Oct 14, 2009

Mise à jour

After a prolonged absence partly caused by not actually having any time to spend in my beloved city, Res Ipsa's Paris has now been updated.

It was a dark and stormy night...

The novel has begun. Though only a very little bit. Because unfortunately that consulting malarkey has not yet entirely finished and putting together slides on the future of the banking industry is sort of cramping the flow of my creative juices.

So let's just say that, if my novel was one of those wooden barns you always see American people building in inspirational Lifestyle movies, I've just barely nailed the first two big beams together.

But spirits continue to run high. Like any other job, "Writing" was also bound to have its tough bits, so I've decided not to worry excessively if the words don't flow onto the page as quickly or as smoothly as I might have hoped. They will get there. Eventually.

In other news, has anyone else noticed that we appear to have travelled from the golden fields of Indian summer to the frozen gates of hell in the space of 3 days?! What is up with that? And where is the global warming everybody's been promising us? I want my money back! That, or a trip to somewhere warm and sunny. Rephrase: a trip to somewhere hot and tropical. Maybe even sweltering. Sometimes I feel I may have been born in the wrong continent.

Oct 8, 2009

The Second Coming

Like an unfurling caterpillar, or Nessie's lesser-known tiny sibling, I am slowly emerging from the muckety-muck that has been 2009. And boy does it feel good.

These are what my days look like now.

8:30 AM: iPod posing as an alarm turns on. I smile, wrap myself up in the duvet like a pig in a - well - duvet, and scrunch up my eyes as my toes start wriggling to the tunes.

9 AM: Curious to see if the sun is shining, I stretch loudly and luxuriously across the entire span of my massive bed before hopping over to where I keep the caffeine.

10:30 AM: Having had my fill of the morning news, coffee, and email, I walk the 2 minutes to my gym to sweat profusely on the treadmill watched only by a small battalion of über-gay men in snazzy tight-fitting outfits. Running makes me happy. Running is my Everest. Considering that back in March I was in the hospital and unable to walk all the way to the bathroom without wanting to curl up and die next to my oxygen tank, the fact that I'm now clocking in at 7km fills me with an unsurpassable sense of pride and accomplishment. Hey, everything's relative.

12:30 PM: Right. Time to cook some lunch. While singing to myself. Because it makes the veggies more tender.

2 PM: This is when I begrudgingly admit that I am actually still employed by BM, open up the dreaded work laptop, and hammer out a few slides with some fun banking-related inanities on it that I don't understand. But as long as I align the boxes and choose my colour scheme carefully, I figure no one will notice.

7 PM: Okie dokie, work day is done, now I get to play! So what shall we do this evening? Dinner with friends? Movie? Early night with a good book? A meet-the-author event at the library (that's right, I have now met Petite Anglaise)? Wine tasting? The possibilities are endless.

And then there's all the other stuff. Weekends away to the four corners of Europe, visiting friends and seeking adventures. Walking across Paris to see how the rest of the city is doing. Daydreaming about renting a flat in Havana à la Hemingway. Preparing to lecture my former INSEAD professors (seriously). And the book.

Because there is a book, of course. Or a foetus of a book, at this stage.

But more on that another day.