I interviewed (again) for a position of responsibility yesterday. I find out today if I got it, or if I have to interview (again) for the new school (sigh). The build-up this week has been very positive, and I'm glad of the opportunity for personal growth, but knowing that the news is coming makes me about as nervous as I can be without screaming and fleeing the building. And I still have one more class to teach. Joy.

In preparing for this interview, I made a list of personal qualities that I feel bear upon the job at stake. It made me realize that I have been genuinely experiencing a period of explosive personal growth. Just about every area of my life has been expanded and improved. Like that gross character Jack Nicholson plays in "The Witches of Eastwick" says, it's likely the result of the triple D: death, divorce or desertion. I also wonder if it's simply the extra energy I might have given to a second child, had there been a Burt for me.

Last weekend I escorted Blake to Beaver! Camp! in Hawkley Valley. We are extremely new Beavers - we joined this calendar year and Blake isn't even invested yet - but I knew that this was going to be our camp as soon as we heard about it. I think I may have loved it more than he did, and he really loved it. Constant food, bunk beds, snow and fires. Hiking, tobagganing, playing inside, reading quietly. He loved having people around him at all times, and he loved how late it all got before lights out (midnight! my stars!) I did a lot of knitting, and talked to the section leaders, and bossed other kids around. It was heaven. Intense, tiring and wet, and Monday had to be an isolated day at work just to decompress, but it was wonderful.

When we got back from camp! I took a short but angrifying nap (naps don't make me happy) and got ready for my theatre date. Mom bought me tickets to "Little House on the Prairie: the musical!" to honour my deep love of the books, but her neck was acting up and so Mason went with me instead. This meant that we had a chance to go Winterliciousing at the Biergarden, which is serving a trout and lentil main that is worth writing a valentine to. We were in excellent moods when we arrived to the theatre, but all was ruined when the play started.

It's not that I don't like a good, cheese-filled oat opera. (Mmmm...cheasy oats...) I like "Oklahoma." But this was so painfully written that I had to start taking notes during the first half, just so that involuntary snorts of disgust and loud bursts of inappropriately-time laughter were somewhat restrained. From the notes:

• first 15 minutes incomprehensible but not their fault; I couldn't stop rolling my eyes long enough to concentrate on the story
• good score; wretched book
• wow, these lyrics make "gonna paint a wagon / gonna paint it fine" look deep.
• Riley as cowboy: "I'm looking for a man. A Sales Man."
• definite Nathan Fillion vibe to Pa
• just starting to wonder if all those insane chances Pa took in the books were a result of a death wish
• Ma, square dancing with her skirt above mid-thigh?? I'm pretty sure the girls only saw their mother's knees when they emerged, squalling and bloody, from between them.
• Melissa Gilbert can't sing, which is not her fault. So why didn't they cast appropriately? Not fair to make her the cash draw and then surround her with 10 year olds with stronger voices.
• um, is Nellie supposed to be a direct steal of Galinda in "Wicked"?
• has anyone on script duty ever been bullied by an actual girl? Ever?
• this is simplified to the point of idiocy. I'm going to start drooling in self-defense.
• bothering my neighbours by laughing loudly at sincere lines
• it's like they through all the dramatic highpoints into a blender, with a scoop of ultrasincerity that reads as gay camp
• it's like they fed all the books to a dog and then used whatever it barfed up the next day.
• um, girls betting on ponies? Without their mother disowning them forever? Since when did they move to Gomorrah (or worse, Kansas City)?
• um, where did the sudden post-colonial self-consciousness emerge from? I don't remember Pa waiting for the government's permission to start stealing Indian land. Did they need something to fill time instead of using the actual story?
• blind sister taken out in public, encouraged to gamble instead of buy candy, then left to fend for herself during a wheat fire? Does that make sense to anyone?

We left at intermission, which must have been a tremendous relief for the people around us. I've read "The Ghost in the Little House," and I'm perfectly aware of how a bare-bones life story was used as part of a right-wing polemic to justify extreme self-sufficiency. Ultimately, there's no point in complaining that the story was changed to suit modern sensibilities; this story was never published in its original form and became popular because it comforted a society ripped up by the World Wars and hungry for a time of strict Puritan rules, the possibility of living outside them on border societies, and the promise of prosperity from a continent that already seemed played out by the time Rose ran her mother's manuscripts through her typewriter.

Yes, I suppose I do spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff. At least I gave everyone a break and left early.

Labels: books, camp, outings, snark, theatre

I spent all day helping to assemble useful Things. One is a bookshelf for Blake's closet that will allow me to get all of his books and magazines off tables, nightstands and high shelves; also, I can move his board books to a different location altogether.

The other shelving unit was for the kitchen. I had an idea that I'd put up a corner unit that would hold my cookbooks, but what I took home from Ikea turned out to be only big enough for trade paperbacks. Fail. So I filled it in with a small cookbook, a food memoir, a weight loss memoir, a biography of a food writer, etc. It was so much less satisfying than I thought it would be, and yet I probably created a good home for the goldfish I plan to buy at the end of the summer.

Mason installed his magnetic knife strip on the cupboard so that the big deadly knives can get out of the drawer. And then we put up rod holders so that I can have curtains in my bedroom. They'll be hemmed quite short to accommodate the bed directly below the window, but in the summer I move across the room to free up the heater so I can have different, longer panels. I wonder if having two! two!! two!!! sets of curtains will be as exciting and fulfilling as I think it will be?

Labels: books, house

The week before WorldCon sort of sucked; somehow I contracted an inner ear infection, so one part of my brain would say one thing and the other, another. It wasn't painful, but it gave me dizzy spells and it couldn't really be medicated, so I spent the week staying still and losing all the good effects of July's boot camp program. But I managed to get everyone packed and ready for Montreal, where I would be attending my first World Science Fiction Convention, Blake would be tagging along for free and Mason (who wasn't that interested in sf or, as we came to call it, "convention-nerd-ing") came along to keep us company and do some food tourism.

And I had no need to pack my most important asset: on the day Teija got married, I followed a dream about her wedding I had in June and dyed the front part of my hair blue. It's been the most fun hair I've had in years, and it was the perfect no-stress accessory to take to my first WorldCon...if I wanted people to remember me. And I did.

We got into the car on Thursday. I had tried to get everything packed the night before, but there are always 7000 things to do at the last minute, including cleaning up the stacks of dirty dishes so that I don't return to a toxic waste dump, packing the books and toys Blake will need on a 6 hour car-ride, and making sure that the adults are sufficiently caffeinated for the voyage. So we were a few hours late. Still, I'm proud of myself for getting out the door and only forgetting one thing (extra balls of yarn, which wasn't a problem because I had a second project. Of course.)

