Author: ZA

I’m Still Here

Personal

I have a blog? What???

So anyway, yeah, I’m still alive and my Internet connection works and my fingers remain functional, so here you go, a blog post.

A. 3 reasons why I hate articles of clothing that start with “boyfriend”: They are called “boyfriend pants,” or “boyfriend jeans” or “boyfriend sweatshirts,” etc. and I hate them. Why? #1 I should be able to wear comfortable, loose-fitting, unembellished clothing without a label that implies this is a style of clothing reserved for penis-carrying humans. #2 The name itself is pretty heteronormative. #3 The implication that all women’s clothing are so uncomfortable and ridiculous that we need to wear our boyfriends’ clothes just to chill once in a while. Ironically, it’s awesome that they make these kinds of clothes specifically for women – they’re just marketed wrong.

B. 3 summer movies I’m naively excited to see: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (obviously), Cowboys and Aliens (check out the ass on James Bond) and Super 8 (though the trailer reminds me a little too much of War of the Worlds, and we know how that turned out).

C. 3 indications that I may be evolving into an adult: I cooked a bean and vegetable stew yesterday (or soup, whatever, I can’t tell the difference), I’ve been going to the gym a few times a week for about a month or so and I think I might just have an ounce of upper body strength that I didn’t have before, and despite what my mother and grandmother may tell you, I wake up by 10 a.m. every day – even when I don’t have to. So there.

D. 3 ways that I’m still 14, deep down: I ate, like, *THIS MUCH* marzipan last night, I’ve been listening to “Don’t Turn Out the Lights” by NKOTBSB on repeat since yesterday, and last week I asked R.L. Stine a question on Twitter (which he answered!) and spent the rest of the day in a state of sustained exhilaration.

E. 3 non-movie things I’m looking forward to this summer: Glee concert in Toronto on June 11 (don’t judge me), Comic-Con in San Diego in late July (plus vacationing in L.A. beforehand), and, you know, sun and stuff.

There, that ought to tide everyone over, right? In case you’re wondering, all the time I could be updating this blog, I’m working on my novel – a priority that might belong in either C or D, not sure yet.

Some things need to be said out loud.

Personal

[Quick note: I’ve been keeping a journal about my weight and weight loss for the last few years, ever since I started the Dr. B diet. I idly wondered the other day how I would feel letting someone read it and I immediately knew that I’d be too embarrassed, too exposed. But I hated that reaction. I didn’t want to be scared to share this part of my life. So that’s why I wrote this post. Re-reading it now, I hope I don’t offend anyone who’s struggled with their own weight. My intention is not to speak on behalf of anyone else; it’s just to share my own feelings about growing up fat, because I needed to share them.]

Wow, you’d think this blog had called me fat on my birthday or something. Between crunch time at work, my awesome trip over the holidays to Orlando where I visited the spectacular Wizarding World of Harry Potter and my current preoccupations with writing for something that isn’t this blog, I guess I’ve been neglectful.

So what should I write about? Current events? A critique of some pop culture trend? To be honest, I’ve been kind of consumed with one, uh, project in particular.

Since I turned the big 2-5, I’m proud to say I’ve checked off a few important items on my to-do list. I moved out of my mom’s house, I settled into a great, full-time job that’s actually in my field, I FINALLY got my G license (I know, I was a late-blooming driver.), and now I’m working on a couple of other important ones.

I gave up on becoming fluent in French last year (it’s gonna’ take full on immersion to get me there), and I’m trying to overcome my debilitating, ridiculous fear of swimming every Thursday night. But the big one? I’m trying to lose weight.

Yeah, I know. Everyone’s trying to lose weight, or get healthy, or achieve perfect abs around this time of year. But unlike most of your New Year’s resolutions, I’ve been working on this one a while.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I “started” trying to lose weight. I’ve kind of always been fat. In fact, the first time I was on the receiving end of a fat joke was in grade 2. Grade TWO, you guys. And I’ve been sneaking food behind my mom’s back despite her pleas for me to lose weight and thinking of myself as the smart-but-fat sister since at least middle school.

