I am sitting here trying to catch up with emails. Lots of them in the last few days are from readers in Asia.. I had no idea my story would end up in an article over there and be read by a 16-year old student in Singapore or a man in Pakistan...how bizarre is that! But over the last few days emails have been coming in, not just from people here but from people who have read the article or read my book all those thousands of miles away telling me how, although they might have very different lives, they have been able to relate to my story in some way.

I have spent the last hour dipping in and out of some of their blogs, reading about their lives and cultures, being reminded that people are essentially the same wherever they come from, the same fears the same dreams.

December probably isn't the time for it, but I'm looking around for another job at the moment. This job was only ever meant to be a stepping stone - a way back into things — temporary cover that I knew would come to an end, but I feel quite anxious now that it is - anxious about what the next step will be. Not sure which way to turn again. Not sure I'm tough-headed or tough-hearted enough to go back to a career in law full-time, even if that was possible, but not sure what else I can do. It's hard knowing what you're cut out for.

I came into London today to talk on a local radio show about my book. It was a very strange thing to do. Not only sitting in a dark booth at BBC studios infront of a console with such a bewildering array of buttons and dials that it looked like we were about to take off, but just the talking about the book at all. Writing it was bad enough. It is definitely not a comfortable thing to publicise. I have been psyching myself up for it for weeks, though I was very glad to get it over and done with today, particulary given the cold I have. But the presenter's reaction was so lovely, and in a way unexpected. I assumed like most people his interest would be in the homelessness bit and how I wrote the blog. He did talk about the shame and secrecy of homelessness, and how it had been for me living in the car for those nine months, but he focussed mostly on the earlier part of the book — on some of the childhood stuff.

It always seems to be raining when I write a blog.

nice day for a walk
Originally uploaded by m.Lee Other than some really poorly timed stupid family drama we are fine.

Time is playing its tricks with my mind again. I have been away for a few weeks, to Ireland — and now that I am back everything seems either slowed right down, or speeded up: it seems impossible that summer is almost over, or that it is a whole year since I first rolled up my fleece as a pillow, loosened my boots, laid my head down on the passenger seat, just to rest for a while, and ended up sleeping in my car for the very first time. Time seemed all scrunched up then too. I couldn’t hold it back, and so didn’t want to know about it, blanked out as much as I could — couldn’t even say what day it was sometimes; and sometimes, now, too, it is difficult to decide whether it seems ages ago since I was in the car, or more like yesterday. Seems a bit of both. Despite two massages and a hard bed, my back still holds most of the pain of it, so healing is no indication of time lapsed.

You know better. You don't have to go to Africa to find people living with HIV who have trouble feeding themselves. Dr. Sheri Weiser reports that about half of homeless people living with HIV in San Francisco report chronic food insecurity, and that, no surprise, they are sicker and more likely to die than people who don't. That doesn't mean they are starving in quite the same way Africans do. They can come up with the calories, usually, but they either have to do it in socially unacceptable ways or they have to eat stuff they'd really rather not. Think dumpster, for example.

Now your friendly neighborhood Republican will tell you that homeless hungry people with HIV are that way because they failed to take personal responsibility, so the Christian thing to do is to let the Free Market™ sort them out. I'm telling you that they got that way because they have a serious mental illness, or are suffering from the effects of serious trauma or abuse.

Time seems so speeded up — another Christmas already! Sometimes I can't believe how quick things are going. Don't feel I've done enough these past twelve months to mark off another year just yet. I'm here though, surviving, hopefully putting the peices of my life back together again. What I'm not doing so well with at the moment, is with emails — in replying to them.

In two days it will be National Novel Writing Month again and I encourage readers to participate if possible.

Last year was my first year in NaNoWriMo and I crossed the finish line with a couple of days to spare. Problem was that after 50,000 words, the novel I was working on wasn't close to finished. I had resolved to finish before moving on to other things, but the truth is I wrote myself into a corner and I can't figure out how to get the characters out. It is said that Tolkien took years of time away from writing Lord of the Rings while thinking of ways to get the Fellowship out of Moria, but in the time in between he invented like half a dozen languages. I don't think battling pixellated zombies is quite on the same level.

Someone e-mailed yesterday saying they'd just randomly come across my blog, and asked me whether it was true, whether I did actually live in my car for all that time. I can't believe someone is still asking that — I don't know whether to scream or cry.

Over at Convictions, Dahlia Lithwick has seen something in my previous post on living constitutionalism that I didn't see. I was not writing about the "drawbacks of living constitutionalism," but about how living constitutionalism of the kind she likes actually works.

Stars: *****

I recieved this book for review from Random House.
Wow. Received for review and I’m so glad. This is similar to A Far Cry From Home but mostly the story of one girl instead of many. I have not read Girlbomb which is the author’s story of herself homeless.

