Say Hi to Grandpa and Aaron.

Bye gramma. I miss you already.

Love Arianna.

But She Misses Grandpa.

Not sure if it's time to talk about this yet.

My grandmother, with whom I am very close, had a massive stroke on Monday night. She's currently paralyzed on the left side, the peaceful side, and cannot speak or move. She's having trouble breathing; she's aspirating all her phlegmatic secretions.

Not so scientific: She's got tears in her eyes. She looks scared. She's squeezing the hell out of my hand with the working fingers of her right hand. She's sleeping more and more.

She saw me today. She opened her eyes and looked right at me. She tried to talk, making sounds rather than words. I tried not to cry, but just to talk to her like a normal person on a normal day. I told her I thought her doctor was kinda cute for a doc. I told her how her sister was by earlier to see her while she was sleeping. I made a joke about the nurses (who have been lovely, by the way). I'm glad she saw me. At least she knows I was there for her.

If she lives, in two weeks the swelling in her brain will go down and she won't remember any of this. She won't remember that she's had a stroke. She won't know why her left side doesn't work. We'll have to tell her. But then she'll have to live for the rest of what's left of her life with a half paralyzed body, and possibly no ability to speak. She's 87. She might live. She's a fighter like that.

She misses grandpa, though. And he's getting impatient waiting for her.

The Best Word I Have Ever Played

The K was already there. My opponent, Mike, had played GOSH on the CASK. It was a good play. I've been lucky this game. I got a bingo with TILLITES so it's been hard for MW to catch up to me. But this clinched it for me as the best game in a long time.

Great location, luck of the letters, BRILLIANTLY silly word. It was a 43 pointer. What more could one ask for in a Scrabs game? Love.

Afraid of Success

I’m supposed to make a phone call. It’s just one little phone call involving me picking up the phone and dialing. And then someone will hear that phone ringing and will answer it. And that’s when I’ll have to bowl them over.

I’m not afraid of talking to strangers. On many an occasion my companions have wished that I was, rather than collecting a following of crazies and other such hangers on. I’ve always had the knack. It’s even easier on the phone because nobody is looking at you while you stammer out words they may or may not want to hear. Faceless voice, little to no consequence. It’s so much easier to be mean to telemarketers than the slow kid at Wal-Mart.

I know that I’m good at what I do, and that’s not the question. The question, really, is whether or not they’ll think I’m good at what I do. Isn’t that a rub and a half? So making the phone call becomes, “I’ll make it next week, once I’ve done a rewrite,” and then, “maybe this resembles something else that someone else has written, so I better research that,” to “who was I going to phone last month?”

I’m new at this. I have a decent body of work, mostly adaptations. Adaptations of my own work, adaptations of other people’s work, one of which I don’t have permission for (but I’m going to get it, as soon as they see how good it is), and a few ideas I’ve had noodling around in my head waiting for the page. Now all I need is an ego big enough to pick up the receiver and mash those keys.

This starts out like a story about a writer, and nobody likes to see a writer write about how they can’t write, but this isn’t one of those stories. This is a story about a writer who can write, who does write, who loves to write, but can’t bring herself to get other people to read it.

A Little Something to Think About

***This Post is from August 07, but I'm putting it here because I'm deleting the othter blog it's in. That's all.

I had a gross moment yesterday. I rode my bike to work, which was actually a training session downtown at the BCIT campus.

It rained.

I don’t have a mudguard.

When I arrived at work, not only was my ass wet, but it was gritty. There was grit on my ass. This means several things, one being that I’m an idiot for not having a mudguard in a city that rains as much as this one. But that’s not the big deal, really. We already know I’m an idiot for innumerable other reasons. The big deal is what I took with me.

There was matter on my person that used to be on the road. Things die on the road, like birds, squirrels and rats. People pee in the gutters, like hobos and drunks. There’s a lot of garbage on the road, like old slurpee drippings and cigarette butts, especially right now during this charming little city strikey-poo. There’s oil on the road, probably more prevalent during a rain when it has been dry for so long; the oil is lifted by the water.

I sat through work in those jeans, had dinner at Sanafir, beers and a movie with a friend, and THEN rode home. I spent 14 hours with that stuff on my butt.

I just wanted to mention that

Move With Deliberate-ness.

I am aware that deliberate-ness is not necessarily a word, but it's my blog and therefore my own dictionary.

I went to a particularly opening, relaxing, releasing yoga class this evening at 8. Some people don't like to go at night because it perks them up too much, but night is when the doldrums get me, and I tend to binge, to feel bad, to feel tight and sore and guilty and disappointed in myself.

It's the perfect time for me to go to a place where I'm totally forgiven for everything, where my body is not a hindrance, and I remember to breathe.

I had this notion after I left class. I hurt myself a lot. I bang into things, I knock my hands, knees, head, knuckles, feet, shins and every other outward body part on everything and anything I walk past. And it hurts. I move carelessly, stubbing my toe, bending back my fingernails, scratching myself.

Instead, something I can learn from yoga is to move with deliberate-ness. To move with my breath, not just when I'm at yoga, but all day, all the time. To move more slowly and be totally aware of the space within which I am moving. So I don't bang myself into things.

Now that's fuckin' ninja, man.

Berfday.

It's my birthday. I'm 32 as of 6am, which has already happened. I don't feel old, I don't look old, and obviously, I am not old. 32 is not old.

I could pull my mum's math, which is to reverse the two numbers if they're in the lower range of the decade. That makes me 23.

It also changes my gay math ratio. I'm not allowed to date anyone younger than half my age plus 7. So that makes 23. Wow. The same number. It's also that creepy number in Robert Anton Wilson's old, dead psyche. 23. 5. Numerology gone insane.

Lucky for me, I'm in a relationship, and he's 31. He's well in range of the gay math.

Ramblings aside, I am going to go have a fabulous breakfast, I'm going to buy shelves at Ikea and then I'm buying SHOES.

I love shoes. I love my berfday. Guiltless for 24 hours. Or maybe 23.