"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says different is trying to sell something"--The Princess Bride
Dreamed of a boy from the 1970s British TV series Black Beauty having to outrun a fire in a tunnel; telling John how odd it was that John F. Kennedy's mother Rose Kennedy became an icon of American motherhood when by all serious accounts she was a terrible mother [I do think that]; climbing up to the flat asphalt roof of a large building and going dangerously close to the edge.
Saw Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride (for the second time) at the Revue. It was my last movie before the pass I won in that contest expired, for a total of 35 admissions saving $210. On the cute side. Robin Wright reminded me of sister Eve in the comic strip The Heart of Juliet Jones. There were a lot of kids there.
Started reading The Phantom in Menomonee Falls Gazette. It's an old-fashioned comic strip about a masked superhero in the (African?) jungle. For me it's a guilty pleasure.
Dinner was takeout Chinese food. I ate a bit too much and later got sick.
On Six Feet Under they had a funeral for someone with no friends or family and Brenda got to watch a hooker at work.
"The best way to find a needle in a haystack: burn the haystack"--Oz
And so to the New Year. My resolution is to do sit-ups every day. (That and maybe get out of bed earlier.) I plan to do it twice a day, so even when I weaken I'll do it once. [Didn't last long.]
Dreamed of playing Monopoly; a book about early fur trader Etienne Brule trying to start a colony in the future Ontario; entering a British railway station and not knowing which train to take; entering one train and seeing passengers in straitjackets; going to an opera (Billy Budd, which I've never seen) with my brother John, but being unable to find our tickets.
Read some Johnny Hazard adventures in my Menomonee Falls Gazette collection. (Frank Robbins was a clever writer, and an efficient artist.) I also started reading a Dragon Lady Press reprint of the superb Secret Agent X-9, one of several I bought in the post-Christmas sale at Dragon Lady Comics.
Saw Taylor Hackford's bio Ray at the Paradise. Unsubtle drama but great Ray Charles music. It was so long that I was late getting home for dinner, which was scalloped potatoes and ham.
Saw another episode of the prison drama Oz (I'm watching the whole second season on DVD). LL Cool J played a prisoner who claimed he'd sold crack to the state's loathsome governor.
Moira and I saw Maria Full of Grace at the Revue. (It was a special matinee for people with babies, so the place was a bit noisy.) It's a really powerful drama about a Colombian girl who flies to New York as a drug-smuggling "mule." The War on Drugs makes me angry!
Dinner was fettucine with pesto sauce (which I cooked).
Got another Menomonee Falls Gazette issue.
At choir practice we did the Weavers version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and Pietro Yon's "Giesu, Bambino." [After this entry I took a break from my diary, resuming in the New Year.]
"Most beliefs sound nutty if you think about them"--Modesty Blaise
Saw the first two episodes of Maurice Pialat's French miniseries The House in the Woods at the Cinematheque. It's about the family of the gamekeeper on a French Marquis' estate during World War I, including three Parisian refugee boys. Pretty good.
Headache!
Won 15 Menomonee Falls Gazette issues in the latest auction. (I wasn't expecting to win all of them! Hope the seller won't mind waiting a few weeks for the payment.)
Dinner was lasagna.
I've finished my story "Lessons," except for revisions.
"The river was deep and swift, and at night when it was very still you could hear it chuckling quietly to itself as it hurried by. But in the spring the chuckle grew to an angry roar, and the river rose higher in its banks and sometimes overflowed them, and snatched and tore at hen-coops and gates and woodpiles and carried them down with it"--The Clockwork Twin
Dreamed of crossing a brook near the quarry near our Sackville house; clearing away the damp snow that was clogging the brook's channel, and being swept away by the resulting flood.
Started another Freddy the Pig book, titled The Clockwork Twin.
Dinner was pork roast.
Hosted a Games Meetup at my house. Two people came: John, the video artist from the Geneva Centre group; and Greg, who knew about this Meetup from being a member. We played The Amazeing Labyrinth and Scrabble. It was a lot of fun.
