randvisit

If anyone has any digital photos (even just one!) of the Urban Tapestry concert or the Library Boy performance at Conchord, I would really, really love to get a copy. Many thanks. :-)

---

So my friend Rand came to visit yesterday afternoon. We had lunch at Queen Mother's Cafe, browsed Pages bookstore, then spent the rest of the afternoon working on some music for OVFF. While his music group and mine have performed together in the past, Rand and I have never purposely done any musical collabs before. It was a lot of fun; we'll have to do this more often.

In the evening, we went to visit with Allison and Jodi in Richmond Hill. Had dinner at Kelsey's, then hung out at Jodi's place afterwards.





By the time Rand and I got back to my place downtown, Jeff was back from his "Guys' Night Out" with friends (dinner at Hooters and seeing the movie XXX :-)). The two of them caught up a bit while I desperately tried not to fall asleep on my feet.

All in all, it was a pretty great day. :-)

For those of you who missed the news earlier, Rand and Adam have written the theme music for a new Disney television cartoon called "Fillmore", which debuts on Saturday, September 14th at 9 a.m.. You can see a video clip (and hear the theme music) by going to the Disney Online Fillmore preview page, clicking on "Video Clips", then clicking on "Theme Song" (choice of two file sizes).

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	Rand at Queen Mother's Cafe.
	Rand, Allison and Jodi at Kelsey's.
	Cora and Rand doing some jamming in my home office.

adventure run

Yesterday I decided to try the running track at my health club at the Skydome. I didn't realize there was a track until recently; I've been doing my running on treadmills up to now when at the club.

The idea of running on a track intrigued me. It wouldn't be as interesting as running outdoors, of course, but it would be better than trying to run in the humid heat that has been hitting Toronto recently. Isn't it funny how quickly we forget weather? I remember complaining about how cold it was a while back, whining about the long winter, that I was tired of the chilly temperatures, where was summer? And now I can't wait for summer to be over; I'm tired of the heat.

Whinebitchwhinebitchwhine. But I digress.

So when I went to the club yesterday, I ask where the track is.

"It's not exactly a track," says the perky young guy behind the counter. "It's on up on the 5th floor. You have to sign in and out."

Not exactly a track? What the heck does that mean? I sign in and get a passcard, take the elevator to the fifth floor. I have to use the passcard to get the elevator to move, swiping it through a security attachment near the floor buttons.

When I get out, it's eerily silent. There's a curtained off corridor that turns sharply right, ending at a set of metal doors. I peek through the curtains, of course. Pretty dull...just some entertainment area with tables and chairs, all empty. I push through the metal doors, expecting to find myself on a running track similar to the one I remembered back from high school (the running track I despised, in fact), only indoors.

Instead, I find myself on the fifth floor of the Skydome crowd control area. Concession stands are clustered along the outside wall, abandoned, and I can see openings into the seated areas overlooking the empty playing field. There is no one around.

Somewhat disconcerted, I store my water bottle and towel on a First Aid table nearby, and start running. I leave my MP3 player off so I can hear what's going on around me; the absolute quiet makes me nervous.

It's kind of cool, looking out the windows at the Toronto landscape around the Skydome, definitely much more interesting than running on a treadmill. But the lack of people is unnerving. Also, only half the ceiling lights are on...the overall effect is one of running down a dimly lit alleyway, with lots of dark side streets (the cement ramps leading down to the exits). Part of the half-mile lap is in virtual darkness, part of the corridor which is obviously not used by the public, with no windows or doors. I run faster through that section.

Running without my MP3 player on, I can hear the sound of my running shoes hitting the floor: thwap thwap thwap. Dear lord, I sound like an elephant. I try to run more lightly, but it's too much effort. I go back to elephant mode: thwap thwap thwap.

Then I start imagining how I'd feel if I heard someone else's thwap thwap thwap down the corridor, coming up behind me. Hopefully another runner, but what if it wasn't? Then I imagine NOT hearing the thwaps, but having someone leap out of the darkness and surprise me. Yes, I have an overactive imagination. It's one reason I don't handle horror movies very well. I imagine what I would do if some big and hairy guy attacked me, here in the completely empty fifth floor of the Skydome, and pulled me down one of those ramps. No one would be able to hear me scream.

I make a vow to take a self-defense course. Why haven't I done so before this? I'm an idiot.

By this time, of course, I know that I'm not going to do more than one lap. As soon as I see my bottle of water and my towel, I grab them and head for the doors. Except the doors are locked! Half-panicked, I push and pull. They won't budge.

I'm frightened, then furious. How could the perky health club guy send me up here? I'm going to yell at him as soon as I get back to the health club reception area. IF I ever get back.

