Holiday

B and I are here in One Great City! this year, which is nice because we can hang out together and do our own thing instead of splitting up for family obligations and sticking to schedules. Those things are also nice, but it's good to have a change once in a while. It's also a bit more relaxing.

On Christmas Eve I was released from the clutches of work halfway through the day, so we ran errands then went skating with J+J at the duck pond in the huge park in town. The pond froze into a sort of bowl shape so for parts of it we were skating downhill. In spite of the excessive amounts of Kenny G's Christmas pumping out of the speakers, I felt genuine happiness skating there.

We went over for a late meal and stayed the night. The next morning, they kindly lent us one of their cars because they live at the edge of the city and they figured bus service would be non-existent. We'd be going back the next day anyway so we could return it then.

On Christmas Day, it was just the two of us, and we cooked up a huge meal for ourselves. We had:

1. duck
2. stuffing
3. mashed potato with yam and parsnip
4. Brussels sprouts (for B. I have that anti-sprout gene)
   
5. carrot salad
6. cranberry sauce
7. gravy
8. bread and butter pudding
9. wine from Sardinia

It was delicious! Getting going was full of false starts as we almost never cook meat and this was our first time cooking a duck - plus, our kitchen is cramped and we don't have the right utensils or crockery to undertake this sort of project with smoothness - but it worked out in the end and everything tasted great.

On Boxing Day, we returned to J+J's for a party. We had looked up the bus before coming and had written down the times so we knew when to catch it home, because service was scant. J+J again offered their car and I considered it for a minute but it seemed ridiculous. They were talking about coming out to our place to pick it up the next day in another car and then driving it back, which sounded silly considering the bus was going there anyway. So we opted for the bus, and man. What a kafuffle! We really had to fight for it. People became very concerned. They just couldn't stand it. We were offered rides down the street, to the stop, half way; eyebrows and voices were raised; there was gasping; one woman looked me in the eye with pity and told me that she hates taking the bus. But it was a beautiful night and, after two days of lounging, I was ready to walk to a bus stop. So, despite the fuss, we took the bus home.

"Give them a medal!"

This is exactly what my thesis is about.

Anyway, it was a fun party. There were tonnes of nibblies. I have never eaten so much cheese in my life. B and I didn't know very many people, but everyone was friendly and we had a really good time.

These four days off in a row - four and-a-half if you count Christmas Eve - are prime movie-watching time. We've rented something like seven movies. We also have a 3D puzzle to assemble, the bonus there being that we can then get rid of it and free up some closet space. I like to think of myself as non-materialistic, but for someone who doesn't care about stuff, we sure have a lot of stuff.

The thing I've noticed this year more than others is how much hugging goes on at Christmas - with everyone and anyone. Normally I don't think anything of it, I just hug whomever, but twice this week, a compulsion came over me that I then suppressed, but the hug happened anyway. I don't know why I suppressed the feeling except that maybe I thought my hug would be rejected, but each time it was too late, some subtle signal had been sent which they then harnessed to hug me. Both times were really funny. One of these people is Brazilian so he's used to way more physical contact than we well-buffered Canadians. I'm just going with it now, like the lady at B's curling club who hugged and kissed me after we'd exchanged a single sentence.

I like my job

It's about time I wrote here again, lest my bajillions of readers shift their attention elsewhere and are lost to me forever. I sense I may have passed that point. I don't know why I haven't been here much lately - not for lack of wanting, nor of things to say, more that I just didn't want to collect my thoughts, preferring instead to leave them jumbled in my mind to fester and morph into something coherent of their own accord. Much like ignoring the disaster that is my desk. If I put my mind to it, I really can ignore these things. The desk will clean itself.

Well, that never works. I had started this 'essay' about Stephane Dion and the writing of history (most interesting, trust me!) but then you know how on top of the news you have to be before it's irrelevant and, well, 'on top' is just not where I was at all. Maybe this thing will bob to the surface months from now, having taken a different shape. By itself.

Thesis approach follows suit: abandoned in the back of my mind, left to figure itself out - which, happily, it kind of has, as of an hour ago. I haven't finished my thesis yet because I honestly could not connect the dots - from purpose to lit review to the three phases of research to the link back to planning - I just could not find a common thread to tie it all together. Saying that I'd abandoned it is not entirely true, though. I have been picking away at it most days in an attempt to keep some contact with it before I lost it entirely, but always with uncertainty about where the whole thing would end up. I feel clearer now. Work, of all things, has helped.

First, we had a writing workshop last month, which totally inspired me to take a new approach to writing, focusing far more on planning than I normally would. That put a whole new perspective on how to tackle the mountain of the half-analysed, half-written, all-complicated thesis.

Then, for the past week I've been working closely with my co-worker Gavin on a 'project charter' - a new term to me. In case you are as unaware as I was, this is a document that outlines the parameters of a project (spoken with authority!) and has very specific components, like Scope, and Risks, and Milestones. The process of poring through each section and writing the whole thing together on one computer was truly fulfilling. Our boss' boss' boss was happy with the result and so were we. I have always thought of myself as actively NOT a team player (my resume lies) but after this, I'm happy to work closely with Gavin, especially because this approach is how we both finally came to understand what we're about to do.

I've heard lots of reasons not to start a full-time job before finishing a thesis, but so far it's only helped me. Nearly every day at work I come across something that applies, something that brings me closer to tying it all together. Work helps me to look at my thesis more broadly, which is what I need to do. It gives me more energy, not less.

So this morning, when I woke up at 2:00am thinking about my thesis, I got up. I came into this room. It smelled like Christmas because B and I had bought a tree and left it in here to thaw. I wrote my ideas down as a kind of map. I think I'll go back to bed now.

An excitement of US proportions

This is the most exciting thing to happen in Canadian politics since... Pierre Trudeau? I don't actually remember being excited about him at the time, but had I been a bit older then, I'm sure I would have been.

Good-bye, friend!

J-Lo moved away today. I have not known a One Great City! without him. From the first day of planning school until today, it's been me, B and J-Lo.

This is going to be an adjustment.

He just called from Planners' Dream City airport, for no reason other than we just normally call one another a lot, on his way to his new home town.

He and B were watching this the other day:



Many laughs.

I miss him.

The re-graping of the raisin

I feel like I'm burning out. All week I've eaten breakfast and lunch that's been ordered, by me, for a four-day training session at work. Even though it's relatively healthy food, I just don't feel like myself at all. One or two meals a week prepared outside of a home is about all I can handle before I just stop thinking properly. Enough already with the sugary dainties and oily muffins and salads that overdo the sweet/savoury mix!

Raisins. They have a place, but maybe not in a salad. Would you wrap a raisin in a spinach leaf? Drizzle a little vinegar over it and pop it in your mouth? Okay, I might. It's when the raisin starts to take on characteristics of its former self that I struggle. The first time I had a conversation with Q, I asked him about his opinion on the cooked raisin. I had a hunch that he was the kind of person who would really sink his teeth into this, and I was not disappointed. We were at a party with our significant others and two friends. He was quite enthusiastic about the idea, but I stuck with my argument that so long as the raisin maintains its raisin-ness nature - dried fruit, essentially - then mixing is okay; but, in something like a muffin, where it becomes fat and juicy? Well, as Type A says, if I want a fat and juicy raisin, I'll just eat a grape, thank you.

Q and I debated the issue for some time before taking it to the rest of the party in the form of a poll, the question being 'Cinnamon bun: with or without raisins?'. The results were about 2:1 without (I say 'about' because B, as always, claimed to enjoy both, but had more of an inclination towards without). This really didn't surprise me, but Q seemed genuinely taken aback. It was one of the funniest conversations I've ever had.

