nite cat iz on ur balkunee, wachin the nites go buy

If I'm home I often have the balcony door open for the cats. In a typical Montreal July/August it's too hot for that, you have to close the windows and just AC it; but it hasn't been necessary this year, so I keep the windows open as much as I can. Yay!

The cats don't go onto the balcony during the day, though, just at night. Especially Haylzebub. Man, that girl--she parks herself on the bench and stays out there for HOURS, only coming in when it's feeding time.

When I first met her at mum's house she used to try escaping out the balcony attached to mum's bedroom on the second floor, and we were always trying to prevent her so she wouldn't run off. But the couple times she escaped, she didn't leg it down The Secret Escape Hole like the other cats; she would just sit up on the roof and watch the night go by. That's all she was fighting and plotting for... the chance to sit out in the night.

Tonight (well, wrote this Wed night) I sat out on the balcony next to her and asked her what she's looking at.

"Mahmy," she said (that's how she pronounces my name), "that is on a Need to Know Basis."

And so I continue to be mystfied.

banned from the internet

I am banning myself from the internet for the next three days, so I can get some writing done. I'll prep 1 mystery post for each day! so you won't feel lonely.

can you tell i'm just hanging around on the internets tonight?

you might be crazy... you'd better check

I didn't even realize Rorschach inkblot tests were taken seriously anymore, let alone at the heart of a raging controversy over whether it's ok to post them on wiki, along with common answers. I suppose it's all the psychologists out there, in the midst of conducting studies, who are worried their about to lose their grant money.

...Go see yourself! You know you want to!!

The doctor who posted them (he's from Moose Jaw) gives this defense:

“If someone had previous knowledge of the eye chart,” he said, “you can go to the car people, and you could recount the chart from memory. You could get into an accident. Should we take it down from Wikipedia?”

And, Dr. Heilman added, “My dad fooled the doctor that way.”

Bruce Cockburn's "Hoop Dancer"

I was writing a post about dancing on my other blog, and I decided this song needed to be uploaded.

There's a time line
Something like vertical, like perpendicular
Cutting through figures shuffling on horizontal plane
Cutting through the survival pride of the dancers
Through the guilty, sentimental warmth of the crowd
Through to some essence common to us, to original man
To perhaps descendants numberless ... or few

Where it intersects the space at hand
This shaman with the hoops stands
Aligned like living magnetic needle between deep past and looming future
Butterfly pierced on each drum beat, wing beat, thunder clap, static spark, storm front, energy circle delineated by leaping limbs

fave youtube comment today... amen

Viendork (5 hours ago) Show Hide

0

Marked as spam

Reply | Spam

Why are the comments for music videos never about the music video? This song is great!


[On Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark, posted after pages and pages of some ass spouting racist shit... paaaages... he just keeps reappearing...]

Why not ask me something that matters??!!

I still watch this once a year.

Must Haves for the Future Home

I just thought of another one--a high cat limit in the neighborhood we choose (see below story.) While we won't move out there with more than 2 kitties, there's no guarantee we'll stay at that number!

Speaking of cats, there's been a plethora of cat fallings around our building this year, though I've no idea why. Sometime in the winter the dudes above us lost their cat (Fluffy the Doombringer, or whatever his name is) because he fell off the balcony. And it's happened, like, 3 more times with 3 other apartments! Fernando's always telling me about these dropped cats outside the building.

Nombly used to stroll around the very skinny railing of our balcony, so maybe that's what their felines are doing--but he's too old now, and it hasn't occured to Haley.

The Province

Published: Tuesday, May 13, 2008

A controversial bylaw restricting residents of Kent-Agassiz to owning only two cats and two dogs was passed by district council Monday night.

For the second regular council meeting in a row, a delegation of concerned citizens came forward to voice their opposition to the bylaw.

Some fear the bylaw may shut down at least one licensed shelter in the community, while others pointed out the more lenient pet limitations in other municipalities."

More writers rooms

Nanowrimo has a blog and they've decided to start posting their nano-peep's writer corners. They were inspired by the web site of Fantasy and Sci Fi writers' rooms. I can't remember if I ever posted some of the ones from the latter site. The first pic is of the site's owner, who also did "Gun Owners in Their Homes"! And he's going to be at Worldcon, photographing fantasy-sci-fi fans.

I'm in love with K'Naan

I finally got a chance to give the whole K'Naan album a listen on my last couple walks to work. (I can't always listen to rap at home, cause I'm usually writing or reading at the same time, and all that talking is hard to block out.)

