Category Archives: True Stories

Anecdotes from my past and present.

You Asked For It: Why Toronto? (the sequel)

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imageYesterday I answered the “why not Vancouver?” part of Wilson Fowlie’s question, “Why on Earth did you choose Toronto over Vancouver?”

Today, far more cheerily, I’m on to what Toronto offered, and whether it has delivered.

Adventure:  Shiny! New! Different! A whole new world to explore! Something I have always loved about new cities is getting to know them. And Toronto is different from every place I’ve ever lived. It has a big city buzz that is simply amazing. It’s like a baby New York filled with Canadians.

Friends: We left wonderful people in Vancouver. But the writing community is large and scattered. We’d been long-distancing it with beloveds people here and elsewhere across the U.S. A couple of our oldest besties are right here in the city and it is awesome to be near them.

Dellamonicas: Same thing, basically. The one genetic relation I have out here is a super sweet sister, and she’s very obviously happy to have me around. I had been at a three timezone remove from her; now I’m the same distance from my mother. Any other choice (London, Palermo, and Calgary are three alternatives we not-very-seriously considered) would have put me far away from them both.

Economic stuff: This was a significant factor. Vancouver is a pricey city with artificially low salaries and a deranged and punitive real estate market. Toronto has more job opportunities for Kelly, more flexibility where housing is concerned, and–as a bonus–there’s far more publishing activity.

But OMG Toronto is so totally urban and unnatural and smelly, and don’t you miss the mountains and the seawall and the beaches and seals in the Fraser River? Sure! But let’s face it, I’m a nerd. Even given that I spend a fair amount of my leisure time chasing birds with a camera, I am pretty indoorsy. I don’t hike, bike, seadoo, skidoo, ski, snowshoe, racquet-sport or run.

Of course the natural scenic beauty on offer here can’t compare what I had within easy walking distance of Woodland Drive. The pretty is a little harder–a very little–to get to. The trade-off is so much good theater, and book launches every time you turn around, and chances to go to things like Second City. I’ve been to three documentaries at TIFF lately: Finding Vivian Maier, Tim’s Vermeer, and Jodorowsky’s Dune.

For me, having to take a streetcar to the ravine to shoot cardinals, or a ferry to Toronto Island to see beach, is a pretty fair trade for being able to see Monets and Van Goghs and Warhols and Cindy Shermans every darned day of the week, all while giving the AGO a shot at convincing me that the Group of Seven had more merit than I previously assumed. Also there’s this:

PiETa was a Nuit Blanche installation. Now it’s in the AGO. How cool is this?

More adventure, in the form of new short-distance travel opportunities: New York is more doable from here. Ditto Ottawa–I’ve never been!–Quebec City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C., Vermont. These are all places I’ve always wanted to explore, but didn’t quite have the time or cash to get to. I’ve been to Seattle dozens of times, and Portland at least ten. It’s exciting.

The architecture of my life hasn’t changed significantly. My jobs are exactly the same as they had been. I’m married to the same person, live in a somewhat similar apartment, and have the same yoga, photography and coffee habits. I have the same medical quirks and am slowly working my way back to cat ownership. (Being without Rumble has been pretty awful). I watch the same TV, cook the same food, and keep the same lunatic hours.

It’d be easy, given that, to argue that all I’ve really done is change the wallpaper on the life I already had. And there’s a degree to which that may be true. I retained all the things I was satisfied with while shaking up, to a great extent, the place where they were happening. It’s human nature to be dissatisfied with what you have: when all the dust settles on this move, years from now, some of those feelings that triggered this move will recur.

Right now, I’m delighting in the new horizons, the abundant unfamiliar, the amazing cultural opportunities and the company of my sister and Ontario friends. This has been invigorating, a much-needed shot in the arm. I am grateful for the series of events and choices that brought me here.

