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The holidays are over and so is my vacation. It’s been one amazing stretch of laziness, sleeping, reading, cooking, more sleeping and movie watching. Tomorrow I start my new job (working from home) in « d�veloppement », which means that I’ll be working as a writer for a Montreal television and film producer, to develop new tv show ideas. This is a short term contract (6 weeks) which might be extended, depending on how things go and how much work there is to do. For those of you getting too envious of my new job, I do have to specify that the tv show ideas I’ll be working on won’t be mine, at least not in the first part of the contract. I’m a hired writer, which means I get to take other people’s ideas and try to make them sound really good in writing (in French) in order to get broadcasters interested. Eventually, I might get to work on my own ideas. My boss is very open and does welcome other people’s projects.

Tomorrow, Monday, is also the day when I get back into my place, or should I say the green place, after spending the holidays at B’s while my friend and landlady, a San Franciscan who left her heart and her mortgage in Montreal, was staying at my rented condo with her boyfriend for the last ten days. She showed up with a beautiful Powerbook which made me green with envy. Believe me, my face matched the walls of my apartment perfectly.

As if this wasn’t enough, Carl-Fr�d�ric is leaving tomorrow for San Francisco, where he will be attending the Macworld conference, and hanging out in some of the cool spots in town. Hell, he’s so excited, he’s showing off his underwear online! Yes, I am jealous (no, not about the underwear thing), but at least he promised to blog from the conference. And I hear they are getting really bad storms in the Bay Area this winter…

I love this time of the year, not because I’m a big fan of Christmas, but because this is typically when I get to spend the most time reading. I mostly read fiction, which is easier to read in short bursts when I’m on the metro or while I wait for my dinner to cook. Fiction is also the only thing I can handle in the few minutes I set aside for reading in bed every night, when I fight sleep and reread the same paragraph 20 times before I decide to turn the light off.

But a holiday is a holiday and when it’s cold outside and the days are short, I have all the excuses I need to stay indoors and dig in all kinds of books, not just fiction. The sun gently shines in through B’s huge living room window, the numerous presents he gave me are still sitting under our majestic tree, the heat is on, my new cds are playing (Frida’s soundtrack, Marc D�ry, Johnny Cash), there’s a drink for me on the coffee table and an ambitious pile of books waiting for my holiday attention. This pile includes:

• Dream Catcher, a memoir, by Margaret A. Salinger, daughter of J.D. Salinger.
• Edward Hopper, a Taschen art book by Ivo Kranzfelder.
• Sydney, a Lonely Planet Guide, a present form B. to prepare for our possible trip to Australia next Spring.
• The Salon.com Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Authors.
• Les Soupes, plus de 200 recettes venues du monde entier. B. gave me this French cookbook for Christmas, and in another one of our weird synchronicity moments, I also gave him a soup cookbook.
• The Conversations, the art of editing films, by Michael Ondaatje.
• Paris l’instant, by Philippe Delerm, photographs by Martine Delerm.
• L’angle mort, by Jean-Fran�ois Chassay.
• La maison �trang�re, by �lise Turcotte. I need to read more in French and Turcotte is one of my favorite Qu�b�cois writers.

I have started 4 or these books already and I switch between them according to my moods and my other plans for the day. I have no idea how many of these I will be able to finish by the end of the holiday, but just looking at this gorgeous pile of books makes me feel happy, especially when this act of contemplation is combined with the sounds and smells coming from the kitchen as B. is preparing yet another delicious meal.

Conte de No�l pour adultes et b�tes urbaines

Un dimanche soir brumeux, un gars, une fille, une bouteille de vin et un tout premier sapin de vie d’adulte. Comment nous en sommes arriv�s respectivement � l’�ge de 42 et 36 ans sans jamais avoir eu de sapin � la maison tient un peu du myst�re. Mais comme c’est notre premier No�l ensemble, nous nous sommes dit qu’il fallait f�ter �a et mettre fin � la disette de verdure dans nos hivers. Notre sapin est grand et gras, il a une forme parfaite et il sent bon comme les No�ls dont je r�vais quand j’�tais enfant. Chez moi, comme dans bien des familles du quartier o� j’ai grandi, le synth�tique r�gnait.

Apr�s avoir contempl� notre oeuvre du dimanche soir, Blork a d�clar�: C’est la domestication de la b�te urbaine en moi.

J’ai jet� un coup d’oeil inquiet vers lui. Il retenait un sourire et des petites lumi�res brillaient dans ses yeux.

� nos pieds, le chat Spiff avait d�j� commenc� � m�chouiller le sapin.