Hella Stella

So today's a bit odd.

It's my birthday, but it's also Matt's funeral. Maybe a little more sombre a day than I expected, but I'm looking forward to seeing my old school friends at the wake. Tonight I'm going to a play my dad directed, and then I curling up on the couch with my BH.

I'm sure it will all be fine. There is a lot to look forward to this month, after all.

Last night I saw Iron Man II and it gave me the most insane migraine, I actually got a nosebleed. Weird, no? I'm not sure that speaks very highly of the film. I spent the last hour of it holding my head in my hands, grumbling to myself.

Frida's stitches are healing up nicely, and she's back to her old feisty self. Morty's not sure if that's a good thing or not - he was getting used to being top dog again. Oh, they are deliciously cute together.

My choir is performing our spring concert this Saturday! I'm looking forward to it..... And come to think of it, it will be the last time I sing with the choir for a while. The house will officially take over my schedule next week.

Bye for now, puppies!

I think I need to opt for a list-post, because my brain is a bit wonky today and it's probably that or nothing.

1. I may get to spend a week in Montreal this summer writing songs. To clarify, I'd be renting an apartment and locking myself in there with my instruments. I'll either write songs of die of boredom. My bet is on writing, but my track record has been bad lately. To be continued.

2. It might be time for me to purge my Facebook list. There are so many people on there I don't really know anymore, and have no desire to know anymore. I also have a few people on there who have gotten so annoying that I've hidden them from my view. One guy took to posting drunken weird things on my wall.... And I've never actually met him. Unfriend, sucka.

3. My food mojo has been ROCKING lately. I made a lentil dish last night that should have fed my BH and I a few times over, but instead we gobbled everything up. It's especially great because the dish probably costs under $2 in supplies, and it tastes like a million bucks. Thank you, food gods.

4. I nearly opened a can of whoop-ass on my landlord last night because he thought it would be cool to install molding and use a shop vac at 9:30pm. My BH had just gotten off a 12-hour shift and needed to sleep. Something broke in my brain and I went and had words with the contractors. If they think I'm a bitch, that's cool with me. At this point, I see that as being a good thing. Contractors listen to bitches - particularly the angry ones.

5. I'm taking a tiling course this weekend with my mom. Have I told you about my awesome mom? She's the best. Anyways.... We're going to learn about tile and mud and fun things like that. I'm pretty thrilled.

6. I was worried that my terrible work schedule would mean dropping out of choir. Thankfully, I not only get to stay, but they will be flexible with the repertoire to make sure I can catch up. I LOVE CHOIR.

7. Unfortunately, I may have to increase my security settings for comments. I'm starting to get daily spam and it's driving me nuts. Forgive me. If I do tweak things, I hope you'll still leave me messages - I love them so!

I swear you'll get a proper post next time....

I received some news this week. It's both good and bad, but since I've had time to reflect, I'd say it's mostly bad.

I will be working every weekend in February, full shifts, Saturdays and Sundays. This is on top of my 8 - 9 hour daily shifts on weekdays. So, yes, I'm working 34 days in a row, if you do the math with a calender handy.

WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT.

I guess the good news is that I will get assloads of overtime. But at what cost? My mental stability? I had accepted to work weekends because I had been told it would only be for the occasional Sunday. How wrong I was.

When I was a student, I worked three part-time jobs in my last year on top of my full course load. One job was a TA in radio editing. One was at the CBC. One was in government. Jobs that required my actual attention. I was also gigging a fair amount.

I went many months without a real day off, and I survived. But DUDES. I am out of practice. I haven't needed to be a brain-eating zombie in a long time. I've become accustomed to going home and making dinner. I like having these luxurious things called "weekends."

It's especially laughable that I've been turning down gigs because I am "writing an album" this winter. When the fuck am I going to do that, self? Hmmm? Damn good thing I didn't take on any shows, I guess.

Also, I may have to drop out of choir, since I can't actually make any of the rehearsals. That's probably what's making me the most upset. I'm finally in love with choir again. I don't want to stop.

Anyway. For those kind souls about to comment and ask me why I don't just say no, I can assure you... If it wouldn't totally screw over my team and hurt my career, I would. But at this point, it's a short-term pain thing. Luckily, I pretty much adore my co-workers.

In other more hilarious news, this morning Morty mounted my cloth shopping bag on our walk and humped the crap out of it. Since I was holding it at the time, it looked especially strange. And kinda awesome. I don't know what he was thinking... He's not much of a humper.

I successfully distracted him with a tripe cookie.

God I love my insane dog.

Random things:

Heather and I now own exactly the same coat and exactly the same winter boots. She's about a foot taller than me, so if we ever stroll around the neighbourhood together, I will look like her munchkin twin. That is quite possibly the greatest thing ever. Maybe we should start a band called Munchkin Twin?

My BH and I have been assured that the renos upstairs will only go on for another week. Meanwhile, my charming new landlords have decided to change up our furnace from oil to gas, and as a result, have torn up my street to put in the lines. Torn. Up. My. Street. After having torn up our hallway and subjecting us to jackhammer sounds for a month and a half. That is quite possibly the shittiest thing ever.

