Gordon’s Highly Irregular Ramblings

(I’m writing this entry on the plane from Vancouver to Toronto on my way to see Karla. )

For some reason, I find being on an aircraft makes me very introspective — and very much inclined to post my introspections on LiveJournal when I land. Maybe it’s a desire to find something to do to kill the time, maybe it’s something in the recirculated air in the cabin… *shrug* All I know is, while I don’t think I’ll post as much as I did back in December, I do have some thoughts to share.

I’m coming up now on three years since I withdrew from classes at U of T, and I’m not sure if I’m really any closer to returning now than I was three years ago. My financial situation has improved greatly — I’m supporting myself through my employment and slowly paying back the bit of student loan debt that I incurred during my last couple years at U of T — and even my mental health has seen some improvement, but that’s mostly been in the realm of dealing with the anxiety and all its effects. The ADD-related problems are more or less as they were three years ago; I’m simply in a position now where they don’t matter as much.

Basically, I’m really starting to think that my talk three years ago about “when I return to U of T” should rather have been “if”. Because I’m thinking more and more these days that it’s not going to happen.

Now, as I said, my current situation is stable and fairly sustainable, at least for the short- to medium-term. However, when I start thinking long-term, my prospects start getting more depressing. I mean, I can easily support myself on the income I can make from my job at Save-On — I mean, it’s nothing glamourous, but I’m getting paid $11.85/hr (as of a week ago — yay for raises!) as a glorified box-cutter, and I’m not even anywhere near top rate yet! But what seems more than adequate to support a single person becomes a pittance when you start thinking about having to support a family. (If I stick around long enough, I’ll eventually have enough seniority to get a full-time position, which pays much better and has much more consistent shift times. But realistically, this will probably be another five years or so — and that’s assuming that there aren’t major concessions in this regard in the 2013 CBA.)

There is also the possibility of my becoming a senior clerkAssistant Operations Manager there, which means even less consistent hours but also means a very substantial pay raise. As it is, I’m being trained as a senior clerk — and by “trained”, I mostly mean, “being scheduled to work as a senior clerk so as to give some extra flexibility on the management schedule”, but they are at least actually giving me the senior clerk premium from the CBA for most of my shifts, so that’s nice. However, my stress level is also increasing greatly, partly because of how much energy is involved in the senior clerk’s rôle, and partly because of the fact that I’m still not really comfortable with the rôle. There’s a real adjustment to be made between being a general clerk and being key personnel, and I’m not sure that I’m making it successfully, or even that I will make it successfully in the end.

And that’s ignoring the fact that, if Karla and I have any sort of future together, then barring a PRC takeover or something, it will be in Taiwan. The problem is: what do I then do there? What is there to do for a (by that point) thirty-year-old university drop-out without any real job experience outside of several years at a supermarket, and with only a smattering (hopefully by then) of Mandarin? Am I only going to be holding Karla back?

There’s times I actually start to think that I’m doing OK for myself. I mean, I am supporting myself without any real outside assistance, without even a need for any disability accommodations at work. That’s something that some people with problems similar to mine have difficulty with, but I’m managing it. However, when I compare that with where I expected myself to be by now, it’s only with difficulty that I can avoid falling into despair and depression.

(Sorry for going so long on this one… if I get a whole pile of replies saying "tl;dr" I won't be offended. :P )

For the last several months, Karla and I have been discussing the possibility of her coming to Vancouver for most or all of the summer. You see, we’ve never had the opportunity to spend more than two or three weeks in the same city at a time, and this has been a little bit of a concern for us: what if we end up driving each other completely mental when presented with each other’s quirks and foibles in full and vivid life? Now we’ve confirmed it: Karla will be arriving in Vancouver on 28 April, and returning to the US on 12 August.
(Anyone living in Vancouver: Karla’s going to need a place to stay during those months. If you have a summer sublet in Vancouver, or know of someone who will, please let me know.)

So with a start like that, you’d think that yesterday would have been a great day, right?

Wrong.

