Procrasti-post

oy oy my lovelies, sorry posting has been sporadic at best lately but y'all have to remember that it's crunch time in the land of students! When I haven't been writing/marking/researching, I've been sipping wine in fine jazz establishments and nodding my head appreciatively to an obscure and satisfying beat while my eyes narrow into self-satisfied slits. On Monday last week my friend Gwen was in town so I took her to Upstairs which is where M&M&C&V&I went for my birthday, and it turned out that there's a big difference between sitting in the back of the bar by the fish tank and sitting up at the front near the band.
Basic conversation:
Me: Is it too loud?
Gwen: WHAT?
Me: Too loud??
G: *lifting wine glass* Yeah, delicious!

Gwen hails from my Grey County days, where she was one of my many brilliant high school teachers and the one who catapulted me across the ocean to Rouen when I was in grade 11. Talking to her really made me homesick for the old Grey, if only because I miss living somewhere where virtually ever single person has some sort of two- or three-degree separation (at most) from everybody else. Kind of stifling when you're a teenager, but when you're submerged out here in a massive city of countless numbers, that kind of thing can really scream its absence.

Last night, after an epic journey to school for the Colloquium meeting (get your abstracts in, you English types!) and a satisfactory reward of fries and $2 beer, Claudine & I went to see Stuart McLean, which was incredibly, unbelievably good. I think a lot of it had to do with my whole big nostalgia trip about it all, but Claudine had a great time too, and she'd never even heard of him before! Anyway, it was just great... there was such a festive feeling about it all... and Stuart does a lot more hopping and spinning and hand-waving while he talks then you'd think from hearing him on CBC. I wanted to take him home with me so that I could prop him up in my kitchen and let him tell me stories all day long. The whole show lasted for almost three hours - who knew! On the radio it's only an hour long. It all happened in a massive theater where there were probably a thousand people... [warning: those of you on the Hancock family email circuit will already have heard this part]. Stuart had CDs to give away, so he said "one's for the youngest person here tonight, and one's for the oldest." Just from audience people shouting and waving, it was sorted out that the youngest person present was a five-month-old baby in the balcony and the eldest was a 97-year-old woman who was also in the balcony and who had the lungs to shout her love to Stuart, who blushed accordingly. I hope when I'm 97 I still go to shows like that too, and shout my undying love to CBC celebs without a bit of embarrassment!

Tomorrow night is my public reading... lots of things have to happen before that... such as essay finishing and laundry washing and beer drinking! s'gonna be crazy day.

Whenever I pick up a book (and many have been picked up recently, in the tornado-storm of my bedroom where an essay on feminist Indian literature is sputtering into being) I always read the acknowledgements first, planning, maybe, for when it's time to write my own acknowledgements in my own [first] book. There are some incredibly touching things said in the acknowledgements of otherwise boring blah-books about politics and such (I am tired of reading these books insted of reading novels), and such words add humanity to the stark pages; today I found one that I want to steal for myself. And I will! At the end of a long list of specific thank yous & gratitudes (this friend, that friend, my editor, my family, etc), the author wrote:

"A part of the self lies buried in every piece one writes. Thanks to all those who helped the other parts to endure."

*gasp*
I wonder if a part of my self is buried in this essay? Hopefully it's a part that I didn't really want anyway. Like the zit-making part. Or the always-losing-things part. Or the always-calling-long-distance-without-using-a-phone-card part. I never learn!


Here is a great song/creepy video to usher in the night.