recording with the rain in the background - you're in montreal

it's funny how things work out. today was originally planned to be an in-store day on the promo tour, with me driving out to Montreal, and then tomorrow to Ottawa. Good thing we cancelled those dates, because today is the day the car battery decided to die, stranding me in a much more comfortable place, the parking lot of Long & McQuade Music in Toronto. After the first call to CAA, i stubbornly decided to take my chances with the "there's an 80-90% chance the battery will start again" and turned the car over to marc to go on his merry way... only to get called from a gas station on King West with yet another battery mishap - made even more pleasant this time by the car alarm kicking into overdrive with the low battery charge. because i'm the one with the CAA, i cabbed it down to him and saved the day... read: gave him the cab so he could go to his gig, while i waited for CAA to arrive and this time put a new battery in ol bertha. i am superwoman!

observations while standing with a dead car at the Esso gas pump:

• for police that are refusing to patrol (job action), there sure were a lot of cop cars around.
• Tim Hortons hot chocolate is much sweeter and cruddier at the bottom than i remember.
• in the 45 min i was standing there, 2 cop cars pulled in and got coffee... stereotype or truth?
• or job action?
• have i ever had Tim Horton's hot chocolate? maybe it's just been a really long time since i had ANY kind of hot chocolate.

nursing my battery-damaged credit card...

k

have become addicted to the show House. so glad the internet exists... it supplies me with commercial-less viewing of all the shows i want to see. much more enjoyable. :)

started a new book... Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. fascinating stuff.

listening to lots of different things. loving iTunes Music store. not loving how long it's taking them to process/make available my new record tho. hurry up!

k

ugh. i rarely catch a cold, but this is the 2nd time this month! it's all marc's fault... last week he was sick (people at the gigs will remember that!!) but i didn't have any signs of it...i upped my vitamins and felt fine... but last night it all crashed down on me and now i've spent the day in bed. i'm not the type of person who takes medication to relieve symptoms (like taking Cold & Sinus stuff or anything like that), probably because i never was given those types of things growing up, and 2ndly because i know if i suddenly couldn't feel any symptoms i probably wouldn't stay in bed... and therefore i'd probably make myself much worse. I need to feel sick to stay in bed and not do stuff.

so i've been in bed.... i have guiltily watched one of my alltime feel-good favorites, Bridget Jones' Diary, and have "The Best of Friends" on hand waiting to be cracked open. I'm feeling confronted by my obvious lack of intellectual snobbery.... Thom Yorke would probably never be caught dead watching any such things. I should be watching hard hitting documentaries... giving myself some fodder for a brilliant new song... but i never seem to get around to it. Just like the philosophy books i picked up last year in an inspired cloud of yearning. still for the most part, unread.

the things i take in don't immediately make themselves clear. i'm on input a lot of the time, and lately been dying to be on output. Late August and early September were fruitful weeks... but now i'm in a slushy time where i feel like i'm sinking in my own shallow avoidance of thought. these phases come and go, i have to remind myself.

last night was the kickoff of the ohas promo tour... at probably our favorite Indigo, Yonge/Eglinton in Toronto. The staff is so pro... already setting up when we arrive, a really beautiful display in the music department, and more... it makes things go really smoothly and it's much easier to focus on what we're there to do (play music and have a good time!). :) Well i guess good management produces good employees, and greg henson is a great guy, so indigo really lucked out there.

i also have to ammend a previous post... we got some panic from friends when they read my journal entry about moving to montreal... we're don't have actual plans to move... we just have open minds. :)

well last night was the toronto independent music awards.... what a colossal disappointment. there were a few good performers but on the whole, the show in no way represented what's going on in the toronto scene. it's really embarrassing that in a great city like this no one could take the time to organize an event like this to raise exposure of our indie scene... it took a misinformed person from california to try and get something happening.

the best part of the night was the chinese food and hockey!

marc wants us to move to montreal again... it certainly is a tempting idea lately. toronto is a very corporate scene... many people are just in it for the money. i've been here 4 years and feel like there's just not a lot of celebration of art here. everyone's judging everyone else and it's very competitive. the cost of living doesn't help.

hope to see the eglinton area gang out at the indigo show tomorrow... good times!

k

mmmm red wine. singing and dancing to Tiffany 45's. an old whitney record that i only half recognize. playing with cats. courtney's record is going to sound great!