Happiness Is....

Woodwardian Gothic

...done right!!!

Really tired tonight so I'm going to let the pictures do some talking. Basic storyline: our landlords graced us with their overly-perfumed underly-polite presence yesterday and if we grinned any more falsely our faces would freeze in place. We thought they would be pleased that the leaves got raked in the fall - we didn't predict that they would ever walk behind the shed, though, and see where all those gosh darned leaves got dumped. In short there was much tension crackling during their visit and I predict a stand-off on Sunday morning when we're ready to pull out of the driveway and the landlords are ready to blow a gasket. Of course the stand-off could always be stunted by our screaming tires and exhaust fumes. Time will tell...

We are making some effort at peace, though, by cleaning up our act - and our back yard.


Before that, though, we had to cope with the first official severing of the Woodward team, Version 3.0. Ben left today........... he gave us chocolate... and hugs... and chocolate hugs... and it already feels strange here without him. If you read this, we miss you, Benny! On an unrelated note, Tycho is mysteriously far more energized than usual right now...


So, as a tribute to the Woodward legend and a way to close the book on this house, here is a summary of all versions:

Woodward 1.0 (2003-2004)
Laura
Dawson
Colin
Dave

Woodward 2.0 (2004-2005)
Laura
Dawson
Megan
Pratik

Woodward 2.5 (summer 2005)
Megan
Chris

Woodward 3.0 (2005-2006)
Laura
Dawson
Megan
Ben

And, of course, all of our honourary Woodwardian roommates over the years: you have made us proud and sentimental!

So... packing continues....... Tycho is trying to help. He's not bad at doing all the little jobs I ask him to do, like squashing down the lids on my over-stuffed rubbermaid tubs:

And cleaning out his toy box:

And making sure there's enough bubble wrap.


That's all! Time for bed and more Degrassi. I'm almost done Season One! Spike is pregnant!!!

This is it, it is.

short post now from a remote computer... derek's house... laura and derek sprawled on the futon over there having some sort of "derek and laura" semi-heated (I'd say lukewarm, like a drop on the inside of your wrist and you wouldn't feel it, perfect for a baby's bath) kind of discussion and my brain is all box fiber and rubbermaid air from packing today, an anvil of anxiety shortening the breath. books off the shelves and bare walls, a mausoleum made of our house and mild philosophy (what will happen to all of us?) as a steady echo. last night laura, derek and I had dinner with blackmore at Thaifoon, D had to slip out but the rest of us closed the place and I leaned into what he was saying, tonight was the same thing but with other MITers added to the mix and heaping Chinese plates passed around instead of thai, I feel like this is the part where the credits should start rolling, we should all melt into slow motion and smiles of easy acceptance just before the fade-to-black. I feel too brave for my britches in a way, pick up Tycho under one arm and a box of books under the other and head to the sunset, wait for someone to stop me, and everyone else doing the same, but I guess the sun sets here and rises there and likewise we'll have a cliche for every leaving to dull the sentimentality.

I guess what I'm saying is... packing makes me scared. At the same time I have too much stuff - and not enough.

"Lusty Swampgirl"

...is Garber's "alternate title" suggestion for my thesis. I told him I'd think about it. Might draw in a whole other readership!!!

SO today was truly a "Megan in the City" day... after seeing Garber I bussed downtown, spent some quality time at City Lights, ate lunch in the market (best marriage of grilled cheese + bacon I've ever had in my life), read the book Jen gave me while I ate (which was astoundingly touching, in fact I think I'll include an excerpt later...), and then I even had the alone-guts to go see a movie! Fact: matinees at Rainbow cost only $3! Fact #2: a small pop at Rainbow costs $3. There seems to be an imbalance... but whatevs. (had a conversation with Kevin on the weekend about the age restriction on using the word "whatevs." I think it has to do more with delivery than age. just the right shoulder shrug, just the right intonation, just the right self-mocking grin to follow it up). So at first I thought I'd be embarrassed to announce that I went to see Nanny McPhee by myself and would instead cover it up by saying that in fact I spent the afternoon jogging or something, but as it turns out the movie is really good (depending on your definition)!!! AND I had the whole entire theatre to myself. There is something mystical about that. And narcissistic, as in, oh my goodness they're playing this movie just for me! It had the kid in it from Love Actually, and Colin Firth and Emma Thomson, also from Love Actually... man, that Colin Firth... so far he has found enduring love despite prejudice, ugly christmas sweaters, language barriers, and, this time, a brood of naughty children. he's a superhero!