All I need is a haircut

I am developing a bad case of hockey hair. There's a salon I usually go to a few doors down from here, but I don't want to make an appointment. It's a high-end salon (by One Great City! standards) and I usually get a good cut there, but really I go just because it's close. Most of the rest of it annoys me - the inane conversation, the token dog, the way the stylists replace the product bottles along the bottom of the mirrors with a spin so that the labels are always facing outward. There is also tipping weirdness. I hate the way posh places expect you to just know who to tip, when and how much, and it's this big to-do if you get it wrong.

Lb*'s B is into hockey. He used to keep a very detailed book in the bathroom which analysed each of the players in the NHL for their speed, skating ability, finesse and so on. The day I discovered it, I was in that bathroom for ages because it was totally engrossing, even for someone who is not a big hockey fan. I flipped through most of it, but kept going back to the picture of the year's top player. Something about it was very compelling - likely his bizarre hairdo. Still, I thought he was lovely. (What is wrong with me?) He has since cut his hair and, well, the intrigue is just gone for me. So, I carry the flame of his past look in my own hairstyle. Just a few more months avoiding that salon...

Some fun links

This is news?

Lunch at work is such fun. Every day, anywhere from three to six of us sit and chat about whatever, but the conversation invariably comes back to food - what we're eating, how we made it, who grew what where, what we made for dinner last night, what we would bring to a pot luck if ever there was one to go to, our own food issues and food politics. It's, like, the most interesting topic in the world. Everyone has something to say about it. I'm going to bring up that article tomorrow.

I also recently read this. I just love how she spells the name of her tour. It's something Prince would do, and then some. She has out-Princed Prince. Something about that, and the accompanying photo, is so very compelling that I couldn't get the story out of my head. I would go to see this show. Somehow, though, I doubt that there's a stop on the way to One Great City!.

I do have an opportunity to see this lady. (!WARNING!: This link emits a terrible sound!) For free! Should I? I'd hardly call myself a fan, but it could be worth it, strictly from a spectacle point of view. I'm actually more interested in this book which analyses people's seeming adoration of her by a guy who just doesn't get the appeal, but wants to. I bring it up at every opportunity - and there are many - even though I've never read it. Sometimes it's enough to have heard the author interviewed, but usually not, so maybe I'd better read it. Anyway, whether I go or not depends on how far along I am on my thesis draft, due 'early next week': so, would Wednesday count?

Election Day

I wrote this before I went away so it's a little out of date but, since the election is tomorrow, it seems appropriate.
--
I don't think anything happens for a reason. I think things just happen, whether we actively make them happen or otherwise, and we impose a plausible reason onto them so that we can understand life and make it meaningful. I don't mean this to be cynical - in fact, I think it's uplifting to think that there are no right answers waiting to be uncovered. This makes me feel powerful and small at once because I can build a path but the universe doesn't care where it goes one way or another. There's a name for this but I can't remember it.

I didn't have a whole lot going on at work today so I found myself searching Karl Rove on Wikipedia. This was because yesterday I had read an article about how Stephane Dion has been 'framed' by the Conservatives as a poor leader. It mentioned Rove and how his tactics from the 2004 US election are being employed in the current Canadian campaign. The article deeply bothered me. I know that politics can be nasty but this kind of professional manipulation backed by a thorough understanding and complete exploitation of human psychology is frightening. It's always bothered me how disengaged people can be from politics when I think how fundamentally important it is to know what you think and why and to vote accordingly, but when attack ads and branding play a more central role than policy, I don't blame people for not wanting to vote. Anyway, Karl Rove's is a substantial entry in Wikipedia with a variety of interesting links, one of which was to a Family Guy episode where he is portrayed. I didn't think anything of that.

Much later on I was collecting coins from my stash drawer to buy a coffee at the machine. I had a few US dimes and began to study one of them carefully. Coins are fascinating. The coin says 'E pluribus unum' on it, broken up to fit around the image. I'd never noticed it before. I looked up its meaning: out of many, one. There was also a link to an episode of Family Guy called 'E. Peterbus Unum' and I thought, I've read that before. It took me a minute to establish the links, but aren't they funny? Framing - Karl Rove - a dime - Family Guy - out of many, one.
--
So I've thought about this for three or four weeks now and I haven't come up with a meaning, so let's say my stupid little link is meaningless. Maybe the whole election will be pointless. Anyway, I'll vote after work. The polling station doesn't open until 8:30.

Jetlag can be fun

Hi! I'm back now. I have been awake since 2:30am, reliving the past two weeks of holidays. There is so much I want to write about. I had intended to bring paper and pen with me and keep track of those little things that spark a blog entry, but I didn't, so I'm going to have to go by B's extensive photographic record - a pretty good supplement to my own unreliable memory. For now, how about some related tunes? I had an pm3 player with me but I didn't listen to any music at all, so this is all thanks to hotel television, clothing shops and two weddings. I have searched for the great hip hop band that we kept hearing but I can't find them as I have no idea what they are called or what any of their song titles are, so if you know of any hot Italian hip hop bands right now with really big hair, fill me in.

When did it get so damned dark in the morning?

Now!

There is currently a rhubarb crumble baking in the oven. Yum! I don't bake much, but when I do, it's usually spontaneous. Sometimes I'll start baking when I'm in the middle of making dinner, but I try to avoid that inevitable disaster.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I am very quirky. Correct.

I remember having a funny conversation with a friend (who is now pregnant, not that that's relevant) about how spontaneity is linked to doing something unhealthy, particularly for our boyfriends, and how that is silly. We thought, wouldn't it be fabulous if our mates spontaneously did the dishes? Or spontaneously ate a stalk of broccoli? Not that baking a rhubarb crumble is particularly healthy (although having read this, I'm beginning to wonder if I wouldn't be better off increasing my dairy intake) but it's the act of baking to which I refer. Baking, like dancing, is one of those activities where I don't for a second wish I was doing something else. It makes me very happy and I don't know why I don't do more of it. No time, I guess. Must pounce on those urges to bake when they happen upon me.

Long time ago

Twenty years ago, Dad uprooted the family to England for a year, where I was to wear a school uniform. I was not happy about this. I listened to my walkman a lot, to cope. Usually it was the soundtrack to my favourite movie at the time. Here's a sample:



Now, isn't that a classy video? I've had that song in my head for a week, but I'm not sure why. It really makes me think of moving to England, and of being in airports. Next week, I get to go to an airport. Several. I even get to go to England. Unfortunately, I don't have that tape anymore, though I do have a walkman, but it feels bulky now.

Sometimes, I think about how different my life would have been if the internet and mp3s were around when I was a teenager. Being distracted enough by Much Music, I don't think I would have been able to handle the extra stimuli. Obviously nothing has changed: I am supposed to be working on writing up my thesis right now but here I am, just like in my teens. That is so depressing, to know you haven't changed.

My internet spell-check does not recognise the word walkman. Not even with a capital 'W'.

Friction

Last weekend, I went camping with B and J-Lo. Amidst the fun and nonsense was enough tension to last me the rest of the year. Unfortunately, most of it came towards the end. The words 'duck' and 'mountain' together will forever ring slightly off-key to me.

The first two days of canoeing, swimming, hiking, Frisbee - all these were great. The sun shone, spirits were up... then B and I got into an argument over the dinner while J-Lo was taking a nap. Even though I think of it as a separate space, a tent doesn't have the thickest of walls. J-Lo dealt with the awkwardness commendably. Dinner became a joint effort, however, embarrassment lurked in the shadows a little too long.

The next, and final, morning, B decided we had to get out of there as soon as possible, no discussion; not even J-Lo's drying tent was to stand in the way of the taking down of the tarp. His reasons for immediate exodus remain unclear to me and J-Lo was left clearly, and duly, offended by B's dismissive way. Shortly afterwards, we got in the car and headed home, accompanied by the kind of atmosphere that forms when something weird happens between people but they ignore it because they've never gone there before so they don't know what else to do. So the air grows thick. Six sweet hours cramped together, us and that atmosphere.

