Writing through the hot flash, because sleep is impossible.

I woke up at four-fifteen with another hot flash.  I threw off the covers, leaving only the sheet, but even that was too much, so off it went.  I find it hard to believe that this was the very room that I was shivering in last night.  Leaping in between the cold sheets, squeaking slightly, and needing to wiggle around to try to warm them quicker, the down comforter pulled up around my ears and discreetly tucked under the tops of my shoulders, so that when Don got in bed, the covers wouldn’t fly up and waft fresh cold air under to assault my goose-bumped body. 

It’s amazing to me the extremes in temperature that my body is experimenting with.  All these changes.  It’s like all of a sudden my body realized that it had been sleeping on the job.  Forty-eight year old women weren’t supposed to look like this (that’s my body speaking), and so it’s been working overtime to catch up. 

First off, the skin quality is all wrong, we have to do something about that. Boom, a multitude of tiny creases and lines.  Not just on my face, but the back of my hands, my forearms, and probably everywhere else, but I generally don’t wear my glasses when those other parts are exposed, so I can be blissfully unaware. 

Hmm...and that sprinkling of grey?  That will never do.  Women who have been blessed enough to reach the advanced age of forty-eight have way more grey hair than that.  How shall we deal with that?  I know, give her a crisis. Voila, the friend situation in November.  Poof!  My face is framed in grey.  So much so, that I get surprised, startled when I walk past a mirror.  It’s like it’s me, but it isn’t.  It’s a combination person looking back at me.  I have to look closely to pick me out from the bone structure, the falling jowls, the age spots that have been gracing my face, I have to push all these memories of my mother and grandmother aside that are peering back at me from the mirror, to find the Meg that I know, inside.

And yes, I am aware of the beauty and the miracle of a nice well chosen bottle of hair dye, but my reasons for not dying my hair are two-fold.  First off, because my base hair color is a dark brown, if I started dying it, I’d have to keep dying it, because otherwise my roots would get that two-toned look of an old sweater.  And that would mean I’d have to visit a beauty parlor every three weeks or so to keep it looking decent.  Which is not something I would get around to doing.  It’s hard enough for me to drag myself to get my hair cut every 4-6 months, I can’t even imagine carving out the time to go every three weeks. 

The second reason I’ve chosen not to dye my hair is because, even though my vanity is screaming out, “Dye it!  For god-sakes, dye it! You’ll look ever so much younger.” Is that I worry that if I start down the path of trying to erase the years from my life, my body, (which is a loosing battle, because if we are one of the lucky ones, we’ll get old, and then older, and then die.) Then I won’t be aware of time passing.  It feels like it would be sort of like squeezing my eyes shut so that the Boogie-man won’t be there anymore.  Well I tried that as a kid and as an adult, and guess what, they didn’t go away.  They were still there and did whatever they d_____ well pleased.  So, they didn’t go away, just because I shut my eyes and temporarily erased them.

How I see it is that aging is a blessing.  Many people don’t get the privilege to watch themselves get older, see their children grown and on their own.  Several people I’ve loved have passed when they were around my age, but their children were younger than mine.  My friend, Pat.  She never got to see her daughter grown.

So, here’s the deal.  We each are given a finite amount of days on this planet.  We don’t know how many.  We don’t know when our time will come.  And so, me keeping, not erasing the badges of honor that I have won, earned through worries and loving and tired out caring, and experiencing all the joys and passions and disappointments that are present in everyones life.  For me, even though, sure I like to look “pretty” as much as the next person, I am trying to re-educate myself as to what “pretty” is. 

I am a woman who is aging, and I don’t want to forget that days are passing.  I want to experience all of what life has to offer and wear the proof proudly on my body and face.  This is what a forty-eight year old woman looks like.  And if I am blessed enough to reach my eighties, you’ll see what that looks like as well.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, March 16, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

an empty house

We got back last night.  Too late to pick up the dogs, so we’ll do it this morning.  It was nice to see Gerry, Dave.

The house feels so empty.  Huge, hollow spaces that seem cavernous and my inside light tucked in and contained around me.  Like I have to walk small and careful so I don’t make waves in all the stillness.  Will is away, the dogs too, Don upstairs sleeping.  Just me, poking at my keyboard, trying not take up too much room.  What an odd feeling.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, March 15, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

it’s me again

Oh my goodness.  I just got some very, very, VERY exciting news!  I’m not allowed to say anything until next week, but let me tell you this...I’m THRILLED!!  I can’t stop smiling. 

