Fran Ryan

            On Monday morning I worked out the chords for the first three verses and the instrumental of "I'm the boy" by Serge Gainsbourg. I found out that the refrain "I'm the boy that can enjoy invisibility" comes from James Joyce's Ulysses and that Joyce got it from a pantomime called Turko the Terrible by Edwin Hamilton. I haven't been able to find the script of the pantomime anywhere so far. 

            I weighed 83.6 kilos before breakfast. It's funny that I gained more weight from eating salads than beans. Beans feel heavy in the stomach but they're actually lighter. 

            I worked for over an hour researching ideas for tomorrow's test.

            I weighed 83.6 kilos before lunch. I made guacamole with avocadoes, cilantro, cucumber, and barbecue spiced sunflower seeds. I had it with kettle chips. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. At first I started out with two scarves and my winter gloves, but it was a little too warm so when I got to Dundas and Brock I took off one scarf and switched to my spring gloves. I rode to Bloor and Bathurst. 

            I weighed 83.1 kilos at 16:45. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:30.

            I spent over two hours doing research for tomorrow's test. I gathered comparisons between David Copperfield's Dora and Wendy's Peter Pan: 

            Imagination is a form of self defence against growing up. Dora in David Copperfield refuses to be anything more than a child wife and she dies in that state. There is a legitimate reason for Peter and Dora to fear adulthood because growing up is a kind of death. There is an entire life of living in the imagination that must end when someone becomes an adult. The most perplexing thing Mrs. Darling finds in her children's minds is the word "Peter". It has an oddly cocky appearance. David thinks, "Dora, what a beautiful name!" "She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don't know what she was - anything that no one ever saw and everything that everybody ever wanted." Wendy and David are both drawn to the otherworldliness of Peter and Dora. Dora is a fairy and Peter lives in a world of fairies, propelling himself through the air with the help of fairy dust. Dora is not inclined to be confidential to Miss Murdstone. Miss Murdstone is like the adults that Peter resents. When Peter sees that Mrs. Darling is a grownup he gnashes the little pearls of his teeth at her. What a graceful, variable, enchanting manner Dora has. Peter could be exceedingly polite also, having learned the grand manner at fairy ceremonies, and he rises and bows beautifully. Dora was rather diminutive so much the more precious. Her small size adds to her childlike manner. David has fallen for a child. Peter has all his baby teeth and Mrs. Darling has a secret kiss only for him. The most entrancing thing about him for Mrs. Darling is that he has all his first teeth. Dora sings enchanted ballads accompanying herself on a glorified instrument. Peter sometimes comes to the nursery in the night and sits on the foot of Wendy's bed to play on his pipes to her. David is in Fairyland with Dora in the Greenhouse. Wendy goes to Neverland with Peter.

            I sautéed garlic, onions, and crushed chillies. I added kidney beans, black beans and salsa and made chili. I had it on top of super fries that I made in the oven. I ate while watching season 6, episode 18 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            There are almost fifty rooms in the Clampett mansion and Granny cleans it from top to bottom every day. Her family and Jane are worried she's going to wear herself out and so they start looking for a housekeeper. Milburn Drysdale makes the mistake of asking his wife Margaret to recommend a housekeeper since she's fired every housekeeper in Beverly Hills. Margaret recommends Miss Meek, but she does so as an act of sabotage because she is still obsessed with driving the Clampetts out of town. Margaret apparently fired Miss Meek fifteen minutes after she started working for her. Granny doesn't want a housekeeper but Drysdale convinces her that Meek is a charity case and she'll be saving her life. But Meek is an ill tempered and lazy person who does no real housework at all. Granny deliberately messes the house up to get Jed's attention that Meek is wrong for the job. Finally Jane finds Meek a job doing something she will really enjoy: she becomes a jailer at the maximum security prison. Granny is now happy and sets about to cleaning again. 

            Miss Meek was played by Fran Ryan, who started out in theatre in the 1950s. She was fifty years old when she made her television debut on Batman and then on The Beverly Hillbillies. Her first big TV role was as the housekeeper on The Doris Day Show. She played Doris Ziffel on the last season of Green Acres. She played Miss Hannah on the final season of Gunsmoke. She co-starred in the sitcom No Soap Radio. She was the voice of Hannah the Barbarian on Little Dracula, co-starred on Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, The New Zoo Revue, The Wizard, and The Dave Thomas Comedy Show. Her first two husbands were pilots who died in plane crashes. She played Rosie Carlson on Days of Our Lives and Sister Agatha on General Hospital. I tried to do some more research for my test but I fell asleep while sitting and trying to read.

            It's now been thirty-one days since I've found a bedbug.