Before The Dinner Fight, I had read my first Alice Munro short story. It was mildly creepy. She can really capture a mood, and for that reason, I would have liked for her to have been with us on the way home so she could finish this entry for me because it would probably be bang-on.

Do you ever get the sense that it is up to you to take affirmative action to improve an awkward situation? Only you are in a position to make things better? Whenever I start to think those thoughts, I feel like I'm not positive enough or funny enough or upbeat enough to be up for it, otherwise I would have just done it without thinking twice. This was another thing I was thinking about.

Alice Munro is not guest-posting here unfortunately, but in my preoccupation with her, the mood, my role in it all, and how I'd write about it, I had neglected to notice that we were approximately two millilitres away from an empty tank. Long, straight, gravel road, dreary sky, pouring rain, and let's not forget that atmosphere! The next town was 31 km away.

Cue: another argument.

We made it to the gas station in time, thank god, and things began to actually improve. That was mainly because we stopped for lunch at Shitty's for some bad food, which is not always funny, but that day it was.

Cliché

A frog on a lily pad...

















is like slipping on a banana peel... which I have done... or like helping a little old lady across the road. So exciting when it actually happens.

Sociable

It has been a friendly couple of weeks.

B went to Cow Pie for a wedding recently but I stuck around because I was expecting some visitors. First, it was Grant and Bim Bambi, looking more relaxed than ever, which is astonishing considering they have two children under the age of three. We all went out for dinner, grandparents too, and then just the two of them came over to see our place. While they were visiting, the phone rang three times. One was J-Lo, laying low of late due to hardcore thesis-writing, and another was the Apple to my Pear. The third I didn't answer. I postponed chatting due to the unusual circumstances of visitors and called them back the next day.

J-Lo defends his thesis tomorrow. Gah! I am so happy for him, though with a tinge of envy. It's not like he hasn't worked at it. We haven't hung out in weeks.

The conversation with Apple-to-Pear was long, interesting and hilarious. My ear was killing me afterwards. Such fun we had!

Lolabola came to visit two days later. We did the usual stuff: walked around, drank beer, looked at photos... it just sounds dull to read, but I can't tell you how nice it is to be around an old friend, especially this old friend. I could sit beside her on a kerb all day and be totally content.

Then out of the blue, I had an invitation from a recent acquaintance to meet at the pub for a group drink. (Why do people invite me for a drink but never to go ice climbing, say for example? Not that I am complaining...) B was home at this stage and happy to be invited to go out with someone new. On the way we stopped to water the garden, which is looking lush. We picked a few of these before anyone else could get to them first.















If ever you are going out with potential new friends and you think you might not have anything to talk about, bring along a tomato.

Work it

New job started this week. I've just spent the time getting oriented, reading, that sort of thing, so there hasn't been much action yet. Yesterday, I had most of the lights in my office taken out. This office is very small with two large windows all along one wall and long, fluorescent lights that come on automatically and stay on all day. (What kind of logic came up with that?) Anyway, with the exception of the air conditioner, it's now a very nice space. From the sixth floor there, I have a view of rooftops and treetops, and I can see all the dragonflies zooming around.

Being 'in their employ', I am not permitted to speak negatively about the government. That's okay as I don't have any particular fire inside that wants to burn its way out - I hope that if I did, I wouldn't be working there in the first place - but it will take some practice not to mention the odd weakness in informal conversation. I caught myself doing this the other day and I felt the way I do when I am gossiping - just a habit, I guess, being generally negative! Must work on that.

However, were a small fire to begin to smoulder, I suppose this is as good a platform as any from which to let it burn. So I might as well let you in on one small irony: while it is not recommended that I write a letter to the editor, say for example advocating improvements to cycling infrastructure, it appears that should I choose to drive a hummer to work - for a government that's trying to be green - I will get the parking spot closest to the entrance.

B and I are DINKs now. We might be able to afford to lease one fairly soon.

Go ahead, where do I park my bicycle, huh?

I think I was in about grade four the last time I saw this. Em and I watched it while eating Goodies. I could remember having seen it long before then and it made me feel nostalgic - and curious and happy and freaked out, all at the same time. Now it makes me laugh because it's SO FUNNY!

I just read that Ernie was supposed to resemble an orange and Bert a banana. I did not know that. The interweb is a world of information.

It all ties together

Holy crap. I’ve been so ‘busy’ that I haven’t told you my good news: I got a job.

Not the job I interviewed for. A different one. A better one. ! The interview counted towards other positions in the department, but I didn’t think it would be anything like this: I am to be part of a newly-formed unit with the provincial government, analysing policy for greenhouse gas emissions reductions programs, which is my favourite topic, after this.

There were two planning conferences here last week - the main source of the 'busy-ness' - and at one of them, I went on a workshop where we toured around this very neighbourhood, stopping at various places to highlight that ever-unanswerable question: Revitalisation or gentrification? As we walked along a stretch of old mansions, I saw a very serene-looking balcony peeking through the trees of one of the lots.

It had little lanterns strung up. I felt peaceful just looking at it. It turns out that this is a housing co-op so we stopped and had a look at it and one of the residents, who was sitting on the porch, told us a bit about it. Then a woman I recognised emerged and offered to show us around. It took me a minute to figure out that she used to date an old friend in Cow Pie. I hadn't seen her in maybe eight years. She's doing her PhD in Sociology now and was actually planning on attending the conference the next day, which was interesting because it was a very small conference.

At the end-of-conference bash, which was the best fun ever, she invited me to a party at the housing co-op. I would get to see the balcony from within!

That was last night. I saw the balcony from inside the house, and it was fabulous, but I spent the night on the front porch. Parties where you know literally one person can be dull. B and I usually end up trying to look like we're thrilled to have one another to ourselves, but last night was different. The people there were welcoming and friendly, and most of them didn't know too many others, either. I met my first ever dental hygienist outside a dentist's office, a Coronation Street fan and another policy wonk. We talked about what 'wonk' might mean. I said 'appendage'; she said 'nerd'.

Appendage or nerd, ever since finding out about this job, a calm confidence has settled on me. Not that all was Impending Doom up until that point, but I had this prickly feeling of things being off-kilter. It' s like I'm on the balcony now.

And just so you're aware, this is outside my window right now:

I love this neighbourhood!

It's the new style

As today is my bloggiversary, I am celebrating with a slightly different version of the same, which I hope you will find at least palatable enough to come back.

Especially you, Lolabola. I am taking a big risk.

Happy anniversary, blog!

I welcome the new year with a story about another makeover, that of One Great City!'s slogan. The mayor is in the process of taking down the yellow-and-blue welcome signs in anticipation of something new. We're not sure what. He himself is vouching for City of Opportunity, which he referred to in the welcome address in the program of a conference being held here soon, capital letters and all.

It's a little bit cheeky, don't you think, jumping the gun like that? What about the public consultation?

I think this really sucks, and not just because I will no longer have a fun name to call this place on my blog. It's just really boring. If there's one thing that gives me a pain, it's the overuse of a word like 'opportunity'. Or 'innovation'. Ugh. We have an Innovation Drive here - it's new. Innovation Drive in The City of Opportunity. It's just more branding, another attempt to associate this city with an image that is really not true to the spirit of the place at all.

I was going to end this with a deeper dive into the issue followed by an insightful (another tired word!) alternative, but I gotta go! Folk fest is calling and I need to pack up my wellies.

The first of July

July?

Already?

