Vancouver, day 17

One thing that I forgot to mention yesterday: the first thing that I did when I got in was make seventeen phone calls.

Seventeen *&^%ing phone calls. I don't like the phone.

Erm. Anyway. I got set free a bit early today, so I read for a while and then met my aunt and cousins for lunch, which was tasty. For some reason I've been drinking a ton of lemonade recently... it's probably not that healthy, but then, I've had dessert maybe twice since I got here. I guess it balances out.

After lunch we dropped one of my cousins off at the pool (she lifeguards) and went to find a couple of yarn shops - I am so glad to have something to knit; I meant to bring a project (or two, or...) but forgot. Very typical of me, actually. I found some decent yarn, so now I'll knit a scarf (surprise, surprise... and I'm really in the mood for cables) - my aunt loaned me some needles when we got back to their house, and we had tea and talked for a while.

They (my aunt and cousin) dropped me at UBC on their way to a baseball game, and I sat in on another class. I found this one to be somewhat more engaging than the one the other week, perhaps because the invited speaker was an author & editor rather than an illustrator... after the class I asked somebody if she could possibly drop me off (it was maybe three blocks out of her way, so not a problem) and talked to some of the people in the class for a few minutes. They were quite pleased, I think, to be able to ask me about my boss - who also teaches the class - and to get me to explain the whys of some of the changes he'd made to their manuscripts. This, incidentally, is something I've learned in workshopping: you can't just say "this doesn't work"; you have to say "this doesn't work because ___; you might try ___".

End result: they were happy because they got somebody who was happy to answer their questions; I was happy because I talked to real live human beings*. Oh, also because I got home by ten.


*I do speak to real live human beings on a daily basis. Like - my boss, or relatives, or flatmates. But there's something kinda cool about talking to people you don't have to, you know?