ANNND to cap off an afternoon of sweet self-indulgence, I came home to find that my DVD collection of Degrassi Junior High has finally arrived! That's a lot of after-school specialing to digest. There's are going to get wild around here, Jeremiah style!!!

Ending Start

Exams are over! Papers are handed in! I AM NO LONGER AN UNDERGRADUATE!

To celebrate, Tycho and I stayed in bed for an extra long time today. It was raining outside, but warm and snuggly inside, and we had a very nice snooze, me and my fuzz-captain... look, he's even smiling contentedly...

I had a wee bit of an emotional moment when I handed in my last exam and walked out into the sunshine, which felt a bit warmer and a bit brighter because I was no longer saddled with exams and coursework... but there was also a grey cloud hovering on the horizon (cue Winnie the Pooh) because this is the end of an era, an era which started with a rather nervous and naive megan getting hauled out of her mom's car outside of Saugeen by a bunch of crazy sophs on move-in day... and, interestingly, the era is drawing to a reluctant close as a valiant but just as naive megan moves temporarily into an apartment building that looks across at Saugeen. Four years and I'll be living only ten feet away from where I started! Of course, I'll have wisdom and a big piece of paper to show for it. But my life already feels emptier... or, at least, my room does, due to a lack of library books stacked in waist-high piles across the floor...

I told Tycho to pack up all his little toys. So far he is not cooperating. Today after we got up he was howling to be let outside, and since it was pouring rain I opened the door for him, knowing he wouldn't get far. When he heard the sound of the door he came galloping over, all primed and ready to make one of his wily escapes, but he skidding to a stop when he saw the rain and he's been looking accusingly at me since then, like the weather is my fault! It all worked out okay though, because his howling has stopped and he's been staggering around with his sleepy face on all afternoon.

To celebrate the done-ness of my undergraduate career I went out for food with this handsome lad, who has one exam left. We accidentally ate at The Keg, and accidentally ordered an expensive bottle of wine, but I think it was all our subconscious conspiring to make us have a good time despite our best efforts. We even had crab legs! Which, I've discovered, are only slightly less repulsive than sushi. Their redeeming feature is that you get to dip them in butter (instead of gasoline).




I'm not sure what D's confrontational face was for but maybe he was trying to look like a tough guy while he ate a decidedly un-tough guy kind of meat. With a cute little tiny fork.

NOW on the agenda: packing like mad. Woodward is closing for business a week from today! This means lots of throat-tighening, stomach-knotting things have to happen, like the taking down of posters, and the removal of furniture, and the goodbyes to various innanimate objects. Goodbye, big deck! Goodbye, shitty bathroom! Goodbye, window!
Good thing I have a whole week to do this. It's gonna be messy.

movie bliss

I just watched one of the best movies ever in the history of all movies seen with these two misty eyes... called C.R.A.Z.Y.... Wayson recommended it and man, it is fan-freakin-tastic, I want to watch it again right now. Best part: it was filmed in Montreal! And it has pretty much the cutest little kid in the world (refer to the immediate left). I rented this tonight as my reward for a day of filling my brain with whatever might be useful for my two exams this week... I ended up spending more time playing outside with Tycho than anything else... but if anything deserves a reward, it's a whole day of hijinks with my favourite #1 little fuzzy dude.

GO WATCH THIS MOVIE! and invite me along when you do!!!

You can take the cat out of the yard, but you can't take the yard out of the cat...