As a kid, whenever someone would bring up my growing waistline – mainly my mom – I would get angry. I hated that look. That I-don’t-want-you-to-get-angry-but-maybe-you-shouldn’t-be-taking-seconds look. I know she was just concerned for me, and I regret making it so hard for her to talk to me about my weight. I didn’t hate her, or anyone else, for simply acknowledging what was a simple fact at the time. I just hated that it was true. I hated that I couldn’t eat what I wanted like my sister – the pretty one. I didn’t understand why it was so wrong to be the size I was, or to eat what I wanted. For a long time, I felt like any criticism of my weight was a shallow, superficial complaint. That I should be allowed to just be me. But eventually I grew to realize that I wanted to lose weight just as much as my mom wanted me to, though I would never admit it.

As I grew older, I did try to lose weight. A lot. Every summer, every time I started a new school, every birthday, every – yes – New Year’s since then, I’ve resolved to lose The Weight. I felt like I was wasting my life being fat. That I’d never be the person I wanted to be while I was overweight. That life would begin when I was “thin”, however I defined the term at the time. But for a long time I didn’t know jack shit about weight loss or eating healthy. I was a kid, after all. My idea of eating healthy was eating Sun Chips instead of Lays. (I can’t even explain that one, but yeah, I’m serious.) Plus, my favourite past-times were reading, writing and watching TV. “Running around the yard”, as my mom frequently suggested, just seemed so boring.

Then I got to university. I know it’s not an excuse, but university life is so bad for your health. Especially at York, where the ratio of healthy food to junk is something like 1:8, at least. And the scheduling. My god, the scheduling! If there was a way to pull an all-nighter without snacking, I never discovered it. I’m sorry to say I gained 10 pounds every year for 4 years.

People wonder how someone who’s morbidly obese got there. At some point, wouldn’t they have said “This has to stop. I’m not going to get any fatter. I’m going to lose this weight!”? Well, that’s not how it happens. When you’re the one gaining the weight, you just spend every day the way you’ve spent every day before that; normal for you is just eating the way you always have. Once in a while you resolve to finally lose weight, but most people don’t have the time, energy, knowledge, resolve or support to make the huge life changes that are necessary to a) losing a significant amount of weight and b) keeping it off. Frankly, it’s just a lot harder than it looks. And every so often, out of nowhere, you realize you’ve gotten fatter. And losing weight becomes that much more impossible.

And if you’ve never been significantly overweight but you think might understand what it’s like or how someone like me could go about losing weight – you don’t.

I once wrote (elsewhere) that if weight loss were one, huge, heroic feat – a sprint, if you will – then I’d be thin. But it isn’t. It’s every day. It’s every second. It’s merciless. It’s telling yourself that every little decision you make during a day matters, no matter how hard each one is, that they’re all worth it, that it’s going to work. It’s a week of good behaviour and one bad day until you’re back where you started. It’s every fear you had that you’re going to fail realized. It’s convincing yourself that you are not “meant” to be fat, that this time, after 1,870 tries, that THIS time will work. And, for me at least, it’s a lifetime of hating yourself for losing control of your weight, and thinking that maybe you deserve to be fat.

That’s exactly what it’s like, just so you know. I spent a lifetime defining myself as “fat”. And it wasn’t just one part of me. It affected every single part of my life. It’s a chair in a classroom. A narrow aisle in a store. A couch with three people already on it. It’s a friend’s mom meeting you for the first time and saying in a language you don’t speak, “wow, she’s big.” It’s trying to eat in public without shame. It’s your mother’s disappointed look when you go clothes shopping. It’s being told that fat = ugly, and avoiding questions about dating. It’s a complete stranger – or worse, a close friend – casually suggesting that you should take a brisk walk every evening and skip a meal once in a while. It’s binge eating at 10 years old and trying to make yourself throw up, knowing that you’ll hate yourself either way.

It’s a lifetime of walking around, feeling suffocated in a body you can’t escape. It’s hating what you look like, not because the whole world thinks you look gross, but because it’s an inescapable reminder of all those failures and weak moments.

