Dreamed of being in a space station and phoning home on earth.
Went shopping.
We finally did the July accounts for our used book business.
Dinner was halibut.
Saw the DVD of Ken Burns' documentary The Congress. His style is a bit gnomic. (How often do I use that word?)
A collector asked if I had any Dick Tracy comics to trade, so I emailed him a list. (I have about 90 to spare!) Unfortunately, just as I finished typing it up, there was a short blackout so I had to do it all again. &$@#*!
Dreamed of visiting a school and getting invited to a New Year's party, wanting to go but fearing that my family wouldn't understand.
Saw the DVD of Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket. Owen and Luke Wilson were pretty funny.
Wrote down a list of gaps in my collection of Dick Tracy Sunday comics.
Dinner was lasagna.
Saw Louis Malle's May Fools with Moira. It's a comedy about a French family coming together for a funeral in rural France at the time of the 1968 crisis. Droll enough, though its Bunuelesque turn was too silly.
Spent a lot of time reorganizing the comics. I now have quite a few items to resell.
Saw The Bells, a silent ghost story with Lionel Barrymore, and Boris Karloff as a hypnotist.
Dinner was roast chicken.
Later I saw The Vanishing American, a silent western from a Zane Grey book, with modern-day Indians as heroes.
We went to Yorkdale Mall and I got a new set of pajamas. Then I got a new watch at Zeller's.
Dinner was spaghetti.
Saw Jacques Demy's Model Shop at the Cinematheque. It was very '60s, and I couldn't sit through it. (I only went to see it because the documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself talked about how Demy brought a French perspective to the Los Angeles locations.)
Dreamed of a martial arts movie in which two champions were brought to an all-female realm to fight; not seeing the ending; meeting filmmaker Norman Jewison on his way to a movie premiere.
Today I read the story where Dick Tracy tangled with Laffy Smith (who owes something to the Joker) and Coffyhead.
We finally had some rain and a break from high temperatures.
Dinner was the rest of the stew.
Saw Fellini's Amercord ("I remember") again at the Cinematheque. It's an episodic comedy based on Fellini's memories of growing up in provincial Italy in the fascist period, highly stylized but very real. It's a wonderful movie, one of his best. It's about the fourth time I've seen it, but it still doesn't seem familiar.
Dreamed of waiting for a British double-decker bus outside Amherst, N.S.
Father is varnishing the dining room, so we can only get to the kitchen from outdoors.
Baked raisin bread.
Saw the last episode of the first season of Deadwood.
Went shopping.
The Dick Tracy reprint I read today had him up against Trigger Doom.
Joined the Common Room for dinner at the Pickle Barrel. There were 17 people there!
Dreamed that the plastic covers of some CD-ROMs of mine had melted away, leaving only bare discs.
Father generously gave me a cheque to bolster my account. (He says he'll pay my Visa bill too!)
Dinner was lamb stew.
Read the Dick Tracy reprint with Krome (of Crime Inc.) and Selbert Depool.
Went to a Chinese Meetup. I was explaining to a Chinese woman the English expression "Casting pearls before swine" and "Locking the stable door after the horse was stolen." I had some trouble explaining "superstition" to another one.
Moira went to Kingston again.
Went to an extra improv class to make up for the one I missed when I had the cold. The teacher talked a bit too much.
Dinner was pork chops.
Rented some more episodes of The Sopranos. The part about the New York gang conflicts is pretty complicated.
Read another Dick Tracy reprint with villains Yogee Yamma and Black Pearl.
Dreamed of reading my diary and seeing that I'd drawn facsimiles of comic strips as accurate as photocopies; the song "Runaway."
At today's improv class, when I was in a group improvising a story, our teacher Sandy called me "the curve ball"!
Dinner was McDonald's.
Read a reprint of Dick Tracy with the extortionist Itchy.
Saw three episodes of Deadwood. The part about arranging bribes for the territorial government was cynical in a funny way!
Dreamed of seeing a large tree uprooted in cold weather outside our old Sackville house.
Went to see Katherine at Mission: Possible (which has been renamed the Hawkins Institute). We developed a cover letter to include with job applications.
Finished Wuthering Heights. Compared to it, most novels look like functional trifles.
We saw the last episode of The First Churchills.
Dinner was salmon.
