still sick

so, you know, don't expect any brillance from me for the next little while. Or, you know, anything at all...

A redirect to a review

I'm sick as a dog, so, you know, I won't be posting today.

But, I did post something on blogTO yesterday, it is a review of The New Moon's Arms. You could go check that out instead....

Spell check poetry

As some of you may have noticed I’m a terrible speller. I couldn't spell my way out of a paper bag! Wait, no, that makes no sense, well, nonetheless, I can't spell...

When I don’t have ready access to spell check and I think there is a really good chance I’m spelling something wrong I often just open up a word document and type the word there and see if it gets one of those little red squiggly lines.

I have a tendancy to leave the document open so that I can just keep using it. This has been the case over the last evening and morning as I’ve been writing to people and commenting on places on the web and so on.

I was just about to close the document when for whatever reason I looked at what the collection of words ended up being, and it made for a fascinating collection to me, made me wonder what I’d been writing about, reminded me of some weird poem, and just generally seemed kind of cool. So, here are the words:

Intrigued

Philosophical

Stream of consciousness

Inquisitive

If you're curious, the ones I spelled wrong on my first try were intrigued and consciousness.

My review of The Overcoat (Canstage in Toronto) is up

Okay folks, I promised I'd post a link when it was up.

Go to www.blogto.com and check it out.

I'm sending you to the whole site instead of just the individual article because I like the esthetics of the 'before the break' and 'after the break' in this particular case.

But, if you really want a direct link here it is.

It's a bit long as a review, but it's a really different type of play, so it was hard to keep it short.

The one I post on Tuesday for John and Beatrice will be shorter.

Fragile – Handle with care

I’m feeling very fragile this week. And, as my cumulative sleep over the week diminishes the more fragile I feel. It sucks. I hate feeling fragile.

It’s also a very strange juxtaposition too, because the truth is I love my life right now and I’m really happy. I have the new house, the country air makes me happy, the prospects of what it will someday be make me happy, the excitement of owning something again makes me happy. I have a position at blogTO.com writing about theatre (I’ll be posting my first article today actually, I’ll be sure to update this post when I do…) that I’m so excited about I could pee with joy (pee with joy? WTF, what’s that?!?!). I have a permanent job finally, doing work I love.

Honestly, I’m very happy with my life right now, and happy in general.

But for whatever reason, this week I’m so fragile I feel like crying at the drop of a hat. It can be an interaction with a person, it can be a commercial, it can be a story on the news, it’s brutal. The truth is that I think I’m in some weird hormone hell because my period was doing weird things this month too, but damn, I wish it would stop. Not only is it generally unpleasant, but damn it, it’s embarrassing!

It also doesn’t help right now that John’s away for most of the week, if I’m already feeling fragile then suddenly not having that supportive body next to me makes it all the more acute.

I’m not sure what the point of this post is. Just telling the story I guess…

Cancer Vixen - a great comic book

So, my mum sent me to a link that had the first 100 pages of a comic book of a woman and her experiences with breast cancer. It's a true story, it's an actual woman and it's her actual experience. She is a cartoonist (Marisa Acocella Marchetto) and she decided to document her journey.

It's funny, it's irreverent, it's educational (I learned a hell of a lot about breast cancer in these 100 pages), and it's longer than 100 pages.

So, go, read the first 100 pages here and get hooked. Then buy it (I plan to go to Chapters, possibly even tonight...) and finish reading it.

I think it's an amazing idea to have so much of a book online, because it absolutely was enough for me to get pulled into the story and really want to buy the book, 10 pages, even 20 pages, wouldn't have been enough.

And the illustrations are so much fun. I really wish North Americans would embrace comic books / graphic novels more, and not just because then my brother could become a famous comic book artist... *grin*

Apparently kids are cute…

So, it would appear that sometimes kids can get away with doing things that would get an adult decked, because when they do it, it's cute.

On the bus this morning I was grinning from ear to ear as I watched two brothers (maybe 4 and 6 years old? Maybe younger…) play a game. It was like a less formal version of I spy…

Older brother (OB): What do I see?
Younger brother (YB): Cars!
OB: No, what do I see?
YB: Cars!
OB: (giggling and swaying side to side) NO! What do I see?
YB: CARS!
OB: (giggling harder now) What do I see?
YB: Truck.
OB: No, what do I see?
YB: Car.
OB: (more giggling) No. What do I see?
YB: Cars.
OB: (now laughing uproariously) NO SILLY! I see PEOPLE!