So, in 2007, at 245 pounds, I took a bit of health insurance I had and spent it on 9 weeks of the Dr. Bernstein program. A strict diet + 3 visits a week with a nurse + B6/B12 injections + lots of money = miracle! Okay, I know there’s no such thing as a miracle cure. No quick fix-it scheme. Oh, and I got plenty of skeptical looks. Why can’t I just start “eating healthy” and get “physically active”? Because I didn’t believe that would work. There was just too much weight to lose. It would have taken years! Knowing that I would have to keep that up for years, with slow progress, all the while still living this life, in this body, was daunting and, ultimately, seemed futile. The fastest way to a thin me was automatically the best. I had already wasted so much of my life struggling with my weight; time was always slipping away from me. Besides, after so many failures, I just knew I couldn’t do it alone, that I couldn’t do it in a series of small life changes for a period of years. In the end, I didn’t get know-how or a magical injection from that program. What I got was the belief that I could do it – a promise – and then I did all the work.

I had to stop the program after 9 weeks, $1,000 and 40 pounds because I had run out of money and I was confident that I could lose the rest of the weight on my own. Over the next two years or so, I managed to lose a little weight here and there, but there was always an excuse when things got busy or difficult or stressful to start afresh the next day. There’s always an excuse to eat now and repent later.

I started lots of diet programs. Wrote lots of carefully balanced and nutritious menus that would be easy to follow. Tried lots of different exercise routines, sports, pilates, etc. etc. Gave myself deadlines, schedules, motivation – but I gave up on everything. Or rather, I postponed, I procrastinated, I rescheduled. In the heat of the moment, when you’re deciding whether or not to go to the gym or eat that brownie, you realize you can rationalize any decision, no matter how lame it is, or how much you know – on some level – that you will regret it later. At my worst moments, I hated myself for being this person that I had become and eating became a way of being self-destructive.

A month after turning 25, a couple of days after moving to Toronto, I enrolled in the Dr. B program for a second time. I was 8 pounds heavier than when I left the program in 2007. I had to renew my faith. I needed that support. I needed a nurse to scold me if I cheated. I needed a monetary reason not to say “I’ll start on Monday.”

Now, at 175 pounds, I’m just 7 weeks and 25 pounds away from my weight loss goal. I never kept track of my weight until I was in my 20’s, so I don’t know the last time I was this weight, but it certainly feels new. I finally feel like I could be that person. That thin person everyone wanted me to be. That there could be a version of me that isn’t Fat. And it’s terrifying.

I don’t regret the strict diet that got me here, but I do worry about what I’m going to do when I’m off the program. If I think it’s tough being fat now, imagine how it’s going to feel knowing how hard I worked to lose all that weight, just to gain it all back again?

After all, what’s to stop me from going back to my old ways? Well, I don’t have a good answer for you. I can make all the plans I want. I can research all the healthy foods I want. I can sign up for all the martial arts and yoga classes I want. But how often does a person really change? Permanently change? Even if I keep it up, what happens the next time I get too busy or stressed out to monitor what I eat?

On that show Hoarders, the people always say things were getting better – under control, at least – until some crisis ruined everything. That’s how it always is. On your best day, you can get to the gym and follow your carefully planned menu. But what about your worse days?

When I tell people about my weight loss and they inevitably ask, “but isn’t it going to be hard to keep it off?”, all I can offer is, “I’ll try.” And I’m not saying that lightly. It’s just the truth. But I will say this: There was no way I was going to lose such a significant amount of weight without a structured program, a strict diet, a support system and the motivation that spending a ton of money provides. So I have no regrets. And when I reach 145 pounds – for a total of 100 pounds lost all together – I’ll have something I’ve never had before, during all those other attempts. I’ll have a blank slate. And that makes me believe I can be something other than fat.

A re-hashed tribute to the final Harry Potter installment

Entertainment

In honour of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 opening tonight, I’m re-posting a recap of the final HP book, which I wrote on my old LJ when it came out in 2007. Enjoy! [Please note: as this is basically a summary for the entire final book, it has spoilers for both parts 1 AND 2 of the Deathly Hallows movies. You’ve been warned.]