I should decide not to blog for a day more often.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, March 13, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

Nothing exciting?  Sheesh…

Good lord!  The Dow down just shy of 200 points, gold up $19.70 and flirting with the idea of crossing the $1,000 an ounce barrier.  Not to mention it’s only 7:30 in the morning.  What a day to be away from my computer!  I’m so curious to see how the day plays out.  I wonder if all this whirlwind activity is going to show up in the other aspects of life as well?  Drive carefully everybody. 

Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, March 13, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

interesting to me

I just plucked this out of this investment blog I read, Postcards from Cape Town.  This particular piece that I’m quoting was written by John Authers/Financial Times.  I wasn’t planning on blogging today, but this stuck out, so I wanted to share it.

“The S&P financials was at a new low on Thursday, in dollars. But measure this index in euro and the scale of the collapse in the world’s confidence in the US financial system becomes more apparent. This index has now fallen more than half - 53% - since it peaked in euro terms as long ago as 2001.”

I knew the dollar has been in a nose dive for some time.  I knew that the financial are in extreme crisis mode.  I didn’t know that the drop was this deep.

Oh, and on a lighter note, check out Yann Martel’s What is Stephan Harper Reading. 

Tanya Kyi, (tanyalloydkyi.blogspot.com) a fellow CWILL member emailed me complementing my oatmeal cookie recipe.  She already made a batch, and if her family is anything like my family, I doubt there are any left.  I even lick the crumbs off the plate with these cookies.

Anyway her blog link was under her name, so I clicked on it and obviously read a great deal of it.  That’s how I found out about Yann Martel’s Stephan Harper brilliance.  It was great fun.  You have to go back to the beginning of it though to get the full impact.

Happy reading.  I’m off to bed.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

tax-time

I’m going to be out of town tomorrow.  I’m taking Will to the airport and then hopping over to the island to have dinner with my boy, Dave.  And in the morning I’m off to see Gerry, the most fabulous accountant in the whole world.  He does a wonderful, through job, year in and year out, and he is funny and engaging and I feel lucky to have him in our family’s life.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when he retires.  Cry in my pillow I’m sure. 

I feel safe with him. 

Tax-time, tax-time, don’t you love it.  It took me several days to sort out and organize all of my stuff. 

Don, on the other hand, gets up after dinner tonight and sighs heavily,

“Ugh...I guess I’ll have to go get together my tax stuff.” He disappears into his writing room, and LESS than two hours later, he’s mooching around in my writing room. 

“Don’t you have to get your tax stuff sorted?” I ask, feeling smug that I plowed my way through my stuff over the last couple of weeks.

“I’m done,” he says.

DONE!  Now that’s just not fair!  Granted, my stuff is way more complicated than his, and I’m doing it for the whole family, but still… Phooey.

Anyway, I won’t be lugging my laptop over to the island since it is just a short trip, so unless I happen upon an Internet cafe, there will be no blog until the day after tomorrow.  Let’s hope nothing really exciting happens in the meantime, because I am going to be totally out of touch.

*By the way Emily and David, have you sent your stuff in?  xo

Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

CONDOMS…CONDOMS…CONDOMS…CONDOMS!

For all of my teen blogger friends, I am very worried!  I read this article today that surveyed a slew of teen age girls and followed up the survey with medical testing and they found that 1 in 4 teenage girls have a sexually transmitted disease. One in four! Heart breaking.  Many of these girls had no idea that they were infected.  Only one half of the girls acknowledged that they had sexual relations.  However some teens do not believe that oral sex counts as having sex and that the only thing that does is intercourse. 

Girls and boys, you can get an STD from oral sex. 

Of the girls who admitted having sex a whopping 40% had at least one STD (sexually transmitted disease.)

Now, there are some STD that can be cured with antibiotics.  And as you know there are some that can’t.  There is a new powerful strain of Gonorrhea that is drug resistant.  There is no cure for HIV/AIDS yet.  There is no cure for Herpes. 

It is vital that you always use a condom, unless you are in a stable long-term monogamous relationship, where both of you have been tested for STD’s and have been re-tested after the window it takes for the infection to show up in the blood work.  Until that time YOU MUST USE CONDOMS!

