September, 2008

  1. I’d like to stay and try my first champagne

    September 18, 2008 by ms. xandra

    I bought fifteen yards of orange chiffon and then made curtains.  They are lovely.  And orange.  And chiffony.  And on Friday we’re going to the Singalong Sound of Music at the Hollywood Bowl!  I have decided to dress up as drunk Liesel.  This will involve wearing a dress and drinking (cheap) champagne out of a bottle with a straw and then singing loudly, out of tune.

    And fuck, how is it almost three am?  I have been cutting back my caffeine intake exactly to avoid this “three am and I am blogging rather than asleep” scenario!  I only had one giant americano today!

    I am going to leave you with this sad, mopey song lyric (from “Sand in Your Eyes,” by Twilight Hotel, which is currently my favourite sad song by a sad, Canadian cowboy band) because it is beautiful and sad and really sums up my current state of mind regarding some stuff:

    Cynics recovering from chances we took,

    Our hearts are just things in anatomy books,

    It takes a failure to learn where to hide your desire.

    Category Angst, Coffee | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Aloha, etc.

    September 14, 2008 by ms. xandra

    Yessss.  Some of us are going to Hawaii, where we will give a conference paper and then sit around in a hammock sipping Mai Tais.  Or, well, some of us are going to Hawaii if we can score a travel grant of some kind.  Wait, no.  Some of us are definitely going to Hawaii.  If we don’t get a travel grant, we will scrape together enough cash (“fifty dollars for the powder room” is a handy gambit that may prove useful in this regard) for a flight and then sleep on the beach, in the manner of ultra-fabulous, destitute young ladies the world over.

    Hey!  Today I thought up my dream dissertation committee.  Sadly, it is but a dream, because one member of my dream dissertation committee is Vivien Goldman, who on my dream committee  would be my Post-Punk-Public Intellectual role model,  but she is at NYU and not here and is probably so cool that if I ever met her I would shrivel into a sobbing, babbling lump out of despair at my own uncoolness.  But what can you do?

    Ok!  I am off to mop the bathroom floor because everything (everything!) just overflowed.  As a result of this turn of events, I have updated my Best Friends List:

    1.  Dana Scully,

    2.  Fox Mulder,

    3.  Walter Skinner,

    4.  Plumbers,

    5.  Landlords who pay the plumber so that I don’t have to.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 9 Comments

  3. In which things start off well and rapidly descend into despair

    September 14, 2008 by ms. xandra

    1.  The Good Sir Baltimore and I have been painting and decorating and our apartment is fucking beautiful!  It is not quite done but I will put pictures up somewhere when it is – currently I am waiting for this to arrive in the mail and it will be the icing on my bedroom.

    2.  So, the definition of quirkyalone is “a person who enjoys being single (but is not opposed to being in a relationship) and generally prefers to be alone rather than dating for the sake of being in a couple,” and generally that has really pretty exactly characterised how I feel.  But for some reason, just this week, I’ve felt completely, irrationally opposed to the idea of ever being in a relationship, ever.  (Illustrative example:  So, Cute Earnest Barista told me to come to that show, right?  Which could have been interpreted as an expression of interest, right?  As a result, I have now begun avoiding Cafe Audrey.  Which is stupid and too bad, because I do really like it there and I’ve been thinking of actually getting my act together and playing at one of their open mic nights.)  But the really weird thing is that I’m stuck between feeling totally ok with this and really liberated and feeling kind of hopelessly depressed, but not for any normal reasons that make sense.    Anyhow, I don’t know.  Whatever.  School will start in a week or so and then I’ll be teaching and busy and I really do much better when I am superlatively busy and don’t have hours of navel-gazing time.

    3.  Today we volunteered at the phone bank trying to convince Californians to vote no on Proposition 8, which is a stupid, hateful proposition that will be on the ballot in California this November and that, if passed, will reverse the recent decision to legalize same-sex marriage in the state.  And it turns out that cold-calling people was surprisingly less agonizing than I thought it would be, mostly because nobody answers their phone, and because I luckily didn’t end up stuck talking to any jackasses.  But the thing that shocks me was that most people did not even know that this issue was going to be on the ballot.  I can’t even vote here, and I am more aware than most of the people I talked to, all of whom were registered voters.  I just think it’s weird.  And discouraging.  And kind of frightening, really.

    4.  Other things sure to depress:  war, famine, pestilence, death, the David Foster Wallace thing even though I’ve never actually read any of his books, horrific train accidents, and, on a far, far more trivial, flippant note, the remake of The Women, because what is the point of remaking perfection and replacing Norma Shearer with Meg Ryan and Joan Crawford with Eva Mendes?