Closing lines of Eastern Condors: "Fuck America! God Damn America!" "Where will you go if the plane arrives?" "To America."
"A hero must rise from his sofa. The biggest zombie comedy in British history"--trailer for Shaun of the Dead
Dinner was steak.
Dreamed of our Sackville cottage; walking on my knees on the sidewalk.
Saw the punk rock documentary The Ramones: End of the Century (for the second time) at the Royal with Moira. It was the first time I used my prize pass, which I can do for two at Festival cinemas. Still fascinating.
On the bus on the way there, we were talking to a couple of Mormon elders who also spoke Spanish. (I resisted the temptation to say, "One of the only things I believe in is not being Mormon.") During their two-year ministries, they don't even read newspapers!
Stayed for Colin Geddes' Kung Fu Fridays presentation Eastern Condors. It starred Sammo Hung, the plus-size Jackie Chan, as the Man of Few Words in a Deer Hunter-Rambo type adventure involving a guerrilla mission in Vietnam. Enjoyably artless subtitles like "Nonsense, masturbator!"
"As Mary said that, Lyra felt something strange happen to her body. She felt as if she had been handed the key to a great house she hadn't known was there, a house that was somehow inside her, and as she turned the key she felt other doors opening deep in the darkness, and lights coming on"--The Amber Spyglass
Dreamed of using a computer and not knowing how to shut it down.
Went shopping.
Dinner was chicken curry.
At the drama class Ettie and I improvised a scene in Frankenstein's lab, bringing the monster to life. We also improvised a scene in a grocery store where I played an unbalance shoplifter who ended up doing a dance for the TV news camera that arrived at the scene!
Saw the first episode of the serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars. It has something to do with Ming the Merciless uniting with the Queen of Mars to steal all the nitron from the earth's atmosphere for use in their war against the Clay People...
"Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit.... And then someone passed me a bit of some sweet stuff and I suddenly realized I had been to China. So to speak. And I'd forgotten it"--The Amber Spyglass
Saw the DVD of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of The Pod People (for the second time).
Dinner was spaghetti.
At the start of my writing class I suddenly figured out how to end my story.
The "Marzipan" chapter in The Amber Spyglass is phenomenal!
Dreamed of recounting the detailed story of my triumph against crooks on a cruise ship. (Comic strip heroine Modesty Blaise was also involved.)
Met Puitak and Gordon in the morning and we visited the Royal Winter Fair. I got some P.E.I. sample potatoes, as usual, and a sticky Mennonite loaf.
Dinner was roast chicken.
Baked raisin bread. Unfortunately, the loaf came out small again.
At the choir we did two new songs: Brahms' Lullaby as an Italian Christmas carol, and Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." Unfortunately, the latter was poorly photocopied and us baritone-basses couldn't see our notes for the last part.
"Let's have a row, but could we please have a quiet row?"--The Entertainer
"It's destroyed my garden! I'll never forgive that monster!"--Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
John and crew came over for lunch to celebrate Merle's birthday (a week late). We had a vegan birthday cake.
Saw Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah at the Cinematheque. (I considered seeing Before Sunrise instead, but I chose action over talk.) There was a time machine that took the heroes back to a World War II battle in the Pacific, so there was one American naval officer saying to another, "Tell it to your son after he's born, Major Spielberg." In this one, Godzilla was up against a three-headed dragon.
Donald came over for dinner, which was takeout churrasco chicken.
Saw the DVD of Tony Richardson's film of John Osborn's play The Entertainer (for the second time). Osborn's plays have dated, but Laurence Olivier is brilliant as music-hall performer and desperate sneak Archie Rice. (The first time I put on stage makeup for the opera group, when I looked in a mirror I reminded myself of him.)
