Post vacation

We returned from Cuba in the wee hours of Sunday morning, not at all tanned, very much exhausted, and desperately missing Miss Baby, who grew 2 new teeth in our absence in addition to nurturing a hacking and sneezing and green-goo sniveling daycare-related head cold, lavished many kisses on her Auntie S. and was apparently unpleasantly startled to see her very own parents at 7am. (She seems since to have reconciled herself to the removal of said aunt and the reinstallation of The Mama and The Dada).

I have a head full of stories and was oft heard exclaiming to Pynchon on the beach: "Must blog about this!" and "Must blog about that" and "I wonder what all my bloggy friends are up to?" Odd then, that I've been completely blogstipated since returning to Canada! There's just too much to say, I guess, too much reading to catch up on, too many conversational strands to rethread, and too much distance between my last post and this.

So as a post, this isn't what I imagined writing--but you've got to get back on that horse somehow, right? I'm slowly getting back to read all of your blogs (heavens and saints above, but did I come back to a daunting backlog of work at the university!) ...

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Tonight was my Mother's Day present--an evening at a reading by Linda McQuaig and Heather Mallick. It's what I asked for. I'm ridiculously fond of Heather Mallick, and always turned to her column (page 2 of the Focus section!) first in my Saturday Globe and Mail. Before she quit, and I was heartbroken. Read her at CBC now--get hooked, too.

I've long cherished dreams of being best friends with Mallick, and I was so excited to get to hear her read and to meet her. She did not disappoint, reading a funny and impassioned defense of taxation: taxes bring civilization, she reminds us, and what's not to love about civilization! Who wants to build their own sewers? I concocted a suitably fawning and hopefully witty question for the Q+A afterward and then quickly purchased her book to join the autograph line up.

It's ridiculous how star struck I am by people I admire. I'm sure I made a right fool of myself--when I recounted our meeting to Pynchon, he laughed and patted my head while shaking his. Not a good sign. I did possibly paint myself in stalkerish colours when I told her I have a rich fantasy life in which she and I go out for coffee and make fun of Leah McLaren. I imagined she would sign my book, and find my chitchat so enticing that we would exchange phone numbers, inscribe each others' birthdays in our day planners, and become BFF.

This (you are likely unsurprised) did not happen. Something equally surprising, however, did. I mentioned (since she has an English MA) that I am an English professor. Her eyes lit up with admiration and ... not envy, because she seems happy and there was no malice ... desire?

"Oh!" (she exclaimed) "What a wonderful thing! To read books and books and books! Oh, I miss classrooms and studying."

And she's absolutely right. I can't believe that someone I admire so much could look at me quite that way, impressed and desirous, about my job.

Of course, now that we are on our way to becoming BFF, it would be impolite of me to tell you that she does, indeed, find Leah as helplessly self-involved and irritating as I do. No, I wouldn't tell you that.