the important thing is we learned something here today

thank god we don't have light sabres

2012-01-25T12:43:00.000-05:00

“day 19: your thoughts on your family”

Oh, you know, they’re my family, gotta love them, blablabla. There’s clearly two sides to my family though: The cool, laid-back, more humane side; and the anal, controlling, judgmental side. The interesting thing is that within either group, not all of the members are related by blood, and not all of them necessarily grew up together either, so it’s really neither nature nor nurture (say that six times fast). It’s usually OK, and family gatherings are usually large enough and/or involve enough booze for the two sides to generally avoid unpleasant outcomes, but A) there’s always one who has to completely fucking ruin it for another, and B) by the end of the night, avoiding unpleasantness has become so exhausting that the only solution is to sit in a corner far away from everyone and just drink, which means there’s always a hangover to deal with the next day (and that in turn is more unpleasant if you’ve had to travel to attend the gathering and are staying/expected to brunch with members of the opposing faction the next day). Living very far away from anyone actually makes this much easier to deal with most of the time: It’s pretty easy to let a nasty email go unanswered, duck out of a Skype chat going bad, or check caller ID before answering the phone if you’ve already had a bad day and just aren’t in the fucking mood, and when you’re stuck on-site, the trick is to be vague about your plans while there, so that when it starts to be too much you can fairly easily pick up and go visit someone else. The times that you really miss the side you’re close with it sucks though.

just say no!

2012-01-25T11:54:00.000-05:00

“day 18: why you made your blog, why you still have it”

I originally made this blog after a bunch of people told me to make one. Weak and lame, but there you have it: Peer pressure made this blog. It’s OK though, it’s been fun to do, and to have something better to do than watch TV at night. Or waste time on Facebook at work (bonus: If you’re just typing into a document of some kind, it still looks like work). I let it slide for a long while though, first for personal reasons, then for lack of time, and I’m kind of hoping this meme will get me back in the habit of writing at least every week, if not every day. I still have it because… it’s free? I still like writing? Because I love when shit like this happens? Yeah, that one. Bingo.

you know, when I was your age...

2012-01-25T11:18:00.000-05:00

“day 17: your idol and why you look up to them”

It’s kind of dangerous to “idolize” or even “look up to” any one person – people being people, they are fallible, and it’s hard not to let their eventual and inevitable failings affect you in some way if you do happen to idolize that one person. Much better to draw inspiration from a variety of people, whether it’s the lady who just had a lung transplant going into the yoga room and working just as hard as anyone else, your grandparents for walking 6 miles to and from school uphill each way in a snowstorm, a writer whose hit novel came out of a NaNoWriMo challenge, or that cool friend of yours who decides they want to do something to change their life and *actually go out and does it* with a minimum of fuss. Easier to focus only on the things that motivate you to take your own actions and ignore the bad stuff that way.

"in God we trust, all others pay cash"

2012-01-17T14:56:00.000-05:00

“day 16: someone you trust”

I trust my boyfriend. Which is exactly as it should be. If you don’t, can’t, or won’t trust your partner, then it is time to re-examine your reasons for staying in that relationship.

I trust my friends. The ones who are real friends. A clue: If you’ve been invited to a dinner in my teeny-tiny apartment, odds are, you’re good. If you’ve been invited to bring your knitting along, you’re inner circle.

I trust the cat. Mostly I trust her to not to destroy things or poop in inappropriate locations, and if she can’t do that, then I trust her to at least be funny about it.

I have a very bad habit of trusting authority figures in one-on-one settings: Doctors, dentists, academic advisors, bank managers, lingerie salesladies, airline crew, waiters, baristas, my landlord. Despite my better judgment I force myself to continue to trust my boss, partly because he is someone who needs to learn from repeated mistakes, and mostly because so long as the pay cheques keep clearing who am I to question him too closely?

I trust my body. I just need to remember that I trust it and listen to it more.

I trust the phone to always ring with an “emergency” just when I most need to pee.

I trust the BBC production of “Pride and Prejudice” to make everything better all the time always.

I trust the yoga teachers who take even 30 seconds to think when people report injuries and then help them work over, under, around, or through it, rather than blindly pushing for things to be done one specific way.

