Whew!

All I can say is that I feel so much safer now that SUPERMNN has fled Ontario (a province made entirely out of kryptonite, I suspect) and moved into my apartment building.

I wonder if he has a job at the Leader Post or if he's had enough of the journalism trade and has gone on to bigger and better things. Perhaps he's a day shift manager at Arby's? Or maybe he's that bank teller that you were rude to yesterday. Be careful.

I wonder if SUPERMNN has two eggs that I could borrow.

It was meant to be

According to my friends, I have secret rooms in my apartment. I admit that my apartment's unusually large and that there are often rooms that are forbidden, but that's due more to my aversion to housecleaning than anything exciting and mysterious.

The other day, I was trying to create some sort of order in one of the rooms and I came across my memory box. It's nothing fancy or girly - just a big ol' shoe box. However, I had completely forgotten all the treasures contained within its misleading exterior. There are scripts from high school musicals, the gold medal I won for a solo, the fork and spoon I had as a baby, my ticket stub for Twister from when I lived in Quebec City for a month, and many, many more memories.

Two items I found particularly amused me. One is a story/drawing I did in grade three and the other is a journal I had to keep on a grade six canoe trip.

Now, as you may or may not know, my dream is to be a writer (preferably an alcoholic one). As I reread these early writings, it became spookily evident how destined I am for this fate. And because people are going to be interested in my background once I make it famous, I'm going to provide you with some samples (with all original punctuation and spelling kept intact) (names, however, have been abbreviated).

The Teacher Whose Last Name Was Silly - by Nat, age 8
Once upon a teaching time there was a teacher whose last name was Sills. Everyone said that she was silly. She could take it! But sometimes she got frustrated at them and went through the roof! Then when the children went to their classroom they got scared! Mat always got the ladder. So of he went to get it. Meenwhile, there was another teacher, whose last name was Sillys. Everyone teased her about it! When Mat was walking down the hall he saw her! He said "I'm going crazy!" And in a month's time, the whole school was going crazy! Soon the princeable heard about this and fired them. And from then on the school never had any problems! The End!

Canoe Trip - written by Nat, age 11
Sept 18/86
Dear Journal,
Today when I woke up I was so excited! I couldn't believe I was finally going canoeing! When I got to school we had to do work. But after what seemed like a million years we loaded the bus. When we started to move, DR (who I was sitting with) and CO and BK (who sat across from us) and I started to sing 100 Bottles of Beer On The Wall . We sang almost to where the bus dropped us off. DR and I climbed a hill but then we saw Mr. H coming with the canoes so we ran down. After what seemed like another million years CN and I finally got organized and on our way. We were going good until we passed the bridge and then we kep on getting stuck in the mud because it was so shallow.

Sept 19/86
Dear Journal,
A cayotee woke us up at 4:00 am. DR and I talked until we could go outside. When we did it was wet. We went to see how the boys were succeeding with our fire. For breakfast we had bannock with jam. It was delicious. Again, DR and I did the dishes! CN told me to put my backpack in someone's elses canoe because WS was canoeing with us. I didn't want WS with us but he said we had to. Mr. C called us to the river for the obstacle course. CN, WS, and I came in second with the time of ONE MINUTE AND 35 SECONDS!! There was a prize for the winners, second place, and the losers! We didn't no what it was.

The excitement! The dramatic tension! The narrative layers! The exclamation marks!

Oh yeah. You can definitely see the latent talent. Feel free to say, "I knew her when..."

Me and my shadow

Well hi there! This is me. I'm Nat - yet another blogger on the interwebs. I tried to resist the allure of writing for anyone (i.e. no one) to see, but I've recently discovered that I'm a very weak person so I thought I might as well cave to this blog thing, too.

"What led up to this discovery?" you ask. What else? Beer.

Saturdays are my piano days. I started taking lessons last February (despite being in my early thirties and never having played before) because I've always loved piano and wished I could play. Anyway, the way things usually go is that I have the BEST intentions during the week to practice a bit every day so that I'm prepared when Saturday rolls around. This rarely happens. In fact, I think it may have only happened once. The rest of the time, I end up cramming a week's worth of practicing into my Saturdays and then go to lessons all apologetic that I suck. My teacher has the patience of Job. Or Lot...one of those Bible people with lots of patience.

Today I woke up and faced the same scenario: practice furiously, go to piano, apologize for sucking. It never happened. Instead, I received a phone call from an out-of-town friend who happened to be in town, asking if I wanted to go to our favourite pub with a few other out-of-town-also-in-town friends. She was VERY persuasive, as the following transcript will illustrate:

Nat: Hello?

Jane: Nat! It's Jane. A bunch of us are going to for drinks at 2:00. Wanna come?

Nat: Uh...okay.

See! How could I resist when I was up against her irrefutable powers of persuasion? And besides, a Saturday is only complete when one starts drinking at 2:00 p.m.

So not only did I go to lessons without having practiced a note since last week, I was also more than half in the bag. All the little 7- and 8-year-olds gave me worried glances while we sat in the waiting room to go in to our respective lessons. "Why did that weird lady smell like a brewery, Mommy?" is the question I imagine was on their minds as they returned home today.