The Mangler: "First thing to do is get some travel folders. Those nice, crisp green ones!"--Rip Kirby
Pagan Lee (losing Rip to the thrill of Montana prospecting): "I hope he drops the shovel on his foot! Amy, darling, never forget that men were created to light our cigarettes and open car doors! Beyond that, they're a total loss!"
Fagin to Oliver Twist: "If you keep on like today, you'll end up the greatest man of all time"
Read an old Rip Kirby comic book.
Saw the DVD of Carol Reed's Dickens musical Oliver! for the first time since I was a kid. I still love it. What really makes it work is the empathy Shani Wallis brings to the role of Nancy.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Went to a Karaoke Meetup at the Gladstone Hotel. There was one other guy there. The place was crowded! In two hours I had time for only two songs ("Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Ring of Fire"). Naturally, I didn't stay for a third.
"There was a strange sound, like the murmur and crackle you hear before you realize that what you're hearing is your house on fire"--The Amber Spyglass
Went shopping.
Went to see Gail at Mission: Possible, but she was out.
Dinner was roast beef.
Saw the original Godzilla at the Cinematheque. I would have liked more Godzilla. (I could almost see the outline of the stuntman inside the rubber monster suit!
"When an Arab sees a woman that he wants, he takes her!"--The Sheik
"Out of here, first born of a mule!"--Son of the Sheik
Dreamed of walking from the freeway to the subway and getting caught in the rain while waiting for the lights to change; participating in a marathon walk in London named for the Manchester United soccer team.
Saw the DVD of the silents The Sheik and Son of the Sheik. Corny Hollywood hokum, of course. Rudolph Valentino had a face like an exclamation mark.
Dinner was halibut.
Brought my Apples to Apples game to the Geneva Centre group. We had a lot of fun with it.
Got narrowly outbidden on a set of 13 Menomonee Falls Gazette issues, but I felt relieved. (I've been spending too much on Ebay...)
Dreamed of a couple of people sneaking into the garage of our Sackville house at night to tap into our Internet connection and upload pornography; a movie being filmed at a mall in Moncton; John and I visiting Moncton; a topless woman alone on a beach.
Dinner was spaghetti.
It turns out that the Indigo Books place has 600 job applications!
At the drama class I impersonated a 14-year-old and got into a confrontation with a bigger kid.
Saw the DVD of Stella Maris, a silent with Mary Pickford in two roles: a sheltered rich girl and a homely orphan. (They used early split-screen effects in a couple of shots!) An oddly masochistic melodrama.
Dinner was fettucine with pesto sauce (which I cooked).
At the writing class I recited the first part of my story, and it went over well. The teacher things it may be publishable!
"And it was worse than that. It was as if he'd said, 'No, don't kill me, I'm frightened; kill my mother instead; she doesn't matter, I don't love her,' and as if she'd heard him say it, and pretended she hadn't so as to spare his feelings, and offered herself in his place anyway because of her love for him. He felt as bad as that. There was nothing worse to feel"--The Amber Spyglass
Dreamed of performing the West Side Story number "When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way."
Dinner was chicken curry.
At the choir we did the new songs "Bethlehem Wind" and (gak!) "White Christmas."
Dreamed of seeing an obituary of my actual acting teacher Roxanne(?).
Headache!
Dinner was McDonald's.
Saw the DVD of Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley, a silent comedy with Mary Pickford as a tenement washer-woman who gets introduced to upper-class society.
Saw the Sopranos episode where Tony lent Artie money for a venture capital scheme.
I was going to see a documentary about the Cambodian holocaust at the Cinematheque, but decided I wasn't up to it.
Dreamed of hearing a John Kerry rally awaiting the results of the upcoming election. (They sounded like he was winning.)
Saw Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush yet again, at the Cinematheque. Unfortunately, it was the 1942 re-release version with a lame sound narration in place of the titles. (The titled silent version, hard to find, is better.)
I won a two-month pass to Festival Cinemas! (I'd won a contest in which I figured out that the still published in their previous schedule was of Stanley Tucci in The Terminal.) It's a pass for two, so Moira will be able to use it too.