The anger clears my mind somewhat, then, and I remember the perky health club guy mentioning that I had to use my passcard to come back down. I look around and sure enough, there's a security card-swipe thingy on the wall nearby. I get the passcard out of my belt-pocket and swipe. The red light turns green, and the doors unlock.

Duh!

Back at the main reception, I hand in my passcard to the perky health club girl (the guy must be on break) and say that I'm going running on the treadmills instead, that the 5th floor is too creepy.

"Pretty dark, isn't it?" the girl sympathizes, taking my card. I feel like yelling THEN WHY DON'T YOU PEOPLE MAKE SURE ALL THE LIGHTS ARE ON BEFORE SENDING CLUB MEMBERS UP THERE! but I don't because I just want to get to the treadmills and start running.

It was a good run. I imagined that I was running down a dark alleyway, dodging big hairy guys. I could outrun all of them, of course.

---

Today's Blatherpic:

This sign was hanging on one of the doors in the recording studio where Allison, Jodi and I recorded our tracks for Chris Conway's "Alien Jellyfish".

pool cues and bureaucracy

If anyone has any digital photos (even just one!) of the Urban Tapestry concert or the Library Boy performance at Conchord, I would really, really love to get a copy. Many thanks. :-)

---

Bureaucracy continues to hound me.

I've been trying to close the empty husk of a corporate account shell that used to be Inkspot for months now. Originally I had been told I could just ignore it, but found out that if I don't close it officially, I will continue to receive phonecalls and form requests from the Ministry of Finance for the rest of my days, even if the account is empty and non-active.

To close it, I had to first catch up on my tax filings with the Ministry of Finance. A different lawyer had originally told me I could ignore the forms that continued to come to me by snailmail; he was wrong.

Then I had to fax an official request to the Ministry of Finance for consent for voluntary dissolution of my company.





After about a month, I received two copies of the official consent as well as detailed instructions about how to complete the Articles of Dissolution Forms, with a deadline of 60 days. The letters of consent were pretty funny, in a tortuous sort of way...the tone was "Congratulations! We are pleased to let you know that we have decided to let you close your company, you lucky thing, you!!!"

Of course they didn't send me the forms; I had to look for those myself.
I checked Grand & Toy first, but they were out of the forms, recommended I call a place called Dye & Durham. Because the office is nearby, I went to the Dye & Durham offices on University Avenue and picked up the forms myself (cost $9.78).





I filled out the two Articles of Dissolution forms in duplicate as instructed, attached the official consent letters from the Ministry of Finance for voluntary dissolution as instructed.

Now I have to deliver these documents to the Companies Branch of the Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, along with a fee of $25.

I could snailmail everything, of course, but my recent experiences have showed me that when possible, it's much better to bypass as many layers of bureaucracy as possible (i.e. I would have to trust to the fates that my letter would safely get through Canada Post, then reach the right person at the Ministry, be processed properly, then the receipt snailmailed back to my correct address). So instead, I'm going to opt to go to the office in person, get the appropriate paperwork examined and approved and stamped, go back home only when I have an Official Receipt clutched in my hot little fist.





I am going to do this fairly soon, carefully avoiding lunch hour. I tried calling the Ministry of Finance to find out their hours of operation, but got caught in an endless series of automated greeting service recordings that told me nothing.

IN THEORY, this last bureaucratic task should be the last in the tortuous Inkspot/Xlibris saga of my life.

Wish me luck.





Had a nice evening with Jeff. I made a shrimp and chicken creole recipe from Anne Lindsay's Lighthearted Cookbook that turned out pretty well (with leftovers for lunch today!) and then we went for an evening walk. We bought a travel version of Scrabble at a games store on Front Street, browsed a magazine shop in BCE place, then played Scrabble in comfy armchairs in a nearby coffeeshop for a while.

---

Today's Blatherpics:

On the way to the offices of Dye & Durham on University Avenue, I came across an odd-looking van parked in one of the regular parking spaces along the side of the street. There were several tourists gawking at it, taking pictures of it and of each other standing beside it.

The van was covered in little plastic figures, mostly bugs. I'm almost positive that it's the pool cue guy's car (I Blathered about him several years ago). The big clue: part of the elaborate sculpture on top of the van consisted of cut-up pool cues.

See Albino's van was like seeing an old friend, even though Jeff and I have only talked to the guy once.

writing again

If anyone has any digital photos (even just one!) of the Urban Tapestry concert or the Library Boy performance at Conchord, I would really, really love to get a copy. Many thanks. :-)

---

I got a ton of work done of my novel yesterday, yay! SO great to get back to my writing again. Starting September, I'm going to start querying for magazine articles again but for now, I'm allowing myself the luxury of focussing on my book. I enjoy writing both nonfiction and fiction, but my heart is in my novel-writing. Until I make a name for myself in fiction, however, the money's going to come from my nonfiction.

