Fringey with anticip ... ation

That's mixing a metaphor or something, but it's pretty much how I feel.

My term as Acting Head is over (thank &deity;), but technically I'm still Grad Chair, Undergrad Advisor, Curriculum Development Central, Clinical and Developmental Linguistics Advisor, Department Webmonster, and on a hiring committee for an instructor in another department. And of course, I'm supposed to be doing research, preparing a grant applications, preparing ethics board stuff, and coming up with a good reason to go on leave next year.

But emotionally, spiritually, and mostly mentally, and soon to be physically, I'm in Fringe Time.

Fringe Time is state of unsuspended animation spent concerned primarily with things Fringe, i.e. the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, at which I volunteer as a Venue Team Leader, which means that I liaise bewteen the ticket sellers and ushers, the technicians, the site and festival supers, and the Fringe Staff. And occasionally security and so on. I'll be working six shifts at Venues 8/9, which are two spaces at the back of the Conservatory Building on Bannatyne. We're not supposed to call it the Crocus building anymore, for reasons having to do with the collapse of the Crocus Fund, but there's still a huge sign on the corner that says "Crocus". Enter the parking lot just north of the building and my two venues are back there.

Anyway, the Fringe is really the only outside, vaguely social, and vaguely charitable (well, non-profit and sort of community-based) thing I do outside of school stuff. I love being part of the Fringe (arguably) the largest unjuried theatre festival in North America (it depends on how you count--total box office, number of performers, number of performances, or number of patrons, and how well Edmonton does every year). More than seeing shows, I love interacting with technicians, performers, directors, and other Fringe Lovers, on both sides of the Venue Table.

I also love counting money and bossing people around, but that's a separate issue. (I always say, "I'm kind of a control freak, but I'm going to try not to micromanage you," at the beginning of a shift, and then when I see someone doing something I can't stand, I step in and say, "Okay, I'm going to micromanage you now, just for a second, but could you/we ..." and I make my plea. Usually that works. The 'could you' gives the other person the illusion of a choice, and therefore of power, which pays respect to their negative (or autonomy) face. See, all that time teaching "Language and Gender" has taught me something.

Anyway, I've been checking in less and less, and may be otherwise occupied for the next couple of weeks. WIll try to keep y'all informed of Fringe-related doings, etc., but not going to spend a lot of energy doing so, since energy is in short supply during Fringe Time.

Randumb thots:

Had another massage on Thursday, same guy, and today, except for a little soreness around my occipital bone (that's the back/bottom of the skull), I'm not really in any pain at all. Progress is being made.

Had an appointment with the GI guy today, and I'm now scheduled for a colonoscopy and gastroscopy for the end of October. "Just in case." Oh joy.

Bought a replacement for my dead duffel bag/suitcase thingy, so I have something to cart stuff to Seattle for nephew David's wedding, which by the way I leave for on Wednesday after the Fringe for a week. But I expect to have time to check in while I'm there, even if I don't during the Fringe.

I actually said this in front of someone, completely accidentally: "I was going to go out and find somewhere to play tonight, but instead it looks like I've going to stay home and play with myself."

How to spend a lazy Sunday morning

or, things I gotta remember when I get home.

Have had a bagel and some yogurt for brekkies. Got no plans until at least early afternoon. Thinking this would be a good time to lie in bed listening to "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" over the internet. Aaaah.

Random MySpace video

Stumbled across this in my wanderings.
2 Guys, 1 Flute

Would you serve as Vice President?

The Hill asked all 97 senators who were not at the moment actually running for president if they would run for Veep. They report all 97 answers, verbatim, on their website.

NPR's "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me"'s Daily Quiz jumped on this story, with the following observations:

Most of them said the politically correct thing: "No, I love my current job working for the people who elected me." Some laughed at the idea, and some were more honest. Said Republican Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah: "Of course. Big house, big car, not much to do. Why not?" Republican Larry Craig's response was the weirdest: "I would say, 'No, Hillary.'"

Was Craig saying he expects Clinton to be the Democratic nominee? Or the President? But why would she ask a Republican to be on the ticket? It seems that, once again, Sen. Craig was making a tragic misjudgment about who was interested in him.

But it seems that the Senate is taking a dim view of recent Veepish shenanigans. From Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN): "I know already who it will be: the man in charge of the search. There’s no need for me to respond. That’s how you get to be vice president." And Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY): "We already have a vice president from Wyoming. So we’ll have to see if Sen. McCain asks me to chair his selection committee. That seems to work well. It certainly seemed to work well for the last guy from Wyoming."

Unless my reading of these comments as ironic is wrong. <shudder>

On the other hand

... at least I found my contact lenses.

Haiku for a bad morning in early May

snow, damp and gloomy,
drizzles a sodden blanket
on emergent Spring

The season's first mosquito bite

I went out to get a little exercise (very little, but at least I did it) and pick up some groceries. And when I got to the store (a whole block away, see above) there was this persistent itch on the back of my left ankle. Itch itch itch. Itched so much it almost hurt. Every couple of steps in the store I had to stop and rub it with my other foot. (I don't go around touching my feet in grocery stores with my hands as a rule.) When I got back home, I checked. Yup. Little tiny blood spot, raised little welt around it. I'd been bit.