Dinner was the rest of the stew.
Saw the DVD of The Beloved Rogue, a silent movie with the great John Barrymore as Francois Villon, the thief-poet of Renaissance Paris. It was pretty fun.
Saw Charlie Chaplin's The Kid at the Cinematheque, for the third time. It still brings me to tears. They also showed The Pilgrim, where he plays an escaped convict masquerading as a preacher.
I've just about finished reading a pile of thirty Menomonee Falls Gazette issues. Steve Canyon is lame, but Mary Perkins On Stage is well written.
Dreamed of watching a movie on TV; someone turning off the set; then when it was turned back on, being unable to find the channel the movie was on.
Didn't get out of bed till after 13:00.
Under the weather. (Glad the drama class was cancelled this week.)
Dinner was salmon.
Saw the DVD of Daddy Long-Legs, a silent movie with Mary Pickford as an orphan girl with an unknown benefactor. The orphanage scenes were really funny.
Dreamed of Moira giving me a costume for a party as Dict Tracy's spy enemy the Brow; seeing that the indoor swimming pool on the Mount Allison campus was now an outdoor pool.
Saw the DVD of John Hughes' Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a 1980s teenage comedy with Matthew Broderick playing hooky from high school. Pretty goofy.
Dinner was pork steak.
At the writing class, I got stuck on my story. But by the end I'd figured out how to move forward.
Dreamed of going back in time to the late spring of 1982 (when I was briefly living in Toronto), and reading of a movie I had no memory of. (I was already keeping close track of movies then.)
I was late for my appointment with Dr. Hassan because I thought it was the next day.
Moira returned from Kingston.
Dinner was shepherd's pie.
At the choir, we spent most of the time on "Goin' Home" again. When we did "The Little Drummer Boy" Giuseppe relied on me to keep the other baritone-basses strong with the prum-prums.
This week the dance class was quickstep and foxtrot. (That's what the others wanted.) They kept playing "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing," over and over and over ad nauseam. I don't think I'm right for this course.
Spread the compost over the garden.
Dinner was the rest of the lasagna.
Saw the Verdi opera La Traviata at the North York Centre for the Performing Arts. It's a classic opera, especially good in the first act.
Dreamed of a "Dick and Jane" type school reader (with all the visual details labelled) about a suicidal woman who meets a couple of dwarfs; trying to find the stop button on an unfamiliar VCR; visiting the Mt. Allison campus and noticing that the chapel had been replaced with a new building in a Disney-medieval style.
Got an Australian comic with a Rip Kirby story.
Went shopping.
Dinner was lasagna.
There was going to be a Comics Meetup but it got rescheduled.
Dreamed of filming a remake of Moby-Dick, where they added a youthful son of Captain Ahab as an extra character, except that the studio changed him to a daughter so they could cast Gwyneth Paltrow.
Didn't get out of bed till after 13:00. (It's the extra warm blanket I put on a couple of days ago.)
Dinner was roast beef.
There were a dozen people at the Geneva Centre group! We met a new supervisor called Eunice.
At the drama course, Patricia and I decided against doing the scene from The Glass Menagerie. (My photocopy was a page short.) Instead we're trying a scene from a Tennessee Williams play titled Moony's Kid Don't Cry. I performed my monologue from Bethune, which took a couple of weeks to memorize. It went over pretty well. A couple of new students came in from the Burnhamthorpe school's class, which had too few to continue.
Dreamed of a paint store where the pain was stored on brushes(?); insisting that Ronald Reagan was a despicable president [that's still my opinion]; the march from Prokofiev's The Love of Three Oranges; the Woodstock concert.
Got several Menomonee Falls Gazette issues (from Jerome Sinkovec, the guy who originally published it!) and a publication featuring the best comic strips from 1958. [The pic above is a scan I just made for this blog!]
Headache.