I had a gift certificate for a hot stone massage lying around, waiting to be used. I'll finally get around to it this weekend. I have no idea what it will be like, but I imagine it will be better than my Indian massage experience (HOLY HELL, I just went looking for my Indian massage post and discovered that it does not exist! How have I not written about this? Maybe it was on an older blog? You are in for a treat when I get around to writing it down. It involves spanking and nudity, and I was expecting neither.)

In choir, there is a girl with the same name as me. To avoid confusion, everyone will be using my high school nickname instead of my full name. I have a few close friends who still use my nickname, and I love it.... But man, I feel like I've been thrown backward in time. Think about it: my old high school teacher runs the choir, and all the members are people I went to school with. When I close my eyes, I can practically smell the lockers, drama mats and cafeteria food. Maybe THAT'S why I've been getting urges to shave half my head and dye my hair green...

I have stopped freaking out about a variety of things. Life will be a bit crazy over the next six months or so, but I will manage. The panic is subsiding, and it is being replaced with a strange calm. Yes, it is the calm before the storm, but I am hopeful that I won't lose my shit during the howling gale.

The construction continues unabated at our apartment. The new landlord said they should be done the majority of the work by the end of the month. I really hope he's right, because I'm going to bust a cap in someone's ass if this goes on through January. This morning, giant chunks of my roof were falling outside the window while I was showering.

So remember back when I joined that church choir? Our big concert is this Sunday. I think my BH might be working, so I don't know if any of my friends will actually witness my transformation into a choir girl. I'll be wearing robes and everything. I'm also going to be standing next to a friend of mine who is about a foot taller than me. Maybe I'll dig out some heels so I don't look like such a shrimp.

Did you hear? The strike is over! Congrats to my bloggy friends who have been freezing their butts off to get better working conditions. You deserve a good stiff drink.

More soon when things aren't so nutty....

Yesterday was weird.

I had an unexpected day off work, which was great, except that I couldn't really decide what to do with myself. I puttered around for a bit before I decided to walk my lazy ass down to Preston and get all my knives sharpened.

There's something about walking though Centretown with a giant bag full of knives, let me tell you.

Now I have knives so sharp I'm scared to use them. I was washing them in the sink after I brought them home and sliced my heavy duty sponge in two. Eventually I'll graduate from sponges to actual food. The reason I got them sharpened in the first place was to avoid the mess I become when I'm cutting onions.

So. It's December. Consider my mind blown.

Obviously I knew it was coming. I have a calender. I know that December follows November. But I know how quickly December slides by, so I'm already wondering if I'm going to blink and find myself in January.

Here are some of the things I'll be doing to make December as great as possible:

- make mincemeat pies

- make chocolate candy cane bark for my co-workers

- have a million dinners with my friends

- order my final two or three Christmas gifts

- buy more Hannukah gelt

- bring out my Christmas decorations and do up the apartment

- listen to a lot of loud choral music

- hang out with my puppy and my BH as much as I can

- send out some holiday cards with pictures, especially to family in India

- sing in the choir!

- make some lists (funny, I wrote this down before I noticed the irony)


How about you? What are you going to do to make sure your month is fun fun fun?

I don't know what's gotten into me. I just scrubbed the kitchen floor and cleaned out my oven because I had nothing else do to.

Usually when I have nothing else to do, I devour my chocolate stash or I watch a movie. As long as it involves sloth or greed, I do it.

Maybe I have swine flu of the brain?

Now I have a sparkly kitchen, with the only downside being that I raked my hand across some broken glass during the mad clean and now I have teeny cuts. Boo.

This weekend seems blissfully clear of obligations. Do you know how happy this makes me? SO HAPPY, let me tell you. Obviously it's my own fault that I tend to over schedule, but still. An empty weekend just looks so good right now.

Maybe I'll clean the bedroom. Or maybe I could do what normal people do and procrastinate all the things I want to finish.

Holiday prep is going well. We have a homemade wreath, we have highly alcoholic mincemeat for pie making, and I listened to my first Christmas CD yesterday. It's choral Christmas, so it doesn't always sound super festive (often Gregorian and depressing, as it turns out), but still. Tres excitant.

One of my BH's gifts came in the mail today, and I ordered his main present yesterday. I'm already having so much fun. Thank goodness for internet shopping.

I should go pass out now, since chiseling layers of grime out of my oven managed to exhaust me. As a parting gift, I leave you.....

MORTY'S ASS.

That's how you know I love you.

It appears that choir practice is becoming my therapy.

I had a long day at work yesterday, and then came home to a crappy landlord situation that required me to FLY OFF THE HANDLE. I was so tired from the day that I considered, quite seriously, missing practice.

Luckily, my BH pointed out how little time I've got to learn Magnificat before the performance in December. I threw on my coat and boots, and headed out into the rain to get to the church. The walk was wet and cold, and I was feeling a little grumbly.

Of course, it was all worth it when we started singing. Something wonderful happens to me when we hit perfect, five part harmony.... The floor hums, the echo sings, and I'm completely at peace with the music. When I left at the end of the night, I felt rejuvenated.