It was unbelievably cute, and quite heart-warming because they were so obviously enjoying each other so much. And, I can only assume because they were children (instead of say, teenagers…) that at no point did I wish violence upon them for the exchange…

Living a pioneer life (on the weekends)

So, in the new (old) country house we sometimes face challenges. Like, for instance, the fan suddenly not working on the furnace, leading the furnace to over-heat and turn itself off. This is of particular concern when it happens when it’s minus 8 billion degrees (Celsius, so that’s even colder!) and we happen to be in Toronto, meaning we have no way of knowing the furnace has spontaneously stopped working.

We arrived on Saturday morning to a huge ice cube in the toilet bowl and tank, and of course, no running water of any kind since all the pipes (feed and waste) were frozen solid.

Luckily some of our bottled water managed to make it through without being big blocks of ice (our big container of water, yeah, that was a big solid ice cube…), so I was still able to make us coffee (hell, I have my priorities!) while we waited for the pipes to thaw.

The challenge is that there were no clean coffee mugs (there are very limited coffee mugs to begin with and we didn’t manage to do dishes before we left last weekend because the sink was full of fallen mica - don’t ask - and we were tired and wanted to come back to the city…), and there was limited bottled water, I didn’t want to waste it on cleaning a mug.

So, this is where my pioneer life skills came in handy…

Once I got the coffee ground in the electric grinder, and going in the automatic electric coffee maker (so far very pioneer, yes?) I opened the back door the small crack that the huge mountains of snow would allow me to, and proceeded to wash out my coffee cup with the new fallen snow.

All I could think was ‘oooh, mum would be so proud of my ingenuity!” Of course, really what I’m sure is going through mum’s head as she reads this is “She left the dishes dirty for the whole week they were gone?!?!?”

So, you see, other than the electricity, the television, the cd player, the laptop, the hot plate, the mini convection oven, the bar fridge, the car, the grocery store, and a few other minor details, I’m *just* like a pioneer when I’m out in the country!

P.S. Yes, pipes burst. Of course pipes burst. I wouldn’t have faith in the universe if pipes hadn’t burst. Luckily only hot water pipes, so eventually we had running water, it may have been frigid, but at least we could flush the toilet…

My subconscious is such a tease...

Last night I had a vivid dream in which I woke up (in the dream, in real life I was asleep, dreaming I was awake, it’s a bit circular…) and thought to myself “boy, am I ever glad I decided to book today as a vacation day” I then thought about how lovely my day was going to be; lounging in bed until nice an late, sitting in a café sipping cappuccinos reading a good book, maybe going to a matinee…

Then I woke up. (For real this time.)

Once awake I was painfully aware that there would be no lounging late in bed, no reading in cafes, no matinees, nope, none of it. I did not book a vacation day for today. Today I will be going to work just like every other Friday.

That was a bit of a let down. Stupid subconscious…

appropriate fortunes

Yesterday I got some really terrible ‘Mongolian Grill’ thing from the caf for lunch. But, terrible though it was, it was worth it, because it came with a fortune cookie.

So, on February 14, after my terrible meal, I cracked open my fortune cookie, unfurled the little piece of paper, and read the words “Don’t lose track of your feelings.”

It was nice. I like the sentiment. I like it a lot. I think it’s too easy to lose track of feelings as we get caught up in the rigor of day to day life, but it seemed especially poignant on Valentine's Day.

Interestingly the French version provided an explanation why. (oh, for you folks out side of Canada, we have bilingual fortune cookies, and bilingual cheesy Christmas crackers) When I flipped it over to see if it was the same message in French (It’s not always, not sure why) I saw that it was indeed the same, sort of. In French I was told to “Restez en phase avec vos sentiments. Ils vous apporteront lumière.”

I’m always fascinated by the little differences. Why is it that in French it wasn’t enough to say “Restez en phase avec vos sentiments.”?

Toronto Theatre

I may have mentioned that I’m going to be one of the folks covering Theatre for blogTO recently. ;)

Well, my first write-up will appear on the site next Thursday.

I am so excited to be doing this. I am so excited at the prospect of constant theatre. It’s one of those things that I let slip, but that I love.

It always amazes how quickly I forget the energy that certain things give me. Theatre is one of those things. I get so energized and excited by it, but if I haven’t been able to see something in a while I manage to forgot that and suddenly it’s months between plays.

For every show I will have two tickets, so it will be me and someone else. The ‘someone else’ will change every week, and will be required to give me their honest opinion of the show so that I can provide two opinions to readers. I want a variety of people, people who know theatre, people who have never been to a play before, people who only go to mega-musicals, and so on and so on. I want to run the gambit with levels of previous experience with theatre. Anyone interested in being my ‘someone else’ at some point? I can’t pay you, but you do get to see a play for free.

