January 26, 2006

At work I moved folders into new drawers.  Marnie, my job coach, is getting on my nerves. (She's a micromanager:  for example, she told me to apply deodorant five times under each armpit!)

Went shopping.

Baked whole wheat bread.

Dinner was lamb stew.

Saw the DVD of Otello, Franco Zeffirelli's movie of Verdi's opera of Shakespeare's play, starring Placido Domingo.  Great play, great opera, so-so movie.

January 25, 2006

At work I filed a bunch of stuff that was mostly payroll info.  I managed to finish just before quitting time.

My rhythms are still adjusting to early rising.  I almost fell asleep in the bathtub! [I could have chosen an afternoon job, but I preferred mornings.]

Dinner was chicken lasagna.

We had a run-through of the Suor Angelica opera.  Along with the other men, I was only needed for the finale.

Finally had an evening when I could turn in relatively early.

Left writing this day's diary entries to the next day.

January 24, 2006

"The way that the mams coped with their husbands and the children was the gist of many episodes of The Donna Reed Show, and even that was different.  The mams were the smart ones.  They needed to be smart and cunning to take care of things and make the husband feel like he was in charge when he really wasn't in charge at all"--A Great Feast of Light

At work I finished yesterday's task and filed some first aid certificates and tuition reimbursements.  The morning went really quickly. (Marjorie's from Guyana.)

Bushed.  I ended up napping in the afternoon.

Dinner was fish.

We did a complete run-through of the opera The Elixir of Love.

January 23, 2006

Dreamed of wearing a moustache.

Went to the Reference Library in Rosedale for the first day of my new job.  Marjorie is quite a considerate supervisor.  I started out alphabetizing a pile of job appraisals, then filing them in folders.  By the end of my first day, I was up to the letter "P" already.  They're surprised how fast I am.

Got another big load of comic strips from Barry King, including a lot of Prince Valiants.

Dinner was spaghetti.

At choir practice we did two more numbers from The Seven Last Words of Christ.

Afterward I went to the Paul Summerville campaign's election night party.  Well, it looks like we gained a couple of points in the popular vote.

January 22, 2006

Spoiled celebrity: "Please don't try to minimize my severe depression!  I would never do that to you"--Six Feet Under

Dreamed of the Canadian boy scout handbook.

Baked white bread.

Went bowling with a Linkup group at Danforth Bowl.  We played a couple of games of five-pin, and I'm really good at it.  I won the first game by a street, and managed two strikes.  Unfortunately, the place left me with a headache for hours afterward. (I'll have to take the parents five-pin bowling sometime, after I've learned how the scoring works.)

Dinner was McDonald's.

Sent Sharhal a list of the 22 extra Terry and the Pirates Sundays I have to trade with him.

On Six Feet Under Claire decided to go all the way with Mena Suvari; Rico's wife found out about his "sugar daddy" relationship. [With that first story, Alan Ball played much the same tease game he played in American Beauty--same actress, even!]

January 21, 2006

Young girl (talking about the time since her mother's death): "In some ways it seems longer"--The White Countess

(Do real kids talk like that?)

Dreamed of an (imaginary) episode of the comic strip On Stage involving a society hostess and a former servant of hers who's become rich and fears a grudge against her; an (actual) episode of the 1970s detective show Cannon about a young man out to bring down his criminal older brother with the help of a blind friend.

The parents and I saw James Ivory's The White Countess at Bayview Village. (I saw it just because the setting interests me:  the foreign community in Shanghai just before World War II.) It was an overlong disappointment, one of Ivory's misses.  Natasha Richardson had a nice smile, but Ralph Fiennes was miscast.

Afterward, we ate at Swiss Chalet.

January 20, 2006

Mahatma Gandhi speech: "When I was young I was taught that God is truth, but today I have learned that truth is God"--Water

Dreamed of an algebraic puzzle involving a sum of fractions including y/237.

Today I did another NDP leaflet drop along Pinewood Avenue and Humewood Drive. (Before that, I tried an area with several apartment buildings but mostly couldn't figure out how to get into them.)

Dinner was roast chicken.