July means Canada Day, which I like a lot. My favourite one was when I lived in Korea. I went up to Seoul with some friends to a party hosted by the Canadian Embassy. It was held outdoors in a greenspace with a hill. Nearly all attendees were fellow ESL teachers, congregating from all corners of our tiny peninsula (which is really only a peninsula on the map; in practice it is more like an island). Lunch was barbequed burgers, brownies and Kokanee. The music was all the usual stuff that, unless you’re at a Canadian Embassy-sponsored party, you’d never hear outside of Canada. And, unless you’re at a Canadian Embassy-sponsored party, you’d never want to hear anywhere. But I felt differently in this context. In Korea, I longed for a great many things I had never before thought twice about.

I felt so happy sitting on that hill with my friends, these great people I thought I'd know forever... who knew that one day they'd be just a poke away on facebook?

OK, so maybe the depth of these friendships has deteriorated over time.

This year was similar, but not as fun. It wasn’t bad company or shit music or dull entertainment. It was me.

I have been ‘hanging out, drinking’ too much lately to really enjoy it when I do it. Do you know what I’m talking about? Sometimes fun isn’t fun unless you’ve balanced it out with some nonfun, like work. By Tuesday, I hadn’t put myself through enough nonfun to really get the most out of the fun. I was all out of balance.

On Wednesday, I was back at it: I had my interview, worked five hours and finished two books. Thursday and Friday were similar. Therefore, I sense some fun on its way at the beach this weekend.

My attitude towards fun pains B. He could happily have ten Canada Days in a row, genuinely enjoying every moment. We are fodder for one another's hilarious jokes.

Under pressure

I have a job interview on Wednesday. This is for an actual job - not a contract, not a part-time short-termer, but a job with a desk, a cubicle, co-workers and a commute (by foot, too!). It's a government job - analysing policy, reviewing grant applications, that sort of thing.

The first part of the interview was an assignment, which I just did, just now. It was kind of intense (if things can be intense in a 'kind of' way). I had to write a sample briefing note for a minister in one hour. I haven't had to write under pressure like that since the final exam of a poli sci course I took six years ago. Normally, I write at a ridiculously slow pace (part of the reason I don't update this blog very often) so this was the opposite of my habitual ways.

Typical me, I hadn't figured out what the assignment would be, so when it arrived in my inbox I thought, I must be a moron not to have seen that one coming! I didn't waste too much of the hour dwelling on my short-sightedenss and got on with writing. Before I knew it, the hour was up and there before me was a briefing note, proofread a risky single time but otherwise something about which I felt quite pleased.

The range of productivity in a small window of time always amazes me. Twenty minutes is not long, but I can think of a few instances where I've done more in 20 minutes than in an entire day. I miss that stress. If this job could bring some of that back into my life, then I really hope I get it.

Good stuff

Thesis, I am happy to report, is chugging along nicely. Although I thought I'd be farther along at this point than I actually am, I feel better about it than ever. I have a topic which I have researched and analysed to produce outcomes. I know this because I had a proper conversation about it last Friday with a few people I hadn't met before.

That was Bike to Work Day, the best day ever. B and I were at the registration desk, signing people into the pancake breakfast. Being from Cow Pie, I am very wary of pancake breakfasts in other cities, but I was duly impressed. The pancakes were fluffy, instead of horrid reconstituted scrambled egg there was fruit and all the containers were compostable. The band (name forgotten, but they were kind of old country) was fantastic - what is better than live music outside at 8:00 on a sunny morning? Nothing.

Having to get up at 5:45 that morning stood as a good reason not to attend the Autumndude's next show, held the previous night. They had come back through town so we met two of them for a pub dinner instead. I couldn't face another night of badly pretending to be awake, so it was all for the best - especially when I found out later that the show went on until 4:30! Dinner was hilarious, especially when we talked about passport photos, always a conversational favourite, especially when someone has one to share, which someone did. Someone blond.

A good friend

The Autumndude came through town last weekend so B and I went to see their show. It's always fun to see friends out of the usual context. We had a drink at a nearby cafe because the venue they were playing at - which was Plan B because the original was recovering from a flood - wasn't technically a licensed bar, though once things got going they were accepting 'donations' in exchange for brown bottles. When we moseyed over, there were quite a few people there - or maybe it just felt that way because it was so small. I got talking to this odd guy who was dressed like Merlin. He was one of those people who has allegedly worked all over the world but has chosen to settle in One Great City! Why, I don't know. He asked me what I did and when I told him I was in school he said, still?, which is quite funny because you're just not supposed to say that sort of thing if you're slick, which I think he thought he was. From then on, he kept shouting out a shortened version of my name to people when I passed him and announcing that I had my master's, which is neither true nor of much interest to people who don't know me (or to people who do, for that matter!). Anyway, he was nice enough.

This was the evening after the run. At the best of times, I'd be ready for bed 10:00, so things weren't looking promising when the first act didn't get going until 11:00 or so. I managed to stay awake for the first two bands, and both were excellent, but alas, I couldn't make it through that last stretch, so there I was, passed out in the front row of a teeny-tiny venue as my good friends played and sang their hearts out. What a supportive fan.

She has her master's, though.

Moanie-pants

Normally, I run for fun and exercise, but for two or three weeks there I was Running for a Purpose, which was to ‘train’ to do 10km in one of those charity races. Having this task to complete by a certain date was really motivating, and once I did it, I felt very accomplished. Funny how that works.

It has now been four days since my last run and I miss it. I had a day of rest, followed by a day of laziness, at which point I was hit with a sore throat which has morphed into a kind of indescribable all-body malaise that leaves me devoid of both energy and positivity. Witness: my thesis sucks but I have almost no work at the moment so I have to write it now but I'm tired. The mirror seems to reflect this dowdy, expressionless face and hair that screams, do something drastic to me now! My posture is getting worse, my only friend talks solely about his ex-girlfriend, and I have no libido. Even the weather is shite – June isn’t meant to be Wool Hat Month.

I am so lucky not to have to listen to me as I search for a new point to myself.

Co

B and I applied to live in a housing co-op about three weeks ago. The whole thing was a bit like applying for a job, only we the applicant were two people instead of one person. It was strange but not.

We got a call for an interview shortly after we dropped the application in the mail box. We expected there to be two or three people asking the questions, but instead it was the whole co-op. It wasn't a big deal and the person who did most of the talking said right off the bat that it was awkward for everyone involved, not just us, but that there was no way around it so we all should try to be as relaxed as possible. We sat in a circle (on chairs! It wasn't that bad!), drank juice and answered some questions, similar to the ones asked in the statement of interest we'd written along with the application, about why we wanted to live like that, what contributions we could make to the place, what we foresaw as problems...

All was going quite well. I was nervous and tomato-faced as I always am in a group of more than about three, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. B was a good mix of even and enthusiastic. After a while, I got the sense that they really liked us. That is, until we let the cats out of the bag (I apologise for not being able to resist that one). This was a pet-free co-op, but as always, we were unsure of just how rigid that rule was so we had decided to wait until they got to know us a little bit before blurting it out. When we did come out with it, the reaction was the kind they'd have given had they all eaten a lemon.

Not a very bendable rule, apparently. I joked about The End of the Interview Effective Immediately, but they explained that this was an issue that had been up for discussion before and that they'd talk it over again, and we carried on. They have this policy because the idea is for the space to be accessible to all and a number of members were highly allergic to cats. I can totally understand this (though I didn't appreciate being asked how attached we are to them by one person).

After another half hour of chatting informally, we were told to expect a call within a week. Fast forward two weeks and no word from the co-op. We had decided in the meantime that maybe it wasn't the best place for us because of the location (a little less central) and the size of the apartment itself (huge - if anything, we'd like to be somewhere smaller). I asked one of the occupants (one of three I've known since long before the interview) what was happening, and she informed me that the place had been given to someone else, which is probably the best thing. She said she assumed someone else had called to tell us (which is pretty funny because an assumption is something I don't think she'd accept as an excuse from someone else!).

