You’ll Never See My Eyes


2009 review Jan-April

Here’s a looksie back on the first 25% of the year that is passing by oh-so-quickly.

2009
January
Well the New Year started in a snow-storm, and included ‘House’ and chickpea casserole and cuddling with Gina and Lesley. Shabby? Not at all.
LEARNED: All about being a gym-rat. I hired a personal trainer. Like, for actual. My quest to not being so scrawny began last year.
DISCOVERED: ‘Bringing Up Baby’…Joan Baez…ok I’m a few decades behind here. And I was taken to the magnifique Comedy Bar.
SCENE STUDY: 2-part series of ‘DOGFIGHT’…I got to cuss a lot in the first one. And make-out a lot in the second, which also marked my first ‘good-bye’ scene.
SAW: ‘East of Berlin’ at the Tarragon Theatre. Droool.
FACEBOOK STATUS OF NOTE:
-meghan’s favorite customers are the charming gentlemen who pay for the newspaper and then let meghan keep them. the papers, she means.
-meghan accidentally ate the sticker off of a kiwi. twice.
-meghan is going into cardiac arrest because she just fucking talked to JUDITH THOMPSON omgomgomgomg what the what?!?!?!?!!??!?!?! FANGIRL OMG.


NEW YEAR’S EVE!

FEBRUARY
LEARNED: about my bio-siblings! Well, MORE about them.
DISLIKED: North York Hospital.
DISCOVERED: Just how difficult class was going to be on my heart.
ADVENTURED: To UTM where I was puked on by my dear Alison. No one had ever puked on me before nor have I been puked on since!
SCENE STUDY: A BEAUTIFUL MIND.
Also…’50 First Dates’…my second good-bye scene. There is about to be a trend in class of me crying and kissing.
FACEBOOK STATUS OF NOTE:
-meghan is stock-piling for her life!
-meghan is dick van dyke’s valentine
-meghan read once that craving spicy foods is a sign you are emotionally empty and need the spice to fill up. meghan eats a lot of curry after acting class

siiiiiigh

MARCH
“don’t go fighting against the spring”

LEARNED/DISCOVERED: The difference between ‘theatrical’ and ‘dramatic.’ And ‘art’ and ‘entertainment.’ Or how I personally would express this. Now when I go to see plays I think about the theatrical aspects, sets costumes lights physicality…and dramatic, the innate mythic (hopefully) STORY. Story story story. And ART, an expression of feeling, taking us to places and emotions we have been and felt before, and entertainment, which in contrast is an escape from reality. Escaping versus facing.
SAW: ‘Ubuntu’ at the Tarragon…which is what got the conversation of theatre vs. drama going in the first place. ‘Poor Boy’ aka Zuppa Theatre came to Toronto and brightened my life.
ALSO Rebecca Higgs at the Horse Shoe…epic frigging fantastic amazing.
DISLIKED: Epic nights of insomnia. TORONTO. I got reeeaaall mad with the city. And real home-sick.
ADVENTURED: To ImpromTuesday, a drop in class at the Second City. Kayla Lorette was teaching, fucking rad. It was my first time doing any sort of improv in a long time. I liked.
SCENE STUDY: 2nd pass of ’50 First Dates’…first work of ‘AMERICAN BEAUTY’…finally, a FUN scene and I don’t have to kiss anyone! Plus this lead to the friendship of Bianca and I. Rad.
FACEBOOK STATUS OF NOTE:
-meghan is trying to figure out what pair of underpants to wear in front of her scene study class today
-meghan – oh soy bacon, you are my only friend
-meghan is wishing for the dick van dyke to her mary tyler moore


here’s something that happened in march!

