A Skewed View

Life it putt-ing along. Not much new to share ... and doubts anyone is here to see what I do share so no hurry to update. I got my taxes off 18 hours early. Go me. That just does not happen often. And I get a small amount back. Always pleasant. Now to put the finishing touches on my film school application. Harder than it looks. Have I mentioned I have to provide a C.V., 2 letters of reference, an original feature script, a written script for a television series currently on the air (luckily Corner Gas is on for one more season or I'd be hooped!), a script idea for a series currently on the air, two ideas for new series I want to put on the air, a list of my all-time 10 favourite television series , and a letter explaining why I want to attend this school and what I plan to do with the knowledge if I get in. In triplicate. Then I wake up this morning to discover that Syncrude is adding to their bulk collection of oiled waterfowl carcasses thanks to their lax prevention techniques. ...

At this time, I wish to share with you my favourite joke: Did you hear about the fire they had at the Calgary Golf and Country Club? Yeah, there were Flames all over the course! Now I find that funny. I do. Just as funny as I find this: I love my Flames. I do. I have been an avid supporter from a tender age. Much of it has to do with the fact that my Dad is a Flames fan. If you wanted to spend time with my daddy on a Saturday night, and I did, you did it in front of a hockey game. And if you wanted to talk, you did it during commercial breaks. Scratch that. If you wanted a chance of Dad hearing what you said, you did it during commercial breaks (or before he picked up his book during the intermissions). The way I remember it, Saturday evenings when I was – as Dad would put it – knee-high to a grasshopper represented that solid, predictable routine and structure the child-rearing books say kids want. Watch a little Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Hour before the game came on. Then it was spag...

Son of freakin' nut supply! Is that ... Snow?!

Once upon a time, a young lawyer made a mistake. A costly mistake. She went on vacation ... and left her stuffed moose alone. First, came the fighter jets... that took out the moose's bodyguards on its first pass ... then swung around to take out the moose himself ... A hard day's work for the fighter pilot done, it was marshmallow-roasting-over-a-flaming-moose time! The place was truly a site of carnage. Some people said somebody must have had too much time on her hands at work. As is so often the case in bystander commentaries on the nature and genesis of war, this explanation was an oversimplification of the issues at play. Oh, for the carefree days of working someplace where my evil genius can be explored and appreciated.

You know how runners get a second wind after hitting the wall? A place where you just couldn’t possible go on – but then you do, and it’s all kind of ethereal and out-of-body and life is bunnies and kittens and Breyer’s M&M Ice Cream from then on? I don’t. I’m not a runner. But I’ve heard tales told, and suspect this is what’s happening to me at work. The troubles have become parodies of themselves, and I am left with laughter as my sole recourse. I can look colleagues in the eye, explain that no, I couldn’t get to project E, because I can’t stress enough how time consuming projects A, B, C and D were – and they’ll just briefly eyeball the projects that are sitting there completed, and say “So… you didn’t do project E?” So this month it’s all about project E. Nothing but E in April. And when they ask me why I didn’t get to A, B, C or D, I’ll look them straight in the eye and say “What do you mean? I thought we were in agreement that nothing counts but E. Curses!” Then they'll b...

I just got my first reference letter to submit with my admission package to film school this fall. And I quote: "I found her grasp of the craft of writing to be first-rate and she has an original voice, a rarity among writers." I'm a rarity. Which is similar, perhaps, to being "special" -- which, yes, people say of me only in association with making quotation marks with their fingers. We all gotta be something.

Now, I could be speaking of my collection of spheres in my bedroom... Or how about the collection of spheres in my front room bookcase?... (man, I think I also have a thing for Threes) I know! I'll bet you I mean the spheres I have near my front window that I adore because they sit by my plants and look like large drops of dew! Nope. I apparently have balls because I live in Edmonton, and just this evening put this: in my apartment window and this: on my balcony. Yes, it is a car flag. (I may have balls, but I still have my brains. Put this on my car and I can probably kiss my windshield goodbye.) Go Flames Go!