A couple of weeks ago, I watched Donnie Darko again for fun. It led me to read about time-travel paradoxes, which led me to theories of parallel universes which led me to string theory, which is apparently gaining acceptance by physicists and posits the existence of parallel universes (real ones!). In order to learn more without adding another book to my reading list, I ordered the Nova special series The Elegant Universe on DVD.

Although the documentary is sometimes really dumbed down, the animations are evocative and beautiful, the production value is excellent and the subject matter, nothing less than fascinating. Explaining something as esoteric as string theory, which says that there are 11 dimensions and that everything is made up of vibrating strings of energy, to the general public, is no small feat. Although I felt a little condescended to at first, by the end of the three 1-hour episodes I had brain sprain, and was glad the documentary was holding my hand as it was.

Wrap your head around these concepts for size: gravity may not stick well to our universe, and possibly seeps off into parallel ones. Our universe may exist on a membrane parallel to many others, and may have been empty until a collision with a neighbor transferred matter to our universe at the collision point. That’s why at the Big Bang, lots of stuff materialized out of nothing.

A fun way to spend a couple of hours getting smarter.

I’ve been wondering if it’s geeky of me to be reading The New Penguin History of the World.

Then yesterday I got a total thrill hearing that the mummy of Hatshepsut’s been found.

And I didn’t have to wonder anymore.

Jonathan and I babysat the lovely Daisy over the weekend, which left us thinking about getting another dog. Comet would be less lonely, and having a dog each is fun when we go out. However, we thought, the Boston Terrier is the best dog for our lifestyle, and we could not possibly improve on that. To be as good as a Boston, the other dog would have to be short-haired, same size or smaller (because the jobbies are big enough as they are), happy in an apartment without a yard, and quiet. Moreover, to use the litterbox like Comet, it would have to be female (as males raise the leg).

The next morning, my production manager happened to mention that her friend is trying to give away a female chihuahua. This sounded like it fit all the criteria, so Jonathan and I debated it at length. Maybe it’s a sign that we’re ready. We’d be doing it for Comet, but we don’t know how she’d react. We couldn’t take a chihuahua camping. Eventually we got tired and stopped, having resolved nothing.

And then I got another e-mail from Annie. “Oops, it’s a chinchilla, not a chihuahua”.

Just goes to show (again). Ignore the problem long enough and it goes away.

After several late evenings of frustration and tweaking, and with a final little help from blog superhero Patrick, Jonathan has finally put his blog online. Go have a look!

Last month, Jonathan and I went to visit his family in Scotland. In preparation for this, in April I churned my way through a heavy and long biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. As a result, the one place I really wanted to visit was Holyroodhouse Palace, where Mary witnessed a brutal murder and got married twice (out of 3 times). However, the current queen was in residence so we couldn’t get in.

For consolation, while driving to Edinburgh for a couple of days, we decided to stop by Lochleven, a castle on an island considered a much less important landmark in Mary’s life. It was there that she was imprisoned for a year, was forced to abdicate and miscarried twins. She eventually escaped by charming two of the castle staff into helping her commandeer a rowboat, sabotage the other boats and get away.

To get to Lochleven, we had to drive through the tiny village of Kinross, constantly thinking we were lost before finding another tiny sign for the hidden castle. Eventually we got to the shores of a lake, with hardly anything to indicate we had found our way. A ferryman in a small motorboat waited patiently for his next fare. It was really exciting to have found a bit of history that wasn’t completely overrun with tour buses and souvenirs. Lochleven showed nothing of its importance as it stood humbly in the distance.

When we got there, we had the run of the island and castle, all to ourselves. We stood in the room where Mary lost her twins, saw the window from where she bitterly watched fireworks celebrating her infant son’s coronation, following her forced abdication. She would never see him again, and he would be raised by her enemies.

I’ll visit Holyroodhouse next time I go to Scotland, but I doubt it will be as exciting as this impromptu visit. As is often the case when travelling, the unforeseen events that throw you off the planned path always lead to the best discoveries.