Continue reading →

NaNoWriMo Midterm Report

Writing

[Cross-posted on OnWriters.wordpress.com.]

This is post is going to sound like one long excuse, but I’m abandoning my NaNoWriMo novel. Remember when I said I wanted to write something so I could enter it in the Terry Pratchett first novel contest? Well, I spent months trying to come up with a workable idea that fulfilled its requirements, and I thought I’d found one that was good enough to pursue, but after writing a little over 8,000 words this month, I’ve decided it would be a waste of time to continue forcing myself to work on an idea that I didn’t feel very strongly about. Writing is always incredibly hard work, but this was ridiculous; every sentence felt like pulling teeth. I just had no inspiration or motivation to continue. And now that I’ve decided to let it go, I don’t even feel bad about it; though I had put a lot of work into it, there was little worth salvaging.

Meanwhile, I’d been nursing a different idea for a sci-fi novel for a long time and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Though I figured I’d just work on it once I finished this manuscript, I ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth it – especially since I had little faith that I could produce a readable 80,000-word manuscript by Dec. 31. So I dropped my NaNoWriMo novel, and I’ve been working on my other idea with no set deadline in mind – and so far it’s been going really well.

What about meeting my NaNoWriMo goal? What about confronting this challenge? Sorry, but I never really cared about writing a novel in a month. My writing goals for the contest just happened to coincide with NaNoWriMo. Besides, I’ve done it before, and though it’s a great challenge for a lot of people who don’t allow themselves the luxury of pursuing their creative writing interests on a regular basis, I wasn’t really getting anything out of it that wasn’t servicing my Terry Pratchett aspirations. Personally, the act of writing is somewhat diminished by pursuing the all-important Word Count. That’s just not how I work. I need to think about what I’m writing each day before continuing, which takes time. Otherwise I’m left with a novel that, even pared down to its bare bones, doesn’t even meet my standards for something worth editing.

I don’t want to put NaNoWriMo down. It’s a great challenge that encourages people who don’t usually write to make time to finally write the novel that’s been at the back of their heads for – very probably – a long time. Me? I’m looking to make novel-writing something I do every month, not just in November.

NaNoWriMoing

Writing

[Cross-posted on OnWriters.wordpress.com.]

For the third time, I’m participating in NaNoWriMo. The first time I did it, in high school, I didn’t finish. The second time, while I was doing my undergrad at York University, I was so swamped with schoolwork that it took me almost the entire month to write 10,000 words and then I pounded out the last 40,000 in about 3 or 4 days mostly because people didn’t believe that I could.

This year? This year, I want to write something so I can enter it for the Terry Pratchett Prize. Will I have a good shot at winning with something I wrote in just a few weeks? Maybe not. I have, however, put a lot of thought into the concept and outline, so I don’t think it will be terrible. In any case, my NaNoWriMo novel will at the very least be a good exercise in writing; it will get my creative juices flowing for whatever my next project is, perhaps.

In the meantime, this website really depressed me – though it may have some valid points – to the extent that I almost didn’t want to promote it by linking to it. In opposition to its general theme: writers should never be discouraged from the act of writing; though it may not always be literary gold, it has value in the act itself for the individual. It’s the job of the publishing industry to sort through the slush pile.

How does ANYONE do this?

Writing

Apparently the key to good, imaginative writing is to relax and have fun. That’s one of many conclusions drawn by YA novelist Carol Plum-Ucci in an essay she wrote for a Smart Pop Books anthology about Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle series. The essay’s called “Q: How Does a Fifteen-Year-Old Do This?” (which you can purchase for $0.99 US through that link). Plum-Ucci discusses how a writer’s imagination works in a general sense, with a focus on Paolini’s specific work in his boy-and-his-dragon novels. I guess a lot of people tend to wonder how a mere teenager was able to write such an amazing and imaginative novel.