We had lunch in Trenton, at The Blue Room, a restaurant we picked in tribute to my hair. It was a lucky lucky find: an old school diner with real milkshakes and jukeboxes at each booth. Blake tried to use our juke to call his dad, which would have been more effective if his dad were Conway Twitty. And when we got change for the box, we found that the numbers gave up random selections, and we got a huge kick out of hearing the single the juke would deign to pop up. No, you don't really want to hear that, do you? Here's this instead.

"Blakey don't dial that number / It's a jukebox, not a phone…"
- random FM radio meets our lunch time memories

We zipped into Montreal at great speed, thanks to the prescience of Google Maps and a happy soundtrack of Apostle of Hustle. I was thrilled to discover that the expensive hotel I'd booked at the last minute was a posh pagoda-clad Holiday Inn on the borders of Chinatown and kittycorner from the convention building. (I didn't realize then that the Palais de Congrès is enormous, and I would spend most of my time in there walking from one end of it to the next and up and down floors in search of something vital: food, bathrooms, my child, an exit. Having an entrance close to the hotel was just a statistical likelihood, given its size. Still, it came in handy on the one night when I was alone.)

As soon as we got the car stowed and luggage hauled up, Blake & I went across the street to get registered. The first cool thing was the Voodoo Message Board system, which entranced the both of us. In brief: everyone who paid for a membership is listed alphabetically. When you check in, you circle your name. If someone has a message for you, they write it on the slips of paper provided, file it in a small box with eccentric alphabetic divisions, and put one of the red push pins next to your name. It's great fun to walk by and scan for red pins; as much fun as I've had since we used General Delivery to get our mail in Wolfvegas. Blake wanted to add his name, so I did on the second day. On the third day, he got a pen long enough to re-write his own name, which pleased him enormously. I only really needed this system for a couple of days, as I was able to find Souzan that first night walking through the hallway to a bellydance costuming panel. Juuki left us a message on the second day that let us find her in a steampunk panel (that took itself far too seriously, by the way; they shushed Blake so aggressively whenever he whispered to me that I was ready to start a fistfight by the time we got out. One, it's not church; two, if it were, people would treat him better. Argh.)

All of that being in the future, we left messages for both ladies and went to the desk to get checked in. Blake is only five years old, which means that he got in free and got his own "Kid in Tow" badge, which identified him both as belonging to the convention and entirely my responsibility; next year he will be theoretically able to roam free. Shudder. His biggest thrill came when they told him that he could pick his own name for his badge. He wanted "Winona" after the Rubbadubbers whale, but he was persuaded into an alternate: "The Batman." This is actually a terrifically sensible idea, as his real name was hidden from any potential abductors and he was at least twice as excited about attending WorldCon as a superhero.

We stared walking the halls; our first attempt to exit the conference hall with any sort of speed was frustrated, but at least we got to people-watch. A first day impression of WorldCon included surprise that there were so many nerds there. Hee. We met Souzan in a hallway, tried out the bellydancing panel, and then quickly went home to investigate our hotel room. In theory I could have ordered up a cot, but I decided to establish a one-off decision as a genuine family tradition: as the third person in a suite booked for two, Blake slept in a sleeping bag behind a chair, and thus Fort Sensible was re-established.

Fort Sensible! I honestly didn't see this coming, although in retrospect it's obvious. Technically it should have been Mason who slept in the Fort as the last person to join the expedition, but Blake genuinely enjoys the sleeping bag and this way Mason would be free to explore the city instead of spending the day trying to work the kinks out of his body from a night next to the air-conditioning unit. The second Fort was smaller than the first, and its occupant had to fall asleep without the benefit of toxic amounts of alcohol, but once again it did its job and Blake remained un-trod-upon the whole weekend.

On Friday Blake got up very very early, but I chalked that up to the novelty of the Fort and the delightfully unclose-able curtains. Besides, I planned to run him ragged: there was no way that the next day he'd have the energy to read aloud from Land of Nod: Rockabye Book at 5:45. I hoped. So we got dressed; him as a normal kid and myself as a girl who fully expected to meet Neil Gaiman at a signing that afternoon. (That meant that I wore my Scary Trousers shirt over a flowered skirt and makeup. I also wear the band shirt when going to the concert, and is that a problem for you?) To be up front: although there were many interesting and humbling writers attending WorldCon, when wrangling Blake all day I had energy for exactly one other thing: panels with Neil Gaiman on them. So if this account seems a little Neil-centric to you, well, so was my weekend. Imagine what it's like to be Mason, who had to hear all these stories, plus panel highlights, every day for 4 days.

We wandered a few blocks into Vieux Montréal and found an open café where I was able to get a full meal for Blake and myself. Getting Blake to eat a whole piece of quiche was important to me; I wasn't sure if we'd have the time or ability to get a good lunch, but I figured that if we had a solid breakfast and met Mason for a big dinner that we'd be in good shape for the evening. I was smug as we breezed past the long line of Tim Hortons postulants in line for their morning communion: I had eaten a proper Montréal breakfast in the Old part of the city, and I wouldn't have to depend on the local fastfooderies later as my boyfriend was going to suss out the best/cheapest places for supper. Ah, the smugness. If only comeuppance wasn't waiting in the wings.

Mason walked us to the signing ticket line before going off to experience the best of local breweries. The line was long. It was nowhere near the lengths I have navigated for a Gaiman autograph, but I've never done this with a small one in tow and I was anxious about getting a ticket. Fortunately, a signing lineup is an excellent place in which to meet people of similar temperament, and Blake immediately made friends with a woman behind us while I struck up a conversation with the mother-and-daughter in front.

(Blake's ice-breaker was "why are you in that [wheel]chair?" and the rest of the conversation was based on a mutual love of Strongbad, who was spending the day with us. Sometimes he amazes me in his ability to inspire love from random strangers with nothing but pure energy and random child charm. On the other hand, when I put it that way, it's hardly amazing at all.)

After we had successfully gained the magic ticket, we headed off to find what would become Blake's favourite place in Montréal, let alone WorldCon: the Children's Playspace. (He had difficulty understanding that if we ever came back to Montréal, this room would not be set up for him; that he was participating in a global gypsy caravan that had as much physical permanence as his own Fort Sensible.) I flopped down in a chair next to Andy, pulled out my baby sweater and thought about our next move. I stopped knitting to break up a scary fight between kids that threatened to erupt into fisticuffs between parents. (The solution? Take away the wooden train tracks. Without track the territory opens up and everyone can make up their own circles. I had to let kids use my legs as a train tunnel, but it was a small price to pay to keep the screaming and crying to a minimum.)