So, this particular co-op was not to be. However, also in the meantime, we have been helping out J-Lo with a community garden plot. I know jack shit about gardening but I had some fun digging up weeds for half the day last weekend. We bought a pile of seeds and plants and put them in the soil. The more seasoned gardeners around smiled at us and our little tomato plants, so naive are we to think that we'd actually get to eat any of them. People take those when they walk by, you know.

Now I do. But as long as someone's enjoying it, I will happily shift my focus from eating to nurturing.

Ze Cure

Madly working on other stuff distracts me from the things that are truly important. So, a few more things about Chicago while I have a chance here...

When you live in a place like One Great City!, where it only takes half an hour to get anywhere from the city centre, you need to remember to plan ahead for a trip to the end of the train line in a big city. Otherwise you will be late to see the show that served as the catalyst for the entire trip to said big city in the first place. Not only did we not allow enough time to get there on time, and not only were we late to leave, but service ended that night at the stop before the one at which we were to get off, so we had to catch a shuttle bus, just to add another step to drag the journey out that little bit longer. The shuttle took us to another bus which would take us to the stadium itself, but this particular bus only went by the stadium, not to the stadium, so we were dropped off at the top of a road leading into the parking lot. It was dark. It was raining. There was no sidewalk.

I hate suburbia.

Had it only been B and me, I would have been cursing like crazy, but since we were with friends, I kept my mood in check and really had no hard time at all being positive, albeit with an anxious tinge. We finally got to the actual entrance doors and I could hear 'Love Song' and by the time everyone had gone to the bathroom and got a beer and we had found our seats (which of course someone had occupied) they were on to 'Pictures of You'.

I loved it. I really was just the happiest clam ever. Yes, it was a big arena and no, we weren't close, but it was such a treat to get to sit there and watch them live, something I'd long given up on - but there I was! And they were good! They sounded good and looked good - from where I was, anyway! - even without a synthesiser.

They played for almost three hours, a fact I know only because I read that in the paper. Let's say it was a quick three hours for me. When I think about it, they did go through all sorts of stuff, some of which I didn't recognise because I hadn't heard it in such a long time (I love that. 'Hey, I forgot about this song!'). Robert Smith was different than I'd expected, chattier and more lively. He also did a lot of swearing; not as in 'Fuck off!' but as in 'I'm sorry my fucking voice is fucking crap tonight' (he had a sore throat, apparently) but English people always speak like that, don't they?

:)

Looking around, the crowd was mostly people my age or older, and seeing how excited everyone got over the pop hits, it dawned on me that maybe a lot of people see them as one of those nostalgia bands. I know the '80s are back but some of the get-up was a bit too authentic. I began to realise that perhaps some of these fans do not take them as seriously as I do. Are they to The Cure what I am to Duran Duran? And if so, what difference does it make? Everyone there was just having a good time. I guess I generally take most things too seriously.

The way home was equally silly, but we did get to chatting to a very friendly couple on the train who had seen The Cure twenty years previous and were going to see them again on the same tour in California. They hadn't heard of One Great City! but they had been to Niagara Falls, which is funny because most people I know have never been to Niagara Falls.

--

Chicago is all about the revolving door. That is because the buildings are so tall. You knew that. I knew that too but it was pretty exciting to be in a place where you really had to use that door, where it wasn't just a quaint little option.

--
Obviously I wrote this ages ago and I'm finally posting it today, Sunday.

Sweet home...

Car trip to Chicago with three others was a success. In numbers:

Fights amongst all: zero
Inane arguments with boyfriend only: three (must work on that)
Tense moments for no reason in particular: a few, but rather than experiencing them directly, I was told about them
Laughs: uncountable

Day One: In car - k's. Arrived in Chicago, via a loop round O'Hare 'just for fun', at 11:30pm. Dined on pizza before bed. Hostel was noisy and bed very uncomfortable - you know when you lie down and put a sheet over yourself and no one would know there's a person in the bed? That kind of uncomfortable.

Day Two: Being A Tourist, Part I. Coffee. Breakfast. Bus ride. Sears Tower. Walking. Lunch. Self-guided sculpture tour. More walking. Navy Pier. Ferris Wheel. Dinner. Swings. Stained glass museum. Walking. Nasty bus lady. Hostel. 'Blues' bar. Bed. Noise. Too tired to notice, so had to be told about that, too.



This sculpture is called the flamingo and is "just an example of the laughs we have around here"

Day Three: Being A Shopper. Ate crepes down the street from the hostel: this is probably how all successful people start their days. Walked to Bucktown. Much as I hate shopping, I love to browse around a place like this, full of odd shops and one-off bars and cafes; so much so that I wasn't disappointed to be the only one to come home with no bag. Eventually we got back to the hostel to change into our Cure Fan costumes (ummm, jeans and a black t-shirt for me!) and took the train to some arena in oblivionland.

And it was there that I finally saw my all-time favourite band. More on that later.

Day Four: Being A Tourist, Part II. Coffee. Walk to Lincoln Park. Lincoln Park Zoo. Old Town. Cabrini-Green. Coffee. Prada Shop. Failed rendezvous with companions. Magnificent mile. Pay phone fiasco. Lunch outside John Hancock centre. Successful call from pay phone, leading to successful rendezvous with companions. Art Institute. Millennium Park. Giant Jelly Bean thingie. Pizzeria Due. Best pizza of my life. Noisy Texans. Bus ride. Pint. Noisy hostel-goers. Poor sleep.

How cute is this little gaffer? His nose twitched while he dreamt.

Day Five: In car. Half quiet and dull, half joke-laden and hilarious. In bed of comfortable silence by 1:45am.

Fun time! This was a whirlwind of a trip, but I could wander around there for months. There's such a diversity of things to see.

One Great City! is often, wrongly, referred to as the Chicago of the North. This is mainly because there is a smattering of buildings downtown which resemble those in Chicago. And maybe because of the shitty winters. I don't really know why, actually. I think we hang on to it because, as I allude to from time to time, One Great City! has low self-esteem, so to compare itself to Chicago is like highlighting the really good bits - there are some, but it's not the same. A few years ago, I went to a lecture by a local historian who wanted to dispel the myths about One Great City! and this moniker was one he thought we should shake off, mainly because it's inaccurate. Chicago is huge, millions of people live there - it has even burnt to the ground and been built back up. It's just misleading to compare the two; I'd say it extracts more confidence than it injects.

Instead, we called Chicago the One Great City! of the South.

I sign off with a tune by a great artist who runs a club on the Near South Side. If I ever get to go back, I will go there.

Style section

Whenever someone comes to visit, I buy the Globe & Mail so there's something to pick up and flip through during any lulls. Really, though, I just like to take advantage of the opportunity to do this myself, but I don't want to do it every weekend because it feels like too much extra reading.

I love the Style section. If not for the occasional visitor, I may well have no idea what is going on in the world of contemporary fashion (panic!). I like looking at the pictures and reading the captions underneath with the introductory pun, followed by required information like the name of the elite shop in which said item can be purchased (always in Toronto; never, ever in One Great City!) and the price (always outrageous. This isn't The Sun, people.). This weekend there were stools and chairs on the design page whose prices are listed as available only by request. If a chair costing $3700 can have its price listed, I really wonder what price warrants being left out. Perhaps I should put in a request?

If I were to list a few things Globe-style that I've recently acquired, my Style section would look a little like this:

Don't just talk the talk in these earthen-toned hiking boots by Dr Marten.
Brown leather hiking boots, $0 at The Laundry Room.






Darling leave a light on for me
Brighten things up with this Japanese-inspired lampshade, available in ivory only.
Paper lampshade, $0 at The Laundry Room.




Okay, I know I am coming across as very cheap; too cheap to even pay a nickel for my own stuff. And while I am not fond of shopping, these were lucky finds that I stumbled upon, abandoned in the thrift store that a corner of the laundry room has become, items I actually had in mind to look for.

