Getting a life - on hold due to holiday

So I wanted to start the New Year in a co-working office space, the kinda place where people in funky glasses hang out and sip whatever is cooler than lattes while playing with the i-phone apps that they wrote themselves. But alas Montreal is closed today. Having New Year fall on a Friday was just the excuse we needed to close shop for three days - and every excuse to pack up and go home is snatched with a glee usually reserved for C-list celebrities invited to a Red Carpet event.

You can't even get a Lesbian haircut. Which must surely be a sign of the apocalypse - or something.

Anyway here's the to-do list currently hostage to Montreal's "oh no you don't" start to 2010

1. Pills to stop the over excited dog's diarrohea
2. Find an office space with people I want to spend time with
3. Sign up one interested, circling, client for January - and another for February
4. Get the new company website designed, up and running
5. Finally become a regular at the camera club
6. Get my 'success refund' from the French Language Class people - use to to sign up for more French
7. Book a ticket to Toronto, hold meetings there
8. Get back to the ski slopes
9. Lose the last 4 lbs
10. Shoot all 10 models interested in doing Playboy Centerfold project with me

They're not in order of importance... but getting #1 done would be good.
Time to start making phone calls I think

Steve

The things you hear at weddings

I was at a friend's wedding last week when during dinner Mini Marilyn Manson called to say that he was snowed in (there was about 2 inches of snow, but I guess you have to work to scale) and that he'd not be able to perform at the wedding after all. The groom was actually crushed but made my evening when he shrugged and said "I guess it's always the little things that let you down"

2010 is upon us

.. and this one I've labeled the 'borrowed time' decade.

For too many people 2009 stood as a testament to a decade that sucked - and my 2009 was no different yet here I sit naked at a dining room table covered in wax from the candles that lit last night's dinner with friends... alive, healthy and ready to be happy.

I won't dwell on the down stuff here (it's so last decade) instead I'll set the tone for a new decade with a promise... twice as much fun, half as much fear.

This is to be a two footed decade, a decade of leaping and then looking for a landing spot, of laughing at myself and then at the world (and not the other way around - as so much of the last decade was). I'm ready, it seems, to have some fun and mature enough to appreciate it.

The last week has been my run up to this. I've done so much that in the past would have filled me with the kind of circling dread that was paralyzing. I'm an ice skater, a skier, a strange kind of wedding photographer, about to be a shooter of alternative centerfolds... I may not be great at any of them. But I'm out, I'm trying it and I'm enjoying abandon. Hey, I've even signed up for Lasik

So there's the Resolution. I'm already living it - and I'm already happier. I hope that you stick around... I think that this is going to be fun

2010 - and we're back

Just like the lady herself

Retiring the blog

Looking at the length between posts and the lack of interesting stuff in each post has made me realize that this is a blog well past its sell by date and so I'm retiring it - for now at least. I realize of course that blogs are like Cher - and so any retirement may be temporary and it may come back looking and sounding like nothing you've seen from it before. But not for a while I hope.

It's been a weird couple of years. We've had death, cancer, job losses, forced moves, loss of babies and a whole bunch of other issues that didn't make it as far as the blog to contend with. Actually it hasn't been weird, it's been a period of concentrated misery compounded by disaster upon uncertainty.

The fact that I'm here at all is a minor miracle. The fact that I'm functioning is down to the friends, the family, the people who posted comments and even those who just came looking for a snatch or two of a celeb or two and added to the numbers. I'd like to thank you all for everything along the way.

If the last three years have been about not falling into the increasing chasms of despair opened by circumstance I'm hoping that the next couple can be about the future. About brave and bright new opportunities and experiences that give stalled lives fresh momentum.

And I wish that not just for myself, but for all of you. May your lives be filled with passion, with joy, with adventure and with a kinetic energy that takes you from experience to experience with energy and open hearts.

And that as they say, is that

Thanks all

Steve

Automne à Montréal

c'est ici Octobre
les feuilles changent de couleur
la température est en baisse
tout le monde porte un manteau
et mon français est maintenant à sa limite

Yes Autumn is upon us, the leaves are changing colors, the temperatures are falling, people have moved from t-shirts to jackets to coats in the space of a week and I'm back in French class and trying very hard to get an ear for this stuff again.

Lots to be done at the moment - not least setting up some proper book-keeping. I haven't had a paycheck since February and I won't be writing one until I manage to set up some decent spreadsheets that I can share with the accountant and work out some form of salary for myself.

But today is pretty much taken up with French homework, a deck that I'm writing as a proposal for a piece of new business and with an attempt to bring a little beauty back into my life by doing some interesting work with some interesting models. We shall see how that goes.

Generally though things are good. I'm back in the gym. We've found a parking space in the garage next door, the last of the festivals is in town, there's a photo show all over town that I really want to see, we haven't had to turn the heating on yet (though it's coming) and we're starting to look at some houses in the area; which reminds me...I must call the mortgage guy.