I also stopped knitting to herd Blake away from the toys and into the activities: he got his face painted as JetCat, and joined me in learning how to write our names in hieroglyphics. But mostly, I knit.

I was told that Free Food was available to everyone in some magical land called the ConSuite, and all I had to do was walk three measly blocks to the Delta to claim my free lunch. Despite Heinlein's sensible approbation, our free lunch was pretty good: bread and coldcuts, with some excellently sour pickles and acres of stale sheet cake from the previous night's birthday celebrations. I felt ridiculously ahead of the game by the time we wandered back to the convention. Nothing like free food to bolster one's morale.

We got back in time for me to settle Blake on the floor at the back of the room for a panel called "The New Media." There I was able to hear several delightful people including Neil Gaiman (who composes his books using "joined-up writing"), Cory Doctorow (who figured out a way to track changes in ever-malleable manuscripts and managed to drop the Six-String Nation Guitar into the debate, which made me feel like I was back in a folk festival), and Melissa Auf der Maur (who fetishizes vinyl as much as Mason & I seem to, a sentiment that made me break the listening silence with a whoop of appreciation.) Blake did the absolute best thing he could: he read Nod to himself until he fell asleep, and I was able to drag him to an empty chair near Souzan about ¾ of the way through the panel. The panel ended while he was still sleeping, and I was able to use Souzan as temporary babysitting so that I could go to the front and introduce myself to Cory Doctorow.

I read his book Little Brother this year for a library program at Bat Masterson (somehow I always end up reading the sf-fantasy book; last year it was Ysobel by GGK) and was absurdly charmed when I finished the book, looked him up and found out that he orbits the earth in a hot-air balloon in goggles and a red cape. (Or, you know, not.) He was pretty thrilled with the how and why of knowing him through the library program. And yet, "people keep giving me goggles and capes," he confessed to me. "I have six of them now." "Your daughter will enjoy them," I assured.

I went back to the seats, where Blake was just waking up somewhat disappointed to still be in a grey conference room. This is what apple juice is for, so I gave him some, and then we went back to the Children's Room so that Blake could learn to be a Jedi. This, of course, is geek double-speak for "a bunch of boys will try to whack eachother's heads off with paper weapons," which I should have anticipated. Nevertheless, Blake did have a lot of fun even though Mommy had to speak to a boy about his salty language and keep the same boy from blinding Blake with a paper sword. Ah, childhood.

At two we headed down to get in line for the Gaiman signing. Later I was glad that we got this out of the way on our first full day, as two hours of watching me inch around a linesnake while making grownup friends was just barely doable. He does find ways to amuse himself, though: first he read more of the Rockabye Book (Godsend. That book was a godsend. Dav gave it to me for my birthday exactly 10 years ago, declaring that it would change my life. Instead it SAVED my life; I could never have made it through the weekend without it. I owe you 1000 thank you's, Dav.).

Then he lay on the ground on the red carpet in the vendor hall. Then he made friends with other little people whose parents were helping to co-ordinate the line. So by the time I was at the front of the line, he was deeply involved in cleaning up by carrying plastic stanchions to the corner. But I insisted that he come over to meet Neil, as he always wanted to and never has. This will most likely be his only opportunity until he's old enough to have a personal distracting device; it's clearly nonsensical to expect a five-year-old to stand with me in line and I could only pull it off without bloodshed once in a lifetime, and only by stretching the definitions of "standing" and "in line" to the point of meaninglessness. But meet him Blake did; and I was proud of his manners.

Also: I got Neil to sign my copy of Vanity Fair, as I have often felt the need to redeem Todd McFarlane's 12 year old signature on the back of it. (This is also known as the "you're not Marilyn Manson, but you'll do" autograph.) This makes me happy.

Next! Dinner & staggering drunkenness! Angry silences! And using the con to balm my spirits. Read it all and more in tomorrow's installment: "Fifteen Samples?? As in, One Five?"

Remember the part when I was smugly counting on my epicurious boyfriend to suss out a cool dinner spot? The part when I almost felt sorry for my friends who had rented a hotel room with a kitchen, because they weren't as free to sample the beautiful bounty of Montréal cuisine? You must have realized that there was a smackdown in the wings. I didn't, and thus was totally surprised when Blake & I got back to the hotel to find Mason the worse from a day of beer tasting. He did not have any idea of where to go to dinner, but he did want to tell me about the hibiscus beer he sampled. He wanted to tell me about it many many times.

I must point out that it was not totally his fault. He went to a brew pub that, after 5 samples, ordered him to go to a different brewery because it was "so much better." At the second pub, when he wanted to stop drinking, they egged him into "finishing all the testers." So I blame the brewers, filthy sots that they are. Regardless, my dinner was effectively ruined, so I dragged both boys out to a local plaza where we ate a functional but unimpressive cafeteria-style supper and then returned Mason to the hotel to sleep it off.

I took Blake back to the con so that he could build a pig puppet in honour of Wolves in the Walls, and so that I could sulk in peace. Thanks to his nap, he was still in great spirits and not particularly tired. So we crafted, and he played, and we watched a bit of Yellow Submarine while I improvised another geektopus out of free convention yarn.

I had put him in his pj's before we left the hotel, as they were showing Coraline in the auditorium and I thought it would be a good place to pretend that we were in a drive-in theatre. Unfortunately, problems with the Blue Ray system delayed the movie for at least a half hour; this plus the long introduction to the movie by Neil himself meant that by 10, the Blake's head was in my lap and the movie still hadn't started. So we left. I had been able to ask a question about the Coraline Boxes during the Q & A period which made me happy; I didn't think it was worth sticking around so Blake could fall asleep five minutes into the movie. It's not like we'll never watch Coraline again.

Next!! A late morning! Photographs both flattering and not! A summer-weight cape! Noodles in the park! Losing underwear for the novice con-goer! A regularly scheduled Neil Gaiman naptime! Crazy Hair and the promise of glory! All this and more revealed in tomorrow's installment: "The Littlest Nerd Has His Day."

The next morning was our first late rising of the vacation, but no one felt rested. Blake & I ate a couple of snacks, then headed into the con building to scrounge up breakfast. Our first stop after finding Blake a smoothie and checking the voodoo boards (oddly addictive) was Kyle Cassidy's set-up in the hallway. Kyle is the principle photographer of Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, which features pics of dead Amandas and text by Neil Gaiman, and he was taking pictures of convention-nerds. I love a good picture, so I decided to get in on this. Unfortunately, wrestling with Blake, who was (as usual) fixated on my breasts, didn't leave me a lot of attention left over for presenting myself in a flattering light, and my half of the portrait is not attractive. Also, he refused to give up the empty smoothie cup, which adds another random unflattering element. So that wasn't the sop to my vanity I had craved. But the next moment made up for it.

