Thank you, Andrej!

Footnotes:

1. at least I think so

Jackie and I were partners in crime at Victoria Park Secondary School way back when… when I look back on my favourite vacations she is always there. I have two: One when I went to visit her in LA and when I went to visit her in Holbox, Mexico. Jackie, you are my soul mate and I wouldn’t have it any other way (except maybe I wish we could be physically closer to each other for a larger chunk of each year but one day… right?)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BESTIE!

Albert and I got tattoos together in 2005 and we haven’t looked back. I wasn’t sure whether you wanted to be displayed in public so I picked a photo that hid most of yer face But know that I am not ashamed to call you my friend because you’re one of the best friends I could have ever asked for. I’m happy you and Barb are in my life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIR!

February is Heart month and my dear friend¹, Shannon Hunter, has put together a super FUNdraiser called Love a Heart which is in it’s 2nd year; All proceeds go to the Heart & Stroke Foundation.

She had actually asked me last year but I turned it down because I was in enough “complicated” situations that I couldn’t even fathom going up on stage in such a high-pressure situation. This year however, I was pretty excited when she asked me again. I got even more excited when I heard my wifey, Christine, was also being auctioned off… and then I heard about the other wonderful women who will be auctioned off².

I don’t think I belong up on stage with these ladies, but I’m so happy to have been asked that I’m just going to go up on stage and have fun. I think so long as no one throws any food or drinks at me it’ll be fun. If you aren’t doing anything on Febraury 9th and you want to watch me feel really nervous on stage while people³ yell out seemingly random though somewhat sequential numbers at me then you should come to the Hideout at or shortly after 8pm. Full event details can be found on facebook.

Moving on to less-neurotic thoughts, I’m excited to learn more about the date packages that each bachelorette & bachelor will be paired up with. I like fun dates. Dinner is great for the first date but you learn so much about a person from watching them conduct activities… like rock-climbing for example. What a fun date that is. I’m also super excited about the private fitting that Rent Frock Repeat has organized for us Bachelorettes tonight.

RFR also be generous enough to give anyone who uses the code LOVEAHEART a 10% discount. I hope I find something within my limited budget but if not, it’ll be a fun to try on dresses with the other hot bachelorettes who will be attending⁴.

While I wasn’t a Bachelorette last year I did attend to give moral support to my friends who had been auctioned off and it was quite a fun night and I’m sure this year will be no different. If you’re a fan of Tiny Danza‘s music⁵, they’ll be playing a set between the Bachelor & the Bachelorette auctions!

It’ll be a super fun night and I hope you can come out and show⁶ some moral support⁷!

You know me and questions, I like to ask them: What is your favourite activity to do on a date?

Footnotes:

1. all star-columnist at Women’s Post and Community Manager
2. and I kind of got scared
3. hopefully
4. Guys, I know you’re picturing us all in our underwear now. You’re welcome
5. Of course you are
6. me
7. if not for me, then for some of the other Bachelor/ettes or for the Heart & Stroke Foundation

See the lady on the left, that’s my mother. We used to fight a lot. We still fight every now and then but it’s easier to see things from her point of view these days¹. I worry about her and I’m sure she worries about me². Sometimes I wonder about whether she would have preferred raising us with her own family around but she does well³ to keep in touch with her siblings and my Grandfather. I know she would still be keeping in touch with my Grandmother too if she was still with us today. I could learn a thing or two about keeping in touch with people who are millions of miles away from her.

I have learned a lot of things from my mother; not necessarily through any intention of hers but I learned them all the same. I’m attentive like she’s attentive. I’m incapable of being unproductive like she is incapable of the same. I snack a lot… but that’s something both of my parents do. I am good at baking… but again that’s something both my parents are good at. I can talk a lot like she talks a lot⁴.

Anyone of my friends who has met my Mum always goes on about how cute she is. And if you look at her, you’d see why: at 5’1″⁵ she’s petite but it’s more than her height that makes her adorable. She is ever-caring and a gentle soul; she wouldn’t hurt a fly⁶; and she’s always smiling, yet another thing I learned from her.

We’re going to dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Markham China Town to celebrate her birthday tonight even though it’s a school night because that’s just how we like to roll. I’m glad my Mum is my Mum. She’s beautiful, talented, intelligent and patient⁷. I can only hope I make her just as proud of me as I am of her.

Footnotes:

1. and potentially vice versa
2. Nothing major, typical stuff I am sure
3. better than anyone else I know
4. she is usually the one talking when the four of us get together
5. sorry if you are taller than this Mum, but this is how short you feel to me
6. but do not be fooled, if you ever get her upset you better be prepared
7. and so much more, but that is all I’ll list out for now

Listen to Reggy reading “English Pronunciation” by G. Nolst Trenité

Just in case you’d rather read the words off my blog, here you are:

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

– written by G. Nolst Trenité

I made a lot of mistakes along the way but this was a lot of fun to record. I’m sure I could’ve cheated and tried again but I already got to cheat twice because people called in the middle of my first two tries.

Also, just in case you’re wondering: I was listening to Graydon James & The Young Novelists and that’s who you can hear in the background. The fan sound is from the kitchen exhaust.

If you happened to do the same and you’ve recorded yourself reading this out loud, please leave a link in the comments so I can follow along!