Two significant events took place yesterday:
1 – I finally had my appointment with the osteopath – hurrah! I felt so comfortable, even though a little voice in my mind kept saying, “This is a sports clinic, look at all these real sports people being treated, you’re just a tense cellist with a little curve to her spine”. My appointment lasted two hours (which made the stiff charge worth it) and there was noticeable improvement which surprised even the osteopath. It’s a wonderful treatment that involves gentle extension of the spine, loosening of the muscles adjoining the vertebrae, stretches, and so forth – less aggressive than a chiropractor. She took a whole forty minutes and talked to me about my life, my headaches, dizziness (in my case all probably connected to spinal problems – wow) and when she asked if I were active, I told her no, but curling competitively for six years as a teen probably didn’t help my back much. Turns out her brother was my first skip. Small, small world, especially when you grew up in the West Island. Unfortunately, she’s so busy that my next appointment isn’t until April! I’m on her cancellation list, though, and I’ll grab whatever comes up, even if I have to get to work late. To avoid this problem of discontinuity, I planned ahead by scheduled three more appointments scattered evenly through April and the beginning of May. Ha.
2 – Last night marked my triumphant return to the Nebula Book Club! Now in its third year, this is an intellectual and social exercise that I’ve been deprived of while I was doggedly practicing the cachucha for The Gondoliers. Now I’m back, and wow, last night really reminded me of how much I’d missed it.
Actually, there was a third significant event: I actually saw an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer that I’d seen before, thereby ending my three-month streak of discovery. It means I’m getting to the point where I started watching it semi-regularly the first time Space started the reruns. There are still tons of episodes I haven’t seen in the third season, but now I’ve got a relatively complete score-card for all the other seasons (except for the newest season, of which I’ve seen all of three episodes). I love this show – campy, yes, and very 90’s teen, but it’s well-written, has terrific characterization, and a sense of humour. Oh, an an over-arching storyline – always impressive. Other than The West Wing, it’s the only show I follow.
CURRENT READING:
When you weren’t looking, I read How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen, a short but poignant examination of what access to books and literacy in general brings people. I’m currently in the middle of Kushiel’s Dart, a rather sensual debut novel by Jacqueline Carey about the training of a courtesan-spy. I’m enjoying the first-person courtly style in which the narrator tells the story (odd, because I often have no patience in artificially elegant writing styles) as well as the varied interpretations of the ideal of love this book raises. It’s really not the type of book I usually like, so I’m quite taken aback to realise that I’m probably going to buy it in hardcover while it’s still available, and the sequel when it’s published in a couple of months too.