Yesterday afternoon Tycho managed to guilt-trip me into letting him outside for as long as I could stand it - about thirty seconds. After that I was too afraid I'd lose him forever so I coaxed him back inside. But I have to admit, he is very handsome out there in the green grass. Now he's very mournful because he's had a taste of the great outdoors and sitting in my bedroom window just isn't cutting it anymore. I'll take him out for a playtime again today. But I'm worried that this is only doing him harm, because once the two of us move into an apartment, there is no outside for him to go to! Poor little gaffer... maybe I can get him a little garden of grass to roll around in indoors...

I'm listening to the first day of the CBC's Canada Reads debates and it's exciting radio! One of their panelists this year is the Weakerthan's frontman John K. Samson, who's defending the book A Complicated Kindness... I love it! I wish I was there in the studio! It makes me so excited! They're doing such good books this year, including a book of poetry, which is interesting, though the guy who just got passed that book (I think Scott Thompson, who is defending Cocksure) said that he didn't like it because "a poem has no business being longer than a page." I'm tempted to write that on my 20th Century exam this year when I get to the question on "The Wasteland." Right now A Complicated Kindness is getting chewed out for being too repetitive... so at the end of today's show they're going to decide which book to vote off the list of five, and by Friday, the book that "all of Canada should read" will be chosen, and I'm reeeeeeeeeeally hoping it will be Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road, which will give my First Summer Selection extra umph.

They've got Susan Musgrave on the panel too, whose writing I know because I read Cargo of Orchids in high school - and she says that while her husband was in the Kingston Pen they gave him a pile of "reject" books from the Kingston library to keep him occupied, and "the reject of the rejects" was Mordecai Richler's Cocksure, which is her reason why it should not graduate to the next round. The best part of this show is it makes me crazy to read everything! And also, they have a LEGITIMATE voting system with panelists who (supposedly) don't cheat - not like Western Reads! Gah, I'm so mad about that... the weakest book defended by the weakest panelists won, only because Sandy, who I talked to after the debate, says that thanks to his USC connections he has a mailing list of 2000 people who he planned to coerce into voting for him... and surprise, his stupid book won. Guh! I soooo wanted Wayson to get it!

Anyway... whoa.... slowly returning to good mood... time to go play outside.

The garden in my mind vs. the dirt in my backyard

Tycho would be a natural at being the Easter Bunny....

If birds were made out of chocolate.

So I've just spent a most luxurious morning eating Special K and reading the newspaper.... there is something decidedly adult about spending the morning in a bathrobe with the paper, curled up and absorbed until your fingers are inky-black and you look up blearily at the clock to realize that it's almost 1pm already... I am only slightly embittered that because of my women's lit exam I've been anchored at Woodward for the long weekend, eating spaghetti and cavorting with T-Bone instead of gorging on ham and chocolate and homemade bread at the family 'do in Elmvale... okay, well, maybe i AM gorging on chocolate (a little) but it's not the same when I'm not sandwiched between Juling and a troop of Thompson cousins on the old green-striped couch in grams' sunny living room. WHICH I have a picture of, from when Tycho came with me to visit his great-grandma...



To soothe my homesickness (or perpetuate it), I found a picture of my little grams out in her garden... There are so many things in this picture that get to me... the stakes and binder-twine row markers, which I imagine still rolled up and stored in the earthy-smelling cement basement right now, waiting for their yearly purpose... the fencerail behind her, which leads to the right towards the giant swing set my uncle built us when I was little, and to the left towards the barnyard... even the dandelions at the bottom of the picture, which inspire images of mowed lawns, picnics, bare feet, bumble bees, dog turds...