Also, all of my teen readers out there, if you’ve had any type of unprotected sexual activity, INCLUDING oral sex, please see your family doctor and get tested.  You can make the appointment yourself.  Just call up and make an appointment.  The doctor will have your medical care card number on file and if you ask for discretion they will have to honor that. 

Some STD are very treatable.  And if treated soon after you have become infected, can make the difference between being infertile or not and many other things. 

But as you know, there are no cures for some of the scarier STD’s and you could actually die from them.  The 15-26 year old age group is now the group that has the highest rate of new HIV infections. 

I was also STUNNED to read that some teens believe that douching with Coca-Cola will kill any STD.  This is ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE.

PLEASE...PLEASE...PLEASE...BE CAREFUL! 

Much love, Meg xo

Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

ahh…now that was nice.

David Jasper from The Bend Bulletin interviewed me today.  I was a little cautious because of my last interview, but I had nothing to worry about.  He was lovely.  I really enjoyed talking to him and everything was about or related to the writing.  Well, okay, almost everything.  I don’t think I could get through an interview without mentioning my children, (to me, grown to the world) But again, I probably never would have felt the desperate need to write and make sense of my world and my past if it hadn’t been for them. 

Anyway, he was so nice and intelligent and with a quiet sense of humor, and his questions were writerly and it made me feel so good.

Spring Break is towards the end of this week, and Will is off to far away places and Don and I drop the dogs off and head up to Bend Oregon, to Sun River Music and Books to see Deon and visit the school and read and chat.  Then in April, I get to go to Emily’s reading festival at the beginning of the month, and then the BC Book Tour in the middle, to the grand Gala on the 26th.  And they are talking about shooting a reunion documentary for The Big Chill (I’m not sure if I’ll be in it though, because the timing might not work out for me.)

But boy, quiet little April, where I was going to lounge around, take a break from the writing work, eat yummy food and read a ton of good books is turning out to be not so quiet after all.

Hmmm...this is a happy, contented, but quite boring blog.  So, I think it would be wise for me to sign off before I bore you further.  Sweet dreams!

Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, March 10, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

Delicious Oatmeal Cookies

Tonight is closing night of the musical Will is doing with his school.  There is a party afterwards at the Headmaster’s house and then another party after that.  I find when teens are going to a party, it is a good idea to try to sneak food into their belly one way or another.  Just in case.  Hence, my oatmeal cookies!  Who could resist?

Delicious Oatmeal Cookies

ingredients: butter, white sugar, light brown sugar, vanilla, egg, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, raisins, salt, old-fashioned oatmeal (important, don’t use “instant” or “quick")

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  (If you have convection, you can use it with this recipe to make the cookies even crispier)
Mix in bowl:

-I cup of softened butter
-3/4 white sugar
-3/4 of light brown sugar
-1 teaspoon of vanilla
-1 egg

Mix in another bowl:
-1 1/2 cup of unbleached white flour
-1 1/2 cup of oatmeal
-1 teaspoon of baking soda
-1/2 teaspoon of salt
-2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Blend the flour/oatmeal etc. mixture into the butter/egg etc. mixture.  When all the flour mixture is blended in, sprinkle in to the cookie dough,

-1 1/4 cup of raisins. 

(I like a LOT of raisins, so I get one in almost every bite, but if you like only an occasional one then cut the raisins down to 1 cup or even 3/4 of a cup.  OR you could forgo the raisins altogether, leave out the cinnamon, and sprinkle in semi-sweet chocolate chips and if you really want to get crazy you could chop up a handful of pecans and fling them in there as well.  That’s the joy of being the cook.  You get to decide these things, without an if-you-please to anyone.)

Back to the recipe.

Fold the raisins in, so they are spread out evenly.  Then drop rounded teaspoons of the cookie dough onto a greased pan (greased with butter of course!) Smoosh the rounded balls slightly with the palm of your hand and bake for 10-12 minutes. 

And then, gobble them up while they are still warm, with a nice cold glass of milk.

(The musical, by the way, was lots of fun, and Will was wonderful, of course!  I should know.  I went to every single evening performance they had.)

Posted by Meg Tilly on Saturday, March 08, 2008 in Recipes

cobwebs from the past…

I was interviewed by a guy named Chris today.  There were a lot of movie questions and personal questions and I answered them all the best I could, but I don’t know, somehow the experience took the shine off of my maybe-I-really-am-a-real-author happiness.  Like no matter how far I come, how far I distance myself, I’ll never be seen for who I am, how I stand in my life, in the world now. 

