Tomorrow will be a busy day, and I don't blog much on the weekends anyway, so I have to tell you how old I feel right now.

Eighteen years ago tomorrow, I won the regional competition that would send me to the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee.  Now it's just Scripps, I wonder what happened to Howard.

At thirteen, I had short hair, and though I'd already had my braces removed, I still felt very awkward - I was boyish from the neck up, but all woman from the neck down.  But in the photo they published in my sponsoring paper, there was no mistaking that I was happy.  I'd finally found the competition in which I could excel.  No sport, and really nothing else up to that point (I found lots more later, drama, writing, public speaking, but I was only in eighth grade), offered me the chance to win.  And here I was, heading to Washington.

It was pretty damn cool.

But oh my goodness, eighteen years ago?

What's going on?

So my brother and his band are featured in the Boston Globe today, the Herald tomorrow.  That's very cool.  Joey blogged it too.  Sadly, the band came together while I was insane planning the wedding and the move to Toronto, so I haven't seen them play.  We're all hoping one of our trips to Boston coincides with a show.  One day they've got to play up here.

Speaking of celebrity, I'm putting together my personal top 10 for Top 10 Sources.  It's hard!  I really want to pick the ten best of the ones I read, but what's the best for me is not necessarily the best for someone else.  Maybe the writing isn't stellar but the stories crack me up.  I guess that's why it's my personal top 10, hee.  I'm almost there, I think I have eight selected.

Maria came over for dinner last night - she took some photos of the garlicky things we ate for Garlicster.  We had a great time finishing the cooking and then enjoying the results.  And she borrowed the shoes I commented about!

Currently I am making chicken soup - stock really - for a Passover-ish dinner we're going to this weekend.  The house smells oniony - or maybe that's just my hands.  I'm so gourmet and stuff.

Anyway, gotta get back to work picking the last of my ten and various other things.  I saw a perfect job opening this morning, but it's at a hospital, and I despise hospitals unless a) I need help, or b) I am visiting a new baby.  Hmmmmmm.  I'll probably apply.

So, now that I'm a Canadian resident, I'm catching up on my Margaret Atwood.

I'd already read a couple; The Handmaid's Tale is practically vampire-garlic for me.  'Keep your laws off my body' style - Handmaid's Tale is coming true etc etc. you Republican freakshow regime.

But I haven't read them all.  And that's the new plan.

Two in a row, however, has proved to be a lot.  I read Bluebeard's Egg and Life Before Man in the last, say, five days (I read fast).  I am a little bit saturated.  I know what too many different women think about sex; I know the weaknesses of too many men.  Too many outfits of the last couple of generations have been described to me.  And I have spent a lot of time mentally mapping (or attempting to map) where things in the stories take place.

Ms. Atwood, if by chance you read blogs, I think you do beautiful work, don't get me wrong.  I just need a break.  One suggestion though - I would have loved to know how Lesje was pronounced prior to finishing the book and reading the acknowledgements.  Don't you, when you read, hear the words aloud in your head?

As much as I am loving my new friends in Toronto - and really some of them are not so new anymore! - I am prone to loneliness these days.  I've been a pretty bad correspondent with my Boston friends, and I feel rotten about it, but I find I have nothing I want to say because I'm in a period of transition - have been for ages, and can't seem to figure out what is news and what is not.

So I've been reaching out to people for whom the events of the last several years are news, some college friends I'd been out of touch with for awhile.

I am completely bursting with joy over this.  Two women in particular (I only went to college with women) have just come back into my life and made me feel so much more grounded, even though both of them are far from here.  And far from Boston, for that matter.

I wish I'd done it sooner, but thank goodness I'm doing it now.

Well, not really.

Last night we stayed later than we'd planned at karaoke, and adding that to Daylight Savings Time, well, I slept slightly later than usual.  Really only slightly, perhaps 45 minutes.  But the morning has flown away.  I'm down to half-time at my job, and I've used up almost all the time I've allotted to that for today, and I have a bunch more things to do, plus a conference call (which is actually a meatspace meeting in Cambridge - I just call in) tonight.  Oy.  This is going to be a difficult transition.

At least I was able to please Patrick and Mo with their favorite song of my repertoire.  Mo claimed to be aglow afterwards.  Hee.

I still haven't written about MTV; I should, I really should, it was a lot of fun and I was a complete dork and didn't even mind.  Oddly, one of the hosts of the afternoon shows was at the Rivoli last night.  Too bad I can't use MTV Canada's website from a Mac.  They really need to fix that.

I have two words for you.  And those who know will understand.

Jordan Catalano.