This is the part we practiced the most. It gives me goosebumps.

As well as having a great choir practice, I wrote another new song. It feels wonderful to be writing songs after having writer's block for so long. I don't even know what changed to make it happen, but I'm so thankful. I feel functional again. It's amazing that I can actually cope better with my life when I'm being artistic. Or... Maybe that's not amazing at all. Maybe that's what art does to people. Am I right?

Anyway, the new song is tentatively called Bait, Line, Hook. It might also be called The Magpie. We'll see. This Sunday, I'm heading over to my fabulous cousin's place to record some of my new songs. I can't wait. :)

So many things to say.

First, OCFF is this weekend. I'm playing twice, both tonight at completely ungodly hours in the morning. When I know I'm going to be low on sleep, I get this deep feeling of dread in my stomach. I'm a bit nuts when I haven't slept. Then I just dive in and everything is fine - when you're surrounded by so many great musicians, a little sleep is an easy trade. That being said, I will probably sleep until noon tomorrow.

In other news, I have joined a choir. A church choir, no less. Background story!

When I was a kid, choir was a huge part of my life. I rehearsed twice a week, sometimes more, depending on how many groups I was in. This continued throughout my teenage years when I studied music at my arts high school.

But when high school was done? No choir. No classical music at all, actually. I played in bands, and that was the extent of my musical activities. I've been missing choir like crazy these past few years. Last week, I looked up different choirs in the city to see if any of them peaked my interest. The best ones all have scary-looking auditions, which makes sense, but not something I want to subject myself to at this point. I decided to leave my choir yearnings on the back burner until next year.

Then the universe handed me a big present. My high school music teacher sent a mass e-mail asking if anyone would like to join his church choir. They are singing all seven movements of this piece for their Christmas concert, and they need some reinforcements. I wrote back expressing my interest, and he called me back about a minute after I pressed send. He and I always got along swimmingly, and we chatted for ages before we started talking about the actual choir.

Last night was the rehearsal, and dude, it's SO COOL and also SO WEIRD to be in choir again. This time it's a little different, because I am the youngest person there by about, oh, forty years. Okay, maybe twenty. No, maybe forty. Also, as I mentioned, my high school music teacher is running the choir, so I feel like I've been sucked into a time vacuum and spat out when I was about sixteen. He hasn't changed at all! His erratic hand movements, his goofy falsetto, his pencil throwing, his bag of grapes.....

There was one other girl at rehearsal who I went to school with, and halfway through the practice, we both turned to each other at the same time and said, "SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE."

Anyway. I'll be in this choir until Christmas, and then I may join my high school alumni choir in January. I've got to say... I've only got one shaky rehearsal under my belt, but it is so nice to be surrounded by choral harmonies again. Like a big, warm blanket. So worth it.

On an unrelated note... I think I should hibernate this winter (besides choir practice, obvs). I'm feeling a little over extended with my gigging. For whatever reason, having regular gigs seemed easier when I had classes and a few part time jobs. I don't know why I find it so much harder now that I work full time. Technically, it should be easier, because my schedule is more predictable. But it's not, and at this point, it would be better if I took on fewer gigs so that I can spend my spare time writing and learning new things. Nothing sucks worse than a stale song.

I'll still be gigging... I'll just be a little pickier about when shows I take on. My fabulous cousin Brian has offered me full use of his home studio, so I may even get a bit of recording done. YES PLEASE.

You know what work is? CRAZY!

So naturally, I was pleased to discover that tomorrow is a holiday for us office types. I realize that it's a somber holiday, but I spent nearly every Remembrance Day of my youth freezing my arse off at the Cenotaph to sing in the children's choir.* I figure it's okay if I take the day to relax instead.

I was really, really productive this weekend. I did more cleaning and hammering and sorting and cooking than I've done in months. This was entirely due to the fact that my BH took the puppy to his parents' house for most of Saturday. At first, I missed them. I sat around a bit. I had some tea. And then I thought, motherfucker! I have the house to myself! I can blast music and hammer and vacuum and nobody will be bothered!

It was a euphoric feeling.

The whole experience made me realize that I never really get any time alone anymore. Even when my BH is out, I have a very chewy, chubby, slobbery puppy who demands my attention at all times. I never get to the point where I can really clear my mind and concentrate on something. I think this weekend was fun for all of us, because I was excited to have my boys back at the end of the day, and they were excited about how clean everything was.

Anyhoo.

My laptop appears to have been taken over by a virus. All my photos and files are backed up, but I can barely connect to the internets nowadays. I have long-term plans to replace my beloved computer, but I need it to run for another two years for my plan to work. Because that's when I'll have money.

I'm mentioning this because I have several crazy cute pictures of Morty that will have to stay hidden until I get things running again. The Sad!


*Interesting fact... I was in Vimy Ridge when they were preparing to send the body of the unknown soldier back to Ottawa. We might have even headed back on the same flight. I like to stop by the Cenotaph from time to time to say hello. After all, we met in France! What are the odds?