February 22, 2006

Dreamed of Archie and Veronica driving through the woods looking for some trace of a missing Jughead; finding evidence of a murder spree; Veronica turning enthusiastic with excitement.

At work I did a lot more copying.  Then Chris and I teamed up to assemble 105 mailing lists (his job) and put them in envelopes (mine). He's really fast!

Went to Dragon Lady Comics and got more Ebay packages:  Steve Roper, Rick O'Shay, Ambler, The Heart of Juliet Jones.

Dinner was roast beef.

Went to a free Geneva Centre showing of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the Regent. (I played hooky from the opera, which was only Suor Angelica with its small chorus part.) I met Hartley from my support group there.  The movie itself was terrific!  The series gets better and better:  this one is very gripping and well directed by Mike Newell. (The book is also the best in the series so far.)

February 21, 2006

Chris' father (played by his real-life father Bob Elliott of Bob & Ray fame): "Chris, there are only so many hours in the day, and I can't be with you all the time and drink coffee"--Get a Life

At work, I affixed 105 labels with the names of branch managers onto big envelopes in the morning, preparatory to sending out copies of a new seniority list announcement (which still needs editing). In the afternoon I printed out some updated pages for Dawn's training manual, and moved most of the 2004 job competition files into new drawers.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Saw a DVD of Chris Elliott's sitcom Get a Life from 15 years ago.  It's really funny, especially the episode where he stars in a summer stock roller-skating musical "Zoo Animals on Wheels."

February 20, 2006

Dreamed of coming into a fortune; Father and I going to Halifax before going to New York to see about financial matters.

At work I spent the morning taping the covers shut on the boxes we're going to ship out.

Got another big box of Sunday comic sections from Trader Joe.

Got a lot done in the afternoon.  I went out and bought a money order (for an item I'd won in an Ebay auction), mailed it, bought shaving cream and sorted the sheet music in my binder.  And I clipped my fingernails!

Dinner was steak.

Baked whole wheat bread.

Leonard from the opera came to the choir for the first time.  It turns out that last week Giuseppe offended some of the tenors with an ill-timed proverb "When the snows melt, the turds become visible."

February 19, 2006

Dreamed of seeing a cut of A Clockwork Orange where they omitted the scene with the social worker.

Another Suor Angelica performance.

We dined on Ethiopian food at the Queen of Sheba.  John and Donald joined us.

On Six Feet Under the guy Dave bit on the ear was going to sue him, but Keith had sex with him. (Another pleasant episode...

February 18, 2006

Saw the western comedy Cat Ballou at the Cinematheque, for the third time. (I saw it because it's rare to see westerns on the big screen.) Lee Marvin is the movie aside from his brilliant portrayal of drunken gunfighter Kid Sheleen, it's mostly pretty lame.  The two actors playing uncle and nephew (Dwayne Hickman and Michael Callan) looked about the same age!

Dinner was KFC.

Another Elixir of Love performance. (Someone brought jelly beans.) It's getting a bit tiring.

February 17, 2006

At work I typed the names and phone numbers of over 100 job applicants into a spreadsheet.  I also moved some of the position files into new boxes with covers.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Another Suor Angelica performance.  I arrived an hour early because I'd forgotten it was the show where I could arrive later.  So I helped out selling tickets at the front, though they didn't really need me.

Afterward, I stayed to see La Serva Padrone on the second half of the bill. (I hadn't seen it in the rehearsal stage.) It was pretty funny.

Then we went up to the house of a fan called Matina in North York (John George drove me and Alun.) She served us lasagna and cake.  I didn't get home till past 01:00.

February 16, 2006

"You've changed.  You used to be mean; now that you have a couple of bucks, you're mean and stuck-up!"--Ask the Dust

At work I printed and attached a second set of labels for the file boxes. (Over 30 boxes are now ready for shipping.) I also got my first pay stub:  the money starts arriving tomorrow.

Baked raisin bread.

