I think I mentioned that I just gave up on trying to submit a piece to the Toronto Star short story contest. I do have a decent idea and it was written out, but I just couldn't find the time to type it out. (I definitely should take a week off and just type up all the other material I have written in long-hang before I completely forget what I was trying to write out. My hand-writing is pretty hard to decipher, even for me...)
Anyway, as I mentioned a couple of times, my old computer went down, and I really needed that to some some specialized computing to finish up this paper. I really should have spent the evenings working on it, but mostly I spent the time on work work unfortunately. So I ended up backed into a corner and the one week extension I had came and went, and I said I would try to wrap it up and turn it in over the weekend.
On Friday, I did manage to get the estimation software working, and I also figured out how to get Stata to produce weighted cross-tabs. This is something that is a breeze in SPSS, though I used to have to do this from home, since I can't get my employer to install SPSS. I did work from home on Friday. Now in an ideal world, where I wasn't being pressed so much on the work front, I probably would have gone to see Gary Smulyan playing on Thurs., and then run over to the Revue to see Wenders's The American Friend on Friday. Instead, I ended up staying until the last minute and then went to see Smulyan on Friday instead. It was a good show. I wrote out a lot of notes for the paper, though I have to admit, this was more useful for getting my thoughts together, and I didn't really use most of them in the final draft.
Sat. I went to the gym reasonably early, then took my daughter over to this bakery where she will be volunteering next week. Her mother took her home, and I went over to Woodbine Beach. I want to check out the Winter Stations exhibit. I seem to manage to get to it every other year, and I was reasonably determined to go this year. The pieces aren't really what one would call great art, but they are somewhat playful, and the best of them allow for children to clamber all over them.
It was pretty chilly, and I had to make a big loop to get back to Beach Cinema. I had checked a couple of times, and Mickey 17 was playing at 3:30. However, when I got there at 3:27, someone had changed the schedule, and it was now scheduled to play at 3:10! Even with the 10 minutes of trailers, I would be coming in a few minutes into the film, so I just turned around and left. This happened to me before, spoiling one of the very last times I could convince my daughter to let me take her to the movies (I think it was the Wreck It Ralph sequel where they had switched the times of the regular and 3-D versions of the film). I'm generally a pretty unforgiving guy, and this will probably be the very last time I attempt to see a movie at Beach Cinema. I swung by the Jones Library on the way back, and then mostly just crashed, between disappointment and general exhaustion. I had debated going back out to see Smulyan a second time, or maybe to see if I could catch an evening show of Mickey 17. In the end, I didn't really do much, aside from get some rest and run a few last cross tabs of the data. I should have pushed myself to write more of the paper, but I just didn't.
On Sunday, I biked over to Jimmie Simpson to swim. Then I picked up a few groceries. Then I worked on the paper pretty much straight though until 6 pm. I then ran over to the Revue to see Guy Maddin's My Winnepeg. Transit was not cooperative, and I ended up showing up 5 minutes late, just as the final previews were showing. (This is getting a bit old...) It was an interesting film, mixing true stories about Winnepeg history with his own family history. It was certainly quirky. I took the King streetcar (and actually was able to get a bit more of the paper drafted on the way). I ended up stopping in at the office, and just powered through. I ended up turning in a really rough draft after 1 am. In fact, I found out (at the last minute) that I had formatted the paper incorrectly, so I tried to get that in shape, which took maybe another 30 minutes. It's far from my best work, but it's not too shabby for a paper written in a day and a half, and the main thing is it keeps me on the program for this conference in Ottawa in May, and it sets me up to work with these professors on turning this into a proper paper.
I finally left the office around 2 am. Fortunately, the streetcars were still running, and I just managed to catch a Kingston car, which dropped me off at Queen and Carlaw. Unfortunately, the night bus wasn't scheduled to stop by for 25 minutes, so I had to walk home. My mood was not helped by the fact that it actually snowed, and of course I hadn't thought to wear books.
I worked from home on Monday, though I should have take more time off. I ended up going over to Paradise after all. And I left enough time this time that I was able to drop in at African Palace for Ethiopian food. I was there to see Fellini's La Strada. Wow, that was a depressing film... I don't exactly regret watching it, but I can't really envision watching it again.
I generally am not taking transit much these days, but, when I do, I am slowly making my way through Soseki's I am a Cat. I brought this on the trip up to Ottawa and managed to get 300 pages into it (which is definitely better than my progress on a few other long trips). I only just recently hit page 400, and there are 200 pages more to go! I have to admit, this isn't really grabbing me, so I am trying to read it gently, and I will take it over to Seekers Bookstore after I finish reading it.
I think for the last few chapters, I will alternate a relatively short book and then a "cat" chapter. I think it will likely be Gide's Lafcadio's Adventures, perhaps Dawn Powell's story collection Sunday, Monday and Always and then Joy Williams's State of Grace. That might provide a bit of variety while still clearing out a few more books. I think after this will be Lampedusa's The Leopard and then maybe Dorothy Edward's Winter Sonata (or I could reverse them while winter is still fresh in memory).
It's going to be another overstuffed week, but I am going to try not to do quite so much over the weekend.