I Am More Humbled Than a Male Cat in a Pink Leather Bag/

Seriously. More than 180 people from all over the world, ranging in age from 13-65 (from the answers I've read so far) responded to my questionnaire. It was not an easy questionnaire; it was not a short questionnaire; it was not a particularly fun questionnaire; I have used the word 'questionnaire' too many times, and my overuse of the semi-colon is shameless. But still. Wow. Hooooo-leeeeeey. Gosh. You exceeded my expectations -- and they were already high!

I actually wanted to thank each person individually, but I think that would take me seventeen years and also...maybe you don't want an email reminding you that I now have your email address.

For those of you who were worried about not being concise, or not having anything important to say...PLEASE DON'T THINK LIKE THAT! Every single answer was useful; every joke made me smile; every story reminded me that I have to write this play -- that I have to talk about violence because it is universal and it is not going away anytime soon. Everyone was concise when they could be, while taking the time they needed to answer the more complicated questions.

I was very interested to hear that so many people have not read or do not relate to the three Shakespeare plays I chose -- that helps me too. I will incorporate them differently now that I know that. I chose these plays because they deal with themes and stories that are still occurring today. After reading the answers people submitted, I believe that even more strongly. I just have to work harder to make the text accessible.

What a wonderful, open group of people I have met through writing this blog. I can't thank you enough.

I hope you all have a great week -- I'll be READING QUESTIONNAIRES.....

k.
p.s. Yes, that's me in the photo waiting for the bus with...um...Rufette. And I shouldn't be wearing those shoes with those pants.

Two Quick Things About my Last Post/

(Thanks so much for the answers that have come in so far, by the way. I really appreciate how open everyone is being, while respecting their own boundaries.)

I just want you all to know that Basha (of kate_and_basha@hotmail.com) was my cat (more like my child actually -- just a really furry one) who died in December of last year. I didn't want anyone to think that my secret Russian lover would be reading their private emails! Basha could sing happy birthday, but I'm pretty sure she couldn't read, so even if she were alive today, your information would be safe.

Also, I just realized that some people may not want to email me, because they don't want to give out their email address/name. So, if you would prefer to answer the questions anonymously on my blog, please feel free to do so and I will delete the comment as soon as I've read it. Thanks again.

I would love to get some responses from men, too! There's only been one so far! Don't be shy!

k.

Procrastination and Productivity: A Match Made in Heaven/

Okay. So...approximately 100 people responded to my last post and said that they would be willing to answer some tough questions in order to help me out with Use My Babies Well, the play I am currently writing (or on some days, the play I am avoiding writing!)

I can't tell you how grateful I am for your willingness to help out. I am interested in hearing from people of all ages, genders, backgrounds, nationalities and occupations, so please don't feel like your input won't be useful. It will!

I have listed the questions below. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE ONLY ANSWER THE QUESTIONS YOU WANT TO ANSWER. NEVER FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE TO ANSWER SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOU UNCOMFORTABLE. Also, if you can't figure out how to say something in English, feel free to write that part of your answer in your first language (and say what that language is!) and I will translate it.

PLEASE EMAIL ME YOUR ANSWERS -- DO NOT POST THEM ON THE COMMENTS PAGE, so that this information is not available for everyone to read. I've come up with an ingenious system (well...ingenious for someone who's only had one coffee today) to avoid overloading my email accounts. Here it is:

If your last name begins with a letter between A and L, please send your answers to: katehewlett2@yahoo.ca

If your last name begins with a letter between M and Z, please send your answers to:
kate_and_basha@hotmail.com

**PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE PHOTOS OR ATTACHMENTS AND PLEASE TRY TO BE CONCISE (2-3 SENTENCES WHERE POSSIBLE) AS I AM ANTICIPATING A LOT OF RESPONSES!**

Here are the questions, and again...please do not answer anything you don't want to answer. Some of them are very personal, and who the heck am I?! (Some girl who was on Stargate once!) This information is for me and me alone -- it will inform my play, but it will not end up in my play. It will also not be shown to other people. Please include the question numbers or the questions themselves in your response. Here goes...

1) What is your age?

2) What is your gender?

3) What country/city do you live in?

4) Have you ever read or seen Shakespeare’s Richard III, Macbeth or Titus?

