So, I should be about finished my great American (/Canadian) novel by now, right?

Um ... not exactly. My days have not really been filled with feverish novel writing, though I have been writing a lot for my employer and various freelance places, I promise. (Evidence here and here and here.)

Although the little quirks of Canadian life continue to fascinate me, I've decided to put the blog on hold for a while (hence the month-long absence) to concentrate on all that real-life stuff beyond the comforting glow of the computer screen. Scary, but potentially rewarding, I hope! I'm even trying to host a holiday party, though I'm not entirely sure I know enough people to fill a room, so if you're in Canada next Saturday do stop by for some appetizers. (Seconds spent trying to spell hors d'oevres before I gave up and went with appetizers: 30. I think there's a U in there somewhere, but free Quebec or no, I just don't have time for it.)

So, thank you to the literally tens of people who read this blog, and wish me luck in the real world. Love,

Rebecca

So I'm thinking about doing this ... write a novel in a month. Why not? Seems as good a way as any to get over my novel-writing block. The block doesn't seem to apply to newspaper stories, but maybe that's because of those wonderful deadlines -- they've always been a good motivator. So maybe that's exactly what this project will be good for. Anyone care to join me?

I've been thinking about maternity leave lately -- and no, this is not a hint that I am in the family way. There's no little Dubelets incubating just yet. However, everyone I know seems to be either pregnant or has just had a baby -- seriously, if you're of childbearing age and reading this blog, you might want to use protection because apparently I'm emanating some sort of fertility-boosting rays.

When I lived in the U.S. I had the knowledge, as I think everyone does, that American maternity leave policies suck compared to basically everywhere else, especially Europe and Canada. But I never really thought about the specifics, or the ramification, until I moved here. Twelve weeks of unpaid leave in the U.S. versus a year of paid leave in Canada.

What I've found is the maternity leave policy radically changes the whole landscape for women in the workforce. In the U.S., it seems most of the people I know who have a baby then face some version of the Big Decision -- Do I go back to work, do I stay home with the baby, should I work part-time, what can I afford to do, what about day care, etc., etc. And these are usually pretty gut-wrenching decisions to make, or so it seems, because you're not only dealing with the life of the tiny little person you've brought into the world, you're also struggling with all these identity-charged issues about work and life and gender politics. And various pundits and authors seem to make quite a good living trying to convince women to feel very, very guilty about whatever choice they make (and conveniently forgetting that fathers have the same choices).

And in Canada, we really don't have all that. The normal course of events is, you work, you have a baby and go out on mat leave for a year or a little longer, and then you go back to work. No drama. It's apparently pretty rare to see women quit the workforce altogether when having children, simply because they're not forced to make that Big Decision. I think there must be a cumulative effect of this lack of disruption of women's lives in the workforce. Maybe in 10-20 years we'll see a huge gap in gender balance in the workforce in the U.S. versus the rest of the world? Someone might need to give me a big-ass grant so I can think deeply about this issue and come out with some brilliant book that forces the U.S. to institute humane maternity policies. Or at the very least, I might pitch this idea as an article somewhere.

Sigh, sigh, sigh. My never-ending quest to find validation, a sense of identity, fame, fortune and flawless skin through my vocation really never ends. I had hoped the new job would serve the same function as a marriage in a Jane Austen novel or a Shakespeare comedy -- capping off the plot neatly with our heroine snug in the arms of her beloved. And the fact that the beloved in this case is a newspaper didn't even bother me one bit.

However, life is stubbornly unlike a Jane Austen novel and I'm struggling to find things to love in this new job, which involves not enough writing and far too much work that will one day be performed by computers or monkeys. (I'm hoping for monkeys, because I think they would really liven up most workplaces, if only we could get them to knock it off with the feces-throwing for a while. But it will probably be computers. Drat.)

