I’m bad at waiting. Or maybe I’m good at waiting. I don’t know. I know I hate it though. There are approximately 12 days till my Main Distractor arrives, to help me celebrate my birthday. Yay!

It doesn’t get any easier, I guess that’s all I’m saying. You may become inured to it, but that doesn’t make it any more fun. And you simply can’t think about the fact that he was originally supposed to have been here by now, permanently. Because it makes you, well, sad and or mad, and what’s the use of that?

We have lots of stuff planned for when he’s here; some involving shopping and cooking, and some involving restaurants and/or meeting up with friends, so many of whom haven’t met him yet. There are a couple of unprogrammed days, too, because while it’s nice to have plans, I usually find that I’m saying OH WE SHOULDA _______! the day before he leaves, and time’s run out. So with a little luck some of those things will occur to me before he actually leaves LOL. There will also be a great influx of Radiohead people to see the Vancouver show, which should be lots of fun! and some of them will have a chance to meet him, too.

This week is a bit fidgety, and then next week there is a hair appointment and a spa appointment (birthday traditions, you see). And me becoming ever more impatient.

Thank god for the webcam, is all I can say, and Skype. I think I would have lost my mind by now if we couldn’t talk/see each other the way we can.

I used to go to Seattle fairly often. The girls and I would go for shows, or for shopping. I’d head down with or without Vancouver Radiohead kids to meet up with Seattle Radiohead kids for shows. Lately, I haven’t been going south nearly as often. But the fact that I’ve made more acquaintance in Seattle and my friend Peter from Denmark moved there, and buying concert tickets for a few shows down there, I got my NEXUS pass so I could skip lineups and move a little more freely.

The pass got me through YVR in record time when I came home from Europe a few weeks ago, and yesterday, it enabled me to bypass a good two hours’ worth of lineup on the way to Seattle. So holy crap! I recommend it. If my Main Distractor ever gets his permanent whatnot or employment status squared away here, we are going to have to get him registered pronto. Or plan on crossing over at 4 am or something. Guess which one I prefer :p

So I headed down, made it in just under 3 hours, and met up with Pete and a friend of his from work. We picked up Pete’s gorgeous and really cool wife, whom I hadn’t met before (long overdue!) and went for a v nice supper at The Pink Door. That was delicious. Then we walked over to Key Arena, stood in a couple of lines, and missed most of Crystal Castles, who evidently had started before the ticket showtime of 8:00 pm, as their set was done at 8:15. Whoops! that was a pisser (or a pity, as Pete would say) as we both were interested in seeing them.

The Nine Inch Nails show (the floor tickets were originally intended as a birthday present for my Main Distractor but, alas, Canadian bureaucracy decided that it was not to be) was better than I expected. Not that I expected crap or anything, but while the music was about what I thought I was going to get (a little more new and less old than I would have preferred in a perfect world, but hey), the light show was phenomenal (I keep using the same adjective, so I guess it’s the right one). Radiohead put on a pretty sweet LED show on this tour, don’t get me wrong, but Trent’s light guy has better drugs than Radiohead’s guy or something, because it was on another level entirely. Here’s The Frail and Closer which doesn’t show the stuff I’m raving about, but anyway. I’ll keep looking on Youtube in the next weeks to see some of the songs later in the set, because it was really really cool. I thought the bass player, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, was stunningly good. It was a good show and if my dear sweet boy couldn’t go, I’m glad that I got to go with Pete as he really enjoyed himself too.

Made it home in three hours, including stopping for gas and stopping to read some Nexus paperwork and take out my contacts, and half of Portishead’s Third while waiting for the  border.

So there’s good news, there’s bad news, there are pictures, and whatever.

Good news is I seem to have fixed my broken blog. I’m home in one piece, and I think I managed to stave off bankruptcy :p

Bad news is kinda myriad (will that word always make me think of the movie Heathers? probably). There was staff upheaval in my absence, and we’re stuck with an astonishing, condescending temp who is so sweet to the Men in Charge that they don’t understand why our jaws are constantly on the floor and our eyebrows at our hairlines. She is either unclear on who her immediate supervisor is (that would be me), or uncomfortable taking instruction (not orders, instruction) from a younger female. Apparently the even younger female who was here while I was away had even more serious issues. It’s always really great when someone new comes in and totally reorganizes someone else’s desk, decides what is the right way to do something, and who she ought to listen to. Never mind actual permanent staff and established procedures.