...not like our Woodward front lawn, which is just a big mound of dirt. I'm worried that I will never cut it as a gardener! I mean, I tried to garden while I was here, grams even gave me an old hose, and mom came and helped me dig and plant, and true, we did get a meager but proud little pumpkin this year for Halloween... but I'm worried that I just don't have it in me. Same with cooking. Gardening and cooking fall into the same categories for me - nothing, really, to do with gender roles or tradition, and everything to do with basic skills and know-how, both of which are severely deficient where this kid lives. I have this image in my head of my future little country home, cottage-like, with potted plants in every window and a big kitchen garden all summer with basil and tomatoes and cucumbers and fruit, and scrumptious meals being prepared for my favourite guests who brave the dirt roads in their honda civics to come and see me... but somehow I see all of this horticultural and culinary success happening through no effort of my own. I will sit in the back of my garden on a little wrought-iron chair with a sailor-striped cushion on the seat, typing a novel on my vintage typewriter which squats on a matching wrought-iron table under a little sun umbrella, and somehow while I do this a beautiful, well-manicured garden will spring up around me and delicious smells will drift from the kitchen window by the mere tilt of my head. It's easy to explain away these domestic miracles by adding a diligent and loving husband to the mix, but I'm determined not to fall back on such unstable explanations. I want my country cottage and kitchen garden through my own doing! Or rather, through my own not-doing by some divine miracle. There's this scene in Love Actually (don't laugh) where Colin Firth goes to live on his own in this little cottagey home in the South of France for the winter, and he spends his days with a typewriter in the a little gazebo at the edge of a lake - THAT is what I picture. Going to the South of France for that seems a little extreme, but who knows what heavy doors Montreal will shoulder open. In any case I think the city is not my ultimate future - how can it be when the sight of dandelions on a country lawn makes me tearful? I know there are dandelions in the city too, but they are hardy dandelions, built against the sprays and shovels and weed-whackers of city dwellers bent on expelling shame from their lives by having a feathery green lawn, 2.5 inches of grass and not a fleck of yellow to be seen. I want the delicate, rogue weeds of the country, the stray wheat along the fencerail, the thistles, the sprawling gardens. Again, I hit my fatal snag - how to have a sprawling garden without actually doing any of the gardening and favouring, instead, only the sprawling?

Maybe I can start small... maybe the Woodward garden was too ambitious, too prone to failure for such an amateur as me. Maybe I'll live in a little second-story walk-up in Montreal where I can cultivate a small patch of earth in a box on my balcony. Have a houseplant and not let it die this time. Grow a tomato on the windowsill and eat it with a salad one night, tasting the seedy bursts of success. Maybe Montreal will teach me a lot of things - it might be easier to learn to cook when I have my own private kitchen, no witnesses to my improvisation, no one to judge my do-overs and take-twos. Maybe by the time the first of you come out to visit me I'll have graduated from Cooking Without Mom to The Professional Chef. Whatever happens, baguette will be served, fresh from the boulangerie which, in my imagination, is just down the street from my montreal apartment-to-be, tucked between the friendly french pub (where they know my name and teach me to knot cherry stems with my tongue) and the used bookshop (where I do amateur readings with my Concordia friends).

On an absolutely different note - there is a book review of Amanda Boyden's Pretty Little Dirty in the G&M this week. I woke up this morning and just lay in bed for a good ten minutes staring at my stack of books to read first this summer... less than a week to go and my time will be 100% mine again, instead of 50% mine and 50% school... thinking about all of that reading, sitting on my Bayfield balcony with Tycho and a glass of lemonade for an entire day, makes me so excited.......

I did it!

I wrote a book!!!! It's officially finished! Hopefully the first of many...

and now, it's time to get this author's butt to bed!

Advil?

Undergrad classes = over.
Essays = written & handed in.
Thesis = nearly finished and presented.
Exams = will be over in a flirtatious bat of the eye.
Why doesn't the CBC write about me???

I couldn't sleep last night (possibly those two cheeseburgers eaten under D's approving gaze) and now I'm swimming in one of those high-pressure headaches, like there's a belt yanked around my skull and unlike my waist I can't "suck in" my skull so it's just getting tighter and tighter... I've got about 50,000 word documents open as I try to finish my thesis and every word sends a pulse of anxiety from my fingertips on the keyboard to the homesick center in my brain. I am scared about this summer! About moving to a new apartment by myself! About the logistics of trying to find a place in Montreal for the fall! About having that urgent feeling with people that we have to do everything and do it now because my rocket pack is firing up to blast me away!

