Bone and Bread in the National Post

Thank goodness for the National Post.  

That's a sentence that in 1997 I never would have guessed I would write.  

But the National Post Books Section and the Afterword blog make everything better.  (What on earth did I use to read to get me through the day?  There must have been something...? Bookninja, probably.)

Since the wonderful "Most Anticipated Books of (the first half of) 2013," there have been a few more articles and tidbits about Bone and Bread in the National Post:

There is this very nice article about me and Bone and Bread by Mark Medley. (I'm finding I get nervous or shy about these kinds of articles and tend to skim them very quickly, but looking over this now to share the link, I see that my editor said some extremely blush-inducing and hard-work-inspiring things about me in it.)     

Photo from the National Post

Photographer Tyler Anderson took this photo in the building where House of Anansi has their offices, at the end of the hallway in the freight elevator.  He makes the backdrop look unexpectedly gorgeous!

There is also a little piece I wrote for their feature called the "Story behind the Story," where I talk a little bit about the genesis of a particular excerpt from the novel.

And last, but certainly not least, a review of Bone and Bread by Emily M. Keeler.

On the flipside of all this happy internet stuff, I've been having some generalized internet woes lately. It was announced a few weeks ago that Google Reader is being discontinued, only a zillion years after I finally got it organized exactly the way I want it.  It's fine, really, because Reader created its own problems for me....I'd read blog posts on my phone and star/flag them to go comment later, but never did.   What I miss is the sidebar I used to have on my old Blogger design that showed when my favourite sites had a new update -- the most recently updated blog moving to the top of the list.  I wish there was a way to replicate this functionality in the "Pages" function I'm using now.  (I've tried pasting the code, but to no avail.)  

What is your favourite way to stay up-to-date with your favourite sites?  I'm thinking of going back to good old-fashioned bookmarking that I check up on every other day.  

The Facebook app on my phone has also stopped working properly -- it loads everything except for pictures, which makes for some very odd, contextless status updates.

Sunday night is not too late

It has been a bit of a stir-crazy, wheels-spinning weekend.  Nothing quite got off the ground.  Too much sleeping in, too much weather disappointment.  A general reluctance to spend an hour on the metro getting to where I wanted to be...and so went nowhere.  Nothing really worth complaining about, especially since it's all my own fault.  But in the past five minutes, at least, in a burst of frustration-fueled activity, I have managed to locate my chequebook, after a many-weeks search, so perhaps this is the start of a change.  The last few hours of the weekend will not be lost to melancholic feelings of futility. Rooms will be tidied!  Emails will be answered!  Things will be crossed off the to-do list!

Does everyone feel this way on Sunday night? I know it is technically the weekend, but it has to be the worst night of the week.

a consumerist lament (or, don't go a-changin' on me)

Here is a list of all the things I regularly use (or semi-regularly...let's face it, I am way too time-pressed to wear much makeup) that have been discontinued or tragically reformulated over the last year.  Also, they are ALL by different brands/companies, so it's not as if some sudden bankruptcy or merger or weird new company direction is to blame. 

- shampoo
- conditioner
- leave-in conditioner
- exfoliant
- foundation
- concealer

It would almost be funny if it weren't so goddamn disastrous.

Also, it is possible that this list is actually even longer.  These are only the things I have gone out to buy or replace.  

It's like the universe has conspired to undermine any attempt at a beauty regime.