5) If so, was there anything you could relate to in these plays, or did they seem very removed from your life?

6) Has anyone ever taken revenge on you (even in a small way) for something you did to them, or for something they thought you did to them? Have you ever taken revenge on someone for something?

7) Approximately how many physical fights have you had in your life? If so, how and why did ONE of these fights begin?

8) Do you ever fear for your life when you are out alone in your town/city? Why or why not?

9) What is one situation in which someone has treated you badly in order to move up in the world?

10) What is your definition of a “sexual assault”?

11) What is one act of physical or emotional violence that you have encountered in your life and how has it affected your life? (Please feel free to skip this question if it is too personal for you to answer.)

12) What is one story in the news that had a significant impact on your life, and why do you think it affected you so much?

13) Have you ever experienced war first-hand?

14) Have you ever seen a movie that you felt was too violent? If so, which one?

15) Name one violent movie that you love.

16) If you could start your life over again, would you choose to be a man or a woman?


If you are 24 or younger, please answer the following questions. If you are 25 or older, please answer questions 25-33 instead.

17) If you have brothers or sisters, do you get along with them?

18) Is there any jealousy in your family? If so, who is jealous of whom, and how does it present itself?

19) Do you consider yourself to be a person who has a lot of friends?

20) Are most of your friends from school, the internet, or other?

21) Do you have any friends online who you have never met?

22) Do you/have you ever felt afraid to speak up in class? If so, what made you afraid?

23) Do you think that parents should be allowed to spank their children as a form of punishment?

24) Name five of your favorite movies!



If you are 25 or older, please answer the following questions:

25) Do you have children? If so, are you concerned for your children’s safety in the town/city you live in?

26) If you do NOT have children, would you like to have children? Is there anything in particular in the world today that makes you hesitant to have children?

27) Were you ever bullied as a child or as a teenager?

28) Did you ever bully anyone (even verbally) as a child or as a teenager?

29) What is or what was the biggest difference between your belief system and that of your parents?

30) In a relationship, what is one thing that you absolutely would not stand for?

31) Have you ever been attacked by a stranger?

32) Have you ever been attacked by someone you know?

33) Did your parents use any kind of physical punishment against you as a child or was it only verbal?

THANK YOU SO MUCH, EVERYBODY. THIS INFORMATION IS GOING TO HELP ME A LOT WITH THE PROJECT.

I'll put up a fun post soon, I promise...

K.

Tuesdays/

Ahhh. 9:57 am on a Tuesday morning. Tuesdays, for me, are actually more like Mondays for other people, because I usually start my work week on a Tuesday. Mondays for me are about resenting the fact that my work week should have begun, watching bad television, procrastinating and feeling guilty. Tuesdays are about getting my life together and being productive.

So I'm posting again.

I am not writing my play, or composing music, or helping little old ladies cross the street, or going to the gym, or pushing my cat around the apartment and calling it "exercise". No, I am contributing to my long lost blog before heading to a voice audition for some kind of cereal commercial. I'm a little concerned that I won't be able to actually form cohesive sentences at the audition, because I had a rough night last night and I am ridiculously tired. I have also only had a DECAF COFFEE today, not a real one. See how good I am at fighting ulcers? (Yes, it's possible that I had three beers last night, but I was alone, so they don't count. And one of them was a Guinness, which is full of vitamins and can repair damage to the stomach lining. A very respectable alcoholic told me that.)

Let me just explain that when I say "rough night" I am not exaggerating: I sleepwalk. And talk. And grind my teeth. And I think it's possible that I move furniture around with my head, because how else could my neck hurt this much? The sleepwalking makes for some busy nights. For instance, I lived alone in my last apartment, and I woke up one morning with lip gloss in one hand and some small change in the other hand. On a different night, I somehow pulled down all the health and fitness books (all four of them) from my bookshelf, and I woke up in the morning with "Firm Buns, Trim Thighs" (I wish I was joking) and "The Sports Nutrition Journal" lying next to me on the bed.

In the PHARK house, I recently climbed the ladder up to my loft space in my sleep, then woke up for a minute, decided it was dangerous, climbed back down, fell asleep again and then moved the entire ladder (which is NOT light) over to a different wall. When I woke up, the ladder was blocking the bathroom. Interesting.