Went to the dentist for a checkup.
At the writing class I enlarged my story somewhat. Some of the students are quite talented.
Dreamed of reading a magazine with a feature on a TV show, including several stills of the Filipina star topless; spending a long period at our old cottage near Sackville and getting sick of it.
Dinner was fish.
At the chorus, we sung a new song: the spiritual "Goin' Home," with the melody from the largo movement of Dvorak's New World Symphony.
"You think I'm drunk, but I've only had tee martoonis"--Dean Martin in The Rat Pack
Dreamed of trying to write poems whose first lines were palindromes; a Mormon sect declaring Marlon Brando their great prophet and exhuming an earlier leader's remains to remove his ring so Brando could wear it; having a balcony seat in a really huge theatre and developing a fear of heights; the song "Lullaby of Broadway."
Saw the musical play The Rat Pack at the Canon. It's a fun show with three actors impersonating Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., singing classic songs and telling corny jokes. Too bad that Davis is rather impossible to impersonate. (When they made him, they broke the mold!)
Dinner was turkey and mushroom soup on toast.
Saw the Sopranos episode where Meadow started volunteering at a legal aid clinic.
The dance class was teaching foxtrot and quickstep. Unfortunately, they're teaching international figures and my background is in American.
Dinner was fettucine (which I cooked).
Finally got my whole Bethune monologue rememorized for performing at the next drama class. [It describes a fascist air raid on the refugee-filled port of Malaga in the Spanish Civil War.]
Went to the SCRIPT party at a house a few blocks northwest of St. Clair & Dufferin. (It was a week later than I thought.) They were playing a videocassette with footage of Toronto streetcars and subway trains from 50 or 100 years ago. I only stayed for about an hour.
Got some more Menomonee Falls Guardian issues and a large number of comics clipped from the Gazette.
Dinner was ham.
Hosted the Asperger's Meetup at my house. Wayne from the Geneva Centre was the only person who came. He's a visual designer, and he brought a portfolio of his designs. I opened up the box for The Amazing Labyrinth for the first time, and we played a few games. We went online and I showed him the webpage for the Graphic Designers Meetup. (The Toronto branch has hundreds of members.) I hope he brings his wife to a future meeting.
"'Tell me now, then,' said Will. 'And remember, it's no good telling me what I should do--none of it matters to me, none. Only Lyra matters, and my mother. And that,' he added to Balthamos, 'is the point of all this metaphysical speculation, as you called it'"--The Amber Spyglass
Dreamed of reading in either The Globe and Mail or The National Post that there were going to start carrying the comic strip Rick O'Shay (which folded back in the '70s); trying to find the newspaper section that mentioned it; a sports team turning into a choir to sing the coach's favourite song; a movie with Frankie Muniz helping out an unlucky fellow teenager.
Got a whole shear of Menomonee Falls Guardian issues (just for Popeye and Alley Oop) and a Rick O'Shay paperback.
Saw the documentary Broadway: The Golden Age at the Carlton. It consisteed of interviews with a lot of famous Broadway actors (Carol Channing, Julie Harris etc.) remember the fertile period between 1945 and the late 1960s. Conventional but interesting.
Got one issue of Menomonee Falls Gazette and one issue of Menomonee Falls Guardian.
At the drama class we worked on skits where we insulted each other. We also tried out scenes. Patricia and I did a scene from Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, but she had most of the lines. Ditto a scene from Neil Simon's Chapter Two. Next week we're going to try one from The Glass Menagerie, between Laura and the Gentleman Caller.
Got a Menomonee Falls Gazette issue (well, half of one).
Dinner was turkey pie.
Dreamed of walking into central London.
At the creative writing class, I started writing a story about a Chinese girl based on my friend Puitak. I read it to some other students and they really liked it.
Put a couple of Menomonee Falls Gazette issues up for sale on Ebay. (I have duplicate copies of them.)
