Category: Travel

I arrived in Toronto at 6:20 am on Thursday morning after a flight which involved no sleep whatever and a tense sit in the lounge, convinced until the very last minute that I wasn’t getting on because of an over-gross weight problem (the aircraft’s, not mine), but I did have a decent and kindly seat mate. I went straight to Jan’s place and get this, it took 45 minutes to get from the airport to Keele and Annette, which is awesome. Cab opened the door and I nearly screamed when I saw him; down the back his hair is longer than Keith’s and the top part’s a mohawk, so he looks berloody awesome (okay, I like extreme hairstyles on young people). Louise (now monikered LuLu) appeared for two seconds, and Jan & I had an extraordinary chin wag which was most nourishing from a creative standpoint, and the best goddamned granola bars I EVER ATE, must get recipe, and then I left all my phone numbers and my cell phone there, just to make me really popular with everybody I was supposed to hang out with in TO. Then I went to Catherine’s where we expedited many blocks (did I need the walk) to go eat amazing Salvadorean cuisine and I had a Negra Modela, which is nice beer! and then we met up with Sandy, and from there to Nataraj, where the three of us met up with Dowker and ate ourselves into a pleasant state of repletion, and then we went to the beer store, where I picked up Dortmunder, and then went back to Catherine’s place and shot the shit, and then I looked at my watch and said, “Tired now” and me and Sandy crashed out upstairs. I kept waking up thinking my snoring was going to cause Sandy to be femicidal, but she slept peacefully through all of my nightly snorking, and bopped out of bed about 7:39 to move her car from the “yes you can park here all night” spot to the the “yes you can park here all day” spot. Then awesome coffee and I ate, get this WILD RICE COOKED IN ORGANIC TURKEY BROTH for breakfast. My body was very happy to be eating this. Then Sandy and Catherine and I either made brunch (Stir Fry, spinach, and salmon cooked in yoghurt and lemon grass and garlic) or played with Catherine’s ENORMOUS COLLECTION OF PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS, including a thunder tube, and dod, I have every intention of buying one and wandering through the engineering department with it. Sandy (afterwards) “Didja notice I was playing it with my bum?” “No, kinda missed that” and then we went to a novelty store and picked up whoopee cushions and my costume for my April 1st homily, and then we went back to Catherine’s for a while and tried to get hold of Jan to recover my phone, unsuccessfully, and then they dropped me off at Phil’s place. Now Phil is my only legal and previous husband, and he said he had kind of interesting news for me, and I know he’s diabetic, so I assumed his interesting news involved an amputation or two, and I said this prior to going over to his place, so I guess I was not surprised to make the acquaintance of his surgically amended foot. I was really surprised to hear about the kidney transplant though. We had a very nice chat, which involved me listening very hard, while he talked, and then Tammy, who had been owed a phone call back about two hours previously, showed up, fed me roast pork, parsnips, taters and eggplant soup (dod, the soup was AMAZING) and then out to the hot tub in the swirling wind and accompanied by a few stars, and then clunk, unconsciousness. Now it’s like two in the afternoon and Tammy’s off seeing live theatre and I’m blogging.

Happy Martyrdom of a Cath’lic saint day, there, everybody.  I hope your day is filled with love and laughter.  I’ll blog when I can – perhaps squeeze one in at the airport.

I got hold of Jan; she’ll be the first person I see in TO, and then over to Catherine’s place, where I will definitely play with drums until I’m really happy (she enumerated her percussion instruments until I was a very curious girl) and then to the Nataraj to eat with Sandy and Dowker, and then crashing at Catherine’s.  Then on to Tammy’s, and uh, whatever awaits me there, which is probably singing and playing and at least the prospect of a hot tub (hey, I can dream).  Then, ya, hanging out and watching really bad girly movies, oh joy at the prospect.  Like, I may watch Pride and Prejudice aGAIN, it being the best girly movie of all frikkin time.  Then at LEAST 12 hours sleep, and damned be the soul that stands between me and sleep in that most desperate hour.  Oh, and before I go to sleep, enough fluids to keep me hydrated for 12 hours of sleep. This is not always an easy balance to strike when you don’t want to have to get up to whiz.  I wonder if anybody has ever done scientific studies on this.  In my mind, I have just become a public benefactor, navigating rivers never before studied, which will shift into desert in the blink of an eye. I would like some scientist to invent a TABLE which would show me, on the basis of my bladder, age, sex, weight, and any other relevent genes, how much water I should drink before I go to sleep each night.  But that’s just me raving about a world which will never be.

I distributed Valentines at work today. It was more fun than swimming, but less fun than sex.  At least I got to be upright, the one position which doesn’t actively hurt these days.  Oh yeah, I said, I wouldn’t complain about my back.  On to the next improbability.  Katie is nowhere in evidence.  She slept here last night and has since moved along.  I don’t phone her these days.  If she has a problem either the police will call or she will.  This allows me to sleep in a timely fashion.  It sounds callous to the point of bloodlessness, but I’m okay with that.
I have discovered how to arrange two hot water bottles in such a fashion as to provide a reasonable heat-source facsimile of a healthy human male. I am sure I am not the only person who has ever figured this out.  I remember seeing a comic about that when I was a kid.

My parents had R Crumb comics.  Dr. Filk has Harold Hedd comics (which are like da GIVIN’ER Canuckistani BOMB).  I very much enjoyed Art Spiegelman’s Maus; had a major major stopover at Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise, and now I’m a Neil Gaiman fan.  But to mention Gaiman without mentioning Michael Zulli, who limned the archetypal Death and Delirium, that would be wrong. And there are SO many other amazing illustrators for Sandman, but I’m partial to Zulli.  Something about the way he does hair.

Anyway, the world is looking like a whole heap of fun right now.