This is probably a little more information about my sleep habits than the internet needed.

On to a new topic...um...I did a telephone interview yesterday about McKay and Mrs. Miller and A Dog's Breakfast, which was lots of fun. I was actually pretty nervous, which meant that I did a lot of really loud laughing (generally at my own jokes) and that my vocabulary was reduced by 75% . I hope it turns out okay.

The Queen West Art Crawl was very cool (ohhh dear -- my vocabulary hasn't returned to normal yet.) Lisa's photographs were excellent as always, and there were paintings, sculptures, jewelry displays, roasted yams (as food, not as art), sketches, accessories and all sorts of other good things. Even though I can't draw a circle, I was still able to appreciate the fact that other people can. One artist had painted a canoe paddle that looked so real I was convinced I could pick it up. (I didn't try.) She had also painted a suitcase that, again, was so real and seemingly three dimensional that I couldn't stop staring at it. The artist thought I was a little creepy.

Now I will stop talking about art before I expose myself as someone who knows nothing about art.

As for my writing...I HAVE STARTED THE PROJECT! FOR REAL! I wrote a monologue, a scene, and a song (well, the music for a song -- some William Shakespeare guy wrote the lyrics), but the research phase is not going well. So...I am thinking of asking the people who read this blog for some help. Since approximately 700-800 people visit Loft in Translation every day (I can't even talk about how much that blows my mind), I thought I would use that opportunity to do some research. I am supposed to interview people from across Canada for the first phase of the project, but I would love to expand that to Canada and the world. The play I am writing deals with violence against young people, so some of the questions I will be asking aren't easy to ask or to answer. Before I ask any questions, though, I'd love to know whether or not any of you loft-in-translationites would be willing to answer them. I can give out one of my seventeen thousand email addresses and you can send your responses there, instead of posting them on the blog.

The other thing I'd love would be the "To be or not to be" speech from Hamlet in as many languages as possible, if any of you have copies of Hamlet in languages other than English. Anyway...I will be more specific in my next post, but I just thought I'd ask everyone's opinion about helping me with the research portion of my new play, Use My Babies Well.

How does that sound? Is that a terrible idea? An okay idea? Coffee? (Oh, shoot...my subconscious just typed that. I hate it when it does that.)

Have a happy Tuesday...

K.

photo by Lisa Pharkin' Stanton

Lisa Pharkin' Stanton/

She's gorgeous. She's smart. She has created the images for COUNTLESS theatre posters and publicity shots for her demanding actor-friends (including me). She takes photographs of flowers that make me feel guilty for eating vegetables. She's Lisa Stanton, ladies and gentlemen, and this weekend you can see (and even buy!) some of her amazing photographs (if you live in Ontario, I guess, or if you're visiting from Australia/New Zealand in order to escape all the Russellcrowian controversy. Okay, that is officially the WORST adjective I have ever invented.)

Lisa will be at booth #15, in the RED section of Trinity Bellwoods Park (I don't know what that means, but it sounds hot) for the Queen West Art Crawl this coming weekend. Interestingly enough, this is also the weekend that was supposed to mark the end of the "research phase" of my new "play". If "research" actually translates to "watching movies", or "taking Rufus on unnecessary overnight adventures", or "finding out more about Fall fashion", then I've met my deadline and possibly even exceeded my own expectations. In facte, I'm patting myseff on the bak as I writee thhis (thus the spelling mistakes. One-handed typing is tough.)

So if you can, go and see Lisa's amazing work in Trinity-Bellwoods Park tomorrow or Sunday!

Also...I want to tell you about a concert I went to on Tuesday. Wednesday? Wednesday. Monday? Oh god, the procrastinatory guilt is making the days bleed into one another. Anyhow...the band was absolutely incredible. The lead singer/songwriter's name is Colin Munroe. Watch for him, because he's going to be famous. He has a beautiful voice, his lyrics are amazing, he plays every instrument under the sun (well, at least three of them) and the members of his band are charismatic and fantastically talented. I even bought his cd. So did P, which means that one of us wasted ten whole dollars, and I'm not even upset about it. BECAUSE THE CD IS JUST THAT GOOD.