Went to the Karaoke Meetup. I sang "December 1963" for the first time. One guy did the Sid Vicious version of "My Way."
My bank account is down to $6.09. Looks like I'm busted.
Had an 11:50 appointment with Dr. Hassan, but I thought it was at 12:50. I was somewhat late.
Picked up some Terry & the Pirates comics at Dragon Lady. That's my last purchase there for a while.
Dinner was corn on the cob. (Moira baked a raspberry pie.)
Baked whole wheat bread.
Moira and I saw Louis Malle's Zazie dans le Metro at the Cinematheque. It's a very madcap Parisian comedy. The fire alarm stopped the movie close enough to the end that we didn't stay for the rest of it.
Had my last singing lesson for now with Giuseppe. I encouraged him to fill his Wednesday morning slot because I didn't know when I'd be back.
Father and I bundled the sawn back yard branches for collection tomorrow. There were half dozen bundles!
Dinner was chicken curry.
Saw Luis Bunuel's Los Olvidados (for the second time) at the Cinematheque. It's a classic portrait of juvenile delinquents in 1950s Mexico (or anywhere). They included a happy ending, which thankfully was never used.
Printed out my November diary entries.
Went shopping.
Moira and I joined Puitak and Gordon for a picnic in Woodbine Park. There was a thunderstorm just after we finished. There was something wrong with the corn I ate, and I got diarrhea shortly afterward.
Read some 1930 dailies of Frank Godwin's comic strip Connie. She could fly a plane and got into adventures in Washington and Hollywood.
Dreamed of being in a house with Father and hearing a suspicious pumping sound at night; going out and seeing a whole row of houses explode in fireballs; playing pinball.
We finished sawing the back yard branches.
Dinner was spaghetti.
Started typing up my diary entries from last November.
Dreamed of being interviewed for a role in the musical Evita(!); being warned not to be inside myself; the TV show Upstairs, Downstairs.
We drove down to Mimico again.
Dinner was roast chicken.
The last of my Ebay auction is over.
Dreamed of coming home to a house with no front yard between it and the sidewalk; the start of another day of a hectic vacation; the movie The Great Race.
Donald came over for dinner, which was takeout Chinese food.
Baked cheese bread overnight.
More sawing of back yard tree branches.
Moira taped the accompaniment for the Don Giovanni serenade for me. It's really tough to play.
We got four zip.ca DVDs on the same day!
Dinner was sausage and mashed potatoes.
I was going to go see Fellini's And the Ship Sails on... but I had too much of a headache and stayed home again.
Finished the second season of Six Feet Under.
Went to Dragon Lady and picked up some Prince Valiant, Terry & the Pirates and Lone Ranger comics.
Dinner was steak.
Father and I sawed some dead branches off the cherry and plum trees in the back yard.
Saw Marcel Carne's Le Jour Se Leve at the Cinematheque. Pretty cool.
Heathcliff on his wife Isabella: "If she desired to go, she might; the nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her!"--Wuthering Heights
At today's singing lesson we did the Don Giovanni Serenade. Giuseppe's score was different from mine.
Went shopping.
Dinner was McDonald's.
Tired singing the Don Giovanni serenade for the first time. A lot of high notes.
Dinner was salmon.
Saw Fellini Satyricon, a Roman epic based on Petronius Arbiter's fragmentary work. It was long, and even stranger than his 8 1/2.
I've finally decided to stop buying comic strips on Ebay. My money's running low.
It turns out that when I sing in my room, Moira can hear it in hers. (I thought the distance was too great.)
Dinner was corn on the cob, which the parents got in Markham when they were picking raspberries.
Spent a lot of time adding my latest acquisitions to the comics collection.
Saw the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom at the Royal. It's about New York schoolkids taking ballroom dancing courses, leading up to a big citywide competition. Cute kids.
Dinner was spaghetti.
Baked multigrain bread.
The improv class was doing gibberish exercises. It left me exhausted.
Dinner was churrasco chicken.
Rented some more episodes of The Sopranos.
Dreamed of being in a ship sailing inland from Halifax(?).
Dinner was fettucine (which I cooked).
I was going to see a French movie from the 1930s at the Cinematheque, but I wasn't up to going out.
Got some more Dick Tracy reprints.
Saw the DVD of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (for the third time). It's a handsome mess. This was the director's cut, and very long.
Dinner was chicken curry.
Under the weather again.
