The Boy has three examz* this week, so as per our previous agreement, I took Blake on a long outing this afternoon. I have a lot of trouble giving the Boy space when I'm at home, partly because I find childcare so much easier when I can get someone to spell me for a few minutes every once in awhile, and partly because we live in a 2 ½ room basement. Plus, when Blake's asleep I'm prone to websurfing & reading funny tidbits at random over my shoulder; a very annoying habit that only the Boy could suffer with so much grace. So for the good of the peace and for the sake of our family's fortune (what would it be like to have a double-income family??) I got in the car & headed for Toronto. On the way, the CBC hosted a panel of poets who talked about getting poetry out to the people. For the first time in years I started to feel like a girl who knew her way around a Riverside Shakespeare.

Our stop: a Shameless Magazine fundraiser. Shameless is a feminist mag for teens and our friend Maggie M. did a reading. (You may remember Maggie M. from her gig in the fabulous buzz band The Hidden Cameras as well as a long-ago Fireball 99 after which she left the Last Bachelor Pad wearing St. Stephen's pants.) I was there not only for Maggie-support, not only for some fresh air & restaurant appetizers, not only to meet Dirk, but because I plan to use these magazines in my classroom. Yes, not all of my educational ambitions have died. Just most of them.

I was right on time, but Dirk was delayed, so I caught up with Maggie M. & a tiny slice of her interesting projects. She was able to enjoy Blake a great deal more than on the night she met him (overtired & overheated at the end of the Boy's birthday dinner), especially after we stripped Blake's blue furry pants off. (What was I thinking?) Then she was summoned inside & we were off on a reading.

You know? I think this is the first reading I've been to since St. Jack & Poet's Pivot mag launch. Like that one, I took to some readers, ignored others & laughed at still others. I sat at a table full of teenaged girls, with my pantless baby in my lap. Every once in awhile Blake would burn through all the proffered amusements, get bored & start yelling angrily. I'd take him outside for a few minutes and the day was so quiet that I could still hear the readings when I slipped out the door.

Dirk showed up after Maggie M. had read & departed, and we spent the rest of the reading eating food & sharing wedding pictures. After it was all over, we walked down College St. toward my car, stopping in She Said Boom! to purchase a large quantity of magazines for the coming week in ADD-parenting. (I love me some smrt magazines, I'll tell you what.) Then I got into my hot hot hot car and drove home. An excellent afternoon, in which I got to feel pretty damn smart but didn't have to relinquish my hold on a squirmy, half-naked baby. Hooray!

* I'm so ghetto! Actually, I'm just a sickness-addled typist.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 8/15/2004 10:14:00 p.m.