Okay. Now a little update on PHARK. Rufus has just earned "most adaptable cat in Canada" status, because I brought him to M's place for two nights and he didn't blink an eye. He walked into the apartment, looked around, sniffed a few things, went about his usual business of knocking every object off every surface with his little boxing glove of a paw, and then lay down for a snooze in the middle of the living room floor. He did meow out a few complaints on the bus, but who wouldn't? I mean, we've already established that buses smell and make otherwise normal people evil. I'd meow on the bus too, if I wasn't so afraid of being judged.

A. is well on his way to star status. He shot the short film last week and is now busily working on the t.v. episode before heading off to London, Ontario for The Graduate. I haven't seen the others in days, so I have nothing to update. (Um...and I haven't asked their permission yet to share intimate details of their lives.)

Thanks to those who commented and let me know that they'd seen the Scotiabank commercial. That's how I found out it had aired! Now maybe I'll be able to pay my rent in October...or maybe I'll buy an iPod...hmm...

And to those of you who asked...yes, I read every comment. I don't take procrastination lightly, let me tell you. I am 100% committed to procrastinating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in as many languages as possible...uh...except when I'm sleeping, because that's important too.

The comments make me laugh. Lots. Every day. Thanks for that.

Now I'm going to go and answer interview questions, which is actually quite a productive form of non-productivity.

K.
p.s. If you'd like to see more of Lisa Stanton's photography, please visit her blog at:
www.electricbluecameraco.blogspot.com

The Demise of PHARK/

I just realized something. When H moves out, we'll be left with PARK...or KRAP, I guess, neither of which is a cool name for a band. KARP? Is KARP cool? No. Fish just inherently aren't cool, especially when they're spelled incorrectly. PRAK? Nope. Sounds like a mistake or a terribly-named snack. Maybe I should cut Rufus from the band and then we could call ourselves KAP. That's kind of cool, no? Of course, there is no band, so I'm not quite sure what I'm talking about. I wonder what instrument Rufus would play in the not-a-band. Something chilled out, I think. Like the upright bass. Although he'd have a tough time playing an instrument with his little mutant paws. See? There's ANOTHER reason why you shouldn't get your cat declawed. It could affect his/her musical career.

I've been gone for four days, and THAT'S the paragraph I come back with? Ohhh dear. When I say "gone", I of course mean "procrastinating" because I have now taken to procrastinating from the procrastination (a.k.a blogging). Here's my update, though:

Friday: Arrived late at the designated meeting place (a.k.a. liquor store) for girls' night, where my poor friend had just witnessed a minor car crash involving angry rich people and was being hit on by one of the crashees; Went to girls' night where my friend AE (who is a better chef than...um...insert famous chef here...) had whipped up the most fantastic vegetarian meal of my life involving tomatoes that actually tasted like tomatoes. (Here in Canada, tomatoes don't taste like they do in, say, Italy. They taste like the inside of a cucumber from 1986, injected with red food colouring.) They were "Heirloom" tomatoes and they came from a "garden". Crazy. Then we drank awesome wine (uh...well, THEY did. I watched. With a glass of wine in my hand. Um...which occasionally ended up in my mouth. And then stomach. Okay fine, I drank wine.) We also watched a video of "The Boyfriend" -- a musical that we did in high school. And it held up! It was still good! I mean, there's the odd guy in there who can't even find his feet, let alone use them, but for the most part, I'm pretty darn impressed with the quality of musicals we did back in the day. (I'm turning thirty soon, so I have to start using expressions like "back in the day".)

The rest of the weekend was basically devoted to hosting a family dinner, writing a new song, forgetting how to play the song, re-learning it, playing it for M, and seeing an amazing short play starring the multi-talented Brendan Gall (see below) and the stunning and hilarious Maev Beatty. It was written by my favorite playwright, Hannah Moscovitch. (Hannah is remarkable. See everything she writes. Seriously.) I also may or may not have eaten a deep-fried burrito. (I don't want to talk about it.)