Do you think that having money and rarely spending it is like wasting youth on the young, or happiness on perpetual complainers? Maybe actively avoiding spending money when you have it is as obnoxious as spending it for the sake of spending it.

I know a few genuinely cheap people and they drive me crazy. For a while, I am carried along with their frugality, resourcefulness and commitment to minimising waste, but when my offer of going out for a drink is never taken up because it's cheaper to drink at home, I start to wonder if the line has been crossed from admirable asceticism to miserable existence.

When to spend is a dilemma for me, truly. I have no interest in shopping and I don't like to buy things that aren't edible because I don't want to accumulate all that junk. More deeply, I am uncomfortable with materialism; it's something you can really hide behind, you know? But at the same time, there is stuff out there that I like and it wouldn't kill me to make some effort to keep up with the times, fashion-wise. Also, appropriated poverty? Slumming it is pretty loathsome. I guess I am aiming for some balance between enjoying the tangible parts of life and not being wasteful, and it need not matter whether it comes from the alley or the mall, but I don't feel like I'm there yet. I'm tipped too far in one direction - obviously not towards the Globe's Style section!

--

I haven't been writing much lately because it's taking me forever to churn anything out. That's because I don't write often enough. And so it goes.

That said, I won't be writing for a few days because I am going to Chicago tomorrow.

I. Am. Excited.

I might buy something nice.

--

The visitor, by the way, was Dad!










Can you see us? B took this photo.

I draw a blank

I have nothing to say right now but it's been a while since I've written, and Best Friend may be tired of that picture, so I will just write whatever comes to mind.

I had one of those hour-long conversations on a street corner this morning. You know the kind, where the group of four breaks up to go back to the office or wherever, but just before you leave, you quickly exchange a few words with one of those four, the one with whom you are working on something else, and for some reason the word exchange takes an hour? I do always enjoy those, though.

Normally, it is chocolate and cookies that I crave, but this week, I am all over dried fruit. Peaches are the best, but they are also the most difficult to dig out of the bulk bin, especially with that silly scoop - great for rice, terrible for anything actually bulky.

Watched Michael Clayton on the weekend. Tilda Swinton was great.

Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma at the moment. All food is corn. Who knew? Excited to finish it and start The God Interviews. Thanks, Lolabola!

Back to running these days, but only a few times a week, otherwise I feel like I'm avoiding the thesis. The river banks are mucky, adding plenty of weight to my shoes and sending mud flying in all directions. Passers by, beware.

C'est tout.

Happy birthday, Best Friend!

I said I would call but I haven't, so hence, here is a haiku:

Lolabola is
a person who likes to eat
perogies for lunch.

Not technically about nature. Oh well.

I dedicate this video (crap sound and all, but worth watching to the bitter end) to you:

His space

Thinking of visiting One Great City!? Say 'hello' to your new bed:

Cat included.

This happens with the arrival of each new piece of furniture. It's as though he's trying to speak to it on a spiritual level, working hard at some weird animal-mineral bond. The quality of this photo was crappy, so I put a filter on it, but I wanted you to see this rare posture, a bizarre mix of meditative relaxation and territory-marking (because normally he's curled up, sleeping, like any other cat). Like a blue moon, it only comes by once in a while. Unlike a blue moon, it coincides with new furniture.

Please don't mistake this posture for an indicator of extreme comfort. Actually, it's not bad. It folds down and sleeps two, erm, skinny people.

Pictures!

As you may know, 'camera' has been on our list of Shit To Get for a while now, but considering the cost, we had to wait for the right time. Meanwhile, B had the ingenious idea of looking into the possibility of some assistance from air miles. Considering the last time he checked he had enough for one free video rental, I wasn't too hopeful, but it turned out he now had enough for two $25 Staples gift certificates (thank-you, MLCC!). These, plus the fact that we were interested in last year's model, meant we got a real bargain.


On Saturday, we woke our bikes up from hibernation and took them out for some Ukrainian food. On the way there and back, we stopped on one of my favourite bridges, which, you guessed it, is the visual theme of this post. I finally get to show it to you!

Clearly, the rail line is not taking any chances with suicides.

The picture at the top of this post was the view on one side of the bridge. This was on the other:

Moon left, light right.

You & me

A couple of days ago I had what was, I've now decided, my last interview for my thesis. That's fourteen altogether and it's enough. I thought of doing one more with a particular kind of person but I think it's unnecessary - I'm already four people beyond the number initially proposed. No need to overdo the overdoing.

Meanwhile, I've been slogging through the transcriptions, and while it may be mind-numbing and painfully slow, at least each interview is under an hour and a half, and at least I don't have thirty of them to do. Anyone I meet who has undertaken the same task has always had just so much more to do than I have, which is good because I realise that it can get done eventually, but also bad because I wonder when I became such a wimp as to think I can get away with complaining about a measly fourteen interviews.

Of course, a certain amount of each sound file is my own voice, and I find it pretty interesting how much I change from one interview to the next. There's hyper me and excessively agreeable me and cautious me and sympathetic me and even-toned me (all of which irritate the piss out of me when I have to listen to them being played back) and it just seems that I don whichever hat feels appropriate, which I suppose must depend on some kind of vibe I sense being exuded by the other person. It makes me wonder two things: first, could I have acted out some other shape of myself and if so, would the interview have proceeded differently in a way that we both would have noticed?; and second, which one of them are they showing me and what is it about me that made them show that particular self?

I try to treat everyone the same, but is it really possible? Where one person will laugh at something I say, another will change the subject. In return, my response will vary. It's not that one is more favourable than the other (though who doesn't enjoy having their jokes laughed at?) or that anybody is at fault; I think it's that as two people together we become something else, part you, part me, all us, but I'm never quite the same as I am on my own or with a different person.

If this is so, how is it related to the phrase 'I don't like him'? Do I not like him? Do I not like me around him? Do I not like us? When I think of the people I really like, I think that I really like myself, too.

I think that my feelings towards others is perhaps more dependent on this idea of 'us' than I normally acknowledge.

God said, one question. He said, what's the capital of Peru? God said, Lima!?

B and I have been really into bean dishes lately. One of our cookbooks is full of them, and over the past few months we've had just about every bean going.

One winter I used mostly dried beans, then I went back to cans for a while to save time, but recently I bought a bag of dried lima beans, for a change I guess. Last night, I put the whole bag in cold water for a few hours and forgot about them. They started to split and wrinkle. I thought for sure they were a lost cause, but I cooked them anyway, leaving them to simmer for about two hours. I drained them and had a quick taste. I was beside myself. They were absolutely delicious - creamy and nutty. Just like that. No salt, nothing.

Maybe it was because my expectations were so low, but I don't think so: I went to a workshop today on seniors' transportation, and even though it was interesting and kept me very busy, my mind kept wandering back to the lima beans. It was a little like when you're a kid and you get a new pair of shoes: you get wrapped up in something for a few minutes and then you remember that there is a small, new, truly wonderful thing in your life that you are excited about and you're like, The shoes! Well, The beans! I couldn't wait to get home and experiment.

The recipe I followed was nice, but the strong flavours drowned out the limas (lemon, tomato, feta, thyme - go figure). No biggie as I have a whole half of a gigantic jar left... to spread on toast! Blend into a beverage! Sprinkle on cornflakes! Eat neat! Endless possibilities.

(Maybe my mind wanders back occasionally to lima beans with fondness when I'm otherwise spending my time feeling like I'm making some sort of contribution, however small, but the above level of detail can only be thought out at something like tonight's Coolie meeting... which just got cooler, if that's possible.)