I was scheduled to work a closing shift yesterday. So I get to work for my 15:30 start, and I learn that we have a massive, MASSIVE order coming in — and Tuesday is one of the worst days for a massive order, since the shipment arrives fairly late. Then the first truck arrives, and one of the skids of freight is very badly built (top-heavy and completely inadequately wrapped), and as I'm trying to get it off the truck, the skid falls over (nearly right on top of me!) and creates a mess that takes four of us about twenty minutes to clean up. Then the second truck arrives, and the store whose stuff was in front of ours had loaded on a whole pile of dunnage and shelving and such to go back to the warehouse, but they'd done it in a completely bone-headed way, and it took me the better part of half an hour to get to our stuff, never mind unload it! Meanwhile we had to deal with a really annoying drunken bum causing trouble, and an employee getting caught stealing… and let’s not forget the massive amount of freight to work. I didn’t actually leave the store until almost 04:00 this morning.

Now for some reason, my body has decided to wake me up now, after not even five hours of sleep. So I’m going to try to get back to bed. (Thanks be that I have a day off today!)

I’m going to Pittsburgh during the second week of February, to attend a friend’s wedding (and to be with my beloved dustthouart on her birthday =^_^= ) — but I’m flying out of Vancouver this time, and I’ll be stopping over in Toronto for a couple days on the way back!

The vital stats:

• Sunday, 8 February depart YVR 07:00, arrive YYZ 14:29, depart YYZ 17:10, arrive PIT 18:32
• Sunday, 15 February depart EWR 21:00, arrive YYZ 22:35
• Tuesday, 17 February depart YYZ 20:20, arrive YVR 22:19

So I’ll be in Toronto Monday and Tuesday, 16–17 February, if anyone there wants to see me… oh, I hope someone does!

1. It’s snowing right now in a way I haven’t seen in Vancouver since my first winter here in 2006. And I never noticed before how the snow piles up on top of the Dashboard weather widget — neat!
2. Is it odd that people mistake me for a woman over the telephone?
   Or that this really bothers me sometimes?
   Or that this makes me think about how I haven’t been able to sing since I left Toronto, and that I miss it terribly?
3. I’m trying to arrange flights to Pittsburgh for a couple events going on in 2009 (namely, the wedding of a couple friends of ours on 14 February, and then Karla’s brother’s wedding on 26 September), but with Air Canada having a seat sale right now, I might not need to fly via Sea-Tac to do it! And I might even be able to stop over in Toronto for a while! So LJ friends in Toronto, keep some time free in there if you want to see me!

I made it! I’m in Pittsburgh, back in the arms of my love! :D

Karla’s actually in classes right now, so I have some time to myself (to sleep! I didn’t get in last night until well after midnight!), but… at last!

Another entry written on the plane from Denver to Pittsburgh. Hey, I need something to do to kill three hours!

If you are under any illusions that a long-distance relationship is easy, dispel them. Rapidly.

I love Karla in ways that I still cannot understand or fathom, and it is my fervent desire to be her husband. But the separation is every day becoming harder to bear. It’s not that I’m contemplating breaking up with her — I’m not. The idea is painful even to think about. But every day that we’re an entire continent (and a national border) apart, and that we have no clue how we’re going to change this situation, brings me closer to breaking down into an uncontrollable torrent of despairing tears.

In a way, I almost feel trapped — not by her, never by her, but rather by the situation. The current situation cannot be borne indefinitely, and yet how do we end it? We’re still desperate to find a solution!

If it were an option, Karla would move up here in a heartbeat. However, given that she’s a full-time student at the University of Pittsburgh, she can’t simply pack up and leave because she feels like it. Unless she were to interrupt her education (not the most prudent idea, to say the least), the soonest she could be up here would be mid-2010. And if it were an option, I would move down there to be with her while she finishes. However, I can’t simply go down there and find a job (at least, not legally), and for financial reasons (some obvious, some not) I can’t afford to be off work for an extended period of time. The only way I could work down there would be to get permanent residence, which basically means Karla and I have to get married now — not prudent at all (we’ve never been able to be in the same place continuously for more than a month, and that only once), but very sorely tempting nonetheless.

It’s so frustrating! I see her hurting, I see her struggling, and I know that she needs me there, supporting her through it, and yet I’m stuck up there! And when I’m in my lowest moments, when I feel as though I’m ready to give up (on my senior clerk training, on getting my life in order, or sometimes even more profoundly), I know that I need her arms around me, her kisses reassuring me that I am loved, but she’s a bloody continent away!

