I've mentioned in earlier Blatherings. I love seeing the personality of the garden change over time. The heady aroma of lilac was my most recent favourite; I'm nuts about fresh lilacs. When we lived out in the country, I used to cut a few bunches of lilac from a tall bush beside our house and put them in a vase so I could enjoy the scent all day.

Now I use fragrance to reward myself on the way home from a run. After the lilacs finished blooming in the Toronto Music Garden, it was lavender. Now my favourite scent in the garden comes from these flowers (anyone know their name?):





Some of my other favourite smells:

- baking bread
- chocolate
- playdough
- spices: cinnamon, mint, basil
- freshly cut grass
- lily of the valley, roses, lavender, lilacs
- brewing coffee
- musty book smell in used bookstores or academic libraries
- babies (after they've just been bathed or changed), especially the tops of their heads
- snow. Or rather, the fragrance in the air in the morning after snowfall. I love the chorus from The Lowest of the Low's "Rosy and Grey":

Everything is coming up rosy and grey
The wind is cold but the smell of snow warms me today
And your smile is fine and itís just like mine and it wonít go away
Because everything is rosy and grey

Poll: What are your favourite smells?

Do you have any "weird" favourite fragrances? Did you have any favourite smells back in childhood that you don't like now? I used to actually LIKE the smell of cigarette smoke and gasoline, for example. Now I dislike both. How far will you go to seek out favourite smells? I like the smell of coffee so much that sometimes I will use a hotel room coffeemaker to make a cup of coffee in the morning, even if I don't have plans to drink it.

stardust

Went to Richmond Hill yesterday for a practice with Allison and Jodi. We have one more practice before Conchord.

During our practice, we also ran through more songs, including our contribution to the Totally Tasteless and Tacky Revue at Conchord, which will likely be a...er...unique performance of Library Boy :-). Nick Smith and Paul Kwinn have kindly agreed to help us with this song, the poor things.


We're putting together a donation package for the Interfilk auction which will consist of:

- a one-of-a-kind Urban Tapestry t-shirt (made by me), XL

- small framed cross-stitch with music theme, handmade by Allison (the cross-stitch, not the frame)

- CD with two sample tracks from our upcoming album! Songs on this CD: I Am Stardust (song by Lloyd Landa; Karen has given us permission to cover this song on our album) and Friendship Song (three-part a capella song written and arranged by me). The songs were mastered by Chris Conway at Oblong Studios in Leicester, UK. The recording engineer for "I Am Stardust" was Gerry Tyra, who recorded our concert at Consonance in California last year (Mar/2001). "The Friendship Song" was recorded by Keristor Systems at our concert at Didgeri-Douze in Milton Keynes, England (Feb/2000). The recording and mixing engineer at that convention was Chris Croughton. Thanks to Jodi for getting this sample CD together.

I love "I Am Stardust"; it's such a gorgeous song. I can't focus too much on it when we perform it, though, because I feel like crying, thinking about Lloyd. Full of wry humour and generosity, Lloyd was a tremendously talented songwriter and musician; the filk community suffered such a tremendous loss when he died.


I'm every mote of dust
In a ray of summer sun
Every shining point of light
In the winter night above
I'm inside the very heart of you
Yet galaxies away
I am stardust, stardust
Looking for a home.

(Excerpt from I Am Stardust, by Lloyd Landa)

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Today's Blatherpics:

Karen and Lloyd, at Toronto Trek two years ago.

writing

Happy birthday to Amanda Snyder!

My goal for this month is to write at least 15,000 words for my novel before I leave for California. I'm up to 4,500 words so far. I've always tended to over-edit myself as I write, which slows things down. One of the useful things I learned while collaborating on the short story with Michelle is how to force myself to just keep writing and not worry about editing until later.


Working on my book on a daily basis is tremendously satisfying rather than bits and pieces ever few weeks, plus I'm gradually getting more efficient. 500 words a day was agony at first. Today I wrote 1800. My goal is to get the first draft of this book done by the end of August. It's going to be somewhat of a challenge, what with all the stuff going on in my life between now and then (friends visiting for a week and a half, trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake with my mom-in-law and Jeff, Conchord and California visit, trips to the cottage), but as long as I do some writing every day, I should be fine.

