I live in the valley, at the bottom of a hill. Absolutely none of the property around my house is zoned for retail, so if either I or my brother want to buy snacks we have to hump it up the hill to the Husky station at the top of a pair of aging wooden stairs, flanked by crazy homeless people and other, more harmless but no less crazy homeless people.

My brother, Mac, was up there buying stuff yesterday when the cashier took a look at the name on his receipt.*

Cashier: McConnell? Are you related to Carson?
Mac: … She’s my sister.
Cashier: I still have the scar on my arm from when she hit me with a rake.

In my defense, I was seven.

*Mac never uses cash for anything. He will put three dollars on his debit card. It makes me crazy, which is probably why he still does it.

My archaeology lab exam has just scientifically proven that I’m an awful person.

BONUS QUESTION #1: Write down the hierarchy of Linnaean taxonomy. Must be in correct order.
ME: Aw hell, that’s easy. (scribble scribble)

BONUS QUESTION #2: Name five people in this class.
ME: … FUCK

(I slapped this together as a minor assignment for my Creative Nonfiction class. The prompt was “the worst idea you ever had.”)

My brother Mac and I were born eleven months apart.

Please hold all comments on the biological implications of that fact until the Q&A portion of the evening.

Because we grew up so close in age, there was very little one of us did that the other didn’t. There was also very little one of us could do that the other couldn’t, except that Mac could throw a ball farther and I could lift a chair while bent perpendicular from the waist and then stand up still holding the chair because I’d been watching “Bill Nye the Science Guy” and decided to cheat using physiology.

It was with this “Anything He Can Do, I Can Do Better” attitude that I joined Mac’s U-10 mixed junior soccer team.

This was a terrible idea.

I became increasingly aware of this idea’s terribleness over the next few weeks as I learned that I didn’t like running unless something was chasing me (this is still the case) and that nobody was impressed by my chair trick and broad repertoire of veterinarian jokes (also still the case). As our first game loomed ever closer, in my desperation I asked to be put in goal since the position didn’t require any running or knowledge of game strategy (what little there was when the median age of the team was nine years old).

I considered this a fantastic idea until the opposing team scored their first goal. Through my leg. Not through my legs, as is the case with many goalies; the ball literally knocked my leg out from under me. Our team scored the next goal, but the scorer was eight years old so that goal was also scored on me. The next time the other team shot at the net it hit me square in the face. As I lay on the ground, to add injury to more injury, somebody stepped on my hand with their cleats.

I quit the team the next day. My parents were very understanding. They had been at the game.

Since then I have avoided team sports whenever possible, much to the dismay of a long line of junior high and high school gym teachers. My brother can now do many things I can’t, but he still can’t pull off the chair thing.

A young lady we passed on the way to the trolley station this morning asked Amber if she wanted a copy of Watchtower. Amber. Amber with the dark eye makeup and black lace gauntlets. Amber in the demonic schoolgirl getup. That Amber. Yeah.

We made sure to show up early this time round, especially since we wanted to get into the Coraline panel. Anime fantards ruined everything yet again, with three rejects from the Viz Media panel next door sitting directly in front of us, one with a burlap Domo costume head on. There were stern talkings-to before the panel started.

I don’t think Henry Selick opened his eyes once for the whole Coraline panel. I bet backstage he boasted that he could do the panel with his eyes closed.

The Flashforward panel was in the same room, so all we had to do was hang around and move up to better seats once people cleared out. I’m mostly interested in the series because Rob Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction GOD who graciously visits Edmonton on book tours unlike every other author in the universe, and thus anything he’s touched even tangentially deserves a few minutes of my time at least. I don’t mean to fangirl, but the guy is damn cool. The series makes a lot of changes from the book, but that’s to be expected if it’s going to appeal to a television audience, although the change in perception shift from 21 years to six months means that one of my favourite bits (Dimitrios’ “you killed us all” speech) is going to be cut (BAWWW).

Also Dominic Monaghan is going to be in it after all, surprising absolutely fucking nobody.

We were going to go to other panels that afternoon, and the Mighty Boosh panel in the evening, but the need for food and preparations for the Amanda Palmer concert meant that we had to miss them. Good thing the concert was so wonderful.

We got to the Women’s Club fairly early (or, if the sign is to be believed, the Woman’s Club, making me wonder who the Woman is). Amber and I met LeeVi, who is quite possibly the most enthusiastic Palmer fan I have ever met and who owns a wonderful embroidered blue bra that we happened to see by accident. Or not-so-accident, I’m not sure.

Hair Machine opened, simultaneously giving us the worst rendition and the best performance of “Final Countdown” I have ever seen. One day they will make it through a whole song. Today was not that day.

I have resolved to listen to more Vermillion Lies after seeing their performance tonight. I’m always a sucker for narrative songwriting, just because first-person love songs have so saturated the market and I crave something different. I would have bought their CD except that I didn’t want to go near the merch table for reasons I will explain later.

I downed about half a bottle of water in 30 seconds after Vermillion Lies finished, but I was back inside for Amanda Palmer’s first song. The power of music always amazes me; the club wasn’t absolutely packed, but it was pretty full. No amount of noise control could have got that room to shut up, but a woman singing softly while plucking away at a ukelele was enough to make the place dead silent. Maybe it shouldn’t be “speak softly and carry a big stick,” but “speak softly and spend 10 minutes trying to tune a $19 ukelele”.

After the concert ended the following exchange took place:

AMBER: Look, there’s Neil Gaiman!
CANCERBABY: OH CHRIST NO
AMBER: I’m gonna go get my picture taken with him, you coming?
CANCERBABY: NO I CANNOT MEET HIM THAT WOULD RUIN EVERYTHING

Yes, I’m a neurotic basket case. I also take that “never meet your idols” advice very seriously.

AMBER: Hey look, there’s Henry Selick!
CANCERBABY: WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I ACCIDENTALLY MEET SOMEONE

Yeah.