Your subconscious is a laundry basket

FINALLY feeling exhilarated (instead of horrified) by the essays/writing/reading/exams that lie ahead in the next few weeks, and trying like mad to keep a grip on that... today the bookstore had all of their sale books on for another 50% off so I went a little crazy and bought some really cheesy coming-of-age-teenagery-goth-young-adult books, they're like Sourkeys for my brain, I know they're rotten but DAMN they taste good after a whole lotta fruit 'n veggies. so now I have a modest pile of "quick lit" (among all the immodest piles of library books) to spur me on to the time when I'll actually be able to read whatever I want, guilt-free. BUT i will NEVER reveal what pop garbage has been satisfying my late-night literary romps, it would be far too embarrassing, and that's why I've started keeping my doorstop copy of Les Miserables by my bed, as a cover-up in case anyone whose opinion of me has not already solidified ventures in here.

Avoided a dicey emotional moment at the mall today (grocery stores sometimes kill me, but only when the weather outside is right - or wrong? - such as today, grey and almost-but-not-quite snowing) by buying a) a portable radio and b) some booze. Everything a girl needs for a memorable night!

I just watched the Alistair MacLeod documentary on CBC (thanks B&A!) and it had me all misty, which was embarrassing because Tycho was perched on the couch and kept bopping me on the head with each sniffle. ANYWAY I remember Alistair from Humber, his east coast accent, tufts of hair in his ears, the way his vowels come out of his mouth all stretched and slow like he's being very careful about what he is saying to you because he knows it could change your life. I love him most for his apparent bashfulness, like he thinks he's just some rural fisherman reluctantly caught in the headlights of fame, and he can't wait until he's dismissed so that he can go back to his cabin to write. They interviewed Russell Banks in the doc., who said that Alistair writes without revising, because his stories are all perfectly composed in his mind, sentence-by-sentence, before they get put down. Russell said that it's like Alistair is building a wall out of stones on a beach, and where every other author would just dump all the stones in a pile and then start moving them around and splitting them up and re-arranging them over and over until they forced the wall up, Alistair just plucks up each stone one by one, turns it over in his hand, walks up and down the beach a couple of times, thinks about it, then sets the stone down in exactly the right place, and picks up the next one. It was a pretty incredible image, the way he described it. They also had all kinds of east coast authors reading from Alistair's books, which was so moving, because most of them would choke up as they read, which would make me choke up, which would make Tycho bop me in the head.

ANYWAY so I'm writing on No Great Mischief for my animals paper, hence all the MacLeodspeak. I just found out this paper needs to be eighteen (NOT eight) pages long, who knew? This has been a good blog experience on my end, though, limbered up the ol' finger joints enough to get some mad writing done in the next while...

oh yeah: shouts out to Derek who is officially a top choice for UWO's MITish grad program next year! Smart move, academy, reeeeeeal smart.