Went to the library and borrowed The People's Almanac Book of Predictions, published in 1980. I'm interested in reading it again to see if any were right.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Went to the Cinematheque for an interview and Q&A session with the famous screenwriter Robert Towne.  Afterward they had a sneak preview of Ask the Dust, the new movie Towne directed from a novel about an aspiring writer in 1930s Los Angeles (filmed in South Africa!). It wasn't bad.

February 15, 2006

Dreamed of going to a theme park in Cape Breton; seeing a ride called Smokey and Hipper and calling it "Hippie and Smoker"; telling myself that it wasn't too late to improve my diet.

At work we worked on preparing to have a whole bunch of file storage boxes moved to Front Street.

Went down to Dragon Lady Comics and picked up a bunch of Steve Canyon, Tarzan and Rick O'Shay Sundays I'd won on Ebay.  I also got some Steve Canyons and Dick Tracys from Rick Larder in Saint John. (While I was out, I got some cheap post-Valentine's Day chocolates at Shopper's Drug Mart.)

Dinner was salmon.

Another Elixir of Love performance. (The parents were in the audience.) Someone brought cupcakes.

February 14, 2006

At work I boxed some more 2003 job competition files (they weren't finished after all), then printed and attached labels for them.  Someone from Facilities stowed a lot of them over a top shelf.  Then I tried to file a group of them in "terminated" folders, for people who've retired.  But a lot of these folders seem to be missing.  I brought my CD of the classic country double album Will the Circle Be Unbroken.

In my lunch break I met a German from Scarborough who sold me some Sunday comics (The Star Weekly etc.) I'd won on Ebay.

Dinner was pork.

Started reading the Shakespeare play Richard III for my book club.  I look at it as a movie for its time.  I'm surprised I don't have much trouble understanding Shakespeare's language.  Went to the Royal and saw the Dion Conflict presentation Be My Vile Valentine, with dorky short films about sex and love. (We booed during hugs and kisses!) The last film--a last-minute replacement--was Board and Care, about attraction between two retarded people, and it was actually pretty good.  Afterward I bought a "Hunka Junk" DVD of rare shorts collected by Dion Conflict.

February 13, 2006

Dreamed of finding out that there'd been a worldwide economic crash; noticing that a few people had just predicted it.

At work I printed the last of the labels for the file boxes.  I told May about the movie Ikiru and compared the movie's office, with its big stack of papers, to ours.  A cleaner came in and swept the place, and we certainly needed it.

Got another Ebay package of comic strips from Barry King.

Listened to the commentary track on the Ikiru DVD.

Dinner was roast chicken.

At choir practice we did a new song called "A Widow's Lament." It left me with a tingly feeling in my vocal cords, which I haven't felt since I last took singing lessons from Giuseppe. [The dusty workplace was getting to my voice.]

Finished John Doyle's A Great Feast of Light.  Definitely a good read.

February 12, 2006

Dreamed of being in Amherst, N.S., and trying unsuccessfully to call the parents in Sackville, N.B., on a pay phone to tell them I wanted to come home; finding that my luggage had disappeared.

Another Elixir of Love performance.  Franco thinks our singing is getting better with successive performances.

Dinner was lasagna.

On Six Feet Under Nate visited Lisa's family for the entombment of her ashes (which weren't really hers).

It looks like Moira's finished with her secretarial job. (Her boss wouldn't let her take time off because of her cold.)

February 11, 2006

Ikiru quotes:

"The surest way to keep your position in this life is to do nothing at all."

"He's a sullen lecher."

"I can't afford to hate people.  I don't have enough time left."

Saw the DVD of Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru (for the third time). Still wonderful.

Dinner was pork chops.

Another Suor Angelica performance.  George does a lot of our makeup, so I showed him a 1958 On Stage Sunday episode (March 23) in which Mary Perkins gave an aspiring actress lessons in applying makeup.