    So then I drank the last of the shiraz straight out of the bottle, watched some totally depressio X-Files episodes, and went to bed.

    Category Angst, Apartment, Politics | Tags: | 2 Comments

  4. Mermaids! X-Files! (What else is new?)

    September 12, 2008 by ms. xandra

    Oh, the internet is the greatest thing.  The internet allows me to transmit my hopes and dreams into a series of tubes, and then, on rare, sparkling occasions, actually finds people on the other end of those tubes who manage make my dreams come true.  Once upon a time, I said on this blog, “gee, I wish I had a ticket for that sold-out B-52s concert,” and then, lo-and-behold, a member of the Grammy committee and friend of the late, great John Peel had one with my name on it.  Once upon a two-days-ago, I said, “gee, I wish I had a ‘Mermaids for Layton’ button,” and just look at what that boy of Tanya’s slapped together for me:

    Amazing.

    Today I saw a bus that still had a lonely-looking X-Files 2 ad on it!  And it reminded me of those halcyon days preceeding the 25th of July, 2008, when we still had hope.  Hope that the X-Files movie would be not terrible.  Ah yes, I remember those days.  Those days before the world was introduced to Fox “Scratchy Beard” Mulder.  Those days before our dreams were shattered by a movie about Russian doctors harvesting people’s organs.  But at least we will always have Mulder and Scully in a rowboat.  Forever.

    And also there are funny billboards with David Duchovny’s face on them all over the city, advertising the new season of Californication.  Apparently he won the Golden Globe for best actor for the last season, which seems highly improbable because, well, who knew anyone was watching that show?  Even I wasn’t, and Fox Mulder is my second-best friend!  (Dana Scully is my first-best friend, and Walter Skinner is my third-best friend.  And Diana Fowley is my Number Two Worst Enemy, right after Karl Lagerfeld.)  So as I contemplated David Duchovny’s face as my bus was stopped at a red light on Sunset today, I got to thinking.  I have been living in Los Angeles for an entire year, and I have yet to even make out with David Duchovny, Sex Addict.  (An aside:  Why is it that in the media coverage of David’s sex addiction not one person has mentioned the scene in Trust the Man where David actually goes to Sex Addicts Anonymous and says “I am a sex addict.  I enjoy rubbing cold cuts all over my naked body”?  Oh, wait:  because nobody else saw that movie.)  Clearly I need to up my game.  So, in the interests of upping my game,  I have purchased an eyelash curler and have started referring to my bathroom exclusively as the “Powder Room.”  How these two things will succeed in helping me to up my game has yet to be determined. But, you know, good things come to those with very curly eyelashes who wait in powder rooms.  Or something.

    Category Internet, Media, Politics, X-Files | Tags: | 6 Comments

  5. Fuck yes.

    September 10, 2008 by ms. xandra

    This:

    And also this:

    (I know I’m not actually a thereminist, but believe me, I WOULD BE if I had the cash on hand to buy a theremin.  And I do play the saw, which sounds similar.)

    And really, they’re all awesome.

    Now, if someone would make me a Mermaids for Jack Layton button, I’d be all set.

    Category Uncategorized | Tags: | 4 Comments

  6. Awesome things I should tell you about before I forget!

    September 8, 2008 by ms. xandra

    1.  I am going to the Chris Leavins Story Hour!  Amazing!

    2.  The other day, Cute Earnest Barista was like, “Hey, you should come to this show we’re having next week!  I think you’d really like it!” which either means that Cute Earnest Barista likes me, or that Cute Earnest Barista is worried that nobody will come to the show, and I look generically artsy enough that I might be inclined to attend that sort of event.

    3.  For breakfast this morning, instead of pouring milk on my granola, I poured on leftover iced coffee and it was so delicious.  Also, maybe this coffee thing is becoming a problem?

    4.  Margarita ice cream!  I am making some tonight!  And probably not sharing.

    5.  Did you listen to this week’s Vinyl Cafe?  You should download the podcast because it was SO FUNNY.

    Category Coffee, Internet, Media | Tags: | 5 Comments

  7. Delicious! b/w Gross!

    September 6, 2008 by ms. xandra

    Dear Friends,

    My oven is currently full of chocolate-stout cupcakes and bundt cake and love.  And let me tell you, I think this is my new favourite dessert recipe.  And I don’t even know how it will turn out yet.  There’s something about a big pot of beer and butter bubbling away on the stove that is just, well, makes a 2-bed, 2-bath, rent-controlled apartment a home.  And also the batter was pretty delicious (licking the beaters being the chef’s prerogative).

