Last night continued to be a bit of a mix-up. Not only was my mother late, making our visit to Julie (who is in excellent form and spirit and doing wonderful things in physiotherapy) shorter than we would have liked, but Rick was late to my house. It seems that when I called Justin, he didn't give me quite the whole message and when Mom and I got back to my place, he still didn't give us the whole message. It might have cleared up some of the mess that later went on.

Rick called and told Justin that he'd be late to my house because he was going for drinks and wings with some people from work (this is good - socialising is important) and would not be back to my place until 7:30pm. What Justin told me was that Rick was going to be late but he'd be around 'sometime after 7'. So, without the rest of the message, Mom and I sat around waiting for Rick to show up. And sat. And sat. At 8pm, I finally went back into Justin's room and said, "Did Rick call again, by any chance?" Well, now Justin remembered to tell me that Rick was out with friends from work and I glowered. Mom and I waited for another ten minutes, and I told her that we should go eat. Afterall, she had a nearly two hour drive ahead of her, as well. So we did.

Periodically, through dinner, I got anxious about what Rick would say, or how angry he would be. Mom kept calming me down. She came back to the apartment with me, too, just to diffuse any tension that might well up. Good thing she did, because Rick was pissed with me when we returned at almost 10pm. He was going to leave and go home, and I told him that he might as well huffing my way to the kitchen to put the flowers he'd brought in a vase. And then I started to cry. In the other room, Mom did manage to cool some anger, and then, peacemaker that she is, she offered to drive Rick and I to the trade show so that we would be able to go afterall.

The Everything To Do With Sex Show was good. In an hour and a half, we saw every booth there, and laughed at silly things. We watched a bit of a lingerie fashion show, which had some highly unappealing styles in it. I don't 'get' the fluffy booby puff style. Especially in pink. How are fluffy, puffy, pink boobies remotely appealing? There were men standing near us who got all disturbed by a man wearing lingerie in the fashion show. Sure, transgendered people are perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, but come on... they weren't kidding when they said it was the EVERYthing To Do With Sex Show. They put the EVERY into everything. Oh they did, too. Wow.

We stopped at the Come As You Are booth where Megan was working and she was near the point of passing out. In six hours of working, she'd had one ten minute smoke break. Poor thing. She looked wiped out. Apparently, the firemen were stripping at the show, which I missed. Damn. And they are REAL firemen, not just guys in coveralls and hats. They might be the only strip show I'd want to see. What can I say? I admit it, firemen are... sexy. Something that was completely unsexy was seeing Alana, the obnoxious girl who irritated me for five years at Rocky Horror. There she was, dancing away on the stage, wearing the same horrible silver get-up she wore as a costume last year, thinking she's sexy. She made eyes at Rick and I more than once, probably mistaking our horrified stares for lusty leering. Yikes.

It ended up being a super good night with Rick, the show being fun, and then being waylaid back at my house. Yeah, baby, get it on. I think Rick is a good guy, and it bugs me when I think we're having problems, especially over stupid things. I'm really happy that Mom was there to smooth things out because he would have gone home, and I would have resented him. Don't sweat the small stuff, you know? He had better get a phone sometime soon though, cause I don't want this to happen again. Bleh, no sir.

I just did something amazingly lame. I just became the obnoxious women in all those horrible laundry detergent/fabric softener ads. As I dried my hands on my freshly washed towel, I leaned in and inhaled it's fresh scent. And smiled.

GAH ! Horrors.

It's unpleasantly chilly in my appartment today. It seems evil Adelina does not see the point in heating the house during the day, despite it being 4 degrees outside and blustery. In the space of ten minutes it snowed, poured with rain, and shone with sun. I am glad I'm not a weather reporter in the Toronto area. Most of the rest of the country experiences normal Canadian weather: four seasons, heaps of snow in the winter and construction in the summer. What does Toronto get? An identity crisis. It wants to be warmer than everywhere else, and mostly it is, but it still wants good old fashioned Canadian weather. Together, these two things make for slushy, wet snow and drizzle. Head one hour north of the city and you enter proper weather and it's at least three degrees cooler at any given time.

It's quite lovely outside, when it isn't pelting freezing rain. I went out in it to deal with some student loan documents and then down to Metro Hall to contest my parking tickets. I had a lovely woman help me and got to write down exactly why I was contesting the tickets and she seemed to empathise. I got there just before the lunch hour rush, too. There were two people being served when I arrived and no one waiting before me. By the time I was done, just barely ten minutes later, there had to be a dozen people waiting. Good for me.