February 10, 2006

Someone sliced the bread I'd baked overnight at breakfast time, before it cooled, so it got out of shape!

At work I filed a lot of performance evaluations for management and people exempt from the usual capacity (like me). Then I printed out labels for boxes containing files from the 2002 job competition and position files. May was out at a workshop for most of the morning.

In the afternoon I had another nap.  I'm rediscovering my appreciation for the weekend!

Dinner was roast pork.

We put on the first Elixir of Love performance.  I was made up and ready long before time, unlike with the dress rehearsal.  And I also got a better hat.  There were only some 60 people there.

February 9, 2006

 Dreamed of riding a freight train.

At work I finished putting in the updates.  I figured out that I could save time by starting with the latest updates then filling the gaps with the second latest, then the third etc.  I brought my Gordon Lightfoot CD, which Mary enjoyed.

Dinner was salmon.

We went through the dress rehearsal of The Elixir of Love.  In one scene we exited too early because one guy moved off, some people followed him, and the rest followed them.  I didn't have time to put on full makeup before the start.

Baked multigrain bread overnight.

February 8, 2006

Dreamed of proposing, naming a moon settlement Pugwash after the Nova Scotia village where Cyrus Eaton held international peace conferences.

At work I started transferring page updates into a loose-bound edition of Canadian Labour Arbitration.  We're still on the 2004 updates.

Went shopping.  In the middle of shopping, I suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion come over me. (I'm glad Father said he'd bring in the groceries by himself!) After we got home I took a nap.

Dinner was spaghetti.

The premiere of Suor Angelica and La Serva Padrona attracted only a few dozen people. (The cold weather didn't help.) We should get more people on the weekends.  I brought the rest of the cookies from my cookie exchange for the chorus.

February 7, 2006

Dreamed of working on a dance outing to Niagara Falls that included Barbara Thompson of my opera group; Barbara getting angry with someone (which I've never seen her do!).

Tuesdays are now my overtime day.  I brought my CD of Humperdinck's opera Hansel and Gretel. (One of my favourite parts is the chorus where the gingerbread children come to life.) I transferred the 2003 job competition files into boxes, and later did shredding for Marjorie and Dawn.  I bumped my forehead against a cabinet, and they gave me a form to fill out!

Dinner was roast chicken.

We did the dress rehearsal for Suor Angelica.  I told Barbara about the dream she was in.

February 6, 2006

"Sometimes people admitted that they were originally from somewhere else, or that their parents were.  Sometimes they didn't....  It was just easier to say you were from Dublin....  At least you were better than somebody who could be taken for a fool just arrived from  the bog somewhere.  It was very important to be better than somebody else"--John Doyle, A Great Feast of Light

Brought my CD of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack to work. (The soundtrack puts the movie to shame!) It was nice to listen to it while sorting a big pile of files.  Too bad that those files turned out to be external applications that weren't to go into the folders.  Oh well, I get paid anyway.

Went to see Dr. Hassan.  I knew he'd be pleased about my new job.

Dinner was sausages and mash.

The Hawkins Institute and I reached a compromise, by which I'll update them every couple of weeks by email, and won't have to deal with Marnie any more.

A lot of people missed choir practice because of the snowy weather.  We did a new song called "Din Don."

February 5, 2006

Ship captain seeing unkempt Indiana Jones for the first time: "Mr. Jones, I've heard a lot about you.  You look just the way I imagined you." (laughs)

Pauline Kael on Raiders of the Lost Ark: "It seems to have been edited for the maximum number of screenings per day."

Dreamed of being a student in Chongqing in western China (the subject of my Ph.D. thesis) in World War II; going to meet a girlfriend in Chengdu whom I hoped to marry; renting a kite finding a missing girl sleeping in a small cave in a roadbed going through a museum exhibit that included fake snow, in a roller coaster-type vehicle.

Joined a Meetin group for a mall walk around Yorkdale. Unfortunately, I could only stay for about 15 minutes. (I only went at all to honour my RSVP.)

