UT practice

Had lunch with Amanda at the Hospital For Sick Children (she works there), then did some writing for a couple hours in a coffee shop on University Avenue. I've become addicted to coffee shop writing. It's the perfect work environment for me...I'm not online, there's interesting activity going on in the background but not too much, it's cozy but not too cozy. I wear headphones and listen to a harp CD on my laptop to help blur background conversations.

Today I nursed a cappuccino for two hours. The staff didn't mind because the place wasn't super-crowded. In fact, I had an amusing conversation with the two women behind the counter while I was waiting for my cappuccino about all the different kinds of coffee-related drinks and the wide variety of confusing terms. They showed me a "cheat sheet" they sometimes use under the counter. :-)

I made Chicken and Shrimp Creole for Allison and Jodi last night. It turned out pretty well despite the fact that I discovered at the last second that I only had Minute Rice in the pantry instead of regular white rice. And you know what's really weird? I'm actually starting to enjoy cooking. Cooking used to be an inconvenience to me, an annoyance that got in the way of the time I could be spending online. Now I get a real pleasure out of chopping stuff up and cooking it and having it come out edible. I suppose I've learned to appreciate downtime much more.

Just to clarify...I'm not saying I'm a good cook. But at least it's not such a chore anymore. I think it helps that I know I don't have to do it every single night. There have been days when I'm on a real roll in my writing and want to keep working until the very last minute. Then we'll order in, eat out, or Jeff will make something.

Allison, Jodi and I got a ton of practising done last night after dinner. We also recorded some songs on the tape we plan to donate to Interfilk: The Road Home (love song I wrote some years back), Hockey Monkey song, Waiting For Frodo, May It Be, Obsession (my Harry Potter song), Unforgotten (a Lawrence Dean song), and a Secret Song to be debuted at FKO. We plan to include the lyrics/chords to all the songs we put on the tape, too...does anyone know Lawrence Dean's e-mail address, by the way? If so, please do let me know, thanks (Thanks to Rick Hewett for sending me this info! - Debbie).

Jodi and I were pretty amused by Allison during our first attempt at recording Waiting For Frodo. When we got to the part where Allison's supposed to sing "only xx months to go" where xx is the number of months left until the next Lord of the Rings, Allison sang "only nine months to go" then stopped singing and playing guitar abruptly. With a delighted grin, she exclaimed, "Wow, is it really only NINE months?!"

It took us several takes after that (mainly because whenver we got to that line, we'd all break down into giggles) to get the song on tape. :-) To be fair to Allison, I had my own special way of interrupting songs. While recording "The Road Home" for the Interfilk tape, I sneezed right in the middle of a particularly tender lyric. I couldn't help it...I tried SOOOOO hard to hold back the sneeze, but of course when I tried to NOT sneeze, I had to sneeze all that much more.

Allison and Jodi wanted to keep that particular recording attempt for the Interfilk tape (the verse interrupted by my rather desperate-sounding sneeze, followed by a brief silence then an Urban Tapestry giggle meltdown) but I wouldn't let them.

I can be pretty heartless sometimes.

News/Updates

As a follow-up to yesterday's Blathering on filk newbie nervousness: Andrea's current Supporting Note column is focussed on filk newcomers and also offers tips on how to overcome performance nervousness in the filk circle.

Chris Conway reports in Blatherchat that R.A. Lafferty has died. You can also find more info about the Hugo-winning author here.

Tomorrow's the deadline for the Blatherchat Oscar Poll! There are Genuine Prizes for the top three votes (the most accurate predictions) and since only three people have voted so far, this means that Chris Conway will win a prize even though none of his predictions will come true (he didn't vote for anyone on the official ballot, though his vote list was fascinating, nonetheless :-)). This means, of course, that if you cast a vote now and no one else does, even if you're just voting for one category, like Best Picture, then you'll automatically win an ultra-cool Inkspot pen and a custom-made silly poem! Vote here (list of nominees here) and help me overcome my current secret insecurity that my offering to write poems for people has actually scared them off rather than encouraging them!

Today's Blatherpic:

Storefront in Chinatown on the weekend.