Like on Yahoo how when you punch in my name, somebody has posted nude pictures of me.  Pictures that actually are illegal.  When I did the movie that these images are lifted from, there was no photographer allowed on the set.  I had complete photo approval.  Someone has taken pieces of the actual film and is selling and distributing them as photos. 

Now, I acted in that movie because I loved Richard Adams book.  I loved the whole complex battle between Christianity and Paganism.  I thought the book was beautiful and was passionate about Karin.  I agreed to do the movie for what amounted to a tiny fraction of what I usually got paid because I fell in love with the character.  And then when I saw the directors cut of the movie, yes, the movie was shot on an extremely low budget, but oh my, I was proud.  I thought that perhaps it was some of the best work that I’d ever done. 

Imagine my shock, when I went to the Premier several months later and saw the horrific mess the producers had made of this labor of love.  They didn’t understand what they had.  Each piece of the movie was like a tiny puzzle piece.  Each part important to the whole.  They thought the movie was too long, so they cut it.  Not by gently lifting a sentence here and a sentence there.  No, they hacked away at it with an sledge hammer.  “Oh, this scene is too long, let’s cut it in half.” Whack.  What they didn’t understand is you can’t just cut a scene in half.  Cut of the whole back end off it, because then there is no reason for the beginning. 

I think it was a language thing.  Being from a different country, culture.  Not understanding the nuances of what was being said. 

Heartbreaking.  I almost quit acting after seeing how they brutalized Karin.  It felt like a rape. 

And now, someone has lifted frames from that movie and have posted them on the Internet, out of context, nude photos of me as Karin, illegal photos, and it feels like a violation all over.  Not just to me, but to my children as well.  And my heart hurts.

And I don’t know why, but in the interview today, I felt like a thing again.  Like I could never wash the actress from me.  And I tried to stay big.  Stand tall in what I have accomplished, carved out for myself.  But it was hard.  And certainly, none of this is saying Chris did anything wrong.  He’s just doing his job.  Asking the questions that interest him.  I had just hoped, having written three books, being for the most part well reviewed, well received, being nominated, that that was why he wanted to talk with me.  And when I pointed out, around half way through the interview, that all the questions were about my past life, being an actress, etc. to his credit, he heard me, and asked a few writing ones.  And it’s a rare man who will really listen, hear what is being said, stop in his tracks and change his course in a generous and polite way.  A rare man indeed.  So, Chris if you’re reading this.  Thank you for that.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Friday, March 07, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

ta…da!

Okay, here it is...The Big News…

“Porcupine has been shortlisted for the 2008 Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize. One of the BC Book Awards, this prize is awarded to the author of novels, including chapter books, aimed at juveniles and young adults, as well as non-fiction books for children (including biography) which have not been highly illustrated.”

And in case there is any confusion...That’s MY PORCUPINE!  I’ve been shortlisted.  Woohooo! 

Congratulations to the other shortlisted authors.  John Wilson, author of The Alchemist’s Dream, David Jones for Baboon: A Novel, Polly Horvath, author of The Corps f the Bare-Boned Plane, and Gayle Friesen, author of For Now. 

Isn’t this fantastic?!  And we get to go on a road trip all over British Columbia.  It’s going to be so much fun.  Polly Horvath read right before me at Word On The Street, and she seemed like she would be a very nice, down-to-earth, jolly sort of road trip companion.  (She also wrote, the award winning book, Everything on a Waffle, that my sister Suzanne sent to me.)

Tra..la..la...la...LA!  I’m shortlisted for the Shelia A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize.  I never thought I’d ever get shortlisted for anything.

Oh, hey, and I googled Shelia A. Egoff last night after I got the very exciting news, and this woman was amazing.  She accomplished so much in her life, which makes the whole thing feel even more special.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, March 06, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

A lovely day.

Today was a wonderful day for a variety of reasons. 

