12:30pm (I'm guessing, I don't actually know)
There's a building that I can see through the window of our room that looks like a blue and white layer cake. I just took a picture of it. I have a couple of those pictures that only my mother and Baba and possibly Amy will actually be interested in seeing. Classic tourist shots "See this is the Jonovision audience in the studio. Here's Aaron posing in front of the famed applause meter. Here's a shot of our tiny hostel room. And here is the view from our window."
Aaron just left (which is why I don't know exactly what time it is, he has the watch) on an adventure to seek out Kingston Road and all the promised treasures it may hold. Someone back home told him to go there. He says he'll be back soon, but David tends to disagree.
When Aaron gets back (whenever that might be) we're going to get on the subway and head out to David's. I spoke to him on the phone just now for like half an hour at least, mostly about music and how long it would take Aaron to get where he's going.
Right now I really wish that all these people lived closer to me (David, the Jono people, Slick Sinister, Suzanne, Debbie, Jonathan...well I wish Jonathan lived in my *bed*, but that's a story for another time) because I would like to see all of them again (some of them regularly), but I don't like this city. I wish I could take them all home.
I guess that's the difference between the reason that I will travel and the regular reasons to do so. Unlike my sister who wants to see fields of heather in Scotland or Aaron who takes much pleasure in staring at interesting buildings, I have little to no interest in nature or architecture. The reason I like being here is all those people I mentioned in the last paragraph. And how sad it will be to leave before I really *know* any of them.
But I'll be back right? I mean, eventually, someday, I'll be here again. And I'll get to hang out with my cousins, maybe play another gig with Suzanne, go for lunch with Kim + Jen, ask that cute boy from Slick Sinister on a date, propose marriage to Jonathan Torrens....
Well, I'm getting far too contemplative for my own good which is a sure sign that it's time to get dressed and get out of my room. Maybe I'll venture outside and find some food.
Regular things like properly blowing my nose and shampooing my hair are becoming things that I *must* do soon, and I feel like it's time for me to go home.
2:30pm
Aaron's back. He didn't go to the far away street after all. He went someplace else interesting. I walked down King Street and had a veggie wrap and orange juice at a semi-trendy coffeeshop. The veggie wrap sucked but the orange juice was so splendid in the way that orange juice is splendid when you haven't had any liquids in almost 24 hours. I'm considering the possibility that I'm becoming malnourished and dehydrated, but don't tell my mom.
We're sitting in the hostel bar with Tom the British guy's son, Malichy who is pleasantly good-looking and likes to wear various unusual shades of red. We're waiting for David to get home so that we can get subway directions to his house. I spoke to Shirley, another relative I haven't seen in years, on the phone just now.
My mouth tastes like bad humus. I wish I'd never eaten.
The combination of light and ceiling fan is giving me a strobe effect as I write and I'm feeling unstable.
12:25am
Aaron and I took the subway to Mississauga. It was quite simple and relatively unscary. I stood up part of the way, partly out of necessity since the car was packed, mostly because I felt I should have the experience of standing up on a subway. Very tv.
Aaron and I had a fight on the Bloor West subway. I think it was mostly about our differing attitudes toward the Jonovision experience. I do remember asking him when he'd become the "poster boy for pessimism". The two of us have reached this strange stage in our relationship where we do practically everything like a couple, to the point where almost everyone in this city has assumed we actually are one (and we've generally been too unaffected to actually correct them). So yeah, we certainly fight like a couple. Cept we don't get the obligatory make-up sex. How is that fair?? *lol*
Heh. Aaron just gave me a great big spontaneous hug. I think we're all good again.
Anyway, David picked us up at the Kipling station and we drove to the house where we were greeted by a whole whack of relatives I either hadn't met or hadn't seen since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Among them Mike and Vinchenza (our lovely hosts for the evening), their babies Deanna (3) and Andrew (9 months), the kids' baba, Shirley, and David's parents Mike and Debbie.
We sat around the kitchen table before supper and had a drink as everyone quizzed me on the status and condition of the members of the extended Sask family. Questions, I'm sad to admit, I didn't really know the answers to. I hadn't realized it had been so long since I'd been out on the farm, or even spoken to any of the relatives on my mom's side. I was also surprised that I had difficulty putting faces to many of the names of the more obscure relatives they referred to.
Deanna and I soon became fast friends and over the course of the nite she showed me the christmas tree, how she likes to sit under the kitchen table, the way they scare squirrels out of the bird food, and how well she could jump.
Dinner was fantastic. Especially since Aaron and I hadn't had a well-balanced meal in days. Vinchenza kept worrying about me not having enough vegetarian food and Mike gave me almost as hard a time about it as Uncle Ken does. ;) After supper we ate not even half of a giant black forest cake. Tonite marked baby Andrew's first taste of cake. Practice, his godfather Mike insisted, for his first birthday. He was too excited to sleep.
Later we congregated in the basement, David's domain of the house. David and Aaron jammed for a bit and David played some solo stuff while Mike caught it all with his camcorder. David is the kind of player who is simply meant to make music. It's obvious that he loves it. I really have to admire the kind of person who actually goes to school to perfect his musicianship. A more ambitious person than I. Aaron and I played a couple songs for everyone and managed to sell a CD. Mike taped it so Chris will be able to see it. Chris was the only Tonelli that wasn't there, and the one I know the best. I can't believe I won't get to see him when we're actually in the same province for the first time in over a decade.
After watching a video of David's of the bass player that the bass players of the world voted as the best, Mike, Mike, and David gave Aaron and I a ride back into the city. Vinchenza gave us a bag of food to take with us (I'm so excited about being able to eat for the next two days) and I took a picture of everyone before we took off. Driving back I said, "I think I'm about ready to go home now. I've had about all the experiences I need."
They dropped us at the hostel and we made plans to email and to call and I truly hope I'm able to stay in touch with them.
I was afraid it might be weird to hang out with the relatives. I'm getting old enough now that I sometimes sit and visit with people I had only previously spent time with in the presence of my parents. It's a strange transition. But a pretty easy one, at least in this case. My relatives are all pretty groovy people and it was great to see them.
I'm watching Aaron play pool with Tom the British guy and listening to some dance tune with a repeated phrase that sounds way too much like "suck me" for my comfort. I wonder what kind of food we have... 1:25pm
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