Lists are the thing

I've been keeping myself busy of late, and perhaps that's why I haven't been on here too much. I always talk about the blog as a tool I use to ensure I write on a semi-regular basis, but when I find other creative outlets I suppose it falls by the wayside. Or outlets of any kind of activity really.

Black Creek is open for schools so I'm working there a few days a week, learning the Many Hands program and doing tours. We have three stations in Many Hands - spinning (and wool more generally), baking, and the workshop. Because I'm a fella I'm usually in the workshop. Historical accuracy and all that. It's fun and I still get to eat whatever is left over from the baking, so that's good. It's also fun to tour at this time of year when the village has no one else in it. You can talk in buildings for as long as you want and if the kids feel like losing there minds I can even send them running.

I've also been transcribing, doing taxes, drawing, reading and sometimes writing.

For the last while I've been listing what I want to get done and have been putting write/draw at the bottom of every list. Some days I get to it, others no, and I've been choosing draw most times when I do. I'll get back to the novel soon, no doubt.

Lists have been great as far as getting me to get things done when I have the time. When I run out of jobs like taxes and transcribing, hopefully my lists will see me writing and drawing all day long. Fingers crossed! They've also been helpful in sending me to bed at a reasonable time. If I'm tired and the list is done I go to bed. As simple as it sounds it goes against my normal tactic of finding activities that keep me awake.

Maturity (no matter how smell the steps in that direction are) is weird.

I was drawing last night, sitting on the couch and making little mistakes as I went. I'm inking pencil lines so I really don't want to be making mistakes at this stage, but I just couldn't stop. I was in a tired/out of it mindset where I convinced myself to keep working, and not make the tiny effort necessary that would make the working situation better. In retrospect I should have moved over to the table, set up a light and continued apace. Oh well. Next time. And looking at it now the mistakes aren't the end of the world.

Who knew being crunched up on a couch wasn't most conducive to tiny, detailed drawing?

I also have another show tonight. 8:30 at the Bad Dog Theatre and pay what you want as you exit. You should come. If I don't post this blog before the show, I wonder if I will remember to edit this part. MYSTERIES. (I'm going to make it!)

And I've signed up for a clown workshop, starting in May. That should be a real gas!

Maybe another improv class too, but I've also applied for a couple more jobs - more museums! - so I'm not going to rush at anything too forcefully.

Finally, look at this.

It's from my shower curtain, and it tells me one thing: polyester will bring the world together! Unless you use a different alphabet. In those cases I guess we're at war.

Sorry guy.

bed

Having a blog is great because there is always something to say.

Here's some of Toon's fine work. Sheesh, it sure was great when spring was here.

Oh well. Soon enough it will return.

Maybe those glasses, with that mustache, not such a good idea?

Big news for me today is of course the purchase of a bed!!!

I took a photo but it looks like nothing special and I don't feel inclined towards a proper photo shoot, so instead I will describe the bed.

First it isn't actually a bed. Just a box spring and mattress. This constitutes 'bed' in my mind because I have spent so much of my life on a single mattress on the floor. Also, my new sleeping height will be higher than what it was with my previous, little bed. Two good reasons for declaring bed-dom.

Both box spring and mattress are a pleasing shade of blue. The bed's size is "double" or "full". Basically a queen that is less 6 inches for both length and width. I bought it from the Thrift Store (NEW!) for $250 plus taxes. What a deal!

I know this because I went to both Sleep Country and The Brick to determine their wares and consider pricing. The best I found was $580 ish plus taxes. Not really worth it, especially when I don't understand all the high end technology I'd be paying for. Mattresses with reinforced edges, silver oxide (???) to stop dust mites and body smells, and a variety of coils and squishy bits for oh so much comfort.

Do you know there's a mattress called The Concrete that was introduced to the Canadian market around 1997 when all sorts of Hong Kongers were coming here; a group that carries a demographic preference for a really solid sleep platform.

After being offered a rolling fashion rack to transport my purchases home, and deciding against it, I was given Kimo's number. Kimo delivered me and the bed home.

Kimo's normal gig is delivering vegetables and fruit, hence his large truck (still with a few veggies when my bed went in).

Kimo often delivers to restaurants. Sometimes they need tomatoes, sometimes they need potatoes. Kimo will be there.

Kimo usually finishes his food industry work around 2.

Kimo sometimes moves couches from the Thrift Store, sometimes beds. Whatever.

Kimo bought the same bed a year ago and he is very pleased with it.

Kimo feels fuel prices are too high and is happy to have a diesel truck (1999 model, bought used).

Kimo has some friends who worked on this building:

View Larger Map

It's a new building. I assume he was telling me this because of its Victorian architectural features.

Kimo did not reveal how he became the default Thrift Store delivery man.