It is a month to the day since I last updated this blog — and since I have had several emails asking me why, and if I am okay — I just thought I'd sign in, to let everyone know that things are fine. Well...ish. Because the writing is tough going — as I should have known it would be — but hopefully I am tougher; and this won't last forever.

I am looking forward to getting fit afterwards, and to doing some serious hill walking. Though right now I feel like bundling myself up and rolling down a few, the way I did once as a little girl, and a few times since, pushing myself from the top, and just rolling rolling rolling all the way down, until I was like a wristwatch, shaken back into life.

And talking of wristwatches...must go — will report back soon.

Weeks and weeks since I've written in here. I haven't known what to write. I kept waiting for something more interesting to happen, but since I've written the book nothing has really, not really, nothing particularly bloggable anyway. I've spent the time since slowly putting my life back into order, sorting things out, settling back into things, relishing the ordinariness of it all again. I feel stronger now than I have ever done, can't imagine what could phase me after how I lived this time last year, but the feelings I have about the book are still very complicated, conflicted feelings and I suppose that was another reason to avoid writing in here too soon — to avoid even thinking about any of it for a while once it was written. It is done now, will have to speak for itself.

I woke up this morning with the cold howling around inside my bones. But looking out of the window everything was all white and beautiful and brilliant, the sun like pearl behind white sky, and everything glittered with frost. It looked quite magical. I love mornings like this. Give me this over rain any day. I went to a pantomine the night before last, and the fairy godmother in it was fantastic, really throwing herself into the part, tip-toeing around the cast waving her wand and whispering good into everyones ears. That's what it felt like this morning, waking up to all this whiteness, as if someone had tiptoed through the night - over rooftops and hills, through the trees, up and down streets and alleyways and parks, waving a magic wand, turning the land this clean, silvery-white. I felt happy just laying there thinking it. I turned up the on the music on the CD alarm — the Late String Quartets again!

I used to own a movie (back when there were "videotapes" called Bodies, Rest, and Motion. It was one of those independent films where not much happens, but for some reason I liked the movie. It's about a couple who moves to Arizona and then once they get there, they break up and the guy starts dating someone else, who he now lives with. The guy and his girfriend are still friends iwth the ex. So that's just the background, nothing has actually happened yet. Ok.. now the boyfriend decides he wants to move to Butte, Montana. Girlfriend doesn't really want to go, but she's a nice, peaceable girl so she will follow him. They get all packed up, hire a painter, quit their jobs...at the last minute boyfriend tells her that he's going alone. And he leaves. She's stunned. The painter shows up and they start chatting, get high, and have sex. He goes on about love. She gets up in the morning and leaves, not waking the painter. The painter decides he will find her.

Roy MacGregor once again has composed a brilliant bit of writing for Saturday's Globe and Mail, as he traces the tragic moments 21 years ago for the Swift Current Broncos and weaves it into a script of healing for the people of Bathurst, New Brunswick, who are still coming to terms with a similar tragedy just last month.

He recounts the events of Dec. 30, 1986 as if they happened just yesterday, when a team bus skidded off a frozen Saskatchewan highway, causing death to four young men and leaving a small town reeling. Indeed for many that were living in Swift Current then, it still seems as though it was an event that happened just the other day.

Much like the people of Bathurst will live with their thoughts and tears for many years to come, they can find some solace from a small town across the country that has walked their path before.

It's a moving article, well worth the read, one filled with sadness, remorse, faith and hope. A small bit of hope in fact, that in New Brunswick, a town coming to terms with its own tragedy can realize that they have many who understand their grief and share in their sadness.

Stars: ****

I was interested in reading this book ever since I first read a review of it. I’ve seen so many reviews for it since that I can’t remember where I first saw it! I finally was able to fit time in to read it for the Bibliography challenge and Book Around the World challenge and I’m glad I did.

my hair is dark
Originally uploaded by m.Lee My friend's cancer has spread, we don't know much more than that. Right now it seems like the best we can hope for is stage two. Stage four is very bad. Thirty-eight year old father of three young boys.

I'm having a friend over for lunch today because I could really use the company. He works from home so can bring his laptop and work in the living room. There is a great sandwich place about a ten minute walk from my place. They have popovers and lots of veggie options. They are much better than the hipster place down the street five minutes from me.

I am going to get back to drawing with my Wacom tablet before doing some light cleaning before my friend comes over. It isn't easy to use, but that is part of the fun.

day than a summer day today. It's cold and dreary, overcast and intermittently rainy. We were out late last night "gallactic bowling" with some friends. It was sort of fun, but I drank too much beer, ate too much bowling alley food, and well, I can't deny it... bowling kicked my ass. I started off strong with a spare, then as I got tireder and tireder (I know that's not a word) I got worse and worse and got many many gutter balls. But oh well, better than sitting home on my birthday. : )

I've been sick
Originally uploaded by m.Lee Hello. I hope everybody had a very nice weekend and end of the week while I have been MIA.