Channel

I went to a great show with B a few nights ago at our favourite venue, the one with the well-stocked beer fridge. If it's a folksy kind of show, like it was that night, there are always little tables and chairs set up, so it's a bit like being in a pub with live music, only bigger and without the food. Then J-Lo and his new lady turned up with two other friendly people and we all sat together. A definitive night out - what fun!

The opening act was a local musician who played piano and sang in a breathy voice. I liked her a lot. She sang some very funny songs, including one about Brian Stewart, her favourite CBC News anchor.

(Just as an aside, my favourite news anchor is, big surprise, Ian Hanomansing. Em and I considered starting a fan site for him. I'll bet it would get lots of hits.)

Anyway, when this musician spoke in between songs, she had this sweet, high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like her singing voice. It's fascinating how that can happen.

The time I was most taken aback by this phenomenon was at last summer's folk festival, when I heard Death Vessel. k's friend said she thought he was channelling someone when he sang. I don't know, but the whole thing was mesmerising.

He doesn't speak here, but when he does, his voice is very deep.

The tag

From the lovely Lolabola. Five things you may well not know about me:

1) I really like the Stephen Avenue 'trees', but I agree with this evaluation of how they don't quite enhance the pedestrian experience.

2) The book I have on the go, White Teeth, pisses me off because the writer doesn't take any of her characters seriously. I think flippancy is condescending.

3) I always imagine explaining to someone why I don't like Stephen Harper so that I am sure of myself, but no one ever asks so I am never challenged. I think they don't ask because they don't care, which depresses me - not that they're uninterested in my opinion but that they're uninterested in political ideology.

4) The doctor found a small lump in my breast in October. I spent two weeks feeling very frightened, then two weeks not worried at all, until I saw a specialist. He figured it was a cyst, so he tried to burst it with a needle but no fluid came out. He told me to come back in two months if it doubled in size. It didn't, so I didn't. But it is still there. Last month, I wondered if I should be doing something about it. Should I worry? I started to worry. I called the clinic. The nurse was straight-forward and understanding. She said that I was free to come back or not to come back; it was my decision. Then she told me to know my breasts. I decided to sit on it and see where my mind went. I have not worried since, and so I have not gone back, but I might. Meanwhile, I monitor my breasts.

5) I think boys look better in make-up than girls.

Tag: Ando!

Egg

This Easter was a bit of an even because a) we had visitors, b) we did Easter-y things, and c) I got to have a proper cup of tea.

a) Cousin stopped over on her round-the-world trip with Friend on Friday. I met them at the local train station, which, like most train stations, goes by the name of 'Union Station'. They stayed for two nights. It was great to have visitors; not only is it just fun by nature, it can also give you a reason to tackle things you'd been putting off, like cleaning or trying a new restaurant. We had it in mind to rearrange our apartment so that the use of space would better meet our needs as modern-day young professionals (can you believe there are environments where saying something like that is acceptable?) so the arrival of Cousin + Friend acted as a deadline. We didn't quite build the Dream Home in time as there are still a few piles of stuff stacked here and there (I hold J-Lo and his Scotch drinking responsible) but it feels like we've moved into a new place, maybe even enough to warrant throwing a pseudo-housewarming party.

Cousin + Friend were fab visitors. It's cold again, but they were still eager to walk around and see some sights. The food at the fish and chip shop was crappy this time around, but they gobbled it up. Sunday morning, they made us an enormous, delicious breakfast.

Cousin is one of only two people to visit us twice, but that will soon change. Yay! We love visitors.

b) Saturday morning, B boiled eight eggs so that on Sunday, we could each have two to decorate. We used food colouring so we could eat them later. I think I'll have one for lunch. We also bought a few chocolate eggs, but we didn't hide them. Dad hid eggs for Em and I well into our twenties. January would roll around and you'd put your foot into a ski boot and find a chocolate egg.

c) I did not have one cup of herbal tea yesterday.

Oh, that's cool

Spring has popped up out of nowhere and One Great City! is a giant, dirty slurpee. Winter is not completely gone, but the beloved skating trail is a shadow of its former self. *sigh*

Last night I took the bridge rather than short-cutting on the river (I thought the warm weather would have made that a little too risky) on the way to a meeting about a planning conference to be held this summer. I like these meetings less and less with each one I attend, not so much because they are often pointless and always too long, but because the conference is turning into a coolie gathering. Band Guy was there last night, and Scenester, and Name-Dropper, and Queen of the Do-Good Organisations (you know, the one who is a member of all non-profits in the city, who has shot up her hand to volunteer to do yet another thing before you even had a chance to realise that you could, in fact, contribute something there), all shouting out one wicked-awesome idea of which unusual non-venue to host the thing after another. I sat there wondering, why does everyone have to bring their ibooks to these things? Is there some clause that comes with the purchase of an ibook that prevents one from legally using paper and pen ever again?

The Chair of the meetings, who is great, has a bit of each of these personae in him (don't we all? Though I'd hardly call him a queen of any kind) and networking is, I am pretty sure, both his favourite word and activity. However, he is against starting a group for this event on facebook, which would actually be very useful here. Facebook. The social NETWORKING site. He refuses to join. How can that be when it was invented specifically for him?

Eventually, the 'party' ended and I walked back over the bridge with another person who hadn't said much, either. We had a funny conversation that started with lost traditional gardening skills and ended with how our bodies will one day mesh with machines so that cell phone and human will be indistinguishable, which I then said was like a Philip K. Dick story.

Identifying with your Mac? Denying your true facebook identity? Dropping the name of a dead sci-fi writer? I can't take it.

Really

I am really getting sick of herbal tea.

Hey, get on the bus!

Thesis is once again being tackled: I've spent two afternoons traipsing around the city posting notices in libraries to try to recruit interviewees. This took some intense planning. I haven't embraced winter cycling here in One Great City! so the bus it was. After spending a lot of time sprawled on the floor with a transit map and the whereabouts of each library, then alternating between the on-line trip planner and schedules, the idea of chaining these visits into one or two easy trips was lost. For the first time in a long time I thought, a car would be kind of handy right now. As would a cell phone... and a watch...

But really, it worked out fine. Who cares if you have to wait for a bus for twenty minutes when you have a book?

Yesterday and today were completely different. Yesterday was bright, clear, sunny and freezing cold. I wore my enormous jacket, but not my boots for some reason, headed south and eventually got lost in mall-parking-lot hell. One Great City!'s transit system does this strange thing where a bus with two or three quite different routes will have the same number, so it caught me that time. My feet froze waiting for the bus to backtrack and there was a long path-free stretch leading to one library due to drifting snow, but otherwise it was a fruitful venture because I got a call from an interested party that evening. Hopes are up!

Today was snowy, cloudy, muffled - you know, when the snow is like a blanket laid over the city and everything seems quiet and immediate? - and verging on warm. I wore a much lighter coat and big boots and cold did not come into the picture once. I waited at one bus stop for nearly half an hour with about a dozen teenagers, all pouring out of class. It was 2:30. Since when does school end so early? Wasn't there talk of starting and ending classes later because of the teenage struggle to get out of bed in the morning? Whatever. I felt very slightly like a tool standing in their midst.

Why do people sometimes say that they don't like to ride the bus? Maybe it's crowded at times, and one of them was a little smelly today, and but what a senses feast. I'm with The Shuffle Demons on this one.

Spending time

Apart from poorly managing my time, as usual, I don't know what I've been doing to result in this blogging famine of late. You must be starving, Dear Reader - ! It's not as though I'm working a whole lot on anything, I'm not running, I'm never on facebook anymore (are you? That was short-lived!), so what is going on? This is normally the place I go whether I've got other things to do or not. Maybe once I start writing, all these fascinating activities taking up my precious time will reveal themselves, but really, that's doubtful.