Saw Deepa Mehta's Water at the Varsity VIP section with the Movie Meetup.  It's about the treatment of widows in India, and very critical of tradition.  A terrific movie:  sad, angry and powerful.

January 19, 2006

Dreamed of the I.R.A. unsuccessfully training elephants to detonate bombs.

Dropped some campaign literature in the area around Rushton Road.  Glad I don't have to do it every day.

Dinner was halibut.

Started reading A Great Feast of Light, John Doyle's memoir of growing up in Ireland in the 1960s when TV was new.  He's a good storyteller.

Went to the new year's first Geneva Centre meeting, where we made a schedule for the coming months.  On February 16 they'll be going to the Ontario Science Center to see the plastinated corpses.  It's just as well that it's the same night when I'm going to hear a Robert Towne lecture at the Cinematheque. (That exhibit creeps me out, and I haven't even gone to it!)

January 18, 2006

Went shopping.  We also went and got my digital camera exchanged, because something was wrong with the battery connection.

Went to the Hawkins Institute to thank them all for their efforts now that the new job is mine.  Only a few people were in.

Finished reading Lynne Truss' Talk to the Hand, about the decline of manners in today's world.  It's a bit of a bellyache.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Saw the last of the DVDs of the fourth and fifth seasons of Oz.  I'm tempted to call it the greatest American TV drama series ever. [I hadn't seen The Wire yet...]

January 17, 2006

Dreamed of being approached to act in a porno movie; moving into a new house in downtown Glasgow, Scotland [I lived in Glasgow for a year in my twenties]; entering the place where coal was stored and finding old telephone books instead; attending Adolf Eichmann's trial and not wanting to stick around; not feeling like reading Classics Illustrated comic books.

At the NDP campaign office, Chris paid for Darren and me to have lunch at Harvey's again. Darren thinks we have a chance!

Katherine told me the details about my new job.  I'll start on Monday and work mornings at the reference library in Rosedale.

Dinner was shepherd's pie.

We did a complete runthrough of the opera The Elixir of Love.

Baked multigrain bread overnight.

January 16, 2006

Went to the NDP campaign office in the morning.  There was hardly anybody there.  I entered several of the sign and volunteer slips into the database.

Voted in the advance poll.  It was surprisingly easy. (They didn't even ask for my ID!)

Dinner was takeout Chinese food. We ordered special fried rice and Cantonese chow mein, as usual, but instead of curry chicken and almond gai ding we got orange beef and coconut chicken.  My fortune said "A joyous heart maketh for long life."

At choir practice we did a song called "Lu Piante de le Fojie" (Lament of the Falling Leaves), as well as "Mare Nostre" and "Amara Terra Mia." We also started Theodore Dubois' oratorio "The Seven Last Words of Christ" again.

January 15, 2006

Dreamed of coming to attend a church, and being outraged that the literature available to the public included a pamphlet from a Christian group opposing GLBT rights.

Went to the Book Club Meetup at the Bow and Arrow, except I could only stay for half an hour. (I hadn't read the book anyway.) But I did have an interesting discussing about the Robert Frost poems "Mending Wall" and "The Road Not Taken." I recited the latter and got a round of applause.

Next I went to a Chinese Meetup at the Starbucks in the Chapters at Bayview Village.  Only a couple of people came.  The organizer will probably switch to Meetin or Linkup.

Moira made paella for dinner. (Afterward I sneaked out to McDonald's.)

On Six Feet Under Claire and her art school classmates got stone and acted like the wankers they are.

January 14, 2006

"Forgive me for saying so, Reverend, but God is a sick fuck!"--Oz

We did the used-book sales accounts for the end of 2005.  Most of our profit was from my Ebay sales.

Went to my first Salsa Meetup. Over a dozen people came, mostly women.  We went to a dance in the gymnasium at the church near the Spadina subway station. There was a huge crowd because it was the fifth anniversary of the dances at this place.  I remembered a lot of moves from my Arthur Murray days, and never danced with the same woman twice.  It was quite a workout:  the numbers went on longer than at Arthur Murray.  Before long, I had to sit out every other number.  I hope I can go again soon!

Dinner was roast beef.

