For those of you who like random generators, there's a good one just before this entry...

I was going to go up to my place to continue working on cleaning it up later today, but my mom decided against it as it would be too tiring to do that and then go to a party (for me) so I am going to last-minute shop instead, and then go, and really be able to enjoy myself...

...which is what also kind of happened yesterday at Toronto General. I went in, got a hospital card, and then made my way past a Tim Horton's (there's also a Starbucks in the building, to my shouldn't be surprised surprise) to the quiet (before 8am) Medical Imaging area. Sat down after registering and waited to be called in - name not mangled too badly - to change and wait. Was not, thank goodness, given a liter of cold water to drink, but shown in to a dim room and put my clothes & handbag on a chair. I was fine bladderwise (they told me not to 'void' for two hours before the appointment, but I regularly get up before 5 so no problems there) and the lotion was heated instead of cold, so all went well until the usual pressures made me wince and twitch and shrink helplessly, as picture after picture of my unhappy insides were taken. All this was done by an assistant, who took the photos to the head ultrasound doctor, leaving me to haplessly clean the clear cold gel off my stomach with a big unabsorbent wad of paper - I quickly gave up & distracted myself thinking about - well, you'll see...

...then the doctor came in and looked at me again (yep, more ultrasounding - I had been warned) and called me "sweetie" a lot and had me look at the screen & explained I had a benign polyp but to know for sure I'd have to have a sonohystogram; this apparently is what I've needed all along and while it would be a breeze for a lot of women, it wouldn't be for me, unfortunately...so I declined it and said I'd talk with my doctor. This settled, they left me to clean and change and I walked (after going to the bathroom of course) slowly past the other rooms, the C-T scan rooms which were all ready to go but empty, the big donut of the scanner reminding me of the MRI machine, only much thinner...and out to the sunny morning, once I'd passed the candy/ice cream store Tutti Frutti - yes, there's one at Toronto General - and down University feeling worked-over and hungry...

...but I am confident that my operation will take care of things; as I explained to the assistant, or tried to imply, speculums are not my favorite, uh, things and they are going to look at me while I am unconscious anyway, so if they want to use their polyp-sucking technology then they can do it then...when I'm not making horrible noises and (despite being told to breathe deeply & relax) stressing out and wishing my guy was with me...that's the only thing that could relax me...

...anyhow I was a bit queasy the rest of yesterday, but happy that I was benign and had a good dinner - chili, homemade cornbread, a bit of salad - and went to sleep early...

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This isn't so much a chunk of writing, more notes that deserve to be noted...

Tractatus mentioned in a lyric on Songs to Remember - so it's totally fair game to thrown down some Wittgenstein science, so to speak, in this book. If that guy can quote Adorno w/r/t in his Ramones book (yeah, I know) then I have the licence to talk about dear old Ludwig.

"Absolute" is a philosophical term.

The video for "Absolute" is a dance club with a stage set from A Midsummer Night's Dream. It ends with Green sitting, wearing the donkey/ass head. Don't know what to make of this.

Cupid & Psyche as a myth was previously altered to make such stories/novels as "Beauty and the Beast", Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. It is also the basis of She, a Jungian look at the female experience of romance (which I obv. should read). Beauty and the Beast was also a tv show (at the time?) but I don't know if that needs to be mentioned.

It is a big mish-mash of all kinds of things, from Green's philosophy to NYC musicians to hip-hop to good old songwriting.

A big intersection of all kinds of things.

A New Pop album that doesn't so much stun and awe the listeners as make them dance, or seduces them. It is not a puritan/indie album by any means, and that is a good thing.

What Green can't sing goes into the music, which is wicked beautiful.

This album deserves much better than the one-page dismissal it gets in Rip It Up and Start Again.

Oh, and I just found out, in a it's-a-small-world kind of way, that Fred Maher played with Material, and there's where Robert Quine comes in, as he played with them too. I can see how totally lucky Green was to work with such musicians, and how he realized he had to sing really well to keep up. Luckily he has that voice (how to write about it?) so it was just fine.

The beats - not conventional ones. More like jazz? "Absolute" a good walking song; "Perfect Way" ditto. Step-step-step/suh/step-step-step. Not the too-mechanical rhythm of "Rockit" or even "Rock Box" - something more complex, dancy.

Aretha Franklin on one side, deconstruction on the other - go.