As I was slinging our possessions about my body, I realized that K82 & Andy were coming by for their picture. Blake immediately grabbed K82's hand and refused to let go, talking a mile a minute. So when she went to her mark, he came with her, and they made the picture of the previous entry, which may just stop your heart with cuteness. What the hell, here it is again:

DSC_2036
Originally uploaded by kylecassidy

Once that was done, we all went back to the children's room to see if Blake could get in on some kamikaze koztuming. But we were late to the party, and all the black cloth and adult helpers were spoken for. I spent some time trying to figure out how to piece together two black jean legs before giving up in disgust, finding a short length of cosmic-printed cloth, and tying it around Blake's neck.

"It's sort of short," Mason commented at lunch.

"That's all the material they had," I replied. "So I figure it's his summer-weight cape." It was more durable than the facepaint of the day before, which transformed from Jet Cat to raccoon to chimney sweep before I washed it off entirely before dinner. And unlike a dramatic, sweeping cape it wasn't a danger to its wearer. Take that, kamikaze koztuming.

We met Mason at the registration desk for a picnic. One thing that Montréal definitely has over Toronto is the proliferation of small parks with fountains. After one and a half days walking the labyrinth of the convention, I was desperately in need of some time outdoors, with the soundtrack of water and birds instead of people. We got endlessly-customizable noodles from a restaurant in the convention, and went across the street to the first park we could find. Of course, Blake was about 10 spoonfuls into his soup before he announced his need of the bathroom. So Mason took him – where else? – back to the convention to find a bathroom, as I couldn't handle going back in that building so soon after leaving it.

They were gone for such a long time that I began to worry. What if Blake ran off? Or they got mowed down by an aggressive driver and no one knows that I'm over here? This is the thing about being in a strange city with your son glued to your hip: you crave a break from constant vigilance, but a break makes you all the more paranoid. They came back eventually, of course, a victim of Blake's tendency to take off half his clothes and relax whenever he spends time in the bathroom. He sees no need to rush himself; we wait by the sinks, bored, for him to emerge in his own sweet time. Later we would wish that we'd paid more attention.

At two we went back to the convention for a Gaiman reading (me) and a nap (Blake). The nap was not without its cost: before falling asleep Blake had to be shushed from reading his comic book out loud, then we had a whispered fight about using up my notebook to draw pictures. Finally, worn out by my infuriating attitude, he passed out. Thank heaven. It freed me up to listen to the reading, and it made everyone smile and sigh over his sleeping body when the reading ended and they all filed out. This time I had him in my lap, having learned the hard way the day before that he would be kicked and tripped over if he wasn't protected. There are, um, a few mobility issues at that convention, let's say. And people aren't always sorry when they boot your baby across the room. So in the interests of avoiding a punching match, I kept him safe. Everyone wins.

When he woke up, we went (where else?) back to the children's room for some playtime. By this point I was getting seriously buggy with the children's room, a windowless warren of 4 rooms where kids 6 and up seemed to be abandoned, free to form nasty cabals and wage war on other factions. So we tried some time in the dealers' room, but that was a bit of a no-go as there were too many collectables to be handled while my attention was distracted with nerdy t-shirt slogans.

Eventually we gave up and headed back to the Children's Room, where we could both be satisfied by a reading and re-enactment for 5-12 year olds of Crazy Hair, Neil Gaiman's semi-autobiographical poem of tonsorial confusion. Neil himself was to be there to read, answer questions, and set us up to create our own crazy hair collage. Needless to say, I was pretty excited about this, so when I was immediately challenged as to my qualifications, I got a little pissed off. "I'm with him," I pointed to my son, and muttered "just because I have blue hair doesn't mean I can't read the signs." After all that time in that windowless quad breaking up fights between kids and their parents, not to mention lolling around bored in the chairs, it was a little much to have someone get in my face about my right to be there. Fortunately, this anecdote, as with all my WorldCon anecdotes, did not end in a brawl.

(Apparently I have issues.)

Neil introduced himself as the writer of Coraline, and asked if anyone there had seen it. Hands shot up. Then he asked who had been scared. Blake immediately volunteered his experience, and at Neil's urging, showed how much he had been scared. Already weakened from the Kyle Cassidy photo, I was dying from the cuteness.

Neil read the story, then left with a cloud of interviewers so that we could create the collage. I worked feverishly for an hour: knitting tiny things with q-tips, gluing a sock onto the centre, drawing the Tick's floating hypnotized head, and encouraging Blake to draw and glue at top speed. The sock was a particularly divine inspiration; it drew so many comments that I was forced to pretend modesty. Blake & I also collaborated on a tableau that dramatized my own entrapment in the hair, and his diligent rescue attempt. By the time Neil came back, we were exhausted. I was, however, thrilled to overhear Neil & the woman who had challenged me in conversation about my crappy art.

Woman: what is that?

Neil: (insert charming English accent) It looks like the Tick.

He knew it was the Tick! This pleases me more than I can say.

While he was making his way around the table and talking to a few of the kids, a woman approached me from the cloud of interviewers. She introduced herself as from the NY Times, and flattered me all to hell by saying that she'd noticed my interesting question the night before and how I kept popping up at the events. I took a second at this point to send Blake over to Neil with his copy of Coraline. And really, I should have been taking pictures of Neil & Blake, but I was too dazzled by the idea of being in the Times to pay attention to my child meeting my favourite author for the second time in two days. Clearly, I need to rearrange my priorities.

Next!! Unusual shepherd's pie! Handicapping Neil's dinner! And the Accident that ended the Night to the Relief of All! All this and more revealed in tomorrow's installment: "Fireworks Should be Heard and Not Seen."

When the Crazy Hair excitement had subsided and I was able to remember my responsibilities, Blake & I packed up our stuff and went across to the hotel to meet Mason for supper. Abandoning completely the idea that dinner decisions would be made for me thus sweeping me into the fabled heaven of Montréal cuisine, I picked up a con-generated restaurant guide and used it to narrow down our choices. Restaurant Vallier looked interesting, and it would allow us to make another foray into Vieux Montreal, so that's where we went.

It turned out to be an excellent choice. Their specialty is retro food with gourmet twists; I had the duck comfit shepherds pie, Mason had the lamb burger and Blake had the mac n' cheese n' bacon. (Halfway through, Blake asked when he'd be getting a cookie. "This isn't the kind of mac n' cheese that comes with a colouring menu and a cookie," I warned.) Dinner went a long way toward calming us all down. The rift caused by the beer tasting day was starting to close, and the strain of caring for Blake all day in an unfamiliar environment was easing in the presence of another adult I could trust. I was cautiously optimistic that we would make it to the Masquerade that night.