January 13, 2006

Dreamed of a map of Hogwarts that showed the changing ground level around the school.

At the NDP campaign office we bought a cake for Nicole's birthday.   (She said she hadn't eaten cake in years, and judging by her figure I wouldn't doubt it.) I was the one who got to go out to Loblaw's and choose it:  strawberry shortcake!  The campaign's weak point is the sign crew:  we've been getting sign requests faster than we fill them.

Went out and bought a few Cinematheque tickets.  I also dropped off most of my opera flyers at local libraries, and bought some new batteries for my camera.

It turns out that I made such an impression on the library's Human Resources people when they interviewed me that they arranged for me to work for them!  It'll be 24 to 36 hours a week, for $200 to 300.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Went back to the campaign office in the evening to see if there was more work to do--and if there was any cake left😋 There wasn't😞

Saw the DVD of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of The Atomic Brain (for the second time, I think) along with the uproarious 1950s short What About Juvenile Delinquency?

January 5, 2006

"You crossed your heart!"

"He always does that."

--Kiss Me, Kate

Dreamed of visiting Father's old house in his hometown of Campbellton, N.B.; being in the house as a tsunami washed it away and made it slide down a hill just behind some sledders; deciding on a whim to fly to Charlottetown, P.E.I. with some eccentrics for a convention; being on a street corner in my hometown of Sackville, N.B. (Main Street and Queen's Road) as some airplanes caused a big snowfall to happen there (like a rainmaking machine).

Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).

Saw George Sidney's movie of Cole Porter's Taming of the Shrew musical Kiss Me, Kate.  A curious adaptation, with Kathryn Grayson badly miscast but some great dance numbers choreographed by the unbeatable Hermes Pan.

January 4, 2006

It turns out that the library people are hoping to find a better position for me. They'll be dealing with it at a meeting next week.

Got some Ebay packages of Terry and the Pirates and On Stage comics.

The weather was foggy so I went out and took a couple of photographs. My new camera's batteries need replacing.

John and his daughters came over to celebrate Rae's fourteenth birthday. We ate vegan food.  Afterward I sneaked out to KFC!

We're now getting the extra TV channels we subscribed to.

January 3, 2006

 Baked whole wheat bread.

Father and I went to Staples and he bought me a video camera!  Then we went shopping.

Got a big pile of Ebay comics, including Prince Valiant, Kerry Drake, a Star Weekly comics section from 1965 and a whole lot of Arkansas Gazette comic sections.

Took my first digital photo, of our front yard.

Dinner was salmon.

The opera chorus had its first onstage rehearsal. (Most of us still haven't memorized the whole thing.) We don't have enough male extras to play the soldiers, so we're going to disguise some women.

January 2, 2006

Dreamed of visiting our old house in Sackville, N.B., and finding that the new owners had made the (uninhabited) attic into a computer room; visiting the nearby quarry and finding out that it was drained and exhibiting some famous impressionist murals(?); playing drums in a band with no drum set; having to leave the place where we were performing because the audience was getting aggressive.

Saw Ballets Russes for the second time, at the Regent with Alex of the Movie Meetup group.  Still wonderful.

Moira came home from Kingston.

Dinner was ham.

We decided to upgrade our satellite TV package to get some new channels like Turner Classic Movies.

They were having a big meeting at the campaign office.

January 1, 2006

"I want real bacon."

"This is real bacon, honey, it's just made of soybeans."

"I want pig bacon!"

--Syriana

Dreamed of a young white man in Japanese-occupied Asia in World War II tipped off by a sympathetic collaborationist that the Japanese were going to arrest him, and sneaking off to fight for the Allies; getting the idea of making it into a novel, with the young man Italian and his father's first name Aquilo; with a dedication to my singing teacher Giuseppe ("You the man"); being about to meet Richard B. Bernstein and other people I knew from the mrcranky.com forums at a convention; trying to write on a laptop computer, but finding it falling apart on me.

Saw Stephen Gaghan's Syriana at Canada Square.  Intelligent and believable, though so complicated that I may have to see it again.

Dinner was spaghetti.

On Six Feet Under Nate went to a fortune teller who said that his late wife Lisa was "not gone"; George men with his estranged son.