aquarium delirium

February 26th we went to Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto. Took the train, stayed at the Royal York.

Seems like a year ago already, when really it's just a few snowstorms/brainfreezings since. So bitterly cold on the garbage-strewn streets of Toronto.

But the aquarium – if you have kids – is great. Feels just like a giant cineplex. Purple walls, atrocious carpets. Crowds, weeping children. Play areas, gift shop. The only thing missing is spilled popcorn and that vague (fart?) smell. And then there's the fish!

Aquariums thirty feet high. All kinds of sharks and terrible (terrifying?) toothy creatures. Drifting, lurking. Probably just sleeping. Lots of interactive displays.

Oona loved it.

The next day we went to the AGO. And taking a four year-old to an art gallery is kind of like taking Charles Bukowski for high tea in an oxygen tent.

Best behaviour all day.

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Obviously: have not been good about blogging, posting. Can I blame this winter? Because it seems like everyone else is, pretty much all the time, for everything. And for once I have some sympathy. I mean, it has just gone on and on, hasn't it?

The ten winters I did in Winnipeg were just as brutal but there it was expected; winter was something that punched you in the face and pushed you down and sat on you (humming) for four months and that was it. While in a place like Kingston there's always this *hope* kicking around, O maybe now it's done.

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Some things in the shop, lately. I've been doing a lot for something I imagine as Weimar Art Party, which is really just cabaret and noir glamour and art house decadence, all big city girls, doomed, somewhere like Berlin.

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Two mornings ago: Oona and I had to stand in the street and wait on a crazy man, who was taking up all the pavement with his moving imaginary objects around. Don't mind me, he said, picking up an invisible something with two fingers, I just don't like magic.

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If you live in the Kingston area and would like to be part of a once-a-week writer's group: please email me . Our little group at the Ban Righ is at a low-attendance point (again, the long winter) and we could use a new voice or two. We're a friendly but serious bunch (as in: we actually write) and very welcoming/supportive.

glamour, by extension

C is friends with the fashion stylist Rebekah Roy (left in both pics above) ... one of those people who personify calm and smiling success. On her blog she presents glamour in this very sincere, straightforward way ... whether she's taking pictures of people on the street , talking about stain removers , her favourite videos , or attending some glittering party . One minute she's ruminating on hair extensions, and in the next she reveals how she's been featured on the Vogue UK site. A real disarmer and charmer (and this without meeting her yet, although I feel like I know her because we both did our time in Winnipeg). * * * * * Coming home from Russia, we did many bad things. ; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. In my own life, the glamour is wholly imagined. * * * * * witches, smoke ; mixed media on canvas, 10 x 10 inches. My second go at this one, and for some reason I'm painting a lot of smoke lately (note to self: tell C that I want to be cremated). *

the indisputable weight of the ocean

People are always telling me that my work is too dark. So I've put up this sunnier story, but even it has a shadow, as its original publisher – a fine Atlantic Canadian literary magazine called the Gaspereau Review – is no longer in business. ---------------- It was a simple enough thing and that thing was simply this: Edmund Kelley was a gentleman. Of course his mom called him her 'little gentleman', as in 'Oh Edmund, you are my perfect little gentleman,' which did seem to hold to a certain logic that these type of things often follow, considering her affection for him and the fact that he was, after all, only ten years old. Still, Edmund himself was not particularly fond of the diminutive aspect of that title. Gentleman was enough; gentleman summed up the whole thing rather nicely, thank you. He was definitely a more refined version of your average child. He lived in a state of perpetual Sunday m

Oona Balloona (doesn't care about new tables)

Well, it's Friday, and since I'm pretty depleted in the chit-chat department, I might as well put up some pictures of Ol' Giggles At Ghosts before Grandma starts sending me hate mail. Man, what a goofball. At this rate it's going to be, like, eighteen years before she has gainful employment and moves out of the house. I mean, come on . * * * * * C is especially crazy and frantic today. About two months ago she decided that she no longer liked our dining room table (take that, dining room table! no more BFF for you!). Since then she's switched the dining room and kitchen table (and all the rest of the furniture in the house -- about thirty times, but that's another story) as a provisional solution while she scoured area stores for an upgrade. And she thought she had found one, on Wednesday, at JYSK ( Whatever , I said). But when she ordered it, JYSK called back to say that they were really low on stock, and that the stock they did have was damaged, and

red-handed

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