I saw McKay and Mrs. Miller and I really liked it. I'm glad that so many people have been responding well to the episode and I can't thank you enough for all the lovely comments. I hope I will get to visit Atlantis again too! (I miss Hermiod a little bit. We definitely had a connection. He even flirted with me on set, but I'll save that story for another day.) And yes, Brendan Gall who played Caleb (brilliantly, might I say) is my buddy from Unspun Theatre, as well as the director of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (which is where Martin Gero first saw me act), as well as an old friend of Martin's, as well as the non-coincidental name of an ex-Stargate character (who I believe died a horrible death). And no, he is not the guy in the photo I posted, although it is possible that I may have suggested to M that Brendan's hair was cool, which may or may not have prompted M to grow his hair like Brendan's, dress like Brendan, talk like Brendan and change his name to Mrendan.

This is a very long post.

One quick thing before I go...I actually like Russell Crowe. I think he's handsome. And a really good actor. And I think maybe I'm a little out of touch with the bad press he's had. Am I not supposed to like him? When did that happen? Man, I have to start watching E-Talk Daily more often.

Okay! I'm done! I'M GOING TO WRITE TODAY. SERIOUSLY.

Chimichangas,

K.

Brevity is the Soul of Wit (a.k.a. I'm Going to be Late for Dinner if I Make this Post Too Long)/

It is 4:55pm and I am meeting my oldest and dearest friend (another M! Fancy that!) at 5:30pm for a girls' night/high school reunion type of thing. I still have to choose an outfit, change, make my face look human, buy booze (uh...not for me...it's for my friend...um...Klate Pewlett, who DOESN'T have an ulcer...) and get to Lakeshore Blvd.

So I am going to make this post quick and I am not going to ramble like I did in the first paragraph (and in the title, a little bit.) No! Paragraph Two Kate is concise. Concise concise concise. Yep yep yeppers. Paaaaaragraph Twooooo Kaaaaaate. Here goes: I hope that anyone reading this is having a wonderful day. I also hope that anyone NOT reading this is having a wonderful day -- I just left you out because you're not reading this, so you wouldn't know I was wishing you well and you'd--

Oh man, I'm being long-winded again.

Happy Friday, everyone! That's it. Thank you thank you thank you for all the comments and especially to Jen for the new subsite, which is incredibly flattering and wholly undeserved! (It's pretty damn cool, though. And surreal!)

Also...I hope those of you in the U.S. enjoy McKay and Mrs. Miller tonight. And I hope those of you in Australia enjoy...um...knowing that you share something special with Russell Crowe. And those of you in England? Uh...I hope you enjoy the chocolate there. It tastes better. So does the milk. For those of you living in Germany, Italy, France, Japan, etc. etc....I hope you enjoy knowing I'm intensely jealous of you for living in Germany, Italy, France, Japan, etc. etc.

This isn't brief at all.

Hey, by the way, I saw "Titus" the movie last night and it was AMAZING. WOW. Inspiring. Not happy (unless you're a reeeeal sicko) but inspiring.

And now I'm officially late. Can I use blogoholism as an excuse?

Bye!

K.

"M"...and a Tiny Angry Gnome Pretending to be my Brother/

I never take photographs. I never have.

Okay, okay, that's not exactly true. I took photographs for about two months when I was ten years old after buying a sassy white Minolta in England with my grandfather, but when I got the film developed (don't you miss that?) the pictures were truly terrible. For starters, they were all of cats. And not just the twenty seven cats belonging to my grandparents...I took pictures of random cats, too. Yup. Raaaandom British cats. Creepy. And what's more, they were all out of focus or appeared to have been taken in the dark. Under water. With something that looks a lot like Tinkerbell somewhere in the shot, usually in front of something important. Let's just say that I am severely artistically challenged (like can't-draw-a-happy-face challenged) and photography is no exception.

And so I return to my point. I never take photographs. The problem is that I keep wanting to post photos (because they're more fun and they take less time than writing an essay about my ulcer-in-training) but I have a limited selection to choose from. So I stole this one from M's desktop! Gee, I hope he doesn't find out. (Hi M, if you're reading this. How's it going? Hope you're having a nice day. Um...I uploaded one of your photos. Hope that's okay. At least you don't have a near-beard in this one, right? It could be worse. You should count your lucky stars. And while you're at it, can you buy some Orangina for tonight?)

The picture above was taken during my whirlwind week of McKay and Mrs. Miller-ing. And I took it (with M's camera). And it has no cats in it. And I don't know if you noticed, but those no-cats are completely in focus, in the daylight, with nothing even resembling Tinkerbell anywhere near them. Nice!