I hadn't counted on Blake's tendency to underestimate how much clothing he needs to remove when using the facilities. He emerged from the stall soaked, and I decided to take him home to change before dragging him back across the street to see the costumes. It was at this moment, when we were figuring out the cheque and getting our stuff ready to go that Neil Gaiman walked in with his group and sat down at the table next to us. I was starting to feel creepy; the reporter had noticed me at "every" event, and would she think that I was discreetly following them at a distance? It was even weirder to realize that I could successfully guess what he would be eating, based on his widely-publicized love of sushi and my memories of the menu. Sure enough, I overheard him ordering the salmon tartare. It was time to go.

Blake started acting weird, though, and we tried to figure out what was up. Did he want to go say hi to Neil? Kind of but no. He decided that he wanted to wave from outside the window, which was self-defeating because the window was set just above his head. He did manage to attract the attention of the party, who waved back, and I saw the reporter whispering to the person next to her. Dammit, I was not stalking him! We were there first!

I did kinnear him, though. I felt that both Steph and Amy would want me to.

I had a moment of clarity back in the hotel room when I changed Blake. I never let him stay up past 7 when we're at home; now I was thinking of dragging him out to a 2-hour even that started at 8? This was when I discovered that - cue dramatic music - he wasn't wearing underwear, and he couldn't tell us why. Or where. Or - anything useful, really. I gave up on the night then, and concentrated on getting Blake into the bath instead, wondering if it would be worth it to bother the Palais staff trying to find a lost pair of Curious George underpants.

The three of us fell asleep to the noise of a fireworks competition, which lucky convention-nerds could watch from a balcony. I felt luckier to be sleeping.

The alarm went off surprisingly early the next morning. Unlike most days at WorldCon, today we had something to do that couldn't be missed: morning mass in Notre Dame Basilica. We'd been using the Basilica as a navigation point all weekend, counting down the days until we could experience it as it was meant to be: ringing with French, scented with incense. It was a charming ceremony and pretty straightforward. When I couldn't understand for blocks of time, there was more than enough to look at. I even respected the traditions of the building and didn't accept communion. (The last time I was in a Catholic church I deliberately flouted the wishes of the hard-line Sri Lankan priest and took a wafer into my un-shriven, un-penitent mouth. If Agamemnon can't make me behave, what chance did that bozo have?)

When mass was over, we took a short tour through the church and lit a few candles. That was most likely Blake's favourite part, little firebug that he is. My favourite part was the stained glass depictions of life in New France and the life-size wooden statues of the prophets. I'm not sure if Mason had a favourite part; he was born into Catholicism and visits to these churches are both deeply satisfying and unsettling.

We walked back to the hotel for our car so that we could drive to an authentic wood-oven bagel breakfast. This was our first chance to eat proper bagels as we'd been walking everywhere and the good bagel places are far from Old Montréal. I have to say: it was worth it. If you're going to be a tourist in Montréal, you might as well stack up your church visits and your bagel sampling as close as possible so as not to lose the buzz.

We got back to the convention for our regularly scheduled Neil Gaiman panel, a conversation with Gary Wolfe. (You think this is repetitive to read? Try looking back on your weekend with dismay, knowing that you're never going to find a fresh way of introducing attendance to yet another Gaiman event and that's pretty much all you did. Oh well. At least this was the last day.) I'm trying to remember: was this the one where we had seats? Yeah, it was. For a change, Blake & I got to sit in metal seats instead of putting our legs to sleep on the floor. So that was good.

We returned to the playroom in high spirits, still full of bagels and rest. In fact, we were so full of bagels that Blake & I were able to share a single order of noodles for lunch. Blake wanted to know when Neil would be in the Children's Area; he had explained his shyness at dinner the night before by explaining that "[Neil] would be in the playroom tomorrow anyway." We smiled at his naïveté. Then we read that there would be a young person Q&A with Neil on Sunday, and we had to apologize to Blake for doubting him. But when that was cancelled, it was back to the regular business of the playroom: forming tribes, squabbling over train tracks and denying the need for bathroom breaks. I was glad to get out of there again at 2, for the "Private Passions" the Many Interests of Neil Gaiman" panel.

("Is this going to be about how much he loves having sex with his girlfriend?" Mason cracked, when I mentioned it the night before. "I hope not," I said. "The cutie love notes on Twitter are more than enough for me." Oh Amanda, you'll never love him like we do, i.e. too starstruck to speak, in 30-second bursts, 2 years apart. It's a forbidden love affair, or rather a non-existent one.)

I was counting on Blake having his usual 2 pm nap at the back of the auditorium, but with K82 holding his hand he was considerably more worked up. First they decided that they wanted to sit on the front, leaving Andy & I scrambling to catch up. Then they decided to leave. Andy offered to take them back to the children's room, leaving me with a blessed free hour. I slunk back to the front of the room and sat, knitting and listening, until my hour was up. It was glorious. But the effect on Blake was not as good: without his nap he became more and more difficult until I was ready to leave him at one of the public fountains. He would have amused himself: he was forever ignoring my orders and sticking his hands into the dirty water, then his mouth. In a city with as many public fountains as Montréal, this is a real problem.

Next!! Visits to hotel rooms! A birthday dinner w/excellent soundtrack! The Hugos! A girl who suffers fools, if not gladly! The dismantling of Fort Sensible! Our final day in la belle province (cue the smoked meat)! All to be detailed in the ultimate edition: "Those fountains are finally good for something."

I thought I could do some more time in the children's room, but I when we got back after the panel, I was pretty much done with the place. Also, I was hungry and there were car trip snacks in our hotel room, so I convinced Souzan to bring K82 to see our room. This turned into a lot of jumping on the bed and screaming, so we walked a few more blocks to Souzan's suite, which was bigger and could muffle their raucous play. I was really having trouble shaking my headache, and greatly looking forward to dinner.

We used the guide to find a highly recommended Polish prix-fixé restaurant in Old Montréal, which was exactly what I wanted for my birthday dinner. I don't often crave Eastern European food, but there is Russian and Ukrainian in my mongrel past and there are days when pierogi is exactly what my peasant heart demands. The atmosphere was also pretty spectacular: the first person to greet you was a pianist who spent the evening cranking out a variety of schmaltzy standards and unexpected pop songs (Björk? Really?) with plenty of sentimental flourishes. We were seated at a table for six, on big wooden benches that allowed Blake to squirm around to his heart's content. He and I split some of everything, which turned out to be just the right amount of food for both of us (in my admittedly limited experience with prix-fixé, I've never seen so much food in three courses. It was just this side of overwhelming.) We also split my almondy-licious birthday cake, which arrived with a candle and a piano song but without the lockstep dead-eyed waitstaff to make me feel self-conscious. Trust me, if you're going to be publicly feted, have it done at a piano bar. It's so much classier.

