The History of Me: In Prince

I'm listening to a Kanye West song. I like the line: "I've been on ya, since Prince been on Appolonia..."

One of the things I like about *being around* black artists (I mean, listening to, reading interviews etc.) is that they talk about Prince. Living in Canada I've only known one big Prince fan, in Cegep.

Then there was that annoying guy in sec V who suddenly discovered that Prince was a great musician, and tried to inform ME that Prince plays 27 instruments, arrogantly assuming I didn't have any appreciation for Prince as a musician... when I had just given an oral presentation on the Utopia theme in Prince songs. (Sometimes Boys think they know more about music than girls. Like cars and football, or something. Hmph!)

And then there's Kevin Smith--who I don't think is a Prince fan. I think he's a Purple Rain fan. (And so he would probably appreciate why I was so thrilled when someone--Pablo or Fernando?--bought me my own cone-puppet. "You don't need them. You don't need anyone. All you need is ME.")

So it's fun when I'm looking at some Prince thing on youtube and other people from the US (maybe it's not about skin color... maybe this is an American--Canadian thing) say Oh cool! I remember when this song was on the radio all the time! My sister and I used to play this every day!! about some Prince song that I never even heard released on radio.

Man. Where were these people when I was 15?? South of the border I guess.

Mind you... my other fave groups were Bruce Cockburn, Kate Bush and Fleetwood Mac, which probably top a list somewhere of Music White People Like. (...Though Stevie Nicks' "Stand Back" is based on "Little Red Corvette" and Prince played the synths on it for her. AND Prince and Kate Bush have both played one song for each other, on each other's albums. ...Pretty sure there's no Prince-Cockburn connection, though. Well they're both top guitarists.)

what to reeeeaaaad...

I don't know what to read next. I read a couple romances, and just read a mystery. I've been in the mood to read the Canada Reads winner, The Book of Negroes, but I ordered it online and it hasn't arrived yet. (Hey, even the indigo.ca discounts are sometimes higher than my store discount! If you haven't heard of Canada Reads, see the end of the post.)

Hmm. I could keep on the mystery theme, and read the Murdoch mystery I bought awhile back.

Or go with the literary mood, and start something I have on hand, such as Pamuk's My Name is Red. I also ordered The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which has very high ratings, and takes place in a country I've never read about--the Dominican Republic.

Oh la oh la. I both love and hate that in-between moment of having to choose the next book!

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Canada Reads celebrates five Canadian books for three months online, on the air and at public events. It all leads up to a week-long show hosted by Jian Ghomeshi. In this annual title fight, five celebrity panelists defend their favourite work of Canadian fiction. One by one, books are voted off the list, until one panelist triumphs with the book for Canada to read this year.

The History of me: In Cats & Blankets

Everyone knows the great Cat Love of my life was Ernie. My dad is getting all our old slides transferred to digital, and I've given him strict instructions to forward ALL ERNIE PICTURES.

He hasn't found them yet, but here's one of the tabbies who passed our way. (Lost cats I think?) First Mork, and later Rocky. Brother Pablo guesses this is the latter. KITTIES! I don't remember which one loved spaghetti.

I don't remember the book pictured here, but after googling, I think that fairy tale is "Pinkel the Thief." I do remember the jungle animal bed sheet, the Holly Hobby sheets, the flowered blanket, and the green blanket.

Greenie the Blanket: My mother took me to the store to pick out a blanket I was supposed to bring to day care or something, and this is the one I chose. I called it Greenie. Ernie loved to suck/knead Greenie, so I kept it until it was falling apart, and had a gigantic hole in the middle of it. Me, Ernie and Greenie: We were a trio. I'm pretty sure I kept it, since Ernie was put down. ...Must find out.

So as Pablo said when he saw the pic: Oo a photo of Young Greenie!

death!

I dreamt I died last night. I've dreamt of going over cliffs before, or being attacked, but I've never actually gotten to the death part. It was interesting. I'm sure it's because sometime that evening I read an article about how people interpret dreams, and did a little questionnaire on it. The questionnaire asked what you think dreams are--and I chose the option about dreams just being your brain sorting through a sensory mess of the day (something like that.)

And as though to prove it, here's a paragraph from the article:

These instinctive Freudians also considered dreams to be valuable omens, as demonstrated in a study asking them to imagine they were about to take a plane trip. If, on the eve of the flight, they dreamed of the plane’s crashing, they were more likely to cancel the trip than if they saw news of an actual plane crash on their route.

Well, I dreamed I died in a plane crash of course. I was dreaming about something else--a sort of American Idol with underwater aquatics, at which I was a spectator, and I was having a conversation with my friend's boyfriend about my motorbike [combination of story research, and an episode of Corner Gas I watched that night].

Then the dream shifted and I was sitting in the front row of an airplane, next to a guy I knew, but not well (don't know who it was.) The front of the airplane was wide windows--the view we would have if there wasn't a cockpit in the way. I was about to stand up and go to the bathroom when the seatbelt sign came on because of turbulence.

So I sat back down, and the pilot (??) came out of the cockpit to tell us not to worry, we were just going through some turbulence (duh.) Next thing I knew, we were flying low through the downtown of a city, almost at street level.

And I thought: Gee, must be some emergency landing. And then I thought: Gosh, there's no way this is going to end with us alive. This is it. This is how I die. (And someone behind me was saying "Oh my God" over and over.)

We were heading right towards a big bank-like building, at street level. There wasn't really time to be scared. I grabbed the hands of the guy next to me, cause it seemed like the proper etiquette in such a situation [must have read that in the Chesley crash articles]. I thought briefly about Fernando and my family, and how I was about to become one of Those People in News Stories.

