getting cold

Dear bloggees, I apologize for having neglected you this week: teaching, the encroachment of chilly autumn, getting over my cold, all conspired to keep me away from my blogging duties. Sometimes, yes, I just need to live my boring life for a few days, without chronicling it.

Last night, old friend Suzette came for dinner and then took me to the Bata Shoe Museum for a media event; she's a very busy screenwriter on the board of the Canadian Film Centre, which was throwing a bash to launch their Nuit Blanche offerings - various interactive media projects. The average age at the bash: twenty-nine. Many little porkpie hats and tattoos, one man in an entire PeeWee Herman outfit. Watching the installations, I have to say that my bull@#$# o'meter was twitching vigorously; one involved putting on a headset that "reads your thought waves so you can control the activities in the video just by thinking." Hmmm.

But it was great to be with the artsy young things. And the shoes - took a little tour around the fascinating exhibits at the Shoe Museum and must go back. Especially as I was in a shoe frame of mind, or more particularly, since it's fall, focussed on boots ... I went to my massage therapist yesterday afternoon, and got there so early I just had to look around the comfy shoe store down the street, where I found the perfect pair of fall boots in my massive size yet very reasonable and comfy to boot. So to speak. They're soft-soled, made by Flexx - "Il Comfort Italiano," which sounded wrong but, according to Google translate, isn't. I was wearing my Flexx boots last night as I mingled with the hipsters. Not as fab as the boots my friend Tabatha Southey was wearing, a Chanel pair she bought many years ago. But pretty spiffy.

Am I shallow? is the refrain. Yes yes yes. Is the reply.

Massage therapist Barb used to give massages in her Cabbagetown living-room, in front of her fireplace - paradise on a snowy day. Now she's at St. Clair and Yonge, too near tempting shoe stores and with no fireplace, but just as skilled. I haven't been to her for years, but have had for months a dull, sometimes sharp pain in my upper left shoulderblade. She put her finger right into the sore spot and kept it there - oooooh. Pain gone.

It's an exciting life, n'est-ce pas? I hope yours is as thrilling. I recently watched a delightful CBC documentary about experts, which showed that most of the time, they have no better idea than the rest of us but sound as if they do. According to one study, the predictions of financial analysts over a decade were the same as the results of chimpanzees throwing darts at a board. The message: we need to do a bit more figuring out ourselves. And nobody wants to do that!

My son came over the day before, with a couple of his co-workers, to shoot a movie in the backyard. They make very short films and post them on YouTube; the last one was called Koats, about "coats who kill," starring Sam screaming, being devoured by his raincoat. This time seemed to be about two stupid gumshoes. In the meantime, pizzas were on sale at No Frills, so the budding Spielbergs were fed; Sam simultaneously did a quick load of laundry since he just happened to have brought it with him. The young men raided the fridge, watched some TV, and had a snooze before going off to work. And lucky moi cleaned up and went back to work too.

Oh - and I have to report my beloved Paul McCartney's first ballet score "Ocean's Kingdom" has received, shall we say, mixed reviews - but good on ya, Paul, you are a good sport and will try anything. I love that about you. Can we talk?

Today, Saturday, it's damn cold out there, the first real fall day. Unfortunately for Nuit Blanche, the entire city taken over for arts activities tonight from 6.30 till dawn, it's also supposed to rain. Ah well, nothing will daunt my fellow Torontonians on a hunt for art. I myself, however, might just be a little bit daunted.