Mason agreed to take Blake back to the hotel for the night so that I could watch the Hugo presentations. (We had agreed on a big birthday present when we got home, but this was easy and free.) So I trotted back to the convention, entirely Blake-free for the only time that weekend. There was one seat next to Andy & Souzan, so I was able to totally relax in my folding chair: take my shoes off, knit on something screamingly orange, and make occasional witty remarks to Andy. (As in when Frank Wu was nominated for the Fan Artist Hugo. "Are they saying whoo or wu?" Andy shrugged. But when he won, we could say both at the same time.)

It was interesting to see who showed up to claim their Hugo. Pixar and Joss Wheedon both won awards, and both sent proxies; I have to wonder if they take ComicCon more seriously than WorldCon. The Hugo itself is drop-dead gorgeous this year, and the aforementioned Frank Wu did exactly what I would have done with it: run around the stage with his Hugo in the air, making rocket noises. Zoom!

I had left my camera in the hotel room before dinner, so my birthday dinner and the Hugos were the only events at WorldCon that I couldn't directly record. This paradoxically made the awards better: after the ceremonies, all of the winners and presenters get up on stage and the fans get a solid five minutes to take pictures of the group. In lieu of a camera, I just stood around with a goofy grin on my face, sneaking looks at the trophy up close and enjoying the good spirits. It was exactly like the moments that follow a wedding ceremony: with the important part over, everyone milled about smiling, taking pictures and feeling good. With my own camera in hand, I may have missed that moment.

I sort of wanted to go to one of the convention parties that I had missed all weekend, but I thought that would be poor return to a boy who was patiently watching my son so that I could enjoy myself on my birthday. 'Sides, that was the whole point of dragging him along to Montréal: to be together on my birthday. So I pointed myself toward the hotel, and was crossing the courtyard when I heard my name. I had been so focused on being responsible that I'd completely missed Mike & Juuki, who were standing in their steampunk gear and waiting for a ride. I started to tell them about my Polish birthday dinner when Juuki's…um…corset…reeled in a passing man as if by magnetism. He spent the next twenty minutes telling us about his life, his alcoholism, his desire for a family, and what he had been told by a palm reader. "Why can't I have a family? I'm a good lover."

"I was a good wife and my husband still left me," I replied, my hand creeping into Juuki's.

I'm not sure if we had a conversation, or if we just contributed comments to his monologue. He was also greatly impressed by my 100% fake palm reading. And why is it that I have so much trouble making eye contact with people I like, but when I'm on the streets at night I'm able to look directly at the rambling addicts without pause? Maybe it's a dominance thing. Maybe I just feel safer paying full attention to someone unpredictable. Maybe I'm just contrary.

When he finally wandered away, Juuki started laughing and kissing me on the cheek. "You. Are an Angel."

"Remind me to tell you about the cracked out prostitute who put an earring on me," I said shakily.

Monday was our packing up day, our "oh my God, look at the hotel bill" day, our "what do we need to do before we leave this city?" day. I had been planning to do a couple of non-Neil Gaiman panels and some shopping before we left, but I really had no energy for panels at this point, so we went shopping. I had hoped that they would let Mason into the Dealer's Room without a badge, but that was a no-go; instead we did the Taster Membership thing so that he could experience the con for $20. Granted, there wasn't all that much to experience, but we bought some cool t-shirts and Mason got to see the children's room with our collaborative Crazy Hair banner. Also, I was able to show him the bi-lingual sign that proved I had married Neil Gaiman, and that he had taken my name. (Suddenly French is my favourite language.) Mason seems cautiously interested in con life, so I may have a male friend the next time I dip back into the oldest of my fascinations. That was very worth $20.

After we did that, we tried very hard to see a museum that Mason had visited the previous day, but it was closed when we got there. Of course, this was also the hottest day ever, so we had the fun of struggling through broiling Vieux Montreal with an angry and hungry kid, only to tell him that we couldn't deliver on the spooky crypt as promised. So we had ice cream instead, and Blake got so messy that I – drumroll – had to rinse him off in the fountain. I knew those damn things were useful for something.

We took the car to the Main, my little slice of Montréal heaven, where we introduced Blake to proper smoked meat and the most delicious pickles in the world (sorry Toorshi). Whenever I go to or through Montréal, I need to stop at the Main and it's usually on the last day so that I don't want to eat there every single day. (That's my Canso Lion's Club Fish n' Chips Protocol, there.) And with our smoked meat quota met, we wandered out of town in the most inefficient way possible, on the highway home.

"Goodbye Fort Sensible."

"Blake, that corner isn't where Fort Sensible lives. Do you know where Fort Sensible will always be?"

"Yes." (he points at the sleeping bag.

"No! In your heart. In all our hearts."

"Uh huh." The 'whatever' is implied.

Labels: birthday, blake, books, comics, friends, nerd, vacation

This hasn't been a good week, and I'd like to write it off and try again. Can't, though. It started going downhill on Tuesday and hasn't really recovered. Or maybe it has, and I'm just sulking.

But! Saturday was awesome. Some months ago Souzan told me about a medieval fair to which she brought her K8 every year. Blake's obsessions include, in no particular order: knights, lego, dinosaurs, Rubbadubbers, the Tick, Batman, Spiderman, small animals, cooking, crafts and the jokes on the back of Chirp Magazine. Since his father had already taken him to Medieval Times, I figured this was my best chance to enjoy his hobby with him (bonus: I don't have to go to Medieval Times). So we went. And it was awesome. The drive was really long and we started quite late, but we made it by lunch time and were sufficiently distracted by the various goings-on that we didn't even stop for lunch for a solid hour. Sage was in an excellent mood, and Blake bounced from distraction to distraction with hardly any pause. It was an excellent way to spend a Saturday, and I didn't even think about the TTC Knitalong. Not having pegged myself as the renfaire type, this is high praise.

only those of honour bright shall click through for more...

On Monday I benefited from Stacy's amazing foresight with the chance to attend a Neil Gaiman reading at Luminato. When she asked a few months ago, I was typically vague, as my ability to make future plans is usually undercut by parenting or work (in that order). She went ahead and got a ticket anyway, which I was grateful for at the time but much more so when we were told in the introduction that the event had sold out in 3 minutes. I've heard Neil read before and I've stood in a signing line before, but never have I had such an intimate experience as this reading. Five hundred of the faithful filled the theatre and you could hear a pin drop (as evidenced by Stacy asking me to stop knitting because the clicking of my needles was disproportionately loud). I was glad that I'd finished my beer before the reading began. (Also: beer in a theatre? Where was the hotdog cannon? The Morpheus-themed plush mascot to get the crowd going? The scorecard? And most importantly, the collectible bubblegum cards? There is some money being left on the table here.)

