Drowning Nor Waving

September 20, 2011 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 450.
Words total: 1800.
Reason for stopping: Hit a stop. And before midnight, for once.

Darling du Jour: The quiet seeped out of the walls.

Mean Things: Waking up to some unexpected complications. No, even I didn't expect them.
Research Roundup: Sunrise times for late September.

Books in progress: Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe.

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Odd process things tonight: For the fourth time in four days, I am rewriting this same little scene, changing tense (we're back to past) or moving bits around or trying to start it from different places. Tonight I have it disassembled on the floor, cutting and pasting bits of paragraphs here and there, moving them like puzzle pieces, to try to make a picture that's the same picture -- two days later, girl gets up, notes bruising, and goes to Kensington Market -- but new. Somehow. There's a trail of sentences and images, the litter of previous versions, tailing down pages at the end of the file.

I think I am panning for narrative voice. And the leading tendril of an early conflict.

Revising, man. I'm telling you. It does things to your brain.

Otherwise.

Today, we did some small necessaries: mailed a few things, bought a new bedside lamp (the last one died the death last week), returned the extra yarn from the sweater to the yarn store for credit, and found some bubble bath, because it's September and chilly and there is no good reason for me to not have one drop of bubble bath in the whole house.

Things learned during this excursion include:

1) There are things Blue Banana* does not have for sale, notably lamps that aren't those ridiculous solid quartz lamps and/or bubble bath;
2) There is a vintage/antiques store in Kensington that, while not having lamps I wanted, has Atari games (!!!);
3) I won't even go east of Spadina anymore if it can be helped.

I also blew off what was probably a very good launch party for the Toronto Review of Books because I'd hit a good patch with the wordcount, and wrote all evening instead. Sometimes it's just like that.

Quick laundry, perhaps. And then bed. Lots to do tomorrow.

*Aka the Kensington Market Hippie Megamall.

cristalia 6:19 pm: Does getting sushi two nights in a row make me a bad person?
cristalia 6:19 pm: I am sleepy and achy and crave the flesh of beasts and fishies.
stillsostrange 6:19 pm: Are you eating endangered fishes?
cristalia 6:19 pm: No, only the regular kind.
stillsostrange 6:19 pm: Then I think it's morally acceptable.
cristalia 6:19 pm: Thank you.
cristalia 6:23 pm: I will mix it up and get short ribs too, thus lowering my fish-eating footprint.
kafkonia 6:24 pm: Ribs and sushi? Happy Channukah!
cristalia 6:24 pm: That's how I roll.

cristalia (12:14:07 AM): I should probably tidy up a bit if they're showing the apartment tomorrow.
cristalia (12:14:09 AM): Alas.
tanaise (12:15:22 AM): or mess it up more strategically.
cristalia (12:16:04 AM): I should leave a note in lipstick on the mirror that says DO NOT LIVE HERE.
tanaise (12:16:38 AM): Lipstick = not drippy enough.
matociquala (12:16:42 AM): heh
matociquala (12:16:50 AM): just arrange to have the mirrors spin and the walls bleed.
tanaise (12:17:05 AM): (like my uterus)
matociquala (12:17:29 AM): maybe the mirrors are the problem, there...
tanaise (12:17:55 AM): Too many or not enough?
matociquala (12:18:00 AM): Any at all?
cristalia (12:18:06 AM): This is actually built on an ancient burial ground.
cristalia (12:18:09 AM): But it's a Baptist one.
cristalia (12:18:13 AM): I don't know if that's scary enough.
kafkonia (12:18:35 AM): The ghosts would be very serious.
tanaise (12:19:07 AM): They would leave very polite notes.
tanaise (12:19:17 AM): and casseroles.
tanaise (12:19:47 AM): "Please consider living elsewhere."
tanaise (12:20:03 AM): "PS 35 minutes at 350."
tanaise (12:20:38 AM): in blood on the living room wall.

So today I made it home at 7pm to find out that Mary Sue the Desktop Computer is now a hurt/comfort computer, and wants me to prove my love for her by petting her tenderly, being worried that she has nearly! died! of a rare! tropical! disease!, and throwing money at a computer repair gent to replace either the power supply or motherboard tomorrow after work. My draft of "Stay" is stuck on the desktop too, so I'm a tad miffed. But only a tad. It's not the hard drive, after all, and all will likely be well and all manner of things be well tomorrow night so long as it's the power supply. If it's the motherboard, things take longer. Then I may be more miffed.

If you're waiting for e-mail from me on something and it wasn't sent today, it'll be another day at least. It's sitting on the hurt/comforputer. Sorry.

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In other news, I got to send a legitimate work e-mail in the voice of Dr. Doom this afternoon, so it really isn't all bad. *g*

Back a little over an hour ago from seeing Peter Mulvey (with Eve Goldberg opening) at a house show out in the extreme west end. It was a beautiful old house -- forced air heating vents and molded ceilings and wood, and yes, I ogle architecture so sue me -- and there was this lovely snowfall on the ground when we got there, enough that Partner in Concert Mike and I took a little stroll around the neighbourhood, just looking at the pretty houses and spending quality time with the snow.

And this was seriously one of the better small shows I've ever seen.

