Beth puts in a workday

Exhausted; it's 6.30 p.m. and I actually WORKED today, worked hard. At least, hard for someone who's usually messing around at home; even teaching is extremely easy in comparison with what most of the world does every day, I'm embarrassed to say.

I spent the morning warning up my body and voice and turning into a neurotic, hypochondriac actress once again, and this afternoon sitting in a studio for 3 1/2 hours, taping the audiobook. In that time we did less than 60 pages of a 230 page book, and I'm a pretty fluent reader. So, lots more to do.

But how lucky I am to have this studio and its technician, a young U of T graduate with a Master's in music technology called, mysteriously, Cu, who is incredibly skilled. He ensconced me in front of a state-of-the-art microphone, fired up his enormous console and we began. Beside me I had: a thermos of tea with lemon and honey, throat lozenges, snacks, sweater and socks in case it was chilly - which it was, those went on and the tea was drunk and the snacks were eaten. Neurosis, thy name is BK.

But it was great. I used to do a lot of radio and voiceover, though have not for years, and was nervous about going back to this part of my life. I don't like listening to myself, as I over-enunciate, sound prissy, like I'm trying too hard. But once I got started, it was as if I'd been doing this all along. Wonderful Jason was there to get me launched, sympathetic about my concerns - this is not only you going back to acting, it's your own words you're reading, he said. And my own life I'm exposing, I said.

But that's the job.

After we stopped, I watched Cu do his editing magic - taking out hesitancies or mistakes, watching the row of vertical lines that is my voice. We have the day off tomorrow to listen to today's tapes and see what worked and didn't, then Monday and Tuesday we're at it again, and then a break till the following week, as I'm invited to Ruth's cottage Thursday and am determined to go; I really need to get out of town for a bit. Nicole is all set to move in here and look after garden and cat.

But tomorrow, also, I have to go and have a Covid test; understandably, Ruth would like to know I'm safe before I arrive on her island. And given my headache and sore throat - neurosis? Covid? - it'll be good to do that. I feel like my body is disintegrating, so many hours sitting with the computer, writing email blasts and MailChimp announcements, taking another webinar on book marketing for writers - terrific - speaking to the publisher, emailing my kids and friends. Somewhere in there, I try to do some exercise with the computer, and I try to cook. But not much. Not enough.

It's all overwhelming, sometimes. Particularly when I actually have to work.

Tonight, vegging.
PS One funny thing: when you're doing audio work, you should try to avoid dairy which creates phlegm. I realized today how much my diet revolves around dairy - milk for breakfast, yogurt, cheese, mayonnaise. Could hardly imagine how to eat without. Nuts. Meat and potatoes. More nuts. Bread. As soon as I got home after taping, I had slabs of my favourite Quebecois cheese, la Sauvagine. Reward. With, of course, wine. Trying to tune out the Bellowing Boyfriend next door. Definitely need to get out of town.

the greatest blessings

They weren't expected till the end of the month but arrived yesterday. Opening the first box and holding the newborn for the first time is an overwhelming moment for a writer. Joy. I sent a birth announcement to friends: she's here, the perfect size, weight, and colour, so far missing only a comma on page 19.

And, from Nova Scotia:

blessings

Many thanks to all you kind folk who've sent sympathy for the water explosion here. But here's the thing: it could have been so much worse. John told me about a friend who was away when a tap exploded at his house. He came back a week later to a flood; three stories of drywall had crumbled down to the floor. I was here. John got here.

And ... Beirut. For context.

John came with a new part for the toilet upstairs. This is what broke off: the round plastic bit of this $7.99 part.

And then he spent a couple of hours ripping the sodden carpet from the stairs. Built in 1887 and quite lovely in their worn-out nakedness.

Answering my cry of despair, Lani and Chris wrote to suggest, helpfully, that I move to a smaller community, like Stratford or Niagara-on-the-Lake. Thank you, but no. I'll find a way to stick it out here. Almost everything and everyone I hold dear is in Toronto. Including, on this beautifully cool quiet morning, this:

disaster from the water gods

Yesterday, I made the terrible mistake of assuming life was going swimmingly. Jason and I had just had a productive meeting, during which I booked a nearby sound studio, Number 9 on Gerrard, to record an audiobook of the memoir. A big project but one which seemed to fall surprisingly easily into place. Even better, after Jason left, Anna phoned to tell me how much they are all enjoying their Nova Scotia retreat.

I was chatting with her on the phone when suddenly water started squirting - pouring - out of the light socket in the dining room. Terrifying. And then the smoke alarm started shrieking. It was as if the house itself was possessed. I ran upstairs to see water pouring out of the smoke alarm above the stairs and out of the door frame of the nearby bedroom, pooling in inches on the floor. I dashed up to the third floor, thinking that my tenant had left a tap running - water was squirting violently out of the wall in his bathroom, the floor was awash in water. All the alarms in the house screaming, water running down walls everywhere.

Total panic. Drenched, I called John.

