In Which Jessica Goes Home

A belated happy holidays and merry new year to all! I hope it's been pleasant. It probably wasn't if you're Saddam Hussein, but that's another story entirely and I'd be a little surprised if you're reading this, since you're supposed to be dead. But I guess the CIA is pretty amazing with the conspiracy stuff, so you could be alive and well and living in Aruba, and one of your seven doubles could have literally taken the fall for you. Just a suggestion.

ANYWAY. I'm not in Aruba personally, but I've had a pretty nice break. It was far too short, which gave me a few attacks of the blues since there just wasn't enough time to see everyone I wanted to see without running myself off my feet. There's never enough time.

I've lost my daytimer today and thus it is kind of a miracle that I even know where I am right now. Jacob called to go out and do something (e.g. go running) but my social life is cancelled effective today, except for maybe a few things I may do. This semester I am making my usual resolution to knuckle down in school and rock the house academically in order to keep my scholarship. At the moment the prospects there are looking questionable, because I am pretty dumb and spent most of last semester either going out and having fun or moping because I was not out having fun. It all hangs on the geography exam having been slain thoroughly.

That paragraph was definitely not about my break. I will tell you about my break. Highlights included:

- Coffee with Jane and Ella Hewes and with Margaret and Terry (in the same day, yet!)

- A night of festivities with Becca, Diane, Matt, Dave, and various others. Matt taught us a drinking game called Hoedown, which consists of a lot of pointing and shouting and at which I was good enough that it actually slowed me in finishing my pint. He then shamelessly used me and Becca to get the DJ at the pub to play Iron Maiden, but I got to pick the song so that was fine (Live to flyyyy, fly to liiiive, do or diiiiie). This was followed by a round of dancing at Stolli's where, unbeknownst to us, it was house music night. Good fun anyway, though.

- Games night at Tawnie's. I got to meet some of the people she tells me about online, and briefly I was not just a cyber-participant in her life.

- Mad good New Year's at Tom and Paul's ultra-spiffy townhouse, complete with basement Geek Room O'Tabletop Games'n'Musical Instruments and a terrifying furnace named Moloch. Think Super Smash Brothers, vegetable samosas, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a rousing game of Hoedown. I discovered that Meredith is definitely not the person I thought she was -- she doesn't even have curly hair, so somewhere out there is some curly-headed girl who I have mistakenly mentally labelled "Meredith: fencer, rather cool, dating Tom". Both the Victorias were also there and continue to be awesome people who make me giggle.

- Attending the New Year's Day concert at the Winspear with the Fambly. The concert was replete with Strauss and very lovely.

- Sisters' Demi-Day Out: sushi and a movie with my very favourite wee sister. Casino Royale is way too much fun, we agree. We decided to be health food terrorists and sneak oranges into the theatre instead of eating popcorn. Suck on that, Cineplex Odeon! However, our Porterfield sides manifested themselves simultaneously, resulting in ten minutes of gentle debate in the ticket queue over which of four movies to see before finally falling back on our original choice. "Oh, I don't mind. I don't know if I really feel like a drama, is all. But of course, if you do, I'll go along." "No, no. What do you want? I don't mind, really."

- Grabbing a delicious food court lunch with Katie on her lunch break. She seems to be in such a good place right now, it's delightful to see.

- Some quality good times with Colleen, who slept over the night she came up from Calgary. She's off to Hawaii on Tuesday (to celebrate my birthday, one assumes) and after that to heaven knows where on a theatre tour. Her life is so exciting and nomadic! Although I supposed Andrea has her beat for geographical reach. At the age of 20, she has visited 23 countries, since she spent the year after high school criss-crossing the known universe. Katie, Colleen, Lori, Andrea, and Heather all dined chez nous one night. I demonstrated my mad culinary prowess by throwing some frozen falafel in the oven and making a Greek salad and brownies. The homemade tzatziki was pretty darn impressive, though it was not exactly my doing. Lori grates a mean cucumber, and Mum makes a mean potato salad.