I trust my job and my colleagues to give me a headache every single day.

I trust myself to change things when they really get out of hand, even if that requires way more patience than I want it to.

you kids turn that noise down now!

2012-01-17T14:20:00.000-05:00

“day 15: a song that makes you cry and why”

Oh good lord. Every song on the shitty-ass top 40 radio station the crazies at work insist on, for general crimes against both humanity and art. For real. Especially songs whose sole lyrics appear to be “I’m sexy and I know it”, or “I have a hangover”.

five little easter bunnies standing at the door...

2012-01-17T14:12:00.000-05:00

“day 14: write about something you believe in, anything at all”

Well. That’s really the question there, isn’t it? There are so many things to believe in: Santa, your choice of god(s), the healing power of a cat’s purr, etc. At the end of the day though I don’t think the most important thing is necessarily what you believe, but whether or not you believe in anything at all. Now, before you all jump down my throat all climate change-Tea Party-Santorum crazy, yes, of course, climate change exists, Tea Party absurd, Santorum crazy, but I’m talking really big picture here. Macro picture. If you can’t believe in anything, if you have nothing left to hold on to to get you through tough times or set your compass by, then that to me is a sign of having completely checked out of everything, of having given up, of just waiting for your time to be up. Even if all you believe in is the absolute infallibility of science at the expense of all else, or that the Easter Bunny is the mutant offspring of Rudolph and Prancer, that’s ok, you’re at least demonstrating the ability to think about and trust something outside yourself, and that potentially lays chocolate eggs in the yard (bonus).

in your own words...

2012-01-13T09:38:00.003-05:00

"day 13: your favorite quote"

I don’t think I really have one. I mean, there are a bunch Ilike, and a million more funny things people have said to or in front of me, butit seems kind of pointless to pick one above all others when they’re allequally brilliant in their own way and their own context, and all inspire indifferent ways. Seriously, why limit yourself like that?

it really is that easy

2012-01-12T14:49:00.002-05:00

“day 12: the best advice you’ve ever heard, or ever been given”

Just breathe.

leg locked like you have no knee!

2012-01-12T14:18:00.000-05:00

"day 11: the worst advice you’ve ever heard, or ever been given"

Herewith, a random selection:

The Rules ispretty bad. But I didn’t actually read it, I’m just basing myself on mediareports. Which I know is wrong, but really, come on
“Put a little Windex on it” also seems prettyinadvisable
“Use Dr Bronner’s as shampoo”? Nope, not forlong, thick hair (baking soda, however, is fantastic for this, and the Bronner’sworks great for so many other things)
“You can totally use kool-aid to dye your hair!”(no, you cannot)
“Just call the main 800 number, someone therewill help you” (and has this ever been proven?)
“Lock your knee by pushing it back towards theback wall” (NO! A thousand times no! Don’t do this!)
“OMG, you totes have to read The Alchemist/The Da Vinci Code” (also athousand times no – if you’ve read or seen the first Harry Potter, you can skipThe Alchemist, and as for the otherone, those five hours of your life would be better spent clearing out closets,volunteering, or doing just about anything else that will actually engage thebrain, because that shit does not)
“Ladies, while you’re blowing him, surprise himby just sliding a finger up there, and watch him explode!” (oh helllllllll no –how would you feel if someone did that to you without warning or discussing itfirst?)
“If you want him to propose, break up with himand wait for him to miss you” (so many things wrong here, but let’s start withthis: the only person that has ever possibly maybe worked for is KateMiddleton. You are not Kate Middleton.)
“Tell your mom that if she doesn’t put theplasma TV back in your room, you’re moving out” (wtf?!)

it ain't easy being green

2012-01-12T11:22:00.002-05:00

day 10: what you think when you hear the words “be yourself”

Honestly? I think of bad online dating profiles, advicecolumns, and useless clichés. Archie comics, old-school YA novels for girls,and after-school specials. Then I think, goddammit, they’re right – when haspretending to be someone or something you’re not ever, ever worked out foranyone? Seriously, quick, think of your favorite book or movie, and odds arethis is a theme in it somehow. Pride and Prejudice? Star Wars? The Godfather?Something else?

warm woolen mittens

2012-01-09T16:40:00.002-05:00

"day 9: things that make you happy"

Oooh boy, a fun list!

