Katitude

I am not pissed off at you because I was tired, stressed or PMS-ing. I am pissed of at you because you acted/are acting like a bonehead.

I am even more pissed off by the fact that it doesn’t appear that you are even aware that I am pissed off at you.

Jesus, what do I have to do, hire a marching band and sky writers?

Men. Sigh.

Some impulse had me glance at my blog stats tonight. And looking at tonight’s usage, I have to wonder if a student has found this space. Expect it to go dark if that’s the case.

~ I haven’t posted much lately.
~ How come?
~ I just don’t feel that I have anything interesting to say.
~ Like that’s stopping anyone else.
~ Good point.

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So here I am, laying in bed trying to get comfortable. My back didn’t like something about how I turned the shower on this morning, and took that moment to tell me that the time to lose weight and develop muscles to support my frame has passed. Long passed. And that I had better get on it as I am not getting any younger.

Thank you, dear body for the reminder. I’ll get right on that as soon as I can get out of bed.

it’s not quite how I was planning to spend the day. I am missing two pretty interesting classes, my cello lesson with the grade 5’s and 6’s, and a food drive for the local food bank that I helped organize. The plan for the food drive was to have everyone bring in a minimum of 2 canned food items and during All-School, each group was to use the cans to create either a sculpture or a mosaic picture. Prizes were to be awarded for the most creative, then all the cans get shipped off to the food bank. Win/win…the kids have some fun, the food bank gets a few hundred items.

I hope someone took pictures.

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Speaking of school, I’ve been re-thinking what I do there, and what I want to do. There have been conversations with the principals who are offering a lot of support for my ideas on how to use technology to educate, to learn. So I’ve stepped off that ledge called my comfort zone, and will be both attending and putting in proposals to speak at conferences, and volunteering to help out at next year’s ECOO. I’m giving a presentation to the staff next week about some of the ways they themselves can use technology and then incorporate it into their lessons. Here’s hoping that they can come into it with an open mind, and the ones that can’t will at least wait until my back is turned before they roll their eyes.

As a sidenote, I’m pretty surprised at what I can get done when I take all that energy I was using rail against where my life was and use it to move my life forward.

Yeah, colour me late to the party.

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I’ve started another writing class this week. This one is geared towards finishing a big project rather than the little weekly things I was doing before. My “big project” has morphed from being a tale about the tip to Alaska to something that includes some of the other road stories that want to be told. I have no idea what the framework is/will be and I feel like I’m stepping off another ledge with another mix of nervousness, excitement, anticipation and hopefulness (as in, I hope I don’t suck).

Chris, who is the most lovely, supportive ass-kicker ever , had us do some exercises. I always like the first one she does as I’m always surprised at where it takes me. She has a few hundred rectangles of white paper sitting in the middle of the table and on each is a word. The exercise is to pick the words that we are drawn to then make a poem. Mine came out as:

Breathe.

Then crash
your warm shell
into ten million words.

Use the old charm
of this abstract want.

I don’t know/care if it makes any sense to anyone else, but it made me smile and think “oh”.

Another exercise she had us do (us being the other four in my group, all are working on fiction) was to pretend we were at a party and that we had to describe what we are writing about. Mine came out as

I ride a motorcycle which has led to have some adventures, to have some stories to tell. Some of the stories are funny, like the one about Baby Boo and the worst motel in America. Some are stories perseverance and rewards, like riding through a foggy and dismal Newfoundland morning to find sunshine and haute cuisine and Vikings at the literal end of the road. And some are stories of growth and transformation, of finding out what one is made of on a northern mountain pass, above the tree line, above the snow line.

So that’s pretty much it. It doesn’t mean that it won’t morph into something else, or even that I’ll finish. I’m not imposing any deadlines on myself; I know myself well enough to know that that is the first kiss of an incomplete death. If it wants to happen, it will happen.

As with any good ride, it’s about the journey, not the destination.

Got a little note from VinNay, saying he was ready, are there plans in the works? Thanks for the reminder - was losing track of the year already (which considering it’s now February, does not bode well for the rest of the year).

I’m taking it as my cue to get my ass in gear and start working on a plan for Eh Vegas IV. I’m looking for some initial input on:

Who’s interested in coming? It’s open to anyone and everyone.
When would be good? The choices are:

• 27/28 of March. yes, I know it’s just after Mastodon and just before Easter. It’s also the last weekend of my March Break which will give me ample time to plan.
• May 22/23. It’s the May Two-Four weekend! Monday is Victoria Day, celebrated with beer and fireworks. Plus there is a fairly strong chance that Loud and The Handsomest Man In The World will be on this side of the world.
• The last weekend of June.
• Labour Day weekend or the weekend before. It does seem like a long way away, doesn’t it? But I figured I’d throw out some summer dates when the weather is warm and the bar patios are open.
• a case can be made for just about any weekend, but I am limited in when I can take time off from school, limiting the pre- and post-weekend party/recovery cycle for me.

I first heard Lhasa de Sela in 1998. At the time, Keith was occasionally looking after the audio at the Top O’ The Senator, a small jazz space above The Senator Restaurant downtown. It was still early in our relationship; we were in an on moment in our on-again-off-again dating cycle.

I remember that I was just hanging around my apartment, goofing off with no plans of doing anything else for the night. Keith called me after the sound check, around dinner time, and asked if I wanted to catch the show.

“If I can’t get you on the list, I’ll pay the cover. I think you’ll like her.”

Knowing even then that Keith would not voluntarily pay a cover to see just anyone, I grabbed my bag and headed downtown.

