wildcat

On the way to Salt Spring stop
Expecting to get some writing done stop
Still alive stop

(Cover image by Frank Quitely)

...but sometimes it feels like I spend my life waiting for a new issue of All-Star Superman to come out. Number Nine's out tomorrow. And, Scott Pilgrim Book Four. Tomorrow is made of win.

Yes, I'm talking in LOLcats.

(Oh yeah, and I'll fire something off about the Saltspring trip & hippie cloning cults soon)

Your plastic pal who's fun to be with?

It always disturbs me when the world starts looking a bit too much like Douglas Adams.

1. Tuesday night involved putting on the pinstriped suit and firing myself into the void, despite the miserable weather and the sickness, to cross town and meet up with Michael to be his date for this UVic alumni "Legacy Awards" banquet. First off, I wasn't aware that "steak" could be classified as "vegetarian cuisine." Secondly -- well, an awards banquet being hosted by a secular university in honour of their own alumni. Last place I would expect to make six hundred people say grace. At a religious college, sure, by entering the college you tend to agree to adhere to their religious strictures (leaving aside potentially dubious dormitory requirements), but a secular university housing quite a broad range of religious or specifically non-religious practices? Not appropriate, really. Everyone I knew who was there reacted with the "Er, What?" Otherwise, what am I supposed to say? Alumni awards, all geared toward alumni involved with finances or athletics. Money, money, money.

2. I've got until the end of December to prepare and submit a three hundred word postcard story to the Victoria School of Writing. Prizes for the contest include tuition for next summer's round of workshops. I want. I want badly.

3. I bet you look good on the dance floor! Dancing to electro-pop like a robot from 1984!

4. Joy fired story notes about "The Awkward Haunting of Holland Birmingham," whatever the final title ends up being. I can get started on the fourth draft! And then I'm sending the little fucker out the door to knock on literary magazines until one of them tells it that it isn't that all terrible.

5. Plans for tomorrow: dragging my tired ass out of bed to jaunt over to Fort Street for a quiet little breakfast at Avalon, because I have not had their lox trim eggs benedict in an age. Followed by shopping: for jeans (I haven't actually owned jeans in two years), a toque (too bad I can't just wander over to Vancouver and buy another little beauty for twelve bucks at Obstruction, but one must make do), probably the mythical perfect argyle sweater ("I don't feel that I need to explain my art to you, Warren."), Christmas present for Michael (no, not a puppy), a birthday present for Christian... I'm going to do the clothes first so that I don't have the opportunity to despair at awkward sizing or the terrible lights and stumble haphazardly into the Store Where One Size Fits All ("AND IT'S ALL SIZE TWO-SIX!") before I'm supposed to be at work. Because then I work, and I must be a presentable example of society. Gentlemanly.

6. John's Noodle Village is decent, despite proximity to Alzu's. That said, it's expensive and Young's is right over there and costs less. Plus, dude, I live within three minutes' walk of three different Chinese restaurants, because Shanghai Noodle is just around the corner.

7. In the next month, I have to make multiple trips to the dentist's office to have my teeth cleaned a second time and my wisdom teeth pulled. There haven't been enough songs written about the heroic pulling of wisdom teeth. It's like having Grendel in your mouth!

8. No, I don't know why I'm going on about Beowulf.