Interesting Fact

Interesting fact:

“It may be surprising to learn that the potato, a staple crop in many Celtic lands, does in fact come from a family of poisonous plants that includes henbane and deadly nightshade.” (pp.197, Celtic Folklore Cooking – Joanne Asala)

Well, you learn something new every day.

CURRENT READING:
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde. Working in the cynical and asinine world of publishers and booksellers, I’m not quite sure how this got published. I think the editor must have come across the manuscript, started reading, scratched his head a bit, tried to figure out if this book was (a) a mystery, (b) a comedy, (c) a science fiction novel, (d) a historical, (e) literary criticism, (f) all of the above, or (g) none of the above. Then he probably read a while longer, and at last leapt to his feet and jumped around a bit, then drew up a contract to publish this debut novel of brilliance which defies classification. I recommend it to everyone, especially starving English M.A.s (like yours truly) who will get all the jokes and laugh a lot. It helps, although it isn’t necessary, to be familiar with Francis Bacon, William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, John Milton, the X-Files, the basics of temporal mechanics, and how a basic sense of humour functions. A knowledge of twentieth century history is actually a hindrance. If you like Connie Willis, you’ll enjoy Fforde too. (And if you don’t know if you like Connie Willis, go look up Passage, or The Doomsday Book, or any one of her numerous award-winning novellas and short stories. If you want the humourous taste of Fforde, though, check out Willis’ Bellwether or To Say Nothing of the Dog.)

Ever Onward

Fourth show down, two to go!

We were sold out last night, standing room only – and people were willing to pay for the standing room. We began fifteen minutes late as the Front of House crew were still trying to find seats for people at eight o’clock! As nice as it is to have a complete audience, it makes it difficult for the singers on stage: a full house soaks up sound, causing it to seem as if you aren’t projecting, as you cannot hear your voice bouncing back. As a result, all of our soprano soloists thought they weren’t pushing enough and had to keep reining themselves in from forcing their voices. Our first act ran 75 minutes long; usually we clock in at just under an hour. That may not sound like a lot to you, but when a well-rehearsed show can be clocked down to the minute, it’s an eternity!

I had an interesting conversation backstage last night with two young ladies who through circuitous conversational coincidences ended up wanting to know more about where I worked, and what witchcraft was all about. There were four other ladies listening covertly. Well, part of my personal mission is to educate, after all! The Pagan Poster Girl strikes again…

CURRENT READING:
Well, I’m book-less again, actually; I read Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland last night, a lovely collection of thematic stories revolving around a painting by Vermeer. I intend to begin Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair tonight. The subtitle describes it as “An Out-Of-This World Tornado of Adventure and Imagination Featuring the Feistiest Literary Detective Ever To Hit The Page”. Her name? Thursday Next. (I kid thee not.) It looks hilarious, and combines two of my favourite themes, time-travel and literary archaeology. After that’s done, I’ll finally read Perdido Street Station by China Mieville; borrowed it from a friend after she met him at the World Fantasy Convention here in Montreal last November. Updates as events warrant.

Bits

Just a quick note today; I’ve been up to my freshly-auburned head in stuff to do. Thank goodness the show’s over next week! I also learned at orchestra last night that there’s no rehearsal next Wednesday, as it’s March break and the high school we rehearse in will be closed. As much as I adore orchestra, it’s an attractive concept: every night off for one full week. Glorious!

I missed two weeks of orchestra due to one of my trademark migraines the first week and then the Vinyl Cafe show the next, so I haven’t touched my cello in three weeks. I’m rather proud of how well I did. I sight-read L’Arlesienne Suite by Bizet (ugh – mostly tenor clef) and Schubert’s Fourth Symphony, (“The Tragic” – in E flat again, sigh). I dreaded going while I was at work all day, but I enjoyed myself immensely when I got there. I have to keep reminding myself that I joined the chamber orchestra to make sure that I played at least once a week. I feel simultaneously impressed with how I keep up and ashamed of myself: if I can hold my own (barely, but I do) with little to no practice outside rehearsal, how good would I be if I practiced for at least an hour a day like I used to?

If I had my druthers, I’d read a lot, write a lot, and play my cello at least three hours a day. I’d also sit in the park. Now, if I could just get someone to pay me for doing all of that so my moggies could be kept in the style to which they have become accustomed (i.e., in kibble), I’d have it made!