Then I went to the Bloor and saw Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark for the second time, almost 25 years after first seeing it. (The print was definitely the worse for wear.) I still have mixed feelings about it.  It certainly has expertly-made action sequences--with several "How did they do that?" bits--and a lot of genuinely funny touches, but it leaves me oddly cold.  A good popcorn movie, nothing more.

The parents and I ate at the Mandarin.  I escaped overeating! My fortune cookie said "Great thoughts come from the heart."

On Six Feet Under they handled the funeral for a comic book geek who'd asked to be buried with a rare issue worth $4000.

February 4, 2006

Starsky and Hutch movie quotes:

"Don't do this, because it's incredibly lame."

"I promise--I will not kill Terence again!"

"I am not my mother!"

We went to Loblaw's and picked up a big strawberry shortcake for my birthday (the same type we got Nicole at the NDP campaign office).

The cookie exchange attracted 11 people. (To tell the truth, I'm not that interested in cookies.  But I know a lot of people who are.)

Baked rye bread, after giving the bread machine a long-overdue cleaning.

Dinner was steak. (We also started on my birthday cake a day early, but don't tell anyone!)

There are no DVDs from zip.ca in the house just now that interest me, so I went out and rented the video of the Starsky and Hutch movie, with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson spoofing the TV show and '70s kitsch in general.  Pretty funny.

February 3, 2006

Dreamed of stepping into deep mud; being invited into our old house in Sackville, N.B., by the new owners; noticing that the whole neighbourhood had been redesigned.

At work I photocopied a big pile of documents for Jill. (The machine overheated, of course, and I had to slow down.) They gave me a little coffee cake and a birthday card!

I sent the Hawkins Institute an email dispensing of their services.

My workplace is dusty, and I got an earwax problem.  I went to Dr. Ang, and she injected some water in my ear with a syringe.

Got the 10 Terry and the Pirates Sunday episodes Hal traded to me for my 22.

Baked gingerbread for tomorrow's cookie exchange.

There were ten people at the Karaoke Meetup!  The group in the room next door were so loud that we had to move to one further away from them.  I sang "Castles in the Air" and "She's Leaving Home.

February 2, 2006

For the first time I did an afternoon overtime.  I did a lot of different stuff, like typing out names for printing onto labels, and creating folders for new employees, and copying and stapling and shredding. (Shredding is really fun.) At the end of the afternoon I finished sorting a pile all the way down to the "Z" names!

At the start of the day I went to chat with Human Resources boss Dan Keon. (He's a cousin of 1960s Toronto Maple Leafs star Dave Keon.) I told him that if there were any problems I wanted him to bring them directly to me instead of working through the Hawkins Institute.  He said he'd heard nothing but good things about me.

Dinner was lasagna.

At the Geneva Centre we played some more Trivial Pursuit.

February 1, 2006

Marjorie agreed to cancel today's afternoon overtime, fortunately.  I can still do it tomorrow.

It turned out that someone [probably my mother] accidentally left the phone off the hook for over a day, and I failed to return a message from the Hawkins Institute.  It must have looked to them like I was ignoring them! [Debbie came and made an issue of the pants I was wearing not being clean enough, but that was because my two new pairs of pants were both being taken up and the only alternatives were jeans or the same pants I wore the day before, both a no-no.]

Dinner was roast chicken.

Went through the long Elixir of Love run-through.  As we approach performance it gets tiring, especially for Giuseppe.

I've decided that it would be better to have a full work day just once a week for the first month or so.

January 31, 2006

At work I put up the poster of our opera at the bulletin board.  Some people are already interested in seeing it.

Went shopping.

Dinner was salmon.

It turned out that we were rehearsing Suor Angelica instead of Elixir of Love.  But I did get a chance to try on my costume. (It's pretty cool.) Now I'll probably have to get Marjorie to cancel tomorrow's overtime.

