April 21, 1999.

"I'm gonna whittle ya inta kindlin'..."

Saint Jack tells me that back in the sixties, when Tom Waits was playing the chitlins circuit and generally in need of cash, there was a big show that could have made him a lot of money, relatively speaking. We are talking about an eccentric musician here, not a Wall Street broker. Anyway, a day or so before this show was scheduled to go on, Bob Dylan blows into town and says to the promoter, 'hey, why don't you bump this nobody off the bill, let me play and charge $30 a head?'

As if I needed another reason to hate Bob Dylan.

He has been my wake up call for the last couple of days. The only reason I escaped the Freewheelin' Bob this morning is that I got up an hour before the Dylanphiles. I should have woken them up with "Jesus Gonna Be Here," I suppose. But I always think of these revenge plans too late.

Happy Pygandimass, everyone!

As you are all aware, today is the third Wednesday of April. It's the 73rd birthday of the Queen of England. And according to 16th century astronomy charts when read through the Victorian codebreaker poem "Jabberwocky," this is the date of Pygandimass...except of course on leap years, when it falls on the second Tuesday of November.

Pygandimass is the invention of the Saints. Its root is a Scrabble improbability (pygandimy) which St. Jack has been using as a catchall exclamation/condemnation/celebration word. The sacred texts of Pygandimass are the nonsense poetry of the Victorians, especially Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. As this is a fairly new holiday (and a very silly one to boot), feel free to act out in whatever way you see fit. Sing Pygandimass carols, eat the traditional Pygandimass dinner (vendor hot dogs) and remember that the true spirit of Pygandimass cannot be faked.

In other news, I've been kept considerably busy this afternoon in two pursuits. The first was checking into the requirements of Bachelor of Education programs in various Canadian universities, which vary wildly and freakily. For instance, Queens requires one course in Psychology, Sociology or Anthropology, 5 courses in one teachable, 4 in a second, and a B minimum average on all university courses you've even glanced saucily at. The University of Toronto doesn't even ask that you have taken any courses in the subject you wish to teach. Not that I want to go to either of those institutions, mind you. I'm just providing examples. It's very confusing and I need to get it all sorted out very soon if I want in somewhere next year.

The second was pricing the three Chinese characters of my intended tattoo. My problem is that of ratio: I don't want terribly large characters, but after a point the ink will run together on your skin. I had this problem the last time, and we expanded the text I'd brought in before it was tattoo'd on. And since I'm entirely ignorant of calligraphy, I have no idea what can be altered before the character is inelegant or (worse by far) changed from the original meaning. And because of this ignorance, I can't download a few different fonts and experiment.

I took a good look at the signs in Chinatown on my way home, and I discovered that the characters often run together to the point of abstracted squiggles. So I think that if I reduce it and it runs together on my ankle, it won't really matter. I think. I hope.

I just don't know.

Small update on the grieving process. The dancing went very very well on Monday. Dirk & I went to our favourite retro night in the city, which is not only free, but fabulously amusing as well. All the old-school punks and goths come out to dance to "She-Bop," mixing with the usual scattering of preppie university kids with interesting results. The dancing is always highly entertaining, as there are several really good dancers, several really bad dancers, punks skanking to "500 Miles," goths bouncing to "Dress You Up In My Love," faux lesbians and a couple of really wasted preppie chicks vacantly shifting from foot to foot. This time there was also a guy with incredible rhythm in raver pants, busting a move to the song of the same name. I think I sat out three songs in 2 1/2 hours. Beer only slows me down on nights like that, so I went home covered in glory and sweat, but not alcohol fumes. A good celebration of death.

Last night was the drinking portion of the sequence, and that went well until I got maudlin. I didn't start crying, but I was too drunk to keep my mouth shut and that's always a bad sign. Almost as bad as crying in public.

I'll be going to my parent's house tonight, as the funeral is tomorrow. It's not a trip I want to take, and I may let the apathy of it all overtake me. In that case, there won't be an entry. I apologize in advance.