    Anyhow, anyhow.  I’m currently really annoyed about something.  And there will be a more lucid, detailed post about this on my soon-to-be-launched Other Blog.  But for now:  I am really fed up with the elitist, offensive rhetoric that is being employed by people who are opposed to the format changes over at CBC Radio 2.  I have yet to hear an argument that amounts to anything more than “Radio 2 should remain exclusively a classical music station because classical music is better and superior to popular music which is all verse-chorus-verse, and the national music station should be playing only music to edify the people.”  It’s really aggravating.  It’s especially aggravating because the people making these arguments are people who I guess are my colleagues – music educators, musicians, composers, etc.  It makes me so mad to see this false popular/classical dichotomy upheld, a dichotomy that is ultimately less about the music itself and more about identifying oneself as better than other people.  (Because – newsflash! – classical music is not better than popular music or vice versa.  Both are capable of being edifying or not.  And arguments to the contrary are strongly ideologically motivated.)  And it sort of makes a lot of sense to me that a national music station should try to appeal to as wide a demographic as possible, you know?  By playing lots of different kinds of music?  You know?  And I wish people would think of what it means when they say that, by playing music by “popular” Canadian musicians, Radio 2 is dumbing itself down.  That kind of rhetoric marginalizes both the artists and listeners.  I listened to the new 3:00 show the other day, which features mainly independent, Canadian musicians, and, let me tell you, I didn’t hear anything that I would describe as dumb.  Anyhow.  Mostly I’m just fed up with the kind of jackassery that I hoped was exclusively the domain of self-important music undergraduates.

    Oh, also annoying:  Stephen Harper, what is the point of the election you are going to call tomorrow?  I hate your stupid face (and also all of your stupid policies).  Hopefully the people of Canada will have the sense to fire you.  But I worry.

    Luckily for you, Stephen Harper, my oven timer is buzzing at me so I am stepping off my soapbox for the time being.

    THE END,

    Xandra A.

    Category Canadialand, Food, Media, Politics | Tags: | 2 Comments

  8. And then I died of plague.

    September 3, 2008 by ms. xandra

    I am back in Los Angeles, in a very pink room, which I think I am going to paint sky blue.  Being in this pink room is a vast improvement over the situation of two nights ago, wherin I was sleeping in the kitchen.  Yes, it’s true, I am that kind of lady.  Speaking of which, “That Kind of Lady” is probably going to be the title of my autobiographical, twelve-dollar trade paperback novel/book of letters.

    Hey, so we went to see a movie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and it was super!  Seeing a movie in the cemetery, I mean.  The movie, not so hot.  It was this terrible thing with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie, and the entire audience got a bad case of the giggles when Donald came on screen with his curly mop and rather distinguished moustache, and things just went downhill from there when Donald took off his pants. And then he was murdered by a troll!  There, I’ve spoiled the ending, now you don’t have to go see it.

    And I went to the doctor today regarding my mysterious mystery ailment of the past few weeks, even though I’m feeling better, because whenever I’m sick I just assume I have syphillis or plague and I like verifying that that is not the case.  The doctor did not disappoint.  She diagnosed me with “some weird virus that has gone away.”  So that’s reassuring.

    One of the worst things about the internet is how it has enabled me to become an irrational hypochodriac.  Like, last week I had a rash.  The Mayo Clinic website provided me with a fascinating list of conditions and ailments that cause rashes, syphilis being among them, so I immediately decided that, clearly, this was what was wrong with me.  Nevermind that my rash did not in any way resemble a syphilis rash, which is normally found on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, whereas mine was ON MY LEGS – I immediately assume that not even the worst-case scenario, but the stupidest-case scenario, must be true.  So, that’s how I spent my last week at home in Canada:  worrying about syphilis, an disease that I could not possibly have actually caught.  But all was not for naught, for now, I am a self-educated expert on the disease.  Did you know that there are four phases?

    1.  You get a giant, gross, painless sore at the site of infection.

    2.  You get a rash and flu-like symptoms.

    3.  You go into a latent phase where there are no symptoms.

    4.  You become Friedrich Nietzshe.

    Anyhow, that’s all.  I didn’t see nearly everyone I meant to see while I was home, due to my non-syphilitic “weird virus”, and also because I did too much traveling and got tired so next year you all have to come to see me.  This post was incoherent and I miss my mom and dad.  But what can you do?

    I want a Tim Hortons ham and cheese tea biscuit.

    OH WAIT!  I almost forgot about my big news.  My big news is that I have decided on a new tactic regarding boys.  My new tactic is:  celibacy.  It’s going really well so far.

    Category Canadialand, Internet, Summer | Tags: | 5 Comments

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