Anyway, speaking of primates, here's a link to a fantabulous story by Tom French about the life and death of the king and queen of the zoo. (Fantabulous=cross between fabulous and fantastic. See, this is what happens when I don't get published often enough -- I get frustrated and start to make up words.) Tom French is an awesome writer, and apparently was in the midst of a long project on the local zoo when all this drama happened and he wrote this amazing story. The story is so amazing that I am able enjoy it whilst choking down my bitter, ugly jealousy at the fact that he was doing a long term project about ANIMALS AT THE ZOO, which is probably my No. 2 dream story right after something involving a lot of puppies, and IT SHOULD BE ME, DAMMIT. But no. So this is the first in a (hopefully not overly long) series of stories entitled, Stories I Would Have Written If Everyone Around Me Would Just Acknowledge How Totally Awesome I Am and Stop Being Jealous of My Coolness, Because You Know They Totally Are And That's The Only Thing Holding Me Back. Yeah, I know it doesn't really roll off the tongue, but it's a step up from my other imaginary series entitled Stories By People Who Are Totally Not As Good Writers As Me But Got Their Sweet Jobs Through Nepotism And Whom I Will Expose NOW.

So see, it could be worse. Enjoy the primates -- sans feces throwing.

I'm back! And, unfortunately, I'm sick. My prognosis was very grim at about 2 this morning, when leading medical experts (me) predicted imminent death. I'm feeling better, but still achy and cranky and logey and I'm anticipating that tomorrow might not be my most brilliant first day at work, but oh well.

The trip was fabulous! We went to Amsterdam, Paris and Provence. My broken French actually came in handy several times. I will definitely have to say more about the trip later -- my brain is so foggy right now, all I can think of is that I liked the Louvre a lot. Really, it's nice. You should check it out. I like that Mona Lisa chick. It's cool. Also, Provence was pretty and the olive groves were nice and we ate really good food. In fact maybe this whole illness is simply my body rejecting a non-French diet, demanding more red wine and cheese.

The French were generally very nice -- I do think they appreciate an effort to speak their language, however mangled. All those hours studying the bilingual cereal boxes here really paid off. I could not believe how many Americans just blasted off into complex English sentences without so much as a "parlay voo anglay?" (North Americans, I'll say generously, although probably they were all from the U.S., since Canadians are more used to handling those touchy French speakers with care.) I will say I appreciate living in a place where customer service is an actual concept and you're not expected to apologize to the shopkeeper for disturbing her day. But I guess that just shows what a high-maintenance North American I am. C'est la vie.

One thing that was very wierd that I discovered is that I do not have an understanding with French dogs. The dogs in Canada and the U.S., if I'm walking down the street, I give them a "good dog" look, they give me a little tail wag; we have an understanding. We are sympatico, I believe, though maybe that's just the fever talking. But les chiens francais, non -- I'd go in for a little walk-by pat on the head and they'd just avoid eye contact. Maybe les chiens are just a little more reserved than our American dogs, or maybe they're not used to being fawned over in the same fashion, or maybe it was just a language barrier. I must admit it was a bit disconcerting -- I was under the impression my Dr. Doolittle skills knew no boundaries. Luckily now I am reunited with Wonder Dog, who has requested and received an alias change to La Chien Gentille, and as always we are muy sympatico.

I'm off to investigate the medicinal effects of triple-creme brie now, a bientot....

In preparation for a rapidly approaching trip to Paris -- made sweeter by the aforementioned job offer and thus the knowledge of having a steady income stream when I return -- I have been reading Adam Gopnik's "Paris to the Moon," which is an excellent collection of essays on living in Paris and on being an American abroad generally. And even though I am overlakes rather than overseas, and the only language barrier I encounter is an over-reliance on the word "eh" and a predilection for inserting the letter u into words, I'm finding I relate to a lot of what he writes. It helps that he's a wonderful writer in that New Yorker style. (He and Malcolm Gladwell? Both Canadians, doncha know. Of course, both Canadians living in New York, now.)