Work keeps changing. One project ends and another begins. Unpredictable, and still part-time, but interesting. Climate change has completely finished and livestock is just about wrapped up; these have been replaced with seniors' transportation and a sustainability plan for a small town waaay up north. The local transportation project continues. Sense of competence is okay, but maybe that's because I haven't had to chair any meetings. Or attend any, for that matter.

Thesis is stagnant, mainly because I'm moving to the next stage and I'm having a mental block. I don't feel like writing about this right now.

What I will write about is Fishy, J-Lo's aptly-, if somewhat unimaginatively-, named new pet. It's a Japanese fighting fish and it's in my care for a week while its owner gallivants around the country on business. His new girlfriend just 'gifted' him (as one of my profs likes to say) with this critter a few days ago so he brought it over in a tall, lonely-looking vase and instructed me to feed it 4 pellets a day. I put the vase-with-fish on a high shelf but that didn't stop the cat from noticing it immediately. Soon afterwards, I found him on the shelf below, meowing madly, trying to figure out a way to get up one more level. I threw the cat out of the room and closed the door for the night. The next day, I surrounded the vase with a book, a lunchbox and a plant and tested the cat's memory. Apparently, he has none, so Fishy swims in peace, cut off from the rest of the world by a copy of Madam Bovary. I check on it now and again and it seems content enough, but I just have a hard time understanding how anything can be happy stuck in a glass like that, alone, with nothing to do. Maybe I need to stop projecting human capacities onto fish.

I come across as sounding bitter there about having to look after J-Lo's fish, but I'm not at all. He always looks after our cats. He sounded so apologetic when he asked me to do this, as though he was sticking me with this god-awful responsibility at the last minute, that it made me wonder if I shouldn't recognise the burden on him when we go away with a little more grace. A six-pack will no longer cut it!

Also worth writing about is last night's lunar eclipse: The local astronomers had set up their telescopes at the two rivers here and, considering the bitter cold, there were a lot of people who showed up to have a peek at the moon, magnified. It was beautiful! Orange and brown! Craters! Shadows! Another, massive telescope was pointed at Saturn. I'd seen Saturn a few years earlier when I was working at that science-y place. It looked nothing like the clear, colourful pictures in magazines; it was more like a tiny, fuzzy, white dot with big ears. It was so much more fascinating, though, knowing I was looking at the real thing. I remember feeling awestruck by it. It felt the same last night.

B and I had some wine at the pub nearby afterwards. We are into red wine lately, mostly because it feels warmer than drinking beer, which is nice at this time of year. This is only the third time we've been to this particular pub, and we asked ourselves why we aren't there more often because it's nice. The first time was about two years ago, and the second was last Friday, after curling. There were about seven of us and we were all chatting away until the band got up to play. This tends to indicate the end of any conversation, which normally annoys me, but this time I didn't mind because the band was really good! They were three young guys who played the blues and they were fantastic.

I don't think this has shed any more light onto where I let the time go, but who knew writing about nothing could be so enjoyable?

Tagged

...by Lolabola.

Books
Half way through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Keep getting sidetracked by other books, like The Wal-Mart Effect and The End of Poverty, but that' s okay because it means I can drag Harry Potter out.

Just bought a graphic novel called "Pyongyang" by Guy Delisle. It's about ... North Korea! Looking forward to it.

TV
Watched an episode of "The Extras" tonight. Otherwise, just "Coronation Street", my favourite. Wherever there's a crisis, and there are many, someone is on hand with a mug of tea.

Music
B put this on last night:

We cannot seem to get enough of this tape! It keeps resurfacing.

Otherwise, I bought a Feist CD a while ago, which I love. She sounds different from her Night Gallery days! I also picked up the new Radiohead, which I haven't listened to enough to form an opinion, but I think it'll be good. And The Old Disc Jockey!

Tag anyone reading this who is not Lolabola?

More weather because I live in Canada and that's what we talk about

I made a snow angel yesterday. It was a most beautiful day - the sun was shining and the sky was this incredible blue, it was cold but not stingingly so, and the snow was so fluffy and lovely, that light, dry kind, that I felt compelled to swim in it, or something close to that. I couldn't get enough of this day. It made me sad that I had spent all of it up to that point indoors "working".

(It feels silly to open a post as I did there because when I was a kid, it's not like I'd go home and write about a snow angel in my diary - if I had one, which I mostly didn't. Snow angels were just a part of normality, thus not really noteworthy. Not that anything noteworthy ever appears on this here blog.)

Yesterday was an anomaly. This is what the weather has generally been like lately:

Behold the bedroom window and all the icy action that can happen between "double glazing". It makes for some pretty patterns on the panes.

Give it up

At the library yesterday, a man walked past me with a black, smudgy X on his forehead and I remembered that I forgot to give something up. I stopped being a Catholic a long time ago but I've never really let go of Lent. I just looove the opportunity to prove to myself that I can Go Without. So, what would it be this year? I've given up chocolate, meat, drinking, smoking and coffee in the past but none of those really exists in any substantial way in my life anymore (especially not the smoking, thank god!) so to give them up would not be very sacrificial of me. I decided on caffeine, because I drink a lot of tea. I'd already had a cup that morning, so I had missed the starting gun, but I figured I could make up for it at the end of Lent; that cup was out of memory lapse and not weakness, so totally forgiveable.

So today was my first caffeine-free day in what I am guessing is a really long time. I can't even remember the last time I avoided it altogether. Normally, I just have a hot beverage every few hours, some caffeinated, some not, without thinking about it too much, and I'm normally relatively alert. Today though, I just felt dopey and I had a headache.

Now, B has come home with some caffeine-laden chocolate, but I will be stashing that away for Easter because I am Going Without!

M-hmm. Feels good.

I still have that headache.

Snow bright

This stack of snow is the new dirt pile. It's not drawing much of a crowd today but that must be due to the the cold temperatures we've been having because it displays a lot of fun potential.

Right next to this pile is an outdoor rink, which gets used quite a lot, especially for hockey, whether it's cold or not. Both rink and snow stack are right behind our apartment building, which is great because it means I can roll down a hill or go skating at a moment's notice if necessary - call me NOW and I'll meet you there in two minutes. (Usually, though, I go down to the river to skate because it's so much more fun to skate in a line than in a circle.)

The thing that's not so great is the lighting. Big, tall flood lights surround the rink, some of which shine directly into our apartment, which is fine, but after about 11pm, by which point all rink users are long gone, you'd think it might be time to turn them off. Not so. For some reason, these lights have been on all day and all night for the past 5 or 6 days, and for other sporadic days and nights over the past month or two. This is a bad case of excessive energy use and light pollution. When the lights are on, it's like daytime in our apartment.

I've already called the community centre twice about this, and once they actually pulled the safety card, to which I respond (in my mind only, as of yet) first, people deal drugs out there in broad daylight so extreme lighting isn't necessarily going to change that and if it does, the problem is being displaced not solved, and second, since the purpose of flood lights is to light a rink then we should use them for that; improved neighbourhood safety is a totally different issue and has lighting all its own. I get the economics behind doing two things with one lighting system, but it isn't really working here, and besides, that's a load. They are on because no one's bothered to turn them off, otherwise why would they be on in the daytime? I'll offer my light-turning-off services myself tomorrow. I wonder if they'll trust me?

More photo fun

Yesterday was great! Went skating with me


went out for Ethiopian food with B

and came home to lots of nice messages.

This morning, two packages came in the mail.
This from Em


A lunchbag which she 'felted' herself. She even made the button, out of fimo. Every time I look at it, I laugh. Isn't it excellent?

(What is 'felted'?)

And this from Best Friend

Yay! I can't wait to listen to this, but I'm trying to catch up with the transcribing first, which I let slide a little this week.

(So how do I have time for all this writing?)

When I unwrapped the CD, I realised that the 'Old' in Old Disc Jockey referred to the disc, not the jockey. And all along I had that the other way around...

(Recognise that mug, anyone?)