And it's supposed to snow tonight. Hard. Damn little buggers. Die! Die!

Note to self: Don't take yourself to bed in the afternoon with the excuse that you'll snuggle under a warm blanket (did I mention it's expected to snow tonight? Hard?) while you catch up on some reading, because you'll just end up taking another four-hour nap.

The vicious cycle continues.

Almost typed that 'viscous'. *sigh*

A Meta-joke

"Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." —Bill Bailey

For some reason I found this laugh-out-loud funny when I read it the first time, but now that I've pasted it into my blog, it sort of leaves me cold. Oh well.

I got this from the Wikipedia article on meta-humor. Bill Baily is a well known British comedian and actor, according to his Wikipedia entry.

Someday I want to be famous enough to have a Wikipedia entry of my own, but I'm not counting on it.

Notes from Camp Dipso-Manee

My mother's remedy for sore throat consisted of equal parts lemon juice, honey, and whatever booze was in the house. I remember getting this in a baby bottle as a child, and later in a squeezee bottle (like for ketchup or mustard) to squirt it directly to the back of the throat. I don't know how medicinal this was, and how much of this was getting the child drunk enough to stop whining for five seconds (my mother raised six children, so I presume those respites while the child slept it off were quite precious).

My mother's solution to teething, I recall when watching her with my nephews at the appropriate moment in their lives, involved pouring some whisky over ice, dipping a finger into it and rubbing it on the child's gums. I never saw my mother take a sip from the glass in between gum massages, but I presume that was part of the deal.

Okay, so when I've gotten sick, I've taken to mixing up combinations of lemon and honey and some kind of booze (lately crown royal, just because a) I live in Canada now and b) it's what I had in the house that wasn't tequila), and taking it by whatever means seems appropriate--by the spoonful or two to take the edge off the sore throat, a squirt from a squeezee bottle for the same purpose, a couple of spoonfuls in some hot tea to keep everything loose and moving.

Since my current illness does not involve sore throat, so much as mobile congestion, I haven't dug out my squeezee bottles. On the other hand, I have been trying to force liquids, and my new thing is mint lemonade. This consists of a glug or two of lemon juice in the bottom of a 900 ml cup, a few spoons of sugar substitute to take the edge off the lemon. Fill the cup with water, and top with a glug (or two) of peppermint schnapps.

Aaaaah.

I'm screwed, and not in a good way <rimshot>

I was sleepy. I was going to barrel through some work, and go to bed early. But I was also cold, so I decided to snuggle up under a comforter to do some reading. And I fell asleep. This was about 5:30. I guess I woke up around 7.

So now I'm wide awake, and unlikely to get to sleep tonight any normal sort of human going-to-bed-time. I have, in fact, barreled through some of the work I was going to do, but it's now about 9:30 and I was going to go to bed. But, well, there wouldn't be much point. I could go out and try to find some action, but, well, I live in Winnipeg. <rimshot> I'm also over 40 now, and my notion of action is changing. Or maybe my standards are getting lower. I don't know.

All I know is a) I did have something to say on Thursday, but I never got around to saying it and now I don't remember what it was, b) much as I turned out to have enjoyed my nap, I'd really have preferred not taking it and going to bed now and sleeping straight through until morning like an human, and c) if I'm going to accomplish anything 'outside' it better be tomorrow, cuz they say there's a blizzard blowing in on Monday and Tuesday. 15 cm of snow in the city. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but anything over about 4-5cm will completely screw up the city for most of a week. So we're screwed on all fronts. And not in a good way.

Album cover task

This one came from my friend Clay.

Go to Wikipedia's random search and make a note of the article title. This is the name of your band.

Go to Quotations Page's random quotes and make a note of the last quote on the list. The last four words are the title of your album.

Third, go to Flickr's Last 7 Days 'interestingness' page, and the third image, whatever it is, is your album cover. I'm told that sometimes the picture can't be downloaded, so keep reloading until one is.

Combine the image with your band name and album title, and voilá, that's your album cover.

So here's mine.

I initially forgot to make a note of the source of my image, but after a lot of poking around, I finally found out the poster, who is called daniel.berlin. I don't know if that's a surname or a location. But he calls the photo "ICE Arriving", which once you know that ICE is some kind of German train is pretty descriptive. I did crop it to be square, but whatever. The band name comes from a Wikipedia article on, well, the paperless office, and the title comes from a Quentin Crisp quote, "Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster."

But as an album title, I like it. The subjunctive, or whatever that is, is sort of interesting standing alone like that. It sounds sort of northern English. Reminds me of "The Law is a (h)ass" from Oliver Twist. Or something. Not bad for 10 minutes of wasted time this morning. And another hour trying to figure out whose picture it really is, but at least that was this evening, instead of going to bed on time....

By the way, my favo(u)rite name for a hypothetical band that I would be in is "Wonky Swing Pattern". Long, boring story.