Moved! (Toronto, day 346)

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imageThe past five or so days have been both gruelling and immensely gratifying. Final packing took up all of my Thursday. Getting everything relocated and unpacking it was the dawn-to-dusk Friday task. Kelly joined me after her work week ended; I set something of a backbreaking pace, and she matched it heave for heave. She is, officially, a trooper!

Saturday and Sunday were spent organizing all our worldly goods. We headed out a couple times to get much-needed things from Canadian Tire and Bed, Bath and Beyond. Much of what we needed is for for our strangely laid-out bathroom, which has two doors–one from the main hall, one from the bedroom–and a separate bath and shower. We’re calling the shower “the glass cage of emotion,” in honor of a certain scene from Anchorman.

Here’s the old place looking clean and empty. Goodbye, King Street. You were good to us.

Depending on where you’re reading this, you might be able to swipe forward or back and see many many pictures of the empty old place and jammed-with-stuff new place. This seems to be the Flickr/Wordpress thing now. But if not, here’s my office filled with things and walled off by Frogboxes.

The chaos is diminishing and the Frogboxes go home today. Once that’s done, I can finalize where things will go, start setting out my various daily routines, and go about adopting a cat before I lose my mind.
If you’ve been waiting on an e-mail from me, thank you for your patience. I hope to be back up to speed by week’s end.

Toronto, Day 335

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imageI am still working on answering Blaise’s question: are editors still needed? And I’m pondering your other questions, excited about answering them, and grateful to know what interests you. If you haven’t weighed in yet and there’s something you want to know, tell me! I’m happily building up the list of requests.

In the meantime, a few current snippets of news from the land of Dua Moving Insanity:

–We got the keys to the new place this week, and floors are going in. The shower may be leaky, so we’re going to look into fixing it ASAP. Since it’s the one truly gnarly-looking thing in the place, this is going to turn out to be a blessing. I am packing boxes and have just about reached the point where I’m going to be hiding away things we will actually want but not need between now and next week.

–Okay, there’s one other gnarly looking thing, but it’s so outrageous and improbable that I’ll tell you about it another time.

–The new place is also grubby. I keep reminding myself that when we moved into Woodland Drive in 2001, the apartment was omg, seriously, so filthy! This isn’t bad. Another improvement on our 2001 experience is that  the previous owners at Dua Central didn’t fail to move out a whole bunch of wall art, furniture and a seventy billion pound exercise bike. We’re really ahead this time! Nevertheless, Kelly and I plan to spend Good Friday scrubbing. If you’re in Toronto and want to drop by to see us cleanifying an empty apartment, shoot me a text. And just so you know, I do mean see us cleanifying. You will not be allowed to help.

–“The Color of Paradox” and “Snow Angels” have hit the next stage of pre-publication, which means editors Ellen Datlow and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, respectively, have sent me notes on them, small questions about things that may need fixing. I’ve been so delighted to have a chance to write a few stories this year, and it’s nice to see these moving through the process.

–Although we will not do anything about acquiring new offspring before we are in Dua Central, Kelly and I have jumped a few pre-adoption hoops at a no-kill cat shelter here in the city. It turns out that being able to perform basic tasks like brushing my hair, cooking, walking across the room, lying in bed unconscious and drinking water from a glass–not to mention packing all my worldly goods!–without constant feline supervision is simply depressing. I cannot handle the autonomy.

–We went to the monthly ChiSeries reading featuring Sam Bieko, Keith Hollihan, and Jerome Stueart, with comical SF-themed songs by Kari Maaren and Peter Chiykowski. It was a terrific night. The readings were great, the musicians hilarious and we saw many friends. I’ll be one of the readers in July–I’ll let you know more as the date approaches.

Tell me what to write! (the saga continues)

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cropped-10045023186_1a8678ed12_o.jpgAs a new experiment in having a blog that doesn’t bore its readers to death, I threw out a query to the Internet yesterday, asking everyone to let me know what you’d like to hear about. Some of my best writing has been assigned: many of my favorite short stories were written for theme anthologies. I had a number of reasons for asking for your input, but chief among them was seeing if the same thing might apply with this space.