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Insanity! Unnatural m�t�o! It�s going up to 10� C today, and we�re over halfway there!

I went out this morning to take a walk to the pharmacy, and it�s warm � windy, but warm. You can smell that Spring smell in the air- the damp earthy odour, the aroma of dead grass� but it�s more than that. There�s a sense in the atmosphere, in the air that you breathe into your lungs, that your alveoli recognise and send the news racing through your cells to inform your whole body that in case it hadn�t noticed, the season has changed: rejoice! The sun now stays in my living room more than forty-five minutes at a time! I can leave the windows open again! I can wear shoes outside instead of boots! Soon I shall be able to wear my little fox-red corduroy jacket again!

Not that these events were far off the recent reality of the situation. (Except the sun staying in the living room.) We actually hit a high of 6� C in the city yesterday. I�m not certain if we�re setting records or not. I do know that it didn�t ever really feel like Winter for more than a week at a time. I have a sneaky suspicion that our average temperatures this month are hitting the standard March averages instead. I tremble to consider what our Summer might be like.

That, however, will be then. This is now, and I�m rather enjoying it! The unnatural weather this winter had me on edge � it was just wrong � but it�s the end of February now, and I�m more than ready for buds and the first signs of green, thank you very much. I suffer from a touch of seasonal affective disorder, but apart from that February usually has me fed up on several other fronts as well. Bring on March, say I!

CURRENT READING:

Fool�s Errand, by Robin Hobb
The first book in a new Farseer trilogy called The Tawny Man. This is pulling me right the way I need at the moment! It�s told in the first person, a departure for Hobb�s work, and it works surprisingly well. I�m possibly enjoying it more than I enjoyed the first Farseer trilogy. I�m much too near the end for comfort. The problem with reading newly released hardcovers is that you have to wait for the rest of the series!

Olympic Pride

The Olympics are done and over, and we�re coming home with a record seventeen medals, coming in fourth overall. That�s quite the haul! Of course, the sweetest medals were our two hockey golds, and the gold awarded belatedly to Sale and Pelletier; but every medal is sweet.

What�s not so sweet is the destruction visited on public and private property in the wake of the men�s hockey victory. As we were driving home last night we passed several cars with Canadian flags waving madly through the windows, bearers thrilled that our car sports a Canadian flag license plate in front. We passed people on foot with painted faces and flags as well. In our own living room window, my husband had already hung our huge Canadian flag in celebration. There�s nothing like citizens deliriously happy that their country has won a major victory on the field of honour.

That was in NDG, however. In downtown Montreal, the fans poured from sports bars and clubs, rioted, hijacked a city bus, stopped traffic in the centre of town, and generally made nuisances of themselves. I have never been able to understand why a significant hockey victory is the siren call of idiocy and destruction. Particularly in this case where every Canadian was proud to have stuck it to the Americans, who we�ve always considered slightly less cultured (come on, deep inside you think it too). A pity that the next act was to display boorishness, lack of respect, and vulgarity.

And what�s with the high of 4 degrees C today? It’s still February!

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No, I really do hate being the centre of attention. I hate being put on the spot; I�m uncomfortable being lauded and pointed out. I like being honoured and told one-on-one that I�m a wonderful human being with things to be proud of, but throw a surprise party for me or tell a bunch of people in my hearing how terrific I am, and I cringe and want to die. I have this weird thing about birthdays � surprise parties are such a bad idea, but at the same time I�d like to have someone else organise a quiet and casual get-together for me without me knowing. Even better would be a surprise casual get-together for me not around my birthday! (This year Tara and I have agreed to organise parties for each other. That kind of deal I can live with.) I�m quietly upset if no one cares, but if everyone goes all out and makes a huge fuss I�m horribly embarrassed. (Reported back to me last year: Taras: �Hey, it�s her thirtieth birthday! Let�s organise a huge surprise party!� Marc: �Wow, my Bad Idea light just came on.�)