The audience was about 20 people large, most of whom seemed to be musicians of various sorts who had done a songwriting workshop in the afternoon and were doing a jam session after the show. Most of the people in the room knew each other, and knew the opener. This meant both that the room was really comfortable from the start and that half her songs were...her and a guitar and then the sort of half-muttered, soft harmonizing you get when people are singing along or just tossing in impromptu variations on something they know like the back of their hands. It was like sitting in the middle of a choir, kind of soothing and participatory and sweet.

Peter Mulvey did two sets and probably fifteen songs in total including an encore, and does a hell of a live show. He's personable and funny and tells stories in this doesn't-miss-a-beat way with fantastic offhand comic timing. It was a mix of songs and spoken word stuff off his new album, and the spoken word stuff was...eerily beautiful and powerful. The songs were a mix of stuff I knew (Shirt, Knuckleball Suite, Wings of the Ragman, Abilene) and things I didn't know and some fantastic covers: The Magnetic Fields' "The Book of Love" and the Jayhawks' "Bicycle" and a song from Anais Mitchell (who I really need to check out, because post-apocalyptic Depression-influenced operatic retelling of the Orpheus myth? Hello, pure twice-distilled crack for Leahs) and an incredible stripped-down bluesy one of "Everybody Knows".

And between these two sets was a casual sort of intermission with snacks and hot cider and chatting and nanaimo bars, and the whole thing was just fabulously warm and friendly and full of palpable delight.

I have two signed CDs, a warm giddy glow, and the satisfaction of not having splutteringly fangirled all over Peter Mulvey even though I really really wanted to.

Good concert, monkeys. Super good.

From today's Toronto Star:

The hard driving, florid-faced Sam McBride (1928–29 and 1936) was a swaggering, two-fisted, red-blooded mayor who would beat up councillors he didn't like. McBride would knock aldermen around the council chamber, or pin them up against walls, even swat them with sheaves of documents.

...two-fisted mayor.

I will buy a whole pitcher for the person who draws me a Sam McBride: Two-Fisted Mayor comic.

Today was a psychotically busy awesome crazy totally awesome day.

Was up way early, after really not enough sleep at all, to head out to Stratford and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival to see the closing performance of Macbeth. Reason I had to do this urgently? It's Colm Feore as Macbeth and Geraint Wyn Davies as Duncan. Yes! Pierre Trudeau murders Nick Knight* for the throne of Scotland! How could I not see this?

It was a little more of the declamation style of doing Shakespeare than the naturalistic style, which I prefer, but the change of era/setting worked: they did it in a 1960s sort of Central African setting rather than the medieval Scotland. I wasn't sure about this initially. But it really, really served the text well, and illuminated some things about said text for me that I hadn't actually fully realized before, so I'm thinking that move was a total success. The staging wasn't that interesting in the first half (went up to about Banquo's ghost at the banquet) but they did some things with quick changes, wardrobe choices, flitting back and forth between places/times while retaining actors onstage, lighting, and establishing place with four flatscreen TVs mounted on the pillars of the stage, with various scenery or stuff on them, that really made the stage design a totally active part of the experience in the second half; something that really informed the production.

Also, the guy who played Macduff brought me to tears in the good way. And the guy who played the Porter was freaking hilarious. Hats off.

From there, made it home at 6:30 or so feeling tired, a bit travel-smelly, and with ultimate low blood sugar. After eating and shower, I wasn't sure if I was actually going to make it out for Halloween tonight, but ksumnersmith, dolphin__girl, and cszego persuaded me out of doors. Sadly, I didn't have time to make my superawesome Halloween costume idea, so I just threw together some stuff from the closet (including the 1920s Girl Detective Death Hat) and achieved a creditable Raymond Chandler Femme Fatale/Girl Reporter thing. Apparently I do own bright red lipstick and it actually looks good on me. Fancy that.

Mostly we nosed through Church St. and then down to Queen and John, looking for somewhere we could go dancing. It was late enough that the lineups were huge and Sarah eventually had to head home due to early work tomorrow, but a bit after midnight I fortituously ran into Friend Mike, who tipped us off about a party the Silver Snail was hosting nearby. And that was an awesome party. We danced our butts off. I saw both a friend from the Star Wars lineup who I haven't seen in four years at least and a guy I did theatre with in high school, who I haven't seen in at least nine. I had a gin martini and held it sassily in my lace-gloved Femme Fatale/Girl Reporter hand, which was a life goal for this evening in this costume. We know where we're going next year.

Packed it in around last call, not sure whether the streetcars were running because it was either 2am or 1am, and while the TTC usually runs until 2am, we weren't sure how they were counting that tonight. We ended up walking up Spadina** and finally catching the Vomit Comet*** homewards. And it is a lovely night and cool, and there were still bunches of people on the streets laughing and chatting and singing, and really, this was a good day and I love my town.

And now it is the second hour between midnight and one, which only comes once a year and is a kinda special hour for me. I'll explain it one day. Or won't. Either way. But I am tired and happy and my black lace gloves are all covered in gin and need washing badly, and I must wrap this up and take myself to bed.


*Oh wow, and in looking those links up I just realized that Geraint Wyn Davies played Bill Davis in the Trudeau miniseries. That's...just kind of gloriously fucked up.

**Okay, for me it was a little more weaving than walking. It was a strong gin martini. It went to the head.

***For those who are Not Torontonians: the all-night Yonge Street bus. Many, many people go home from clubs on it every weekend. Hence the name.