a BIG hole!

I had a busy morning at work today seeing to the administrative details of a project that's got me excited about my job again. To date, my work has been mostly numbers-focused. Now I’m up to my neck in research, which I really enjoy, and learning how strategy is applied in the “real” world, which is quite different from what you get out of articles and textbooks. And I actually have meetings and conference calls to book and attend(!) which is a very welcome change from hiding away in my cubicle crunching numbers!

It was my half day and I had plans to meet a girlfriend for lunch. We were going to spend the rest of the afternoon in bead stores as I’m custom-designing a necklace for her.

Our lunch plans were nixed since her conference call ended later than she had expected. Instead, I chilled out (literally!) at the Starbucks with a Caribbean Chicken wrap (yum!) and a chai latte. I then spent some time browsing in the biography section at Chapters and came up with a new wishlist:

Kiss and Tango – Marina Palmer
A Bed of Flowers – Nelofer Pazira
Straight Up and Dirty – Stephanie Klein
Diplomatic Baggage – Bridgid Keenan
Letters of a Portuguese Nun – Myriam Cyr

These books are all written by women about women. I’ve often wondered why I’m more drawn to the non-fictionalized lives of women as opposed to men, and it’s probably because I’m better able to relate to their experiences. When I read fiction, I know it’s make-believe, so it doesn’t really matter to me whether I’m championing a hero or a heroine.

My friend was able to make it down to Queen West by about 3pm, so we spent the next couple hours browsing the bead stores. I might have gotten just a tiny bit carried away with my purchases…actually, I know I did: we stopped for a coffee at Tequila Bookworm (which truly is one of the coziest spaces in the city—they have their own blog) and the cost of airfare to NYC came up in conversation. My friend reiterated the invitation to join her there in September for a weekend—I was tentative when last we spoke and that’s when I found out that what I spent on beads today in an hour would have gotten me on a flight to NYC!

The most exciting news of the day? We drove by the site of my condo, and there’s a big hole! When last I walked by a couple weeks ago, there was just a pile of dirt, but a hole! That’s real progress! I couldn’t stop thinking about it…all through our car ride uptown, we’d be talking about ideas for jewellery and families and priorities, meanwhile, in the back of my mind, I’m thinking about that big hole!