APRIL
SAW: Fiona Reid improvise a Tennessee Williams play with 2/3 of The National Theatre of the World. Pardon me? Your life sucks and my life is amazing? Yes. That’s what I thought you were saying. Oh, Fiona Reid, no one can compare to your Martha in ‘Who’s Afraid’.
SAW: UM OH I ONLY JUST SAW KRISTEN THOMSON PREFORM ‘I, CLAUDIA’…fucking…unreal…
ADVENTURED: To ImpromTuesday once more. This time we did long-form. Matt Baram sort of kicked our asses. I improvised giving birth to Frederic’s still-born baby.
APRIL was also the month in which Amanda, Skye and I sat in Fran’s for 10 hours.
DISCOVERED: SYLVIA PLATH POETRY. I had read a few before but in April I bought her complete poems…Life hasn’t been the same since.
LIKED: Kim visiting me!!! There was never more wine drank in my apartment than that glorious 4 days. Best night of all: Frederic and Raquel coming over while she was there. Good good night. ALSO LESLEY CAME TO VISIT…so many shades of necessary! (Necessary?!)
SCENE STUDY: First work of “White Oleander”…and then my partner left class. I’d love to do that scene again…OH! YEAH! Then I did “Hard Candy” which was my first POWER SCENE. Oh…and the GOOD-BYE SCENE FROM HELL…”Good Will Hunting.” The flightiest fight for my life. When I think back on that scene I just see Kit’s arms, his back, his angry angry eye…glass shattering, a shoe flying, and then I stop remembering and feel like weeping all over again.
FACEBOOK STATUS OF NOTE:
-meghan – torturing pedophile, brb
-meghan gets weepy about a club foot, laughs into her wine glass thus the wine explodes into her eyes, then gets on the street car really late
-meghan is the only person who could show up at the gym having forgotten her socks.


The Stones
By Sylvia Plath

This is the city where men are mended.
I lie on a great anvil.
The flat blue sky-circle

Flew off like the hat of a doll
When I fell out of the light. I entered
The stomach of indifference, the wordless cupboard.

The mother of pestles diminished me.
I became a still pebble.
The stones of the belly were peaceable,

The head-stone quiet, jostled by nothing.
Only the mouth-hole piped out,
Importunate cricket

In a quarry of silences.
The people of the city heard it.
They hunted the stones, taciturn and separate,

The mouth-hole crying their locations.
Drunk as a foetus
I suck at the paps of darkness.

The food tubes embrace me. Sponges kiss my lichens away.
The jewelmaster drives his chisel to pry
Open one stone eye.

This is the after-hell: I see the light.
A wind unstoppers the chamber
Of the ear, old worrier.

Water mollifies the flint lip,
And daylight lays its sameness on the wall.
The grafters are cheerful,

Heating the pincers, hoisting the delicate hammers.
A current agitates the wires
Volt upon volt. Catgut stitches my fissures.

A workman walks by carrying a pink torso.
The storerooms are full of hearts.
This is the city of spare parts.

My swaddled legs and arms smell sweet as rubber.
Here they can doctor heads, or any limb.
On Fridays the little children come

To trade their hooks for hands.
Dead men leave eyes for others.
Love is the uniform of my bald nurse.

Love is the bone and sinew of my curse.
The vase, reconstructed, houses
The elusive rose.

Ten fingers shape a bowl for shadows.
My mendings itch. There is nothing to do.
I shall be good as new.



SPROING; AGO

I like everything that has no style: dictionaries, photographs, nature, myself, and my paintings (Because style is violence and I am not violent).”
-Gerhard Richter

Loved that quote in a nook of the AGO.

Also a big fan of Mark Dion’s polar bear photographs (mostly because I am a polar bear fan.)

Do Ho Su’s bathroom was also amazing. Complete 3-d lavatory from nylon.

N.E. THING CO was my kind of art…fecicious and whimsical and ribbons and sodas and call-back jokes and, well, it was the sixties, man.

Here’s my stream of consciences that I wrote post-visit, in the gift shop:
I am at the AGO right now thinking about Andy’s Elvis, Roald Dahl books I wish weren’t in my attic somewhere, Degas’ ballerinas on my show’s poster thanks to the World’s best dramatury c/o my [step]sister, TO CAPTURE LIGHT and lost, under-appreciated artists, finger paints, how my lower back hurts, wanting Kelin to teach me to paint, my relephant necklace, “world’s first twitter”, tarp art, how poor I am, my scene study, etch-a-sketch, magna doodle, those filmy-scratchy books, Gina’s paint by numbers…

Spur of the moment magic –> You can’t plan magic, if you do, it’s just trickery.



canada’s ocean playground

the detox has come to an end!!! hello, peanut butter! hello, feta cheese! tonight, hell-oooo samosas and chutney!! i feel totally kick started and energized. i still haven’t had coffee, or substance. i wonder how long that’ll go?

so HOME; let’s discuss home.
thursday lesley and i landed and mom, dad and irma were there at the airport. had dinner with mom, dad, irma, my god-mother, her daughter, and my grandparents. hilarious. Allison came over later, for at midnight she turned 19 and we got all drunked up and went dancing at Tribecca.

yahoo

KATE joined us as well to do some damage.

tribec

highlights include epic photo taking with allison, and getting in trouble for dancing on a chair.

