Once Upon a Time..

...There was a beautiful young writer who couldn’t write. She knew she was a writer, it was the only thing she wanted to be. Everything about her screamed diction, vocabulary and antecedent actions, but still she couldn’t write. There came a point where those around her began to doubt her claims. “Pseudo-story teller” they jeered, “you’re just a poetic wanna-be”. She began to doubt herself. Why couldn’t she form her own ideas? She was haunted by dreams of plot flaws and run-on sentences. Her days were filled with linguistic nightmares and fairy-tale rip offs, until she began to question to her inner core whether she was built to do this at all.


Ending A:

Fortunately she was a patient young pen-woman and continued to work at her day job and develop her ideas by night until she had saved enough bling to attend writing school, where she learned about composition and the perfectly placed comma, Her ideas began to take shape, and with the helpful guidance of her well versed (though consistently be-spectacled) professors the young, exceptionally beautiful not to mention incredibly talented writer went on to write very famous published works in manner of Shakespeare et al.

Ending B:

After questioning her dream, and revisiting some of her less-than stellar works, she began to become disillusioned with her ability. She wrote less and less. She stopped calling her editor friends, and began to avoid the library like the plague. Happy memories of Chapters became an ephemeral dream. Then one day she gave up all together. Now this disenfranchised (albeit still very beautiful) young writer works as a manager at the local fast food chain, where the longest piece of writing is on the 2nd stall on the left.



POLLS ARE OPEN, VOTE ON YOUR FAVORITE ENDING. This poll may or may not directly affect my fate, future and general career choices, so vote accordingly.

Home

I want to go home. I wonder where that is. Apparantly I'm already there, but it doesn't feel the same. I have parts of home. Good foundations, Derek and my family, but it's like taking a vacation and packing your essentials but not having the comfort of your own bed. Seems like maybe that bed got lost in the shuffle. Maybe I just have to make a new one, I think it probably takes more time to do that than I really want to wait. But that is the call, so I will follow.

NyQuil is my Wonder Drug!

Ok now I acutally am sick. I guess a month of rain and 6 am wake up calls will do to you. (Or maybe as Derek so kindly pointed out, it's the 3 am nights?) Ahh well, I have another early day tomrorow, so it only makes sense that I would be sleeping now, but of course I am blogging instead. Derek had to unexpectedly shoot a commercial today so Ashley and I went spending....I mean shopping. But I settled for movie night with Derek. We wached this old show called "The Party" with Peter Sellers I think. I really enojyed it. It's like the American Mr. Bean of the 60's. Tomorrow I have a big office meeting with the Big Boss, our regional manager, and I am in charge of lunch. Can you tell I'm the front end girl? Pizza Hut it is. It's a lot of pressure you know, trying to remember who doesn't like meat, who needs diet and regular pop, who has allergies or aversions to this or that...but I am Rachel, queen of the front desk, illness or injury cannot hold me back I shall order that pizza to the best of my ability. Well, time to say Nyquil...I mean goodnight.

Death Cab for Cutie and cold.

Sitting here in my bed listening to a mix of Death Cab and Garden State soundtrack and I'm cold. We have just lost a integral member of our office staff at work which has left me working the early shift 7-3:30. For anyone else this may seem easy as cheesecake, however I am the person who can't politely say "good morning" unless it is past 10 AM. Getting up to go to work at 8:30 is hard enough for me, but being there at 7 is almost out of the range of my physical capability. Fortunately the phone calls between 7 and 8:30 are very limited and I only have to sound semi-coherent since I am usually the only one there for a while. The work load has definitely increased as we all try to pick up the slack that losing a person creates, and there has been a virus going around our office, which I am pretending that I am not getting - everything goes away if you ignore it long enough. Being safe at home in my cozy warm bed is a great feeling, unfortunately it is tainted by the knowledge that I have to get up at 6 tomorrow. Woe is me, better call me a WAaaambulance.

Missing Edmonton

Blogging is a bittersweet thing for me. I love going on to do the circle and see what's going through everybody's heads - which aparantly hasn't been much lately - but it always gives me this pang of homesickness for those I left in Edmonton. All of you folks who I could catch a coffee with at the Cafe or call up if I needed an opinion or just another reassurance that you were still taking my calls. On a day like today when we are short staffed and really busy at the office, I always tend to retreat into my head for some silence and solitude. This in turn causes me to want to blog, which spirals the chain reaction of thinking of Whyte Ave, my old place, and more importantly my friends. I suppose at least I can be assured that the relationships I had meant something, if they didn't I don't think I would miss them this much.

Garden State and Macs

So I watched Garden State again last night (or part of it until I fell asleep). I've never watched a movie that I identify so much and so little with at the same time. Situationally, I really have nothing in common with any of the characters, however emotionally it touches me so deeply. It's that feeling you get when you realize that there's someone out there who understands to the letter the experience that you've just been through and can identify with everything you're feeling. You're not alone. And it's not just that someone you know can empathize with you. It's a total stranger taking you through it step by step. I think that was an enlightened project for Zach Braff, as I know it touched a lot of people in a way that nobody expected. Truly indentifiable. Ok, so maybe this is a 2 AM ramble, but in any case, I love that movie!

You know what else I love? This Mac laptop that I'm typing on. It's amazing.

Blogging conference looming - Better brush up!

So I've registered for a blogging conference in February. It's called Northern Voice and it is held in downtown Vancouver on Friday and Saturday, February 10 & 11th. If you live in the lower mainland or will be in town around that time, you should check it out. I am only attending the Saturday session as work prevents me from going Friday. As well, the Friday session is something called Moose Camp which is a self-organized blogging free-for-all type event, as far as I understand it. More info can, of course, be found on the Northern Voice website, including event costs and a schedule.

That being said, my blogging has been sadly lacking of late. This, however, could be on the verge of large-scale change as I have a possible opportunity to by a Powerbook. This laptop would revolutionize my interaction with the computer, including my blogging, writing, and general geeky-ness. I would have a functional (if not incredibly sexy) piece of equipment that is my very own to wax poetic about anything and everything! Doesn't that just thrill you all to your inner-cores? Well, perhaps not those of you who read this blog out of a sense of obligation to our friendship, as you might be thinking what a huge spike in time commitment this would mean for you - Is she really worth that much? - I know the thoughts that are running through your heads my friends. I guess it remains to be seen. Either way - I'm stoked.

Happy New Year to all, and a big belated mistletoe kiss to each and everyone of you. (Don't tell Derek that I'm e-promiscuous!)