Today I put on my sweater and my coat and my scarf and my hats and my mittens and my boots in preparation for my trek downtown to get my driver’s license renewed (nothing but excitement going on around these parts, folks).  And I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch and then…just stood there…for about ten minutes, trying to decide if it was really worth it.  Like, I don’t really need to be able to drive a car, right?  There are buses.  And there was just so much snow blowing around and everything just looked so cold and wet and winter boots are just so ugly, you know?  Staying home would mean avoiding wearing ugly footwear.  And everything was so grey and miserable and then I remembered why I used to always be in a foul mood for six months of the year.  But then I told myself that I was a big girl now and that I could do it because we wouldn’t want anyone thinking Southern California had made me weak, now would we?  So I steeled myself for the hike downtown and then when I got to the license office, they told me that I couldn’t even renew my license today because their camera was broken so I would have to come back tomorrow.  GOOD STORY.

Also, it is always winter when I have to renew my license, which is unfortunate because in my picture I always end up looking like an ill-tempered, heavily bundled up Woman of the Woods, which is not necessarily my look of choice.

BUT ANYHOW.  Enough moaning.  Right now I am sitting in Port Elgin’s totally lovely coffee shop having a totally lovely cappucino, feeling very pleased that I am indoors.  And tonight I think I will decorate the Christmas tree!  Or rather:  tonight I will decorate both Christmas trees, because my parents accidentally bought two, so I am going to transform the living room into a festive wooded glade.  I have already done my part to make the house more festive by putting a ceramic hippopotamus in the manger scene to commemorate The Adoration of the Hippo, my most favorite part of the Christmas story (ie: the part of the Christmas story that I invented myself).

Hey, also:  I’m now writing for LA Metblogs, which is super cool!  So you should head on over there and visit!  My first post went up today.  It’s kind of daunting, because now I’m writing for people who aren’t my real life friends, but I think it’s going to be fun and neat, and hopefully I will do a series on LA donut shops.

“I used open my bottle of wine at 6:00 pm on the dot and start reading.  And that’s what I did every evening.  I had my little dog.  I had my fire.  I had my book.  And I had my wine.  And the problem with this is that people talk of it as if it’s a problem, the solitary spinster drinker.  But, far from being a problem, it’s lovely.”

Amen, Nuala!  There are very few things I cherish more than beautiful moments of solitude (often supplemented by wine or gin martinis).

Other news:  I am in Canada!  And boy golly, I sure am getting rudely reacquainted with what humidity is like.  A year in the desert has clearly made me weak.  Or at least has dried me out.

Other, other news:  I am finally sitting down and watching Mad Men, after two years of everybody telling me I should.  I’m only part way through the first season right now, and, yeah, it’s good.  One thing though:  Yes, I totally get why everyone is all gaga over Joan Holloway.  I get it.  The clothes, the hair, the femme fatale schtick.  But that’s the problem:  I totally get the Joan Holloway character.  There is nothing new and exciting for me in Joan Holloway.  I have seen her in a million Joan Crawford movies.  Now, Peggy Olsen?  She is fascinating.  I don’t understand her yet, and I want to know what’s going on with her, and that’s why I like her.  I want more Peggy.

And yesterday was a lovely, lovely day because I went into Toronto for the day (my dad had a meeting in the city so I went along for the ride) and met up with Tanya and Emily and Amy B., fabulous all, for lunch and ice cream, and I’m excited to go back to Toronto in a few weeks for more friends and lunches and ice cream.

And there is another author who has recently met with the spinster Stamp of Approval, this time from myself and Spinster Sister Amy G., and that is Elaine Dundy, and I don’t know why we’ve never heard of her.  I walked into Stories a few weeks ago and picked up a copy of The Dud Avocado, based solely on its title, and it is pure wonderful, a fabulous, fabulous tale of Sally Jay Gorce, an American ex-pat in Paris in the 1950s, and you should read it because it’s lovely and hilarious.  And I have decided to call myself an ex-pat when I’m in LA from now on, because it sounds so very glamourous.  But right now I am really enjoying sitting around my parents’ house in my pyjamas, being not glamourous at all.

Love,
Alexandra

Dear office computer,

It has taken me an hour to burn a cd on you, what is your problem? Oh, the things I do for Sgt. Pepper.

Hate,
Alexandra

Dear Readers,

This is the first time I have looked at my blog on this computer and I am dismayed to see that the header banner is not centered which fills my obsessive-compulsive heart with angst. Does that happen to any of you? If so, I will fix it this weekend.

