private space

Bill Sutton has written a moving tribute to Bruce Pelz in his Another QuarterNote Heard From column as well as an excellent comment on filking in general, for those interested.

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Did a 4.3 mile run/walk this morning, out to Coronation Park and back. Lots more tourists out in the area despite the relatively early hour; it'll be interested to see how crowded my route gets when the weather warms up.

In case any of you didn't know, Jeff and I live right in the heart of Toronto's biggest tourist area. I can step out my front door and see the CN tower, Roy Thompson Hall (home of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra), the Skydome, and the Royal Alexandra theatre. Tourists are always stopping in front of our building and taking pictures. When the World Science Fiction Convention rolls into Toronto next fall, I suspect I'll be one of the closest residents (if not THE closest) to the main function space; the Metro Convention Centre is about a 3-minute walk away.

But before any of you get it in your heads to come crash at my place :-), be warned that Jeff and I don't tend to have a lot of houseguests during the year as a policy. Partly because we don't have a guest room, so a guest has to sleep on the pull-out couch in the middle of the living room (which means very little privacy space for the guest as well as Jeff and me).

But the main reason is because Jeff and I have had a somewhat stressful/hectic few years, and have become much more conscious about keeping free weekend time to spend together, and also just keeping time free. Even before then, we've never been the public "hey, anyone who's in the Toronto area should come visit! There's always crash space available" sort, which has probably caused hurt feelings in the past, I'm sure. We do have houseguests, of course, but they tend to be people that both of us know.

I'm also sensitive to the fact that Jeff is not a filker. He's met most of my closest filk friends and liked them all, but I'm also always aware that he would probably feel somewhat overwhelmed by a typical intense filk weekend. Likely the same way I'd feel somewhat overwhelmed by a typical intense computer techtalk weekend, I'm sure. :-)

I'd be interested in how many other filk-types out there whose partners/spouses AREN'T filkers (or similarly, when partners have strong interests and activities outside of couple activities). Personally, I think it's good for couples to not always be joined at the hip; as much as I love Jeff, I think both of us would go nuts if we felt we had to do everything together. Please post your comments in Blatherchat, thanks.





Still haven't seen the new Star Wars movie, but did see Spider-man again last night with Ruth. :-)

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Spring flowers in the Music Garden.
	Coronation Park sign.
	Another sign in Coronation Park. "Individual trees in this park were planted in 1937 to commemorate each unit of the Canadian Expeditionary Force: 1914-1918. Also the Veterans of the Fenian Raids 1866, the Veterans of the Northwest Rebellion 1885, and the Veterans of the Boer War 1898-1902."