Champagne and Socks

August 26 is going to come round faster than I think it will and I have two very important events in my calendar for that day.

Here in Perth, I am scheduled to speak as part of the Women Achievers night for the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia fundraising event. I’m so blown away to have been asked that I have no idea what I will talk about. For 15 minutes. I need to start working on that speech.

In Melbourne, Twelfth Planet Press is scheduled to have a showcase at the Melbourne Writers Festival. We are hosting a free event with food and drinks at the Yarra Building, Federation Square at 5.30 pm. More information can be found on the Melbourne Writers Festival programme. Jason Nahrung has been working incredibly hard on the ground in Melbourne to make this work. And Deborah Biancotti and Kaaron Warren are flying in for the event. Also part of the event are the Melbourne Twelve Planets – Lucy Sussex, Narrelle M Harris, Deb Kalin, Rosaleen Love and Kirstyn McDermott – and Jason Nahrung. What a fantastic lineup! To top that, we have Kerry Greenwood to help launch the event and especially the newly released Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan. I wish I could be there! It’s going to be heaps of fun.

Things are incredibly busy at the moment. Just having to learn to run faster to keep up with it all!

A quick plug for the latest issue of the fanzine Journey Planet – Issue 13 – which can be downloaded for free here.

I was invited to contribute to a discussion following the decision for Eastercon 2013 to progamme for gender parity and Paul Cornell’s commitment to not being on all male panels. This discussion, in the form of many varied answers and opinions on the topic is presented in this issue of Journey Planet. It’s guaranteed to make you angry but what is really interesting is that everyone will be angry to different responses and to me that’s the most important thing. We are all different and we see the issues and solutions differently. And “women” are not one homogenous subset who all think and feel and see the world the same. I hope this issue kicks off respectful discussions with depth and I think, there are many paths up the mountain but the important thing is that the more we talk about it and the more we highlight the issues, the better chance we have of it being visible and in the forefront of everyone’s minds. Because then, with quotas or without, if people are thinking “hey we should ask this person” or “we should examine why we only have men speaking/writing/volunteering/participating on this”, we have a greater chance of them then asking why and considering the answer. I think that’s a huge step forward, no matter the outcome.

I had a really great weekend. Yesterday I slept in so the whole day was spent celebrating a friends forthcoming nuptials. I caught the train into the city – all dressed up and feeling very cosmopolitan. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever used public transport for going out. (I’ve lived a sheltered life). We started with a very lovely high tea and then on to cocktails and canapes and games and then I was picked up by my lovely fiance and headed home. I’m getting old, bed starts to look good earlier in the evening these days.

But I had two slowly dawning on me thoughts from yesterday and they fit into a theme of a thoughts process I’m working through at the moment. I’m very much finding myself working back through a lot of crap and discarding a lot of emotional and personal stuff and finding my way back to me. It feels more and more like I’m coming back home. And in some ways, the “myself” is a person I am referring to from long ago. Kathryn asked me last night how I was defining my time periods and I guess I feel like I’ve been working through for a long time stuff from my ex – not really things about him but more to do with how I let myself be treated and who I became in that relationship, which wasn’t a short period of time.

If you let someone undermine you, or you bend yourself into the person they want you to be, you can lose yourself, forget who you are and more importantly, you can learn to train yourself into being what other people want you to be, liking things other people want you to like and believing the horrible and untrue things they say about you. I was in that relationship for 6 years trying to make it work by trying to twist myself into being the person who fit into that picture. And it felt like I broke myself by the end. I’ve spent a long time working on healing myself from that experience. And I probably have a way to go. But I think some of this is some of the answer to some recent heartache. That I’ve learned to take to heart and let lies about myself hurt me. I can’t stop that kind of stuff but I can change how I think about those things. It’s a work in process.

I do think it’s funny that I made this random and non thought through tweet today about how I was working on liking chai tea this afternoon. A few people were like – WHY??? And I guess I still think it’s more important to make myself like what I don’t than just be ok with not liking something that other people do. When you step up and have a contrary opinion, there will always be people who don’t like that. And sometimes that makes you a target. But the thing is, if I shut up or pretend to like things I don’t, then I’m letting those same people silence me.

