July 24, 2008

They sent me a new credit card because there may have been fraudulent activity with the old one!

Went shopping.

Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked). During dinner I bit my tongue!

Moira taped the accompaniment for my songs "Pour un Baiser" and "Bella Siccome un Angelo."

Saw the second half of Unforgivable Blackness. (The Great White Hope took some liberties with the Jack Johnson story.)

July 23, 2008

Dreamed of waking up in our old house in Sackville, N.B., and seeing that there'd been a huge flood outdoors that disrupted the whole world; realizing that Mother was missing and probably dead; the Toni Basel song "Mickey." (It was raining heavily last night.)

Yesterday I put up a profile at the free dating website plentyoffish.com . (I focused on my loyalty.) I got a good reaction from one girl already, though she said she's too tall for me.

Another singing lesson.  Giuseppe said C major is the hardest key to play!

Dinner was spaghetti.

Saw the first of two DVDs of the Ken Burns documentary Unforgivable Blackness, about Jack Johnson, the boxer who was the basis for the fictional character in The Great White Hope. (There was something wrong with the disc so I had to watch it on the computer.) It's a fascinating story, as he was tragically ahead of his time.

July 22, 2008

'Part of you seemed to like it'--Savage Grace [not exactly 'You know you want it'...]                                                                                                   Dreamed of being in the first rehearsal for a production of Aida [which my opera group's never staged]; a non-existent Roadrunner Cartoon with Wile E. Coyote having a wife in a fur coat.                                                                                                       Dinner was salmon.                                                                               Saw the depressing Savage Grace at the Carlton.  I saw it mostly for Julianne Moore, an actress who's always interesting to watch.  At least there was a funny trailer for the Steve Coogan comedy Hamlet II. ['...and reintroducing Elizabeth Shue--as Elizabeth Shue.']                                                                                  Finally got a real start on sorting my latest package of comic strips.                                                                                               Baked whole wheat bread overnight.

July 21, 2008

On the love of flying--'It's like being in love with a buzz-saw'--Only Angels Have Wings                                                         Dreamed of a movie about a geek with a judgemental brother approached by a sympathetic woman and saying 'If you pinch me maybe my life will turn out to be a bad dream'; seeing a preview of a hit musical with a slapstick scene involving a stolen porcelain urinal.                                                                                                   Dinner was roast chicken.                                                                   Saw the DVD of Howard Hawks' aviation adventure Only Angels Have Wings [for the second time]. Exciting and funny.

July 20, 2008

Went on a Friends Meetup outing to Canada's Wonderland.  I skipped breakfast to make sure I'd be there at 08;30 for Josh to pick me up and drive me there.  But it turned out we were early.  There were eleven people in our group. [Several people cancelled because of the rainy weather.]                                                                           I got through the Top Gun and Behemoth roller coasters by closing my eyes the whole way. [I lost my glasses case from my jacket pocket in the former ride.  I'm just glad it was empty.] I managed to keep my eyes open during the Thunder Mountain ride.  Then I noticed that some of us were skipping these rides and waiting for the others to get through them, so I did too. [I skipped the Vortex, the Skyrider, the Bat, the Drop Zone--a vertical drop that braked just before reaching the ground--and the Timberwolf Falls, which gave you a real soaking.                                                                                      I did go on the White Water Canyon--with milder splashes--and Scooby Doo's Haunted House, with a laser shooting gallery where I scored 300 points, less than the day's top score of 3000.  But my favourite ride was the bumper cars.                                                                                  For lunch I had a foot-long hot dog, which actually wasn't so bad.  Later i had one of the park's famous funnel cakes, which felt kind of heavy so when I came home I didn't feel like dinner.                                                              The main drawback was the rain, which came down heavily in the morning and the late afternoon. [I was wearing my raincoat but during the heavy rains my shirt felt wet too.] At least it shortened the lines somewhat.  Plastic ponchos were selling well.                                                                  Riding a roller coaster is a bit like take medicine, except I'm not sure what you're being cured of. [Cowardice, foolhardiness, the illusion that you could become an astronaut, the conformism that makes you do things you dread just because everyone else is...]                                                          It isn't often that I write two whole diary pages in one day.

July 19, 2008

'I don't have much time left.  I have no time for God'--death row prisoner                            --L'Etranger                                                                                               Had a Lunch Club Meetup event at Le Papillon.  Too bad only three people showed up. [One explained at the last minute that she had to watch her budget, and she'd just bought an expensive pair of shoes.] But Patricia the Brunch Club Meetup organizer did come with a friend, and we had a good time by ourselves.  I had a ham and cheese omelet and profiteroles.                                                                                     John and Kathrine came over for dinner, which was vegan Indian food.  Afterward I showed them my London Photographs on the computer, and they agreed I had a talent for photography.                                                                          Saw Luchino Visconti's movie of Camus' existential novel L'Etranger.  It's a curious study in filming an 'unfilmable' book.

July 18, 2008

Dreamed of a non-existent female character with glasses on The Sopranos.                                                                                               Dr. Ang called, and it turned out that the lab had screwed up on processing my blood sample, so I gave them another.                                                                                   Saw the DVD of 'The Passion of Chen Yi,' another Kung Fu episode I remembered seeing back in the 1970s.                                                                                   Dinner was ham and rice.                                                               Went to another Meetin tarot reading.  I asked Elaine what I should write about, and my cards included the Chariot, the Moon and the Star.  She said I'm destined to be a writer and shouldn't worry about making money or care about criticism, and should pursue whatever ideas come to me. [I was late getting there but that just meant less time waiting my turn.]                                                                                  On the way there I started reading Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson's memoir of growing up in 1950s Iowa. [It's one of the books I bought at the World's Biggest Bookstore the other day.] As funny as I expected.