Second City (Level A) Fall 2004 

Second City Sundays

After a three week break, it was simply glorious to get back to improv class - this business of doing laundry and hosting teenaged Magic tournaments was way too much the reality check.

The first session was truly tremendous. Buddy Tim and I leave our respective loved ones and go to the big city and gossip and explore and be ourselves. Tim's like that - he's the kind of guy you can be transparent with because he's so completely genuine. I know if I mutter my deepest darkest whatevers, they're safe with him, because tomorrow, I just might change my mind.

There's a lot to be said for turning the music off on longer car rides and just talk to the person beside you.

And as an extra special treat, we go exploring (yeah for the point 'n' shoot) because I really don't know the city as well as I could (having spent most of my life hating Toronto the Good, mostly because of hockey allegiances and my being a Habs fan). You can't get to know a place if you hate it without having seen it, and I can't very well say I hate it any more. Just their hockey team, and the big-city centricity you get in any big city. (New York City was nasty for that)

Today's treat was David Mirvish Art Books where I had to find Louie Palu's Industrial Cathedrals of the North because Andrew (Work Songs) recommended it. And since I quite like Andrew's work, it stands to reason....

Well, it cost me an extra $120 today because this is an ART bookstore and tons of stuff was *on sale*, and well, um....I've got some great reading after I finish my improv homework.

(I have to read fairy tales all week. I'll be a far better teacher, if nothing else, at the end of this)

And of course, more pictures with the new digital camera to play with (if I ever get off the computer to do some non-digital artwork).

Did I mention it was sunny and just below zero today? Not cold enough for any southern Ontarian to even think about whining over. The days are getting noticeably longer too.



And how good was it to see most of the guys from our first class? The "new" folk from the other classes are going to make a good mix and a working ensemble, I think. And how fucking stupid I felt TWICE during class? Our new instructor says "go out on a limb..." "I want you to fail..."

Well, I did and I don't like it.

(Note to self: pay attention to physicalities. What establishes place at the start of the story?)



So much for trying so very hard to be perfect. This may end up being a learning experience after all (instead of a rather amusing way to spend a Sunday)

I usually warn Esso before I fill up....

Photoshop at it's finest

Truer Words were never spoken!

You are creative, complicated and flirty, although perhaps a bit disorganized and unpredictable! You're a great example of a 'melt-in-your-mouth' personality wrapped up in a colorful package!

From: fitwatch.com

I'm in the newspaper!

It all started when I went to a Libertarian Party hosted meeting about smoker's rights. And I haven't found it all that easy to quit(smoking). I'm too lazy to think through politics and ideologies, so I'm not particularly political either.
I also have very few dates with my husband, and this was one of them.

Listening to the guest speaker, Nancy Daigneault, I got "hooked". My problem is not with smoking or smokers, but with invasive laws. It makes it harder for people to recognize the degree to which these laws impinge on basic human rights and dignities when their veneer, if you will, is something that is generally considered harmful.

Let's be good Canadians and let our government look after us, and not let us get hurt. Our government, with it's propaganda, (see stupid.ca for starters) will keep our children safe.

Well, I don't like being called stupid. And I don't like being told what to do. So I wrote a letter to the editor (duh!).

---------------------------------
And so did my husband, who said, a few days later, that the newspaper had called, and they were probably going to publish his letter. (he's been published before - he's the political one, remember?)

"Why yours, and not mine?" (a little competition here)

Insert explanation on how to write to a newspaper. This coming for a guy who's grammar challenged.


"Well, your letter said pretty much the same as mine, so it's more important what's said than who said it." (second thought about what IS important)

Graceful, yet honest exit
---------------------------------

It's minus 18 at high noon and I'm doing ice-cream quizes?

Your Icecream Flavour is... French Vanilla!

You're a smooth and silky suave type! You exude class and you believe in tradition. A classical taste who doesn't like things to be too flashy or showy. Climb the Eiffel tower of taste with a spoonfull of you! Oui Oui!

What is your Icecream Flavour?

Find out at Go Quiz

This, and I didn't know the answers to half the questions

You are a complete literary geek, from knowing the
classics (even the not-so-well-known classics
and tidbits about them) to knowing devices used
in writing, when someone has a question about
literature, they can bring it to you and rest
assured; you know the answers.


How much of a literary geek are you?
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LibeMeMe; NaNoBloMo...???

Language as club membership (or exclusion). I know what these "words" mean, but I had to ask someone. And yes, I felt stupid having to ask because that meant I wasn't part of the Blog Club that was writing a novel during November. Or something like that.

And you're definitely not "in" if you don't know what a blog is.

Aside from computer literacy and acronyms like LOL, ROTFLMAO and a host of other sillies that seem to have prevented people from expressing themselves clearly, language can be used to identify membership in an elite group.

Part of it's function is to be specific - a mechanic can't ask another mechanic for a Whatsit or a Thingamajimmy, even though I can when I'm looking for cables to boost the car. That type of specificity is a GOOD thing between similarly trained people. But not so much when it's used to confuse the car owner into paying twice as much for repairs.

One that comes to mind from my days in library school....someone asked about a cataloguing point of entry when they meant the letter "M".

And how's this one? An article on the "Solipsistic Nature of the Generalized Baby Toy"....

An art critic writing about a cute little rattle.

LibeMeMe?

Book Author LibeMeme
Copy the list of ten authors below. Replace any that are not included in your home library with one(s) that are. Note any replacements in boldface. Reference where you found LibeMeme when you post.