Here are the shows I’m going to and the dates I’m going, let me know if you’re interested in any of these…

Tuesday February 20 – The Overcoat (Canstage) – I already have my ‘someone else’ for this one…

Friday February 23 – John and Beatrice (Tarragon Theatre)

Tuesday March 6 – (hopefully) The Sheep and the Whale (Theatre Passe Muraille)

Tuesday March 13 – House (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre)

Tuesday March 20 – Two Lies and a Switchblade (Diesel Playhouse)

Tuesday March 27 – (hopefully) E-dentity (Royal Alex)

Tuesday April 3 – The Rocky Horror Show (Canstage) - John called dibs on this, so it's not actually available...

So, let me know if you'd like to be my 'someone else' for any of these.

I haven’t figured out what I’m going to after these, but when I do I’ll post something calling for folks again.

one of the (many) reasons i love john

mainja looks at john and sings: "don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?"

john adopts a puzzled look and replies: "I seem to be experiencing cognative dissonance..."

A post my mum may wish to pretend not to read...

This post involves my sex toys, so my mother may wish to click on a different blog at this point. Or not. Whatever, I don’t actually mind either way.

That was fair warning, right?

So now, here is my tale (not a tale of tail, I promise…)

John and I were at the new house this weekend (yay, new house!), our cleaning guy came in while we were gone (yay, cleaning guy!). It was lovely to come home to a nice clean house.

I wandered upstairs and he had left me a little note saying that he’s put my lotions (I have eczema and stupidly dry skin all over, so I have a cornucopia of lotions in my room) in the cupboard they were sitting on top of. I have them on top for easy access, but oh well, no harm no foul. It was worth a try. Although I did note that for him to put the lotions in the cupboard he had to pull all my erotica books out of said cupboard and pile them where the lotions were (personally I’m not sure why this would look better, books are tidier than lots of little bottles?), which was kind of amusing.

So, I switched it back and in doing so had something I wanted to put in the drawer of my bedside table (do we see where this is going?). I opened the drawer and squealed with surprise and immediately started giggling a lot.

My cleaning guy organized my sex toy drawer.

It’s not just sex toys in there, it’s also face cream, lip balm, that kind of thing. It’s kind of random crap drawer.

Now the random crap drawer is organized. The sex toys are all in one corner (conveniently the corner closest to my bed for easy access), the skin products in another corner, condoms in another and so on. I must say that it is laid out (har! har! har!) in a way that speaks optimistically of my sex life where reaching for lube and sex toys would happen more frequently than reaching for face cream and chap stick. It’s not. I put on chapstick *twice* a night…

Anyway, I can imagine that some people would be horrified but I’m not upset by this. I find it hilarious. I also suspect that if our cleaning dude didn’t know me reasonably well (we’re usually here when he comes, and we’ve had a few meals together etc) that he wouldn’t do it, I suspect he knew it wouldn’t bother me. But still, I can’t imagine if I was someone’s cleaning person (or hell, best friend helping them clean their apartment) and I opened their sex toy drawer that I would think “gee, I bet they would really like me to organized this for them, it would probably improve their playtime because things would be more accessible…”

Yippie!!!!!!!!

I have a permanent job!

And it’s my current job, the one that I love!

Yay!

Yay yay yay!

Again I say, YAY!




(oh, for those of you who haven't figured it out yet, I was on contract before...)

St. George's Dances in Guelph Ontario

If you went to high school in Guelph, Ontario in the late 80's early 90's (and possibly later than that, I'm not actually sure when they stopped) you will remember St. George's dances, whether you went to them or not. The DJ was Brad Howe. At least, I think it's Howe, I'm not actually sure.

What I'm looking for is people who actually *went* to these dances that played such a dominant roll in my teen years.

I'm trying an experiment on Pandora where I put in all the music I can remember being played there and see what it comes up with (or if it explodes).

So, here's what I remember clearly:
- Violent Femmes (Add It Up? American Music? I'll admit I'm guessing on the specific song)
- Jump Around (House of Pain)
- Brown Eyed Girl (Van Morrison)
- Head Like a Hole (Nine Inch Nails)
- Red Red Wine (UB40)
- Go Down (Yeasty Girls - oddly enough Pandora does not have this ditty...)
- Rock Lobster (B-52s)

Can you remember any others that were played regularily?

**update**
I remembered one on the weekend:
-Tained Love (Soft Cell)

Nalo Hopkinson makes me very happy

I’m a lucky lucky woman.

