Childhood Role Models: Eldrad Must Live!

Hindsight, 20/20, all that.

Occasionally I run across a piece of nostalgia that causes part of my life to finally make sense. When I look at drag queens and see the type of drag they do, I can't help wondering what influenced their "look." After all, when you do drag you essentially reinvent yourself. Why do we choose the elements we choose?

Over the last ten years I've been piecing together my inspirations. Here's one that inspired me when I was six or seven years old: the gender-bending, sexy, somewhat odd but extremely skimpy "Eldrad" from the Doctor Who story "The Hand of Fear" (click on the pic for a larger view). I remember pretending to be "Eldrad" in the playground. Gosh, I REALLY wanted to be her, which must have been confusing for my parents. It's one thing to have a cheesy sci-fi monster as a role model. It's another thing when the role model is a girl with an electronically pitch-bended voice.

The story has finally been released on DVD so we can now see Eldrad (played by the very statuesque Judith Paris) in all her glory. Tales already abound regarding the havoc she created wearing this outfit on set...typical of the Philip Hinchcliffe era of the show, they pushed the boundaries in all directions; this was the only time they got ridiculously sexy.

Thanks to the running commentary we finally hear from her own lips what it was like to wear this costume: she had to be stitched into it, couldn't sit down, and couldn't eat or drink. It crackled loudly and bits of it kept falling off. But nobody said that being "striking" was easy.

So here's to Eldrad, re-released on DVD, turning a new generation of children into queens.

Thinking About Remembrance Day

Remembrance Day brings up a host of associations for me. Let's see if I can put this into words.

As a child I sat through the yearly Remembrance Day "assemblies," which always involved sitting on a cold gymnasium floor and watching boy scouts fold a flag or something. I tended to blank out during assemblies. In grade 6 I think I had to read part of "In Flanders Fields" to the assembly, but not because I understood it or sympathized with it, but because I was literate. The World Wars were indefinite and cloudy to me. To really get a grip on "war" I had to understand the geographic, political, historic, and human elements, four things I've always had trouble learning and retaining.

The turning point for me came in first year university when I read "Gravity's Rainbow" as part of my newfound discovery of All Things Postmodern. Not knowing anything about World War Two probably enhanced the effect of the book, making it even more mystical and magical than it would be otherwise. The vast, anarchic freedom of The Zone, the double-crossing paranoia of special operations overseen by "Them," and -- most importantly -- the fetish for the rockets, new and terrible weapons that somehow inverted cause and effect, designed by cinema-obsessed and distracted engineers with doppelganger children, built by the walking dead in concentration camps, tested by captive scientists on a bleak penninsula, commanded by the witch and his team of Hansels and Gretels, and arriving with an explosion right above your head, followed AFTERWARD by the sound of its arrival.

So I started reading about the Blitz, in particular the stories of everyday people who became war workers, firemen, blackout wardens. I learned about the fashions and the music of the time, when crooners and female singers began edging away from the hegemony of bandleaders and started their own solo careers. Black soldiers from the American south suddenly tasting equality and interracial love in London. Mass evacuations of children. Henry Moore's sketches of people sleeping in the subways. The cold, sickly, lopsided drama of the Atlantic convoys as written about in "The Cruel Sea," where soldiers and civilians lay covered with oil and floating on the mountains and troughs of a gale-swept ocean.

Then, on the homefront, the work of Canadian cannon fodder, most of them volunteers but many of them "Zombies" who were forcibly conscripted. D-Day, V-Day, my grandfather shuttled endlessly between Vancouver and Halifax, repairing airplane engines but never going overseas.

I know less about World War One, but enough to appreciate its enormity, complexity, sacrifice, and importance.

So now, when Rememberance Day arrives, I wear my plastic poppy with all these complicated associations attached. Mainly, I wear the poppy because I believe that if *I* had fought in one of the wars, living in a country where war is viewed more as a human failing instead of a noble calling, I'd be happy to see at least this acknowledgement of the significant part I'd played.

I'll respect the individual soldiers -- and the Canadian military -- on any given day, but at the same time I worry about the fetishization and simplification of war. Also, I understand the need for structure and command in the military -- it's the only way you can convince people to kill other people -- but it makes me uncomfortable to actually SEE it. So I don't go out of my way to attend the massive ceremonies at the graveyards and cenotaphs...I understand that they're drawing strength from their organization, but to me it looks dehumanized and simplified.

