This much is true

I know that I am an intelligent student, a strong athlete, and a confident person. I know that I am optmistic, open-minded, and out-going. I know that sometimes I can be intimidating, moody, or aggresive. I know a lot about myself and the things that I am or can be. But one thing I know I am NOT, is spoiled. I am independent and I know that when it comes down to it, I need only trust in myself.

Gertrude's F--king Dog

The following is an excerpt from "A Transatlantic Interview" with Gertrude Stein.

The following readings were chosen at random from Tender Buttons and are followed by Gertrude Stein's verbatim responses.

A DOG

A little monkey goes like a donkey that means to say that means to say that more sighs last goes. Leave with it. A little monkey goes like a donkey.

"A little monkey goes like a donkey..." That was an effort to illustrate the movement of a donkey going up a hill, you can see it plainly. "A little monkey goes like a donkey." An effort to make the movement of the donkey, and so the picture hangs complete.

Boo's comment on Gertrude Stein's poetry being nightmarish for all those who read it is a true one. Just look at what she had to say about her OWN poem. And just think that was her explanation to help us understand what she was writing about! Anyway, that brings me to my Quote of the Moment by my prof today after reading that above excerpt:

"Pardon my French, but this would seem to be a perfect example of someone fucking with you."

MAN I love my class!

I stand poetically corrected

I believe it was just yesterday that I was talking to Sherman and I claimed that a man's knowledge of and/or ability to analyze poetry did little or nothing to woo me; it was a bonus, at best. And I stood by that claim from long ago, right up until today.

Today, in the middle of our regular, fun, and light lecture, my professor noted that Gertrude Stein's "Picasso" is "almost hypnotic when you read it out loud to yourself," at which point he lowered and softened his voice to read...

"This one was one who was working and certainly this one was needing to be working so as to be one being working. This one was one having something coming out of him. This one would be one all his living having something coming out of him. This one was working and then this one was working and this one was needing to be working, not to be one having something coming out of him something having meaning, but was needing to be working so as to be one working."

...and then I was a hypnotized puddle of goo in my chair. Had I not been goo, I might have run up and offered to have his babies for him just so that they could read to me like that when I got old. And it's not like it was a particularly entrancing poem either--it was prosimetric writing! Prose! As in everyday, regular writing! So, I've changed my mind. Not only is it hot for a man to read poetry (which has always been a good woo factor for me), but it is even HOTTER if he knows how to read it, and if he knows why he's reading it that way overall. *sigh*
...

"When You Are Old" - William Butler Yeats

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
    And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
    And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
    And loved your beauty with love false or true;
    But one man love the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars
    Murmur, a little sad, From us fled Love;
    He paced upon the mountains far above,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
...

One day a stranger--whose face will seem familiar but not quite recognizable--will approach me and recite this poem to me mournfully with tears in his eyes; and after having recited it to me, he will walk away and out of my life once more, leaving me to shed a tear for him in bewilderment.
...

p.s. Happy Birthday, Squiggly.

Excuse me, are you going to eat that?

In 5 days, I have been to 4 all-you-can-eat dinners. I think I'm going to explode any second now.

Thursday - Brazilian Steakhouse
Saturday - Sushi
Sunday - Sushi
Monday - Pasta

Gross.

The only thing keeping me together is that although they've been AYCE, I haven't been eating all that I could eat. Well, at least not the last two times.
...

Update - Wednesday, September 21, 2005:

Make that 5 AYCEs in 7 days...

An Atkiner's Haven

Holy meat. I cannot recall the last time I've eaten so much meat at one time. But it was quite an experience. Last night was a friend's birthday at the Red Violin Brazilian Steakhouse down on the Danforth. Ever been to a steakhouse that's a buffet?

First we started off with the appetizers which included a salad bar and a selection of other kinds of finger-ish foods. Hero Cookie told Sherman and I to go light on the carbs and on the appetizers in general as he'd been through this dining experience before. Had he not been there to say that, MAN would I have gone to TOWN on those apps. All I could eat smoked salmon and dolmades?! That's a gourmet meal for me in itself!

Then during the digesting time between appetizer and main course, they brought out these little side dishes to accompany our meat: sauteed mushrooms, fresh-cut fries, grilled baby carrots, some rice, and fried bananas. Needless to say, we needed to order more of those sides VERY soon after they arrived. But finally, the main course...

Meat, meat, and more MEAT.

Around come these servers wielding huge skewers of meat and machetes, no less. At the beginning of our meal we were given these cards: one side of the card was green and the other side was red, and as long as our card was showing green on the table in front of us, these guys kept coming and offering us fresh cuts of meat, right onto our plates. Machetes inches from our faces, theses guys would slice/slide a hunk of meat off their skewer and hoist the cut onto our dish, oozing with juices and flavour. To top it all off at the end of the night (two and a half hours later) they served us roasted pineapple, seasoned with cinnamon.

YUM.

Overall, Hero Cookie claimed that this place wasn't the best churrascaria he'd ever had, but for me it was the ONLY churrascaria and it suited me just fine. :)
...

Of course, any night with Hero Cookie just wouldn't be a night if I didn't have a HC story to tell, so here it is.