Jonathan’s stuff arrived yesterday. After spending the night on a red-eye back from California, not in my bed, I came home to a bit of a discouraging scene. Our newly-cleaned living room was a fiasco of boxes, guitars, bicycles and an inquisitive Boston terrier. I soon warmed to the idea, when I realized I now had a spanking new set of pots and pans, an XBOX 360, great cooking knives, and a whole new library of books, games and CDs. The stuff also gave my place the distinctive Scotsmontonian smell, and Jonathan was excited about finally being fully moved in. We happily chose forks and editions.

Then, this morning, after my first sleep in 48 hours, I found out that Jonathan’s alarm clock plays Mission Impossible, the loud rendition. Nine desperate snooze-minutes later, it tried a different tactic and blasted me with the A-Team theme.

I think the Human Rights Charter says I’m allowed to take a hammer to it, right? If not, maybe I can get Amnesty people to write their local congressman on my behalf…

The Scotsmontonian Jonathan permanently settled in Montreal on Saturday, ending our routine of red-eye Edmonton weekends, webcam conversations and calling cards. So far, he’s found out the wonders of Jeopardy!, Comet is getting daytime walks, we’re painting our now-joint office in pop-art fluorescent green and turquoise, and our biggest argument has been about what key to play a Belle and Sebastian song in. Oh, and I’m to discontinue my practice of reading in bed, because “God, that’s so domestic”.

I hope he doesn’t clue in too soon that tidying the house, picking up the groceries and making dinner while I work might possibly be construed as “domestic” by some. Domestic or no, it’s really good to be à deux.

I’ve lately been looking for a pair of pink shoes to complete my outfit for an upcoming wedding. As I was going from store to store yesterday, I remembered a day in the 80s when I decided pink was too mainstream for me, and threw out all the pink items in my wardrobe. That day, the garbage truck could have been labelled Au Coton.

I’d have puked in indignation if I’d known then that I’d someday be searching for pink heels to go with a pink-with-white-polka-dots Bardot scarf. Ah, to be a teenager in search of identity. Things were so black and white then. Pink out, gray in. I don’t even think the coolness factor of going to a wedding in Scotland would have compensated in my tragically prejudiced 16-year-old mind.

I’m not completely free of constraints, however. To complicate matters, the Scotsmontonian, who has surprisingly few opinions about clothing in general, has issued a strict fatwa against open-toed shoes, his ultimate turn-off, thereby prohibiting most of what’s in stores these days.

I have so much more fun now than when I was 16.

In 8 days, the Scotsmontonian will move to Montreal, into my heretofore bachelorette pad with me and my heretofore life-mate, Comet.

Forced inside by the weather, we spent his last visit in an unquestionably domestic manner, measuring walls, planning Ikea purchases for the extra stuff he’d be bringing, and choosing colors to repaint some rooms. Despite the fact that he’ll have some time off, it was really important to me that we both be involved in assembling the not-even-purchased-yet furniture, and in putting the not-yet-chosen-paint on the walls.

A couple of days later, my ex had a few insights for me, having recently helped someone move in. He said he’d felt decidedly masculine and able, putting up shelves and using tools, “very different from how I was used to feeling around you”.

Makes you think, doesn’t it. Am I castrating my guy by usurping his traditional position of handiman-in-chief? I know I feel like a domestic goddess when I pull off a roasted leg of lamb, so why not allow him his satisfaction too? Why not allow him his Y-chromosome-given right to feeling like a rugged provider, having assembled the DIKTAD, the BONDE and the BILLY while I’m at work? Then the more I thought about it, the more I saw the advantages to me. Call me a control freak, but up until then it hadn’t occurred to me that coming home to things being done - and done not by me - was a good thing. A Scotsman wants to do my housework, and I’m fighting it. What am I, stupid?

It’s a process, you know. And I’m sure that starting in 8 days, there will a lot more processes in motion.

- So if you do an action TO someone, you add “le” before the verb. For example, I watch him is Je le regarde.

- Ok, so… “I tell him” is “Je le dis”.

- Uh, no, it’s “Je lui dis”

- Ok but I do the action of telling TO him.

- Hm. “Le” in “Je le dis” refers to what you say, not whom you say it to.

- …

- Hey! Let me show you that sneezing panda on YouTube!

 (Damn you wordpress!!!! How can I do carriage returns in this editor???)