friday after a bike ride where i almost wept because it felt so, so good to cycle again, and a massage/chiropractor apointment (my neck is a rock. thanks, toronto.) i hosted our first druncheon. “our” meaning the bestest of ladies, claire, jessica, lesley, slaney and falvey. (missed out on gina, though…)

groceries

i just adore them. what a festival of cupcake sandwiches, meatless balls, hours upon hours of drinking sangria…and classic conversation ranging from john mccain to kittens inspired by kittens.

friday night was rhys and andrea’s house-warming party which means i got pretty faded and marveled at all of the wonderful people i missed who seemed happy to see me. (valentina and i decided we needed to make up for all the hugs we missed out on while i’ve been away so throughout the night one of us would yell “SPONTANEOUS HUG!” and we’d embrace. decadent!!)

saturday i biked to meet lesley at the market where we saw mary-dan playing the fiddle, robyn selling vegetables, and jackie torrens being awesome. wired monk for muffins, then to the theatre school where i grew up to sit with jessica and loiter as we have done for the last 6 years of our life. saw many a familar, beautiful, smoochable face.

lunge of hilarity

then i biked to the ferry and went on the ferry to dirty dee to see INTO THE WOODS and got to watch beautiful people on stage and laugh my fool head off with keelin. sushi with dad followed, then to KERRI’S, who was one of my room-mates last year. her cousins and friends who i became friends with last year came over. claire came, too, and kate leth with david bowie make-up. adrian brought tequila.

i would tell you about the rest of the night but i honestly don’t remember much and it freaks me out. i know once we went out to RETRO NIGHT we met up with some of my friends from high school, lesley and her cousin, and i danced the night away with a stranger. but seriously. i was a wreck and don’t think i’ll be drinking for a long, long time.

kj and mhube

sunday mother’s day so OBVIOUSLY had brunch with my hero martha irving and my other hero maddy, psuedo sister poet. (martha’s daughter.) hero-licious. falafel and eggs, pancake good size, a fort of menus and salt shakers, um, and probably the classiest gift i have ever received. a clutch that held a beautiful painted bracelet and hanky!! i love them so, so much.

mom and irma and i went to see a play in the early evening that was soooo nova scotian i hurt from smiling at it. then mom and i had thai food, and i hung out with my soul mate kelin in the second cup on spring garden with tea and mike&ikes. i got home and convinced etta to come over for an impromptu hang-out at 11pm, and fell asleep happy and heart warmed, my last night of 19.

monday; my birthday! rode my bike to dartmouth with sarah dee!
ze bridge

harbour

we went to see the house her & her boyfriend just bought, then we had tea at the papier chase because it’s not halifax unless i go to the paper chase, people!! i proceeded to visit citadel high, even though i didn’t go there…but they closed my high school and so people who taught me are there now. before i even got into the building i was hugging mrs. cowan, pretty much my bff in grade 12, and mr. coats, my drama 10, 11, 12, dance 11 and poli sci 12 teacher slash improv coach (when he showed up) slash school father…siiiigh. i missed them too much! falvey met me because she goes there. how i love her.

that night was the most hysterical dinner of all time.
my mom, my dad, irma (my mom’s partner), nancy (my step-mom), pat (step-brother), both sets of grand parents, my god-parents (who are now divorced), and their daughter/my life-long friend. i am so blessed that these people can all come together despite how awkward it sounds, to be with me. and it’s not even that…everyone gets along and laughs and shares and talks and is a family.

cake

that night i met up with gina and lesley for martinis and swedish berries at the bitter end. beams are gonna blind me. being apart from them physically hurts. it was short but (bitter) sweet. we’re all away together though…gina in the states, me in toronto and lesley in rome. (jerk.)

tuesday was my last day…micaela came over for breakfast and we made eggs and had cornbread and jam, coffee and hot chocolate and gelato. we made up for lost time and put on stupidly funny accents and she made me a huge list of bands and singers to check out. i asked her to live at my mom’s house with me in july if i go home for the summer because mom&irma will be at the cottage…we’d have a pretty wicked home together. maybe i should just marry her?? elle oh elle.

halifax ws really good for my self-esteem. it reminded me i have so many people who love me, and who i love back completly. they are all different, different people, different loves, but they are my family. i remembered how much fun i am capable of having no matter where i go. i came back to toronto feeling way less meek, way less silenced. i am pretty smitten with toronto right now, but halifax will always be home, and i am so proud.

hahamomanddad