Mom was supposed to come to my house at 2pm today, but when I got home there was a message on my machine saying she would be late and that it was 1:30 and she was just leaving. Silly conference calls on her day off ! So, taking into account her departure time and the roads between Peterborough and Toronto in the middle of the day, she should have been here half an hour ago. I had been hoping to snag lunch with her before going to visit Julie together, but I guess we'll just head straight for the rehabilitation centre. It's hardly worth it, but I can't call her now. Rick's due at my house around 7pm to go to the trade show tonight and this just isn't going to work. I can't call him to say 'be late' because he still has no phone. It's irritating. And I can't call my mom, because she doesn't keep the car phone on and I don't even know its number. AND, she should be here very soon.

What did we do before we had phones? I don't suppose people found it annoying because what didn't exist they didn't want. And now, only 1% of Canadians are without a phone, Rick, presently among them. I don't really like phones, and with the exception of a few people I don't talk long on them, but it's at times like this when I realise their usefulness. I suppose I'll have to put a note asking forgiveness of Rick saying I'll be back at around 7pm, and hopefully he won't have to wait very long. Maybe, in lieu of Mom and I going to lunch, the three of us could go somewhere and have a nice dinner. That would be nice, but I had hoped for Mom time. I don't get to see her as much now, thanks to school, and obviously I can't cancel on Rick. Oh well. It will sort itself out. At least, for once, it's not my fault.

What a wonderful autumn day ! It's cool and crisp and lovely for walking about briskly with nasal drip. It's PERFECT. Or, it would have been perfect had I not woken up with a migraine thanks to a weather change that smells like snow, and cramps from the deepest pits of Hell. Needless to say, school was not an option, but I'm not unduly discouraged, because most of the afternoon was going to be a Photoshop tutorial, which chances are, I could have taught, or very nearly.

Anyway, I just went to the bank and ran some errands, my head having cleared somewhat. Ahhh, the bank: an unpleasant place, even if it is a nice branch. There's just something about banks that makes me cringe, something like my dislike of hospitals, only without the sterile medicine smell. It wasn't too bad, though, as I got one of the younger tellers, this one the young woman, rather than the guy I like, but she was more willing to bend rules than her older counterparts. I had her print out my account information, which is apparently not done, and as she handed me the slip of paper she leaned in and said quietly, "If you lose this, you can get into a LOT of trouble. Cut it up when you're done with it." I answered with a grin, "I'll burn it in the sink." Then I walked around in the perfect autumn weather, wind whipping up the curling yellow and brown leaves that now litter the streets, and mailed some letters and made some photocopies. I also made a quick visit to the kitchen wares store near my house and bought an espresso maker - finally ! Ever since I lived with Megan, I wanted one. Not for espresso, mind you, but for regular ground coffee. A six cup espresso maker brews two fine cups of coffee. If my head didn't hurt so much, I'd brew some up right now, finally opening the ground coffee that has been living in my freezer for over a year.

At the bank, I also had change made from a wrinkled old ten dollar bill, so that I can do my laundry tonight. What a concept, clean clothing ! If anything, it will be another excuse to go out into a perfect autumn night. Hallowe'en is coming, and this is the most appropriate weather I can think of. Nearly every Hallowe'en of my childhood was spent with 'unseasonably' cold weather and a chilling wind whistling between half naked trees and houses with radiators banging loudly to life. I don't understand how weather reports can still be calling the annual cold-snap that occurs at this time of the year 'unseasonable' when it clearly happens every year. Doesn't that make it completely seasonable? Anyway, it brings back memories of my costumes, made by Mom, with enough room inside to be put on over warm sweaters and even winter jackets. There's nothing quite so scary as a bunch of monsters wrapped up in parkas.

I just mentioned radiators, didn't I? Ahhh, I miss those. That's a comfort sound straight out of my childhood that I never get to hear any more. Most houses seem to be centrally heated now, with dusty air vents blowing dander around so that it lovingly coats the most hard-to-reach places in the house. You just can't curl up on a couch next to a heat vent and feel cozy the way you could next to a radiator. Cats don't sleep on air vents, it's not pleasant to have forced air fluttering tummy hair, but radiators were perfect spots, exactly cat-sized, and often, in the nicer homes, caged in elegantly perforated grills. In our old house on Avenue Road, there were radiators on either side of our sliding doors at the back of our dining room. Mom hung lace curtains in front of them to disquise their presence, but she was certainly not ashamed of their presence. Most days, it was a simple task to locate the cats, Misha and Placi, sleeping like a pair of widely spaced bookends, one on each radiator. But it was the ticking and clanging that I loved the most, signifying a living house, coming to life to keep its family warm, protecting it from the biting cold of winter.

It's a nice image, isn't it.

I hate setting out to do certain things and then not doing them. It's something of the story of my life, although something of my life also is me ending up doing many more things than I originally set out to do. Hah ! It all works out, then. Anyway, I woke up at 8:30am and looked out under my window blind and lo, the angel of the rain had come upon us. And the thunder of the Lord shone all around us. And Maya said unto the Lord, "Crap, it's raining." And she did turn over and sleep again, and it was good.

