Janet MacLachlan

            On Monday morning I finished working out the chords for “L'âme slave” (Slavic Soul) by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll run through singing and playing it in French, then I’ll see if I need to revise my translation. 

            I searched for the chords for “La plus jolie fille du monde” (The Prettiest Girl in the World) by Serge Gainsbourg but no one had posted them. I worked them out for the intro and the first verse. 

            I played my Martin acoustic guitar during song practice for the second of two sessions and it stayed in tune for most of the time. It sounded great and was a joy to play for the first time in six months thanks to Alex Wood. 

            I called McClelland Insurance Brokers to ask about liability insurance. The person I spoke with was extremely helpful but not with a solution to my problem. She pointed out the flaw in the landlord’s offer to not renovate my place if I get liability insurance. He seemed to think that a million dollar liability policy would pay out to him, but it would pay to me. The broker told me one can’t get a liability plan by itself but it would be part of an apartment insurance package that she said I should have to protect my possessions. She didn’t understand exactly what the landlord was expecting and neither did I. She said that the landlord should submit his expectations in writing so they could be maybe interpreted if they make any sense. I thanked her and called Raja, who now says the offer is off the table and he’s going to go ahead with the renovations. He even said he would raise my rent by 20% afterwards, which I’m pretty sure isn’t legal. He continues to blame the bedbugs on me because I’m the one who complains about them. He thinks that if he renovates every apartment there will be no more bedbugs in the building. He ignores the fact that the last few times pest control was here they confirmed that I had no bedbugs whereas other units that he’d already renovated and that had fewer cracks in the walls had bedbug nests in their mattresses. 

            I filled out an appointment request form to Parkdale Community Legal Services to ask if there is a way to stop the landlord from tearing my home apart. They got back to me fairly quickly with an appointment offer for this Thursday at noon. 

            I weighed 86.6 kilos before breakfast, which is the lightest I’ve been in the morning since June 14. 

            I weighed 87.35 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and on the way back I stopped at Home Hardware where I bought some clear silicone sealant for the base of the toilet and a box fan that was on sale for $28. When I got home I applied the sealant and then set up the fan under the mantle in the kitchen to provide extra circulation since I can’t open the deck door anymore. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos at 17:53. I haven’t been that feathery in the evening since April 13. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 19:11. 

            In the Movie Maker project to create a video for the Christian and the Lions studio recording of the Brian Haddon song “The Ballad of My Chest Cavity” I synchronized the video with the audio for the line, “keep on making love to you”. That kept them mostly lined up for the rest of the first chorus. But for the beginning of the second verse the video is ahead of the audio so I need to add some outside video to push it back. I looked for anthropomorphized animated human lungs but so far didn’t find what I was looking for. I’ll try again tomorrow. 

            I compared the song practice video of my Martin acoustic performance of “Laisse tomber les filles” on October 7 with that of September 5 and still find that September 5 is better. I compared October 11 to September 5 but September 5 is still on top. I compared October 13 to September 5 and the winner is September 5. If I upload an acoustic version of “Laisse tomber les filles” to You Tube it will be that one. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast beef while watching season 2, episode 8 of The Bill Cosby Show. 

            Chet has a different girlfriend in every episode that features a girlfriend. This time it’s an art teacher named Laura. Chet goes to her place of work to escort her to the beach but she’s busy with a student named Peter, who is finishing up a painting of some flowers that he will be entering in a contest, the winner of which gets a scholarship to art school. Chet impresses Laura when he mentions he’s friends with the famous artist Fletcher Rodenberry. Suddenly Peter paints a black X through his painting because he doesn’t like it. Laura asks Chet to take Peter to see Rodenberry. Chet calls him but he doesn’t remember Chet at all from the navy ship they served on, which carried 4,600 men. But Chet brings Peter to see him anyway and Rodenberry looks at his portfolio. There is a nude female model that we see from the back and Chet keeps trying to shield Peter from looking at her. Rodenberry asks Peter to draw a circle and then tells him that Leonardo Davinci said that if you can draw a circle the rest is easy (there’s no record of him saying that). But Rodenberry observes that Peter can draw a circle. He tells him to only paint what he wants and not what people tell him to paint. Peter paints a nude portrait of Laura and she is upset. She tells Chet to have a talk with him. Chet tells him there is nothing wrong with the painting but he didn’t have permission to use Laura’s likeness. Peter’s final painting is a nude portrayal of Chet as a discus thrower. Chet doesn’t see it until the day of the show and wants it removed. Laura refuses because it’s Peter’s chance at a scholarship. Then the judges give Peter first prize. Chet buys the painting from Peter for $20 because he thinks he can take it down now but Laura tells him that prize winning paintings have to go to the state capital for the state contest. If it wins there it is entered in the nationals. If it wins there it goes to Paris for the world competition. 

            Laura was played by Janet MacClachlan, who earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology in 1955. She made her professional debut in two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in 1965. She played Charlene Masters in the Star Trek episode The Alternative Factor. Her film debut was in Uptight in 1968. She played a supporting role in the film Sounder. She won an LA Emmy in 1981 for her performance in Voices of Our People: In Celebration of Black Poetry.