Still Fairly Grumpy

Things are pretty much where they were last week.  My hands still hurt a fair bit: opening heavy doors (and even tight lids) remains a challenge.  I have only been going to the gym once a week, rather than 3 times a week, since I can barely use the machines.  I did go tonight and pushed a bit harder, using more machines, but cutting the weight to half of what I used to do.  Even that may have been a mistake, but I guess I'll know in the morning.  I think I am many months away from being able to do push-ups.  I probably would only have biked another month or so, but I think it is unlikely I will be biking before the spring.

While I am generally healing pretty well, I can't shake this cold, which is so annoying.  It does add to my general run-down feeling and kind of crummy mood.  (Not that day-to-day politics doesn't also add to my general malaise.)

I took a look at the David Milne catalogue (for the show that has opened up at the McMichael).  I decided that I don't truly rate Milne all that highly as a painter.  Certainly nowhere near the level of the Group of Seven (which is sort of the status accorded him at the AGO, though not at the McMichael).  I think there were only 5 or 6 paintings in the catalog that I liked much at all (and one was apparently not even in the exhibit!).  I just can't justify the carbon to go under those circumstances, even though there is a shuttle bus from downtown tomorrow and next Sunday.  I'm also not regretting my decision to skip The Nether at Coal Mine.

I basically need to decide tomorrow if I am going to try to make The Duchess of Malfi reading next Sunday (it may already be sold out*).  I think the next theatre outing after that will either be the Durang shorts at East Side Players or Churchill's Escaped Alone at Soulpepper.  Then I'll try to see Yellowface at Victoria College.  Mid Nov. will bring a concert or two and perhaps Video Cabaret doing a staged reading of Beckett's Happy Days.  While this is not exactly feel-good theatre, I'm still reasonably excited by these offerings.

* It is sold out, and frankly the venue is in a terrible location for me (so I am pleased that when they around to Othello in Feb, it is in a different location).   I've actually seen a full production of The Duchess of Malfi (here in Toronto all the way back in '93!), so I was always a bit on the fence.  I'm definitely more in the mood for a full production, though I'm even more in the mood for a full production of Congreve's The Way of the World or Jonson's Bartholomew Fair or even Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside or his A Mad World, My Masters.