Speaking of cats...the members of PHARK (well, mostly just P and his now-traumatized friend) had a nasty Rufal scare yesterday. (YES. I turned my cat's name into an adjective. YES. I KNOW. I'VE OFFICIALLY LOST IT. I KNOW.) I was out petting other animals at Riverdale Farm (awesome place with happy animals that make me glad I don't eat meat), so Rufus decided that he would take that opportunity to try skydiving. He climbed up to the highest ledge in the loft, got stuck, and kept losing his balance and slipping (thanks in part to the kind folks who decided to amputate his claws). Luckily, P was home creating some filmic work of genius with a friend of his...and they saved the day. If they hadn't been home, Rufus would have fallen twenty five feet, hitting a chandelier, a kitchen table that used to be a printing press (NOT soft), and two metal chairs on his way down. Needless to say, I don't think he would have made it out unscathed. Now I have to lock him in my bedroom every time I go out, so that he doesn't attempt suicide again. I can only imagine the damage he'll do in there. I'm fully expecting to come home today to swear words on the walls (made of little paw prints) and shredded photos on the floor. At the very least, he'll fish some gum out of the garbage can, chew it, and leave little dribbles of it everywhere. (Second-hand gum is his favorite food. Perfect.) Anyway...P is my favorite letter in PHARK today. Thanks, P.

Just to update you: I am no longer dependent on coffee (well...only one a day), I have exercised three times this week (if you count stretching) and my new vice is actually the anti-vice: de-alcoholized beer. If you put tasty stuff in it, it almost tastes good too. (Wow, I should go into advertising.) I have not written a single page of my play yet, but I am going to watch Richard III today (as research -- I swear). The weather is gorgeous (FALL! YAAAAAAAAAY!) and life is fun. It really is.

The very last episode of 11 Cameras is on tonight (7:30pm and 11:30pm in Canada only, on CBC) and McKay and Mrs. Miller is on tomorrow night! Ahhhhhh! Of course, we don't get SGA here, so I won't see it until 2017, but I hope you guys enjoy it. Maybe you could take pictures of the t.v. or something. (That was a joke. Even though I may, possibly, potentially, perhaps, once have taken polaroids of a car commercial because I was in love with one of the actors. Maybe.) After you watch the episode (if you can) go to the Unspun Theatre website and see if you notice any strange coincidences!

One quick thing before I go: MY DAD READS THIS BLOG. MY BRITISH DAD. MY BRITISH, OLD-FASHIONED, CAPTAIN VON TRAPP DAD. Just bear that in mind if you're posting a comment that may or may not involve bodily fluids!

Thanks for all the amazing music suggestions, the linguistic challenges, the artwork, the photos and the insight into your lives (even the insights involving bodily fluids!) It's nice to know you(s)! Don't worry, I don't actually say 'yous'.

Pharkitudinally,

k.

A Seasoned Pharkin' Traveler/

Why hasn't Kate posted in two full days, you may be asking yourself? What could she possibly be doing? Why isn't she chained to her computer with pizza sauce dribbling down her chin? Why has she abandoned us?

[Or maybe you haven't actually noticed that I've been away because you were so busy being productive, going to the gym, eating cheeseless thin-crust near-pizza, living full lives and reading cool people's blogs instead, in which case...um...don't read this. I've got nothin'.]

Now that the cool people have stopped reading...hi! I, as a seasoned Ontario traveler, spent all of today in beautiful downtown St. Catherine's and all of yesterday in...um....unique suburban Hamilton. I have now officially seen more of Ontario than I ever needed to. Honestly, though, I had two really fun days. Family and friends are better than coffee. (That's a lie.) Family and friends are better than beer. (Almost. Lite beer, maybe.) Family and friends are better than (or maybe just on par with) realizing that your cat may actually have lost a pound or two.

This was supposed to be a short entry. I am going to bed now.

But first! A few parting thoughts, after my two days of traveling:

1) I want to move to Turkey, because apparently people in Turkey aren't allowed to use cell phones on buses. (I somehow always manage to sit in front of someone who talks really loudly for sixty minutes straight on their cell phone about things I DON'T NEED TO KNOW. Like what they drank last night, what kind of bra they're wearing (if at all), and why they hate every girl they've ever met. Just as an example, of course.)

