(no subject)
Insane. That’s my life lately, summed up into one word. Insane. And the only way I can even begin to try and recount recent events is to go backwords - my memory won’t work any other way.
I am currently lounging in my room at the Island Shangri-La in Hong Kong, after a twenty-hour flight across the Pacific, with a stop in Anchorage for refuelling. If you want to read about my hotel room, and keep up with my trip adventures, then I suggest you check out the blog that I have set up for the summer at http://www.davidatkinson.ca/shangriladeeda. If things go my way there will be frequent updates by myself, Meusel, and even Angela our singer. I’ll be putting all my pictures up there too. If you are all too lazy to check it all the time, then may I suggest that you subscribe to the RSS feed via livejournal so that my updates will hit your friends page. But all this is a digression, this entry is supposed to deal with the events leading up to now.
Thursday was an unbelievably stressful and complicated day. I took a bus from Ottawa in the morning and arrived in T-dot at 2:30, giving me about six hours until I had to be at the airport to accomplish everything. My first setback greeted me as soon as I got home: I had given my key to Siobhan in case somebody decided to sublet my room while I was gone, and so I made sure that the spare key was in our secret hiding-place in the backyard. But when I went to retrieve the key to get in on Thursday, it was gone. I had to hide all my luggage and take the subway out to where Siobhan works to borrow her keys. What a pain. And what a waste of an hour. Then I whipped out to ESA to return some CDs that I had borrowed from Bryan, the Reuben Cherry drummer, where we discussed the impending demise of the band. I shouldn’t say much here, but the situation is rather serious and where things stand now it is not unlikely that the album (which I contributed hours and hours of my fucking time to) will be shelved. Then on my way back home I went to Shopper’s and picked up my traveller’s meds, and a bunch of other drug-store-type items for my trip, (including the new Colgate 360˚ toothbrush, which is way high-tech and sweet,) and my newly-hemmed suit pants. Then I got home, dumped all the stuff, and went to Steve’s.
Ah yes, Steve’s. I needed to rent a hard keyboard case so that I could take my Electro away with me for practicing (and for, just in case, recording the remnants of the RC album.) However I failed to overlook that Steve’s requires that you have a credit card in your name before you can rent something. This is something I do not have. I was somewhat prepared for this, in that I had my mom’s credit card number written down along with her cell phone number for verification, but the guy at the rental department would have none of it. I explained to him my situation and, unable to do anything else, he advised that I go over to the main store and ask to speak to a main manager, if there was one still there.
So I get to the main store and I’m lucky that one of the main managers is still there. They call him and he says he’ll be down in a minute, but doesn’t show for another half hour. He was in a meeting apparently. Anyways, so I introduce myself and explain my little crisis. (“I’m catching a plane to Hong Kong this evening for a summer-long gig...” is a great way to start any story.) He is a very understanding guy and he calls my mom himself and writes down a bunch of numbers and codes (including her visa no.) and then he phones the rental department to inform them that he is authorizing a special kind of rental arrangement. After saying thanks who knows how many times and shaking his hand gratefully, (“I will be a frequent customer when I get back, I promise”) I run back to the rental store to fill out the remaining paper work, grab the case, and then hop on the streetcar to get back home. All in all the whole thing took two hours and I was then left just half an hour to finish packing. Wow, that was stressful. To treat myself (and relieve mself) I had a magic brownie (courtesy of Dan Corbett) before going through security at the airport, and then I went on to discover the joys of the airport bar.
*hits rewind again and presses play*
So yeah, I was in Ottawa from Sunday night till Thursday morning. First of all I’m sorry to anybody (namely Heather) who I didn’t manage to see while I was in town. There was a lot to do, and I had to be very thoughtful with the way I spent my time. So, Sunday night I just sat around having some beer with my mom and Susanna and Aaron. (My sis and her bf, who is way cool.) Monday I went over to Sue’s new apartment, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with someone very cool, and somewhat anonymous. (Alright, I’ll play your let’s-make-awkward-situations-game.) That evening the whole family came over and we celebrated Sue’s, Jeremy’s (my bro-in-law) and Evan’s (my newphew) birthdays. Deep down I was a little iffed that my birthday was left out of the loop since it will pass while I am away, but they proposed a toast to me and to my trip, so I guess it’s all ok. Later that night I went to Hogs Back to burn one with Fraser and Barber, after their midnight shift at CD warehouse commemorating the released of the Tool and Pearl Jam albums. I’ll miss those guys. (If you’re reading this, I’ll miss you guys.)