Sorry… that needed to come off my chest. But now, I put it aside — at last, I am going to her side, if only for a time. Race, turbofans! Let the fire of my ardour stoke your own flames, to speed me to my love!

This entry was also written on the plane. It was actually the third I wrote, but I posted it second because it seemed appropriate.

While I was living in Toronto, I was blessed by my contact with the Toronto Oratory, which serves the parishes of Holy Family and St. Vincent de Paul. They had their faults, to be sure, but two things about them strongly appealed to me. First, the Oratory was (and is even more now!) strongly biritual. When I was there, they celebrated a weekly Tridentine Mass early on Sunday morning, in a diocese whose bishop was highly resistant to the indult. And yet at the same time, they also celebrated the Novus Ordo Mass every Sunday in Latin, versus ad orientem, with the full splendour of the Church’s musical tradition on proud display. This basic philosophy behind the liturgy deeply appealed to me.

The second was their general approach to pastoral matters, and particularly their attitude in the confessional. They never took a “soft line” on moral matters: to them, the Church’s teachings were an absolute reality, to be ever more deeply understood and ever more faithfully followed. However, they never succumbed to the temptation, even in the confessional, to lose sight of the sinner in their hatred for the sin. They would challenge, they would exhort, but above all they would encourage you to move forward. For someone who struggles with scrupulosity and despair, they most often knew exactly what to say to turn remorse leading to despair into resolve leading to… if not improvement much of the time, at least the will to keep trying.

(Now, people who are still there may say that things have changed, that some of the things I remember and treasure most about my days at St. Vincent’s are gone, and I believe you. But I’m not talking about the way it is now, but rather the way it was when I was there.)

Now, while I was at St. Vincent’s, I cultivated a deep love for the old liturgy. I was actually blessed with being able to help turn St. Vincent’s’ Tridentine Missa lecta into a Missa cantata. And so when I came to Vancouver, I had hoped that I would be able to establish myself at (what was then) Divine Mercy, the local FSSP apostolate.

I had previously had some bad experiences with the FSSP. My first real contact with them was at their apostolate in Pittsburgh, St. Boniface’s. Despite the beauty and power of the old liturgy, there were numerous things there that deeply bothered me. The first, and most obvious, was how the celebrant spent nearly his entire homily railing against the 1970 Missal, and this mostly based on defects in the 1974 ICEL English translation, not on the original Latin! The second was their insistence on preserving the Confiteor during the communion rite: while I can understand why they might seek to do so, the fact remains that this was lawfully suppressed in the 1962 General rubrics. You can’t pick and choose the parts you want — either use the 1962 and stick with it, or use the 2000 and stick with it! Those are your two options! And third was… just a general sense of self-righteousness, of literally “holier-than-thou-ness” from many of the people who went there. This may not be fair, but from my experience at St. Boniface’s, my first reaction was to say that when the FSSP formed out of the ashes of the SSPX, it didn’t distance itself from the SSPX’s extremism nearly enough. Edit: Son of Edit: It has since been pointed out to me that St. Boniface’s is under the care neither of the FSSP nor of the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest (another group of traditionalist priests in communion with Rome), but is instead actually run directly by the Diocese of Pittsburgh and served by a diocesan priest. However, I must admit that the impression I formed was, not of the FSSP or the ICKSP in particular, but of the traditionalist movement in general. Maybe that’s not exactly charitable, but it’s what happened.

But I decided to see if the FSSP apostolate in Vancouver was any different. In several key respects, it is. Their approach to the liturgy, while very scrupulous in its determination to do things exactly as they would have been done in the late 1950s and early 1960s, comes across as “say the black, do the red” and not as an attempt at liturgical one-upmanship. This I can get behind: if the old liturgy needs further reform (and I think it does), then let it come from Benny and the CDW. There’s no need for us to go loose cannon. Likewise, the preaching there, while very stern and very traditional, comes across in tone as trying to be more like what the Toronto Oratory does (or did) rather than what I experienced in Pittsburgh.