On the other hand, I'm excited for the summer, turning things inside out and shaking out all the crumbs, and, most of all, sitting on my balcony ... or in the park ... or in a cafe... and reading the hell out of all my books! I'm going to read the two Boydon books first:




And then we'll see... I've definitely got to read the Nino Ricci Lives of the Saints trilogy this summer since he graduated from Concordia with an MA in Creative Writing!!! Also, my boss Stephen has a friend, Hadley Dyer, who recently published a novel for young adults which the Globe and Mail listed this weekend as one of ten best books for teens to read... Hadley used to work for Stephen when he was in charge of Chapters... sooooo... the obvious connection: young writers who work for Stephen are destined for G&M greatness.

OH MY GOODNESS
I nearly forgot to mention the best news of all.... she is too modest, I think, to brag about it herself, so I will do it for her! Sara Clark, the Sassy Scribe, the Saucy Storyteller, the Sweet Scripter, has won the Marguerite Dow award for her short story, "Figures on a Street!" See the arts & humanities website for the official congrats!

OKAY... must get back to work... I had nightmares last night about tomorrow's thesis reading (which might also be contributing to the headache) so I'd better get moving on it. I have a new shirt to wear for it, but I can't decide if it's too slinky or not! Decisions must be made.

Slight Distraction

I am in the throes of essay-writing (fifteen pages of eighteen complete, nearly there!!!) but thought I'd pause to offer you some distraction... Blackmore sent me this well-presented, well-articulated article which describes "the cure for information overload" ... pretty soon the cynical minds bred by MIT will be needed no more!

essay out!
me

ps ... random picture of Tycho to make you smile... it's from a couple of days ago... he woke up and saw that it was pouring rain outside, so he went where I can only presume he figured he'd be safest from the deluge:


pps - I'm listening to Sarah Harmer play a live cover of The Weakerthans' "Left & Leaving" on CBC Radio2... it's incredible. "All this time lingers undefined"

Well folks, it's been real.

Last night = the MIT grad party at the Thorny Devil, and it was a devil of a night. I'm so glad I was intimidated into going by this dude:

See? He's even shaking his fist! You don't say no to that kind of pressure. And it turned out to be a most fantabulous night, edging into the early hours of the morning, necessitating some rude roommate wake-up calls when we poured back into Woodward to top it all off with pizza and slurred name-calling...

BUT first, the night! There was laughter...

There were tears....


There was wild, hip-thrusting dancing...


There was duct tape...


There was even an impromptu lesson on how to tie a tie! All of our MIT knowledge came to a head. Our university has taught us well.




There was a Blackmore...

And a whole lotta shmoozing...


There was, of course, a megan and a derek... I think this picture pretty much sums up our friendship (my drunken displays of affection, his look of amusement/disgust)





I even leant him out to other people for photo shoots! Look, Laura even got him to smile in this one! I know, I can't believe it either.


MIT has been quite a ride... I can't decide exactly how I feel about it being basically over (except for stupid comic book class!)... it was strange, this whole "grad party" thing, meeting people I've had classes with for years but had never actually talked to, everyone feeling the pressure of the end, the "This Is The Very Last Time That..." kind of pressure... but I'm really glad someone organized it and all. it would have felt weird to wrap up that whole half of my degree with just the wheeze of a slowly-deflating balloon instead of the bang of a million firecrackers!

As evident in my fumbling metaphors, I need a nap. After a 4am bedtime I managed to turn up at the bookstore at noon for a fundraiser sort of event involving an electric razor and gord's head... pictures to follow. Tycho and I are both zombies today. It's funny how his whole schedule can get thrown off by our shenanigans... we obviously kept him awake last night when we got back from the party, and this morning, instead of poking me in the head at the crack of dawn until I got up to feed him, he slept like a log all smushed up against me in the blankets. When I nudged him awake he sort of tumbled down into his own little bed ont he floor and just sat there hanging his head and blinking... it was the cutest thing in the world.... now he's all bundled up in my duvet and I can hear him doing his usual sleep-whistle through his nose. Time for me to go join him for a power nap!