It was probably good that the theatre was so focused, as nobody noticed me grey out when he announced that he and Amanda Palmer were dating, had, in fact, been dating for almost a year. Since I don't regularly read his blog, excellent though it is, I assumed that everyone else knew. Turns out that this only broke in a national way on Saturday, so I'm still on some part of the curve and not behind it yet. I don't have an opinion of the Dresden Dolls, really, but it's probably not fair that my first impression of Amanda is "try not to hate her because she is a) dating the hottest author ever and b) the innocent beneficiary of a breakdown of a marriage in whose solidity I had taken an apparently fatuous solace." That can't bode well for an unbiased listening, although she gets points for writing an upbeat song about abortion.

The signing afterward was long, but nothing close to what you can reasonably expect at another Gaiman gig. I'll have to look this up, but the first time I waitied in line I was seven months pregnant and it took the better part of the afternoon. The second time, the Boy & I went home when it became obvious that we were never going to see the front of the line before the two of us crashed (that night's signing is reported to have lasted until 2:30am). This past experience makes it seem that 1 1/2 hours in line is a positive treat, a zip through the signing autobahn. It was so comfortable that I didn't even get nervous when I got up there, and was able to tell the story of Blake demanding a personalized book without stuttering or getting weird. (We have a copy of "Wolves in the Walls" that is signed to "Sprout." Blake takes exception to this, as he denies ever having been a Sprout. "You should get it signed 'to Blake,'" he insists, and last night I got a copy of "The Graveyard Book" inscribed to appease him.)

The other neat thing about the book line was bellowing a conversation across the loop to Amy, who was patiently waiting for her first encounter with The Neil. I spent a good deal of my stay in line making up for lost auditorium time by knitting my February Lady sweater, which is huge and unweildy and if I want to knit it standing up I have to wad up the sleeves and yoke and keep it in my armpit while I work the bottom section. A few knitters in the crowd asked me about the pattern and the yarn, then showed me their own knitting projects which were all small and discrete. By the time Amy and I were within shouting distance, I had worked up a good head of steam and was more than ready to talk and knit and stand and wait at the same time.

Now. Amy has...this item. It is a rare and beautiful item that was a generous gift from some wise marketers who clearly know the value of viral, grassroots marketing. Amy is a wonderful person, a fabulous knitter, a fun lady, a smart cookie, and more than generous in her own right. But when I found out, via her blog, that she had received a box of antique doll-making props used by the Other Mother in Coraline...well, I had to iris-shut my heart like an airlock. I refuse to covet what is my sister's. I refuse to curse the fate that made her the receiver of such a present. I turn my back on generations of my relatives who would, at the very least, gossip about her shoe choices (impeccable, by the way). I was so sure that I had this under control that I was even willing to let myself ask to see it, to open such a fetishistic delight and gently touch the scissors, sure that I wasn't going to burst into tears or snatch it and run away to start a new life in Venezuela. I had not thought about what it would mean to uncover such a thing in the middle of people who have been waiting for going on two hours to see the author that invented Coraline. People who had run out of things to say to their companions. People who were trying not to think about how late it all was. Bored, focused people.

There was a tiny little riot.

I shooed them away by hurriedly closing up the box, my pleasure evaporated in a mist of "oh God I promised her I wouldn't hurt it what if they break the box??". Photographers sighed, frustrated. People began to question Amy, and a knitter came out of the woodwork and started a conversation about Fetching. I was suddenly relieved that I was not in charge of The Box. Too much responsibility for a girl of my temperament.

Labels: angst, blake, books, friends, outings

I'm home from work today, as last night I realized that my glands were so swollen that I couldn't blow my nose without feeling them. Scary. (This may or may not have had something to do with the hour of garden time before dinner, in which I pulled enough weeds to choke several horses.) I feel better today, but I'll be going to the doctor's later; if nothing else than to get a legitimizing note. Getting sick the day before the Victoria Day weekend is just a little too convenient to be believed.

"Hey you! Get out of the…uh…mayor's office!"
- Quimby yells at an itinerant steel drum player, who has wandered into the shot.

On the upside, I've finally achieved this week's goal of not working. On Tuesday I wanted to spend the day with my camera. On Wednesday I wanted to spend the day with my copy of This Book is Broken (about which, more later). Yesterday I had no real draw, I just wanted to stay home. And today I'm in the study with a lukewarm Diet Coke and glands that elevate my already-thick-to-begin-with neck to comedy status.

Before I got sick, though, there was Knit Night. Mason & I continued our bizarrely blessed knitting life by wandering into a book launch (free cupcakes!!) and were encouraged to start drinking before we had a chance to eat supper. This may have been why my credit card got a workout: I bought teal yarn for a February Lady (the It sweater of the moment), Mason bought supplies for a fair isle baby sweater, and together we bought a copy of Vintage Baby Knits, the book launched that night. It probably wasn't the beer, though. Spring makes me manic, and when confronted with a book of vintage baby patterns (and the teeny samples hung everywhere) I am likely to go a little nutty.

As you can see by the above, we also got a chance to play with the new camera, which saved Mason from concentrating on the fact that, until his finger heals, he won't be knitting his new yarn. How did he hurt his finger? Chasing a gorgeous shot, he tripped up the stairs and went down protecting the camera. This is the second time this year he's broken a digit protecting something precious while on a staircase, which is two times too many if you ask me. Still, the camera must be protected. Always.

Last night Mason made dinner while I whined piteously about my throat and tried to do soothing things. My vow to leave my new yarn alone until I'd finished my other projects went out the window, and I cast on for the F-Lady while reading Berman's opus.

(For those who don't know my real name, you should know that the guy who wrote the book on Broken Social Scene was my Arts editor at the Varsity in 97-98. My strongest memory of him is from the day that Lady Godiva wanted to seduce him and we ended up feeding cheesecake to a random writer whom I later married. Archives? There we go.)

I've been looking forward to this book, and much of it is the kind of late-night party reminisces of the Old Days that I craved. No punches are pulled about who was fucking whom, which is something they've been coy about putting on the record before, and this makes it an impossibly intimate book. I loved that. I loved all the details about the making of the records, and how terribly screwed up the last record was to make.

But, there are a few bones to pick.