The trick of course is, learning to pick your battles. Which isn’t about picking the ones you think you’ll win but rather picking the ones that are worth fighting for, regardless of whether you’ll win or not. And that is also a work in progress

The second thing about yesterday was a reminder of how important it is that I ground truth my own reality I spent a good amount of time with a bunch of women I love and trust and who believe in me and support me. And being reminded of that makes all the difference in the world. And how lovely it is to just be with people you can admire and enjoy and appreciate with no negativity at all. I really really need to spend more time with my friends – they are awesome.

I had a third, maybe, light bulb moment. I decided that I was going to wear one of my new dresses that I bought online. And I realised that these were knee length so I would need some tights to wear with them since it’s colder than all get out here of late. So I bought tights on Friday and was very pleased to note I have gone down a size in tights. So I dressed up in my new dress and tights and heels and also I wore my new contacts and did my makeup (since I could now see my eyes to put eye make up on). And as I stood waiting for the train I realised that I felt really good about myself. I wear my contacts and make up when I feel good about myself, rather than to make myself feel good about myself.

So in thinking about this, I realised that I have been feeling bad about myself because I have not lost any weight in Round 2 of the 12 WBT. My goal was to lose about 6kgs or possibly 8kg and instead I have plateaued. And some weeks I’ve stuck really well to the food and exercise and some only partly, maybe to one or the other, but as the lack of results have continued, I’ve lost enthusiasm. And Michelle would say, but this is where it gets interesting because here is where you learn things about yourself. And yes, it’s true, I get my enthusiasm for anything when I can see results and progress.  It’s easy to get deflated and lose interest and confidence when you work hard at something and you don’t see any payoff.

With TPP, I always tell myself that I’m playing the long game and I just need to dig in and double my efforts. As I was thinking about it yesterday I thought about how if I hadn’t been on the program this round, I most certainly wouldn’t have at least maintained weight. I would most certainly have gained. But then I thought through how Michelle is always saying that you should see the other results, things that change on the inside. And I realised that I am halfway to my goal. And I’ve still lost 10kg. And there I was wearing a brand new dress in a smaller size and showing my knees for the first time in possibly 10 years. I was back to feeling good about myself so that I put effort in and wore contacts and did my makeup. I was back to starting to feel good in my own skin and who I am. And having fun with dressing up and presenting an image to the world instead of hoping to just be invisible. And how can that be anything other than results, and a win to be celebrated? How could I think getting to halfway to my goal was anything other than something to be proud of?  I realised this is part of how I sabotage my own success when I constantly see the glass as half empty when it’s really half full. And that is something I need to think more deeply about.

We’re having a competition to find the best trifle recipe for inclusion in our forthcoming crime novel A Trifle Dead.

In anticipation of A Trifle Dead, the debut novel from new crime imprint Deadlines, we seek delicious, inspiring trifle recipes to publish in the book.

We are looking for recipes that match any or all of the following themes: Shot Glass Trifle, Death by Trifle, and Tasmanian Trifle.

Up to 3 winning recipe/s will appear in the novel, with all credit and attribution to the creator/s.

The winner(s) will receive an early contributor copy of A Trifle Dead, a stack of postcards featuring your winning recipe, and your choice of 2 Twelfth Planet Press books (either backlist or forthcoming titles).

Submit your recipe to contact@twelfthplanetpress.com with subject line A TRIFLE DEAD RECIPE and including a photo of your finished masterpiece by August 8, 2012.

Please provide contact details, preferred attribution, and a mailing address.

A Trifle Dead

About Livia Day:

Livia Day fell in love with crime fiction at an early age.  Her first heroes were Miss Jane Marple and Mrs Emma Peel, and not a lot has changed since then!

She has lived in Hobart, Tasmania for most of her life, and now spends far too much time planning which picturesque tourist spot will get the next fictional corpse.  You can find her online at tabithadarlingsbedroomfloor.tumblr.com

I’ve been remembering some important things that I already learned the hard way a while ago.

1. Reading. For Fun. It’s a thing. I forgot.

The other night I decided to pull something non sf from my to read bookshelf for light reading. I have one or two books sprinkled in there that are related to other interests. That I have. I climbed into bed with said book, read a bit of it and went to sleep. And then I was actually excited to make a little bit of time before bed by going to bed the next night a bit early to read a bit more. And again the night after that. And oh yeah, reading for fun, is fun. I totally forgot. Maybe, and I know this is going out there a bit, but stick with me, maybe I could buy more books that are not “work” related and maybe I’d rediscover my joy of reading. Just a thought.