15 minutes later he appeared. I'd tried but couldn’t turn off the house's water system in the basement because the shut off valve had been changed, it’s a lever somewhere that I couldn't find. But he turned it off. And though water was still squirting and the alarms were still screaming and the carpeted stairs were soaking wet, we made our way to the third floor where John eventually figured out that the toilet had somehow pulled out of the wall and disconnected from the pipes. He managed to stop the waterfall and disconnect the alarm.

Major clean up - every single towel in the house, every rag, every bucket. Luckily neither tenant was home at that time. Poor Robin upstairs came home and went into shock. The woman in the basement initially was furious about the wet carpet and wet floor and lack of towels, but forgave me.

And then my dear friend Suzette arrived at the door for dinner; though I’d sent her several messages of warning she didn't get them. And despite everything, despite the kitchen being full of the pots and bowls I’d used to catch water and the sodden towels covering the deck, we made a nice dinner and evening. Luckily our food was all made.

In the middle of it all, as I was mopping floors and trying to get ready for my friend, I found the cat on the stove, trying to eat our pasta dinner from the saucepan. 

I drank too much. There was a huge cleanup after. The paint on many walls, from attic to basement, is damp and damaged. Can’t even think about it.

As I've quoted many times, my last handyman Len told me I must have offended the water gods in a previous life. And it certainly seems so, this house a litany of leaking roof and skylights and flooding basement. But - a toilet pulling from the wall and flooding a four-story house - have you ever heard of that? 

In the night, I awoke, feeling as if my body was electrified, currents charging through, zapping me. I thought I was having a heart attack and came down to look it up on my phone. It said something about anxiety, and also about MS, that it might be an early symptom of MS. Put the phone down. Not going there right now. Ate some peanut butter, my soporific of choice, and managed to sleep. When the stores open will ride downtown to buy fresh towels and bath mats for my tenants, as theirs are in garbage bags on the deck. John is arriving at some point with new parts for the toilet upstairs, and then we're going to tear out the carpeting on the stairs, too sodden to save.

What if John hadn't been home yesterday? The thought makes me sick. I wonder, for the millionth time, about a nice little condo somewhere. 

But where? Any ideas? Up for a move. 

PS Just dropped a heavy bottle of maple syrup on my toe. It hurts. Time to give up? Back to bed? Back to the womb? 

Seventy - true or false?

I just looked at myself in the mirror and laughed. "You're 70 fucking years old!" I said to her, that familiar face looking back, the face that could be 33 as far as I'm concerned. It's just surreal, simply not possible, it does not compute. 70 is my grandmothers who were creaking and slow and OLD. It's decrepit and on the way out. Nothing to do with MOI.

But here we are.

The campers in Nova Scotia are happy. Sam is very busy because both the Raptors and the Leafs are playing big games today. The Leafs. In August. Talk about surreal.

Today I was indeed a crabby old lady, however. After a week of listening day in day out to sawing and drilling and hammering, in mid-afternoon I marched, carrying a printout of the Toronto noise ordinance, into the yard on Spruce Street where the construction had been carrying on all day and pointed out that the rules say, NO CONSTRUCTION NOISE ON SUNDAY. It turned out not to be the horrible developers who have wreaked havoc in the 'hood but a nice guy who works during the week and can only build his deck on the weekend. But still, I begged him for myself and the 30 or so other families in the vicinity, especially for those of us without cottages whose gardens are our retreats, to please give us some peace today.

And he did.

I have the feeling that silence, or even relative silence, will soon be one of the great luxuries of life for those of us living in cities. We had silence today, here, at last. I came home and sat outside for the rest of the day, relishing what was not filling my ears. I'm trying to finish Aubrey McKee because I have to go pick up another library book soon. Alex Pugsley is a very good writer, exploding with ideas, words, amazing details, superb dialogue - but again, as often before, this crabby old lady thinks he needs and did not have a good editor. EDIT. CUT. TOO MUCH. Less is more. Etc.

I also mailed a letter to the CBC complaining about a news anchor who stumbles on foreign names, sometimes 2 or 3 times in a row, and sounds as if she barely understands what she's reading. But it's her enunciation that drives me insane; she can't pronounce even simple words, particularly the suffix 'ing.' Talkin seein doin. "Returnin to our top story." On the CBC National News.

I also tried to watch a new TV drama, starring Seth Rogan as a modern day schlub and also as his own great-grandfather who was miraculously preserved for 100 years in pickle brine. I wanted to like this Jewish folk tale, but it was just too stupid.

So yes, crabby, with an occasional finger or leg cramp, some memory gaps, a sometimes achey back, a resigned sense of what I will never get to do in this lifetime. I guess I am 70. Unbelievable as it may seem.

Here's the good news: I did watch Modern Times on TCM by and with Charlie Chaplin, stunning. And it's summer, and that means peaches and other good things. Hooray for the Saturday St. Lawrence Market. Appreciated even by the very old. And very crabby.