- Movie nights with both the Prattesses and Laura and Richard. Bon Cop, Bad Cop still kind of rules. Tabarnac!

- Brunch at the Sugar Bowl (yum) right before I went to the airport, to celebrate the fact that Bev and I were actually in the same city for eighteen hours or so!

That's about it. My flights were on time both ways, hooray. Stay tuned to JessicaWire for further breaking news, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

If You Want to be Happy in a Million Ways

In just a few hours I will be returning to my friendly neighbourhood international airport, where the lines will hopefully not be insane despite the baggage scandals going on. I hadn't heard anything about it until Mum told me, but apparently there has been some skullduggery with lax security over Thanksgiving, so now they're going to make up for it by making travellers' lives extra-miserable now. Oh joy.

Thursday night I slayed my economics exam, or at least wounded it. I'm fairly pleased with how it went. But then when I got home there was nobody around because Jacob is in Mexico (lucky fool), Katherine was out with Jordan, and Emily is usually asleep by 10:30, so I did some Christmas cards for the folks at work and watched TV. Woo.

To make up for this lameitude last night was extra-fun, for I attended a party at Matt's place. His housemates and friends all seem very nice, and a few of the choir folk (Laure and Louise) were there. I still don't understand the "raid dance". Apparently it has something to do with hard drives and the fact that they are read in a circular motion, so you have to have multiple people dancing around making circles with their hands. Just when I think I'm a geek, someone has to outdo me, and with choreography too...

Finally, I would just like to note that the new Fall Out Boy song currently on the radio sounds eerily Backstreet Boys-esque in the chorus. My inner teenybopper likes it; the rest of me is determined to mount a vigorous resistance.

Garden Statement

And so I return. It has been quite a while; it must look from the vantage point of the Internets as though I have disappeared into a pool of justified rage. And I have, if by this we mean "I have written a geography exam and then gone to New Jersey for a weekend with the fam". Both of these things went well, despite some justified rage at Continental Airlines and NYC-area air traffic control for trapping me in the airport for nearly five hours on Thursday night. Flight delays, bah humbug! I was confined in a Tim Hortons-less zone for interminable hours, with only bad tuna wraps to sustain me (I seriously have no idea what they did to the things; they tasted awful). My poor cousin John had to pick me up at the airport at 11:30 at night when he'd thought he would be home by 9:00.

The rest of the weekend was much more pleasurable. Friday I went into the city with Nina, Aunt Marie, and Lauren, or "baby Lauren", as Sophia calls her. We tripped around and did a little shopping, saw the Naked Cowboy, etc. Good times.

Friday night Aunt Marie and I babysat for Lauren so that Dan and Nina could go out for dinner. We watched the last half of Braveheart on TV, thus warping Lauren's tiny mind forever. If she is Scottish when she starts to talk, we will know why. If she commits treason against the king of England, we will also know why, though this will be difficult to do as she is not actually a British subject.

Saturday Nina took me into the city again -- she said she was very happy to do it, as it let her relive her Manhattan days, but it was still very nice of her! We went to see the Frick Collection, which is marvellous and is housed in a very beautiful building in the Museum Mile. It is right across from the Met, but so is everything in the Museum Mile because the Met is eleventy billion blocks long.

This was in the window at Carolina Herrera and I lust after it. There are lots of brocade coats in the shops at the moment but this was my favourite. The embroidery is just extraordinarily beautiful. So, you know, Christmas is coming up... who loves me?

The George Washington Bridge at the end of the day

Sunday was the big dinner with the family. Aunt Ronnie, Uncle Jim, and Jenna came up from South Jersey. Aunt Marie's three sons and their families also came, as did Aunt Elizabeth, Evelyn, and Linda. The babies were, again, a real highlight. I hadn't seen Sophia since she was about three months old; now she three and a half or so, and is full of energy. She's very sweet with her new little brother and with baby Lauren. Lauren loves her back, and went power-crawling across the floor to greet her when Michael, Marian, Sophia, and John arrived. John is only three months old and is reputed to wake up only when he is hungry. Nevertheless, he seems very good-tempered and darn cute. Most of my photos didn't turn out great, though there are a few I like. I was going to get Jenna to send me a few of hers, but in the meantime here are some that look OK. The photo I tried to take during dinner was not really a success; I should have known better! Anyway, the food was great and it was lovely to see everybody.