2) a) I have a really cool sister. b) I challenge anyone to put a Dora puzzle together faster than my nieces can. They may say "kix" instead of "six", but they're baby geniuses. Both of them.

3) Buses don't smell good in Ontario.

4) Buses are twenty degrees colder than the air outside in the winter, and twenty degrees hotter than the air outside in the summer.

5) I am bad with money.

6) Discount stores are no longer cheap if you buy everything in the store.

7) St. Catherine's, Ontario is pretty awesome.

8) Hamilton is not as bad as they say.

9) Bus trips make me tired.

10) I am not funny after 11pm.

11) I may not be funny before 11pm either.

K.

"Laser Me Skinny": The Rufus Hewlett Story/

So first off, I have to thank Paula (if that's your real name...Dr. Dolittle is more like it) for her ingenius laser beam suggestion. "A" has been telling me to buy one of of those for about seven months, but why would I listen to him? No, no, complete strangers are WAY more reliable. Anyhow, I bought a laser pointer yesterday, and Rufus went nuts! Not only did he STAND UP...he actually JUMPED a little and sort of RAN. Okay, okay, calling it "running" would be a bit of a stretch, but it was faster than a walk. It was a trot. A cat-trot. A rapid waddle. The way someone runs when they're just getting to the end of a marathon and they only trained for a 10K. (That's "kilometres", for all you mile-using Americans. Ki-lo-me-tres. It's a measure of distance. And I, it would seem, am really really hyper today. Must be the rain.)

I am thrilled, therefore, to say that my cat is well on his way to becoming an athlete. I, on the other hand, am sitting at my computer eating a pizza. (It has a high-fibre crust, though, which cancels out the cheese. Somehow.)

It is a quiet day today in the loft, other than the sound of little furry feet chasing something they will, alas, never catch. I spent the morning organizing one of my email accounts (I have seven) into folders. You know, "The fam", "Friends from high school", "Friends from theatre school", "Ex-boyfriends", "The Aeroplan account I didn't know I had", "People I don't really like anymore but whose emails I'm keeping anyway because I'm incapable of throwing things out". That sort of thing. I have decided not to start writing my new play until Tuesday. Yep, Tuesday's the day. For now, I am officially on holiday, which will hopefully mean that I can stop feeling guilty soon and relax, after a truly crazy summer of theatre.

As for the members of PHARK (that band photo was fantastic, by the way!), things are going swimmingly. "A" is getting ready for his three back-to-back acting gigs; "H" has his delightfully feisty girlfriend in town; "P" splits his time evenly between brainstorming film ideas and...well...beard maintenance; "R" is losing his mind over a beam of light; and I am blogging my life away.

M and I are thrilled about all the comments in other languages -- thank you and keep them coming. I am actually getting a little cocky about my French. Oui, c'est vrai, je suis bilingue! C'est merveilleux! (See? Cocky.) I checked out Les Cowboys Fringands, as instructed, and I absolutely love them. My favorite song so far is "Ma belle Sophie."

Please feel free to tell me about other bands/musicians that I wouldn't hear about otherwise. French bands, British bands, Hungarian bands, American bands, Russian bands, Italian bands, Spanish bands, Klingon bands (No! No! I'm kidding! Please don't...) I like low-key, mellow music the best and I'm a big fan of piano and vocals, guitar and vocals, etc. My faves (oh my god, I just used the word "faves". GIVE me some caffeine. NOW!) are:
Rufus (meow) Wainwright, Hawksley Workman, Ani di Franco, Jack Johnson, Keane, The Weakerthans, Claire Jenkins, Sarah Harmer, Lauryn Hill (that's a new one for me), Johnny Cash (also new...don't tell my dad, because I made fun of him for twenty years) and many more.

In return, I will continue to post photos of David that prove he's not actually as much of a jerk as McKay. He smiles. Often. With teeth. (Not much hair, though. He shares that characteristic with Rodney, strangely enough.)

Off to eat the other half of that pizza. Yaaaaaaaay fibre!

K.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Nerds/

(Enough said, I think.)
K.