yesterday when I was cleaning my bedroom, and I was rearranging things on top of the dresser, I realized I could hear a voice. I poked my head around the corner into Miguel's painting room and found that the radio was on, playing Mozart. No voice there. I went and opened all the drawers in the dresser, to see if someone had secreted something in the drawers, a walkie talkie or whatever. The voice went on. It sounded serious. I couldn't quite catch what it was talking about, but it was a male voice.

I moved back into the bedroom and sat on the bed. It occurred to me that perhaps this was it - I was losing my mind. I wondered if I should try to concentrate on what the voice was saying, or should I maybe ignore it. I put my hand in my pocket to get a Halls and found my IPod. It was on. I must have jostled it and turned it on, and it was playing an interview with a Holocaust scholar that I had been listening to earlier...

So, not insane quite yet. Phew.

We have cold. It's minus 40 and foggy today. brrr.

It's my birthday. I'm plus 40 today.

I have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I thoroughly enjoyed the party my friends had for me last night: they invited everyone I work with and all their significant others, plus other friends and I think it's the first time I've had a birthday party in a lot of years. More than 20, I'm sure. It was funny, Bryan Adams was on the stereo for a while, and one of the guests said she had taken her two boys to one of his concerts when they were living in Ontario. I said, he was the first concert I went to, in I think 1983. A young girl sitting opposite me said, "Boy, he must be old - I wasn't even alive in 1983". Sigh.

Miguel made me a cake - cheesecake, mmmm. The kids brought me breakfast in bed this morning, but I unwisely turned my back on half my bagel and Joeby ate it.

I went to church this morning, and I think that if the minister who is visiting at the moment decides to come and be the regular minister I will have to go back to my solitary practices because he is exceeeeeeedingly sexist and generally belligerent, and I don't think I can bear any more. He's leaving next weekend, so I won't have to go to any more of his services in the next little while, but he's muttering darkly about coming back. I don't really want to go into it, because it's all too silly, but he's managed to offend just about all the members of our little assorted "Anglican" congregation (it's the north, this is only one of three churches in town - Catholic and Glad Tidings are the other two, so we have all the non-Catholics and non-Holy Rollers by default - we have a couple of Mennonites, some United Church folk, one lady who is I think a Baptist, and three of four actual Anglicans including me).

This afternoon I am doing nothing. I think Miguel's parents are coming for dinner, but at the moment Ian and Rachel are at Cadets, Kirsten's cleaning her room and Miguel's downstairs painting, and I am sitting listening to the wind.