happy and yappy

Had brunch today with one of my oldest friends - Nick Rice, a wonderful actor - and his ladylove, Beth-Anne Cole, another wonderful actor and musician. Nick and I met in Vancouver in 1975 in the first show I did there, along with an ambitious actress who moved to L.A. and did quite well - Kim Cattrall of Sex in the City. Nick and I did a number of shows together, most notably a very difficult Three Sisters in 1979 about which I am writing in my current memoir. Before the performances, to cheer ourselves up, we would go on stage and sing at the top of our lungs, calling ourselves the Nice Rice Band. Nick is still an actor, and a sweeter person you could not hope to find. He and Beth-Anne live in the Performing Arts Lodge, a haven for actors and musicians. Sometimes our world does the right thing.

Took two library books back: a book of Christmas stories by Jeanette Winterson, from which this quote: We had noticed everything once – the water collecting on the berried ivy, the mistletoe in the dark-armed oak, the barn where the owl sat under the tiles, the smoke like a message curling up from forest-burnt fires, the ancientness of time and us part of it.

Why had we learned to hurry through every day when every day was all we had? … Why are the real things, the important things, so easily misled underneath the things that hardly matter at all?

My resolution for this next year - not to hurry through every day, when it's all I have.

And "All the Single Ladies" by Rebecca Traister, a treatise about the growth in importance and numbers of single women in our world; where once unmarried women were an anomaly, now they are everywhere. We are everywhere.

Soon I'm going to a neighbourhood bash, and then home to get into my jammies and go to sleep. No frantic festivities in this house. Tomorrow night a great treat - Sherlock's back.

I am so heartened by the act of resistance from musicians and performers in the U.S., who are refusing to perform at Trump's inauguration - including the woman who left the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which I think is the only confirmed act, rather than sing for him. There's a joke invitation online, a woman in a bikini inviting you to enjoy, at his inauguration, Kid Rock, Ted Nugent, two Rockettes, and karaoke. That's what his presidency will be - Ted Nugent, two Rockettes and karaoke. But there will be resistance all down the line. It may actually be an exciting and revolutionary time. Let us pray.

Yes, it was a bad year in politics and for loss. But - I am still here. If you are reading, you are still here. My loved ones are still here, and I hope yours are too - most of them, anyway. And Justin Trudeau is still there. Onward. That's all there is, every day, the road ahead, one foot in front of the other, on into 2017. When I first wrote those numbers, I stopped - couldn't be, that must be wrong. 2017? But yes, that's where we are, you and I.

So. Onward.

For your enjoyment, a few final pictures of a nice man who's a great love, but first, an ambitious album that did not quite make it:

These are NYEve wishes from Jacques Brel almost 50 years ago. At the end he says, in my clumsy translation: I wish you to never give up searching, adventure, life, love, because life is a magnificent adventure and no reasonable person should renounce it without a fight. I wish you most of all to be you, proud to be you and happy, because happiness is our true destiny.

Me too, I wish that for you too, and for me. Happy New Year, my dear friends. See you next year.