Oh look, another year.
Decembers are coming and going like a kid on an old-school metal merry-go-round; if they keep speeding up like this, I'm going to stop being able to tell how many of them have passed. I barely have time to acknowledge them before they've gone all the way around and come back again. I feel existentially dizzy.
Maybe this annual ABCs Of exercise is becoming more of a grounding thing? A way to notice which things happened in which space in time so that when I'm fifty and it's all even more of a blur than it is now, I'll be able to know for certain where everything was.
A - Author friends came to visit! I always say that the best part of being an author and having author friends is that sometimes organizations just fly said author friends in so you can hang out with them (and so they can do events or whatever). In March, the Sask Writers' Guild flew Marissa Stapley in for Talking Fresh and I got to show her around Regina (Lake Fries at the Bar Willow, live music at The Cure, gift shop shopping at the Mackenzie Art Gallery, etc). In July, The Festival of Words flew Jennifer Whiteford in, so we got to hang out in Moose Jaw (I tried to take her for a walk along the river but I accidentally took her to an abandoned train yard instead. She said she still had fun) (We also spent a lot of time at the spa and I think she maybe liked that better than the abandoned train yard). And Adelle Purdham stopped by in April on her book tour; we went for tacos and then I interviewed her at the Everyday Kitchen, which was very fun.
B - Books (shocker). I read maybe 50 books this year? I don't think this is very many, compared to some people. I have seasons where I'll gulp down four books in a week, and then seasons where it takes me literally three months to finish one novel. Some of them were ARCs for upcoming releases, some of them were audiobooks (these were mostly thrillers), some of them were new releases, and some of them were books that have been on my shelf for a while.
C - College! I was invited to speak at a college creative writing class. It was a really cool little group of folks and we had such a blast (or at least, I did for sure and they definitely appeared to, but maybe they were in acting classes as well?). I hope they all write stuff that I get to read someday.
D - Denver! I got a grant from Sk Arts to fly to Denver, Colorado to do a couple of book events (Reading Den and an in-conversation at the Center for the Arts in Evergreen). Both of these were so much fun; I met a billion lovely people, but most importantly I finally got to meet some previously-only-online friends: Sarah Ann Noel, a friend I speak with literally every single day but had never met in person (we wrote a little article about our meeting and it was published on Write or Die), Melissa Payne, a fellow Lake Union author, and Eunice Brownlee, a friend from Instagram via Sarah (I think? Right, Eunice?). A very special, slightly surreal week!
E - Extra. In the summer, a friend of mine (Tim Lenko! Hi, Tim!) texted to ask if I would like to be an extra in a film his friend was directing. We shot our scenes at a funeral home, which felt kind of irreverent and hilarious. I wore a dress from my mom's closet from the 70s and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
F - Film Screening. Tim—the same Tim as the one from the letter E—is a filmmaker too, and he screened his award-winning film in Moose Jaw in November. He invited me to come to the premier and be part of an artists' panel, along with another filmmaker and a visual artist. It was a really fun conversation and all of these interactions with Film People are really making me want to be Film People too.
G - Goodreads Choice Awards. I had the shock of my life when I saw that I Think We've Been Here Before was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award, and then an even bigger shock when it went to the finals. I was relieved of the heavy burden of imposter syndrome for three glorious weeks. What a vacation. (It's back now.)
H - Happy to finally receive the Russian copies of Sorry I Missed You, which was published over there a few years ago.
I - I dyed [some of] my hair purple on a whim. I was dying Scarlett's, and she said, "YOU DO IT TOO, MOM" and it was one of those reflex-without-thought moments. I just...reached up and ran the glove with the dye on it through the ends of my hair, as if I were scratching an itch. Scarlett was delighted, and that was that. Her hair dye faded within a month. My hair is very blonde, so it sucked in that color, and it hasn't completely gone away even now. Glad to see my impulse control is still so lacking at 38.
J - Just spent a lot of hours in my living room this year listening to Sully play the guitar and requesting that he play my favorite songs.
K - Knorks. I went out for breakfast with Sarah one day, and there was this utensil that was almost like a fork, but not quite, on the table. She picked it up and said, "Hey, so here's something cool. My friend's brother invented this. It's called a Knork. It's like a fork but also a knife." And I used that Knork to eat my bennie, and then when I got home I ordered a set of four Knorks for my family because I liked it so much.
