Over the last few weeks, I managed to forget how much I abhor waking up in the dark. Whose brilliant idea was daylight savings time anyway?

Random point of fact: for the Montreal sunrises to get back to the time they were on Saturday (i.e. 6:11 a.m.) will take until April 14, so a full month. The current sunrise time (7:07) is the same as it was at the beginning of February.

Grumble...

Marc's brother Dave came over with his girlfriend tonight to show us his really awesome haircut. We had tea and chatted for a bit, which was very nice. As they were leaving, I opened the door to discover a cat sitting right outside it, who proceeded to walk into my apartment.

Now, being the super-allergic and asthmatic girl that I am, I promptly freaked out and let Marc pick up the cat and give it to Dave. The cat didn't have a collar, but it looked clean and well cared-for, so we figured it was from another apartment in the building. I was just going to knock on the concierge's door when a woman came to the stop of the stairs in full panic mode, frantically searching for, you guessed it, her cat. So we returned kitty to its mommy, and the woman thanked us profusely in French before returning with her cat into her own apartment.

Ah, the unexpected little surprises of living in an apartment building...

Dear livejournal, today I accidentally had mushrooms in a barbecue breakfast wrap.  I am not a fan of mushrooms and never have been.  It might be oversimplifying, but I trace it all back to one day in my Childhood.  Once upon a time in Nigeria, a young boy decided it was time to take care of himself.  He had grown up being spoonfed all his life and he was ready to make his own food.  To hunt and/or gather.  And so this little tow-headed scamp wandered into the pantry/laundry room on his little, pasty, bare feet and grabbed two cans.  Cans were, to his mind, where food came from.  He had it on good authority.  In one hand: Cream of Mushroom.  In the other: Crab.  That's right.  My first foray into culinary science was to somehow open a can of cream of mushroom and another of crab meat without a working knowledge of can openers, mix the two together, skip over any kind of heating process, and spoon it into my ravenous maw.  The lasting results: I don't like mushrooms and I don't like crab.  Decide for yourself if there is a connection.

Decide, Livejournal.  You're a good friend.

ps: for a visual representation of this charming lad, behold the child holding a bucket:

Some graffiti in the bathroom stall at Hurley's Irish Pub. I thought it was quite clever, actually.

Dear Livejournal, I saw DJ's play yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was worth a very wet walk in the rain.  Yesterday also saw me playing some Dungeons and Dragons late into the evening with my undead sorcerer with a heart of gold.  I have to say, I'm very torn about Dungeons and Dragons these days.  On one hand, I enjoy my games and they're decently established and I certainly don't want to end them.  On the other, I've been really interested in the indie game scene and have acquired quite a library of games that just sit on my shelf or on my computer as all I seem to play is the Dungeons and Dragons.  As theatre winds down, I'd like to start running some of these things as one shots if nothing else.  We'll see how likely that is.  Perhaps theatre won't wind down which is certainly not an unpleasant future.

Would you like to play a game, Livejournal?  You're a good friend.

Yours truly, Leeman

Dear Livejournal, I got drunk with Christians last night which is really one of the best ways to get drunk.  Though I drank quite a bit, this morning I feel fantastic.  I don't want to talk with you, however,  about what kind of conversations drunken Christians get up to (Hint: Mazes and Monsters came up) but instead talk about my bizarre relationship with the show Empty Nest.  From the beginning of my memory, my parents have had a very solid rule: No tv on a school day except for watching Mystery! on PBS Thursday nights.  This meant that on weekends and summers, I binged.  As many have noted, for someone who grew up in Nigeria for the first chunk of his life, I have a fairly extensive pop-cultural library in my brain.  Part of this is due to the binging I did of syndicated programming of non-cable television.  I only had access to cable in my own home for a few month in 1989-1990 which explains my strangely erotic stirrings towards Eureeka. 

Given this strange set of circumstances, Empty Nest was a show that for some time, I watched relentlessly.  I found myself drawn to the character of Harry and his constant troubles with his daughter and his smarmy neighbour.  My 11 year old self empathized with this aged man and his dog even though in the back of my head, I recognized him as the villain from the 80s remake of Babes in Toyland starring Neo and Julia Gulia.  What truly captivated me, though, was that it was the first show I recognized as linked to another tv show I watched at the same time: Nurses.  This link seemed amazing to me.  Two shows in the same world?  That was something only allowed in Star Trek.  Now, it has since been brought to my attention that these are all spin-offs of Golden Girls but as I couldn't be bothered at the time, I didn't know or care.  What fond memories I have of walking around on the back of my sofa while watching Harry disapprove of David Leisure's horrible, vapid existence or being harped at by one of his two shrill large-haired daughters.  Truly it was a time to be alive.

Thanks for letting me share, Livejournal.  You're a good friend.

Yours truly, Leeman

A friend once asked if, for a game,
I could speak in words not plain
But rhymed and metered, all in verse,
To carry out an awful curse.
I told him no and left him by
But just this morn I chose to try,
And here I am, without a pause,
Speaking words in rhyming clause.
I guess I can speak all in rhyme!
(Though hopefully not all the time.)
If he should ever ask anew
I might say yes, that's what I'll do.
It's very odd, to say the least
So I'll just end this little piece.

