Monday, November 06, 2006
Le 23ieme
Hello all.
First and foremost -- how do you like my new look?
Kudos should be directed at my lovely pal Charlie, who did my layout in his spare time out of the goodness of his heart, and because I won a trifling little trivia contest on his site.
The day before I was to turn 23, I went to the liquor store to buy a bottle of cheap wine (Naked Grape!) and got IDed. Since my wallet was in the car, this necessitated a dodgy sprint through the boonies parking lot, including a colourful run-in with a dude who closely resembled the skin-sewing serial killer from Silence of the Lambs, and his cracked-out girlfriend who reeked of whiskey and looked like she hadn't been in out of the rain in at least a week. Go figure. Almost mid-twenties but don't look a day over 15. Hafuckingha.
That said, I had a lovely birthday yesterday. I woke up with Claire, who laced her fingers through mine and whispered happy birthday ever-so-sweetly in my ear before the puppy dog in all her strawberry blonde glory jumped on my head with her version of a birthday greeting. Claire made me French toast, which she couldn't possibly have known is one of my favourite things, and gave me my present -- see above. It's a Claire Original -- an acrylic painting based on a photo she took of me last weekend. You can even see the city skyline in the background. So what do you think? Can you see the resemblance?
It made me feel incredibly lucky to know she had created a piece of art especially for me. I was pretty thrilled. I think it's a ra
ther accomplished little effort, but I'm biased.
I took the bus home, which was a pleasant ride for once -- two hours spent winding through the misty West Coast fall during the quiet, gray eye of our current three-day November monsoon. It's an ancient tradition dating back to my birth that it rain every November 5th. It has every year (as far as I can remember) since I arrived on Earth. I'm pretty much done complaining.
I spent a few hours apartment hunting with the Bro (I'm hoping to move out in December, and I needed him as my chauffer and economic consultant -- had to milk the b-day for all it was worth!). I found a sweet place in a great neighbourhood for a decent price, but there was lots of competition and I'm pretty sure I didn't make the cut. Back to the drawing board on that one.
I had a quiet dinner with just the family, since my mom's still recovering from surgery and couldn't handle a big party, but it was lovely and it made me feel very lucky to have such wonderful people in my life. I had to work on my lesson plans until 2:00 am, but them's the breaks, I suppose.
Now I'm swamped with all this work that Job #2 Employer failed to mention, namely report cards and administrating level exams. I had no idea I would have to do this stuff, and she gave me absolutely no notice. Thanks a million. Definitely quitting that job come December.
On the plus side, my job downtown continues to be wonderful. My students today chirped "Thank you _______! (Korean mispronounciation of my name)" and grinned at me after class today, and I was positively thrilled. They're all such sweethearts.
I've been rocking out to the new Beck cd, The Information, which is a sublime middle ground between the sad, sweet stylings of Sea Change and the hip beats of Guero. I'm pretty much addicted. I also got PJ Harvey's new recording, The Peel Sessions, which is mostly live offerings, but in typical PJ fashion they're all of exquisite quality and range. And I'm just getting into Emily Haine's new solo album, which doesn't rock like Metric but does expose a sort of lonely jazzy sound that I suspected the lovely Emily always possessed but I never got to hear because Metric was always so loud. I'm certainly looking forward to going to her concert and watching her slink around on stage, since she does it so beautifully.
I'd better get to bed....
Hope all's well with everyone. Thank you all for your sweet birthday wishes.
Tell me what you think of my new look -- and my new work of art!
-N