Hold on. Before I go any further, let me clarify that a) I’ve read his first book, Eragon, and I didn’t think it was THAT great, and b) I was insanely jealous of him when it came out, having been an aspiring novelist (key word: aspiring) since I was 12. (He, along with Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, were my nemeses when I was a teenager, unbeknownst to them.) End side note.

So, Plum-Ucci takes a psychoanalytic look at how writer’s write, and ultimately comes to two conclusions. I’m sure I’ve heard similar theories about writing elsewhere, but the fact that it was about a fifteen-year-old writer that I once abhorred caught my attention.

The first conclusion she draws is that the dream centre, or the part of the brain that’s associated with ‘play time’, is largely associated with a writer’s creative process. That’s where character archetypes come from, as well as common symbols that tend to crop up throughout literature. These are the things readers relate to, because they’re common to all of us.

The second conclusion was this: in order to be a popular and therefore successful (I suppose) author, a writer must develop a writer-reader relationship by creating something that they enjoyed writing, so that the reader may enjoy reading it. Basically, you should trust your gut instinct about what’s interesting, what’s not and what works in your novel. If you spend all day analyzing what the “average reader” wants in a book, you’re bound to fail. Successful writers offer something that they would read themselves.

She also mentioned that writers who spent years studying writing were less likely to access that inner child; she said she knew hundreds of unpublished writers who spent years (in some cases, decades) studying the craft to no avail.

As I continue to spend my nights trying to capture something worthwhile on paper, I find myself trying unsuccessfully to turn on the ‘play centre’ of my brain. Once upon a time, I wrote a really crappy horror novel at the age of 12-going-on-13 as a result of consuming too many Christopher Pike and R. L. Stine novels. I recall spending hundreds of precious after-school/weekend hours at my computer writing simply for the sheer joy of it. I was having fun. It was probably because I had no internal editor telling me that what I was writing sucked. *sigh* Those were indeed the good ole’ days. I sent the manuscript to one publisher and after receiving a very nice rejection letter that explained that they don’t publish fiction, I never sent it anywhere else. Since then, I don’t think I’ve sincerely enjoyed writing creatively. Maybe that’s why I have so many unfinished novels in a very sad folder on my computer.

So, here is a follow-up question to Plum-Ucci’s essay. What if there’s a barrier between my typing fingers and my dream centre? What if my brain wants to spend more time thinking about what will sell than what would be fun to write? How do I let my imagination run wild?

Perhaps a better question is: if I’m not having fun, why am I doing this?

Win a copy of ‘Inside Joss’ Dollhouse’!

Entertainment, Writing

Joss Whedon doesn’t have the best luck with television shows (or with Fox *shakes fist*), but he does have an amazing track record with fans. Even though Dollhouse only lasted two seasons, there was enough leftover fanatic fervour to inspire an anthology of fan-written essays.

Smart Pop Books gave fans (like me!) a chance to submit essays on the series as part of a contest and then published the result in Inside Joss’ Dollhouse.

Enticed by the thought of Whedonverse alum and prolific TV writer Jane Espenson reading and editing my work, I wrote an essay titled “Goliath is People! How Dollhouse Took Distrust to a Whole New Level” and – huzzah! – it got chosen.

The book is available to buy here, but if you’d like to win a copy, just answer this question and email it to me (zalina @ zalinaalvi.com) by 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 10, then I’ll randomly choose a winner from the pool:

What is the name of the (evil) corporation that turns people into dolls in Dollhouse? AND what play does the name come from? (There’s actually a whole essay on the subject of the company’s name in the book!)

Please include your full name and mailing address. Oh, and partial answers will NOT be accepted.

Thanks, and good luck!

I think setting goals is good for your pores.

Personal

On the eve of my 25th birthday, I’d like to switch things up a bit. Just this once… I’d like to talk about me. (That was a joke.)

Last year around Labour Day, I shared my new year’s resolutions, so let’s recap:

  1. Get into grad school.
  2. Reach my goal weight.
  3. Publish my soon-to-be-written novel.
  4. Earn my French certificate from the UofT School of Continuing Studies.
  5. Save enough money to buy a car.