Monday Ruth was going to come by in the morning and take me to meet Father Brian (your friendly neighbourhood priest and a longtime friend of Ruth's) but unfortunately her truck's alternator broke and she had to spend some time in the Ford dealership on Route 17. In the end, we skipped out on Father Brian and cut straight to our traditional fare: lunch at the Park Tavern, home of the best pizza ever. Mmm, New Jersey bar pizza. Her sister Leslie came along, which was very nice indeed. It is lovely to spend time with Ruth but afterward my jaw always hurts because we both talk so darn much.

Later that day, John kindly trucked me back over to the airport. We were delayed about a half-hour, but that's how it goes with evening flights, I guess. Customs was uneventful, which is GOOD. This was, after all, my first solo international trip. And now I am all familied out and have to go study for my economics exam, which is tomorrow (gah). And then it is back to the airport, which is becoming my home away from my home-away-from-home. Hooray for Christmas!

Doormatitis

Today I realized something that is new about me, and is something I have been trying to believe for a long time and hadn't really realized until this week. I realized that occasionally, it is OK to be mean to people. Sometimes, as long as you don't go overboard and do any interior design involving femurs. This is extraordinarily liberating. It doesn't mean uncontrolled anger is my new modus operandi, but it does mean I am free to be curt if that is how I feel.

Wow.

So expect a lot more discriminate rage from me in future, mmkay? Enjoy.

Sculling About in the Quiet Pool

Yes! Papers done! Business presentation done! Now for exams...

The weekend was largely taken up with my econ paper and business presentation. Some of the gang stuck around after our meetings Saturday and there were shenanigans. I dropped in from time to time (being largely in my room writing) but didn't really participate.

Monday was completely insane. I was as short with people as I have ever been in my life. Having insulted the product of hours and hours of work, I then threatened to decorate the display board with the entrails of one lucky contestant. At the time, I felt kind of powerful and red-misty, but in retrospect kind of like a big meanie. Our presentation actually went reasonably well, despite all the precedent carnage. Then I came home, and Kyle and I went out for coffee and broke up. But it's OK, we sat in the Timmy's downstairs and talked. It was probably the least dramatic public breakup in the history of time. This is facilitated by my heartlessness and incapacity for significant romantic attachment. This is what I say to myself, not what others say to me.

My economics paper is done and finished, and I'm hoping the prof doesn't notice that it's not really about economics at all, but rather about how stupid economics is in its belief that material production can be expanded almost indefinitely. One of the Fraser Institute papers I checked out for it was talking about the "demand" for environmental quality, as though that's something humans alone control, on a day-to-day market basis. "Well, deciduous trees are up 10 points today, but I'm seeing stagnant watercourses under 5 hectares are down another 15." This may be a gross oversimplification of their position, but really: good freaking luck putting the natural house of cards back up once you've knocked it down.

Work yesterday was fine -- it was the office park's Christmas party, so there was tonnes of food and I inadvertently ate some chicken salad, which tasted kind of weird given that I was expecting it to be tuna. This is not the first time this has happened. All I can say is I'm glad it wasn't horseradish this time.

Today was Christmas shopping, to supplement the start I've made on Amazon. I recommend that everyone start making overtures for presents now, because there are lots of cool things out there. Even if it is just something small, it's nice to find a present that you know the giftee will like. At least, something you think they will like. So Mom, I hope you enjoy the bolster I have bought you. You should be particularly excited to hear that it is four feet long, extravagantly scented with amber musk, and shaped like a tabby cat. Sorry to give away the surprise, I'm just really psyched to have found it.

And so, to geography studying. Tah-rah!

