Loft in Translation: Finally, the Title Makes Sense/

Wow. That last post received comments in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Hungarian, German, Japanese, Dutch, Hebrew, Pig Latin (shameless), Portugese and Romanian. I am absolutely floored by this response! It also means the death of my already limited productivity, as I just spent four and a half hours in a coffee shop translating the comments, armed only with Babel Fish, my dusty memory and M's linguistic prowess.

I am happy (thrilled, actually!) to say that aside from the odd word, I could read the French, Spanish and Italian comments with no problem whatsoever. Yippee! I may not be able to carry on a conversation in France, Spain or Italy, but at least if I traveled to one of those glorious countries again, people could pass me simple notes and I would be able to read them. Would that be useful? Maybe not, but I'm proud of myself anyway. SO! If you are writing in French, Spanish, English (!) or Italian, feel free to challenge me with a little (easy) paragraph.

If you comment in German, I won't understand a word of it, but M speaks German, as well as basic Japanese, so feel free to send him some more advanced messages! He is already in linguiheaven from all the comments -- we might as well try to keep him there.

For the sake of my playwriting (and my stomach lining), I am now going to amend the request I made in my last post, by saying this:

If you speak a language other than French, Spanish, Italian or German, can you send me words and phrases instead of sentences, so that I can try to learn them? With the longer messages, I found myself cheating by using Babel Fish and not actually learning any words. Shameless, I know. If you send expressions suitable for...say...a toddler of less-than-average intelligence, I can learn them AND get to know some very interesting people at the same time.

By the way, my gorgeous and eccentric mother has started reading this blog in Italy, so I'm sure she'll appreciate the Italian comments as well. (Hi Mum! Yes, I'll email you soon. Jeeeez. Can't you see I'm busy spending four and a half hours not working, in a place that sells copious amounts of the substance I'm not allowed to consume? Some people are so insensitive.)

Thanks to all of you for the kind words in thirteen (!) languages. Best four and a half hours of my life.

Yes, I just discovered the make things huge button. Ausgezeichnet. Molto bene. Ben bon pour moi (I think that's Quebecois.) Muy bueno. A férfiak disznók!

Also...(Wow, longest post ever. Stop talking, Kate. Stop.)...I got some good news today. "A" of PHARK fame just got cast in a short film and got two days on a new American television series. Congrats, A. You're going to be a big star one day soon. Try not to forget the little people, though. (Not that you could call Rufus or I "little".)

And another thing (Hoooooly crap, Kate, less talky, more worky)...did anyone watch 11 Cameras last night? I watch it every week so that I can feel famous for half an hour and so that I can figure out my bad habits (ie. headbobbing), but last night I looked like Hermiod! My hair was hilarious! Remind me never to grease the middle section of my hair back and leave the rest down. NOT pretty.

Goodbye. Seriously. (Thank God.)

k.

Curried Advil Soup/

Since Rufus has been so loving today, I thought I would post a more flattering shot. (In honest-speak, that translates to "a blurry shot in which his stomach is not featured too heavily".)

What a beautiful day in Toronto! It is sunny but not too hot (I can't stand the hot weather -- Vancouver and England are more my scene because I adore the rain) and the frantic Torontonians seem to be moving at a slower pace than usual today. I also ACTUALLY went to the gym today for the first time since 1982. (That might be a slight exaggeration -- I think it was some time in June.) Based on my impressive athletic diligence, the cost of the membership generally averages out to about $120.00 per visit. Excellent. Or should I say..."Ausgezeichnet." Did I spell that right? I hope so. It's the only German word I know, so I'm parading it around recklessly. One of my friends just moved to Berlin, so I sent him an "Ausgezeichnet" as well. Wait! I also know "Hauptbahnhof" and...um..."Eins".

I used to speak French, Spanish and Italian (I even TAUGHT Italian at one point) and now I barely speak English. The other three languages have just evaporated from my brain. It's very depressing. I'm hoping that all the Stargatonians (that's a new one!) from other countries will send me the odd SIMPLE comment in another language so that M. and I can waste more time translating them and learning a little something in the process.

One of my goals in life is to speak four languages well enough to have a conversation in that language with someone over the age of three. My mother lives in Italy and during one of my visits (before I took Italian lessons) this tiny little boy came up to me and started speaking. I couldn't understand a word he said and it actually made me feel like this toddler was cooler and smarter than I was...which was most likely true, but the point is: I want to be able to travel and communicate with people properly, not to feel like I am terrified of butchering their language. Living in Montreal for three years really helped with my French, but it's still not great and I get very shy about actually using it.

Thanks again for all the comments. I just have to say that the picture of the other orange and white catzilla "living in New York" IS Rufus. Now it's all coming together: He eats a generous portion of his weight control, so-pricey-it-must-be-made-of-gold cat food at The Loft, makes sure I've gone to sleep, sneaks out with his silent declawed paws, hops on the red eye flight to New York, eats another several bowls of food at his alternate American home, drags his over-stuffed cat body onto another flight home, tiptoes back in and ends up on my bed where I last saw him. As he so frequently does, he gives me an unmotivated bite (to distract me from his mysterious absence during the night and from the dark furry circles under his eyes) and begs for food. And so the cycle continues. Just think...all I had to do to catch him red-pawed was start a blog!

Um...I'm an ulcer rebel, by the way. I had two real coffees today and one decaf. And yesterday I had a beer. I'm doing brilliantly. I might as well go home and make a curried Advil soup. The thing is...it's still an improvement! That's not a very good sign, is it...

k.

HOTographer/

By the way, the photograph below was taken by the gorgeous and amazing Lisa Stanton, photographer extraordinaire.