SO GOOD! I want to post a *favourite* but I'm having trouble choosing...

T.I.A. (I can't embed the real video, but it's great)


Somalia


Take a Minute (live on QTV)


In the Beginning


Fatima
"Is it true when they say all you need is love?
What about those who have love, only to find that it's taken away?"


And he's one of the few artists who actually still sounds intelligent in interview. (Not that Kanye West isn't entertaining as hell, but... you know.)

from a charles bukowski poem

air and light and time and space

"–you know, I’ve either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have
a place and the time to
create."

no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.

© Charles Bukowski, Black Sparrow Press

[posted on this blog: http://www.christinefletcherbooks.com/blog.html]

Squeegy for President!

Speaking of monkeys. I thought of this song today. When I was little we had a couple albums of funny country songs, and this was my favourite. My favourite stuffed animal was a monkey named Squeegy Alamonzo--he was very expressive looking, and was voiced by my brother in a baby-lolcat-voice that drove my mother insane.

This was Squeegy's theme song. He used to act it out.

"Nobody dared to meet him in an open press debate
He was nominated by the folks from every state
Yes a monkey was the president, though maybe not the first
And there was peace and harmony throughout the universe."

Now someone needs to make a good video for the song.

I pity the sock!

My brother posted this Mr T Sock Monkey as his facebook profile pic, and is determined to make one. And so here, withOUT his permission, I paste for you his last email to me:


I'm positive if I bought one I'd just need a vest and some hair and some bling.

And maybe some angry eyes.

I may have to give this a go.

Maybe I have discovered a new hobby. I could make a whole collection of odd-ball sock monkeys!

There's a distinct possibility that I'll die a bachelor.

[I just found this posting which I never posted.]

One of the facebook applications I enjoy is the one that asks you for "lists of 5 things". The one I did today was 5 songs that remind you people, but I could have done more than 5! I could probably think of a song for almost everyone I know.

I chose...

Theme to Jeeves & Wooster
(1) Because my sister-in-law was the first person I knew who loved the Jeeves and Wooster series as much as me, including the music.

Paradise By the Dashboard Light - Meatloaf
(2) Because my brother and I loved this album as children and knew all the words to the baseball scene, so it reminds me of him.

Jennifer by the Eurythmics
(3) My childhood best friend (M) had this album so it reminds me of her, listening to "Jennifer" in her kitchen.

Free Love on the Freelove Highway by David Brent
(4) Gilby sang this alllll through Oxford when we visited.

Au Bal Masqué de La Compagnie Créole
(5) My step-mother: We used to listen to La Compagnie Créole when on road trips.

I could add...

This Land is Your Land - Peter, Paul and Mary
Any of the early PPM I enjoyed makes me think of my dad, cause they were his albums.

Bootylicious - Destiny's Child
Friend Mae, since she was into the song when it came out, and we started exchanging Stevie Nicks music as a result.

Take a Chance on Me - Abba
Friend Swiss, since she pointed out the "take a chance take a chance take a chic-a chance chance" line of the male background singer, which I'd never noticed.

Love (Over and Over) - Kate and Anna McGarrigle
My mum intro'd me to a lot of the bands I love. This was an early example. She had to who "Emily, Anne and Charlotte" were.

Do What You Have to Do - Sarah McLachlan
Friend Cher, ever since she told me it was on her post-Fuckwit-breakup tape.

He's So Shy - Pointer Sisters
One of my ex-coworkers. His hated ex-girlfriend used to reference this song and say how cute and shy he was.

Strangers in the Night - Sinatra
My boss has been doo-bee-doo-bee-dooing since I met him 11 years ago.

Mandy - Barry Manilow
One of my ex-coworkers used to sing: "Oh [insert my real name] you came and you told me a story." And it wasn't until I heard Mandy on the radio, years later, that I realized what he was riffing off of!

The Girl from Ipanema - various
Friend Alfonse, since he's the first person I've met who loved the song. (The only version I ever really knew was the Rick Moranis.)

Okay I'll stop now.

Kitchen?

So the kind of kitchen I actually like is an old looking one. The new style is to have the dark cabinets and they're very attractive, but I tell you... they're going to look uber-dated in a couple decades. And I'm not the rip-out-and-re-do type. I want to get a home for life, and I'm not going to constantly remodel it. Worse would be 80s style cabinets. Bleh! I didn't even like them in 80s.

I feel like these Sexy Dark Cabinet Kitchens will...