L - Live Music Challenge. At the beginning of the year, my friend Ashley and I promised each other that we would experience live music at least once per month for the entire year. And we ALMOST did it. In January, we went to an acoustic show at The Mercury. February was open mic night at The Cure. March: Ritchot Textiles, The Moonrunners, and Black Thunder in the basement of The Artesian (maybe my favorite show of the year?). April: Robyn's choir performed at the Knox Met. May: Tiny played at my reading at The Artesian AND I got to see Sully's band perform live for the first time (okay, THIS was my favourite show of the year. Of my LIFE). June: another open mic night at The Cure. July: there was a guy playing his guitar at a restaurant in Vancouver, and also I went to a weird little biker memorial in Grand Coulee where a cover band was playing at the hockey rink. August: Sarah and I went to Nuit Blanche and there was live music in the RPL. September: Ashley and I hit up Swampfest, Regina's finest and most creative DIY music festival on Willow Island. Loved it. Always love it. October: Elliot BROOD & Great Lake Swimmers at Darke Hall. November: fail. December: we'll see if it happens, but I'm hoping to go to Band Swap at the Exchange on the 28th (I'm writing this post early). I'm usually out of town that night, so this is exciting!
M - Meow Wolf. I have always, for as long as I've known of the existence of Meow Wolfs (which is not very long, honestly, but still), wanted to visit one. And this year, I did, in Denver, with Sarah. It was really weird, and I loved it.
N - New tattoos. I got a cat, in honour of the fact that strangers email me all the time now about the cat in I Think We've Been Here Before. I also got an hourglass and some rosemaling.
O - Okay. So here is a story about scissors: I went to Nuit Blanche with my friend Sarah, and there was a guy there giving out free freezies. I took my freezie and said to the guy, "Thank you. Do you have scissors? To open this freezie?" The guy looked sheepish and said, "No, sorry, I feel really stupid every time someone asks me that. I did not bring scissors. You'll have to take that freezie home, I guess, and open it with your own scissors." It was a hot night, and I was thirsty, and I really wanted to get into this freezie. I tried tearing it open with my teeth, but the plastic was way too strong. I couldn't do it. I carried this thing around with me for a couple of hours, gnawing at it like a rodent. Finally, I'd had enough. Exasperated, I threw the freezie in a garbage can. I could've taken it home, but I was tired of carrying something around that I really wanted but could not have. I sighed as I threw it away and said, "Ugh, my kingdom for a pair of scissors." So here's where the story gets weird and slightly unbelievable, but you'll have to just believe me because why would I make this up? A few minutes later, literally minutes, you guys, minutes after I threw my freezie in the garbage and said my kingdom for a pair of scissors, Sarah and I walked past this table in the park. Just a random table in the middle of Victoria Park. 10:30 PM. And the only thing on this table was, you guessed it, a pair of scissors. Like, I think I manifested them?
P - Parties—or, to be more precise, galas. In the month of May, Barclay and I attended three galas—one for his work, one for mine, and one fundraiser. We are not gala people, so we had to go out and buy gala clothes and gala shoes and gala makeup (me). It was fun, but a little bit stressful because I'm not a super fancy person.
Q - Quite a lot of public speaking again this year. I thought it would be a quieter one because I didn't have a book release, but that didn't end up being the case. Lots of book clubs, podcast interviews, readings, random other speaking gigs and occasions. I continue to be more and more comfortable in front of people, and this continues to be a thing that makes me really happy, a thing that still surprises me, that a person can be so scared of something but then do it enough that it actually becomes—dare I say it?—enjoyable.
R - (City of) Regina Writing Award. I did not win this! Courtney Bates-Hardy did! (And she deserved it.) But I was a runner-up, so I got to go to the awards ceremony and read from my [as yet unpublished] novel. I did win a writing retreat at a monastery! Cool!
S - Saskatchewan Book Awards. I Think We've Been Here Before was nominated for four Sask Book Awards: The Book of the Year Award, the Fiction Award, the City of Regina Book Award, and the Publishing Award. It even went so far as to win in one category, which was really neat. There was a gala in Saskatoon and Barclay and I made a little weekend out of it.
T - Toured the Globe Theatre. I got a DM on Instagram one day from an account called Hidden Regina, out of the blue, asking if I'd like to go on a tour of the Globe Theatre here in downtown Regina. I was like, "Well yeah!" So I did that.
U - Upset about...baseball???!!!?? I, and a whole bunch of other Canadians who normally do not care one iota about sports, got really, super invested in the Toronto Blue Jays this year. It was surprisingly fun, and time will tell, but maybe I'm a sports person now.
V - Vancouver! We hopped on a plane and went to Vancouver in July. It was the first Big Family Vacation we've taken since Scarlett joined our crew, and, therefore, the first time she's ever been on a plane. Barclay's sister lives out there, so we stayed with her for a week. It was really lovely! And now the kids, having had their eyes opened to the possibility of air travel, just want to fly everywhere.
W - Wrote The End on a new book! More on that later!
X - XXXVIII (I turned 38) & XVI (Barclay and I celebrated 16 years of marriage)
Y - Yes! I said yes to every single fruit I saw in the grocery store which I had never tried before. This was the year of rambutan and lychee and prickly pears and and pomelos and a few others I can't think of right now. (This is also the year I discovered I'm mildly allergic to pomelos.)
Z - Zipped off to Medicine Hat for my Grandma's birthday party. Almost the whole extended family on that side was there. That's a LOT of people. It was so good to see all of them again.
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