And now let’s see how I did:

  1. Yes! Although I ended up turning it down for a job that I love.
  2. No. But I have high hopes for this year!
  3. No. But I have lots of notes… lots and lots of notes…
  4. No. I’m two classes short because I just couldn’t keep up. I feel that I’d get further by actually living in a French-speaking locale; to be fair, the other people in my classes had all done so themselves, which accounted for their advanced language skills. (Excuses, excuses…)
  5. Yes and no. I did save a fair bit of money, but I’m not buying a car. Instead, I went on an awesome birthday trip and I’m moving out, finally – which, in hindsight, should really have been on my list in the first place.

I’m gonna’ go ahead and call it even. Maybe a ‘C+’? I don’t feel too bad about anything, though. On my rational level, I know it’s more important to keep trying to reach my goals than actually reaching them. On my many other levels, though, I’m really pumped to reach my new goals this year!

  1. Publish my soon-to-be-written novel.
  2. Reach my goal weight.

I could list a bunch of smaller things – like finally learning how to tread water – but these are the two big ones. Perhaps I’ll have better luck by keeping things simple(r).

It’s funny that two of the things that are keeping me from feeling old and unaccomplished as I approach the big 2-5 – namely, having a job in my field that I enjoy, and finally moving out – weren’t even on my 2009 list. I wonder what surprising things I’ll achieve by this time next year.

Spooky New England

Travel

From what I can tell, New England attracts tourists for two main reasons: the scenery, especially during the changing colours of the fall, and because it’s spooky. You name it, New England has it: witches, ghosts, (alleged) vampires – even UFOs and Bigfoot sightings.

So, of course, that’s where my friend, Colleen, and I chose to go for our Grand 25th Birthday Trip over Labour Day weekend. Despite the fact that we only had four days, we chose to drive all the way from Toronto and, well, here’s how that went…

Day One: Driving… a lot

The day started at around 5:30 a.m. because we wanted to collect our rental car and get on the road by about 7 a.m. Sadly, someone (…me) forgot their passport, so we had to drive to Brampton from Toronto to get it. Then, someone (Colleen!) had to get American money, so we ended up sitting outside a BMO for half an hour waiting for it to open. Consequently, we didn’t actually start heading towards the border until almost 10 a.m.

The border crossing was, of course, busy and took about an hour. We didn’t cross into the U.S. until about 12:30 p.m., but our ‘Salem’s Lot audiobook and a selection of homemade sandwiches and tim tams kept us going.

As we continued into the U.S. – passing through endless miles of New York state – we realized we were running really late. To compensate, we may have started driving a little faster than we were supposed to… until a Delaware sheriff pulled us over and gave us a ticket for going 85 mph in a 55 mph zone. Oops. We went slower after that.

So we didn’t get to our first stop until well after 8 p.m., although we had wanted to arrive before sunset. That meant we ended up exploring the aptly named Holy Land USA – an abandoned Christian-themed amusement park in Waterbury, Connecticut – when it was dark, which made it extra creepy and extra hard to take photos. It was, however, well worth the stop. Random cats stood guard all over the place, shadowy religious statues peeked out from behind bushes, and ‘No Trespassing’ signs added to its allure. We, however, didn’t want to get roughed up by any more cops – and it was getting really late – so we soon left.

Before getting back on the road, we stopped to pee in a nearby mall only to be accosted by one of those crazy high-pitch signal things that only young people hear, which some places broadcast to drive us away. Since it was closing time at the mall, we had to tolerate that noise because – apparently – we’re still young enough to hear that. Dammit.

During the last few hours of our drive into Salem, MA, we ended up getting pummeled from above by a torrential downpour, a result of stupid Hurricane Earl further south. So, if you’ve been keeping track, we’ve been awake since 5:30 a.m., on the road since 7:30 a.m. and now we’re driving – about 16 hours later – through a terrifying sheet of rain in a foreign locale.

Thankfully, we arrived in Salem, MA a little after midnight safely. We checked into the Hawthorne Hotel, a supposedly haunted establishment in the happening centre of the city near all the witch-related museums and shops. Unfortunately, we didn’t do much ghost hunting that night because we were exhausted. But that’s okay, because we did lots of that the next day…

Day Two: Witches, Ghosts and UFOs, oh my!