I'm settling on a ritual when I go out to write. Find a coffee shop with a table and chair near a power outlet, order one (1) black coffee, get out my headphones and listen to some Kim Robertson harp music on my computer, start writing. Sometimes I don't even touch the coffee, but keep the cup nearby to prove that I did buy something so have a right to be there. :-) The harp music is to block out whatever music is playing on the loudspeakers; I use my special headphones that I usually take on long flights, able to block out low frequency noise. It works wonderfully...it means that whatever the environment I write in, I can tune out the conversations and music going on around me. I like chairs with padded seats and no arms; that way I can kick off my sandals and work cross-legged (my favourite writing position).


What do I do with the rest of my work time? Do my daily Market Watch column, monthly columns for Writing World and Muse's Muse, online research work for Moira Allen, some magazine market query work. My main focus right now, however, is on my novel for young people. I really, really want to get that finished and off to my agent as promised.

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Today's Blatherpics:

Jeff shares office space with Bryan Fullerton and a web design company called One Trick Pony (Scott P., Ray, and Tony). Yesterday was Scott's last day with the company, so we all took him out for lunch.

	Bryan, Tony, Ray, Scott P., Jeff, in front of Ho Tsu on Queen Street.
	Ray. I asked him to put his shades on for the picture.
	Scott Petrie.

poll: ginzu knives?

The envelope that arrived in the mail yesterday from Publishers' Clearinghouse was plastered with official-looking stickers and stamped warnings and scribbled signatures, all giving every indication that I was A BIG WINNER or VERY NEARLY A BIG WINNER.

My natural inclination, of course, was to throw it out. But there was a tiny, niggling part of me that whined, "But what if...what if it's GENUINE?" The rational part of my brain raged back, "You fool, that's the whole point of this marketing approach! They're counting on gullible losers like you to be intrigued enough to open the envelope!"





It didn't help that a friend of ours recently nearly DID throw out a envelope that looked like junk mail, decided at the last minute to open it, discovered a cheque for thousands of dollars inside because of a class action suit filed against an old doctor of his that he never knew had been filed.

"See? SEE?" my inner voice whined. "You really -could- be a winner! What's the harm in opening an envelope? C'mon, go ahead, you know you want to."





So, not surprisingly, I did end up opening the envelope, just as the marketing company knew I would. Jeff always told me that I'm a marketing person's dream.

And holy cow, just look at all the paper that had been stuffed inside that #10 envelope:





Not surprisingly, I went through a Homer Simpson "d-oh!" as I opened the envelope. It didn't matter that 99% of me knew that it was just more junk mail. It didn't matter that I hadn't invested much time (well, other than carefully spreading out all the flyers and taking a photo of them for my Blatherings :-)) and effort beyond opening an envelope.

I cursed the part of me that couldn't resist the lure of that "AUTHORIZED" pseudo-stamp, no matter how cheesy and obviously pre-printed it was. I felt like the little kid at school who repeatedly falls for the same stupid practical joke, never learning, stubbornly clinging to the feeble hope that maybe...just MAYBE...that this time the battered-looking shoebox given to him by Little Sadistic Sammy during lunch hour really will contain a magical wish-granting ring instead of a library photocopy of Sammy's butt.

But maybe I should resign myself to the fact that Jeff is right about me being a marketing person's dream; it's part of my nature. I fill out survey cards on restaurant tables, buy products based on free samples I've received, send in coupons, lust over the George Foreman Grill on late-night infomercials, cry during over-the-top emotionally manipulative cellphone and milk commercials.

Poll: Do you own a Ginzu knife? Or other tv/infomercial advertised product?

Do you fill out survey cards? Have you ever opened junk mail? Do you send in coupons? Have you ever checked "YES" to indicate that you DO want to receive news or product information when registering online for anything? Has a commercial ever brought tears to your eyes? Have you ever purposely watched an infomercial all the way through? Or the home shopping channel for more than five minutes?