As much fun as the summer's been, I'm really, really looking forward to a wonderfully dull autumn.

I wonder if this is an age thing, or more a result of a way-too-hectic few years? More likely the latter, I think. Jeff started developing the habit of asking, "Any news?" at the end of each day during Inkspot, since so much was going on. At first "news" would refer to anything exciting. As things got more stressful and then bad, the term "news" took on a more negative connotation.

More recently, the ritual goes something like this:

Jeff: "Any news?"

Me: "Absolutely none."

Jeff: "Woohoo!"





It was really hot and humid in Toronto yesterday, around 34 degrees Celsius. I wanted to start running again, but after doing basically nothing but sleeping for a whole week, I suspect that a full-out run would probably not be the greatest thing for me right now. So I went for a 45-minute brisk walk instead, and combined it with a brief errand to return a video.

Jeff and I watched "From Hell" on Sunday night. I wasn't blown away, and neither was I scared. And for me, that's saying something...I get scared in the cheesiest B-movie horror flicks. Perhaps part of it was because I didn't find the characters particularly believeable or interesting. Heather Graham's character was particularly flat; besides, I had a lot of trouble swallowing the fact that a 19th century prostitute could have such a perfect complexion, teeth and salon hair.

Another reason I didn't like the movie was probably because the Jack the Ripper story has been covered way too many times in Hollywood. My favourite was "Time After Time", with Malcolm Macdowell (does anyone else out there remember that one?).

Had dinner at Penelope's (Greek food) with Luisa last night; we just hung out and chatted for a few hours over souvlaki and lamb dinners.

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	Bike rack in Higginbotham Park, where Jodi, Amanda and I took a walk/run in Claremont.
	Jodi and Scott practising "California Dreamin'" in the Snyder's living room.

parenthood

Jeff and I are never going to have children. This is by choice.

When I was much younger and living in the suburbs, I had always assumed that I'd get married and have children; that seemed to be the way of life at the time, where my family lived.

As I made my way through high school years, I realized that marriage was not an inevitability, particularly since I had pretty much zero interest in the opposite sex and they in me. I felt like I had my face pressed against the glass, watching everyone else in my school live normal lives, dating each other, graduating from high school and getting married, having children.

I finally started dating in university (cool computer geeks! hey, maybe boys aren't so dull after all). University was also a good influence on me in that I also began thinking outside the carefully-outlined circle that was my set of childhood preconceptions and expectations. I realized that when I felt like I was peering through a glass wall at all my "normal" classmates, they were the ones inside the box, not me.

When Jeff and I chose to get married, there was a strong expectation that we'd start having children. People would even ask when it would happen, a question I found somewhat rude at first but then learned to answer directly: "We're not going to have any."

In general, after the questioner established the fact that we could have children if we wanted to, the initial reaction to this answer was one of shock. Sometimes disappointment, sometimes even anger. How dare we not have children? They regarded our decision as a personal insult to their own. Were we children-haters? Some tried arguing, saying that we'd feel differently if the children were our own.

I was always amused by that argument. Of course I'd feel differently if a child was my own. If I made the decision to have children, then it would mean that I had decided to make that commitment, and would take that commitment seriously.

Jeff and I have made the decision not to have children. Just to clarify: I love children. I adore my nieces and nephew, enjoy getting to know the children of my friends. At the end of the day or weekend, however, I like to be able to hand back your infants and children and go back to my cluttered but creative hidey-hole of an office and re-immerse myself in my writing.

Until I get another hankering to change diapers, that is.

:-)

Speaking of which, I'm finally healthy enough to get back to work on my writing today, woohoo!





Links to pass the time:

From Harald Koch on Blatherchat this morning: "Do you know about No Kidding, the social club for childless and childfree singles and couples? They've been getting a lot of media attention lately. Personally, I think the club is a great idea. I have some issues with their spokespeople, but that's a rant I'll leave for another day..."

Even e-mail using PGP encryption could be descrambled, according to this SeattlePI.com story

As a result of the frequent commuting I did between Toronto and Philadelphia during my brief Xlibris stint, I'm a US Airways elite member and have several upgrade coupons. Don't know if I'll ever have a chance to use them, however, with US Airways filing for bankruptcy yesterday.

Toilet paper algorithms: toilet paper scientists?

EOnline has an article about the possible resurrection of "Davey & Goliath". Remember that old stop-motion animated show? Daaaveeey....

About to forward that amazing e-mail story to a friend? Before you do, you might want to check if its a hoax by running keywords through purportal.com.

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	When Jeff and I took Ginny to Takesushi for her 65th birthday, a little Asian girl kept smiling at us through the slats in the divider wall between us and the next table.
	Ginny and Jeff at Takesushi on Front Street.