Boyfriends, Girlfriends, Old Friends

Currently: half watching Love Actually, half waiting for Jen & Mark to arrive!!! Things I have baked/cooked/stirred today: chocolate chip banana muffins, pumpkin whoopie pies, chili (all on my kitchen table), and several vodka high balls (all in my stomach). I just watched the bit in Love Actually where the secret orchestra stands up and plays an impromptu "Love Is All You Need" for the bride & groom. Note to my future Best Man, if I happen to know him already (I'm fairly certain I already know my Best Lady): BIG points for arranging the very same thing at my "someday" wedding! If Keira Knightely gets it, why not moi? I don't care about originality... I just want four trumpeters sitting in a row behind the groom's family waiting for their cue! I guess I also want a groom who I'll love until my last day, but that much is already factored into the fantasy. If I know my future groom already: look out! You're in for one giant wedding bill!!!! But won't it be worth it? I mean, come on! IMPROMPTU TRUMPETERS! (plus: super awesome bride!!!!)

Today was an exceptionally beautiful day in Montreal... high-definition sunlight angling between the buildings, which I happen to know because I went downtown to meet a friend for lunch. (Aside to Bronwyn and Adam: there is a Zyng restaurant right beside Concordia! I can't believe I never noticed it before! I was just walking down the street, saying "damn, it's too bad that Zyng is all the way down at St. Denis cuz that would be the perfect place to go!" and then WHOOOO there as a Zyng right in front of us! AND THEY HAVE A LUNCH SPECIAL! FOR SEVEN DOLLARS!!! There was a beam of dusty sunlight and the hum of angels... definitely a divine intervention on my lunch plans)

Radio Announcer: Best shag you ever had?
Billy Mack: Brittany Spears.
RA: Really?!
BM: No, I'm just kidding. She was rubbish.

Okay, what else.... got a massive inspiration today for a potential submission to the next Delirium Press line of chapbooks. It was the fall-on-your-knees-and-be-grateful kind of inspiration that came somewhere between the old Stanley Street bookshops and the wheeze of the 24 Sherbrooke bus. The Dilirium deadline is sometime in December so I'll need to reel off a masterpiece in the next couple of weeks to give me enough time for acceptable proofreads. Although I guess that if it's a masterpiece, the proofreading is only for show. (not to say that I don't value you, oh valuable proofreaders!)

Movie update: now comes the scene with the Norah Jones Turn Me On song ... I seriously need to get that song. Someday.

Today, whilst milling about on my own downtown, not quite feeling up to returning home to face TA planning, I wandered around the Stanley St bookshops near Concordia. I started with Chapters and harassed my friend Kasper for a while, who just got hired a couple of weeks ago so he's still all green and diligent. The instant I mentioned a book he was looking it up and telling me what floor it was on! that's service. He was all about straightening and shelving and dusting! Made me feel homesick for my old digs at the UWO store where my dear London family is currently toiling with the pre-Christmas, post-midterm crowd. I sashayed over to the used bookstores after that, which is where I picked up The True History of the Kelly Gang (which I've wanted to read for quite a while...). Who knows when I'll get to it. I just finished Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll, which turned out to be a very philosophical mind game that kept me preoccupied during all the blank moments of a day: bus riding, elevator waiting, sleep building (thanks to Stephen Cribar, my all-time favourite boss/friend/recommender of good books). I still have D's Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance to ponder through (don't think I've forgotten!), which I'm even more excited about now that my philosophical appetite is whetted! (whet? Whetted? why???)

Love Actually is about to reach that moment that is probably one of my favourites in the movie, where the poor wretched Best Man is hating himself out in the street while the Dido song is playing. I think it's a crazy girl moment - we all want to have a boy writhing over us in an alley somewhere with Dido playing in the background. Admit it! We do!!! It's awful, but soooo true! That's what makes this movie so great, and so hated by 99% of the population. It sums up the so-called "romantic crisis" of the privileged upper-middle-class of our place & time! As for the movie at this moment, I just want to yell at the guy. Dude, Keira Knightley is waiting for you in your friggin living room! How wretched do you have to be???

I hope no one reading this who has thought highly of me until now suddenly changes their mind about my intellectual credibility because of my weakness for romantic comedy. I'm still the same person I was to you yesterday! Remember that! Dear god, remember!!!

JENnMARK in less than one hour!!!!