So all pretty much mundane stuff but after the last month or two it's nice to sit back, relax and enjoy life a little. How French of me.

A shortage

Quebec it seems has a shortage of family doctors. It costs more to practice as a doctor here, the tax rates are higher and the government pays less than they do in neighboring states. As a result about 1 in 4 people here can't find a family doctor. Instead they choose a clinic, make an appointment and see whoever is available.

That works for most people. But when you have a US oncologist insisting that he'll only release records to a specific doctor rather than to a clinic full of them it gets hard. 20 phone calls this morning to people claiming to be taking no patients gave up nothing.

So I called US oncologist. Who called Quebec oncologist. Who called his receptionist. Who in turn scoured the hospital. Which turned up a newly qualified doctor happy to take me on if I'm happy to pay for blood-work. Deal!

The system here works, it's free, the quality of care is good, but breaking into the system is hard. Oh to be in Alberta - said he jokingly.

I'm telling you it's human nature

I tend to only really like Spencer Tunick's work when it's very architectural. The rest of the time I'm impressed by the scale but left rather cold at the execution - and I always think that his portraits are technically weak.

But there's something about this image that I really like. First there's the fact that he got THIS many people to show up. And then to get naked. And then to rest their heads on the naked body of another stranger. And he managed to convince them not to mug for the camera. Or to wave. Or to try to stand out. And what you're left with is mass intimacy. And I really rather like that.

Am thinking retirement at the moment - and whether it's better to put the money in art than to put it into some faceless bond. I like the idea of speculating in beauty - and in having the investment on display every day. I also like the idea of owning some pretty special photos.

Let's see what the year brings...

Home at last

So I'm finally back in Montreal and have very few plans to be away in the next few weeks - other than a day in Michigan at a conference.

Jude's Albany conference seemed to go well, the 3.5 hr ride down there started to hint at the first sign of fall with some vivid colors and suddenly 30s temperatures and we managed to catch up with some old friends. Which is always nice.

Both feeling like crap now - me finally allowing myself to come down off a pitch schedule that was brutal and lubricated only with late nights and alcohol (pitches get me thinking and thinking keeps me up at night)

Now it's back home. Back to a schedule. And back to the gym. And I really can't get started fast enough.

Back in Montreal (for a day)

So after a few days in New York and a pitch to a big client in Atlanta I'm finally back in Montreal - for the day. Tomorrow I'm heading down to a conference in Albany where Jude is talking about a paper.

New York was a lot of work, a lot of long nights in the hotel alone and two lovely nights with my friends Gareth and Amy who not only took me to comedy but also to a comedy, burlesque, mexican wrestling night that saw a woman who looked like Prince stripping, a woman getting naked inside a balloon, slutty sisters on the trapeze and best of all a TS and a midget (both glow in the dark, the midget dressed as a chicken) jumping 30 ft from a balcony onto and into the crowd. Luche Va Voom - I salute you.

Made the whole trip worth it.

Thank you guys.

Blog will now be kept up to date with German regularity.

Last day in NYC

It's my last day in NYC. Just signed into the agency here for the last time. Will head for Atlanta tomorrow. Then home on Tuesday. No more trips like this one I think. It's good to be out and in people's faces and looking for new business - but the idea was to work from home, not spend my life on the road trying to convince people to let me work from home. Still we're in a good place right now. And it's getting better and better.

Proper blog to come... with jokes and things

Still on the road

So here I am, still in hotels, still unable to sleep and still on the road. Thank god for laptops and wireless access is what I have to say.

I've managed to catch up with youtube, to follow up with friends on facebook, to tighten up some parts of my book and of course managed to find a clean up service that will remove the unconscious bodies of tazed hookers at a very reasonable rate.

The staff here know me now and I'm starting to feel like a regular. It's worth nothing of course but that's not the point -- there's a whole other value attached to a nod and a smile when you're away from home.

Madness... madness

two colors of pen

I've started writing all of my work stuff by hand recently

And using a black and a red sharpie.

I don't know why.

But I have found that art directing my thoughts makes me focus my thoughts
In a way that bullet points used to.

Weird that, huh?

Fabulously Phat

You see what I did there?

In New York for a couple of days and last night managed to join up with Gareth and Amy (of Amy and Gareth do mad things fame) at their fab new pad in a fab area surrounded by fab things and quirky, over-confident NY kids.

Drinking, curries, more drinking, comedy, a stagger home, another drink, a Tylenol and 9 hrs sleep later and I'm up and running and feeling just dandy thank you very much Margaret.

Hotel crawling with fashion week flunkies
Williamsburg ditto

YSL gave me a nice mag in a white bag / sleeve though - so they're forgiven.

