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The first part of my trip, the getting there, is almost over. I’m sitting in an Internet Cafe on the South Bank after taking a walk down the Thames. Wasting a bit of time before I board my train to Paris.

The plane ride was uneventful, if by “uneventful” one means putting up with the whinest, screamiest child I’ve ever encountered on a flight. My seat was awesome, the food was really quite good, and I watched Bruce Willis brood in Hostage. My inner clock’s a bit messed up, but the awful wanting to throw myself under the tube feeling I had the last time we visited London and had an overnight trip isn’t there—maybe I just knew what to expect.

Took the Heathrow Express to Paddington, than the Underground to Waterloo, left my bag in “left luggage,” and walked along toward the Waterloo Bridge, and back again, now I’m off to the station—I don’t want to miss my train.

It’s funny. I was a bit scared on the subway, but there were so many people, all of them just getting on with their days, their lives, pushing forward because that’s just what you do. Then, I took a deep breath and fell into a young man wearing navy jogging pants and running shoes trying quite hard to look like Donnie Wahlberg. Just like every other day.

As the tradition continues, our 3rd Hillside was quite excellent, with the exception of course, of my ever-increasing allergic reaction to the sun. Here are the top 10 reasons why Hillside rocked this year.

1. The Guelph Conservation Area / Lake.

It’s really a lovely place to have an outdoor festival. The surroundings are beautiful, and you feel nothing but peace and calm, despite the heat, despite the crowds, despite the awful port-o-potties.

2. The Program

There was an excellent line-up of acts this year, the RRBF’s band graduated to the mainstage this year and actually opened Hillside. They played a great show and had Guelph’s own “Crying Out Loud” choir come up and sing back-up for a number of songs on his new album. That night The Lowest of the Low played, and then The Weakerthans, with the RRBF pitching in for a number of songs as an auxiliary member, quite a night for rock and roll. Oh, and Cuff the Duke played too, they rocked, as per usual. I’m not a huge fan of The Arcade Fire, but it was an interesting spectacle, they don’t really live up to the hype, but the RRBF says they’re much better in a smaller venue.

3. Being the Rock Girlfriend

Means that you get a sparkly green wristband that gives you all access. This wonderful privilege means that you can hang out backstage and see Canadian rock legends like Sam Roberts, who is very short, but remarkably handsome. Oh, we were born in a flame.

4. Excellent Food

Well, the backstage food wasn’t totally awesome this year, but the vendor’s always have excellent goods, especially Mapleton Organic Ice Cream.

5. Staying in a Hotel vs. Camping

Um, yeah, the last Hillside where the RRBF played we camped. What a giant mistake that was, especially considering Hillside pays for a hotel for the night that he plays. Annnywaay. We camped amidst a really annoying hippie drum circle, massive orgies going on around us, and totally drunk knuckleheads that use all the toilet paper and puke. So this year, I refused to camp—we stayed at the Travelodge instead, a nice cool room with a semi-comfortable bed and a shower that hits you like a hurricane, so much nicer to go back and spend another hot day outside watching great music.

6. Swimming

See #1. The water was beautiful and ear infection be damned. I went in anyway. Even if the rash came back fierce afterwards, I still loved being in the water. Damn it’s nasty, my arms look like they’ve had some sort of blistering poison poured all over them. Stupid disease.

7. Hanging out With Sam, Sadie and Jay

Babies are so much fun! Especially when they giggle and coo, and smile and laugh, and play with a plum and kick their feet to the music. And visiting with Sam and Jay is always a pleasure—it’s something I should do more often.

8. Hanging out With the Peeps

Which is always fun because the RRBF’s friends, who I guess by this point are my friends too, but whatever, it’s been seven bloody years, are smart, witty, funny, and really fun.

9. Laughing at the Non-First Aid Tent

So the hippie-loving, all-inclusive nature of the Hillside Festival certainly doesn’t expect anyone to get sick. I went to see if they had any antihistomines for my rash and the fellow said, “We don’t really have anything. I can offer you some ice.” Wha? Oh, if you break your leg, here’s some ice! If you fall and scratch yourself, help yourself to some ice! Heh.

10. Sundays at Home

Driving home late at night, smelling the grass and the fresh air, feeling tired but still kind of excited and then getting up today and getting ready to go to Europe!

T-minus about 6 hours until I’m on the plane and bound for London-town. I’ll keep you all posted as well as can be expected as I visit Paris, Ireland and London.

And I’m back covered in a rash from head to toe about to jump into bed before I go to the airport tomorrow for my European odyssey. More tomorrow!

Well, I was back at the doctor’s today. In addition to feeling horribly sorry for myself, I now have an ear infection. Wha? Who knows where it came from or why it happened. And trust me, every single person from doctor to pharmacist asked, “Have you been swimming?” Um, no—there’s no way I’m putting this tubby ole ass of mine into a bathing suit this summer, my scars need to heal!

Oh, and creatinine update: it’s slightly down at 126, which is really a lot better than 139 or whatever it was the last time I went in.

