I'm Going to Need a Drink After This ...

If you don't know, I -- like so many jet-setters -- have been splitting my time between Winnipeg and New York City. Lately the whirlwind travel has started to damage my internal systems and honestly, my doctor, my bartender and my boyfriend are all suggesting that I start thinking about settling somewhere quiet. So we're looking for an apartment in New York. This is first in a series. If you want deeper insight into this situation, please watch the following, in reverse: New York, New York, Part 1 Penn Station is teeming. There are so many people, it's like Grand Central Station. I make this joke every time I'm there, and I always have to wait for the laugh. I'm still waiting. The MennoKnight doesn't even roll his eyes this time. Maybe it's the heat. We get in line at a taxi stand that is four miles long. A man behind me is talking loudly into his cell about demolition. There's a toddler in a stroller chewing on a dog toy. At least I think it's a

I've been in the beautiful Catskill Mountains in New York State for twelve days now. I've watched the leaves go from green to yellow and now they're turning orange and red. It's stunning here, and I've seen it from the land and the water, on foot, by car, train and canoe. This has to be my country fix, since we're heading to NYC in a week and will be there for another two weeks before I head home to the city and batten down for a few months without traveling at all. It's calming and serene and zen and mystic and mythic and windy and rainy sunny cold warm hot wet and hippylicious, not quite what I expected. It was more like visiting a foreign country and finding out it's just your grandma's house, than going away. Well, my grandma's house, anyway. I'm rested and relieved, slightly hung over. I'm also suddenly, remarkably, surprisingly, enlightened. It turns out that the Catskills is the perfect place for an epiphany, so I figured, what th

My one-lines (or as they say, loglines ) for the new film: "A wife discovers that her husband is having an affair with the dead girl that haunts their new house." Or: "A malevolent ghost seduces a woman's husband, to make him her mate ... forever." Or: "A wife discovers that the biggest threat to her marriage is not the swing-club they've joined, but the dead girl haunting their house." I'm trying to work the phrase "dead sexy" in there somewhere, if just for cheese purposes. Which one would you go see?

Sweet Salvation. Apparently Jupiter is in Your Anus or something and this is making the universe all drunk and horny and she's peering around the world one-eyed and giggling, handing out favours like ... well like a horny drunk. So, the long-awaited opportunity has arrived and I am being PAID to write the screenplay adaptation of my favourite novel, "The Dwelling." I'm on my knees for that drunken universe, and absolutely I mean I'm on my knees. Whatever you want, baby, I'm your bitch. This isn't the first time I've offered the Universe a deep-throat for some kind of break in the dismal clouds that were my horizon over the last five years. I've been on my knees at the slightest glance for a long time. Now she's turned her drunken-coyote-ugly face my way and I'm grateful in a way that no sex-metaphor can really cover, although I'll try to think of some. And this break has been years in coming. I started talking to the producer about The

I'm in New York these days, spending some time with my MennoKnight. New York's amazing, not just for the street dogs and bagels, or the cheap wine at the corner store, but also because you see the odd famous face. It's like being in a moovie. I read this thing once when I was doing a little research for my haunted house novel, "The Dwelling." I read that ghosts will often make their presence known in a mirror. The book was written and published and I don't think I even used the mirror thing, but I never forgot it and I don't look in the mirror in the middle of the night when I get up to use the facilities. Call me careful. So last night I woke up in the night and stumbled to the bathroom to powder my nose, right? When I was washing my hands I accidentally, for the first time ever, glanced in the mirror, in the dark ... First thought: ACK! Followed by a quick look away. Second thought: Hey, what if it's someone famous? Still wasn't enough to make me

"A Dry Spell" has been optioned by Los Angeles company, Affirmative Entertainment. Cool fact: the producer is the same guy who acquired it for Cruise-Wagner, back in the day. "The Dwelling" has been optioned by Eagle Vision in Canada. Cool fact: I'm writing the first draft of the screenplay. Fools. My new novel, a witch-thing, will be available in Canada in spring 2011, from Random House. A US date is not yet set, but keep eating. Cool fact: My boyfriend named it. I am writing 13, one-minute bits on animals and creatures for a new kids' show, shooting in July. The star attached is world famous, wildly talented, heart-throb Michael Moloney. Cool fact: Michael Moloney is my son.