december 30, 2000. "The worst thing is that they assume that everybody's Christian. I can't get over it. Wallace is from Yarmouth, and he's Jewish. If an out-of-towner like me knows a Nova Scotia Jew, then there's just no excuse for these kids." "There's also no excuse for Wallace." - me & dirk, back in my "ranting about the students" phase I'm on vacation. Damn, am I ever on vacation. On Wednesday night we got home for Toronto. I put on my new blue flannel Winnie the Pooh pj's, had a fight with the Boy (accumulated tension from having a good time & getting along for a week & a half, I suppose) and went to sleep. Early next morning I woke up with the Boy and watched him break a tumbler full of water on the bed get all upset about going back to work, and refuse to continue fighting with me. He went to work. I pulled out my new copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a Diet Coke and a bag of chips. Angrily began to read. Then I fell asleep. Woke up. Downloaded a MP3 of Kate Bush warbling "Wuthering Heights," which I've played about a hundred times since. Drank another Diet Coke. Played with my wedding photo pages. Drank another Diet Coke. Watched 4 hours of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from the tapes Pixie has been creating for me back in cable land. Ate a whole bunch of sunflower seeds. Read some more Harry Potter. Made myself a tiny amount of real food. Called Little Spider & went to bed. On Friday morning I did exactly the same thing, the only difference being that I was weaker from over 30 hours with very little sensible nutrition. An hour before the Boy came home from his extend-o video run, I cleaned up apathetically, showered and finally changed out of my pyjamas. We went out for dinner, and upon returning home, I changed into my pyjamas again. I'm wearing them now. I am so on vacation. A few notes on the above: I came across "Wuthering Heights" in a poetry anthology I was using with the 11's. Having never heard the song before, I came home that night and asked the Boy if he knew anything about it. He then launched into the most god-awful caterwauling I have ever heard - although it was also funny & endearing at the same time. (Upon hearing a bit of this rendition on Sunday, Stacy turned to me in horror. "You've married a banshee!") Now that I have my own (illegal) copy of the song, I've played it about a million times and I've managed to perfect my own acapella banshee howl. Every once in awhile I use it on the cat, who's not that impressed although not what I'd call frightened. It just proves what my grandmother said to me on her deathbed: you really have to be Kate Bush to sing a Kate Bush song. The pages with wedding photos are coming along, though not as quickly as I'd like. I've finished 4 pages, with 3 more coded but lacking captions and an indeterminate number remaining to be created. At this rate, I should be done by our first anniversary. Buh. Harry Potter rocks! The first few pages reminded me a bit of Adams and Gaiman in that their British eloquence and sarcasm about society knows no limits. Incredibly engaging work, very much worth the fame. Like reading Roald Dahl, without the unpleasant Nazi undertone. If you've turned up your nose at the books because they're popular, then you deserve what you get. But I urge you to reconsider. Now, if I could only get kids this excited about Daniel Pinkwater... Last night at dinner was unexpectedly surreal. Sometime yesterday afternoon, I decided to make the Boy's homecoming a big production; it wasn't the length of his absence (he's usually away twice this long), it was my secret guilt at living like a slug while he hustled around the province, delivering videos to ungrateful Nova Scotia Apu's. So I made a special effort in dressing, choosing the seldom-worn-anymore PVC pants, a black lace boustier that Morgan gave me for Christmas last year, and a white blouse. I mention this only because we immediately decided to go out to dinner. I sailed out of the house in this admittedly freaky ensemble, confident that the ebb of university life would've emptied the town of anyone who could point & laugh. We walked into the Ivy League, and saw that there were only four patrons - one of whom was Jonathan Torrens. I immediately felt vaguely guilty for turning off the teevee after today's episode of Pelswick. (Brief exposition: Jonathan Torrens is a CBC personality - more specifically, the host of Jonovision. It's a strange little teen thing that combines elements of talk show, sketch comedy, game show and double dare - and since it's scheduled right after the Simpsons/Pelswick on one of the few stations we can get without cable, I've seen quite a few episodes. The show is validly teen-centric, not cloying or patronising...but it can get annoying due to the young guests. (Yeah, I'm an old crank.) I've often thought that Jonathan is a bit too smart to be doing this for a living.) It was very very strange to hear a voice that usually keeps me company while I'm making dinner come from the other side of the room. We tried not to stare. I think we did okay.