Still incredibly busy, although on Tuesday, when midterm reports go in, I should be able to breathe a little easier. Tonight I gave up Friendly Rich to spend the night marking Nineteen Eighty-Four essays; I appear to be breaking out in a rash of responsibility. I was in the process of packing Blake off to Camp Grandparents when it hit me: I could spend my time marking instead of having fun! So I did. It sucks but at least I won’t be as anxious as I’ve been.

Why all the anxiety? Throughout most of the fall season I’ve been struggling with a cold that lingered improbably long. This has put a serious dent in the amount of marking I’ve been able to complete at work, as most of my “free” time is spent preparing for lessons I might otherwise have faked my way through were I feeling shipshape. Also, I can’t pretend that I haven’t been dragging myself to extracurricular activities in addition to the Amy Millan concert: I had two dance recitals in the week leading up to Hallowe’en, I lurched through my second Toronto Zombie Walk, I dressed up for work, and I sewed my best costume yet (about which more later). The arrival of Hallowe’en was a desperate relief: for the first time in days, I only had to worry about Blake’s costume and not my own. Sweet.

The crowning touch was that two days before Hallowe’en, Mason’s car died and I had to scramble to buy a new car. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were a nightmare, but now I have a car. It’s black, as Henry Ford would have wanted, and it smells good and it’s mine. It’s the first car I’ve owned since the ill-fated Mustang Scotty. I'm very proud.

This coming week will be all about insulating my bathroom so that my upstairs bathroom doesn't grow any more mold, sewing a purple outfit for my NEXT dance recital, and perhaps attending to the dishes more than once a week. I'm excited.

And, without further ado, Hallowe'en!

I'm pretty sure that the weeks of stress leading up to this night were more than worth it.

Labels: blake, car, outfits, outings, photos

Yes, it’s been awhile. And if I didn’t forcibly carve out some time while Mason cooks and Blake sits in a time-out, there wouldn’t be this entry, either. My life is so stinking busy that I often have to make time for laundry and returning library books. There is so little relaxing that writing time is completely sacrificed. It sucks. I’m not happy about the fact that stories have been building in my head and pictures on my camera; both equally likely to fade away before they are noticed and dragged into the light.

Still, Wednesday was special and I want to spend those precious moments when I should be making a Hallowe’en costume or – heaven forfend! – marking, to think about them.

You will, by now, be prepared to roll your eyes when I tell you that we went to a concert by another member of the BSS family. (All I can say about our monomaniacal focus is that at least I like music again. Musical appreciation went into eclipse for just about all the years that the Boy & I were together, revived only by periodic pilgrimages to StanFest and the brief non-goth clubbing experiment of 2002-3.) It used to be that I only broke school-night curfew for something as epic as a Nick Cave concert; now that I’m in love with a smorgasbord of local and semi-local musicians, these “epic” nights come closer and closer together. I would have made arrangements for any night of the week (as I did for the Hidden Cameras gig last month) but Amy Millan’s Wednesday concert was particularly well-timed: every Wednesday during the school year, Blake spends the night with his dad and I am, if not responsibility-free, then responsible only for myself. Responsibility-reduced, I suppose. So we bought tickets last month and prepared for something, well, epic.

I’ve only been to the Mod Club a few times; despite living a block down the street, I don’t remember it being a concert venue then. The first time was to see Daniel Johnston, the second for They Might Be Giants, so I associate the place with eclecticism and a devoted crowd. The location also gave me a chance to introduce Mason to Kalendar, a restaurant from the old days that I visit now all too infrequently. Mason drew my attention to the Shiatsu School of Canada across the street, and the idea of massage gripped us (heh) until after supper. Mason has a number of permanent conditions and has been looking for a good legitimate massage for a long time (as opposed to the kind that are advertised in the back of local papers and take place in trailers). He got an appointment for after supper; I was so full by this time that I was more than happy to curl up on the waiting room bench and close my eyes until he came out of the room.

He emerged sweaty and disheveled. “That wasn’t a shiatsu massage,” he pronounced. Oh no! And the place looked so classy.