...one day look like this (to my 2030s eyes.) And no amount of Mad Men fashion will make me love these.

Old cabinets come with old homes, which Fernando doesn't want. But maybe I'd be willing to rip out 80's cabinets and install old second-hand kitchen cabinets. I assume that's a possibility, if I could be bothered.

Look what these fools did! They had great 1960s cabinets, even a silly trim on top! Out. I would happily repaint & jollify such cabinets.

I also like jolly colours in the kitchen.

I think the kitchen of the old summer cabin we went to when I was a child had yellow cabinets or something, and this imprinted on me, which is why I have a bright yellow kitchen curtain (but GRAY cabinets. Super yuck.) And I do love my red chairs. We had old brown wood chairs, so I took off the seat, painted them in red lacquer, and reupholstered the seats with a 1930s style pattern. The only furniture in my home that I love.
Alright, now let's check out some kitchens from the Nanaimo listings I looked at today (in the 150 000 - 350 000 range.)

Mid 80s cabinets. Ohhh meesa hates!

That's better.

Woah! A bit modern for me, but punchy!

Hm I like how these counters go on forever. Good exercise.

No. ...No. ...It would have to be the most superbly perfecto amazing
home before I'd settle for this size. Okay yes, there's some counter space but, like... how do you even bend over and open a cabinet??

This is nice. Quite weird.

Boring, but alright.

An example of the current style.

House of the Day... or week... or, well nevermind that.

Here's the cutest house listing I saw tonight. It's above $300 000, which the mortgage calc says would be $1894 a month, which if of course before EVERY other cost. So... not in my price range unless F or I have better paying jobs.

It's on Bush street... which isn't a great address, I admit, despite it's dirty undertone.
But it's by the hospital and college and city.

It's the windows that caught my eye. Ooooh! I suppose in
Quebec the cold air would be an issue, but not in Nanaimo.

These cupboards look alright. A good amount of them, and check out the big counter.
Plus lots of light. And the kinds of floors/counters that don't show dirt!

This bathroom is very much my taste, actually.

The basement.

House of the Future!

Where?
I'm trying to convince Fernando to move to Nanaimo if we move to the Coast. ...He hasn't lost interest in The Move to begin with, which is impressive--he talks about it like it's a fact. I planted the seed years ago, so maybe it's come to fruition.

But he's all about living in a big city. My problem with a big city is that, to get a big-gish house like I want, we'll end up in the suburbs or hell-and-gone. And I'm too lazy to go into town. Whereas he goes downtown all the time.

In Nanaimo I could afford to live in the neighborhoods around the "downtown." Now, the downtown is a far cry from Vancouver or Montreal, but it's cute and by the water.


If I'm finally in College Teaching Land by then, Vancouver would offer way more opportunities. But... the teaching things doesn't feel very *real* at the moment. Oh well. This is why I like the 5 year plan; because it gives us lots of time to think and dream and plan and save.

I'm trying to come up with excuses to get Fernando *in* for Nanaimo. There's no all-night eatery, which disturbs him. I told him my parents can drive us around when needed! Help us look for a home! (Or will they be So Aulde we'll have to drive them around and help them into their nursing home? Okay not that old.)

My other argument: Nanaimo has cute street names. I said: "Wouldn't you love to live on Jinglepot Road?" He was so enthusiastic, he said we should only buy a home on Jinglepot Road. (Or was it Buttertubs Marsh road? Or Dingle Bingle Hill Terrace?)

NN's
So on to the Dreaming/Planning part. I get regular updates on Nanaimo homes in the area I want, and it's fun to look at them and think about what I want. A basement, or faux-ment, is a non-negotiable. Fernando has to have his own floor, physically separated from mine by a staircase. Even a split level would make me nervous... the staircases between levels are so short. (Anyway the split level is more of a Montreal thing.)

My mother pointed out that on the coast they often don't have basements, but an entry-level floor which they call the basement. That's fine. As long as there's a big staircase, and a bedroom on the main level for me. I don't even want a house with a big second floor, if there's no bedroom on the main floor. If I take up room in Fernando Land, then he'll insist on taking up room in mine!

Fernando's non-negotiable is he doesn't want an old house. I admit old houses are beautiful but a PAIN. My parents had a couple, and they're always full of structural/plumbing/wiring freakiness. Fernando's watched too much Holmes on Homes to want anything older than 10 years.

Those are the only NN's that have so far turned up. Besides the general desire for a decent amount of space. (I don't know the square footage. I can only say I know it when I see it. Swis: How big is your house? It's perfect.)