Hi everyone! For those of you who are playing Akoha, I just signed up and I'd love to friend you. You can find me under the username yourstruly.

See you over there!

When Marc and I were trying to figure out what to do for dinner tonight, we realized we had a whole lot of "stuff" in the fridge, mostly leftovers and the last bit of things we'd almost finished during the week. I said, half-jokingly, "Let's just put it all in a pan and see what happens." He shrugged and said sure, so that's what we did.

Dinner tonight, therefore, was fried onion and garlic, leftover hash browns, leftover tortellini, leftover spaghetti with sauce, lettuce, cucumber, and some seasonings all tossed into a pan for a while to see what it would turn into. It actually wasn't half bad. I wouldn't necessarily serve it to company, but it was filling and tasty and gave me back at least four or five tupperwares. If I did it again, I'd probably toss an egg in there at some point. Dessert was the last of the super-humongous-ginormous strawberries with a little bit of ice cream.

On the other hand, I've *really* gotta do groceries tomorrow.

I've been getting annoyed at some of the articles I've had to read and categorize today. I'm a staunch leftist, but the institute's director is right-wing, and the articles we reprint tend to follow his political leanings.

So as I was sitting here, contemplating wringing the neck of a particularly (to me) oblivious editorialist, the girl sitting next to me leans over and says, "I've been there. You'll get used to it. Heck, after a few years, everyone here becomes more right-wing. It'll happen to you, too."

Shudder.

After five years of abusive, I think my backpack has finally had enough. As I went to zip up the main zipper today, I realized that a section of it has detached from the bag, so I've got a line of plastic "teeth" not connected to anything. That means that even when the bag is done up, there's still a hole. I can only expect the hole is going to get bigger over time. So I think this weekend I'll have to go out and buy a new backpack.

Right now, I've got a this bag. I love everything about it except the lack of side-cinchers, and it's served me very well. Hopefully my next bag will be just as good.

Dear Livejournal, did I ever tell you about Lunicus?  When I was in middle school, we had a MacTV and a few games.  One game I spent a good chunk of time on was Lunicus.  In Lunicus, you were a bold spaceman defending earth from evil invaders.  The game alternated between a strange puzzle game on board your space station, trying to balance your hydroponics with your solar arrays while having lots of chats with your crew and then a Wolfenstein-esque first person shooter.  Combat was fairly difficult for a video-game stupid Leeman but I plowed my way through it.  Points of interest included the strange crush I developed on the hot blond pictured below and the letdown of a game ending.

So in the game, you're fighting against wave after wave of aliens or robots or something and just getting into a pattern of shoot, duck, get ammo, wait, repeat.  Towards the end, you find yourself on the alien ship and you do the same thing over and over until finally you make it to the big bad boss who's a horrible alien hive queen just asking to be destroyed.  Now, the game allowed dialogue options to make you feel involved and so the first time I played, I tried to be diplomatic and find out why they were attacking Earth and managed to talk the aliens into leaving us alone.  I was not quite expecting this as I was hoping for a final boss fight so when I, instead, got the credit sequence, I went back to my save and picked all the aggressive dialogue options that boiled down to, "I hate you, now you die."  Did this provoke said evil alien hive queen?  No.  It just made her respect my warrior's attitude and sent me straight to the credit sequence.  That was what disappointment tasted like to a young Leeman.  Not making it with the blond uncanny valley girl and not getting to kill an alien queen.


What disappointments has life thrown your way, Livejournal?  You're a good friend.

Yours truly, Leeman

Dear Livejournal, Rachel and I discovered the tv show 'Community' this evening.  it is a delightful Joel Mchale vehicle featuring Chevy Chase and we both highly recommend it.  There is an excellent rap at the end of the second episode which makes more use of the phrase 'la biblioteca' than any other song I've come across.  I hope it establishes a trend.  Today also saw much productivity on my part.  I mailed off immigration forms, purchased groceries for the first time in weeks and had a good rehearsal.  We don't meet again until Sunday and then don't stop until Saturday so it's going to be intense.  Oh, Livejournal, you might find this interesting if you were ever a fan of Invader Zim.

I was a crazy lady hiding in the bushes, Livejournal.  You're a good friend.

Yours truly, Leeman

Dear Livejournal, days are filling out but at least they're more pleasant weather-wise.  Yesterday saw me taking quite long walks to and from rehearsal and enjoying the not so chilly Toronto streets.  Our play goes up in one week and I'm getting pretty pumped.  Rehearsals for my Lovecraft play should be starting soon but I fear they may be delayed.  That one goes up in just over a month so I'm starting to get antsy.  I'm confident we will knock it out of the park, though.  Things are going decently for me, theatrically.  When I arrived in Toronto in 2006, I had no idea what I'd be involved with and how and for two years, the answer was nothing.  Then a little blond girl at work asked me to be King Kong and the rest is history.  I'm excited about the future.

I'm guessing you're excited too, Livejournal.  You're a good friend.

Yours truly, Leeman