I came down with some horrible stomach flu on Wednesday night and didn't get better until Sunday. It started with the chills Wednesday night and didn't end until I woke up today. But once it was gone it was gone. It was bad enough that I had a hard time feeding blee because I didn't have the calories or the water to spare. Bad enough that I probably shed a few pounds the unhealthy way. And Jon had to work from home on Thursday or Friday so he could help out. I also had to cancel a dental appointment.

2007 in a nutshell
Originally uploaded by m.Lee I often have felt like I wasted a lot of 2007 due to my rather difficult pregnancy. First I was tired all the time, followed by some sort of flu that lingered for a solid three months. Then about two or three good weeks before the horribly puking up acid reflux got out of control. Then the pregnancy induced hypertension and finally going twelve days late.

My big strong girl
Originally uploaded by m.Lee Thanks blee. It happened, I just got back from asking our downstairs neighbor to turn their music down. They are having a karaoke new years party and it was loud. It isn't just because she is sleeping but I don't want loud music in general. I well on my way to becoming an old far. When the ball drops I hope to be asleep. I have no interest in celebrating or drinking. The last time I had a glass of wine I got a headache and champagne always went to my head.

...and it looks like it shares my reluctance to go back to the laneway. Today — now that I've had time and distance from it — for the first time since I left, I had decided to drive back there. Not to sleep! Just to park up under the trees and to sit in the car and think for a while. It's a bit of a trek back there these days, particularly in this heat, but this morning I was determined to go, was even looking forward to it in a way, and drove off at about nine. But driving down the highstreet (still only a mile or so from home) I stalled, and when I turned the key in the ignition and desperately tried to start it nothing happened. I panicked because I didn't even have my mobile on me, but even if I had I wasn't sure what I could have done. Luckily, some workmen who were repairing the road further up had seen and came to push it over to the kerb for me. One told me to open the bonnet, that he'd take a quick look.

bleak. I can't really think of any other time in my lifetime when the economy looked so bad and the future looked so scary. I don't know if it's because I used to live in a wealthy area and didn't drive far to work, and just didn't notice things... or it really is that bad. When I was visiting VA a few weeks ago, I was going on and on about conspiracy theories and how the middle class will be wiped out and my sister said to me "what do you care? you live a good life. enjoy it." All the news coverage lately just ... I don't know... it makes me think of a Hollywood movie of a futuristic world well it all effing sucks! I don't anticipate not being able to afford food. I have a decent paying job and with carpooling, etc. we'll get by, even with the price of gas these days...but this is the first time that economic factors like that really have changed my life. My driving habits have changed (65 mph baby!), I'm carpooling, I asked my boss about telecommuting. Our expendable income has gone down...I dunno.

There were boiling hot days like these when I first slept out in the car. Not quite as hot, and I was down on the coast then, in and around Brighton, so warm, salty breezes coming in off the sea cooled things down a bit. But sometimes, when it had been there collecting heat all day, the car's metal could burn bare skin and the interior was full of exhausting, nauseating, oven-hot heat, unbearable, the kind you have to physically force yourself to get in to: my hair would frizz, my body stick to the seats, grimy sweat from walking about all day would slide in greasy streams and collect in hot pools underneath me, and the inside of my head throbbed with constant headaches from breathing the hot, dry air full of car fumes.

So glad to have my phone back!
Originally uploaded by m.Lee Didn't get too much accomplished on the art front yesterday, because we were too busy out playing outside. I don't know how mom's with strollers manage. Wearing blee around the city is so freeing, I don't have a stroller to lug around, get in the way and hold me back. It was a gorgeous day and today is looking to be one too. Luckily for my art my feet hurt a bit from all the walking I've been doing and my new comfy shoes won't be here until Monday at the earliest.

I hope everybody enjoys their Friday and their weekends. I think we will go walking around an area we are interested in moving to in a couple of years. There used to be a very cute toy store around there.

I had my last class of the semester last night, which means I'm not quite out of the woods -- I still have to read the final projects and turn in the grades -- but this is always the occasion when I reflect on the educational enterprise.

Like most college professors, I have essentially no formal training in pedagogy. I've had to figure it out as I go along, and it hasn't been easy. One of the hardest lessons had to do with the recognition that they don't necessarily start out believing that I'm on their side, and some of them don't want me to be on their side in quite the way that I actually am. In other words, we may just have a different idea of what this graduate degree thing is all about.