Dreamed of waking up early on a cold morning and walking through the streets in my pyjamas; going to see an early-morning showing of the movie The French Lieutenant's Woman (in a special edit only 45 minutes long!) before going to school; trying to get my things in order, and looking for a big apple; a crooked group constructing a multistorey building just east of our Sackville house, then stopping construction; the unfinished building falling into the nearby quarry.
The parents returned from Kingston.
Donald, John, Kathrine and Rae came over for Thanksgiving dinner, including turkey.
Went to a Chinese Meetup at the Futures Bakery. (Because it was a holiday, there was no choir practice.) There were five people there, less than usual because of the holiday.
Finished The Bad Beginning, and started reading The Amber Spyglass.
"I'll be your faithful love!" "I'll be your faithful love!" "I'll be faithful... enough"--women fight over the new, improved Shrek
Saw Shrek 2 at the Bloor. Quite inspired, with a sharp subtext about commercial culture catering to our need for superficial improvements.
Bought a new volume for my diary entries. (I thought of taking a break from the time I fill my current book till the end of the year--a couple of months--but thought of all the interesting stuff in my current life that wouldn't get written down.) [I did end up taking a break of about 40 days.]
Dinner was Arby's.
Finished writing down the tune I was dreaming the other night, at the end of this book.
Saw the Sopranos episode where Junior went on trial, Bobby lost his wife and Ralph dumped Rosalie, only to be dumped by Janice.
Dreamed of finding the spot on a highway where Sammy Davis Jr. got into the (actual) car crash that cost him one of his eyes; visiting Britain for a day to join Margaret and Moira on a visit to a rural castle.
The parents went to Kingston.
Saw the DVD of the first episodes of the second season of South Park. Thin.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Nobody showed up for my Games Meetup, which I had a feeling would happen. (Thanksgiving weekend isn't a good time.) But several people who couldn't come expressed interest in next month's event.
So I went out to a party for the SCRIPT volunteers, but the lights didn't seem to be on. (It was probably the same with them.)
"The book was long, and difficult to read, and Klaus became more and more tired as the night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would close. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over"--Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning
Dreamed of getting up and going out into the streets, trying to find Mother; going to see some Gilbert & Sullivan operettas staged by Giuseppe Macina [who directed the operas I was in], but not staying for long; being about to leave on a trip, but being hardly prepared.
We had a devil of a time faxing a statement to zip.ca about the DVDs that got lost in the mail after I returned them.
Went to find Mind Games in Eaton Centre and bought playing cards and the game Apples to Apples.
Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham.
Saw the DVD of Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, a documentary of Traudl Junge remembering being Hitler's secretary in the last years of the Third Reich. Fascinating.
Dreamed of bicycling from one end of my hometown Sackville to the other; coming to hills so steep that I had to walk my bicycle up them.
Started The Bad Beginning, the first of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events books. (It arrived at the library the day after I put a hold on it!)
Went shopping.
Dinner was spaghetti.
Baked rye bread (now that I'm resupplied with rye flour).
There were three new people at the Geneva Centre group. I plugged my Games and Aspergers Meetups.
Afterward I went to the Karaoke Meetup at Billy Bob's near the Jane station. There were four people, including my friend Anthony from the Geneva Centre. I sang "Can't Help Falling in Love," Wake Me up Before You Go-Go," "Ring of Fire," "A Groovy Kind of Love," and "Let's Dance."
Dreamed of the comic strip Modesty Blaise; renting the video of a non-existent movie titled The Hill, starring Rod Steiger and set in early-20th century Ireland; realizing I was about to get the DVD of the same movie from zip.ca; the Clint Eastwood musical Paint Your Wagon (which I've never seen); a non-existent chorus girls' number from it about Alka-Seltzer with the melody from the opening number of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor; my hands being sticky from holding a glazed doughnut.
Went to the doctor and got my blood level checked.
Finally finished reading You Must Remember This.