And thanks for the link to the thread. Cool!

They Can't Take That Away From Me/

(Hey, I posted THIS photo myself. Nice.)

Thanks for all the cat info (catfo?), which I will definitely try out on poor Rufus. Just so you know, that cat wheel is the funniest thing I have ever seen. If I could build one, I would. I think tying a piece of chicken to a string is a pretty great idea, too, but I'm a vegetarian, so it would be sort of like tying a human ear to a piece of string and pulling it around my living room. I just can't. (I feed him meat disguised as cat food, of course, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite.) I might try using a cat treat or something as a toy instead, though. Would that defeat the purpose of the exercise? Hmmm.

On the subject of coffee...it pains me (quite literally) to say this, but my doctor just told me that I'm not allowed coffee anymore! Nor am I allowed chocolate, Advil, alcohol, spicy food or fried food. I told my dad and he said, "There goes breakfast." Nice. Of course, I'm drinking a coffee right now. Just a small one, though. And I just washed down two Advil with some Jack Daniels and a fistful of chili flakes. (That one was a lie.)

This blogging thing is DEADLY. I'm supposed to be writing a play right now. Ohhh dear.

Thanks again for all the feedback, though. And from so many different countries! Wow! David's fans are cool.

Pharkally,
K.

M/

I just want to point out that my better half (we'll call him "M" just to keep all this lovely mystery going) figured out how to post that photo, so please don't go getting all impressed with me. I just logged on and found it there. He's lovely, though, and let me take all the credit. Wait...in that case...LOOK HOW COOL I AM?! I UPLOADED A PHOTO. UPLOADEROO. UPLOADERIFIC. YEP. TECHY TECH TECH TECH, THAT'S ME.

Time for sleep now. Not enough coffee today.

K.

Four Goofs and a Cow-Cat/

Finally.
From the top, clockwise: P, A, K, R, and H.

Phark This/

I decided to put up a photo of all the roomies, but it just isn't working. I'm sure it's the computer's fault. Yeah. Nothing to do with me. I'm a technological wizard -- a genius, if you will...except that I've only "chatted" twice in my life, I've never "texted" anyone, and I can't figure out garage band. I can record me singing and playing guitar (poorly) but that's where it ends, folks.

I will get my technological superior (no, not David -- he's all talk, except for that whole "creating his own web-design company" thing) to upload the photo, because it's pretty funny. It's mostly funny because my cat is obese. It's true. I don't know how to help him. If I try to play a game with him, he bats at the toy lamely with an unenthusiastic paw, but won't actually stand up, let alone run. Do they make those hamster wheels for cats? Probably not. Too bad. Although he'd just use it as a bed anyway.

Instead of a photograph, I will talk about my fantastic roomies instead and let you know what they're up to. A word is worth a thousand pictures, in my humble opinion, but I'll change that opinion as soon as I can get the frickin' photo to work.

So...my roommates: P, H, A, R and me (K). PHARK? Our initials spell PHARK. That's gotta mean something. (PHARK: The chemical reaction that occurs when you mix too many artists together and force them to live in one loft.)

P is an absolute delight -- a friend from high school days who I've acted with many many times, and for whom I wrote "Humans Anonymous", the play I produced in July. He's a gifted performer, a handsome dude, he cooks, he cleans...and he's British. And he's not gay, like his character in 'Humans' was. (Nor is he single.)

A is going to be famous one day...maybe one day soon. He will be starring in "The Graduate" opposite Sonja Smits this fall at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario, as well as heating up the screen in "Warriors of Terra", which has the best trailer of any Canadian film I've ever seen. (Uh...I haven't seen the trailer for "A Dog's Breakfast" yet.)

H is a weird and wonderful writer who I met at the National Theatre School. His plays are dark, funny, moving and smart. He also happens to be a good actor. Lucky jerk. For some reason, my angry and obese cat is terrified of him -- possibly because H wrote a screenplay about poisoning his female roommate's angry and obese cat. (He's a pretty smart cat and I don't think he liked the subject matter. It's just a theory, though.)

R (for Rufus -- I named him after Rufus Wainwright) was abandoned (and declawed -- bad bad bad) by his previous owners when he was just two years old. Luckily, he was rescued from a high-kill shelter and put into a foster home, which is where I found him. He is the most badly-behaved cat I have ever owned. He's also adorable, so he gets away with it. He is orange and white with big green eyes and some stomach problems. And last night he ran headfirst into a wall.

And then there's me, the K in PHARK. I am an actor and a writer, taking a break after a crazy busy summer and procrastinating with my new blog before embarking on my next writing project, which is called "Use My Babies Well". Rufus and I are pretty happy with our lives right now. He eats as much as he can, as do I, and he sleeps a whole lot. I haven't been sleeping so well because my neighbour has a television built into the wall, but I don't mind. I love where I live, I love my roommates, I love this crazy neighborhood (which has the best coffee shop in Toronto -- I'm not kidding). I'm a happy Hewlett.

Speaking of Hewletts...thanks to all the Stargatites (did I just make up that word?) for their excitement about "McKay and Mrs. Miller". The episode was a total blast to film, and David was amazing to work with. (Sometimes. When he wasn't speaking. Or hitting. Or acting. Or eating.) This is the most idiotic question ever, but I have never had cable before, so I've had to watch episodes of Atlantis on dvd. Is there any way to watch Atlantis on t.v. here in Toronto?

Bye for now...keep checking in for that photograph I promised!

K. (the coolest letter in PHARK)

Superbaby/

Me and my sister's baby, Jeremy, who is learning to fly.