Yeah, well. It wasn’t one of those massages, either. It was acupuncture and cupping, which is one of those things that remains completely exotic to me. It helped, though; Mason was pain-free for at least a day which is a new record. He was comfortable enough to suggest walking to the club, three or four blocks away in a night that seemed anxious for winter’s official start. I have yet to harden to the cold. But it was fine.

We got there too late to get a booth seat, but early enough to bag standing room on stage left, where we stayed for the whole night. I was glad for both the close-up view and that we were cut off from the comings and goings in the back of the room, so we could concentrate on the music and not crowd-watch. This made it a complete surprise at the end of the night when the room thinned out and every second person was a musician or in the BSS family.

But! That moment was at the other side of two hours of fairly quiet music. We saw the Bahamas last June, opening for Zeus, but this was the first time we’ve been able to see him without a wall of hipsters in the way. Mason bought the album back then, so this time we actually knew a few lyrics. It was a listening audience, quiet and supportive, clapping along when asked and staying silent when not. Afie struts and preens like a hair-metal lead guitarist, but it’s packaged in jeans and a button up shirt, with quiet melodic lyrics and a creepy dad mustache. It’s fun to watch.

Amy came out with many of the same people as in Harbourfront, with the notable addition of her sweetie and bandmate Evan, who decorated the stage with flowers a la a Stars concert. It was a beautiful concert, full of little stories and gentle sweetness. It was quiet, too; standing next to the amps wasn’t even an issue. It’s hard to describe how soothing and lovely she sounds live; she sets such a high standard that it’s easy to take it for granted. I honestly didn’t think that “Bruised Ghosts” could get any better than the album version, but when Feist bounded out of the wings to sing back-up and Evan and Doug Tielli sprayed us with two trombone parts, a wave of joy flooded my body.

Seeing the family was incredibly surreal. I went to the bathroom while Mason waited to talk to Evan, and when I got back, Ron Sexsmith was getting hassled by security as he walked backstage. “I’m with the band!” he protested. Is Ron Sexsmith gonna hafta choke a bitch?, I thought to myself, amused. Finding it difficult to decompress, I decided to stall for time by picking out some merchandise. I realized that Kevin Drew was behind me, talking loudly to his parents. Be cool, I thought, and went to the bank machine. We had come to the venue with 7 dollars, and had spent that on a single beer. I’m not complaining, as it left us clear-headed for what happened next.

The merchandise table had no change, so they sent me to the bar with my wallet in my hand. As I turned around to go back to the table, a guy asked me for ten dollars. We started to banter back and forth, introducing ourselves, talking about money and being a teacher (me) and how he had thought about it but didn’t care about teaching (him) and I realized that he looked familiar because he plays bass in Metric. Mason was still carrying the book around after having Evan sign it, and Josh found the one picture he was in to autograph. Jimmy Shaw wandered over to see what we were doing and exclaimed over the book. “That’s my picture! I took that on my camera!!” So we had him sign it, and we chatted about the New Year’s Eve dance party which he claims to only vaguely remember, “but not because [he] was drunk.” Smirk. So that’s why they were so nice to us. I’m not proud, I’ll take it.

Brendan Canning was also wandering around beardless, and we found the opportunity to apologize to him for invading the dj booth during the dance party. He was gracious and sweet, which is the first time I’ve been able to see up close what everyone says about him. All is forgiven, I hope.

There were still more autographs to bag, but at this point we were so overwhelmed by the rapid succession of meetings that we decided to leave. We were a block away before I realized that I had left the camera, full of lovely close-ups and photographic proof of the very special guest, somewhere in the venue. I ran back, but it was just sitting on the stage, waiting for us. The place was full of musicians, so who would have stolen it anyway?

We were still lucky.

Labels: music, triumph

Today was my first day of classes for the year. Well, there are several generalizations in that statement. 1. We had two full days of meetings last week, so "first day" is a little unclear. 2. I spent the entire day, less an hour, working a Grade 9 BBQ with Teija, so I smell like propane, meat & sweat instead of anxiety and shampoo and there was precious little "class." (Is there ever?)