For awhile, Divine Mercy became a sort of refuge for me, a place to escape the excruciating torment that is the general state of liturgical praxis in the Archdiocese of Vancouver. This last year, I celebrated the entire Holy Week with them, and it was amazing. During the Gloria at the Easter Vigil, and again during the singing of Psalm 150 and the Benedictus at Lauds (which is the last part of the Vigil in the old rite), as I sang I was literally crying tears of joy and thanksgiving.

But it’s still a Tridentine ghetto, and I find this a bad idea for two reasons. First, consider the fact that traditionalism (of the sort that breaks from communion with the Church) is basically a rigourist heresy, along the lines of such notables as Donatism and Jansenism. In both cases, they commit the sin of scandal by saying that you need to do things that the Church’s teachings don’t actually require you to do. Basically, they’re trying to create a Catholic “elect”, a group of people within the Church who are saved, with the implication that the others aren’t. Now, the FSSP, remaining in communion with Rome, doesn’t do this. However, the separation of traditionalists into their own little parish, removed from the liturgical life of the diocese around them, is dangerous in my opinion. It can lead to exactly the sort of “holier-than-thou” attitude that creates in a person’s mind the notion of being part of an elect, a chosen few.

Second, even if this weren’t a problem… there’s not supposed to be two Roman liturgies. There’s supposed to be one Roman liturgy. To do this, we need the old liturgy to be celebrated alongside the new, so that the good from each can percolate into the other. In places where the old liturgy is celebrated, it can lead to the new liturgy being celebrated with greater precision, greater reverence, greater regard for the tradition from which it comes. At the same time, the rubrics of the new Missal make it clear that the part of the faithful belongs to the faithful, and this should inform our celebration of the old liturgy as well. But when you take all the adherents to the old liturgy and ghettoise them, you lose this opportunity for cross-pollination.

I certainly commend the fathers of the FSSP for all the good work they’re doing and trying to do, both in preserving the old liturgical rites and in presenting the faith as a challenge and a commission. However, I’m still deeply uncomfortable with an organisation exclusively devoted to the old liturgical books to the exclusion of the new, and I doubt that will ever change.

(I’m writing this entry while I’m on the plane from Denver to Pittsburgh to see Karla. Three more hours! =^_^= )

I still suck at keeping this thing up-to-date. Part of it, of course, is my tendency to procrastinate anything and everything. Part of it, though, is shame on my part. I mean, had you asked me five years ago where I expected/hoped to be now, this would not be it. At the same time, though, I do have to admit that there have been successes as well as failures.

I’m still living in Vancouver. My circle of friends here is still very limited, for several reasons, but I have a couple people (such as kabutar) who I get to spend time with on an (ir)regular basis. Plus I have the support of family here, and that helps a lot. :)

I’m still working at Save-On, though at a different store now. On 29 March, we opened our new store at 7th and Cambie. I’ve been getting a lot more responsibility there, and I’m actually being trained in the duties of a senior clerk (a key personnel position, and one paid at a premium rate). And when I say “trained”, I mean “assigned to do the work of a senior clerk, and then told the next day how I messed up”. Though my last couple times closing the store went pretty well. And I do get an hourly premium for any time I spend doing a senior clerk’s duties, so that’s nice. A lot of work, a lot of stress, but it’s getting easier as time passes.

I have really, really struggled to find a spiritual home within the Archdiocese of Vancouver. My geographic parish (St. Andrew’s)… all I ask is that you say the black and do the red. How hard is that? There is an FSSP apostolate (Holy Family Parish) in Vancouver, but for various reasons (beyond the scope of this update) I really, really don’t fit there. I’m trying to establish myself at St. Jude’s in east Vancouver (a slightly bi-ritual parish, and one that uses the Graduale simplex and an English translation thereof fairly liberally, which is nice). However, with all the upheaval in our senior clerk schedule, I’ve been working a lot of Sundays, so Mass has been “catch as catch can”. Sunday Mass is supposed to be the centre of the day! But I’ll need to work on that one.

On a somewhat more mundane note… after two years of being stuck on old G4 towers, I finally got myself a new computer. Surprisingly, it’s actually a notebook and not a desktop. I was thinking of getting a 24" iMac, but then Apple refreshed its entire MacBook line. I’m not that taken with the new MacBooks — nice industrial design to be sure, but the lack of FireWire is a deal-killer for me. However, as a result of the refresh, I was able to get a last-gen MacBook Pro refurb for cheap. World, meet my new companion, Laudate.