"Like the Christmas Spirit Threw Up"

The essay-writing adventures continue. I'm trying to write about NAFTA right now, but it keeps turning into an environmentalist tirade about the folly of viewing Earth's resources as basically infinite and mobile, without any regard for the balance of natural systems. I suspect I am also going to thoroughly castigate the Alberta government for deliberately being poor planners.

Last night was December first, which means ritualistic excess in the form of Christmas decorating. Notl, Emily, and Nate came over, and by the time I got back from choir rehearsal it was pretty well insane. We were going for a somewhat revolting amount of tinsel, accentuated by coloured lights, bows, etc. I think we've achieved it admirably. Plus, we did groceries on Friday, so now there is actually, like, food in the place again and we aren't trying to figure out what you can make with remnants (viz. penne, chutney, dijon mustard, canned kidney beans).

And now I'm afraid I must get back to work. Though Katherine seems to have made eggs. Maybe there are some for me? I shall investigate.

Geneva Has A Lot To Answer For

Another quiet week of school work and work-work. It hasn't been bad, really, and any time I start getting aerated about the amount of writing I have to do in the immediate future (actually, in the immediate now) I just remind myself that I went to Montreal and out to some shows, and that I totally deserve any amount of library time I'm putting in now.

The New Jersey gang can get ready for a good weekend December 14-18. Why? Because I'm coming! I talked with Aunt Marie earlier today and she says it's OK, so I've booked my plane ticket. There are babies to meet and other exciting things to do. It will be beyond weird in some respects because it's been such a long time since I've seen most of them and there will be no parental backup information bank to remind me who works where, whose children are whose, and what stories I've forgotten. Such is the journey into adulthood!

Sunday Night Is Facemelting Guitar Solo Night

Zep and Floyd, how I love thee. When the Levee Breaks and Comfortably Numb are two of the best things ever.

Also pretty awesome is this: free TV on the Internet. Jay showed it to us when he was over with Yuna for their business group meeting with Katherine and Emily yesterday.

Spent most of the weekend in school mode, oh glee. Though really I am the Procrastination Queen, I don't know what I'm whining about. Anyway, I got my geography essay done and submitted it online fourteen whole minutes before the deadline. Well done, me. I've started my international affairs paper and am feeling cautiously optimistic about it, though one of the books I checked out is about conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War and had all the words to the Fixin' to Die Rag as a dedication in the front, so then I had that stuck in my head for three hours. Thanks, Country Joe and the Fish. And now, while I'm on a roll, I'm going to go write my penultimate business assignment.

Show It, Long As God Can Grow It

My hair!

Oh, Ha Ha

If I had a nickel for all of today's tasteless-but-still-kind-of-funny internet cracks about Trent Lott now being the minority whip and how that's a job, Trent, not a weapon, I would have... well, at least two nickels that I know of.

Had a nice run with Jacob tonight, though really contacts are superior to glasses in humid weather. It was the first time I've broken 7km in a while, and I think I'll be a little sore tomorrow, hooray!

Katherine has been doing her economics assignment and fielding calls from Kelly, because econ is a group undertaking. I have been not doing econ, since that's the class I dropped, but rather working a bit on my geography essay. The next two-and-a-half weeks have me writing three papers (!!!) but I am confident I'll get them all done somehow. Mostly I'm just not going to leave the library on weekends, and hope for the best.

Katie tells me that she and 21 of the high school gang (I didn't even know we had 22 in the high school gang) hit Sunshine this weekend for some blissful early season action. Mad with jealousy over here; I think she said it was 90 cm base and 20 cm fresh or powder! If that's what it's going to be like then bring on Winter, I say! Enough with the cold November rain.

Raining Again

30-Second LifeBlurb: Further rain today, hiss! Entire city acquiring SAD all at once. Choir performance with huge massed choir was good; girl high school choristers (choristeresses?) slavering over percussionist Nick Halley was sad spectacle, particularly as he is too old for, well, anyone in a youth choir. Various term papers apparently going nowhere, but am trying again for the one due on Sunday, which I think should be fairly easy. Possibility of faculty going on strike - negotiation period expires at 2 a.m. tonight. Should I cross the picket line?