Questions so far:
Escape Clause editor Clélie Rich wants to know where we’re moving to, and why.
Paul Weimer of SF Signal asks: Do you have a map for Stormwrack? What were your inspirations for the various cultures we see in CHILD OF A HIDDEN SEA? And: Why *portal* fantasy? (not that I am complaining, but its uncommon these days)

Over on Facebook, Wilson Fowlie wants to know: Why on earth you’d choose Toronto over Vancouver?

And Badger would like for me to blog about cheese.

Lorraine Valestuk says: I’d like to hear about why practically every lead in a fantasy novel has to have green eyes. (Follow-up comments blamed Marion Zimmer Bradley.) Then Clélie chimed in to ask: Do Toronto maps show you where to find people with green eyes?

My friends, I think you are feeling surreal. Spring fever?

I will answer Cleile’s question first, because it’s easy. C, we took a one-year lease on the apartment we’re in currently when we moved, with the idea that we’d look around, check out neighborhoods, and then decide if/where we wanted to settle more permanently. Now we have bought a fabulous condo that is a three minute walk from the subway going in one direction, a three minute walk to the Art Gallery of Ontario (henceforth to be known as Our Personal Art Collection) in the other, and a fifteen minute walk from both the CN Tower and Kelly’s office. There’s more info in a previous entry, here.

I am still gratefully taking suggestions, requests, and your random topic ideas.

(I am also counting up green-eyed fantasy hero and heroines. Harry Potter. Katsa from Graceling. And…?)

What things make a post?

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First, a heartfelt thank you to everyone who sent some bit of support or kindness about our loss of Rumble, whether by Twitter or FB or in an e-mail. I tried to answer as many of you as possible; if I missed you, know that it was appreciated. I also want to mention that VEC on Yonge Street gave us all outstanding care. I endorse them without reservation, and hope you never need to access their services.

The condo feels empty, and it’s bizarre to be able to brush my hair without brushing a cat at the same time–someone always insisted–or fold the sheets without first being required to play the Roly Poly Rumtum game, or set out a glass of water and not have it get spilled within minutes. It’s excruciating to not be greeted at the door.

Whew! Okay, topic change.

This apartment was already beginning to seem a bit hollow, in a way, because our days in it are so numbered. The moving boxes arrive Monday and the movers themselves come in two weeks. Meanwhile, Kelly and I are keeping the place in showhome condition (as far as that’s possible with our boho collection of stuff) because if it rents for May 1st, we’ll get some rent back. We really want the dosh so we can spend it on needed and wanted things for Dua Central.

Changing the subject entirely: blog topics I have considered lately. I have recently seen Tim’s Vermeer and Finding Vivian Maier. They’re both about people who make pictures in an arguably obsessive way. I enjoyed the Veronica Mars movie, but feel there was as much wrong with it as right.

I’ve been thinking about what ecofantasy is, and what it should be.

What else? I went to a book launch for A Family by Any Other Name: Exploring Queer Relationships, and heard eight queer writers, including one of my oldest friends, Keph Senett, share aspects of their lives, here in Canada in this shiny new millennium. Among other things, it made me think, not for the first time, about how I don’t tend to write long-form personal essays. I also recently read Celeste Ng’s “Do you owe the Reader a Happy Ending?” choked on the word “owe,” and thought about composing a possibly off-point response.

Finally, I have been wondering if anyone wants to know specific things about Child of a Hidden Sea and/or its prequels, “Among the Silvering Herd” and “The Ugly Woman of Castello di Putti.” Or general things about writing, photography, or just about anything else as long as my knowledge of the topic is more than zero.

What do you want to talk about? I’m tempted to add something operatic like: “Keep me busy, or I shall run mad with grief!” But if you know me, you know I am anti-drama. (Is that a topic?) And, really, those boxes are arriving Monday.

I would sincerely appreciate a few requests, if you have any.