Except, she was supposed to go to Metro Hall and argue a pair of parking tickets. Oh well, Friday. There are 15 days in which to argue parking tickets, and Friday will be day 15. Handy. I was thinking about it, though, and everything else is business days, not including weekends. Then, when it comes to parking tickets, when they really want to fuck you, every day counts. I think that's crappy. For instance, my bank holds my cheques for anywhere between 10 to 30 BUSINESS days. How ridiculous is that?! Parking tickets include weekends, really, just to screw with us. I'd just pay the damn things, except I was parked legally, as in, BEHIND the sign that said permit holders only. And what's in my window? A permit. I suppose the cop might have considered the OTHER sign, some 25 feet away to rule over this sign, which I was clearly behind, but I think one sign rules out the other, especially with five car lengths between them. So, off to court I will go. Merrily. Ish.

I'm sort of thinking I won't bother going to Rocky Horror this Saturday. I have an awful lot of work to do, and since my favourite cast members retired last Hallowe'en, most of whom had been there since I started going nine years ago, I haven't had the desire to go. I said it last year, but it bears repeating. It is as though a massive portion of my life has passed and I must move on. And I have. I only said I would go because Nick asked me to in that puppy-dog sort of way. He's not even here ! He's visiting Evelyn out in the east. I asked Rick if that would bug him, if we didn't go, but he's pretty indifferent. Maybe I won't bother with a costume at all then. I'm too damn tired these days to be bothered by extracurricular silliness, fun though it is. God, could it be, I'm prioritising?

Naaah.

It's been a long day. I've been up since about 6:30am. I had to get up so very early because I was waylaid at Rick's last night. It was a nice evening, I must say, but an early morning in order for me to commute from his house to mine, and from mine to school. It's not terribly surprising that I'm so tired tonight. Actually, it's surprising because I'm NOT all that tired. I don't get me.

Techknight came over tonight with the intention of looking at my webpage files. Dreamweaver was apparently getting confused, and though I troubleshot it at length, I could not get it to work. It's working now, thanks to the talents of TK, and hopefully I won't forget how to make it continue to work. TK never just comes over to fix my computer, though, no siree, he comes to eat hearty dinners of Indian and Thai repast, and to watch the ever important anime. He has more anime floating around his appartment than anyone I know. That says quite a bit, as well, since I am surrounded by animeholics. Scary people, they are. Er. Doh !

We watched the Cowboy Bebop movie, ahhh, the sweet joys of fansubbing, and it was FANTASTIC. Oh my goodness, it was delicious. We tried to figure out where in the series timeline the movie would fit, and ended up deciding that it had to be in the first half of the series. Who cares? It's fantasy, right? Fudging timelines are easily accpeted so long as the stories are good, and the art is stylish and, well, sharp. As usual, the sound-track rocks. I don't mean of anime in particular, though many recent series have had some sharp musical scores, but Cowboy Bebop is just beautifully scored, at least as good as the writing, art and timing. And such a stylish piece, too. I think I may have said that. If not, well, I'll say it again at some other point. I am a big fan of stylish, well written, well scored anime, and well, most animation from where ever in the world it comes. Animation is wonderful. It makes me remember that people don't all suck, and that so long as creativity remains, and people are allowed to think beyond the status quo, the world cannot possibly spiral into the pit of despair that it often seems to be heading. Imagination is a gift.

It's much too late to start a rant about the ills of the world, and the wonders of imagination, though, so perhaps I'll move on.

Nick is leaving for most of a week as of tomorrow. He's going to visit Evelyn out in Nova Scotia, and though I will miss him, it's not like he's going to be in stinky Chicago for three months. Phew. I'd hate for that to happen again. I suppose while he is gone, I'll have to do my Maya homework alone. Bah, sometimes I think I get more done without him around, though he certainly clears my head and shows me wonderous new ways of doing. Also, I have so much fun when we get together for tutorial sessions ! But all this eating with my friends will (if not already) make me fat. While he's gone, I'll be attending the Everything To Do With Sex show down at the exhibition grounds with Rick. We got VIP passes for it, which makes me question whether this makes us Very Important People, sexually speaking, or merely attendance-wise. How do you determine who is a VIP? I could make a tasteless joke about giving head to someone, but in that this has to do with a massive sex trade show, I'll just leave it at that, and let you think of it for yourselves. Oh ! Naughty, you ! Tsk. Dirty minds, all of you. Disgusting. I'm going to bed while you all take cold showers.

