I have failed to produce this morning’s originally planned blog post because:

1. While learning more about Easter Island and it’s societal collapse, a large stone statue bonked me on the head.
2. I went to Vij’s last night, had one drink (one!) and spent this morning dry heaving. (A misspent youth has many useful and lasting benefits, but apparently alcohol tolerance is not one of them.)
3. I am so absorbed in my most recent revisions that not even the internet can distract me.

Hmmmm… that’s only two truths and a lie if you’re willing to count the Easter Island incident as a metaphorical truth.

Now, I’m off to Kits Beach, because I’m told the playground there has a new spinning rope contraption, and what doesn’t cause my brain to explode into high-velocity spatter will only make it stronger.

(Photo by Jimee.)

First, that there are tea aficionados, just as there are wine aficionados. I met the first in a tea store, and learned the difference between first flush and second flush darjeeling. (Apparently, the spring picking results in a lighter tea.) My second conoiseur was a landscaper who came to repair my side flower beds, and told me about his 100-year-old varieties and the temperature- and moisture-controlled case in which he stored them. Who knew there were such people in the world?

Second, that the Smurfs can be interpreted as a Stalinist state, with overtones of racism and antisemitism. I learned this from a CBC radio interview with Antoine Bueno, author of The Little Blue Book. His arguments are both entertaining and convincing. Of course, the creator of the Smurfs didn’t mean to create these themes — a reminder that we writers have to be careful about the assumptions and prejudices we bring to the page.

Third, that Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books have sold over 100 million copies. As more than one person often reads the same copy of a book, that’s hundreds of millions of people interested in love and vampires.

The world is a wildly unusual place.

About two weeks to go until the deadline for my non-fiction manuscript. I have one chapter and the conclusion left to write. Ah. Then it will be summer, and there will be picnics on the beach, and walks in the woods, and trips to the pool…

Yup, it sounds like I’m in good shape.

Except, this book is only divided into five chapters plus intro and conclusion. If you look at it that way, I have about a quarter of a book left to write. In sixteen days.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

[Pause to hyperventilate.]

Let’s not look at it that way. Let’s go back to thinking about the beach, shall we?

I helped my sister-in-law hold a garage sale this weekend. If I ever run out of ideas for fiction, garage sales are the place to go. Here’s a sample of the characters I met:

• The neighbour who had to wait for her husband’s afternoon nap before coming to shop. She bought three suitcases. Significant?
• The two little boys who gave me nine dollars for an eight-dollar street hockey set. They were thrilled when I gave them change.
• The woman who took everything boxed or packaged out of its box or package, and then puzzled — repeatedly and unsuccessfully — over how to get things back in.
• The woman who shopped, and shopped, and shopped while her husband stood on the sidewalk and scowled, and scowled, and scowled.
• The elderly man who bought three packages of Christmas napkins, bargaining me down to twenty cents.
• The man who arrived at 2 p.m., when we’d already cleaned up. He opened the front door, without knocking, and asked if we were the house with the garage sale, and if we had any make-up mirrors.

I’m not making this up.

I’ll let you know when the next sale happens, in case you need inspiration.