2. My mantra, that I worked on some time ago – is not “oh no I got nothing done tonight” but rather to ask myself “did I make progress today” and as long as the answer is “yes”, then I’m good. I don’t know where along the way I accidentally dropped that one but I did. And now that I found it and picked it up again, the daily emails from I Done This make so much more sense – oh that’s what they were for again!

3. In this world, there will always be people who don’t like you. Just like there are people in this world who you do not like.  That’s ok. That’s life. That’s actually an important part of life. It’s far more important to “Know before whom you stand”.

4. I need to work on taking down time. And the way I used to do this was with craft. I’ve left a lot of my craft work languish and whilst there is much work to be done, it’s also important to take time out to meditate and let creativity sneak in. I’m going to work harder on making time to work on craft projects as this forces me to put down the work sometimes and just take a break.

5. I feel better when I progress a little bit of a lot of things rather than focussing on taking one thing through to the end of the task. I prefer to step back and see lots of things getting done, even if its more slowly, than if I finish just one thing – I will say “I only got one thing done” even if it was a really really big thing.

6. I also have a tendency to work hard on a project, take it past the 85% completed point and walk away. I have a fear of failure or a fear of success, I haven’t quite worked that one out. But it seems it’s much easier to say something didn’t work out because I chose not to finish it or I ran out of time or  I just didn’t do X, Y or Z. I do this with all kinds of things, big and small. And it’s kinda bullshit. I’m working on picking things back up to finish them all the way to the end and on finding ways to not walk away when I’m almost at the finishing line.

7. Just F’ing Do It and/or Just Ask for Help. OMG I am the worst for emailing or phoning up to ask a question or ask for help on something. Or progressing anything that involves telling or talking to someone else about it. It turns out, it does not hurt to ask and in fact people are waiting to be asked for their help. It’s *faster* and it gets shit done.

8. I have a fear of the end of things (see point 6) – like I have a genuine fear that if I used up all my yarn stash … what? What would happen if there was no more stash? Or if I completed everything on the to do list(s). What then? I need to actively remind myself that I can BUY MORE YARN if I use up the stash and GUILT FREE and also that there will always be more to add to the to do list. But honestly, sometimes I deliberately do not do things yet cause then I’d cross them off and … um … yeah. Point me to point 7.

9. I have finally realised there is no finite list of wedding tasks. I’ve come to a zen point with this and am now able to just do things. Today I booked our wedding night accommodation and I actually started the spreadsheet for scheduling of the day. This week we meet with the flowers lady and we’ve sort of finalised our wedding band designs.

10. There is no 10.

Well hello there Friday night, you sexy thing!

I have dragged myself through this week. I was going to post at the end of last week to mark the first week that C had gone back to sea. Things went great and I was feeling quite positive about it. We prepped the food that I needed for the week on the Sunday before and by and large that worked out pretty well. And I had a lot of work on during the week and things were ok. Before I knew it, it was the weekend again. And C was back. And we hung out a bit and prepped all my food for this week just gone and then he was off again.

This week, things were not so awesome. I never really had caught up on my sleep last week and this week it just kind of compounded and every day I felt like I was dragging myself more and harder out of bed to stand in the cold at 7am to catch the bus. This morning I only made it out at 7.20. I was sick off work Monday – managed to get to the bus stop and then realised I felt revolting. Caught the bus to the train station and felt worse and then had to catch the school bus back home. I spent the day catching up on Last Short Story reading and cable and stuff but was back into the work by Monday night. And I worked pretty solidly the evenings after work so that by Thursday I was going through the life motions.

But Wednesday I caught up with some friends for lunch and we discussed all sorts of things one of which resulted in the suggestion that I might be low in iron. I can’t believe that was not something that was on the top of my list to check out – vegetarian, Crohn’s, on a diet, feeling really really exhausted. Yeah, probably not just the burn out then. I had a really good long chat with a pharmacist in the city and got some strong supplements and also booked myself in to see the doctor. I’ve been taking the supplements which have meant I’m more sleepy at night but as though my body is giving in and letting go to sleep so now I need to sleep like 100 hours to catch up. Meaning I feel worse.

And so now I’m soooooo behind on work. I’m facing a weekend of serious workathon catchup. Hopefully I can climb partway out of the hole.

We recorded a new episode of Galactic Suburbia last night. And I had a really great time on an old crafting project I’ve let lie fallow for some time. Suddenly a friend was telling me about her hexagon quilt project and I got inspired to work on the ton of black hexagons I need to do before I can proceed with finishing it off. Photos maybe later.

Hope thing are going well with you.