My host at the B&B is a sailor who claims to be “between boats.” Over breakfast we discussed one of the books I’m reading, And The Sea Will Tell, by Vincent Bugliosi about the murder of a wealthy yachtsman and his wife on an uninhabited south seas island. That’s rare, he said, these days he said most piracy occurs around Malaysia and India and they usually prey on freighters.

I’m enjoying Salt Spring Island. A change of scene is always good. I have only been here once before, a long time ago, to visit my boyfriend Peter Draper’s father. Ganges is a much more bustling place than back then. In some ways, I feel more verve here than Bowen Island probably due to the larger population, 10,000 to our 3. One of the best things about Bowen is its proximity to Vancouver of course. I’m staying on 28 ocean view acres on the north end of Salt Spring with a view of Galliano Island across the Strait of Georgia, the North Shore Mountains visible beyond. The weather has been glorious! I was fully expecting to be socked in with fog and rained on mercilessly but the sun has been shining every day. It certainly helps buoy the spirits which is helping me to write, despite my fatigue. Feel like I’m fighting a cold. They get away from you-projects-and through this process, this retreat, I am able to retrieve these two-my novel, The Town Slut’s Daughter, and the verse I am writing for my book collaboration with Tina Schliessler.

You find yourself researching the oddest things sometimes. In the novel, I compare punk rock pogoing to the dancing in the Charlie Brown Christmas special but I couldn’t remember which character moved in that peculiar way. I thought it was Schroeder doing that dance when I remembered that he was the pianist. I was confused, wanted to verify the character. Was I going to have to go watch it? I think we have a dvd of it. If not, I would have to rent it. You Tube! Sure enough, there it was, in a clip. All I had to do was type in “dance” and “Peanuts” and I found it. I was disappointed to see that the kid in the orange shirt was dancing that dance and not one of the main characters like Linus or Pigpen. So what was I going to call him in the novel? Something I will have to figure out or simply cut. Fun, the kind of fun I have to make sure I don’t spend too much time on for I may be here for a week but I am only just getting my groove on. It’s happening though and I can’t escape the pressure, the anxiety, or the work. I am getting it done, having painted myself into a corner. On purpose.

Delighting in finding new words-new for me-in the process of writing today, words like frobnicate, which is computer jargon and means to manipulate, adjust or tweak, derived from frobnitz and usually abbreviated to frob. You can believe it’s not in the Oxford and I love it. Dig this from Arthur A. Gleckler’s Jargon File:

Usage: FROB
TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes
fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he’s carefully adjusting it he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he’s just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he’s frobbing it.

Perhaps by writing poetry, employing free association, I am frobnicating. It suggests fornicating or masturbating, doesn’t it? I have also learned that Arbutus is a Latin word and means strawberry tree–for its red fruits. Did you know it’s the only deciduous tree that doesn’t shed its leaves in the winter? Instead, in summer, new leaves grow as the old fall off. Also, I did not know that our native aspen are actually called trembling aspen. So poetic and serendipitously, I refer to aspen leaves in my poem Whore In The Eddy. Its leaves are considered “distinctive,” known to quiver in the slightest breeze. “Only cool airstreams of trembling aspen leaves…”

Making serious headway with the novel, along with several decisions and the switch from first person to third is working, albeit a challenge to change, the narrative flows, reads better. This retreat is affording me the opportunity to tackle these issues from which I am perpetually and conveniently sidetracked by domestic duties at home. Here I have no choice but to tackle them. I can take my progress with and work from there upon my return.