I enjoyed my brief encounter with Kimo and hope he continues to enjoy what seems to be a tremendous existence.

Tomorrow I plan to buy proper sheets. Also an under sheet.

To dispose of my last bed I set it out on the street. Toronto's garbage pick-up is great. You just leave your over-sized trash on the street and they pick it up! Probably easier for the city to do that than fight random dumping.

I left the bed standing tall, thinking it would be more visible to prospective walk-bys. The wind blew it over, however, and Annie found it leaning against a car when she went snack shopping. Leaning right into the dents it had made.

After much soul searching and rounds of advice that all pointed toward saying nothing, I did just that.

Sorry friend. Cost of owning a car I suppose.

I guess, now that I'm writing I may as well mention other things going on in my life...I did some shifts at BCPV over March Break. In costume! Long days but fun. Maybe I should write a blog post on the fun I had. More work coming up.

I've also been going to lots of amazing comedy and theatre shows. Maybe I should write a blog post on one of those as well.

Holy jumpin', once the writing starts, look out!

Maps I have dug out

Clean wall in the living room needed some decorating and this is the result.

After much searching I settled on this map of Morocco.

Look at those big bold colours.

I also cut this little dootle bopper out of a larger tourist pamphlet.

It's in a frame but isn't hung yet. We'll figure something out, although it looks lovely just like this.

I also found a really great early 1970s street map of Chicago, but it is too big and a bit flimsy for a wall hanging without modification.

That's the tough thing about some of these maps. I have them in a box and they should be seen, or else what's the point? But is it worth displaying them if they might be damaged in the process? And some of them are really big and not suitable for normal sized walls.

I liked the Post Houses series above because I cut it out of a pamphlet that would have been too big to show otherwise. I'm going to continue doing this, cutting interesting portions from boring maps and displaying them either alone or perhaps start working on map collage projects.

Experiments!

Man am I lazy when it comes to blogging. I have a post I've been working on about patience, but it's taking me forever to finish. So, I guess...keep waiting for it?

Heh.

In regular life I was fitted today for the costume I'll be wearing over March Break at BCPV. Bring on the wee ones!

Daydream brought me too much meat from chef school and now I'm tired. Stupid late afternoon meat naps. THE WORST!

work

Regular employment kills blogging.

A vicious combination of waking early, doing the same things each day then being too tired for evening adventures doesn't leave much to say.

Now, I'm not doing exactly the same thing each day and every once in a while a child will say something mildly amusing but that's the limit of it unfortunately. There are no kids getting trampled by horses or chewed on by geese. I don't want that of course, just saying it would give me something to write about.

So let's see. I guess I tuck my shirt in a lot these days, and as a result look dapper as fuck. Yes, mum. I'm using the F-word intentionally. In fact that's my new catchphrase.

If I made t-shirts with "dapper as fuck" on them, who would buy?

Heh.

Heck, even most of my groups have been awesome, so I don't have much to complain about. Someone suggested it might be simply because I'm a tall man which lends an air of authority to my person, and these children don't know me so I suppose that might be the case. Or maybe I'm just particularly skilled. Let's assume I'm just fortunate to get the good classes/teachers and hope it continues because I'm already awesome in other ways. There's no need to overdo it.

I have had one bad class. They were a private school that may or may not have told the kids they were the chosen on a regular basis. Apparently the school is awful every year. The teachers are less concerned with the quality of the tour as they are with getting to as many buildings as possible. Mine informed me and the class her record was 10 buildings and if they behaved we might be able to break it. It didn't help with discipline but I obliged as best I could, bypassing the interactive fun stuff like getting dressed up.

Nothing holds a child's attention more than being rushed through something their teacher has already told them is more about speed than learning!

What else...

This job is really the first time I'm interacting with the multiculturalism that Canada keeps yammering on about on a regular basis. The past week has been a bit more mixed, but up until now it has been no white kids in the classes, just a myriad browns. One of the other guides is a former principal in the TDSB and she has some really interesting insights on the Toronto board and certain areas of the city where the white folk go, trying to enclave and isolate themselves. Guess what people, we're on our way. Time to let go of the past and get used to it.

Another of the guides is currently an archaeologist for the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority (who run BCPV as well) so yesterday we chatted briefly archaeologically (she only completed her degree relatively recently and is 40+, so there's still time for a career change).Also yesterday my assigned school was misbooked, so I ended up in the office counting activity sheets for the Christmas season and chatting with another guide. She having recently graduated from a master's in museum studies at Leicester University in England.

Not only is the job decent, when you have 25+ other people around you're bound to find some interesting experiences to learn from.

Up until now the only complaint has been the commute distance. Starting work at 9 means leaving the house no later than 730 to catch all the buses and trains I need to get there. And if it's only a morning shift I work 3 hours and am hurtling south by 1215.

