have you read robertson davies? the last two summers i read mostly from his trilogies, and not much else. then i moved onto his letters. i've just started the merry heart, which is a collection of speeches (and essays?). i've read some of the speeches/essays in this book before - i've had the book for at least three years now - but it means so much more to me at this point in my life. it makes more sense, i understand what he's saying more and more. which is funny, because one of the points of the first essay was about age and understanding. every time i read a book i really really like, i wonder how it is that i didn't take up a scholarly, life long study of literature. i feel so terribly jealous when people say they read dickens over and over, and each time discover a new secret from the book. with summer as my only reading time (it's difficult to tackle fiction during the year - i get distracted, i'm always thinking of dentistsry), i lean more toward quantity reading than tortoise-like study of a single or a few works.

ah! nice to be back in london! but i had a great weekend in sars-infested toronto. i happened to see second year vern when i was with my friends downtown...he guessed that my group of 6 hooched-up girls were out for a night of man-hunting, but really it was witherspoon's and rolo's birthdays....the big 2-5!!!! after hmmmm-ing and haw---ing for like EVER about where to eat, we just decided to go to marche. the table beside had a birthday too, and someone brought over a slice of cake and sparkler and the entire movenpick staff sang to them. we assured rolo and witherspoon that we wouldn't do that to them....so stupid, too embarrassing, so chuck-e-cheese. but like stealths in the night, me and bash left the table ("jeez, man, do i gotta pee"), got two cakes, coerced the staff into singing again, returned to the table ("uh, peunice, now is not the time to go to the bathroom") and then gave those two the same stupid, embarrassing birthday treatment...heeheeheeeee!!!!! then we went to the bier market for yummy raspberry beer, where witherspoon pointed out to me, throughout the night, the causian girls over 26 and the asian girls over 28 who had irrevocably, irreversibly gained weight - she has a theory about the "it's all down hill from here" age. when i saw vern back in london today, i was telling him about where we went...i told him that we went to the G spot night club, and he thought i said CHEESE SPOT night club. CAN YOU IMAGINE??!!! going to a club called CHEESE spot. sigh.....oh boy that was funny ahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

i had such a hard time bending over or opening doors...i've realized just how many muscles it takes to do the most mundane tasks. went for a bit of driving range yesterday and i'm paying for it today with all-over body aching pain. anyway, i just made lunch for barry and laurie and tom et al. (we have taken to making lunches for each other) for tomorrow, but it tastes a little....bland. or funny. i can't tell which. it's cause i had to make a bigger batch and now the proportions are all wrong. oh well. there's cookies, and that should mask any ill taste....