Bedrooms: I don't care what the bedrooms look like. The biggest one will be my office-library, the smallest one for sleeping in. I do like big windows. (Fernando doesn't, which is why I can relegate him to a basement.)

Bathrooms: I don't care much about bathrooms either. Maewitch has a lovely bathroom with a bath right under a big window and such--definitely a nice place to hang out in. But not an NN. If everything else was right, and the bathroom was tiny and ugly, I'd be fine with that. I don't even need two bathrooms, though they're common in two-level homes anyway.

Kitchen: More mixed feelings about a kitchen. I can live with any type of cabinetry, because at least if I owned the place I could paint over crap and change doorknobs. Ideally I'd like lots of storage room, and a bigger counter than I currently have. Those are the only two almost-requirements. I can function in a small kitchen like I now have, but I do like to cook, so...

Living room: Just not tiny and cramped. I already know the couch I want, so it has to fit. :-)

Yard: The smaller the better. All I need is a wee garden and a compost pile. And if possible, zoning for a cat run. ;-)

Cabbage violence

We got in a bunch of discount DVDs at work, including the first three seasons of the A-Team. They're 19.99 instead of the usual $50-60. Meep meep! The A-Team is comfort food for me. I am periodically overcome with the need to watch back to back episodes. And since I've cut myself off from buying books, yet still have a GC to spend...

"Only during the 1980s could this peculiar blend of lefty politics and military fetishism have thrived. Though supposedly mercenaries-for-hire, the A-Team usually finds itself defending the downtrodden and helpless out of sheer cussedness. In the second season they helped abused migrant workers form a union--which, naturally, required transmogrifying farm equipment into a cabbage-shooting cannon." [from the amazon description]

I have never forgotten the cabbage canon, since I first saw the episode as a child.

Love Song of the Day: Talk to me dammit!

Take your choice...

1. "Taking Chances" co-written by Dave Stewart with a little "talk to me talk to me like lovers do" thrown in (which is the best part of the song); or


2. "Here Comes the Rain Again." The original talk-to-me-walk-with-me plea for love. [I post this just as it starts to rain again! But not on my head. ...And not like a tragedy.]

Love Song of the Day: A widow's song

Here's a gorgeous one. Patti Smith wrote an album dedicated to her husband Fred when he suddenly died of a fatal heart attack at the age of 45. This is one of the songs from the album. Ohhhh so sad! (Or for a downloadable live version: here.)

I met a Real Harlequin Hero!

I had a customer today who asked for a Harlequin title, for his daughter. I looked around for it and realized it had already been stripped to be returned (it was last month's set of books.) When I returned to tell him, there was a woman with him, but she looked to be his age (30s?) so I figured this was his wife, not the daughter. As we were ordering the book she told me that they're buying it because her husband's on the cover, and he 'fessed that the daughter thing was a cover.

At first I thought it was a joke. I looked at the cover on my computer screen, then looked at him and said: "Oh my God! That IS you!" He was pretty bashful, but his wife was Appropriately Proud.

And I can tell you... he didn't just have a pretty face. And he was even better looking in person. Must have been the Bashful Look. It was irresistible. ;-)

Did you have this board game?

A radio announcer mentioned it today on CJAD, because he remembered one of the songs from it: "Bonjour my friend, how are you mon ami, ça va très bien, thank-you!" Oh my days I totally remember the songs and the game. It was given to us free at school.

Now one of my favourite games to play alone in my room was School. I was always teaching, and I loved to *teach* French. This was before I came to Quebec and knew any French. I used this game to *teach*, and also a little blue book of travel French (how to order eggs etc.) Hours of fun I tell you.

I had a little green chalk board, but I used it so much it became shiny and un-write-able. So one year, in my late childhood, the folks bought me a Brand New Chalkboard. It was beeootiful. It's hard to grow up believing the world is a harsh and terrible place when you grew up with beeootiful chalkboards. Maybe if we all had chalkboards, there would finally be world peace.

Love Song of the Day: From one of the great bachelorettes of all time

I wanted to post a later Joni Mitchell song called "Come in From the Cold" but it's youtube-banned. So here's one of her classics: "A Case of You." Either written about Graham Nash or Leonard Cohen.

Just before our love got lost you said,
'I am as constant as the Northern star.'
And I said, 'Constantly in the darkness.
Where's that at? If you want me I'll be in the bar.'

tweets is for gossip!