I�m certain that part of this arises from the self-effacing guilt that wells up from the tiny �I�m not worthy� gene buried deep inside me. Intellectually I know that I have a lot to be proud of and that I�m a decent human being with a few really good points. However, my heart can�t understand why so many people like me this much. I�ve been shy ever since I started school, and I�ve always been the sort who prefers books to baseball, and opera to club-hopping. I have problems with large crowds and I�m very sensitive to large, aggressive personalities too. I work on intuition a lot, and if someone walks in whom I instinctively draw away from, I�ll find it very difficult to be around them. Even worse, if I do get to know someone enough to relax, open my heart and be close friends with them, if they do something to abuse that loyalty and trust, I�m scarred for life and I�ll never be able to talk to them again. (Fortunately this has only happened three times in my entire life.) I don�t hold grudges; I just moderate future behaviour in order to avoid being hurt again. I wish those three people well, but they�re no longer a part of my life. It�s not by choice; it�s simply the way I work. Trust me, I wish I weren�t like this; I wish I were gregarious, and not this sensitive. My husband has pointed out to me on several occasions that if I were as I wished to be, I wouldn�t be myself, and people wouldn�t like me as much as they do. It�s an annoying point. I hate it when he�s right like that.

One of the things I thought would be difficult about being married (and I was right) was the drastic challenge to my solitary tendencies. I warned my husband before we married that I require huge amounts of time on my own, and he told me that he didn�t have a problem with that; in fact, he needed a lot of time by himself too. Well, I think he got more than he bargained for: a little while ago he admitted to me that he�d underestimated my extensive need for solitude. Now, before you get all riled up about how marriage is about being a couple, let me explain our concept of marriage. Marriage is two individuals coming together to pull evenly in the traces, and not a complete submersion of your identity in someone else�s personality. We�re two different people with different likes and dislikes, need and wants. A lot of those likes and wants coincide, and we happen to like each other as people a lot. We�ve taught one another lots of new things, introduced one another to new ideas, and exposed one another to experiences we wouldn�t have had on our own. He now likes wine, pumpkin pie and light opera; I now drink Scotch, watch television, and eat turkey stuffing. We each have traits and habits that drive the other up the wall, and preferences and friends that the other will never share, but all in all, we�re good friends who love one another and enjoy life together. However, one of those things that we don�t share is a love of people. He loves crowds and going out, meeting new people and finding out what makes them tick. I�d rather stay home with a book and a cat. A little of that comes from the fear of the unknown, and the overly sensitive streak in me.

The best party I�ve ever had was our wedding; everyone was there to celebrate us, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly with no embarrassment whatsoever. Everyone else enjoyed themselves too; we received several reports that ours was the best wedding many people had attended. At the other end of the spectrum, however, two or three years ago I organised a pub night for my birthday and only three people showed up; I felt resentful and stupid at the same time. I�m so shy that I didn�t tell people it was for my birthday, and no one remembered. I hate being put on the spot so much that I didn�t want to make people feel like they had to go because it was my birthday celebration, and as a result I had a horrible night. I�m fairly certain that when people found out they felt awful too. I just can�t seem to hit that comfortable point between saying �Yay me!� and being self-effacing. It�s why I can�t stand taking off my make-up after a show and going out to meet friends and family who have been there and receive their praise and hugs and kisses, and why I flee the stage as soon as the curtain closes so I don�t have to receive those two-cheek kisses and congratulations from fellow cast members either. I can�t wrap my brain around it, and neither can other people. Including my husband. He just makes sure he has my coat ready and gets me out of there, which I appreciate more than he�ll ever know.

It�s something that�s bothering me more and more, and I�m really wrestling with it (as I�m sure you can tell). Maybe it�s the beginning of my mid-life crisis, along with trying to figure out what to do career-wise with the rest of my life�

Meh

As the morose tone of the last couple of posts has probably indicated, I’m in an anti-social phase. I had a dear friend’s baby shower to go to today which I was dreading a bit; I don’t fit in very well at all-female events. Anyway, it was just fine; turns out half the people there were hockey fans and we had the TV on watching the Canadians whup them American asses but good in the Olympic men’s hockey final while she opened her gifts. We even sang the national anthem and got all choked up when the flags were raised. I got a terrific photo (on someone else’s camera, alas) of the expecting mother opening a sweet card, surrounded by cheering women with their arms flung up into the air, half out of their seats.

My husband did the Trading Spaces test; he’s Genevieve. This surprises me not at all. Go run barefoot in a field, darling.