Impeachara

Okay, getting close to crazy time - leaving in less than a week for a 3-week jaunt around Europe, including the metropoli of Paris and London - one incredibly chic, the other almost certainly cold and wet - and the south of France which is chic and warm, and to visit my friend Denis who is the furthest thing from chic and will want to go on hikes up hill and down dale. What to pack? No idea. Underpants and socks, that much I know, and an umbrella.

I know you do not want to hear me whine. So I won't.

The big news is that I let the latest draft of the new memoir out of my grasp, shoved it into the grasp of Colin Thomas, my editor in Vancouver, who has allotted me a couple of days in early April. I had to send it - I was fiddling, obsessed, many hours, as Oscar Wilde said, taking out a comma and putting it back in again. I know it's better than it was, but I suspect it's still not good enough. I read good writers and despair, and then I hear myself adjuring my students to buck up, and try to do the same for myself. What a crazy business. Have I said that before? Met for coffee today with dear friend Rosemary Shipton, master editor and founder of the hugely successful Ryerson publishing program. We both marvelled that the writing business is falling apart, almost nobody makes any money, and yet writers and publishers are more numerous than ever.

On Tuesday, Uncle Sam brought his nephew Eli over to hang out at Glamma's house. What a treat, two of my 3 favourite men on the planet, the third being somewhat smaller. Sam made a big spaghetti dinner for the 3 of us and Wayson, my fourth favourite. Eli looked around the table and said, "There are 2 young people and 2 old people." And I said, "If you want to be invited back, watch your tongue." LOL.

On Wednesday, the conversation circle in Regent Park - it's thrilling to meet women who normally would not cross my path and will change my mind about a lot of things.

Four of these women are from Eritrea and Bangladesh, two from Canada, and one an immigrant born in New York City; several who wear niqab had left already. One is holding a poster about the fight for the $15 minimum wage. Another had 8 children by the age of 28, and then her husband died. I am learning a great deal about other ways of looking at the world.

Tomorrow I fly to Ottawa to take Auntie Do out for dinner. She will be 97 in a few weeks and I'll be away. But I'll be able to bring her favourite Neal's Yard face cream back from London.

Here's a hilarious video about a new tranquillizer that we all need. Cheers.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QXUlhT3-r0c