There was still an hour in there where I had to shine, even though I was trying to shine through weariness and grease. On the long-ago advice of Lucretia Nightshade, I have begun every class of my career in identical fashion: with an alphabetic seating plan denoted by nametag index cards on desks. The idea is that I would set up the room for them before the bell and stand at the door to greet them. Every student gets a handshake, a smile and direct eye contact as we introduce ourselves. Then they get a slip of paper, directing them to write certain facts on their name card.

Every year I start this way. In the beginning it was hard to smile because I was so nervous. In my first years I would kick out early birds so that we could do the whole thing in one go. Now that I'm into my 8th year, I'm getting so incredibly confident that I don't even do it at the door anymore; I can wander around the class getting people set up while kids trickle in. For a class like my current crop of 11 Faiths, this is crucial as they do not arrive at once.

I have come such an unbelievably long way.

I'm still trying to take care of myself in a manner befitting a girl who spent a summer getting trained in her backyard. Yesterday my whole family went to the beach for my end-of-summer ritual of not-thinking on Labour Day, and by the time I got Blake to bed I was completely fried. I did not want to do anything but sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself. Somehow I managed to keep a training date with Nic. So while I sweat buckets and the mosquitoes bit again and again, I practiced my jabs until all I could think of was my form. It was better than a sleeping pill.

Today was also Blake's first day of Grade 1, and his first day of all-day school in a long while. My parents are more keyed up about it than Blake; they're obsessing about his lunches and if he can handle staying in with his friends. Personally I would rather go through the stress of packing lunches and give him a chance to see his friends in other classes, than break up his day. I suspect that the trial period of lunches in my kitchen are more for my parents' sake than Blake's, but I suppose that everyone needs to get used to the new year, all the way down the line.

On a considerably more frivolous note, I made Blake ice cream for breakfast. As in, the yarn kind of ice cream, with silly smiles. Pictures soon, plus stories of my Sunday with Owen Pallett and the scary guy who harshed my mellow!

Labels: bat masterson, blake, health, teaching

Painting the basement with Mason has been exceedingly quick and painless. This would be a good thing at any time; now it's an especially good thing because Blake comes back tomorrow and all this stuff was supposed to be done in his absence. That's just my own personal anxiety, though: he'll be thrilled to see the basement all re-arranged, with painting to be done. I'm not sure how I'll keep him away from the worksite. Long, exhausting play dates? Extended periods of time in the backyard? Bribery?

At any rate, it all has to be done before the end of the month, when my brother may be moving in. Why do my summers always begin with infinite space to grow and end up squinched up and stressed?

Labels: angst, house

Nine years ago yesterday, I got married. This year, with my divorce slowly working its way through the legal system, I celebrated my union and subsequent abandonment by getting a tattoo influenced in equal parts by old sailors and Oscar Wilde's letter from prison, "De Profundis."

It's big.

In tattoo tradition, the swallow is a harbinger of the approaching shoreline, and is used to commemorate 5000 nautical miles navigated. In lieu of sailing experience (except for that afternoon when I was 18 when I caught my first and last fish), I choose to use it to represent the romantic passage of the last eleven years, and the hope for a safe homecoming at the end of it. Hence the scroll, which is Wilde's imperative for those who are loved.

Most people live for love and admiration. But it is by love and admiration that we should live. If any love is shown us we should recognize that we are quite unworthy of it. Nobody is worthy to be loved. The fact that God loves man shows that in the divine order of ideal things it is written that eternal love is to be given to what is eternally unworthy. Or if that phrase seems a bitter one to hear, let us say that everyone is worthy of love, except he who thinks he is. Love is a sacrament that should be taken kneeling, and Domine, non sum dignus should be on the lips and hearts of those who receive it.
- p. 82

I promise, that's the last time you will see my write about Special Meaningful Meaning of this tattoo. I may be pretentious, but I hope I'm well aware of the depths of my own pretention.

It's still Too Hot. I'm getting a false sense of coolness when I move quickly from room to room, which instantly evaporates as soon as I sit down. Ugh. At least I managed to figure out the bathing thing: hair requires baths, tattoo requires showers, but it was time to wash the hair so I put the tattoo first today. I need an old fashioned shower cap. And a quilted bathrobe, maybe. I already have a wooden rolling pin.

Labels: angst