The nose of the plane was reaching the doors of the building, and I closed my eyes, and waited for what I expected to be a very painful, but probably quick death. I was waiting for the feeling of smashing into stuff, and then fire.

And I was just starting to feel warm, when my body slowly awoke--I assume because my brain was incapable of imagining that sort of pain. I didn't awake with a start like they do on TV. I just felt this prickly wash of adrenaline taking over the from the feeling of heat, moving from my feet to my head. And then I was just lay there, thinking about the dream.

...If that was my body's way of telling me to wake up cause my bladder was full... it was pretty darn dramatic!

Oh baby I'm so sorry!

So... I've said before (one some blog of mine or another) that I'm tired of hearing Oprah on the subject of weight loss--I think she's got too much of an eating disorder to be telling other people what to do.

But I still have a lot of respect for her, and I love it when she does a show on something I think is important, because of the influence she has. For example, she's done some shows on puppy mills. Of course, I didn't watch them (I couldn't have), but I'm so glad she did them; and her latest dog is from a shelter, whereas her previous ones probably weren't.

These days she's doing lots of shows about saving money, cooking more meals, etc.

Tomorrow she's going to talk about the Chris Brown - Rihanna abuse story (see below for short summary of the charges). She's calling it a "teachable moment", and I agree that it is. Rihanna is one of the most popular entertainers right now, so you know there are some abused chicks out there who are fans of her, and are keeping an eye on this story. But apparently she and Brown are back together--which is not necessarily the wrong thing... but I would love it if they got some help, and went public with that. It's not their responsibility to do so, but it would be a cool thing. Especially since some Chris Brown fans have been blaming Rihanna, or people are saying Well she hit him too, or whatever. What-ev-ah.

I get the impression Oprah feels the same way, and that's why she's doing the show. I'm glad someone popular is taking this story and using it to talk about abuse.

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From: Chicago Tribune

According to a detective's affidavit, Brown and Rihanna got into a fight early Feb. 8 after the "Umbrella" singer checked her boyfriend's cell phone and found a text message from another woman.

Brown pulled his car over and tried to push Rihanna out, but she was still wearing her seatbelt, Los Angeles police Detective De Shon Andrews wrote. He said Brown pushed Rihanna's head against the window, punched her with his right hand, and then continued driving while hitting her, the affidavit states. He also bit his girlfriend on the ear, the affidavit states.

The affidavit was filed as part of a search warrant request for the phone records of Brown, Rihanna and her assistant.

Brown allegedly threatened to kill Rihanna after she pretended to leave a phone message with her assistant, telling her to have the police waiting at her house.

Andrews described Brown's blows as causing Rihanna's mouth to fill with blood. He also writes that Brown tried to choke Rihanna after she took the keys to his car away. Andrews wrote that Rihanna nearly lost consciousness but also tried to fight back while in the car, at one point trying to gouge at Brown's eyes.

Story of Me: In Goals

I jut noticed that on March 30th last year I talked a couple mild goals I had, or things I'm doing that I didn't too much before. Let's see how I'm doin'...

Playing board games: I did borrow some from a friend who, with her boyfriend, reviews board games for the newspaper. But Fernando's been in a real Warcraft mood, so he's been resistant to any other form of amusement.

Cooking: I've managed to keep this up. Because I'm working more, I'm buying a little more processed food--things that take longer to make, or are harder to reproduce the flavor. But otherwise I seem to have integrated the cooking thing somewhat into my usual routines. So I don't see it as of much of a Big Deal.

Arabic: I haven't done anymore in the way of learning Arabic. It's a tough language, and I don't have any specific motivation, like a PhD or a trip. But I'll hold onto my books for awhile anyway.

Punctuality: I have cleaned up my act quite a bit. I've been getting out of the house on time in the "mornings," and I've learned to start putting my book away on the bus early enough to not be rushing off. Except when I get sucked in and don't notice it's my stop.

Sleep: My vow last year was to never get less than 5 hours (then eventually 7.) I haven't been able to keep it perfectly, but I've been much better. Just trying to avoid those 3 hour nights that I did so much when in school. It makes you so vulnerable to getting sick. So, I've definitely done a lot less of those 3 hour-ers. But when I work the occasional day shift, it still happens.

So I guess I have to set some new goals. I'll think about it... probably introduce some discipline into working on my books, since I'm working more. Gotta use the time Wisely.

And now, par rapport à nothing: lolcats

The Story of Me: In Jobs!

The New York Times posted a story about the difficulty of PhD students in Humanities finding jobs. So I'm not going to take it too personally if I can't get a job teaching Cegep. I'm up against anyone who's applying for those jobs, who already has a PhD--and there may be more of them, if they're not getting jobs at the University level. And with the economic situation, there may be a lot of teachers putting off retirement, so maybe we won't get that "retirement boom" we were expecting.

But... I'll always have my writing, which keeps me feeling like I'm doing something personally satisfying. And I haven't any post-school debt, which definitely makes life easier. And I still have the job I had when I went back to school, and I still enjoy it. So... so far so good.

There was a recent story in Publisher's Weekly about Borders and Waldenbooks laying off a bunch of workers, and that's all at the management level (in-store management, like myself.) But from all I've read in the Borders complaint discussion boards, it's a poorly run company that many employees already felt was on the verge of going out of business. I won't be surprised if they fold. A lot of the things my company did--increasing sales of non-book product, investing in newer technologies--were very foreward thinking. Plus they've paid off the interest on their loans, and only have the capitol to pay off. I'm Barnes and Noble is also in a relatively strong position.