Sleep eludes me

Why is it that on the days were you need sleep the most, it dances out of your reach laughing at you?  It’s 5:27AM, my time (6:27 Calgary time) My wake up call isn’t for another hour and a half, and yet for the last 45 minutes I’ve tossed on the bed trying to sleep.  Same thing last night.  I came back from author frivolity, talked to my husband on Skype.  He tried to get my dog, Molly, to do that funny thing of looking into the camera and trying to figure out why I was in there and why I wouldn’t come out.  But she’d already figured it all out on Tuesday night.  So it was sweet that he was trying to get her to do it because it had made me laugh and feel loved the night before, but his efforts were kind of pointless.  He was like a little kid, “Molly!  Molly!  Molly!” But the more he tried, the less interested she was.  Finally I had to gently steer him away from his determination to make this have the outcome he wanted.  Anyway, we hung up.  I went over my talk tomorrow and then finally around 11:30PM, washed my face, brushed my teeth and went to bed.  I was very tired, but thoughts chased around my head like starving mosquitoes, driving sleep away.

When I woke I tried to hang onto my sleep wave but I was seeing all these authors faces, hearing their voices, and feeling small.  I read a lot, but names, titles elude me.  Whereas they pull them out of the air by the fistful.  It seems that this writing world is a very small community.  Everyone knows everybody and every single book that anybody has ever read or reviewed since the beginning of time.  They all have tons of awards and all their books are best-sellers and published in a gazillion languages...And then there’s me.  I feel like that Sesame Street song.  “One of these things is not like the other...” Interesting huh?  Here I am, a woman, 47 years old, I’ve accomplished a lot, have a wonderful life, and yet I feel like I’m six again, at a new school, standing in the playground at that very first recess, not sure what the rules are and where to go and if anyone is going to want to eat lunch with me.

In the Authors Hospitality Suite yesterday evening, everyone was talking about what one should read and what one shouldn’t.  “Humor.  You have to read something funny.” “Or something gossipy.  Everyone loves gossip.” “Never read something serious.” “Oh god no!  Not with teenagers.  You’d never hold them.” “If I notice them getting restless I have them to get up, run around the room.” “Don’t read for longer than 5 minute segments.” And I’m panicky inside, because I don’t do any of those things.  The information they sent us said to read for 15-20 minutes, so that’s what I prepared, but apparently that’s a no-no.  The humorous things that happen in my book aren’t laugh-out-loud-clutch-your-belly humor.  Now there are some exciting things that happen in Porcupine that I’m dying to read and talk about, but they happen later on in the book, and I don’t want to ruin or give away the story.  I want it to unfold for the reader, catch them up in the pages. 

Anyway, this is what I discovered last night.  The section I’m reading is apparently the polar opposite of what I’m supposed to do.  Phooey.

The upside is I got to see Hal Niedzviecki (don’t ask me how to pronounce it) again.  I met him at BookExpo last fall.  We were reading together and it was my very first reading EVER of Gemma!  I was terrified and he was kind.  And there is this really sweet author Cary Fagan, who wrote My New Shirt.  I am struggling mightily with myself.  It’s the kind of book I want to buy for my grandchildren, but I don’t have any yet.  And I worry that if I start buying stuff for these someday-in-the-future-someday-maybe-not grandchildren, that it will put undue pressure on my children.  Another good thing that happened was that at the fancy dinner on the very first night, the Gods were looking out for me, because I was lucky enough to be seated at a table of wonderful, interesting conversationalists.  (Most of their names have evaporated like a mouthful of mist.  Big surprise huh?  For those of you who know me.) I had a marvellous time and was really surprised at the end of the evening when I turned around in my chair and realized that the rest of the banquet hall had already left!  Well...Cynne and Jack (I hope, think that’s his name...) have invited me to dinner tonight and she’s going to make a big pot of cozy home-cooked something and I am really looking forward to it!

Oh and one more thing.  Maureen (who did the introductions at our talk yesterday) said she has this recipe that everybody begs her to make every time there is a big get-together.  “Dream pie” She says it’s delicious and easy to make and I told her if she faxes it to the hotel I’ll post it on my Blog.  So bloggers, get your mouths ready for some of Maureen’s Dream Pie!

Posted by Meg Tilly on Thursday, October 11, 2007 in Chewing the Fat

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