We spent the better part of Saturday exploring Salem. We had omelettes and hashbrowns at the counter of a very happening diner called Red’s and then, with the weather on our side, we parked the car and walked the city.

We hit up the Salem Witch Museum where we heard the history of the Salem Witch Trials in what can only be described as a giant diorama; visited endless witch shops with potions, crystals, incense, wands and nearly every one offering readings (we heard a lot of Enya); participated in a live spell casting with a witch named Lady Willow in the back of the Salem Witch Village (where they were playing Practical Magic on a TV); and visited the Memorial for the 14 women and 6 men who were killed during the witch trials of 1692, as well as the neighboring Old Burying Point where tombstones stood cracked and falling apart.

Salem is a veritable Mecca for witches of all kinds. There’s an interesting dichotomy there: really kitschy witch attractions side-by-side with respectable, practicing Wiccans. What’s especially interesting is that although it’s generally accepted that there were no actual witches during the famous witch trials – just some young girls on very low levels of LSD – the city has managed to attract a huge number of practicing witches. As a bit of fun trivia, you shouldn’t call male witches warlocks – it actually means “traitors”. Go figure.

Near the end of the day, I had my tarot cards read by a second degree Wiccan priest named John, who told me that I should be – nay, that I need to be – writing creatively, not as a journalist. When he placed his hands over mine and meditated, he said he saw a mountain with bright shades of pink and purple. He said that I dream big… I liked him.

Eventually, though, we had to leave Salem. We drove an hour and a half south to Fall River, MA, where we checked into the Lizzie Borden B&B. Do you know the rhyme? Say it with me! “Lizzie Borden had an axe. She gave her mother forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.” Of course, the actual story isn’t quite so clean cut. Read about it here. We stayed in the maid’s room in the attic, where we discovered a closet full of the costumes they use for reenactments of the true crime story. (Colleen has pictures of us playing dress-up on her camera.)

With time to spare, we drove an hour further south to Exeter Rhode Island, where we had dinner at the Middle of Nowhere Diner, and then visited the grave of alleged vampire and supposed ghost Mercy L. Brown at the Chestnut Hill Baptist Church Cemetery. Full story here. Trying to find that grave in pitch dark wasn’t easy, but we did – without any ghostly encounters fortunately… or unfortunately. I still haven’t decided.

Arriving back at the B&B around 10 p.m., we were able to participate in a seance conducted by a psychic (who was, oddly, named Lizzie) who does so every Saturday night for $10 a head. There was a family there who also participated. Sitting around a tiny table in the dimly lit room where Mr. Borden was murdered, the psychic had us place our hands on the table (to channel our energy to the ghosts) and communicate with them by way of tapping or tipping over the table (the ghosts, not us) with the psychic acting as translator. And, boy, did we get a show. That table tapped and tipped without fail, and we had a whole conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Borden (as well as another ghost named Joseph who happens to live in the basement and a couple of children ghosts). I don’t know what was actually going on there, but it was certainly entertaining.

Eventually – after taking a bunch of photos in an attempt to capture ghost “orbs” (on Colleen’s camera) – the psychic left and we made a quick trip before bed. Apparently (although it’s WIDELY discredited) the area near Fall River is referred to by some as the Bridgewater Triangle. Here, people have reported everything and anything weird and supernatural – ghost sightings, UFOs, Bigfoot sightings, etc. etc.

So we drove towards Dighton Rock (a weird rock with strange petroglyphs) in the hopes of seeing a UFO or anything, really. Sadly, someone (Colleen!) got a bad vibe once we got there (it was almost midnight and nearly deserted out there, to be fair) so we didn’t actually see the rock or stay very long. I had one hell of a fright when we were standing outside the car and Colleen suddenly pointed her flashlight near me and said “what was that??” Needless to say, we got in the car and got out of there.

