Silly announcement of the day:

I have great-aunts who don't know how to spell my name, although they've been trying for 22 years. When I have daughters, I think I'll name them Hank &/or Steve. Everyone knows how to spell that.

October 12, 1998.

"Screw you guys. I'm going home."

- cartman

I hate it when a random line from Southpark gets caught in my head. Although it does make for interesting conversations when it becomes my response every 3rd or 4th line.

Had a very productive Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents yesterday. Due to some conflicting scheduling, Trevor & I had to split up for Thanksgiving dinner & meet up afterwards (if this happens next time, then we're swapping even-steven: he'll go to my family & I'll got to his) & my brother is perpetually busy with his own concerns. So I went alone. Alone & in drag...I decided to wear the vintage male finery I purchased while with Comrade Jen last Monday. It seemed to go over well...when I asked if I could help in the kitchen, she responded that my job was to stand against the wall & look pretty.

If only I could do that professionally.

There was a bit of drama going on between my Uncle Gregg & Ma "Tante" Bébé, which I won't go into. Suffice it to say that there was a lot of silence on that side of the table & that my grandparents made quite a few little jabs in my uncle's direction (to be fair to them, my uncle is acting like a grade-A asshole). I'd have to say that it was the tensest dinner I've ever been to in that house...but that's not saying much. I think it's the first time that discord was brought to the dinner table in my grandparents' house.

The productive part came, ironically enough, from the family member reputed to be the most shiftless: my Uncle Donald. On Friday I picked up an information form about teacher's college & was thrown into a quiet despair by the fact that my broad-based B.A. Hon. hasn't provided a second teachable (necessary if you want to teach secondary school). He's trying to get into teacher's college too, and he just about kicked my ass square when he found out that I hadn't even gotten application forms yet. Through him, I found out that 3 Ontario universities will accept my smattering of social sciences as a legitimate second teachable. Not to mention the sweet deals offered by Scotland & Australia...

In 15 minutes he'd filled my head with options, restored my faith, and earned my eternal thanks.

Looks like I might be a teacher after all.

Afterwards, Trevor, Scout & I went to see Rush Hour. Final verdict: not enough Jackie Chan; too much subplot. Although the supporting cast was the best I've seen in a Chan flick, it definitely came at the expense of the action. Hmm. Slowly but surely, I'm becoming educated in the style of Chinese action flicks, and greatly preferring them to their Western counterparts. I'm not quite an Asiaphile yet, but you never know...

Sedated by turkey, entertained by the best action star in the biz, and lulled by my lack of curfew, I actually consented to enter the basement studio & sing for Trevor's version of "White Rabbit." He's been asking me for months, and it fell squarely between the poles of my bipolar introvert/extrovert persona. On one hand, there's a little prima donna in me that wants to be worshipped as a transcendent artist. On the other hand, Mr. Shoreleave told me how bad my voice was more than once during our friendship. I want to be the centre of attention, but I want to be good. Fortunately, I was both. My voice only broke once on each vocal track, and in different places, so it was camouflaged. I managed to fill the basement with sound, which is a pretty good feeling.

While we were messing with the 4-track, Trevor debuted a new song for me...one that used words I'd written over a year ago about Mr. Blonde. It's my favorite bit of lyrics ever, but it was kind of weird to hear it coming out of the mouth of my sweetie all melancholy-like. I'd envisioned the song as a fast, energetic girlgarageband piece, but he used it to anchor a mostly-instrumental acoustic piece. And in a typically me fashion, I started out with what I didn't like about it. No, tact is not my middle name. Spent the rest of the night apologizing to Trevor...eventually, I insisted on recording myself saying, "it's perfect the way it is, [Trevor]" in quadruplicate, just so he can play it whenever I act like a jerk & trample on his sensitive artistic products.

(No, the last part of that wasn't sarcastic. Really.)