My other thought is that there must always be a distinction between "remembering" and "wallowing." It's like any human trauma: if you had a bad relationship, you need to REMEMBER you had it -- so you don't make the same mistakes again -- but WALLOWING in it just makes you feel angry, vengeful, and hurt. We don't have many of these "remembering" ceremonies in Canada -- we haven't codified the remembrance of The Alamo or Pearl Harbour or 9-11 -- but when we DO have them I hope it's about learning and reflection, not about grudges and fiery rhetoric.

A Cheap Post with Lots of Videos

I figure we have to enjoy "YouTube" while we can, since I can't imagine blatant theft surviving much longer. In fact, we probably need to enjoy "Blogger" until the next dot.com bubble bursts. But that's beside the point.

I'm sitting in my apartment and I'm freezing cold; the heat has decided not to come on. Smelly girl next door has been on a particularly smelly spree. Anticipating my January move, I'm slowly packing my stuff into boxes and inhaling a lot of dust. My cold is almost gone. I just finished reading Anna Kavan's "I Am Lazarus" (for which I paid about 40 cents a page) and am working on Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose."

But I'm not here to talk about any of that...I'm here to post YouTube videos that have delighted me over the past few months. Maybe you'll find some of them delightful too?

Greg Hits Hollywood

It isn't ALL funny -- and it is less funny during repeated viewings -- but the first time I saw it I was in rapture. It has a baffling realism that doesn't get Borat-nasty or uncomfortable. You've got to love the Japanese girl.



Divine Comedy, "Bad Ambassador"

I can't share my love of Divine Comedy with many people, but maybe I can TRICK people into watching them (errr, him). Here's an exceptional song with an exceptional video.



Zsa Zsa Gabor & David Letterman Eat Fast Food

St. Mark passed this one along. As much as I dislike Zsa Zsa, this is hilarious. She's good when she's being pandered to. And she loves those fries.



The Fall, "Eat Y'Self Fitter"

Speaking of eating. And more disturbing than Zsa Zsa could ever be. Brix does the early-'80s post-punk ska dance near the end.



Whale, "Pay For Me"

I could babble endlessly about the magic of Whale. This becomes less effective over time as fewer and fewer people remember them. The day will come when Whale is totally forgotten. In fact it's already happened.



Talk Talk, "Such a Shame"

I have an intense (platonic) love for Talk Talk so I can't resist putting my favourite Talk Talk song and video here. Listen to the bass. Check out the budding rebellion against their New Romantic image. Listen to the bass some more...Paul Webb's quick, huge, bendy method was a major (and underappreciated) part of their style.



Renaldo and the Loaf, "Songs for Swinging Larvae"

And finally, for those who've never seen it, a video that's even more disturbing today than it was twenty years ago.

Spreading the Joy

When I can't sleep my emotional state mirrors this screenshot from Mike Oldfield's "Pictures in the Dark" video:
You see what I mean? There's a choirboy with a crooked collar, and an '80s girl with lopsided breasts, and Mike Oldfield is in a muscle shirt, screaming, with fireworks.

That's how I feel.

Aristocratic Canadian Life, Circa 1872

Midway through Lady Dufferin's Canadian journal, I'm learning so many things about the social, technological, and geographical situation in Canada that I can barely keep it all in. As a way of recording some random impressions:

The Governor-General -- referred to by his wife as "D" or "His Ex" -- dealt mainly with politics during the scope of the journal (1872-1878). As the representative of the Queen, his offical duties involved giving speeches, attending celebrations, and occasionally observing Parliament.

His wife dealt more with the social side of things. She is endlessly visiting convents, schools, jails, and waterfalls. Wherever Lord and Lady Dufferin go, they are obliged to dine with anybody who asks, and to see whichever local sites the citizens deem important. These sites tend to be waterfalls.

Husband and wife have three main passions:

Skating. Even now they're remembered for personally financing a skating rink, curling rink, and toboggan slide at Rideau Hall. Lady Dufferin loves to skate, but in the first few years she isn't good enough to be comfortable skating at official functions. She frequently says that men are more graceful skaters than women, mainly because they don't need to wear as much clothing. I find myself wondering what these poor women wore when they skated.

She frequently mentions skating terms that probably aren't used anymore: "We worked away at roses, double roses, thistles, lilies, snails, etc."

Lady Dufferin is, in general, fond of snow...with just one exception:

The children, with the help of Colonel Fletcher, Mr. Dixon, and a ladder, have erected in front of my window an enormous and hideous snow-man, who will remain an eyesore to the whole winter, unless some kind friend assassinates him.