One more week! please, no more! Unfortunately I don’t seem to have the kind of backup that will allow me to say THANK YOU AND GOODBYE for a morale-boost for the actual admin staff. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.

The worse news is that my Main Distractor had some kind of bureaucratic snafu and will not be arriving permanently as of next week, after all. I heard that in Berlin the night my laptop finally, definitively exploded, and it was quite a blow It’s not forever, of course; Plan B has him arriving in August instead, and he’s committed to coming for my birthday and the Radiohead concert here, that’s set, so I guess we’ll take the next steps as they come. It’s funny, because when I was emailing with Rodrigo before the trip, he exclaimed about the difficulties in getting a work permit: when Rainbirds came, way back when, they had work permits and social insurance numbers as easy as pie. How times change.

I’m happy to be home with my cats and dog, and they seem fairly content to have me back, although Choobie obviously wishes he could have me AND go swimming every day. Sorry, Choobs.

OK I will try to get photos to post properly and do the Travelogue now.

Not content with making him sit in the airport at home for an hour, once he manageed to get on a plane in Chicago, about 30 minutes late, United then made the Main Distractor (among, one assumes, others) sit in the airplane for about an hour on the ground.

Gee, I wonder what I can do to make him feel better when he finally, finally gets here?

My Main Distractor is en route to me. Waiting at his home airport, scheduled to depart at 14:05 local. The time is now 14:43 local, and he’s still on the ground…he may have boarded though.

The kicker is that his airport’s flight tracker lists the departure time as 14:05 local, albeit still on the ground, and the airline’s flight tracker still has an estimated departure time of 14:05, and an estimated arrival time 9 minutes before scheduled arrival. I’m pretty confident that since he’s taking off approximately 40 minutes late, he ain’t gonna arrive early.

Good thing you have that two-hour layover at ORD, babe.

By Amanda, who is among my coolest friends: she is a published photographer and really knows how to work teh bokeh

Five things on my to-do list today: Not sure if I have five, really, for today…if I did, I’ve already failed at one as the first item would have been get to work by 8:30 so I can leave at a reasonable hour. But I wasn’t too much later than that, so yay me! OK, well, here, then:

1. Get to work on time
2. Check bank balance and see if the Berlin hotel charge has gone through yet
3. Call Shaw to see why my bundle has unbundled itself and I’m getting two bills
4. Vacuum! I really should have done this on the weekend
5. Write Rodrigo again to firm up plans for Berlin

Snacks I enjoy: might be easier to describe snacks I don’t enjoy. Um. I’ve been craving salt in the most cravy way; chips, chips, and more chips, please. Salt and vinegar, sour cream and onion, tortilla chips. Popcorn (!). I like chocolate, I like gummies, I like licorice (red, thanks). I like cookies, but not so much of late, although I could get behind some of those Voortman peanut ones I used to get. Pocky! Triscuits. Edamame. Like that.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire: oh good lord. Well, I’d stimulate the economy. Probably several economies. I’d definitely pay off some friends’ and family’s mortgages. Overpay dreadfully for some Vancouver land and then build myself a really cool “green” house. Travel around to see all my friends all over…preferably in Amanda’s carbon-neutral jet! Fund some worthy charities, the ones I already give to–I could give them enough to make a real difference, which would be pretty cool. Only have roots in my hair if I wanted them there. Fund a couple of restaurants for a couple of cool friends if they wanted them. Drink some fabulous wine and eat some fabulous meals with my fabulous friends. Let my Main Distractor be unemployed, if he cared to be.

Places I have lived: Vancouver, New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, Philadelphia, New Jersey (sshhh), Bowen Island, Vancouver.

People I want to know more about: Well…who is reading this blog? tell me more! Comment, yo!

I have two pieces of good news!

1. My Main Distractor is coming to visit in TWO WEEKS! Wheee!

2. I feared I would not fit my gorgeous red linen dress these days, but in fact I’m a bit slimmer than the last time I wore it, even! Double-wheee!

Aside from that…my Europe trip is in just over three weeks, hmm, time to email Rodrigo again; and if you hadn’t heard, Obama won the nomination.

I guess that’s about it. Isn’t it enough?