Later that night, after stopping by a Tim Horton's on the way out to the middle of nowhere, HC called me out of the car to "come see this." What I climbed out to see was this HUGE alien bug thing crawling around under my car.

Kind of a mix between a beetle, a cockroach, and a frog (alien, remember), this thing was around the size of my palm and it was loping along with something of a limp. Just imagine a car rolling along slowly with one rear wheel that's bigger and a different shape compared to all the others--like in the episode of The Simpsons when Homer goes ahead and drives the car with a parking boot attached to the front wheel--that's how it looked like this thing was walking.

Although he wouldn't touch it directly, HC followed that thing (à la the skunk of the other night) and tormented it the best he could; he kicked sand and other debris at it, he spat spit on it, he spat hot coffee on it...whatever it took to get a reaction out of the thing. The only thing was, it didn't react. Though from the looks of it, it could fly, it didn't even spread its wings once. It actually didn't even pause in its tracks. It just keep hobbling along as though we weren't there and as though there weren't drops of coffee over its shell/wings/exoskeleton. In the end, it crawled back under the darkness of my car after taking a brief stroll in the light of the street lights of the parking lot. When we drove away, we couldn't see it in the parking space anymore and since we knew it didn't walk very fast, we assumed it'd made its mysterious flight away.

That or I ran over it with one of my tires. You know, whatever.

Show me the Scarecrow!

Standing out on the patio today, I was talking to some customers when suddenly I let out one gimongous sneeze. In response to my hugely gimongous sneeze, someone entering the restaurant yelled out an equally gimongous "bless you," after which I returned with an similar "thank you" and then continued talking to my customer. My customer interrupted me mid-sentence though.

Customer - "You know Cuba Gooding Jr. just blessed you, right?"

Whaaaa?

Yup. Although for a good 3 minutes I stood there arguing with this guy that he was trying to pull my leg, when I walked into the restaurant a few moments later, there he was: Cuba Gooding Jr.

Unfortunately I didn't get to serve him, but he seemed to be a nice enough guy. When I later passed him and thanked him again for the "bless you," he gave me a friendly "no problem" sort of wink in return, and throughout the whole time he and his posse (I think there were 8 of them in total) were brunching with us, he kept laughing his amazingly LOUD laugh that resonated through the restaurant. I thought that was great.

My other "whaaaaa?" moment came earlier in the day when I was rushing towards the bar and breezed by this familiar face. I'm usually really bad with celebrity sightings--usually the other servers have to TELL me when I've just had a brush with fame--but this time, I was like, well, "Whaaaa?"

Me - "Was that just..."
Gimmy - "Yup."
Me - "Cooooool..."

Cillian Murphy is actually kinda short off of the big screen. He's probably only about my height (5'6") if not a little shorter. But he looks just as creepy in real life as he does in the movies. Anyway, he was just leaving from his meal so I didn't get to actually interact with him. Ah well. More updates on the celeb sightings during this year's TIFF as they happen--as I'm sure they will.

The un-stinky annual NACIVT Tournament

I can't decide which name I like better: Hero Cookie, or Thunder Chicken. Decisions, decisions.

Last night there was a poker game going on in the ol' conference room. Hero Cookie/Thunder Chicken lost out early and so we went out to fetch some refreshments for the other players. As soon as we exited the building, HC/TC noticed a skunk meandering by the highway wall.

"Hey, there's a skunk! Let's go chase it!"

Of course my first reaction was to laugh and take his suggestion for a joke. But then to my surprise (or maybe NOT to my surprise) he was off after that thing. He chased it for a good 30 metres I'd say, keeping about 5 metres between himself and the skunk the whole time.

"You know if you get sprayed, I'm giving you $2.50 and you're taking the bus home tonight!"

I couldn't believe just how persistent he was--the poor animal was loping along and HC/TC was just stalking right along behind it. Finally, HC/TC decided to give a little burst of speed and close the distance between them as the skunk headed up a hill. As soon as he made his lunge at the skunk, the skunk's tail went springing upwards causing HC/TC to tear off in retreat. We both burst into laughter as the skunk finally disappeared over the hill.

"Man, I was so bold right until his tail went up!"

Luckily, there was no bus riding required at the end of the night.
...

This past weekend I was caught up in the 61st annual NACIVT tournament held right in Toronto this year, down at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. What a crazy weekend. Parts of me are still sore from all the playing. However, I think I'm more sore over the fact that my brother had taken the camera to Calgary that weekend and so I have a total of zero pictures of the event. BUT, I DO have some of Eng's pictures to share...

Competition was fierce as usual, though I can't complain about the way my team played this weekend. There was just such chemistry and trust between whichever 6 of us were on the court that our games were amazing. We ended losing out in the semi-finals to a team we really shouldn't have lost to (I mean, who loses to a team called "Spice"?) but again, I have no complaints about the way we played our game--I just wish we could've played more.

The NACIVT tournament marked the end of the Tigers' volleyball season, but starting tomorrow, the fall volleyball season begins for me. I'm entered in a tournament to play with HC/TC, Sherman, Mon, Lainey, and Pwong. We're just in for rec-division, but this should be good.

HC: "If you guys make me move at all tomorrow [at the tournament], I'm going to f--kin' hurt you."

I can't wait.