Fishing. Wow, do they ever fish. They fish in every backwood stream they can find, often going hundreds of miles out of their way to check out a promising spot. Lady Dufferin is positively obsessed with the sport, often recording the poundage of every fish caught. She gives the impression that she's really "roughing it" during these excursions, but don't be fooled: their whole troop of servants was always sent on ahead to set up the campsite -- in one case even building a cabin -- and the aristocrats arrived once everything was prepared.

Lady Dufferin does not appear to be a fan of the Indians, dismissing them as pagans whose words are too long and who dress poorly. Near Sault Ste. Marie, she says:

At the Fort we saw a number of the most miserable Indians, who sat huddled together, and who were dressing their children's hair much after the manner of the monkeys in the Zoo.

Amateur Theatricals. Lady Dufferin is always roping her servants and her children into plays. I have a feeling this was relatively common for upper-class Victorians, to hold large functions during which the children performed for the visitors. The plays usually ended with tableaux, something we just don't see anymore.

During the summers, the Lord and Lady go on huge, gruelling, four-month excursions to visit the towns and Indian reservations throughout Canada. Lady Dufferin is constantly being attacked by horses (and even sheep), while Lord Dufferin gives speeches and dances with all the ladies. He has this to say about all the ceremonial arches they travel under:

There was an arch of cheeses, an arch of salt, an arch of wheels, an arch of hardware, stoves, and pots and pans, an arch of sofas, chairs and household furniture, an arch of ladders, laden with firemen in their picturesque costumes, an arch of carriages, an arch of boats; a Free-trade arch, a Protectionists' arch, an arch of children, and last of all an arch -- no, not an arch, but rather a celestial rainbow--of lovely young ladies! Indeed, the heavens themselves dropped fatness, for not unfrequently a magic cheese or other comestibles would descend into our carriage. As for Lady Dufferin, she has been nearly smothered beneath the nosegays which rained down upon her, for our path has been strewn with flowers.

Lady Dufferin is impressed by Chicago's hugeness, but finds New York uncouth and ostentatious. She thinks the entertainments are vulgar, and she is particularly annoyed at a woman she sits next to during a dinner:

There was a lady there who was just like a conventional Yankee on the stage. She announced, first, that she had told her husband she would never put on black for him, as she meant to marry again as quick as ever she could. Then she informed me in a light and cheerful manner that she had had convulsions every Sunday since January, and that this was the first occasion upon which she had not been ill! She next proceeded to tell her domestic troubles, and how she had had to get a policeman to turn her cook out of her house.

The Intriguing (and Sort of Disturbing) Artwork of Hans Flato

I keep on running across the art of Hans Flato. Apparently he was an accomplished realist, but in the 1920s he also dabbled in this weird, disconnected, totally distinctive cartooney style. I snapped this from an advertisement for The Greenwich Village Inn, The New Yorker, December 18, 1926.

Part of me finds his style to be disturbing. Another part marvels at a technique that is so rooted in the time. Goofy, vibrant, manic, graceful, and barely in control, this particular style of Flato sort of makes me want to lose my lunch.

Questions

As you get older fewer things are surprising. I look at my 90-year-old grandmother and she doesn't seem up to learning things anymore, she's comfortable with what she knows and what she's done in her life. She has no interest in hearing about the internet or computers or anything that's happened in the last 15 years or so.

I find it very exciting to discover something new, it makes me feel alive. Learning tidbits from history -- where the word "bushwhack" comes from, for instance, or what sort of hobbies people had in 1873 -- are good ways of getting that 'zing' of revelation.

Wikipedia is doing away with conundrums and office trivia contests, but here's something that still baffles me:

Sometimes a spider will go on "reconaissance" by dropping from the ceiling on a little self-spun thread. The spider hangs there at the end of the thread, looking around, then climbs back up the thread again, and takes the thread with it somehow.

My question is, what does the spider do with the thread? Does it wind it back up inside its "spinner?" Does it wrap it around its legs? Does it eat it? Does it bite off small pieces as it goes up?

I sent this into "The Straight Dope" a few years ago and they've never answered. Does anybody know? If you were a spider, what would YOU do?