And finally, Karla (dustthouart) and I are still very much together. I actually get to spend the next two weeks with her in Pittsburgh! And I get to see her family again, which is nice — I haven’t seen them in close to two years! That’s not to say that it’s easy, though, but that’s the subject of another entry.

In summary: I’m still a bit ashamed of how far I’ve fallen since high school, etc., I’m still not sure if I can bring myself to go to my grad reunion this year, but I’m still alive, and where there is life, there is hope. Please don’t let me forget that.

Now… how am I supposed to explain the last eighteen months of my life?

I’ll try to explain in a bit more detail later, but the short form is that pretty much everything in my life has been completely flipped upside-down since last I posted in here. (The detailed version of the last eighteen months, if it ever materialises, will certainly be f-locked, and may very well be filtered. I just… it’s hard enough thinking about some of the stuff that’s happened the last eighteen months, without making the whole thing public.)

As for where I am now:

• I’m in Vancouver now. In some ways, this is a good thing, as the labour market here is absolutely red-hot, so gainful employment is easy to find even for someone as prone to anxiety as I am. Plus some of my more sane relatives live here, which is nice. However, I don’t like the city itself all that much: It’s not all that well-planned or anything; everything here is sooooo expensive; and for someone who’s used to Toronto’s extensive network of busses and streetcars, TransLink’s service sucks in ways that I cannot describe (or at least, that I cannot describe in language suitable for polite company).
• And as for the whole “gainful employment” thing… I work at a local grocery store. It’s not exactly what I want to do for my career, but the work itself isn’t bad. The problem is that the company doesn’t pay enough to retain good people, so everyone leaves, so we’re badly short-handed and half of the people who are there are so new they don’t really know what they’re doing! (Karla’s tried to convince me to get a new job; I promised her that I’d keep it in mind, but I do have other things I’m more concerned about than that right now.) Oh, well—if they think they’re going to get away without massive concessions to the union in 2008 without a lengthy strike which will make most of their workforce quit, they’ve got another thing coming.
• Karla and I are together. (Still? Again? It’s kind of complicated.) She actually just came and saw me for a week, which was wonderful! =^_^= But now she’s spending the next year on an academic exchange at NTU in Taipei, and I’m not sure if I’ll see her again until she gets back in May or June… *pout* (So if anyone has access to cheap air tickets between Vancouver and Taipei, please speak up!)
• I still haven’t really found a parish home in Vancouver yet. There’s Sts. Peter and Paul over in Shaughnessy, which is very orthodox, and I love the pastor of the parish, but liturgically… I’ve just never been comfortable there. Basically, the pastor is a good guy, but their director of music… let’s just say that she strikes me as a typical North American “liturgical musician” and leave it there. And then there’s Divine Mercy, the Tridentine quasi-parish, but somehow, they always seemed a little too traditional, in the wrong way—I was never really comfortable there. Maybe things will be a little different under their new pastor… I should go there again some time and see.
• Other problem: I don’t really have a social network in Vancouver yet. This sucks. :(
• And finally, I need a new computer. Right now, I have two older Macs: a G4/400 “Sawtooth”, which is ancient, and a G4/867 “Quicksilver”, which… let’s just say that it has issues. I think there’s something wrong with the hardware. (Now, I knew about this when I got it, and I got it for free, so I’m not mad or anything. It’s just really annoying, you know?) In a few months, I’ll probably hit the used market, looking for an early-model Intel iMac or something. In the meantime, if anyone in the Vancouver area needs to find a loving home for a later-model G4 tower or iMac… *hint, hint*

Anyway, now that I've actually updated after eighteen months, hopefully I won't go as long between posts. But then again, even before my life went topsy-turvy, I was never really any good at this whole journal thing anyway, so don’t hold your breath.

(edited to correct a typo—“old your breath”, indeed!)

I’m sorry that I’ve been so remiss in posting recently, but I’ve kind of been buried in various things since I got back. This will only be a short entry, as I’m very tired right now, for reasons that will be explained later in this entry.

