June 24, 2008

"Reagan's burning in hell, and there's plenty more room there"--Huffington Post comment, written by me

Dreamed of being in the non-existent basement of the cottage near our old home in Sackville, N.B.

Didn't get out of bed till 13:45!

Dinner was roast chicken.

Saw Kevin Lynch's documentary Project:  Grizzly (for the second time) at the Cinematheque.  It's a droll portrait of John Hurtubise, a rather quixotic blowhard who developed a bear-proof armour suit for observing grizzly bears but couldn't use it in an actual expedition because the ground wasn't solid enough!  They showed it with Arrowhead, a funny short where Don McKellar tells yarns about finding a mastodon's remains on a Toronto construction site and being an ill-behaved youth.

June 23, 2008

Dreamed of visiting a non-existent theme park outside Toronto with simple, cute displays which I figured Czechs would enjoy; being a young playboy antihero in an elite family in a futuristic science fiction story.

Met Ljiliana the psychologist again for an interview for her autism research.  Mother gets worried when I do stuff like this. (Afterward I bought some Cinematheque tickets).

Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).

Went to an Introverts Meetup at the Swan and Firkin in the West End.  There were 15 people there, a bit too much for me.

I was going to go to Canada's Wonderland with the Friends Meetup in a few weeks (hence my dream?), but it turned out to be the same weekend when the parents and I are going to Stratford to avoid the noise from the Salsa on St. Clair festival near our home. (I hope they can give my ticket to someone else.)

June 22, 2008

Dreamed of seeing Phil Collins caught by the police after sneaking off a subway train; going to prison myself, and being mistaken by a fellow prisoner for someone who'd put him away and caused him to lose his home.

Had a Lunch Club Meetup at the Butler's Pantry in Mirvish Village.  There were five people, including a new Korean couple.  I had scrambled eggs with very spicy sausages.

Dinner was pizza.  Father ordered one with onions and I had to pick them out before eating it.  I wish he'd told me that he was going to order it, then I could have come along and specified what I wanted.

Went to the first Singles Over 40 Meetup.  23 people RSVPed that they were coming, so Helene rented a room in the Carrot Common, but only ten showed up. (More women RSVPed, but more men came.) I wore my black suit.  We talked about dating, but I didn't have much to contribute.

June 21, 2008

"I chose to be alone because I was looking for peace.  But I learned that being alone has no real peace--only loneliness"--The Fall of the Roman Empire

Dreamed of skiing down a slope with a group of guys, grasping each other's arms.

Shortly after noon I went out to a Friends Meetup at the Dutch Dreams ice cream place, which is only a few blocks away.  I was talking to a woman who's travelled a lot in places like Spain.

In the afternoon Father and I moved a big chest of drawers (including a dollhouse) down to the basement.

Since Moira's gone to Kingston, we ate at the Mandarin restaurant, which she doesn't care for.  My fortune cookie said "You will soon learn a valuable lesson from a new friend." (Does that mean that I'll learn the lesson by losing the friend?)

I finally figured out a tough o'ekaki puzzle, which turned out to be a boxing champ.

June 20, 2008

Dreamed of seeing actress LeeLee Sobieski about to enter a machine that shook in every direction so you'd feel like you were in a hurricane.

Saw the DVD of the first half of Anthony Mann's The Fall of the Roman Empire. (I didn't realize the second half was on another disk.) Intelligent, if talky.  Marcus Aurelius' talk of achieving peace through power brought JFK's rhetoric to mind.

Dinner was steak.

The family saw me in Coro Verdi's end-of-year concert.  Today was Giuseppe's 70th birthday, and we sang "Happy Birthday to You" at the end.

June 19, 2008

Richard Widmark: "I represent the Public Health Service."

Reporter: "Well, I represent the public!"

--Panic in the Streets

"Baby, Methuselah is younger than me tonight!"--ibid.

Went shopping.

The StarChoice people sent a new satellite receiver, so now we'll be able to watch TV shows in the attic again.

Dinner was salmon.

Saw the DVD of Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (great 1950s title!). It's an efficient noir procedural where Richard Widmark has to find the New Orleans hoodlums (including Jack Palance) who killed an illegal immigrant carrying the plague, before they spread it everywhere. (Part of me was hoping that he'd fail and it would spread out of control...)

Afterward I saw the DVD of Shirley Chisholm:  Unbought and Unbossed, about the first black congresswoman and her 1972 presidential campaign, decades before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. (She was just ahead of her time...)

June 18, 2008

Dreamed of looking through a videocassette and finding I could fast-forward or rewind it just by adjusting the hands on my watch.                                                                                          Baked raisin bread.                                                                               We saw the rest of the Norma DVD.                                                                                       Dinner was spaghetti.                                                                          A guy from Sympatico came over [at dinner time, of course] and fixed our internet connection.  It took him a long time to figure out the problem.  Lucky we didn't have to fix it on our own.                                                                      Did the dress rehearsal for the Coro Verdi concert.  Afterward I arranged to resume singing lessons with Giuseppe the week after next.                                                                                              In the two days of internet interruption we got over forty emails.