Borrowed The Amber Spyglass, the last of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. (I almost walked out without signing it out! Fortunately, nobody noticed.)
Got what potatoes I could from the garden.
Dinner was steak (and some of the spuds I dug up).
There were almost 20 people at the drama course! We did stuff like a master-slave game where the master gives orders to the slave and can make him die if he isn't happy with him. When I was master I ended up making myself die!
Then we did a scene where someone plays an expert on a subject which everyone else asks him questions about, and he answers them all as if he knew all about it. I played an expert on the sociocultural significance of Archie comics. They were rolling on the floor!
Dreamed of getting a big batch of magazines and trying to sort them out; Teresa Heinz Kerry asking me to take her hand as she walked somewhere; being unable to find an empty seat at a big assembly celebrating some woman's triumph; the Australian comic strip Air Hawk (which I've been reading in Menomonee Falls Gazette).
We did the September book accounts. It was a pretty good month with over $300 profit.
Got a handful of carrots out of the garden. For some reason, the soil is like cement again this year.
Dinner was salmon.
Went to the first class in my Creative Writing: Fiction and Non-Fiction course. The teacher, James Cohen, used to write for Saturday Night Live and has sold a script about a lawyer with a gambling problem handling a big case. (He says it's like The Verdict with a younger hero.) We did a writing exercise where I wrote a short description of Mother.
Dreamed of having a left arm muscle much bigger than my right; taking the streetcar into Mississauga, then finding it had gone north so I had to change to a southbound bus.
Submitted a job application to Indigo Books, along with my CV. (I'm so overqualified, I hope they don't think I'm an investigative reporter out to write an expose of their working conditions!)
Bought the latest Cinematheque tickets. I didn't get as many as usual because of so many conflicts. I'm seeing none of the Sam Fuller movies and none of the silents, but most of the Godzilla movies were available.
Then I bought a ticket to Opera Atelier's Don Giovanni production next month, and chess and backgammon sets and The Amazing Labyrinth for my Games Meetup Saturday. I'm spending my wages before I earn them!
Got two dozen Menomonee Falls Gazette issues!
Dinner was scalloped potatoes and ham.
The chorus sang multilingual versions of "O Holy Night" and "Silent Night."
Dreamed of hearing of a big scandal in England and realizing that one of the women involved was someone I knew; being sure of her innocence.
Saw the Canadian Opera Company's production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at the Hummingbird Centre. A rather drab production, though I liked the snowflakes in the last scene. (Our version [the Toronto City Opera production where I'd sung in the chorus early that year] actually had a fancier look!)
Dinner was spaghetti.
After bidding on about eight Menomonee Falls Gazette items, I lost out on all of them. (I was kind of relieved, since most of them were very high-priced.) I did win a big batch of Menomonee Falls Guardian issues, for about $1 apiece, and a paperback of Rick O'Shay Sunday comics.
Saw the Sopranos episode where Christopher became an acting capo, and Adrianna found herself trapped into informing.
"I'm the only one who knows Van Meer is still alive. That's the reason they want to kill me." "I can think of others..."--Foreign Correspondent
"An accident must befall him!"--Gunpowder, Treason and Plot
Went to the dance class at the Overland Learning Centre. The place took a while to find, and I was 15 minutes late. Genny is also taking the course. (I should have known!) [Genny is someone I knew from my year taking dance lessons at the Arthur Murray studio in Kingsway.]
Picked up an employment application at Indigo Books at Yonge & Eglinton.
Cooler weather has arrived.
Dinner was boiled ham.
Saw the second half of the TV drama Gunpowder, Treason and Plot, dealing with James I and Guy Fawkes. Still a little much.
Saw Alfred Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent (for the second time) on one of the videos we bought. It's a paranoid variation on the "innocent abroad" theme, and remarkably uneven: some parts are gripping, others just goofy. [It didn't help that the movie was filmed on the eve of World War II, and producer Walter Wanger kept ordering changes to make sure it would stay up to date.]