Well, class has been interesting up to this point (this point being lunch time), as we've been discussing rendering scenes. Lighting is interesting, you know? When we look around at things, we don't really notice how much lighting affects EVERYthing. For instance, it's not just light that bounces off every surface, but colour, too. Of course, colour is part of light, but we don't think of it. So, I set my green pen on a page of white paper, and the flourescent lights make everything bright, and then I look at my pen and realise that it causes a faint green hue to reflect off of it within its shadow on the paper. That's COOL. Light is cool.

What a dumb comment. Light is cool. Actually, it's bright, but nevermind.

Later, we're going to get into groups (oooo, group work) and work on a project that spoofs a movie of our choice. We have to storyboard it, and lay it down on paper before we start creating the structures and characters, or even think about animating it. As a group, we might actually be able to pull it off. Mostly, the class struggles on an individual level, but together, we smooth out the suckage bumps and fill in the holes with collective knowledge.

Speaking of knowledge, I got back my questionaire that I finally handed in yesterday (just a little late), and was pleasantly stunned. I got an amazing mark of 81% on it, which is 13% better than I did on the first questionaire two weeks ago. Daniele, my instructor, had nice things to write on it: "You know more than you think, or assume you know..." Hey, good things.

And so, out of the ether and into a server comes my fancy new weblog. I refuse to call it a 'blog' as it sounds just too -uh- for words. I'm pretty excited about it, really, and hope I don't lose interest in it. I lose interest in things so quickly. Always have. Let us hope, then, that interest herein remains !

Right now I'm listening to a magazine sampler CD from some wacky German music mag. It's all dark/mystic electronica, so, I suppose I could call it 'gothic' music, or something, but let's not limit ourselves, hm? I like the album a lot, and it has some good stuff on it by artists like Front Line Assembly (I'd forgotten all about them for a while) and Icekalt. The thing is, though, it's got these three songs on it that have based their melodies entirely on songs already in existence. Now, I realise that there is a long history of people using different words to someone else's music, take, for instance, Christmas Carols: Carols are only the words, music didn't come into it, which is why you find so many carols based on music already in existence, or even sharing the same melody as another carol. Anyway, digression !

I will give examples of the songs I mean. First there is this song entitled "Shared Creation" by a band named Garden of Delight (great name, by the way, conjuring up images of 16th century Dutch and German allagorical works of art...), and it's a good song. The thing is, it is very much based on a song by The Cure. Sadly, my memory for names is worse than my attention span, and I don't remember exactly which song it is. But if you listen to "Shared Creation" and are at least familiar with the more commonly played Cure pieces, it will come to you, and you'll end up humming it in harmony. Really ! The second song to 'borrow' from previously published music on this very same album is "Do You Dream in Colours" by Tors of Dartmoor. Of all the odd places to find gothic inspiration... Nirvana? Anyway, it is based in "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Not kidding. And finally, the third song to be someone else's on the album, at least as far as I can tell, is actually 'borrowing' from two different songs. Not just a little bit different, a LOT. There's a story behind it, so let me tell you.

The song in question, "Everything is Broken" by a band called Second Sight, is the last track on this particular album, and it therefore lingers in one's head. This proved to be very irritating. I was at work and I was listening to the album and as "Everything is Broken" started playing, I began to hum along. It took me a moment to realise this, and I put the song on repeat in order to figure out what I had been humming, because it wasn't the song. The first bit was easy to figure out. The song's intro is unmistakably "With or Without You" by U2, yes, even the bassline, though having differing lyrics.

For the second bit, once the song picked up, it was the lyric melody that began to drive me batty. I could hum it. I would hum it and think I almost remembered what it was. When my employer came into the store, I made her listen and it drove her crazy too. She said, "It's 80s, definitely... I'm thinking maybe Depeche Mode." I disagreed. I would know. I live Mode. "A-ha, maybe?" she asked. I thought maybe, but not quite, though there was something about the straining upper register of a male voice singing two octaves too high that seemed right. Rick came in a while later, and I was more frustrated and still confused, and I made him listen. He got a blank look on his face and nodded at the familiarity, but he, too, could not place it.

Sometime later, back at home, I made Adina, my housemate's girlfriend listen to it too, and it kept her from doing her biology homework, poor girl. And she so dearly loves her biology homework. I was talking to my mother on the phone sometime later than that, in lieu of me doing MY homework, and the stupid melody was still cycling its way through my head. As we talked, images from way back when I was in grade eight kept circling through my head. Now, I didn't much love grade eight, and certainly not the people that kept popping into my brain, and they did it in time to the tune. I put down the phone and concentrated on the images. They were from the grad video I worked on (yes, I was an audio-visual nerd) and I realised they were a particular sequence that ran under one particular song. THE song.

You have to wonder about any dark electronic band that rips off Alphaville's "Forever Young", you know? Pretty wacky, I say, but mystery solved.