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!
Friday, 28 March 2008
Monday, 24 March 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
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.
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.
Saturday, 8 March 2008
Tuesday, 4 March 2008
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.
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.
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