More Tunes for the Road Trip (the Festive Alt playlist)

Do you ever fall out of the habit of listening to music?


I do.

And it's awful!

Yes, yes, it's good to keep current on the important news  But getting traffic 'every 10 minutes, on the 1's'? Is that really necessary when my commute to work is 7 minutes down one road?

When I finally go back to the tunes, my first thought is 'WTF was I thinking, listening to traffic reports for a month?!'

So here I am, grooving to my Festive Alt playlist ('cuz it's close to Christmas, after all).  And loving every second of it.  Bif Naked, Weezer, The Raveonettes... all Classic Christmas Carolers!

I listen and go 'whoa! this is good'.  Then the next one 'whoa! this is gooder.' And I keep turning up the volume. On the computer. Then on the speakers. Then I'm searching for 11!

And I start arm dancing. I'd be full dancing, but I'm sitting here typing so the legs are stuck to the chair and it's just the arms that can let loose from time to time. (Kind of like Thom Yorke, but I use both arms...)

Like when I'm driving and the song is particularly awesome (pretty well anything by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Sleigh Bells).

Some people are picking their noses in the privacy of their car - I'm arm dancing like a moron.

No shame, baby, no shame.

(Shoot, just turned up the sound again. Verging on 11)

Am now in the anti-Christmas part of my playlist, like:

• Christmas at the Office Party with the refrain "Christmas, F&*k ya, F&*k ya, F&*k ya" by the Fugitives
• "Bizarre Christmas Incident" by Ben Folds (cuz "Santa got his big ass stuck, Mrs. Claus is gonna sue my ass" - lawyers love this one!) 
•  Blink 182 with their ode to jail time, due to an unfortunate incident with carollers. 

But despite the anti-C music, I do like Christmas. Here's my list of faves:

• Christmas lights - Whether tasteful, gaudy, delicate or grand, sparkly, subtle or shiny. It's all good. 
• Christmas trees - Ours is a collection of fairly random stuff, but I particularly like long shiny drippy things, coloured glass and stuff that needs to be explained. 
• Fruit cake - Mine has lots of dried fruit and bourbon and makes my stomach hurt if I eat too much (which is pretty well every time I eat it)

Lots of other good things, of course - family and friends being high on that list. 

So from our dope family to yours... have a Very Merry!

(And a Fabulous 2015!)

L'auteur (est moi)

I was recently reminded by a friend that I'm supposed to be writing the great Canadian novel.

She's suggested a thinly veiled parable about shenanigans at a large, disorganized financial institution.  The characters will be fictional, of course (because there's no way you'd know who "Mesley" is, right?)

Can't quite bring myself to do it, though. Firstly, because I'm not really sure what a parable is. And secondly, because if the veil is too thin, someone might guess which financial institution I'm riffing on. Since I'm still a shareholder, it's not really in my best interest to inadvertently contribute to the death spiral.

So there is no parable about shenanigans at a large, disorganized financial institution.  Instead, I started a novel - a work of fiction - that is meant to be funny, ironic, sarcastic, about a young woman who's been cast adrift for most of her life... And although it  might incorporate some fictional-ish shenanigans (write what you know!), that won't be the primary focus of it.


When I started the novel in some earnest a while ago, my young teenage son said skeptically "But that's not a real job".  Which was true.  (And which also reminded me that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree)


Yet I created this daydream, where I imagined a lovely little writing shack up at the back of the yard, where I'd go every morning, make some tea and write, write, write, while I looked southwestward towards the Georgia Straight and Vancouver Island, waaaaay off in the distance.

But who would read my written words?  Probably not my son (maybe if I SnapChatted it?).  Probably not my daughter either (unless I added photos and tagged her in every one?)

More importantly, who would pay for those words?  I'm sure it's difficult enough for the really great Canadian writers to make a living from their words. And I'm certainly no Miriam Toews or Ann-Marie MacDonald. Sigh.

So I knew there were hurdles. But hurdles that I was willing to fight against.  Until I realized the biggest hurdle that would shoot my daydream down in flames...

Ummm, I'm not really a tea person.

So, I'm asking... would bourbon do?