I’m not going to post the details of my recent theological ruminations at this moment—I need sleep first. But I say here and now to everyone who reads my journal: Go read the Pope’s new encyclical. I don’t care if you’re Catholic or not, or even whether you’re Christian or not. Go read it.
Encyclical letter Deus caritas est on Christian love
issued on the solemnity of the Nativity, 2005, by Benedict XVI, Supreme Pontiff
(The link is, of course, to the official English translation, which came out this last Tuesday.)

Of course, I have to make some comment about the recent federal elections, so I will simply say this: At least no one has a majority! I’m quite happy for things on Parliament Hill to stay stuck in the mud for another year or so—one can only pray that by then, something will have changed for the better.

It’s now official: I will not be graduating with the class of 2006. First semester was almost a total write-off. I’m just praying that second semester goes even marginally better, or my situation in another six months will be bleak at best.

And of course, when I’m in these dire straits, it’s certainly the perfect time for me to be adding some other time-consuming obsession. The trouble is, this obsession is not only something that I need to do in any case to keep on Karla’s good side, but it also scratches an eight-year-old itch of mine. Yes, I’m finally learning the Lindy Hop.
Actually, the lesson tonight was incredible. I’ve had a couple brief lessons over the past two weeks or so, but tonight’s was absolutely exemplary. It was a bit longer than the others—about two hours—so we were able to spend more time really getting the details of the basic steps down. I could tell during the dance afterwards that I felt much more comfortable, more sure on my feet. Of course, now I’m dead-tired and have sore feet and lower legs, but it’s worth it. *grin*

But of course, the women get the easy part, at least in the beginner/intermediate levels. All the follow needs to do is look pretty and do what the leader tells her to do. It’s the leader who really has the learning curve. He has to learn all the different turns and swing-outs and such, he has to know how to signal to the follow to do different things, and he has to have the confidence needed to be clear and unambiguous in his signals. Still, I’m getting better.

And yet, in the midst of so many beautiful and graceful young women, I miss Karla terribly. Whenever I do certain turns with extremely short partners, I think of how much easier it would be to do with a girl closer to my height. When I see a couple, and I can tell from the chemistry between them that they’re not just paired up for a random dance, I remember the way that Karla’s eyes look at me, glowing with love and trust and adoration. And when I make that lonely trek back to campus, I wish that she could be there with me, that I could cuddle her and kiss her and just be with her!

Karla, are you sure we can’t get married now?

I have a fiancée.
And I'm still alive to tell about it.

A few days ago, I had made the decision (known only to a couple of people) that I was going to propose to Karla before I returned to Toronto. But because we had decided that we would (if it became an issue) buy a ring together, and because I'm just generally a coward, I had no clue when or how I was going to pull it off. But today, the opportunity arose at last. We had just finished lunch (at Mother McCarthy's Tea Room in Bethlehem, PA), and we were having dessert when... I just decided that this was the perfect moment. So I smiled at her, took her hands in mine, and asked, "Karla, will you marry me?"

She didn't say anything, just looked at me with a growing look of shock and delight. Then she started nodding very emphatically, as she got more and more excited, until finally she cried out, "He just asked me to marry him!!" For the rest of the day, she was practically walking on air. (See this entry in her journal for her perspective.)

I, on the other hand, was scared out of my mind, and for one simple reason: I still had to figure out how the hell to tell her parents.
You see, since the two of us first met, they've been concerned that our relationship has progressed much too fast. I was worried that her mother in particular would lynch me if she found out. I had seriously toyed with the idea of not telling them until we made it safely to Pittsburgh, but then I realised that I was so nervous that I would be a total wreck if I tried to wait. So I told them (and Karla's mother's parents, who were joining us for dinner) tonight at dinner. They were concerned (as I had expected), but they were also somewhat supportive, which relieved me.

So here I am. I'm still alive, and an absolutely wonderful girl has consented to marry me. Life is good.
*curls up into a ball on Karla's lap and purrs contentedly*

In about fifteen minutes or so, I'll be heading over to Pearson Airport to catch my flight to the US to be with Karla. I'll be with her in Allentown until 3 January 2006, and then Karla and I are going to Pittsburgh for the start of her classes. I fly back to Toronto on 10 January.

If you're going to be anywhere near me, get in touch with me, and we'll hang out!