June 1873: A Busy Life

Okay, enough daily journals, my life just isn't that interesting and I'm starting to feel self-centered. So instead I'll give you an excerpt from The Marchioness of Dufferin & Ava, so you'll know what a REAL busy person's life is (was) like:

Tuesday, June 17, 1873 (Quebec City) -- A long day of Viceregal functions. At twelve we ate a hasty lunch and started, with five children and our 'suite,' to the Ursuline Convent, where I was to give away the prizes.

There is a new Lieutenant-Governor here, and as he has a large family, our combined movements on State occasions require a deal of arrangement. The first fact established is, that the Governor-General and I, on public occasions, walk first; His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor and his wife follow. But the five Lieutenant-Princesses have also to be seated in proper positions, and when (as to-day) I take three of my family the aide-de-camps tear their hair! Priests met us at the convent door, and we proceeded to the room where the prizes were to be given, which was filled with people. The nuns did not appear at all. I found in front of me trays full of books, and as the names of the winners were read out, wih an account of their various merits, they walked past, and I presented them with books. There were at least 200 prizes, every girl in the school, I am sure, having gained from one to six 'rewards of merit.' Then I crowned six of the most remarkably virtuous young ladies. The first three wreaths, alas! I put on wrong side foremost, but perceiving that the girls managed to turn them round, I was more careful, and was at the end complimented upon the way in which I placed them on their heads. Between each trayful of books we had music. The ceremony lasted two hours. One lady fainted, but the children bore it admirably, and I took them to a field of cut grass to refresh them when it was over.

We dined at six, for we had to go out early to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the discovery of the Mississippi. 'Why on earth?' you will exclaim. Well, I don't quite know why, but the Laval University has to find some object for a yearly fete, and the discoverers were French-Canadians.

The celebration was a tremendous affair. For three hours I sat on a very hard and stately arm-chair, with my Lieutenant-Governor beside me, on my right an empty space, on the other side of which sat His Ex. and his Lieutenant-Governess.

A Day in the Life: Wednesday

7:00 - 7:45 - I wake up from a night full of sick-dreams. Maybe you know the dreams I'm talking about; they have no plot or direction, just one element repeated over and over again, and you keep waking up slightly, promising yourself that you'll dream about something else, then falling asleep and dreaming the same thing all over again. This time it was something to do with a page full of numbers...I kept reading the same numbers. All night. That's exhausting. The Tylenol and the drowsy flu medication probably didn't help. Anyway, I get out of bed and cough up something that would have frightened H. P. Lovecraft. Eat tasteless Golden Grahams and read The New Yorker. Sometimes there's nothing interesting in The New Yorker. This is one of those times.

7:45 - 8:00 - I shower and wash my hair. I love buying shampoo from my hair salon, because it always makes me feel like I'm back in the salon, and the salon is nicer than my bathroom. I still have a hole in my ceiling from when the plumber had to fix a leak. I imagine it gives the spiders easier access to my apartment.

8:00 - 8:30 - Walk to work. The Bauer Loft construction is not appreciably changed. I'm listening to music on the way, which is something I prefer not to do; I'm worried about becoming detached from the world, and I'm already barely integrated with it. I see too many people walking around in their own little realities.

8:30 - 12:00 - It's hard to write anything interesting about what I do at work. Mostly I sit in my cubicle and work on whatever project is most urgent. In the morning I take screenshots and add arrows and labels to them. The receptionist sends an email telling people to request songs; I'm DJ'ing the Christmas party again this year. Somebody sends an email to me and the receptionist complaining that I didn't play the song he requested at last year's office Christmas Party. The receptionist -- who has even more spunk than Hariot Dufferin -- responds with "Suck it up, princess." I like our receptionist!

12:00 - 1:00 - Henning arrives and offers me the gift of P1, which is one of the many unhealthy meals served by "Sunshine," a local Chinese fast-food dive. The P1 is rice, sliced pork, an egg, onions, and salt. LOTS of salt. I enthusiastically accept his offer. I'll be thirsty for days.

1:00 - 4:30 - Screenshots, darn it.

4:30 - 5:00 - I stop at the grocery store on the way home. I live alone and have no car, so instead of loading up on a lot of things that I can't carry by myself, I make two or three trips a week. This is a cereal trip because I can't stand the Golden Grahams much longer. They ain't what they used to be. I also buy turkey cat food for the cat. I try to only buy her food that's made out of things she could have feasibly caught herself...she could kill a turkey or a chicken without much struggle, but there's no way she could kill a cow, not even in her prime. I carry my groceries home and note that somebody "toilet-papered" the group home next door. This isn't surprising because the group home is probably the most active youth-spot on the street. Fortunately the pre-teen girls who used to simulate orgasms on the front lawn are no longer there, which means I sleep with fewer interruptions.