Met my niece Merle on the subway on the way home.  She seems interested in joining jus at the Queen of Sheba for my birthday, and seeing my opera.

January 30, 2006

Dreamed of visiting a house that John was renovating and hearing popping sounds; Father explaining that the sound came from a gadget that released small amounts of natural gas then ignited them to burn off the gas that was already there(?).

Work was more of the same. Marnie appeared briefly, but didn't say much.

Marnie phoned in the afternoon and said Marjorie had asked if I could do afternoon overtime on Tuesdays and Thursdays, starting this week. [I'd said earlier that I didn't want to be asked to work extra at such short notice, but she evidently didn't "get the memo."] I carelessly agreed to start it this week (I'm eager to please over the phone), but soon after realized that working a full day then doing a four-hour opera run-through might not leave me with enough time to wash my hair and shave.  I phoned Marnie back to ask about changing to Wednesday afternoon, and she gave me an earful about how reneging on a commitment is unprofessional and would undermine the Hawkins Institute's credibility.  Then I went down to see Marjorie and she had no problem with the change.

[This still annoys me.  There was no problem until Marnie created one, then she defined her responsibility in a way that left me out in the cold.  Fortunately, I lived close enough that I could go straighten out the matter myself, but if I'd lived further out I would have had to break it to Marjorie the following morning, which might have ruined her plans--all so that the Hawkins Institute could keep its fingers clean.  It wasn't like I'd agreed to it a week before, then changed my mind at the last minute.  Marnie did her job badly, then called my reaction "aggressive"!]

Dinner was steak.

The choir did two new songs, "Paese Me" and "Tiritomba." [In my diary I spelled it "Trimbolina"!]

January 29, 2006

"Why can't you be good like her?"

"It's easy for her to be good--she is good!"

--The River

Moira and I saw The River at the Cinematheque.  It's a curious movie about an English girl in India and her first romance, directed by Jean Renoir with Satyajit Ray lending an unofficial hand.  Dorky but visually lavish. (Moira compared it to the Michael Powell-Emeric Pressburger films.)

About 20 minutes into the movie everything stopped when the AGO's alarm system was accidentally activated.  It was over half an hour before it got started again because they couldn't figure out how to turn off the auditorium's emergency lights. We overheard a group of people discussing In Cold Blood.

Dinner was takeout Chinese food. (My fortune said that I tackle problems immediately.)

On Six Feet Under Dave and Keith were unfaithful to each other.

January 28, 2006

Dreamed of an Around the World in 80 Days-type adventure movie starring two women in English riding clothes; being Gandhi and lying in a hallway completely hidden in a blanket.

Unusually warm weather.  I got a new pair of long johns yesterday, and I don't have to wear them!

Went down to the Cinematheque to see The River.  When I got there I realized I'd forgotten my ticket!  Oh well, it's showing tomorrow too.

Moira and I went out to dinner with Puitak and Gordon at Babur's.  Very spicy Indian food!

The New York Times Saturday crossword puzzle was especially tough this week.

January 27, 2006

"While the Christian Brothers talked on and on about the sacrifice for nationhood, in 1965 we were all mad for The Man From U.N.C.L.E."--A Great Feast of Light

"Midnight mass was short and sweet now that I'd become an atheist"--C.R.A.Z.Y.

At work I finished filling the top row with folders of the 2005 job competition, then typed out shelf labels.  Afterward I filed more payroll stuff, etc.

We went to Dufferin Mall and Father bought me a pair of dress pants.

Dinner was the rest of the stew.

Saw Jean-Marc Lavalee's C.R.A.Z.Y. at the Bloor with the North York Movies Meetup.  It's a great film, though very hard to classify.  The group's first meeting attracted four people.  Afterward we talked about the movie over pizza at Panzerotti.  It was a great time!  George had a lot of ideas about what to try with the group.

Mailed out a package of Terry and the Pirates Sundays to Sharhal in a trade.