Tuesday was a great day - I went over to my other sister’s place in the morning and after that went over to my old piano teacher’s house. Gabor was very pleased to see me, and we spent over an hour just talking and catching up. (His first words upon seeing me: “So, is that what a jazz musician is supposed to look like?”) Then after that I got... a fucking speeding ticket. This one wasn’t so bad, and the cop marked it way down for me so that I couldn’t get any demerit points. What a dude. When he came back from the car with my ticket he asked me with a grin on his face: “So, David, how is the marijuana going?” And that was that. The rest of Tuesday was splendidly spent with that previously-mentioned anonymous wonder. There was movies, there was dinner, there was much fun, and it was a late night. *is happy*
Then Wednesday I went to the bank to open an RRSP (a milestone achievement in my quest of being responsible... wait, whaddya mean $25 a month?) and then after that I went to Cora’s and enjoyed breakfast with Michelle and Shannon. Following that I picked up Fraser and we hung out for a few hours. Then my mom and I went out and she bought me a super-nice suitcase for my birthday, and then I did my tax return, and then had pizza with mom and Sue, and then Laura came over and we chilled, and then I went to Sue’s apartment to chill with her and Aaron, and then I spent the whole night packing. (Or talking to mystery-person.) At 4:20am I went out on my roof and smoked my last joint of the summer. I got high, which is what I was going for. Sweeet.
*rewinds some more*
Saturday was another crazy trip-prep day. The highlight was buying my $300 suit. Probably the nicest suit I could ever buy with the money that I did (not) have at the time. I wore it that night for the masquerade ball gig that I had, which was pretty cool. That night I stayed up all night trying to clean out of my room, which I needed to vacate completely in the event that I found someone to sublet to. Of course, as of now, there is nobody in my room and so I am $500 in the hole, and counting. Having said that, anybody need a place to stay?
The previous day, Friday, was the last day of school. My exam went fairly well, as did my jury, and I was awarded the piano award (first or second year) at the awards ceremony, so the day actually went pretty well. Also, against my good judgement I decided to go to the end-of-year party. This wasn’t until after I had gotten drunk off the wine at the reception at school, so that when I got there I couldn’t drink any wine I had bought for myself. Actually, I set a new throwing-up record for myself by puking before I even got to the party. That was definitely a first.
I’m not going to go into too much detail of the next week (going backwards) suffice to say that I was out every night past midnight doing either a gig, a recording session or a rehearsal, and that I had exams, performances, many juries and trip prep to worry about. I almost went a little crazy, and had momentary lapses of sanity during that time.
But all that is over. One of the most stressful weeks of my life, (an annual occurance,) but it has all finally ended, and now I’m living in one of the world’s finest hotels in a utopian city-state.
I miss all of you already, so make sure you send me lots of e-mails.
Out for now.
Again, a reminder: http://www.davidatkinson.ca/shangriladeeda
I am currently lounging in my room at the Island Shangri-La in Hong Kong, after a twenty-hour flight across the Pacific, with a stop in Anchorage for refuelling. If you want to read about my hotel room, and keep up with my trip adventures, then I suggest you check out the blog that I have set up for the summer at http://www.davidatkinson.ca/shangriladeeda. If things go my way there will be frequent updates by myself, Meusel, and even Angela our singer. I’ll be putting all my pictures up there too. If you are all too lazy to check it all the time, then may I suggest that you subscribe to the RSS feed via livejournal so that my updates will hit your friends page. But all this is a digression, this entry is supposed to deal with the events leading up to now.
Thursday was an unbelievably stressful and complicated day. I took a bus from Ottawa in the morning and arrived in T-dot at 2:30, giving me about six hours until I had to be at the airport to accomplish everything. My first setback greeted me as soon as I got home: I had given my key to Siobhan in case somebody decided to sublet my room while I was gone, and so I made sure that the spare key was in our secret hiding-place in the backyard. But when I went to retrieve the key to get in on Thursday, it was gone. I had to hide all my luggage and take the subway out to where Siobhan works to borrow her keys. What a pain. And what a waste of an hour. Then I whipped out to ESA to return some CDs that I had borrowed from Bryan, the Reuben Cherry drummer, where we discussed the impending demise of the band. I shouldn’t say much here, but the situation is rather serious and where things stand now it is not unlikely that the album (which I contributed hours and hours of my fucking time to) will be shelved. Then on my way back home I went to Shopper’s and picked up my traveller’s meds, and a bunch of other drug-store-type items for my trip, (including the new Colgate 360˚ toothbrush, which is way high-tech and sweet,) and my newly-hemmed suit pants. Then I got home, dumped all the stuff, and went to Steve’s.
Ah yes, Steve’s. I needed to rent a hard keyboard case so that I could take my Electro away with me for practicing (and for, just in case, recording the remnants of the RC album.) However I failed to overlook that Steve’s requires that you have a credit card in your name before you can rent something. This is something I do not have. I was somewhat prepared for this, in that I had my mom’s credit card number written down along with her cell phone number for verification, but the guy at the rental department would have none of it. I explained to him my situation and, unable to do anything else, he advised that I go over to the main store and ask to speak to a main manager, if there was one still there.