The first great thing that greeted me this morning, (besides my absolutely fabulous husband lying next to me) was the news that some medical researchers at the University of Alberta have found a gene that can attack and contain the HIV virus in the cell and make it so it can’t spread to other cells.  This is thrilling news and watching them interview this guy, I felt all cautiously hopeful in my belly

The second good thing about today was that I took the ferry over to the island and spent the day with my sister, Becky.  I got the grand tour of her new house and we had tea and she gave me a beautiful butter dish and tried to give me her favorite earrings, but I was too clever for her.  I know her well enough to know that whatever she digs out of her jewelery box and casually tosses into my hand saying, “these I never wear,” her eyes darting to the side and unable to rise up to mine because she is a lousy liar, I know by now, after 47 years that those must be her very favorite earrings and that is why she is trying to slough them off on me.

I had to use all of my bargaining skills not to walk out of her house with my pockets stuffed to the gills with all of her treasures.

We had too much lunch.  I ate and she nibbled, which probably explains why I weigh a good 15-20 lbs more than her. She hasn’t figured out yet that women in their forties are SUPPOSED to sport little muffin bulges when they sit down.  Then, we zipped by the shopping center to find a pair of comfy earrings for me to sleep in so my new-to-me (I did it 10 months ago) pierced ears won’t close up in the night.  She is an expert at navigating the mall.  I was VERY impressed. 

Then after a day of sisterly fun, we raced back to the ferry and we managed, by the skin of our teeth, to get me on the appropriate ferry.  (I almost missed it, we were having such fun.) And the good thing about doing two ferry rides in one day is that I managed to get all my writing work done, so while I was having a good time with my sister, I didn’t have to feel guilty.

And then, to top off this really wonderful day, I get home and find out that PORCUPINE is on Foreword Magazine’s Book of The Year 2008 Shortlist AND…

Well, I can’t give you the exciting news about the other great thing that happened, because their press release doesn’t go out until tomorrow, but I can tell you this… I am jumping up and down about it!

Much love, Meg

Posted by Meg Tilly on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

Yay!

The sofas have arrived!  Oh thank goodness.  And guess what...my bookcases are coming TOMORROW!  Am I lucky or what? 

Now I won’t be here for their big arrival, as I am going over to the Island to visit my sister, Becky, but when I come back...HOORAY!  I can finally get my writing room back in order. 

Alright, I’m off to watch The Biggest Loser.  I love that show.  Last week though, I have to admit, I was a little surprised when my husband started bawling at the end when Mark did the right and honorable thing.

“Humph,” I can already hear Don saying. “I wasn’t bawling, Meg.  I was a little moved is all.”

Right.  Okay.  He wasn’t bawling, his face just got really red and he had tears streaming down his cheeks.  But he wasn’t, by any stretch of the imagination bawling.  Not a sob squeaked out from between his lips. 

Yay!  My sofas have come.  I’m going to go sit on them and eat chocolate and drink red wine and gloat. 

Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, March 04, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

a request

I just got an email from Pamela Osti and apparently she is getting inundated with letters and emails and requests that have nothing to do with Porcupine.  For those of you who have been trying to write to me, via her, you need to know that although she sent one batch of stuff over to me, she won’t be forwarding any more. 

It’s not that she’s being mean or anything like that.  I have met her face to face and spent several days in her company when I was reading in Toronto.  You could not find a nicer person.  She won’t be forwarding any letters or requests, media or otherwise that don’t have to do with Porcupine because she just doesn’t have the time.  Between Pamela and Melissa they handle ALL of Tundra’s books and authors.  Take a look at their website.  Every Spring and Fall a new load of books come out.  All of them needing attention and care and reviews and interviews needing to be set up.

Tundra is a wonderful publisher, but it is by no means large.  The staff is very, very busy, the publishing business being what it is.  They can’t function smoothly if their email and mail boxes are clogged up with anything that is not book related. 

To you it is something that you’d like to say to me.  To them it is spam. 

Please know that I appreciate all of your good wishes and kind thoughts, but you can’t keep sending stuff to Pamela.  I don’t want my publisher to think I’m too much trouble and decide to stop publishing me.

So PLEASE, send only Porcupine related stuff to Pamela Osti. 

Thank you for your understanding with this matter.  xo

Posted by Meg Tilly on Tuesday, March 04, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

a dilemma

President George W. Bush says we aren’t in a recession.

Okay.  Here’s a quote from an article I read this morning.

“I would say, by any commonsense definition, we are in a recession,” Buffett said on CNBC.

And yes...that is The Warren Buffett. 

Hmmm…

Bush says there is no recession, Buffett says we are in one.  Who are you going to trust? Seriously, I had to laugh.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, March 03, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

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