5:00 - 7:00 - More Battlestar Galactica. Should I give excuses for why I'm hooked? It's partly because the cliffhangers are so effective, and partly because I really just want to sit on the couch and stare at something, and partly because I tell myself that there are only a limited number of episodes...the faster I watch them, the sooner I'll be able to get back to real work, like:

7:00 - 8:15 - Re-visiting an old track called "The Demeaning Power of Tequila," one that's never been finished enough to show up on the website. It's got a slow, extremely buzzy, 4/4 electronic vibe to it. Catchy, I think, but as always with "actual songs" (or any highly organized project) I struggle to find "the ending." An earlier version of the track ended quite nicely, but I decided that it was too effective to not evolve and get longer. In Logic Audio -- the program I'm using -- it isn't always easy to extend a song once you've organized it nicely, so the last few edits of the track have been about tweaking it so it's longer. Tonight I decided to add an ESQ-1 keyboard line. My intentions were good but I kept getting an "Unable to find file, result -43" error. I've never seen it before. Half an hour later I finally worked around the bug by reassigning the record path, but by then my enthusiasm was slipping away. I also can't figure out why my line in is so damn quiet. I've never had much patience for rooting around with cables, mixers, and levels. Anyway, I did make SOME progress so I can feel justified in rewarding myself: Tylenol and drowsy cold meds. Bye-bye, fever!

A Day in the Life: Tuesday

I was already starting to feel sick last night when I got home, but sometimes that sick-feeling is the result of low blood sugar, which I certainly had. So I tried to convince myself that I hadn't caught a cold from my Station Manager, and -- with a lot of trouble -- finally conked out around 11:30pm.

Midnight - 6:00am - Slept intermittently and suffered the usual "I'm getting sick" dreams. I dream that somebody's given me a box with four racoons in it, and when I open the box I see that the racoons are dead and that bats are attached to their heads. I dream that a very young Robert Jan Stips -- member of the band "Nits" -- offers to buy me both a Nits T-Shirt and a "very thumpy keyboard" if I'll loan him $25 until Christmas, and meanwhile my mother tries to explain bisexuality to my grandmother. In between these dreams I often wake up to find the cat lying on or against my torso, which is both cute and uncomfortable.

6:00 - 7:00 - I wake up briefly and make the sensible decision not to go to work in a Hallowe'en costume. I set my alarm from 6:30 to 7:00 and go back to sleep.

7:00 - 7:10 - A reporter on CBC radio is interviewing a child who apparently is the world ambassador for UNICEF. He asks the child why they're doing away with the old orange UNICEF boxes, and the child replies, but his voice is cut up due to technical problems; only half the words are transmitted. The thing is, the technical problem doesn't really SOUND like a problem, it sounds instead like the child is only saying every second word. The reporter doesn't seem to notice this problem and he asks how one becomes the world ambassador for UNICEF. The child doesn't hear the question and I quickly turn the radio off because I hate listening to awkward situations. Though I do wonder if one of the criteria for UNICEF's world ambassador is to "speak English."

7:10 - 7:30 - I evaluate my health. I have a headache, I've got gunk forming in the back of my throat, I'm slightly achey...in short, I'm 100% sick. I decide not to go to work, because I know (from experience) that if I don't take today off I'll just get sicker. But I can't call in sick until 8:30 because I'd like to speak to my supervisor about it rather than just leave a message. I think how incredible it is that only three hours after meeting the CKMS Station Manager I was already showing symptoms of her illness. This makes me sad because all my life I've gotten sick easily and often, while this year -- thanks to better food, sleeping, and vitamin-taking habits -- I've been ill much less, to the point where I proudly crowed that I'd turned my life around. But now I've gotten sick twice in the last two months, which makes me feel like I've both failed at looking after myself, and that people will once again be justified in considering me unhealthy. I think about all this while eating tasteless Golden Grahams, then offering my cat the tiny 1/2 spoonful of milk at the bottom, a morning ritual that we both love equally.

7:30 - 8:30 - I lie down and read about windmills, views of the Niagara, wildflowers, forest fires, bullfrogs, mosquitos, squirrels, and rabbits. At 8:30 I call my supervisor and she gives me her blessing, so I fall asleep.