People who have made me laugh today: Katherine, Emily, Lindsey, Jenn, Jacob, Jay, in roughly reverse chronological order.

Rip Through the City on a Saturday Night

Ah, Saturday night in the library. Have just come from Thai food with Alison (in town from Guelph), Heeya, Mal, Nicole, and Kaija (spelling?). All are well. Mal and Alison got piercings in the afternoon -- ear-ring for Ali, eyebrow barbell for Mal. Despite some peer pressure I elected not to join them, though I must concede that both of the newly hole-punched look lovely.

Novemberism

The afore-promised touring diaries from our 14-hour minibreak.

On the bus, ready to go!

At Metropolis. This is such a cool theatre -- the interwebs (those trustworthy sources) tell me that it has been there since the 1800s. Evidently people in the 1800s were a little slow, because they put the bathrooms on the top of four floors.

The opening act was the folky and terrifyingly thin Alasdair Roberts. He has a very lovely voice and sang many a traditional Scottish song -- a little slow compared with the main act, but still beautiful.

And now I think I will just throw photos all over the place; most of them don't need an explanation. Suffice it to say that the show completely rocked, and I knew this for sure even before they came onstage because the music between the sets was Peter and the Wolf. Omens don't get much better than that. Katherine and I both went preparing to be whelmed (not under, not over) but came away with big smiles on our faces. Not liking their particular brand of embarrassingly over-the-top, folk-tale-like music is like not liking pie: you come face-to-face with it and you just can't say no.

In addition to skillfully playing every instrument under the sun (viz. violin, hurdy-gurdy, banjo, mandolin, Moog and other crazy synth things, accordion, double bass, cello, slide guitar) the Decemberists get 10/10 for audience interaction. During 16 Military Wives (very catchy) they did the usual "which half of y'all sings louder" contest for the "la-di-da, di-dah, di-da-di-da-di-daaaa" section. They had people form a circle for a danceoff. They stole a cell phone from someone, dialed a number at random, and sang to whoever picked up. At some point in the encore (the encore, yet!) they did a sort of 1066 And All That history of the Founding of Montreal, and encouraged people to form up in groups of Huguenots, redcoats, and "Native, uh, Canadians" and re-enact the battle. "The Huguenots are coming down the river in canoes! Yes, in their nimble birch bark canoes! They spot the redcoats, and attack! And the Native, uh, Canadians see the melee and want in, too. They just... well, they attack everyone. And then are obliterated by disease and two hundred years of oppression." That pretty much says it all.

And so, I return to my essay, and then to work tomorrow. Alison is coming to town from Guelph, I may get together with her and Mal. And a bunch of the choir folk are going to be having a party over to learn the music for the Sankta Lucia concert. James' band, the Red Light Saints, are playing Zaphod's on Saturday. Elliott Brood is doing a show as well, and Kyle wants to go. Darnit, why do people I know have to continue doing cool things when I have work to do? An embarrassment of riches, truly.

Free/Three/Tree

Man, sometimes I wish I was a linguistics major. I picked up a really cool book entitled English Dialects while I was in the library looking for materials on the WTO (I know, yay). Its introduction starts off going all the way back to pre-Anglo-Saxon times. Imagine all the words that have been born, and grown up, and died in that time. A lot of the rest of it consisted of maps of England showing different pronunciation zones for particular words, like where the locals would pronounce "f" instead of "th" in a sort of Cockney way (it doesn't just happen in London!).

Back to econ. But later I will post some really good photos from the Decemberists show in Montreal on Sunday, which was so far beyond awesome that I just have no words. No wait, I do: fantastic! Ultra-cool yet whimsical! Ironic yet heartfelt! It was lovely. They played a lot of things from their most recent album, which I had not yet heard but am now very glad to have bought. We started off standing in the second row. However, Katherine worked her way up to the front row in time for Colin Meloy to fall to the ground in front of her, sing to her, and muss up her hair. I don't think she has quite recovered yet, frankly.

OK, now back to econ.