As per usual fortune has smiled upon me and another new guide lives mighty close and she owns a car. She's been driving me home after work when she's heading downtown (out to another job some nights) and the last two days has been kind enough to pick me up in the morning. Hello 8AM departure!

Too sweet.

It's all ticking over really purdy like.

Except for this one thing. This morning, after a restless night, the clock said

when I opened my eyes for the umpteenth time. There was a fraction of a second where I thought, Awake, and too early again. That was followed by, Stef's picking me up exactly NOW! (my clock's 4 minutes fast you see).

Oops.

But that's what bananas dipped in peanut butter are for right? And she was 2 minutes late herself so I even had my shoes tied by the time she arrived. I win!

The one where I say 'cock' in the correct context

I woke up at 4 this morning but I feel really good about it. My lights were out by 11, so I'd already slept decently, and I really needed to pee. As a general rule sacrificing sleep to not rupture internally is okay. It might have been nice to doze off more quickly after awakening, but the 2 hours I lay awake were excellent. They featured a comic book,

peanut butter on a rice cake,

Note: a rice cake was unavailable at the time of the photo shoot

a glass of milk,

and relaxed amusement with my current lot in life.

Then, as a bonus, when I slept again I had a dream featuring Toon and a shower.

Sexy time?

All the time.

Today at work was more of yesterday. Lots of wandering and learning about the buildings. I got to see the inside of the mill finally and it is freaking amazing. They don't have a mill interpreter right now due to cutbacks - the miller is currently the doctor and the cabinet maker once in a while - so the giant cogs and gears are motionless. But when they put that big ol' wheel back to spinning I'll never leave!

Gonna grind my grain so good.

I also met some new animals. We have some new Light Bramah fowl. That's one to the right. Imagine him, but even more handsome, strutting slowly across the barnyard with his feathered feet rustling on each stomp. That's what our cock looked like, and there were also some really pretty hens.

For him.

Not me.

I also met Jake and Ross, a Percheron and Clydesdale respectively (horses for the uninitiated), some Toulouse geese (I wish there had been only one) and their Embden cousins. Yesterday it was Hereford cattle and Leicester sheep along with some fancy-pants pigs whose breed I didn't catch.

We're all about the rare and heritage breeds at BCPV.

We're also all about dog powered butter churns. Or at least the example we have attached to one of the village homes. A quick interweb search tells me such things were not wholly uncommon, but unlike most of the pictures I'm finding ours looks more like a giant enclosed hamster wheel. The dog runs inside and his or her power is transferred to the butter barrel by way of a belt.

In the olden times even the butter was better.

It's my first day

Yawn. Stretch it out. Deep breath.

Oh who am I kidding? Nothing terribly vicious today. A bit boring, but that's what first days are for; paperwork and long explanations read from sheets.

This first day started well, out the door before 830, then became sad when the Ossington bus went past. I was nervy about the 7 minute wait for the next one and just missed a train at the station, but I hopped straight onto the 35 at Jane Station and the driver turned out to be a madman. In the end I had a leisurely 15 minutes to stroll a 5 minute distance.

Loverly.

Formalities were dull but mercifully short, and the rest of the day was touring, talking and asking questions. I would have enjoyed it more but the weather went weirdly humid (shorts tomorrow) and my knee has decided to play silly monkey. I just need to remember to walk carefully for a few days and I should be back to normal. Or at least to the point where I can forget it was sore then injure it even more severely next time!

We were told they received 170 applications for this job, and there were only 7 new people hired (plus 1 who had worked there a few years ago). Numbers like that make me feel good, and judging by the talent around the table I'm in a pretty top notch group. I think 4 of us had master's degrees of some type, 2 were just out of teacher's college and everyone had some form of current or past museum interpretation or education experience, some of it really impressive. Yikes. Good thing I had an awesome interview.

A few of them knew each other from already running in Toronto museum circles. The practice seems to be get a number of part time jobs at different sites and earn a living that way. I don't think the museum and culture game here is a closed circuit, but I am very happy to have my foot in the door.

STATS!

Departure (home) 8:27

Arrival (Ossington and Dundas) 17:14 (delicious heritage cherry tomatoes in the farmers' market distracted my homeward momentum)

COMMENTARY!

I get on the Jane bus at the station or at the opposite far end. Either way I get a seat fairly quickly. Also, the morning journey had lots of empty stops, so we flew north.

We met an old Scottish fellow named Gordon. He told us about how things were when everything was wind, water, solar or gravity powered then demonstrated toys to prove his point. Well met!

I slept really well, as in I fell asleep quickly and awoke at the needed time. My neck was really sweaty (been happening a lot) and I was lying across my mattress with my feet on the floor, but I can accept that.