February 05, 2010

From Thunder Bay to Ottawa to Silicon Valley to LA... and finally, I'm home.

It's a rainy LA night tonight, which makes me relaxed, mellow. This kind of rain always reminds me of conversations my friend S and I used to have about storms, and just thinking about that makes it hard to believe those conversations happened at least four or five years ago, maybe even six? The one thing I've noticed over the last few years, is that time flies when I'm living my life in pursuit of the dreams that became my goals. Three weeks ago, one of my longest-held dreams and goals became my life: I moved again, only this time I came home to LA.

Living in LA is something I've wanted to do since I was about 10 years old, back when I was a little blond girl with big dreams in the Canadian city of Thunder Bay. So technically, at 5'2, I'm still a little blond girl, and I definitely still have big dreams. If I didn't, I wouldn't have traveled the path from Thunder Bay to Ottawa, then from Ottawa to Silicon Valley (which is part of the San Francisco Bay area, for anyone unfamiliar with California's geography), and finally, happily -- make that ecstatically -- from Silicon Valley to LA. It's a dream and home almost 20 years in the making, and to say that I'm happy to be here would be putting it mildly.

I've been really lucky. I have some really great friends here, and the last three weeks have flown by. My new office mates are great (yes, I have the job I had in Silicon Valley, and I am a VERY lucky, thankful, happy, and grateful girl), I LOVE my new home, and evening and weekend life has been a beautiful blur of friends, dinners, parties, seeing bands, hiking, and getting acquainted with my new neighborhood.

So here it is, LIFE begins. Thank you to everyone who made this possible, and who encouraged and supported my move. I love you all, and I am so very thankful and grateful.

posted by Jenn-a-lala | 08:01 PM | TrackBack (0) |
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August 12, 2009

The beauty of life is that nothing stays the same for very long

Sometimes people surprise you, in really good ways. In the end, only kindness matters. I'm grateful for good friends, good times, great hugs, and having just spent a few days in my favorite city on Earth.

Lots of love to everyone.

posted by Jenn-a-lala | 09:48 PM | TrackBack (0) |
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July 17, 2009

First book weekend

I'm super excited that it's the weekend, because it's the first weekend since I began work on the new story that will become the book. When I'm writing for me (as opposed to when I'm writing for work), I love the free time I can spend crafting scenes and dialogue, taking words from thin air and them going from keyboard to screen, or sometimes, flowing from pen to page. There's something about doing it the old-fashioned way, even when I transfer it to a Word doc later on. It reminds me of all those summers spent scribbling in notebooks when I was a kid.

When I think of those summers, there are a lot of times I'd do anything just to get back to that inhibition. You don't realize how much more open you are, and how much less outside brain clutter you allow in to crowd your mind, until you're an adult and the pace of life sometimes overloads your brain. There are times it will get to the point of what I call "brain fuzz." I know that I have to get better at partitioning my mind, so I can flip the switch a little more seamlessly from outside daily life to okay, this is personal writing time, nothing else gets in the way. I am possibly the most fidgety person in the world (or one of them, anyway, since I think it's hereditary), but when I'm in that zone, nothing else matters.

My favorite time of day to write used to be beginning anytime between midnight and 2:30 a.m., going til about 4:30 a.m. or whenever I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I messed up my sleeping habits but good during one part of high school. (Didn't matter, I still graduated top of class, didn't I? ;)) These days it's early morning, beginning when I first wake up, before I can let anything else distract me. Sipping coffee and getting beautifully lost inside of that world, and relishing the morning silence.

True story: I once declined a date because of something I was busy writing, and I didn't want to stop writing just then. I think karma sometimes pays me back for that one, but enough already. ;) (Kidding, kidding.) I'd taken a week off from work, and was for the first time, spending my holidays just hanging out in the city in which I lived (Ottawa, at the time), using that time to write. I remember how freeing it was, since it was only a couple of months after I'd finished my Master's degree, which I'd done part-time while working full-time. For about two years, up until then, all of my writing efforts and free time had been spent on course work and my Master's research paper. Right now, most of my writing efforts are spent on what I write for work, but I'm getting better at shifting my mind's focus from the work writing and letting myself get back into the personal writing world, without that distracted feeling of "I know there's something I should be doing right now."

Music-wise (because music is one of the best things to help with kicking my brain over into writing gear, something learned during j-skool), I've been on a Kings of Leon, Neverending White Lights, and The Trews kick lately. Some of it's older stuff, but that's okay. I go with what inspires the flow and gets me to that place where I can sit and write for hours.

Here's to an amazing weekend for everyone, and to living dreams.

posted by Jenn-a-lala | 07:36 PM | TrackBack (0) |
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July 14, 2009

Believe

Sometimes the book writes itself. I've been so inspired for the last couple of days -- more than I've been in several years. The words and plot are both just flowing, and it's like being home. Growing up, I used to spend summer holidays from school awake until the wee hours of the morning -- 4:30 a.m., usually -- writing pages and pages until I couldn't stay awake any longer. What I'm writing now is the same kind of writing flow that I had during all of those summers, before I knew the world of adult responsibility.

This one's for the teenager who had the novel-sized dreams. It will mean less road trips and more weekends at home, but for the first time in a long time, I have a lot to say.

posted by Jenn-a-lala | 12:41 PM | TrackBack (0) |
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June 08, 2009

Shiatsu love

Funny -- I'm lying here, typing on my phone, and realized this is the first blog entry I've done using my phone. I'm not sure why that is! Probably because I'm always busy updating Facebook using my phone.

