Right. Since you’ve all been such good sports, I reckon a few words of elaboration on my 10 truths are in order. [Even though each and every one of these could easily be turned into a whole book.]
- I owned my first property by the time I was eight.
… And no, contrary to what Bromman suggests in yesterday’s comment thread, it had nothing to do with Monopoly. My mother and father split when I was five years old. They owned a condominium [… with a mortgage] and when they divorced – when I was seven – they gave it to me.
- I started living on my own when I was 16.
I was far too young. But out of two unappealing options, it was the one I preferred.
3. My first boyfriend did time in prison while we were still together.
I was a pretty fragmented Young Person and let’s just say I sought refuge in a lot of insanity. And I must say this: I’m so happy that I managed to get my shit together enough to not have to pass all that madness on to my daughter. [Because that’s what happens. The next generation gets the insanity – with interest – unless you do something.] When I compare her to myself at her age I could weep with gratitude.
4. I once worked in a restaurant owned by Dan Ackroyd.
It was called Crook’s and it was on Front Street in Toronto. It was a good bar to work in, as bars go. A cursory google search reveals that it no longer exists.
5. I used to live in the next apartment to an erotic phone business.
This was hilarious. It was when phone sex businesses were just starting up in the 80s and I lived above a flower shop on Parliament Street in Toronto. There were three apartments in the corridor and the walls were paper-thin. The front apartment was vacated and somebody new moved in. Then the phone started ringing. It rang off the wall, day and night [picture if you will a supremely irate YT lying in bed trying to sleep] and weird men started hanging around the front door, asking for ‘the mailbox for Apartment 1’. It was only by fluke that I learned the truth. A friend and I called the number because we couldn’t believe it – but there it was. I learned all about phone sex procedure through that experience [not first-hand, though, I hasten to add].
6. I studied acting at one of the top theatre schools in Canada.
Ryerson Theatre School in Toronto. It’s in the top five. Around 650 people auditioned and 34 got in.
7. I have a mixed race child.
AAH’s father is African-American.
8. I was once the victim of a purse snatching on the London Underground.
‘7-9-13’ as the Icelanders would say [‘touch wood’].
9. I dropped out of university four times.
This one warrants its own separate post.
10. I once took both Ian McEwan and Graham Swift here.
… And they were real troupers, too. Sat in the sauna for a good long while and even ran out to immerse themselves in the icy cold lake like true Vikings. We had a blast.
11. I spoke Greek as a child.
I lived in Cyprus [the Greek part – duh!] for a year-and-a-half when I was little [5-7 years old]. I had a friend in the next house who was Greek Cypriot and after hanging around with her daily for a few months I’d pretty much picked up the essentials. Last summer I returned to Cyprus for the first time since and took AAH with me. I was determined to find our old house. It turned out to be occupied by an all-male gambling club [a story unto itself] and astonishingly, incredibly, my friend still lived next door and she was just coming out of her house while we were there looking around. We had this incredible reunion and after all this time we’re in email contact now. It was pretty amazing.
… AND JUST BRIEFLY: THE WEATHER
Extremely WINDY at the moment, so yuck. It could be worse, though – it could be colder. Like it’s set to be tomorrow. Current temps are right at the freezing mark. Sunrise was at 10.22 and sunset at 16.06. [Apologies that the formatting is all screwy. It seems to have a mind of its own]
