how does it feel?

One of the best – and most ironic – gifts this new training has given me is my reduced need for sleep. Summers are the time for me to really clock those bed hours, especially when Blake is somewhere else. Yesterday I got up after seven hours, because my feet hurt too much to sleep (more on that later). I expected to zombie through the day, but I did much better than normal, and although I went to bed early, I wasn't exhausted, just done. Cut to this morning, when I opened my eyes at 5:15, unable to get back to sleep.

When I was working, it was a constant trial to get up before 6:30. Granted, I always sleep less when the days are longer, and the constant dusk-till-dawn squirrel fights are incredibly noisy. (They're my most obnoxious neighbours, and I often find myself screaming at them to shut up.) And I did manage to fall asleep for a few more hours, after much tossing and turning.

If I can keep this up in some form during the school year, I'm going to be unstoppable.

So, why did my feet hurt so much on Wednesday night? It was a combination of sudden inexplicable muscle twinge and too much walking during the day. I got up early to get Blake out the door with his annoying, annoying father, and right away, I felt sore deep in my heel. So, although I was going to a funeral in the morning and shopping all day, I skipped the cute wedge sandals and opted for a pair of Fluevog boots that have never given me any trouble. Except, I guess that if you walk for 6 hours, you're going to get a different kind of trouble. In this case, I took off my socks at the end of the night and a layer of skin went with them. Ouch.

I was shopping with Scherezade & her friend Leah. It was a dumb route, all things considered: I had promised to meet Mason in Kensington at 6, after which we would have dinner, knit and proceed to the Dakota for a show. So, in the spirit of redundancy, I shopped at Kensington for 3 hours, then we went to Ossington for another 2, before I went back to the Market to start the whole thing over. I even went to Lettuce Knit twice, as I have the habit of using their bathroom whenever I'm in the Market. Redundant. And skin-peeling, apparently.

I did find some cute things at Good Egg, a store that is almost never open when I'm in the neighbourhood. In addition to a cool insulated lunchbag (I threw away my old blue one during camp week after it developed holes), I splurged on Kafka's Soup: A history of literature in 14 recipes & an eraser shaped like a peanut. The clerk even threw in a cool apple-spinner, which made me laugh because usually I don't get free things unless Blake is there charming the pants off everyone. We also visited Kid Icarus, where there is a pillowcase screen printed with a BSS logo that I visit from time to time. (For the rest of the day, I was heard to say, "that seems a lot of money for something that doesn't have 'Broken Social Scene' on it and come with a pillow.")

My lowest point came during an extended visit to Monkey's Paw, a bookstore on Dundas that I surely would have appreciated under different circumstances, but. My feet hurt, my stomach hurt, and the piles of carefully bagged literary detritus reminded me too strongly of the things we had only just recently liberated out of my late grandmother's closet. She would have hated that bookstore. Dirk, if he hasn't already been, would have loved it.

Soon after this, I backtracked to the Market for supper. Mason and I spend so much time together that 9 hours apart seems like a lot, and we were happy to be eating burritos together again. We ended up at the Dakota far too early, although we did have our pick of seats and were able to spend the next two and a half hours comfortably ensconced in barchairs, knitting and sipping on draft beer. We were so early that we were able to watch the headliners interviewed by some media organization. We were so early that we were just ahead of a loud, obnoxious quartet who refused to pay the cover and refused to leave. We were so early that the arrival of Stuart McLean went largely unnoticed (although it did make us wonder if we should recruit him to help us kick out those four louts. I was still seething from my conversation with the Boy that morning, and in the mood to take it out on some big loud jerks. We figured that if Stuart called down Rex Murphy, we'd be an unstoppable juggernaut, plus we'd end up in a heavily-disguised anecdote on the Vinyl Café. Sweet.)

Now that we're going to clubs to see the young kids play, we're running into some weird things. Our big puzzlement on Wednesday was seeing Labatt 50 fly off the shelves. Apparently shitty dad beer is a hipster thing? I don't know. Maybe it's a price thing. Maybe they really don't drink beer for the taste. Maybe they're reacting against the implied pretentiousness of local craft beer – delicious, delicious local craft beer I love you so much. My thought is, I own a house in a subdivision with a backyard and a young child. I don't need to pretend that I'm my parents; I pretty much am my parents.

Your thoughts on the 50 thing? It's making Mason nutty.

Despite our perhaps curmudgeonly focus on the beer-drinking habits of our fellow patrons, we did enjoy the music. For seven bucks we got to dance right in front of Gentleman Reg in his black "onesie", then get blasted out by Zeus. For the record, Gentleman Reg truly is a gentleman, as he caught my eye while packing up his gear, and thanked me for dancing. Aww. Both acts were pretty awesome, but 1 a.m. is late to be standing in the front row of a balls-out rock show, and I had tinnitus for hours. (During the encore I tried to wuss out. "I can't take it anymore," I whimpered. "Yeah, you can!" Mason grinned.) Ultimately, I think I enjoyed Reg more. But I'm just contrary lately. Don't mind me.

Labels: friends, music, outings

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 7/17/2009 09:43:00 a.m.