Karla's flight left Pittsburgh at 19:27, according to Air Canada's on-line flight tracker. Its ETA is at 20:49.

I'm going now to the airport to go pick her up! I'm so excited! *eeeeeeeeeeee!*

(Oh, by the way, don't expect to hear from either of us for at least a day or so. We haven't seen each other in five months—what do you expect?)

Six more hours until Karla's flight lands at Pearson! I'm so excited! *eeeeeeeeeee!*

(Now, let's just hope that the weather down there doesn't mess things up. The morning flight got cancelled, but apparently the weather is supposed to clear up this afternoon, so... pray for us, please.)

OK, not only have I been counting down the days until Karla’s coming - for the past month! - but now I’ve started counting down the hours! Forty-six hours until her plane lands! *eeeeee!*

And her timing couldn’t have been better—I will kind of need a bunch of hugs from her by the time she gets here. But that’s another story…

Forty-six hours! How will I wait another forty-six hours to see my beloved?

Stuff coming up in my life:

On this coming Tuesday (that’s 29 November 2005, the day after tomorrow), the funeral for John Muggeridge will be celebrated at St. Vincent de Paul Church, Toronto. At the request of the deceased, and by special permission from the Archbishop of Toronto, we will be celebrating the funeral Mass according to the 1962 usage as a Missa cantata. We will be singing the plainchant propers from the Mass for the deceased, plus a few other things.

On 3 December 2005, the Toronto Tallis Choir will be joining with the St. Vincent de Paul parish choir to present a re-creation of a 16th-century vespers service composed by Thomas Tallis. The performance will take place at 19:30 at St. Patrick's Church; more information is available on the Tallis Choir’s Web site.

And on a totally unrelated note: how did I manage a.) to get hooked on Star Trek: Hidden Frontier so fast; b.) to fall so quickly for the one non-slash pairing on the show (Andrew Barrett and S'Tal)? *sigh*

*looks over at the mood image for “silly”
*giggles* That is just too cute!
And for the record: no, there is no typo in my “music” tag. The group is properly known as the Lady Godiva Memorial Bnad. (What can I say—engineers can’t spell!)

As you can see, I finally got an icon to use as my default icon. Karla found it on a post made in cpop by luciela, and got permission for me to use it. I'll probably be putting up two more icons in the next few days, mostly having to do with matters Catholic. Or maybe I’ll design my own: “Benedict XVI: laying the smack-down on heresy since 1981!"

And… less than a month until Karla gets here! I’m so excited! *squee!*

On the pre-1962 Roman liturgical calendar, today is the solemnity of Christ the King. So the 09:30 Tridentine Mass at St. Vincent de Paul was celebrated this morning as a Missa cantata. It felt so wonderful being able to sing the Mass again. I don’t totally know how to describe it, but it’s something that I’ve greatly missed during these last four months.

We’re officially scheduled to start singing the Mass every week again, starting on the first Sunday of Advent (27 November). I’m just sad that I’m going to have to miss it on the Nativity itself, as I’ll be in Allentown with Karla. Ah, well—maybe there’s an indult Mass somewhere in that diocese that we can go to…

This weekend also featured the St. Mike’s used book sale, and of course I had to go buy way too many books. I’ll put up a complete list later. I also need to do up a wish list at some point. (Plus write a bunch of papers, plus deal with financial/bureaucratic paperwork at the University, plus… well, the list goes on.)

But right now, I don’t have time for that, because I have a Latin term test on Tuesday afternoon, and I’m nowhere near ready yet. So it’s off to Gerstein with me to go study!

Oh, one more thing: the men from the St. Vincent de Paul parish choir are joining with the Tallis Choir for a performance of the sacred music of Thomas Tallis. We’re singing a reconstructed version of his setting of (the Sarum rite) first Vespers for the solemnity of the Presentation of our Lord, followed by the forty-part (!) motet “Spem in alium nunquam habui.” The performance is on the evening of Saturday, 3 December 2005, at St. Patrick’s Church in downtown Toronto.

Diet Catholicism®
(from The Curt Jester, and stolen from rengal's journal)

So true. So very, very true.

Now I just have to be careful not to spend all my time reading this guy’s blog when I really should be studying for Latin…