snotty insomniac

Is it just me who never heard of the movie Keeping Mum when it came out?  Trooper just lent it to me and Ms Spur, and I can’t get certain scenes out of my head.  Like the surprisingly touching and beautiful sex scene with ROWAN ATKINSON.  I knew (from Black Adder the Second … when he has the beard … ) that he could have moments of sheer hotness, so it wasn’t the fact that he was doing a sex scene that surprised me; it was how solemn and even holy it was.  And the voiceover of Song of Solomon didn’t make me laugh.

Anyhoo.

I have a sinus infection and atypically (does this mean I’m growing up?) I went to the doctor right away yesterday when I first suspected it.  As opposed to waiting three or four weeks, hoping I’ll get better without medication, and inevitably crashing and making my work suffer.

I went to bed early last night, and I popped awake this morning at 4:30.  My head is full of snot and Rowan Atkinson and A Curious Mango’s latest letter, which I just received yesterday, and read in the clinic’s waiting room.  I like reading letters in waiting rooms.  It’s the next best thing to actually having the Mango in the waiting room, keeping you amused and not focused on sinus pain.  I like not being able to help giggling in public.  Picture me in a quiet room (except for the purrings of phones and slightly snippy receptionist voices) suddenly laughing helplessly as I read an entire page devoted to the history of the Toblerone bar.

I went to Ottawa two weekends ago, to play Johann at Written’s and Asparagus’ wedding.  It was the best wedding ever.  The ceremony was held in a little inn in the countryside, and the autumn colours were glorious.  It was sheer goodness to see these two friends pass this milestone.

Most of the stuff surrounding the wedding was good, too.  I liked taking Johann on the plane with me, my hair in ragged braids.  I had a sort of teenager-ish sensation of "Woohoo I’m an artiste!"

I simply have to tell this story.

The night before I left, I had two hours of sleep.  What with cramming in as many lessons before my trip (so that my paycheque would be as plump as possible), I didn’t really get a chance to pack until the night before.  And the person who gave me a ride to the airport was only able to take me about four hours before my flight.  So I had to sit around idly, and fight sleepiness.  Which made me slightly kooky.

I had carefully packed away my sewing needles for my cross-stitch project into my checked baggage, because of the regulations about sharp objects.  But my cross-stitch project itself, the fabric and all the skeins of embroidery floss, was in a plastic bag in my carry-on knapsack.  When I went through security, my knapsack was chosen for dismantling.  The security fellow gingerly (with latex gloves) emptied the entire contents, verrry sloowwly, dealing out my pads like a deck of cards, turning my Vector protein bars around as if checking their calorie content, lingering over my journal as if he secretly wanted to open it.  Then he hit the cross-stitch section.  One by one, he held up skeins of floss and gingerly squished them between his fingers, holding them up to the light, peering intently.  Well, I lost it.  I started to laugh.

Never laugh at a security guard.

I quickly tried to salvage the situation by saying, "No, no, I understand, it’s your job, can’t be too careful with embroidery floss of doom … "  And I stopped.  You know that thing Mr. Burns does with his fingers when he says "Ehhxcellent"?  I realized I had done that when I said the word "doom."

Never try to salvage a situation with a security guard by using humour.

I didn’t get dragged away to The Room, but I did get a talking-to.

Well, guess I should try to sleep a bit more before I really need to get up and get ready to have coffee with my grade one teacher.  (I met her randomly at the new Orthodox church I’ve been going to with a friend from work.  There will have to be some OD christenings soon … )  She looks fantastic and so young!  People at church, when they hear that I was a student in her second-ever classroom, and that I’m 28, shake their heads in disbelief.

So many more stories to tell.  Like not getting to visit or be visited by the Friar when in his neck of the woods, and the strange e-mail exchange just after that.  If I wasn’t so past all hope or fear, I would probably be interpreting his anguish and sudden nostalgia for the beginning of our friendship as a sign of his "true feelings" that even he doesn’t know about.  As it is, I’m just trying to reassure him that he hasn’t put me through hell.  I believe my last sentence to him on the subject was "Let’s get over it already and help each other be the best humans we can be."  Love anyway.  (A la Mike Scott.)