So I get to the main store and I’m lucky that one of the main managers is still there. They call him and he says he’ll be down in a minute, but doesn’t show for another half hour. He was in a meeting apparently. Anyways, so I introduce myself and explain my little crisis. (“I’m catching a plane to Hong Kong this evening for a summer-long gig...” is a great way to start any story.) He is a very understanding guy and he calls my mom himself and writes down a bunch of numbers and codes (including her visa no.) and then he phones the rental department to inform them that he is authorizing a special kind of rental arrangement. After saying thanks who knows how many times and shaking his hand gratefully, (“I will be a frequent customer when I get back, I promise”) I run back to the rental store to fill out the remaining paper work, grab the case, and then hop on the streetcar to get back home. All in all the whole thing took two hours and I was then left just half an hour to finish packing. Wow, that was stressful. To treat myself (and relieve mself) I had a magic brownie (courtesy of Dan Corbett) before going through security at the airport, and then I went on to discover the joys of the airport bar.
*hits rewind again and presses play*
So yeah, I was in Ottawa from Sunday night till Thursday morning. First of all I’m sorry to anybody (namely Heather) who I didn’t manage to see while I was in town. There was a lot to do, and I had to be very thoughtful with the way I spent my time. So, Sunday night I just sat around having some beer with my mom and Susanna and Aaron. (My sis and her bf, who is way cool.) Monday I went over to Sue’s new apartment, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with someone very cool, and somewhat anonymous. (Alright, I’ll play your let’s-make-awkward-situations-game.) That evening the whole family came over and we celebrated Sue’s, Jeremy’s (my bro-in-law) and Evan’s (my newphew) birthdays. Deep down I was a little iffed that my birthday was left out of the loop since it will pass while I am away, but they proposed a toast to me and to my trip, so I guess it’s all ok. Later that night I went to Hogs Back to burn one with Fraser and Barber, after their midnight shift at CD warehouse commemorating the released of the Tool and Pearl Jam albums. I’ll miss those guys. (If you’re reading this, I’ll miss you guys.)
Tuesday was a great day - I went over to my other sister’s place in the morning and after that went over to my old piano teacher’s house. Gabor was very pleased to see me, and we spent over an hour just talking and catching up. (His first words upon seeing me: “So, is that what a jazz musician is supposed to look like?”) Then after that I got... a fucking speeding ticket. This one wasn’t so bad, and the cop marked it way down for me so that I couldn’t get any demerit points. What a dude. When he came back from the car with my ticket he asked me with a grin on his face: “So, David, how is the marijuana going?” And that was that. The rest of Tuesday was splendidly spent with that previously-mentioned anonymous wonder. There was movies, there was dinner, there was much fun, and it was a late night. *is happy*
Then Wednesday I went to the bank to open an RRSP (a milestone achievement in my quest of being responsible... wait, whaddya mean $25 a month?) and then after that I went to Cora’s and enjoyed breakfast with Michelle and Shannon. Following that I picked up Fraser and we hung out for a few hours. Then my mom and I went out and she bought me a super-nice suitcase for my birthday, and then I did my tax return, and then had pizza with mom and Sue, and then Laura came over and we chilled, and then I went to Sue’s apartment to chill with her and Aaron, and then I spent the whole night packing. (Or talking to mystery-person.) At 4:20am I went out on my roof and smoked my last joint of the summer. I got high, which is what I was going for. Sweeet.
*rewinds some more*
Saturday was another crazy trip-prep day. The highlight was buying my $300 suit. Probably the nicest suit I could ever buy with the money that I did (not) have at the time. I wore it that night for the masquerade ball gig that I had, which was pretty cool. That night I stayed up all night trying to clean out of my room, which I needed to vacate completely in the event that I found someone to sublet to. Of course, as of now, there is nobody in my room and so I am $500 in the hole, and counting. Having said that, anybody need a place to stay?
The previous day, Friday, was the last day of school. My exam went fairly well, as did my jury, and I was awarded the piano award (first or second year) at the awards ceremony, so the day actually went pretty well. Also, against my good judgement I decided to go to the end-of-year party. This wasn’t until after I had gotten drunk off the wine at the reception at school, so that when I got there I couldn’t drink any wine I had bought for myself. Actually, I set a new throwing-up record for myself by puking before I even got to the party. That was definitely a first.
I’m not going to go into too much detail of the next week (going backwards) suffice to say that I was out every night past midnight doing either a gig, a recording session or a rehearsal, and that I had exams, performances, many juries and trip prep to worry about. I almost went a little crazy, and had momentary lapses of sanity during that time.
But all that is over. One of the most stressful weeks of my life, (an annual occurance,) but it has all finally ended, and now I’m living in one of the world’s finest hotels in a utopian city-state.
I miss all of you already, so make sure you send me lots of e-mails.
Out for now.
Again, a reminder: http://www.davidatkinson.ca/shangriladeeda