This is true in many ways. Wonderful friends, wonderful family, amazing partner, great job, rich life experience, the opportunity to do things I love, the list goes on and on. Generally just very very lucky.

But lets get back to friends for just a moment. You know what’s really lucky? Being good friends with someone who is lucky enough to be the consort of one of my favourite authors.

What this means is that this year for my birthday I was lucky enough to get her latest book, which has not even been released yet, and that I had not yet pre-ordered from Amazon.

This of course means that I’ve been lucky enough to sink my teeth into this book over the last week or so. Even though I don’t have much time to devote to reading, I do have lots of time to devote to thinking about the book, imagining where it is in my house, wishing I could be reading it, wondering what will happen next, and of course, as much as I want to finish it, I want to savour it, I want it never to end.

I really can’t tell you how much I love her work. It’s kind of like Philip Pullman for me. I don’t mean the writing or the style, I just mean my adoration of it. I want everyone to know about Nalo Hopkinson. I want everyone to read all her books. I want to go off on a major marketing campaign so that everyone can know about her and read her books. I want her to clone herself so that she can write more.

Which brings up an interesting dichotomy, because with most authors, because I have no window into their life, I just whine about why isn’t there a new book, I want a new book, whaaa! With Nalo (who I don’t really know by the way, I’ve met her in passing once, and listened with great interest when she was a panellist on the first Canada Reads on CBC radio many moons ago, but I read her blog, and I converse with her consort - apparently today I like the word consort...) I hear about the trials and tribulations of trying to write and still make a living (because lord knows writing novels for a living, well, rarely exists. Kind of like theatre in that way…) and I am torn between wanting a new book ASAP and wanting her to stay sane, happy and healthy. Too bad there wasn’t a way to do both…

Anyway, I’m loving The New Moon’s Arms as much as I loved Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber and The Salt Roads.

Quick, out you go, buy yourself some Nalo Hopkinson books and read read read!

the bio is up...

Thanks every for your input on the photo choices.

The bio is now up on blogTO. Go here and scroll down to find Megan Mooney. (alphabetical by first name, although, with me it doesn't matter if it's by first or last name...)

Before and after eyebrow threading pictures

Okay, so, technically you've seen a bunch of the after pictures already, but I like to balk the system.

Knotty asked for ‘after’ pictures. I’m going that one step further and put in a 'before'.

Overall, the experience was a very good one. I mean, it hurt, and it did hurt more than tweezing because it’s lots of hair all at once, although that does mean it’s over quicker. It’s WAY better than waxing. I haven’t broken out at all, the look is more natural, and it’s only marginally more expensive. Oh, and the redness doesn’t last nearly as long because you haven’t just ripped a layer or two of skin off.

So, I would highly recommend threading. I will certainly be doing it again. Although, I don’t think I could stand it on my upper lip. That would possibly kill me. I can barely tweeze my upper lip. It’s like moustache hairs are to the hair family what spiral nails are to the nail family…

And without further ado...


BEFORE (taken in a hurry in the car after making the realisation I did not yet have a before picture...):
Note the lack of definition in the eyebrows, the 'shadow' underneath the main brow. But after a quick and not painless proceedure the entire look is transformed.

ET VOILA!

AFTER:
It is important at this point to ignore the shiny effect of using the flash while close to one's face and focus on the clean nicely shaped brows.

Also, let us marvel for a moment about the fact that somehow I have taken a picture of myself where it looks like I have a neck. Anyone who knows me in person know that this is a mere optical illusion, I have no neck, unfortunately my neck never did find it's way to my body. Now, if only I could figure out what I did in this picture to obtain a neck then I could do it all the time, and of course force people to only look at me from that angle, but these are mere details. All must be sacrificed for the neck!

Okay. That's it. I'm going to bed. Maybe I'll grow a neck while I'm there (a girl can dream can't she?!?!)

An interactive post with voting and everything!

Okay, so I’m putting picture in this post for you to vote on. That would be the interactive part. oh, and when I say "and everything", really I just mean that the voting is everything. Moving on...

Now, don’t get too excited, this isn’t some strange off-shoot of hot or not, you’re not going to get to rate the picture independently.

I’ll give you some quick background on what’s going on…

Starting very soon I will be writing for blogTO. I will be doing theatre reviews, general theatre ramblings, and possibly restaurant reviews too. I have to say, I was pretty excited when got the email telling me I was on the team. I need to do a write-up and provide a picture to go in the 'about this site' section of the blog.

