The Regular

To continue with the "bad week for animals" theme we've got going on over on Some Street, I present to you my fish tank.

You may not be able to tell it's a fish tank, but I promise you, there is a 30-gallon fish tank under that white black-out material, a 30-gallon fish tank in which various forms of algae are dying a slow death, seeing as how they are being starved of light.

David Scrimshaw, you should know that the material is clipped together in the back with binder clips.

The hope is that when I remove the cover after 7 days, all of the algae will be dead. The plants might be too, but they're not very nice plants right now, seeing as how they are mostly dying under algae and I need to get some new ones - along with more substrate and fertilizer - to make the tank nicer.

Don't worry about the fish though. They probably don't love the dark and the no-food, but it doesn't seem to hurt them any.

I have no graceful segue.

You know what I hate? That's right, Pilates. Five classes in, and it is just not for me. It makes me feel bad about my body, bad bad terrible bad. And it feels ridiculous. I don't know why it feels more ridiculous than yoga, since it's quite similar in many ways. But there you go.

I get frustrated with my body sometimes in yoga, like how did I get cursed with these hamstrings, and why is it so easy for that person to sit on the floor with their legs spread and bend over. But even through those moments, or classes, it still feels like I'm learning something, like I might be inflexible and look ridiculous, but like I am getting better - at focussing my gaze, at learning how my muscles work, at learning how to test my limits without overstepping them, at forgiving myself when I fuck up. I don't, however, ever remember a time when I spent most of a class thinking "This is stupid."

Hoo. Apparently I was a little blocked about that.

The rest of the day was quite nice. Walked Shelley to work, got all my grocery shopping done, worked out in the garage while Steve hit the heavy bag. This all took much longer than I expected it to, which meant I was fairly running to get to Harold's launch on time.

The launch was short, but much fun. Harold picked good excerpts to read, though they could have been longer, I got to chat with him a wee bit, got to chat with Ian Roy a bit longer, and Brendan too, about the writing mentorship program he's started doing and how everyone in it complains about writer's block.

Good to know I'm not the only one putting it out there.

Over dinner, at Ann's place around the corner, lemongrass beef and some kind of delicious shrimp, I read the first third of Harold's book. He mentions places I grew up in or around. I love that. The places I grew up in and around rarely make it into books.

Now I'm home, macaroons setting in the fridge, an hour or two more of my evening in front of me. Writing? Maybe. Fucking around on the internet? Most probably.

All in all, a pretty regular winter Saturday night here in the Front House. M-C is in bed, probably already asleep, and I am forgoing both of the two musicky things I could be doing right now in favour of sitting on my couch with a finger of Laphroig and typing away.

Steve might call to do something later, but I most definitely might already be asleep.