1. Charles Dickens
2. L.M. Montgomery
3. Dr. Seuss
4. Bernard Shaw
5. Mark Twain
6. Isaac Asimov
7. Frank Herbert
8. C.S. Lewis
9. William Shakespeare
10. J. K. Rowling


Found in Acting Artist's post.

Pointing Fingers and School Buses

It's January, and it turns out J-kid's school transportation is a re-problem.

Somebody, somewhere has messed up, and of course, noone is going to take reponsibility.

The Board of Education says they have no record of him even signing up for pay-for-use bussing, let alone cashing a monthly checque.

The Husband says he faxed in the paperwork and a checque for the whole school year late last August.

The Bus-Scheduling People couldn't be reached for the month of September, PERIOD.

Until I lost it one day, when J-kid sat outside school for 2 1/2 hours, wondering how he was going to get home. I had gone home, no kid. Heart failure. Another two hours of frantic searching. Found him.

So, thanks to a neighbour who's a bus driver, we got him on a bus the very next day.


Now we find out we've been stealing it. It's mid winter, and technically, the J-kid is now supposed to walk the 5 kilometers to school. Holy hell, when he grows up and tells his kid he had to walk all that way uphill in a snowdrift, he'll be telling the truth!

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Husband can't find cancelled check and wants to know what I'm going to do about it. Says it's not his problem if the Board doesn't cash cheques. (Didn't you miss $360 from your account????). J-kid gets yelled at because he forgets to pick up the appropriate paperwork at school. J-kid thought the checque was still being looked for.

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Sometimes I don't sleep all that well.

Famous People Players

Black Night at the Theatre

J-kid decided to volunteer with me at the Newmarket Theatre, so we went and got him black pants and a white shirt - (almost dressed up!) and showed up for a performance by the Famous People Players. I had begged to volunteer for this one - these guys put on a magical show with black light puppets.

The first half of tonight's performance was "An Evening at the Opera". Halfway through Act 1, three teenaged boys (son incl.) worm their way out of Row Q and whisper that they have to solve the coat problem.

By intermission, I was relieved to see the "coat problem" solved (there were missing ticket numbers and mismatched coats) but surprised at their remarks...

"I don't get it"

(I'm thinkin' "Too much Gameboy, Not Enough Opera")

"What don't you get?"

"Uhhhh, it's just dumb"

"What's dumb?"

(A little projection here, methinks)

"I've seen puppets before - it's all the same. Boring"

(These are the guys that can't hang up a coat in numerical order. I think I'll wait until I get MY slave-boy back in the car)

I'm back to watch the second half - which is more of a school-show "Tommy the SnowFlake Journeys to Many Lands" -and not quite as witty as the first half. The troupe deserved a standing O, and we were treated to a beautiful rendition of some famous movie song that I can't remember right now, but it brought buckets to my eyes anyway. Some guy in front of me asked if I needed a mop.

Back in car, a somewhat disappointed first-time volunteer tells me that the other two boys just thought differently...giggled at "gay" stuff and all.

(Good for you, child, you don't ever have to fall prey to what everyone else thinks. Even if I do.)

"And about the show? Did you recognize the music?"

"All of it."

(Yeah, right. I hear him humming the Mikado all the time)

"It didn't make sense."

"It wasn't supposed to....just little visual snippets to support or interpret the music."

"I was trying to figure out the story"

"So you were frustrated with that, and didn't get it, so you just gave up on it...?"

"Kinda."

(Is this MY son?)

"Would you have liked it if you had known just to watch for the visuals?"

"Maybe."


-----------------------

Sigh. New black pants, black light puppets, blank kid.

Wow! Dress-Down Day for Tsunami victims

The most incredible feeling yesterday at work was when the office made the announcement just before the end of classes:

We made close to $9000!


The government will match our donation to the Canadian Red Cross. We're just a little school - around 200 kids on the elementary side - that's what blew me away! What wonderful generosity of heart and pocketbook - we'll be sending close to $18,000 just because our kids didn't wear uniforms for the day.


On the home front, our family supports Medecins Sans Frontieres - in hopes that the money goes almost directly to where it's needed - and NOT to corporate offices somewhere.

Bits of angel everywhere

Oh Tannen-BOOM

It was the day before Christmas and we still didn't have a tree up.

After considerable begging (and a superficial look in the malls for an artificial tree) we decided to chop down a tree in our backyard.

It was in the way of the new shed anyway.

Well, if this tree wasn't the ultimate Canadian cactus, disguised as an evergreen. Took full body armour to get it into the house, and oven mitts to get the decorations on.

Needless to say, last years lights didn't work, there weren't enough of them and it was now Christmas Eve.

Tempus fugit, Christmas has come and gone, and my boys are gone to Quebec. So I'm about to go out with the good-friend boys for a brew before my guys come back, when the phone rings, the sewing machine jams upon the hemming of my new jeans and I hear a swoosh and tinkle.

Of course, it's all my husband's fault because he said it was as solid as a rock and wouldn't fall. Doesn't matter that he's been gone for two days. It's still his fault.

When I went to put it back up and estimate the damage, the cactus-tree-from-hell drew blood....and the lovely glass decorations that my darling students brought were, well....

High time for an artifical with pre-lit twinkling lights, fake tree spray - it's just a symbol anyway, and there's no sense at all in having the symbol itself be the deadly one.

May barbarians invade your personal space

Utinam barbari spatium proprium tuum invadant!


Which Weird Latin Phrase Are You?
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