8:30 - 12:15 - Surprisingly benign dreams considering how crappy I feel. Something about finding intruders in the basement of my new apartment, and about "Men Without Hats" releasing a new song, and then a short fat man is walking along Hollywood Blvd with me and we go into a diner. The narrator in my head says that the man's flabby arms "hang like gaffs on the counter," then says "Everybody hated Joe Comb, but they loved what he could do for them." The script-writer in my head wants to describe Joe Comb as looking like Danny Devito, but the producer in my head complains that men like Joe Comb are always being played by men like Danny Devito, it's stereotyped, it's type-casting. I wake up feeling stubbly and thick-throated, thirsty but not thirsty, and the litter box is starting to smell.

12:15 - 1:30 - Battlestar Galactica episode 2.6, thanks to a lovely loan of DVDs from Henning. I still find the series to be contrived and obvious, but they're doing a good job of tackling human issues in an easily digestable form, and their story arc has me hooked. I love these "working towards a goal without knowing what the goal is" sorts of stories. But it makes me sad that it's an ongoing series instead of a mini-series. In a mini-series, you know that the people who write it are working towards a conclusion, which tends to mean a more logical and thought-out storyline. But with an ongoing series, they can tantalize you as long as their ratings hold out, they tend to artificially "stretch" the plot and create a lot of convenient loose ends to give them something to hold on to later. This is what I mean by "obvious."

1:30 - 2:00 - Finally get my crap together, shave, and walk to Belmont Village for the cat necessities. It's windy, but warm, and I'm reminded as always that it's a bad idea to sit cooped up in a house when you're sick. The fresh air does me good. I take a side-trip to Vincenzos to explore their daunting list of expensive and exotic groceries. Buying halva is a no-brainer -- it's a comfort food -- and the Eggplant Parmiggiano is a tried-and-true slab of healthy deliciousness. I also buy rosemary raisin pecan crackers. A woman is painting a Remembrance Day scene on the window of a shop, with lots of gravestones and a sign that says "Freedom wasn't free." I wonder if this is a message in support of the Bush administration's "Stay the Course" meme, but I doubt it. What Canadians think about the Iraq war doesn't have much of an effect on American policy, but there's a hard-core minority in this country that is definitely in lock-step behind it. They seem to think that making definite decisions and taking an aggressive approach to a problem is admirable, even if the decisions are flawed and the aggressive approach just makes things worse. We're a country that doesn't make many definite decisions and that frustrates people who are a tad more knee-jerk than I am. And oh yes, I buy stuff for the cat.

2:00 - 5:15 - It's pathetic that the days I have off are usually the days when I'm least able to accomplish anything. Sore throat and fever now. It's not like I'm dying of bilious fever, just that I've got the flu. Instead of cleaning the house, recording music, or solving world hunger I sit and watch episodes seven to ten of Battlestar Galactica, season two. I really am hooked. Just when I think there's no new complication they can add to the storyline, they throw in something new. This doesn't disguise the fact that the characters all continue to have diametrically-opposed character traits: their heroic traits and their flaws. Maybe this really IS the basis of human nature, but I like to think some of us have traits that are ambiguous. You know, most of us can't be described as, for instance, "heroically loyal and dependable, yet unable to love and a maker of snap decisions." Or, say, "defenseless, maternal, in love, a source of good intelligence, but a Cylon." I suppose the rest of us would not make good characters on network TV: "Quite talented, good work ethic, okay lover, but bad with finances and can't cook." I am NOT describing myself. And oh yes, I cleaned the litter box, partly because I didn't want to say that I still hadn't done so by 5:15.

5:15 - 5:45 - Finish reading the book about early pioneer life in Upper Canada. It's a bit of an anti-climax, ending with appendixes. At this point I'm just killing time. I'm exhausted but I don't want to sleep too early, otherwise I'll wake up at midnight.

5:45 - 6:00 - A nice bath. My legs aren't too hacked up from that useless shaving exercise yesterday. The cat moans horribly and glares at me like I should know what she's moaning about. I think that just being around water puts her into an hysterical state.

6:00 - 7:15 - Start reading "My Canadian Journal," a book written by Harriot Dufferin -- wife of the Governor General -- between 1872 and 1878. These things can be hit or miss, but Harriot is a real gem, spunky and outspoken and adventurous. By day she's hosting croquet parties, by night she's going fishing for salmon and making snarky remarks about her attendants. More on this later. Anyway, it's time to do the final bloodwork and try to sleep; I'm looking forward to aspirin, Halls, and an easing of this crappy sore throat.