Bon Nuit

I am still in the process of recovering from what was a very successful Nuit Blanche last night. I once again performed at the Gladstone Hotel, but this time I was part of "Nuit 'Nude' Blanche", which has (as far as we know) successfully set the Guinness World Record for the longest running burlesque and variety show in history! So cool. And, the best part is that I was randomly picked to be the grand finale of the event!... even though that essentially meant that I didn't go on stage until about 6:50am. Yeah. Loooong night. I got to the hotel around midnight after having slept in until about 12:30pm in preparation for the very long evening ahead, and spent a lot of that time taking in the other performances and chatting with folks in the green room; it was so great to be back in the Canadian burlesque scene after months away! And I had fun wandering about the Gladstone glammed up for hours - seriously, I can't complain about random (probably very drunk) men telling me that I'm gorgeous. ;) I felt slightly incoherent as the time drew nearer for me to go on stage, but perked up a bit when I got ready, and then I was good to go. I stuck around afterwards to have breakfast at the hotel with a friend too, which was great in terms of the company, as well as having a way to let my adrenaline return to normal levels. Also very nice to refuel after not having any food since about 9:30pm the evening before! I got to bed around 9:45am, woke up at 6:30 this evening, and am now pretty much ready to head back to bed, even though it's not yet midnight. Yes, it's been that kind of day, lol.

This being my first blog post since being back in Canada, I guess I have a bit of catching up to do re: the past few weeks! It's been crazy busy, and I have found it quite difficult to settle back in to life here. I don't think a lot of people really understand that there is culture shock going both ways when one travels, even if the home destination happens to be the culture in which one was raised. Most people here seemed to think I could just pick up right where I left off, and I couldn't. It was that simple. It's been great to have a home again (especially to be back with Mowgli!), but definitely an adjustment to have a flatmate after years of living alone; to suddenly have less than half the paycheque I used to; and to be back in a country that I love, but ultimately don't want to live in.

I miss the UK pretty terribly, and have found that I'm really grappling with how to practise my spirituality here now after being so grounded in it, and feeling like I had a regular, almost daily practise of it whilst I was in London. But, then I'm really enjoying how comfortable I am here - I love what I study, I love having my stuff in a home that's mine for more than 3 weeks at a time, and being back in a city I know well and where I have a lot of friends is awesome. I also love that I'm back in the classroom teaching a great course, and that I once again have a membership at a fabulous gym. Yep, it's hard to complain about all of that. As such, I've decided to extend my time in TO until April, rather than trying to make the move back to the UK in January. It gives me time to sort out my stuff, to enjoy teaching both terms, and to recover physically from all the travelling. So, I am trying to embrace this time, and make some good, solid plans for getting my ass back over to the other side of the Atlantic.

Unfortunately, my knee hadn't really gotten any better since being back - and variously went through periods of being worse when I was in the UK, when it should have been improving - so I finally found a fantastic physiotherapist who checked it out about 2 weeks ago. And, it appears my injury was misdiagnosed from the beginning!! I did not, in fact, dislocate my patella, but I have partially torn my ACL and done some sort of trauma to the popliteus muscle, which has been trying to compensate for the torn ligament. I have an appointment with a sports medicine Dr. for the first week of November, but it looks like surgery will likely be required to fix the ACL, if I want to be able to do all the activities that I love. And, I am praying that it won't take too terribly long to get the surgery - I don't want anything to derail my revised UK plans!

Anyway, I'm still exhausted from my very early morning performance, so I'm heading off to bed with the sleepy kitty on my lap. Again.