1. Remedios gets way too much space to talk about how awesome his record label is, which is an important topic but not as important as he seems to believe.
2. Most of the narrative weight is on the band's formation and early days, which, to be fair, is what Stuart is most versed on having been there the whole ride. I wanted much more about the successful period, but other than "everything sucked, everybody was breaking up" there wasn't much. To be fair, this perception may be because I read the first few chapters over a couple of days, whenever I could get a minute, and the last half all at once while sick, knitting all the while. This may have artificially speeded up the timeline for me.
3. Dave Bookman needs to stop making snide remarks about 90's alternative fans, who have been allowing him to avoid real work for over ten years. It's not the fault of 15-year-old Nirvana fans (circa 1991) that CFNY sold out to corporate obnoxious crap.

My biggest issue isn't so much a complaint as a plaintive wail. This book makes you nostalgic for Torontopia, a time when I was too far away in Nova Gothic or consumed with staying alive in my stupid job to care about music. I missed it, as most of us did, and that's the problem with rock in general: you're always made to feel false nostalgia about a golden age, a perfect show or a watershed moment that you could never have known about. Knowing Stuart makes it worse; why was he allowed to live this cool life while I put aside my university days and went on with the next (boring) part of my life? I feel like I was just close enough to have really and truly missed out, and I don't know if that is the rock n' roll trope or my own sense of frustration.

Or, as Ophelia once said after a night of watching her boyfriend reminisce with a friend from home as they lit match after match…

"There is nothing more deadly than listening to stories about the Old Days when you weren't there." – march 17, 1997.

But how can you argue with a book that closes with a photo of Ohad's kid reaching out to Charles' while the parents look on proudly?

Labels: angst, books, health, music

My vaague stomach cramps have gone away. Having a wussy illness sucks: you're not well enough to do anything but not sick enough to get any sympathy. I spent a day sleeping and keeping Blake away from my belly (he knows it bugs me, the devil) and a day gingerly trying food. At least we can exorcise the spectre of pregnancy, which would be awkwardly timed at best.

My health has cleared up just in time for my first knitting-free staff meeting. Having just finished Clarissa Dickson Wright's autobiography with all the AA content, I'm starting to wonder if She Who Must Be Obeyed woulf like me to admit that my knitting is out of control and I need to give myself to a higher power. One that isn't Elizabeth Zimmerman, one assumes.

Labels: bat masterson, books, drunken knitters

I've been reaping the benefits of friendship this week. On the Saturday between Christmas and New Year (a.k.a. during The Good Week of my Holidays) Zub & Stacy held a Media Purge party. Stacy has always been extraordinarily generous with her stuff, and purges her collections regularly for her overall sanity. This time, they held a party with an open invitation to add stuff to the pile and to compete with peers for hot items. I brought Mason and had a brilliant time - I must admit, I enjoyed the competition more than the items - and I scored a tonne of stuff for my classroom.

When I got my first job at Hogsboro High, I would take anything people gave me: travel photography, dusty compendiums of Irish mythology, "Orlando Futuroso." Having seen how well those books connect to my students, I have thrown a lot of ballast overboard in the change from one school to another. Now when I browse the perpetual church booksale, I look for books that someone may actually want to read. This means that I sometimes walk in with "The Fountainhead" and "Shopaholic Takes Manhatten," but both of those books move.

I've been bringing in the Purged books this week, as many as I can comfortably carry at a time. Every day I announce the new arrivals to excited faces. No, really, there are at least two classes who are excited. Yesterday was "The Scarlet Letter" and "Song of Solomon," and the students getting irate about the way Hester was treated. Today is three Sandman collections, two dictionaries, "Sense and Sensibility," two YA fantasy novels and an uncorrected proof of "Castle Waiting." It was a sweet day.

What has fallen by the wayside? The Lawyer's baby, definitely, my grandmother's stroke and the Last Night at Savage Garden. Baby first.

On Friday we went downtown for a doctor's appointment, meaning that I got to kill time in Lettuce Knit with Blake. (Oh, the hardship!!) There's a new bakery in Kensington Market, and they sell brie sandwiches. This is a big deal for me; I haven't had a good brie sandwich since the Netherlands. So I ate and chatted with Alexis and tried to convince Blake to come in from outside (he was waiting for Mason, who had promised to bring him a smoothie). And I bought expensive yarn and buttons, because with a car in the shop I certainly have extra cash for expensive alpaca. (Needs head examined.) Made a nice hat for Blake, though.

We were almost an hour late to see the new baby, which didn't prove to be a problem. They're in a new family holding pattern, which means a lot of sitting on the couch. Leo (the baby) is smaller than Blake ever was, and I wanted to keep him. I fell hard. There's not much else to say, except that the Lawyer's appreciation for the cardigan I knit Leo more than made up for my dad's churlishness on Christmas. And also, that I'm so happy for all three of them. They're a gorgeous family.

After baby bliss, Mason dropped Blake & I at my grandparents' house so that my dad could drive us to see my Grandmother. In brief: she is/was a heavy smoker who wasn't taking her blood pressure medication. She appears to have had two strokes in short order. She's reasonably responsive and mobile on both sides of her face. She's speaking very rarely. She yawns a lot, and looks a lot like a newborn herself. When I'm there, I help my mom change her diaper which is kind of awful but I'm always glad that I helped when it's done. For the first few days I was subject to guilt-induced panic attacks that included psychosomatic diaper smells (see yesterday's entry), but they seem to have passed. Most of the guilt seems to be over, now that I did the speech. That was one of the hardest things I've ever done. And it didn't get any easier as it went; it got harder. But I'm glad to be facing up to my feelings instead of wallpapering over them.

Labels: bat masterson, books, family, friends, knit, outings

My house is obsessed with They Might Be Giants. By "my house" I mean me and Blake and by "They Might Be Giants" I mean the song Ana Ng. Blake listens to that song between 5-10 times a day, usually in sets of at least 4 repeats. And he dances, trying his best to imitate the dance of the Johns. It's too cute. And I don't even mind hearing it over and over because it's a kickass song and I know he gets his obsessive tendencies from me.

(There is also a really cool stop motion animated fan-art version of the video. Really, it's too awesome for words.)

Speaking of things I enjoy, we now move into the realm of jokes I have recently made up that are too obscure for anyone to enjoy but me.

1. A joke brought on by 4 hours of marking 1984 essays. When I started to misread "Room 101" as "Room lol", I knew there had to be a cute picture in there somewhere.

(One of my students suggested "lolrats", but I still think the joke is dead on the table.)

2. I am knitting swatches for Laura, and have decided to call myself Team Swatch You Like A Hurricane. (Here I am!)

3. Dude, I don't even know where this came from.

Labels: blake, books, friends, knit, music