Love, love, love, and also cookies,

Alexandra

2.  Which of the following do I want more?  I can’t decide.  You should tell me.

a) an electric ukulele,

b) a bass guitar,

c) a sewing machine,

d) a tattoo of Dorothy Parker.

Please note that I cannot actually afford to get any of these things.  This is all just conjecture based on the question “what if I happen upon a sack of gold doubloons in the middle of the sidewalk tomorrow?”

3.  On Friday, my Canadian friend Shelina and I are going to see a Canadian band play at Spaceland.  Shelina and I (and it’s worth pointing out that we’ve only known each other for, like, a month, and are from opposite ends of the country) both have weird, tangential friend-of-friend connections to said band, which is doing nothing to disprove the common trope of “all Canadians know each other.”  Sometimes there is nothing to do but to embrace the idea of being a walking cliche.

4. Is it elitist to be wary of going on a date with someone because they have never heard of Leon Trotsky? Probably.  Also, do I talk about theremins too much? I feel like I talk about theremins all the time, with everybody, and probably spew a lot of crap because my two facts that I know about theremins, that I bring up in these seemingly daily conversations that I have with strangers about theremins, are:

a)  Moog used to make build-your-own theremin kits,

b) This one time, Leon Theremin was kidnapped by the KGB (and wikipedia just told me that this fact isn’t even actually true).

5.  My favourite thesis statement:  “Ray Charles had a huge influence on poplar music.”

6.  Ok, fine, I will tell you what my Halloween costume is.  I am going to be a sexy librarian.  FROM SPACE.

1)  the Conservative Party of Canada being guilty of plagiarism,

2) Mary Walsh launching an attack on Stephen Harper, “iceberg of a Prime Minister,” and his sweater vests.

This has been an excellent afternoon.  My only complaint right now is that it is inexplicably 38 degrees (Celsius, bitches) outside, so if you could take care of that, Santa, that would be great.

Love,

Alexandra

Have people seen the Anti-Harper Vote Swap facebook group and how do you feel about? (I tried including a link but it only works if you’re logged into facebook – so just search for it.)  While I appreciate the motive behind it, and agree with what they are trying to do (stop the Conservatives from getting a majority, thereby saving the world), the idea of vote swapping makes me very uncomfortable.

In other news, I got my mail-in ballot yesterday.  Weirdly, there are no boxes to check – you just write in the name of the candidate you’re voting for.  And it was kind of exciting to get my Elections Canada envelope.  I still sort of get naively excited about the concept of voting, despite the period of despair that inevitably follows the election, due to a depressing outcome that is a result our completely undemocratic way of counting votes.  But I still have a few weeks left to hope in vain.

Arrg,

Xandra A.

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.

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.

1. I would like some musicologist to do an interesting, cogent reading of the choice of popular songs used between speakers, and, like, class/race stuff. Just because it would be fascinating and because I would do it myself except that I’m still on holiday. And also I feel like I’m at a total disadvantage when it comes to American politics anyhow, and because I only watched enough of the convention to catch “Chain of Fools” and “Don’t Stop.”

2. American politics are so much more exciting than Canadian politics! Everybody is so earnest and excited and waving flags and dancing around! I feel like Canadians would be vaguely embarrassed at the thought of exhibiting such behaviour. I mean, I love Jack and Olivia as much as the next dyed-in-the-wool NDP voter, but we all know that it’s sort of an ironic love. I don’t think any of us would dance to soul music for Jack. And I really don’t think we have politicians who are charismatic enough to command that kind of enthusiasm. I mean, I really loved Jean Chretien, but mostly because dude talked out of the side of his face and was kind of bumbly and incomprehensible and hilarious*, not for any real, substantial reasons. And Paul Martin was boring and Stephen Harper is obviously a reprehensible, cruel, devious human being, who also has the distinction of looking like a child molester. And remember back in the late 1990s when This Hour Has 22 Minutes was really good and they just managed to make most Canadian politicians look like laughable idiots? I remember those days. Those were good days. I still sort of have a hard time believing that Stockwell Day, Creationist, is an actual, real person, and not just some character that Rick Mercer invented.

So I guess, even if Canadian politicians aren’t exactly exciting, they really do succeed at being hilarious caricatures of themselves.

*This video is hilarious, go watch it. “For me, pepper, I put it on my plate.” Oh Jean, you jackass.