march 23, 2001. One more assignment and my first year of teacher's college will be done. Honest to God, I feel like I just got here. Blink blink blink and it's time to take the Powerpuff Girls stickers off the university laptop. Can't let the university keep 'em...everything's collectible now. There's been a great deal of emotion in my classes lately. This week, in fact, has been like walking through a gigantic vale of tears. The funny thing is that it's mostly elementary students who are turning into crybabies...secondary students keep coming up to me to quietly confide that they feel like gigantic stonehearted bitches for not mourning the end of the year the way everybody else seems to. What it makes me think of is this: at the beginning of the year I felt so lonely I could die. It was a big pain in my chest, a lump to be continually swallowed back down in the interests of a stiff upper lip. I drove the Boy crazy with my 8 week autumn depression, walking around in a cloud of Eeyore-esque misery. And now I don't have to swallow the lump or squint through the cloud of despair. This afternoon there was a call from Hermione inviting me to a pre-party tonight. And I can't go because we've already agreed to go visit at the house of the Anti-Stephen. I haven't been double-booked in what feels like a lifetime. I'm starting to feel my old powers return... This week has been way too much work, but also surprisingly fun. My research has led me to corsets, body piercing and dream analysis - and you wait years to be able to write about those things for university credit, darling. I now know about the surprising links between European magical thinking, the veneration of saints and leather queens. I found this amazing book by David Kunzle called Fashion and Fetishism, and although I only had a chance to read the first section, I hunger to finish the whole thing off. So interesting, so informative, so unflinching in its description of the tight-lacers, the fetishists and the norms. I highly recommend it. The word "fetish" derives from the Portuguese feitiço meaning fated, charmed, bewitched, and entered into the English language with reference to primitive belief in magic... We got our heating rebate cheque in the mail today, so we went out to paint the town! First we ordered a pizza - extra large, with sausage...then we bought a mickey of vodka and a 6 pack of beer at the local liquor commission...and then we watched some kittens being born at the no-kill cat shelter. When we got home with the pizza, we turned on the Charlie's Angels movie a full 2 days before general release. Yep. We know how to party. Of course, the best part about this was the kittens. I've never seen animals being born except on teevee, and the real thing is an amazing (and somewhat smelly) revelation. The sight of the blind, wet little things crawling around weakly in search of nipple was one of the most beautiful and pathetic things I've ever seen. I'm starting to seriously think about putting our name down for one; they'll be ready to take home in June, and I can spend all summer hanging out with the baby & watching Ceilidh freak out. Fun. As for Charlie's Angels, it was an extremely diverting 90 minutes, considering that it was a movie with no substance whatsoever. I quite enjoyed seeing Tom Greene pitch off the boat with that stoned idiot look he does so well ("Was it the Chad?"). He's not a guy I'd like to hang out with for any significant length of time, but he's fun for a minute or so. Bill Murray was smarmy without being annoying, and Crispin Glover was creepy without saying a word (I was proud to have identified him from the first few minutes of his role, an achievement all the greater since I haven't seen him in anything since he played Andy Warhol in The Doors). On an unrelated casting note, I've seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show far too many times to accept Tim Curry as straight. I suppose my only problem with it was that I was obviously supposed to think that les anges were supremely cool - but a week after seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I can't admire anyone other in an action picture other than Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh & Zhang Zhi.