I've finally figured out what Twitter is really good for. There was a bit of an upset in the Tour de France today--the Garmin team didn't let George Hencapie take the yellow jersey, which everyone wanted him to get since he helped Armstrong to win all his Tours.

But forget the news reporters--the best thing to do is go to Lance Armstrong's Twitter page, and the twitters of those twittering with him. Gossip! Even the news sources are turning to twitter as a source.

If this were an Agatha Christie mystery, Poirot would be guessing that a murder is gonna happen anytime soon. And we'd find out that Hencapie's been sleeping with the wife of someone on the Garmin Slipstream team!

Alas... it's more likely something as boring as dissing each other's TTT.

Love song of the Day: For the Buffies & Spikes

"I Do What I Have to Do" - Sarah McLachlan

I've always read this as a I'm-in-a-fucked-up-relationship-and-can't-get-out song...

Deep within I'm shaken by the violence of existing for only you

But that's just my take. A lot of people see it as a romantic love song.


And then the Teen Angst version. (How did I know there would be multiple Buffy & Spike videos for this song?) "Addicted" by Kelly Clarkson.

My favourite youtube comments of the day

...You know... you could make a whole blog based on funny youtube comments. Send me your faves as you come across them, and I'll post them!

Posted at "Where Do the Children Play" by Yusuf Islam

GreatGrumbledook (2 days ago)
@obdaddy: We do not have such words like "redneck" in France but we do have virtue and horror: For virtue is helpless without the horror and without virtue the horror would be pernicious, as citizen Robespierre said once; and with both Cat Stevens and the likes of his are easily dispatched and it is high time as I will not dine until I see the same done!

obdaddy (1 day ago)

Don't sell yourself short, Grumbledouche, you can be both French and a redneck, and your thoughts can be both bloody and worth nothing.

Love song of the Day: The First Cut is the Deepest

Okay, it's not like I post a love song each day. But I like calling things "of the day." Good ole Cat Stevens... he wrote some beeootiful songs. (Like this one. And this one [check out the funky pianist]. And this one. And he's so cute and funny!)

The Geographical Organization of Books

I'm done organizing my fiction books, though the non-fiction still needs taking care of. I've pulled a few already-reads to get rid of. And there are others that I could get rid of if I were moving, without too much heartache--mostly from the cheap book sales Cher and I used to go to.

The cataloging is slow-going. The genres are done, I'm about halfway through the general fiction, and there are still the plays and poetry to do. Right now the tally is at 603 books.

Part of the fun of organizing books is figuring out how to sort them, This Time. That's why this is my favourite scene in High Fidelity:



Last time I went by genre and alphabetical. This time I went by genre and then mood--and if there's still a lot, then alphabetical. So I separated Fantasy from Sci Fi, cause Fernando's in a Fantasy mood right now. And in Sci Fi I separated out the old-timer authors who I'm less interested in, and shoved them at the back. And I made a separate pile for humorous authors.

In Romance (where I put some chick lit or historical fiction too) I separated historical from contemporary.

Mystery is mixed with horror and thriller, and basically alphabetical. My Agatha Christies are separate, and they 're by detective.

General Fiction I decided to divide by country... not the country of the author, but where the book mostly takes place. Cause that's often how my mood works. For example, Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy is in "Eastern & Southern" lit, because it takes place in India, and is very India-focused. But his A Suitable Music takes place in England (and Venice?) so it's with the British lit. On the other hand, the book about the Muslim Indian woman who moves to Paris and ditches her arranged-fiancé is with "Eastern/Southern" and not with "European & Other" because the issues she faces tie back to her country of origin. So if I ever get the chance to teach a course on Developing Areas, I could draw on the "Eastern/Southern" books.

And then there's a separate pile for French language, whether it's a play, poetry, etc. because I have to be in a different mood to read French--ready to put out more effort.

The division between "genre" and "general" is of course arbitrary... but's it's my collection, so I'm allowed to be arbitrary.

good old xkcd

This is so funny. I've often been on the metro in the morning and thought that everyone looks like the "glass eyed automatons" of this comic, AND that it wasn't the case, but that we all look like that to each other. Cause we're all frickin' tired! But I imagine that it's this "loo loo loo yawn being transported to my stop" facial expression that causes so much Trainspotting-like disdain amongst the *rebels*.

Today at work my boss paged me because he was helping an old lady find some books, and she also wanted a recommendation on becoming vegetarian. When I came to help her I discovered she was buying Fastfood Nation (which I haven't read) and the two Michael Pollans I've read (and as you must know by now, LOVED.)