Can't wait to get home... couple of flights and cities between now and then but counting the sleeps as they say in Oz

Rough Day

I gathered that today was a rough one when I found myself curled in a ball in the corner of an airport crying uncontrollably (never a good look, dangerous when flying into New York on 9/11)

The reason was very simple, I think. The people that we rent from have the house on the market. We knew that when we moved in, and we were cool with it. Our last place had been on the market too. They just started showing the place and now there's an offer on it. I'm not around to work out a mortgage in time to counter the offer and so we're going to have to move (again) in June.

This shouldn't be an issue. We move a lot. What's the big deal? Right?

Well the big deal is that we chose this place with all kinds of future plans in mind. We saw it the day after Judith found out that she was pregnant. The pictures had a nursery and a crib in them. And I'd imagined this being the place to which we brought home that first child. This wasn't another house - it was going to be a real home for us, for the family that we were going to have.

Of course, as those of you who read this blog know, our happiness seems rationed and so the baby - like health and employment so soon before it, but with more tragic impact was lost. Leaving us with a house that we loved and dreamed of filling. And now (it seemed at 1pm today) was taken too. This wasn't a house that we were losing, it was the last physical connection to the baby we lost and the dreams we had for it.

And I am SO done with uncertainty. Cancer haunts ever quarter. Employment is at the whim of people who have proved mercurial, and three times a day people walk into my home and discuss in front of me what they're planning to do with the room that I'd planned would sleep my baby.

The truth, the real truth, is that I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. Just one pillar that I could cling to in the tsunami of bad karma that has been the last 5 years would be great. But I can't find one. And I am drowning. And just as Stevie Smith said people seem to think that I'm waving.

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow -- when I will go back to a windowless office and spread my brand of optimism and good cheer amongst people sulking at losing a weekend. But today, I think, I'm allowed to be down.

The things you miss

So while I was in Brazil I managed to miss the Fetish weekend here... which was a shame as they have a fetish exhibitionist walk that would be fabulous to photograph.

Similarly I'll be away from the Burlesque Festival - which I really wanted to be involved in but somehow conspired to be away for.

So I'm missing everything but coming back to Montreal each time is feeling more and more like coming home - especially as the skies are both brilliant blue and always visible. The temps are down a little (23c as I write this) but the sunshine more than makes up for it.

I like it here. It's a shame that the house is for sale - 3 people a day tramping through is enough to disturb even my sense of equilibrium... but we're looking at buying options (it may just be too early for us) and at the idea of moving again with less dread than in the past.

I'm happy today - working hard on a cool project and from a distance; in a city I really like. Life is good. Now where's the kick coming from?

Last day in Brazil

It's my last day in Brazil today - though they have asked me to stay. By they I mean the people who I"m helping out here, not the Brazilian government. It's been damp, gray and fattening. Too much food, too little time outside and as a result I'm feeling fat and a though I swallowed a million razor blades.

Other than that things are good. Annoyed at not being able to really use my phone due to $3 a minute roaming charges... but in spirits as good as weight gain will allow.

Be good to be home... even for 3 days

And it's Brazil

So here I am in Brazil... on too little sleep and with 'dinner and samba' being the thing that is going to make it a late one tonight. The weather is grey and cold(ish) and we're working the weekend - but it's nice to be in an office that has great natural light, on a schedule that blurs the days and amongst people who have ideas for a living.

Reading "Risk" and again loving sociology - if only it wasn't so Educatating Rita - all middle aged women trying to figure out where their lives and marriages took such a wrong turn. I could be interested.

Right - power nap time! Then it's hip swinging starters and heel ball toe entrees

Mission Part Complete

So I had my New York meeting and was rabidly but genuinely enthusiastic... meeting went reasonably well and I really liked the people. Usually that means nothing as average tenure in a job in NA is 4 years - but these people like to stay a while in their positions and that would be good as I'd love to work with them.

9 hr flight down to Brazil comes next... will be there until the 7th - and then fly back home to Montreal for a couple of days before coming back down to the mothership for one final push... should be good (we hope)

All of that said it's been an uneventful couple of days, I've remembered why I do and don't like agencies and I'm looking forward to working with creative types over the next couple of days.

Sing hallelujah

The Royalton

I'm at the Royalton in new york, preparing for a meeting on Weds and then a flight to Brazil on Thursday that will eat up a holiday weekend and swallow up a birthday as I head for home on Monday.

The hotel here is all slick chocolate browns and glass sinks, flat surfaces and fake wood - it's kinda nice but you wonder whether they'll get the money they spent on the design back before fashion changes and they're forced to spend to change it - and whether they ran those numbers. Still it has a gym (desperately needed after the last three weeks of airports) and a bed that's free of bugs and not overly soft - so I won't complain to anyone about this choice.

Be good to get past this trip and be home again. Life on the road is expensive and it's lonely; my credit card bill being the only thing that I seem to check in with while traveling. Oh well, here's to Sept 23rd and being back without a trip on the horizon (said the man about to leave one great city for Brazil... surely a better trip than Toronto)