So True changed back again!

I have just heard from an abjectly apologetic Ralph who runs the Social Capital, the second floor of the Black Swan where we hold our So True reading series. Last week he was told by the bar owners on the ground floor that a band would be playing on Sunday Feb. 26, the afternoon of our show, so we would have to change to the following week. So we did, not without hassle - all the readers shifted and confirmed, and I had a new poster made.

And now Ralph has been informed that the band has changed its mind and will perform on the Sunday in March. Our original Sunday Feb. 26 date is now open again. I'm waiting to hear from all our readers, but it looks as if we're going back to that original date. Ralph is very very sorry, and I am very very sorry. The only people not sorry are the band and the bar downstairs which hires them, thoughtless and mean-spirited, the Donald Trumps of the Danforth.

Back to the original date, as far as I know: Sunday Feb. 26, doors open at 4, show at 4.30. The stories are breathtaking. If you can actually get there and we can actually perform.

I'm better, almost human, but definitely not perky. Still in bed, coughing and working. Oh the miracles of modern technology - I've spent the whole day editing the essays students sent last night and then a long edit of a former student who's writing a book with me - oh, and also reducing my inbox from 78 to 29, mostly by deleting stuff "I might get to someday", though sometimes by moving an article into another file where it will fester forever, like the black bananas my mother refused to throw out. Or at least until the next time I'm stuck in bed for days and have time to get to all that online reading.

It's a hideous day, bleak, sleet, and I'm in my command central, propped up on pillows - Colette, anyone? - with phone, iPhone, computer, daytimer, books, papers ... and a very numb bottom. Coughing and working. Usually I teach on Tuesday afternoons. Thank you god for cancelling my U of T class this term.

My daughter who yesterday was sicker than I is so much better today that she took her toddler to the drop-in and both her kids to Eli's after-school hockey, in the sleet. I salute her. Magnificent. That's the difference between 35 and 66.

P.S. Just read about Betsy De Vos, just elected to be an Education Secretary who hates public education, with Scott Pruitt, openly supported by Big Oil, nominated to be head of the EPA who hates the EPA, coming next. It's so profoundly depressing and terrifying, on this dark day, to feel our neighbours hurtling backwards to the Dark Ages. Who's next? What if the foul Kevin what's his name, our version of Trumpo, becomes head of the Conservatives here and stirs up the same vicious racism and xenophobia to get elected? What is happening to our world?

I may be sick but I need a little glass of wine. Or a lot of chocolate. Or both.

PPS. Keep up, will you? As the Trump turns ... Now there's this. Never too dark for a little sunshine.
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