I’ve been remiss. Soz.

Since I wrote last, there’s been a minor flea invasion (possibly, and in addition to spiders; I never met a flea that I was as allergic to as some of these bites; as well, there are the mosquitoes at the park. Why am I so irresistible to all these creatures?). The animals have all been redosed with their Advantage, and now just waiting for the insects to fuck off. It’s HOT out and I can’t wear shorts as I can’t shave my legs while they’re all bitten like this, unless I want a bloodbath.

What else? I had a hard and fast flu that knocked me on my ass for three days. I had a doctor’s appointment that reminded me how old I am (OH BOY MAMMOGRAM), and made some more calculations and preparations for my Europe trip. I really wish I could skip a haircut but that’s not possible.

At some point, possibly last weekend, I got the new Portishead album, Third, off iTunes. I’m not a huge Portishead fan…don’t hate ‘em, don’t love ‘em, liked what I’d heard well enough but was never motivated enough to get an album. This one, though, was getting such rapturous responses from so many of my tastemakers that I took the plunge. It’s whacked me over the head in a huge way, and I can’t recommend it enough. I don’t know whether it’s that good, or if it’s just fitting a particular niche in my head right now. Anyway c’est le saveur du mois.

Waiting, toes tapping impatiently, for my Main Distractor’s arrival, fingers and all other appendages crossed that he will easily attain his visa. It should be a case of rubber stamping, but as someone who’s crossed the 49th a few times, you just never can tell. We’re trying to find some good advice and info. There’s some out there, but there’s also a lot of utter shit! Some site with a very authoritative tone about Canada, mentioned that pastries and baked goods are available in large cities, but are very expensive. Um. OK. You definitely need that (incorrect, IMO) opinion in order to decide whether or not to emigrate to Canada. There are also hundreds of sites on the web that are just, I guess, link-farms. No content whatsoever, just a page of links and some kind of payment-per-click arrangement I suppose. People make money off this? I’m sure this is old hat to everyone else in the world, but I don’t normally surf aimlessly, I usually know where I’m going, and don’t tend to end up on these kinds of sites. I can’t imagine a) who creates these useless sites, and b) who clicks these useless links. What pride of ownership can there be, “Yeah, I am a webpreneur, I have a hundred link farms where idiots click through and I earn a few pennies each time!” Hey, I wanna be just like you!

It’s the junk mail of the internet, the paid programming, the wasted fucking bandwidth. It’s disheartening. As my man says, People are broken. This isn’t even that bad, but I don’t see the point. I like utility, and I like frivolity. This is neither, just wasted space on a server somewhere.

But anyway. Still alive!

When I look at the shocking state of my bank account and such, I am shocked. And then I look at my concert list for the month of July, and I understand why. It’s still pretty breathtaking though.

Supposedly Telus is repaying me for a whack of services that I’d prepaid and then cancelled, so that will help a little. IF it shows up at a useful time. As well as the lower telecom bill from Shaw for the duration of the promos (another two months?).

I, of course, can resist anything but a presale, and I’m really really psyched to see two shows that I got tickets for this week: Nine Inch Nails, whom I’ve never managed to get to…I really wanted to see Glass Spider, all the way back then, but the timing didn’t work out.  And now the general idea is to go to this show with the Main Distractor, who is a big fan. I’ve been advised to wear earplugs, and since we have floor tickets, I think I will try to remember to do that. The other show is not till September: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I don’t know all that much of his stuff, but what I know I like. That’s another one that the Main Distractor was all over though. And that’s another chance you have to grab when it presents itself. And thank God it didn’t involve a $160 ticket like Tom Waits did. :p There may yet be a Nick Cave show scheduled for Vancouver, in which case I’d probably try to get tickets for that and sell the Seattle ones on Craigslist or something, save the gas and the border lineup etc., but I wasn’t going to chance it.

Luckily, I like ramen.

Still kinda sleep-deprived. But had a nice, if brief, visit with my Main Distractor.

Also some overwhelming sadness, with the loss of a dear friend’s child, who was taken from us all too soon.

Because of this, feeling happy feels insensitive in a way, but I can’t help it: we have a tentative ETA of August 1, not counting intermediate visits. I can scarcely contain myself.

Oh and he won’t have to travel here to see Radiohead in August, and we’re going to see Nick Cave in Seattle in September