There was a passage I particularly liked , which I'll reproduce here if I can find it, about how living in another country means not having any particularly strongly help opinions about the things most people feel strongly about. You listen to both sides of a debate and you think, well, they both have a point, which is exactly how I felt listening to all the debates during the last election here. The differences that seemed so glaring and fundamental to Canadians seemed rather slight to me, and it didn't matter much to me either way. And he writes a little about how this feels very free and refreshing, but after a while you get tired of it and it starts to feel a bit lonely, which I can see as well. As tired as I am of the whole red/blue conflict in the U.S., I could see how you would start to miss it after a while.

And reading his experiences with the bureaucracies of France, I realize we have it easy here in Canada even though I was pretty steamed that I have to pay $18 just to get my mail put on hold for three weeks. Yes, we have to pay the heavily-taxpayer-subsidized post office $18 -- plus provincial and federal sales tax, of course -- for the priviledge of them NOT delivering our mail. But still, it was a pretty simple transaction at least, so merci beaucoup for that. In a few phone calls to French restaurants to make reservations I have learned that my French is not up to French waiter standards, but I will continue trying because I took 10 years of French, dammit, and I ought to have something to show for it. Of course I dropped French immediately when I satisfied the language requirement in college, thinking, When will I ever live someplace where I'd need to know French? Little did I know, the places I'd go....

So this blog, updated at a pitiably slow pace as it is, will be on holiday for the next few weeks while I eat my way through France. If I do not exceed the weight limit on the flight back I will be back in September to report on the trip, and also my new job, which I'll start soon after I get back. Au revoir pour maintenant!

Well, I have big (good) news ... I have a new job! An honest-to-goodness, permanent job with benefits and the whole shebang. So glad I can finally let my hair down at work and start being a bitch to everyone instead of being so freakin' nice all the time. ... Kidding, I actually am pretty nice, except to people who do things like walk over and stand right in front of me at a concert, as if I won't notice that I'm now looking at the back of their head instead of the stage, and if you think I'm too mature to start pulling your hair successively harder until you move away you are wrong, big head lady.

Ahem. But I haven't run into any of that at work ... no one is really jockeying to get in your way when you're about to edit a story about institutional investors versus individual investors reaction to the Fed's decision to pause rates, though honestly that was a pretty interesting story ... so I think my thin veneer of civilization will hold firmly in place.

I will even be doing some work on this Internet thing that we've all heard so much about, though I think it really might be a fad and any day now several generations will discover the joy of getting their fingers all smeared with ink and having to paw through several sections of irrelevant news before getting to the sports/comics/gossip/escort services ads they were looking for.

I am very happy, and feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders that I didn't even notice was there until it lifted when I heard the words, "We'd like to offer you a job." Truth be told, I like the fun parts of freelancing -- working in my pajamas, frequent breaks for dog walking and kitchen-grazing and watching Ellen ("Let's have a little fun to-day!"), seeing my name in certain cool publications -- but the rest of it, the whole uncertainty and salesmanship aspect and constant striving and did I mention the lack of certainty? I didn't like that very much. I have come to understand that I really like structure, a lot. Rules and complex office hierarchies? Love them! Enigmatic authority figures from whom I can win approval and/or learn to hate with an obsessive passion? Fabulous! Count me in!

I hope to keep freelancing, so as to keep my options open in the carefree, pajama-wearing, sipping-Starbucks-in-no-hurry-at-2 p.m. kind of world, and also 'cause I like seeing my name in print in big fancy publications. Also, uh, for truth and justice and journalisticy goodness and all that good stuff too, yeah. But as I bounce on the trampoline of journalisticy daring, I feel I will soar even higher knowing the safety net of regular paychecks is guarding me from a hard tumble to the depths of financial- and identity-crises. Also, I'm hoping I won't run into this problem, described in the pages of Canada's national newspaper.

In conclusion: Opa!