This is where you folks come in. I have 5 pictures to choose from. Tell me which one you prefer for my profile. So, just leave something in the comments telling me by number which one you prefer.

The pictures (in no particular order of preference) are:


Picture number 1:




Picture 2:




Picture 3:



Picture 4:




Picture 5:

Okay, honestly, I'm not even sure why I put picture 5 in here, it's just kind of goofy and fun. I'm sure I could make it a bit less, um, shiny in photoshop. (updated note: after looking at picture 5 several times today it no longer seems funny, it's starting to seem creepy. Using the flash up close is not a good idea...)

So folks, here it is, your big chance! Interact with this post. Leave some feedback. Tell me which of these 5 you'd choose if you were me. And remember, please, no 1-10 ratings, we're comparing these photos against each other, not the photos, or my look, or whatever in general.

And on that note I should drag my sorry butt to bed.

talking to strangers

I have learned an important lesson in life.

Sometimes it's worth the awkwardness to talk to strangers (and, lets be frank, sometimes it's not).

This is a story about how it is worth it.

A while back you may remember me mentioning my street car friend. Or you may not; it wasn't that interesting a post. Here's the recap "I have been talking to someone on the streetcar every morning, he seems cool, it’s fun".

See, I told you it wasn't that interesting.

Well, my street car friend now has a name.

Not only does he have a name, he has a job, a house, a life, the whole bit. And now I’m part of it. Well, not his job, or his house, but his life. At least, I seem to be well on my way to becoming part of it.

We hung out one night last week, and we hung out last night, he’s coming to my birthday party tomorrow night. The one challenge is that we seem to drink an awful lot when we hang out, I might need to work on some kind of mitigating strategy for that, because I sure as hell can’t keep this up. But beyond that (who am I kidding – including that…) we’re having a great time.

I love the process of becoming friends with someone. I am always thrilled by the idea of being accepted into their life, while accepting them into yours. I was saying to John that in some ways it’s a bit like when you start dating someone. When you start being friends with someone – someone you can actually picture becoming a good friend, a regular part of you life, someone to talk to not just drink with – there is an element of infatuation. I don’t mean sexual, I don’t mean romantic, it’s just the next level in the ‘friend crush’. Suddenly I want to hang out with Mr. Streetcar all the time because I want to know all there is to know about him.

I’ve had this happen before with other people too, it’s a pattern for me. I have good friends who I love dearly who I see once a month, and who although I’d like to see more I don’t feel absolutely driven to see more, whereas a new friend, well, damn it, I want to see new friends 3 or 4 times a week.

It by no means reflects how I feel about one over the other. Or, wait, maybe it does.

Because I know that my friendship with 'longevity friend' is solid, I know that we’ll get together and pick up where we left off, I know that there is enough history that we won’t have to go through a new ramp up time if we don’t see each other often. With 'new friend' there isn't the history to hold all that together.

So, in fact, it demonstrates my comfort level and the value of the friendship for longevity friend. What seems like the short end of the stick (is a stick not one vaguely straight piece with out particular ends?) is actually an affirmation of something positive.

And thus concludes today’s motheringly long post…

How I know I am a bad liar

I am sitting at my desk, thinking about a hypothetical situation (honestly, I’m not being coy here, it’s just an unlikely ‘what if’ train of thought) where I might choose to lie.

Remember, this is all in my head, it’s an internal conversation, it’s not going to happen, and even if it did, it’s what most people would classify as a ‘white lie’.

As I sit here, imagining the possibility of choosing to lie I can feel my cheeks get warm.
That’s right, I’m blushing at the thought of maybe someday at some point telling a white lie.

I would make SUCH a bad poker player…

Origami is hard...

Now, I’m no fool. I already know that origami is hard.

I know that it’s an intricate complex art.

But that didn’t stop me.

I was really hoping to find some simple fun folding instructions online. Even the stuff they label as ‘simple’ looks bloody complex to me.

What I really want is to remember how the hell it was we did that fancy folding of notes in high school, you know the ones that had a little diagonal pocket which you then folded the triangle tab into. I don’t remember the point of these, since certainly it didn’t offer protection from others reading your top secret and oh-so-intelligent words, but they were fun.

I’m wondering this because we have a thing going on in my office, it’s like a secret santa, but it’s a secret valentine. Today until February 14 we have a secret valentine, and I have written a poem for each of the 10 days for my valentine. I’d really like to leave them in the valentine’s mailbox folded in some fancy way. But alas, fancy folding was not meant to be.

If anyone knows of any websites that makes folding things easy for the simple minded among us (like, say, me…) then please do pass it along…