Sleeping in the Lizzie Borden house, though a little creepy, proved uneventful. Even so, I have to give Saturday a solid ‘A’ for creepiness.

Day Three: Rushing, Rushing, Rushing

Not realizing how breakfast at a B&B works, we were 15 min. late for breakfast and consequently missed the johnnycakes – an essential part of the breakfast that the Borden family ate on the morning of the murder. Unfazed, we bought some matching silver hatchet earrings from the gift shop and left Fall River.

We drove about an hour east through Cape Cod to catch the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. Unfortunately, upon arriving at Woods Hole, we were told to drive back almost half an hour the way we had come to park somewhere and take a shuttle to the ferry. Lame. So we missed the ferry we wanted to take, and had to take a later one. As a result, our time in Martha’s Vineyard was a bit rushed.

The 45-min. ferry trip was very pretty though, and Martha’s Vineyard is gorgeous in a very rich and crowded way. We hustled our way through the crowds to have lunch at the Slice of Life Deli, where I ate a fried green tomato sandwich (!) and then we took a bus down to Edgartown, where Jaws was filmed. We only had a little while to sightsee, and then we had to head back to catch the ferry. Though short, my only real regret was not trying the lobster ice cream. Seriously.

Back on the mainland, we started our 3.5 hour journey north to Rockland, Maine. Unfortunately, our mishap with the ferry meant we were running late. As a result, we couldn’t stop to visit Jack Kerouac’s grave in Lowell, MA. *tear* Next time.

Still running late, we had to stop for dinner in Portland, Maine, where we ate at a really nice restaurant called Street & Co., where we had crostini with a type of goat cheese called miticana and peach preserves to start, a main (or, Maine!) course of whole lobsters on fettuccine, and a rich chocolate and hazelnut cake for dessert. I loved it, although Colleen felt uncomfortable with her lobster, which she described as both disgusting and delicious. It probably wouldn’t have been so bad if it hadn’t come in its entirety – antennae, spindly legs, eyes and all.

We finally reached Rockland around midnight and checked into the supposedly haunted Captain Lindsey House Inn. The inn was gorgeous, and the people are just the nicest ever. They had free cookies and other snacks available and little chocolates in our room. Unfortunately, we only had time to enjoy the four-poster bed and fancy furniture for a little bit because we had to get to bed early – tomorrow we’d be driving all the way back to Toronto.

Day Four: On the Road

Appropriately, we listened to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road while driving back from Rockland. We took the more scenic, northern route over Lake Ontario via Montreal this time. Driving along the scenic Maine coast, and through the winding mountains in the north, it was a much more enjoyable drive than Friday’s trip. We also had no troubles with traffic, despite the fact that it was the tail end of the long weekend. At one point, we listened to the opening music from The Shining. Also of note: There was a house along the coast with a mailbox of a normal height, next to another mailbox that was about 10 feet high that read “BILLS” on the side. Ha!

Though we had a 13.5 hour drive ahead of us, we took a little detour through Bangor, Maine, where we drove by Stephen King’s beautiful, red Victorian house. Unfortunately, we didn’t see him and there was nowhere to leave the letter we had written him. Plus, there were people handing out water for some marathon runners right across the street who were watching us the whole time…

Crossing the border into Quebec went like this: Driving, driving, driving… Oh, what’s this? A little building and a guard? I guess this is the border! There was seriously no one ahead of us, so we just pulled up to the border guard, and passed through a minute later. Best. Border Crossing. Ever.

The rest of the drive through Quebec and Ontario was largely uneventful, and the traffic as well as the weather cooperated for the most part. Unfortunately, though, there are a whole series of Ontario Service Centres that are under construction so we were unable to get food where there was supposed to be food. Lame.

We made it to Brampton a little after 9 p.m. and said goodbye. Our trusty car Lucy had served us well, as had our mostly accurate GPS, Grace Notovny (yeah, we’re currently reading The Way the Crow Flies…). Though we couldn’t do everything we wanted, we certainly packed a lot of New England into four days, no? Next time, though, we’ll probably slow down a bit. I just hope we didn’t bring anything unnatural back with us…