Well, at least an ear infection is better than a black eye. Won’t be nice for the plane ride though.

Sophie Kinsella’s latest book, The Undomestic Goddess lives up to every cliche that could ever be said about those kinds of books. It’s chicklit to the core, complete with the proto-feminist workaholic right down to the hunky gardener that Samantha Sweeting, the protagonist, falls in love with.

Her writing reads so well, and Kinsella has a great gift for creating fabulous female characters. But maybe she suffers from the fact that she’s so successful rather than perhaps benefiting from it. What she needs is a really good editor (I call this the Margaret Atwood Dilemma) who isn’t afraid to say, “This plot needs some work,” not “your book is so fabulously wonderful and will make us all a pile of money,” which it will, but still, perhaps not the point?

There are so many holes in the plot of this book (high powered lawyer makes a huge mistake, causes her a partnership in London’s best firm, lawyer runs away and ends up as a housekeeper…and then falls in love) that it sort of ruined the book for me. And I’m not talking about the see-through nature of most of these books, how easy it is to see what’s going to happen from half-way into the first paragraph, it’s seemingly more than that in this case.

Kinsella brings in characters only to drop them, never to be heard from again. She creates these energetic scenes and then can’t write through them well enough not to rely on the cliches that seem to pepper every other paragraph. She creates these heart-stopping situations (something about a poor legal contract that her new employers are about to sign) and then never talks about it again leaving me wondering what the hell happened, and then she’s off on the next tangent, rolling into the inevitable conclusion right down to the pap of an ending that involves, ahem, a train and someone, ahem, chasing after someone else. Ew.

It would be nice to say the she’s maturing through her novels, this being, what the fifth or sixth? But what seems to happen is that her books seem to be getting more and more derivative. Yeah, the whole lawyer-goes-slumming chicklit plot was already done by Jennifer Weiner’s In Her Shoes, which is by far the better book.

Now, I read this book in about three hours, what does that say about me, and about The Undomestic Goddess? Visit your local library for chicklit, don’t waste your precious book buying dollars. Or start a chicklit club, and each girl buys one book and then trades. Because they are like sugar, probably not very good for you but impossible not to eat when you’ve got that craving.

Dear Alexander McCall Smith:

I (heart) you. Every page of The Kalahari Typing School For Men made me care even more about characters that I already love. Every time Mma Ramotswe solves a case, cares for her foster children or speaks reverently about her father, I swoon. Soon I’ll have finished all six books and then will be left with a gaping hole of nothingness to be filled in pale comparison by some books I have yet to meet.

Sigh.

…a brand-new side effect for the new medication, extreme exhaustion. If I could prop my eyelids open with a toothpick, I would.

Seriously, shut up Leah McLaren and your useless column (link via bookninja.com). Like bookninja, I too find it hard to make it to the end of your ridiculous “articles.” And, please, if only ALL of the problems in the world were as trivial as the ones you ramble on about week after week, holy solipsism batman.

You know, having just gotten another contract to write an abridged classic, I feel nothing but lucky for my good fortune. Never once do I sit around thinking, “Oh what a burden to have to write this book, oh what a troubled life to have to sit and be a creative person for the majority of the hours I spend toiling away being fantastic, rich and spoiled.” I mean if someone PAID me to write a novel, I’d be pleased as punch, and not to mention the suckers, ahem, like me who once they finish something will have to actually work her ass off to get it published. What reality is she living in, I mean really?

Nothing but ire McLaren, nothing but ire.

Last night I went over to Wing Chun and Glark’s house to play Celebrity with them and some other friends. It’s a seriously funny game, and a good time was had by all. I have discovered, however, that I am far better at this than I am at bowling, which is another thing they like to do. In fact, I’m a downright embarrassing bowler, having absolutely no hand-eye coordination when it comes to pitching the ball down that ridiculously long lane.

All in all it was a fun evening. You know, the stupid disease might be killing my kidneys, but at least my new medicine lets me get on with my life. There’s a gentle blessing in that.

Oh, and T-one week to Europe! Yee-ha!

The main character in Jane Moore’s Love @ First Site, Jessica, gets set up by her friend that’s not really a friend on an Internet dating service. A thirty-four-year-old television producer happy being single but who really wants to find that someone, Jess puts herself through a number of awful dates including one who does a runner during dinner and sacks her with the bill, another who complains about smoking and her bad habits only seconds after meeting her, and one handsome man who sees her and decides on the spot that he doesn’t want the date to go any further.

The romantic premise of this chicklit book finds Jess looking for love amidst a family crisis that rocks her to the core and brings about some serious life changes. The predictable, almost pat, ending is okay, but it wasn’t worth me staying up until 1 AM last night finishing it.

In the end, when you read about characters on or around your age, it’s funny how much you impress your own life and experiences upon them, finding bits of yourself stuck on the page, so much so, that you spend more time thinking about the state of your existence than you do relating to the characters. It’s a passable book that left me more grumpy than ever about my own impending birthday.