We started talking about The Omnivore's Dilemma, and she was telling me, with tears in her eyes, how she was having trouble reading the book because it was upsetting her so much. (She had it from the library and wanted to buy a copy.) At one point he describes the life of cattle in feedlots, and she said she just bawling as she read it. And understand, Pollan isn't a shock-jock-animal-rights writer--his description is thoughtful, but not strident.

She didn't want to eat meat anymore, and she was so distraught by the state of the world in general. She wrote a letter to Michael Pollan, telling him she's only one person and she knows she can't make a difference, but she still has to do what she believes is right. She tried to order all these books online but something wasn't working, so she drove into town for the first time in 2 years, because she had to have these books. (I helped her place an online order too, since our 1-800 number had failed her.)

She was just the kindest lady I've met in awhile. We spent about half an hour together, lamenting the state of the world, talking about vegetarianism. By the end I gave her my card and told her to call me if she has ordering trouble in future; and I told her that what gives me optimism in this crappy world is meeting people like her. And having the chat seemed to cheer her up, and she gave me a hug. (Luckily the rest of the book has some nicer stories, like the description of how well animals are treated on Polyface Farms.)

Honestly, it's because of encounters like this that I can't be a cynic. Whatever is happening on this planet, whatever continues to happen, there are still people with hearts. Like this old, widowed lady with horrible back pain, who's been recycling for years, and who was moved to tears by the description of a calf being taken from its mother, who despite the internets thwarting her took the long drive into town to an area she doesn't know well, and who wants to make a change to her life even though she thinks it won't make a difference, just because it's what she believes is right. That's the reason I make these changes too--for my own personal integrity.

So in honor of my lovely customer...

Here is one of the most depressing songs/poems I know of, that so well describes our world at its worst: "Slouching Towards Bethlehem" by Joni Mitchell. I love the line: "The best lack conviction, given time to think / And the worst are full of passion without mercy." Especially the latter line, since those are the people who make my monkey the craziest. But Joni and Yeats missed out on the category for old ladies filled with passion and compassion.



And then, since I've been listening to lots of Cohen--one of Cohen's most beautiful, healing songs: "The Sisters of Mercy." Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone. They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.

time for more lolcats

i like this song - jill barber

But the real video is distracting, so I posted this randomness instead.

Dreeam dreeeam dreeeam...

Now that Fernando and I have decided to buy a house in about 5 years--let the dreaming begin! I figure this is one of those things that it's okay to sit around and plan and fantasize about, since the fantasies are what have to provide the incentive to save money. I'm putting myself back on the Library Plan where acquiring music in concerned. As for books, well if I read 1 book/week I have enough books to last me 17 years (not including the non-fiction.) Movies: We don't spend much money on. Food: I don't go out to eat very often--I'll just have to watch myself when I do.

Music will definitely be the trickiest. Next weekend I'll have to pull out the old budget and get serious about this.

In the meantime... dream! Right now I'm dreaming about my future writing office. I'll probably pick the smallest room as my bedroom, and then take the master bedroom and stuff it full of books and nice desk and cat beds.

...On the other hand, no point dreaming about a writing office if I'm not WRITING. So back to my book.

My Life: In travels

So... I have one friend with whom I still exchange presents (once a year: birthday/Christmachanukah gift) because even if I stopped, he wouldn't. The deal is that I put together something less expensive but creative, and he doesn't have to be creative he just likes to spend money. Last year I made him paper dolls, and he refurnished my DVD collection.

But it's getting harder and harder to think of what to do, and every year he struggles with what to give me. So this year I proposed we go to Stratford instead and see some plays or musicals, since we both love theatre. Well, I love theatre, but I'm too slacker to ever organize myself to go to something, especially Stratford which is farther away than Toronto (which is a 6 hour drive and me with no car.) So I figured if we made the plan together, then he'd make me go.

I especially want to go this year because Colm Feore is re-playing the part of Cyrano, which he did in his youth (to much acclaim.) I'd love to see it because I love both Feore and Cyrano. We don't know yet what else we'll see--there's lots of good stuff: Julis Caesar, Macbeth, West Side Story, Importance of Being Earnest. I'll read the reviews and see what's good.

San Francisco I'm putting off indefinitely. I've got the money to go, but so story. There's no point going out to do research until I have either a very detailed plot outline, or a rough draft.

And in September I'll go out west as usual to see the whole-fam-damily. Unless I get a teaching job at the last minute.