I had an amazing Shiatsu massage at Camelot Center in Los Altos, tonight. When I lived in Ottawa, I had regular massage therapy -- usually once every three weeks -- because of all the work I put my right shoulder and arm through with the web development part of my job. Once I moved here and was full-out writing, no web work, I didn't need massage therapy anymore. I'd never tried Shiatsu massage before, and found that I really like it. I highly recommend trying it. Watch for an open house.

Last weekend, I returned from my sixth trip to LA since March; next week, I'm in Boston. Busy girl!!

posted by Jenn-a-lala | 10:41 PM |
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May 24, 2009

Please don't tell me that we had that conversation... wait, what am I saying?

Sometimes, you get caught up in a moment. And sometimes that moment lasts for a couple of months. You meet someone, and you hit it off amazingly well. You go on a date and it replaces any other "best night of your life" as being THE best night of your life. Fun and perfect, in a way you'll never forget. You hang out some more, and it's always good -- better than good.

Then you have a disastrous week, and don't know what to think. A couple of days of being really sad, and overthinking everything. (It doesn't always help, having the memory that I have! Retains things almost photo-perfect, including things I'd rather not remember quite that well.)

Everything would have been fine if I just hadn't done this [insert stupid action A]. Everything would be as it was if I hadn't started that conversation.

Then you realize about the former, maybe. And about the latter, yes it would be. And that's exactly the problem.

I think I'm done with the part of my life where I regret honesty, when it doesn't work out to what I hoped it would. There's no shame in saying look, if you don't see this happening, then I'm not the girl who will be there when it's good for you, on whatever terms you want. Even when you like that person more than you've liked anyone in years. For lack of a more apt word here, yes, it suuuuuuuuuucks -- but if you can't let yourself go after, be open to, and find what you need... who will?

I'll fully admit that I've been that girl before. It somehow hasn't occurred to me before now that what I'm looking for is just as important, and I shouldn't be afraid to say it for fear of it all crumbling down. Why? I couldn't tell you. I know that when it comes to my non-professional life, the last two years have changed me a lot. This is one of the ways it has, and I'm glad for it.

When I left Ottawa, and moved out here to Silicon Valley, it was the start of going after my goals in life, rather than trying to make other people happy and maintain the status quo. The last two years have been amazing, and have gone by so fast, I can hardly believe it. The last few months -- beginning around December -- have shown me what else I want, and what I need for a balanced life. It's not a secret that I've been seeking relocation to LA. I have family there, I have friends from Ottawa there, I have someone who's been a close friend since high school there, along with her family, and a whole bunch of other friends there. It's a foundation, and a network, and a life. Saying that -- I love the job I've had for the last two years. In a perfect world, I'd transfer it to an office down there. So is it a perfect world? Time will tell.

This week has reminded me of something important -- be true to who you are, and what you want, and don't be afraid to say it, show it, DO it. You won't always like the answer, but those answers can help set you on the right path. As one of my favorite directors back in Canadialand truly believed, "When one door closes, another opens." He was fascinated by watching it in action. Me too. So don't be afraid to shut some doors -- you never know what's behind the one that opens next.

posted by Jenn-a-lala | 02:22 PM |
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November 09, 2008

Living history, and catching up

The amount and sheer magnitude of events here in the U.S. over the last few weeks sometimes makes me stop and think, wow. A few weeks? Or a few years, compressed into a much shorter time? One thing is for sure: these weeks have been historic, and will be studied years from now.

The saying is, "It's always darkest before the dawn." Here in my adopted country, I hope that's true. The U.S. has seen its share of dark days recently, something that began awhile ago with mortgages and home foreclosures, a prelude to the gradual meltdown of several financial institutions, the credit crunch, a stock market gone volatile, and forecasts of or admittance to a recession. Yes, I am a stock owner. And yes, I work for a publicly-traded company. These things all make you pay a lot more attention to the markets than, say, when you work for the public service (as I did, once upon a time and 3,000 miles ago). It's not pretty.

Then we had the dawn. This week, this country became a true global leader. While I cannot vote here, there were tears in my eyes as I watched the television networks declare Barack Obama the 44th president of the United States, and I had goosebumps as I watched Chicago erupt into something there aren't even words for. And should anyone doubt the magnitude and significance of this event on a global level, one just has to look at how invested neighbors around the world were in the outcome of this election. The world celebrated.

I was here at home that night, glued to the TV, and watching my friends' Facebook status updates as the results came in, state-by-state. An hour and a half after Obama was declared president, I was on a call with Bangalore (work stuff). The second I was off the call, I was glued to the TV once more. I was trading emails with family, updating my own Facebook status, and trying to take in all that I could, knowing it was one of those moments in life that I will be recalling decades from now.

So now, part two of this post. Where the hell have I been, and why can't I just update my blog? Heh. Good question. There was a time when I updated several times a week. So, speaking of living years in weeks, that's a pretty good description of the last 17 months of my life. I write for a living and am incredibly lucky to do so, and give 100% or more of my writing and myself to my career. Personal writing tends to go to the wayside, and I don't always feel that need to publicly journal what I've been up to. Now, I think, other parts of life just come first. Or maybe I've just gotten out of the personal blogging habit and need to get back into it? Something to think about. :)

posted by Jenn-a-lala | 11:28 AM | TrackBack (0) |
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