And he was right. I did like her. There was something about that smokey voice that was so seductive. She seemed to pour herself into every song and then with a sly smile and mischievous look, would pour the song into you.  She sang in Spanish, French and Russian; I didn’t understand what she was singing but in a way I cannot explain it made the experience even better.

She was one of those performers that I never grew bored of. I made sure to check her website often, so I could catch her whenever she played in Toronto. I made Keith call in favours to get me on the guest list for her sold out show at the Toronto International Jazz Festival. Her music has always been in steady rotation in cd players and in the iPods. It smooths some of the more jagged pieces of my soul.

Tonight I heard on the news that she has passed away from breast cancer. She was 37 years old.

The loss of that smokey voice has affected me. The manner of the loss brings memories of other losses, and has me reaching for the iPod to look for something to smooth out the jagged edges.

These are among my favourites taken in 2009. They may not be particularly good photos, but I like them for one reason or another.

January 09 - Horseshoe Falls, Niagara Falls, ON

April - Crown Point, NY

May - goldfinch in the reeds at the Brickworks

June - Red Door

July - Abandoned Centre Island Skyride

July - Dad's boat

August - Mississagi Lighthouse, Manitoulin Island

August - at the Ex

September - Graffiti Alley

October - late afternoon cello practice

December - Neon Boneyard, Las Vegas

If the first day is a good barometer for how the year is going to shape up, then 2010 is going to be a good one.

January one, I woke up beside someone who loves me and feeds me coffee. He gave me the keys to the car, kissed me and said have a nice time.

I meandered out to the Martini Goddess’ place, exploring a few roads that always looked interesting but never seemed to be on the way anywhere. They still weren’t really on the way, but that really isn’t the point of exploring, is it? I put the iPod on shuffle and heard some music that I forgot I had and some music that I have no idea how/when I acquired it. Seriously…when did I buy anything that had a banjo in it?

I arrived bearing gifts, and received gifts (mmmm….Mexican vanilla and a hot pink bra!). We spent the afternoon and evening chatting over martinis. The conversation meandered all over the place, as good conversations do. The martinis were, for the most part, delish. There were a few missteps in the experimentation - watching my cocktail curdle was enough to put me off Amarula for life. As in all experiments, you keep the good, throw out the bad and move on.

We re-created the Black Martini from the now-defunct Wish. Gone is the patio and the killer brunch, but the cocktail will live on.

1 oz vanilla vodka
1 oz Kahlua
1 oz espresso
1 oz cream
Shake with ice, strain into martini glass. Garnish with cocoa and espresso beans.

Karen concocted one that tasted like the birthday cake my mom would make on our birthdays, a chocolate layer cake with her home made raspberry jam in the middle.

The It’s My Birthday
1 oz vanilla vodka
1 oz white creme de cacao
1 oz Chambord
Shake with ice, strain into martini glass. Garnish with raspberries. Sip slowly; this one sneaks up on you.

I do love going to Karen’s. I’m comfortable there because I know I can truly be myself. I can say anything and I wouldn’t shock her nor would she judge me, and vice versa. There is a lot to be said for that kind of friendship.

And there is a lot to be said for a day filled with love and laughter, and some pretty kick-ass martinis.

Ganked from from Neil Gaiman’s blog, because he is much more skillful at this than I:

I especially like the last line.

It’s the last day of 2009.

Whoop-dee-doo.

Frankly I don’t really see what the big deal is about New Year’s Eve. This day is really no different than the next day other than a calendar needs to be changed. I used to pretend it was a momentous occasion, to watch this man-made construct we’ve overlaid on time edge towards the end of year and slip into the next amidst drunken singing of an auld Scottish song that no one really understands.

Of course, it could be that being a waitress and working twenty of my forty-seven New Year’s Eve’s have helped burn the sense of occasion out of me. AlcantHang called it right; amateur night indeed. It’s even worse than Oktoberfest. I could tell stories (insert *eyeroll and *headshake here).

However, I recognize that I am in the minority. So for those of you stepping out tonight, may you have as much fun as you can handle and make it back home safely.

Cheers!

About a month ago, the man and I were out to dinner at a surprisingly quiet Caplansky’s (mmmm…knish). While we waited for dinner, I watched a young family at another table waiting for their meal. There were two young boys, happily colouring away. It triggered a memory of when I was a kid, and I told Keith about how I always wanted, no, longed for, the big pack of Crayola crayons with the sharpener on the back. I made my desire known to Santa, but I think he must have misheard me. While I did get a big pack of crayons for Christmas, it was a disappointment. They weren’t Crayola (which as every kid knows, is the perfect waxy hardness for drawing on any surface) and the box didn’t have the sharpener on the back. The desire remained unfulfilled.

We don’t make a big deal out of Christmas. This year, we gave each other a 3-night getaway at a cottage by a lake complete with fireplace and hot tub. However, we still collect small treasures for each other and do a stocking to open while we are drinking the Christmas happy coffee. Wedged inside my stocking this year was, you guessed it, the Crayola 64 pack.

With the sharpener on the back.

I am surprised by how pleased I am with this gift. I have yet to actually use them in any way; I don’t even know if I will. I am entranced by that pecurliar smell that is a combination of wax and paper and childhood. I’ll pull one out, any random colour, and spin it between finger and thumb to read the name in three languages (macaroni & cheese / maccarones con queso / macaroni au fromage), then close my eyes and hold it close to my nose. In one whiff I am eight years old again, laying on the floor of the rec room and arguing with my brother over the last broken bit of good red.

Keith laughs every time. And wonders if I’ll ever wear them down enough to use the sharpener on the back.