The caption possibilities are endless...

Old Zen joke.

Don't just do something! Sit there!!

Warning: Excessive cute factor!!!

Well, Tycho is still ticked off that I posted pictures about his basement exploits, so to make amends I promised to post the most handsome picture of him I could find.


LOOK AT HIS FUZZY LITTLE PAWS!!!!
ima gonna die

Also... new month = new pug on the calendar!


How could you NOT have a good day after looking at those two studs???

On a slow night.

So today I was rooting through piles of old papers (such things happen when essays press hot thumbs to my temples, steel fingers to my shoulders) and I came across something of TYCHO'S which he is very embarassed about and which I must obviously share. He did this all himself using the self-timer on my camera while the rest of us were at school. Clever little gaffer... sort of. Anyway he is giving me the cold shoulder since I found this stuff but it's too good. Also I was making fun of him today for whistling through his nose while he slept so it has not been a good day for the little guy. I'll make it up to him tomorrow. I have a secret stash of jingly balls in my snoopy lunch box and there is almost nothing he loves more than jingly balls.
So this appears to be a series of photos detailing Tycho's Great Basement Escape Plan...

Step One: when the door is open, take a few steps down and scope out the prospects... Careful observation is key... Watch for potential obstacles (ie Mother Megan)




































Step Two: Make your way carefully down the stairs, always on the look out for danger!









































Step Three: Make your way carefully across the floor! Keep your nose open... every backpack could be an enemy!























Step Four: If trouble should come upon you... the lacey curtain does NOT make a good hiding spot. Note: does NOT.



















Step Five: Run like hell!



















Step Six: Head immediately for a place with Distinct Difficutly Of Human Reach.























Step Seven: Once Great Basement Escape Plan has been completed, return to normal life, and act exceedingly interested in trivial things to avoid suspicion of humans.
























THE END

*****************

I'm wondering if it's true: does drinking the same kind of alcohol all the time make you sort of immune to it? This is my fourth Bacardi tonight and I hardly feel it. I think I am proving Derek's theory. Which is funny because the only reason I am proving it is because he's not here so I have no choice but to drink alone and no one to feel self-conscious in front of. I mean... no one in front of whom to feel self-conscious. And certainly no one to correct my grammar.

I did, however, watch a Woody Allen movie with Ben. Guy contemplating sperm donation in Hannah and Her Sisters:
"Well, I did give blood once. And, uh... clothing to the poor."

I should really be at a bar right now.

M O N T R E A L
I already have had one creative writing Concrodia student promising to buy me a beer during orientation week, and two current montrealers on the lookout for apartments for me... as well as several internet bookmarks for montreal housing sites.... and my mom has canvased her friends and gotten some good advice from parents of former montrealers, although said montrealers lived in a building that burnt down, so...... also I am having second thoughts about living alone. I guess this summer will teach me what it's like, but what if I don't like it and then it's too late? I have spent most of today imaging that the voices/thumps/clatters/MSN bleeps that echo through our house actually belong to strangers in a neighbouring apartment, in order to simulate the effect of complete isolation to see how it fits. The result: it's scary! At least I have Tycho. I wonder where he'll try to escape to when there's not more Woodward basement. What if that just takes the life out of him, not having a goal as distinct as scampering forward whenever he hears the basement door rattle? I will have to keep him stimulated somehow. This is going to take a LOT of jingly balls.

I'm listening to Metric right now...
"I wish we were farmers, I wish we knew how to grow sweet potatoes and milk cows." -Emily Haines (she goes on to say "I wish we were lovers" and the song obviously goes downhill from there.)

Lots of excellent essay writing happened today, hopefully that will carry on through tomorrow/Tuesday/Wednesday/etc all the way until next Thursday, when I hand in my thesis and thus complete all the writing (minus exams) of my undergraduate career. What a crazy thing.

Okay, one last thing before this gets ugly: A link brough to us by the nooner himself. bronwyn and adam, first kid you guys have I'm getting him these!