French Toasts that Fuel the Day

Natalia made some french toasts for us this morning; I brewed the coffee and poured them into cups half-filled with hot milk. We skimmed through the Guardian's Weekend Guide for ideas on galleries to visit today; we are pushing our gym visit to another day (tomorrow?)

I brought to the kitchen all the photos I've taken since I've moved to London. I wanted to show Natalia the ones of my mom's farm in Brasil, the changes she has made to the place, the dogs, the mountains that surround it. The boiler had to be turned on because there isn't enough hot water to wash behind my ears.

Our bedroom curtains are half open. Kevin is folding clothes on top of the bed, the stereo is playing The Wayward Bus, the tree outside our window has lost most of its leaves and I can finally see the birds' nests within it. Natalia has a digital camera so I'm going to see if we can take it out today and create some prize winning skin flicks.

Where is my NaNoWriMo dedication? I drank it down with one spoon of sugar. I wanted cheese for my french toasts because I'm the only person in the world that likes grease, geese, cheese and maple syrup mixed together. I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life when we return to Canada. I can't think beyond a house, dogs, snow, french classes, novels, films, friends and visits from London friends (I can foresee the future!)

Then one day, we'll drive down to New York, to visit La Mascherina, Jellybeans and M, then we'll keep driving south, through the Carolinas and their strip malls made of guns, into Florida, into the marshes, into a crocodile's wide smile. I'm buying a cup of coffee as soon as I step out of this apartment.

When we walk hand in hand in the rain
When we are young, and in love once again
We will dance in the Autumn
With the leaves in our hair

Tick Tick Tock, it's a Quarter Past Seven

I saw Madonna's video for "Hung Up" today for the first time. My first thoughts were:

a) she looks like a transvestite.
b) she's had C.G.I. or scalpel-based work done on her face.

If any other artist had released that song, we might have caught it by accident as we walked by Topshop and thought to ourselves "ah, there's another cheesy offering from Italy." But because it's Madonna, who is probably a David Icke reptile by now, it rushes straight to number one (at least in Britain) and has a video (and MTV performance) with enough content to generate a few lazy newspaper columns.

Thing is... I don't mind at all this state of affairs in the world of music. I've had the impression for many years now that people see music in the western world progressing, moving chronologically, from era to era, and it pisses them off when an artist releases something that is not "new". It's almost a crime. But if you start to treat Madonna as someone who isn't an "artist", and whose music is just there to make gay men dance a little harder on the podium, then everything turns out to be ok.

I had a professor in University who, despite being Jewish, thought it was great that the Catholic church was still around, that there was something comforting about an institution that endures, that fights against the tides of change. Was he being sarcastic when he said that to our class? I don't know, but I am starting to think that Madonna is the same as the Catholic church. Despite her marketing department wanting us to believe she's a chameleon, she's remained the same type of singer all these decades. So when a new Madonna album comes out, you make a check of it on your calendar, you situate yourself, you have a word or two to say about her singles, then you go on with your life (but secretly satisfied that the world, your world, is still the same.)

The way she flexes her butt in that video... it's almost like she's daring us to spot the cellulite.