- the first snowfall

- bookstores

- my cat

- my boyfriend

- knitting

- puppies

- coffee

- being back in school

- yoga

- really good vegan, GF cookies

- surprise gifts for no reason (giving and getting)

- all the veggies that grow on my balconies in summer

- having two balconies to grow things on

- my apartment

- my neighbourhood

- my bike

- having taken the time to improve my typing skills over the summer

- tax refunds

- books

- the existence of shows like "Arrested Development", "The Wire", "Breaking Bad", "Parks & Rec", "Community", and so on

- further to that, The Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, despite the fact that I agree with none of it

- washing my hair with only baking soda and apple cider vinegar and having it look and feel better than with regular shampoo

- having a slightly clearer idea of what I'd like to do with my life

- being vegan for four years now and GF for nearly 18 months (and never feeling better, BTW)

- Saturday Afternoon at the Opera

- having a clean house

- Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and all the rest of the Russian composers

- the monthly screenings of old movies at the big downtown multiplex

- working walking/biking distance from everything

- knowing my neighbours

- my new travel mug

- dancing in the kitchen, preferably with my boyfriend but the cat will do in a pinch

- falling asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow

- waking up on time

- iPhone airplane mode

- office supplies

- colorful office supplies

- being able to take advantage of grocery staples that are on sale with huge discounts

- living so close to two great thrift shops

- living so close to a library, public market, and swimming pool, and that these things are all in historical buildings

- being able to find my way home during the Olympics by looking for the burning flame at the end of the bike path (especially useful at night in foggy or snowy conditions)

- the fact that someone just turned off the crappy top 40 station we've had on all day

I could go on, but one of the other things that makes me happy is steady employment and a regular paycheque, so...

rule of sanity #23: never read the comments

2012-01-08T11:48:00.001-05:00

"day 8: things that make you sad"

Yay, a list!

- abandoned, sick, or injured animals

- Christmas trees on the sidewalk in January

- pretty girls with way too much make-up and slutty clothes

- people who turn out to be gigantic assholes

- people whose kids are being raised by the nanny

- waste of any kind

- kids being fed nothing but chips and soft drinks

- puppy mills and backyard breeders

- dogs being trained to fight

- people driving their cars to the gym

- people driving their cars in the city

- the first 20 minutes or so of "Up"

- most of "Wall-E"

- the last third of "E.T."

- people who do nothing but work

- people who have lost someone to cancer but continue to smoke, sunbathe, and eat red meat

- people who watch things like "The Bachelor" and "American Idol"

- the state of TV in general with a few exceptions

- the fact that there is no decent English-language newspaper in this city

- the fact that there is no decent local radio station in any language in this city

- people over the age of 35 who still wear band or message T-shirts on a workday

- people who desperately want to have kids, can't, and refuse to even consider adoption

- the fact that I'm out of peanut butter

- betcheslovethis.com

- generational welfare

- local, used book stores going out of business

- people moving away

- the comments section on almost any online news item

Wow. OK. I need to stop before I get so sad I can't function today.

there's no place like home

2012-01-07T15:06:00.002-05:00

"day 7: a show or a movie that has changed you, and how"

I assume the creator of this meme wants people to be all "Oooh, 'The Wire' made me want to be a cop", or "'The Biggest Loser' made me get off the couch and lose ten pounds", but honestly, I'm just not like that - I can't even say that Earthlings made me go vegan, since I'm already vegan and refuse to watch it (although I will concede that 'Lost' is what made me agree to go see the last Star Trek movie).

With that said, there is one TV event that changed both how I watch TV and the path my life was on: 9/11 coverage. This was the start of my second screen experience, was three days nonstop with CNN on TV and next to that on the computer the BBC live stream. I had a hard time just doing one thing at a time before, but since, I am thoroughly incapable of just watching something, I have to be reading, browsing, knitting, or talking on the phone at the same time, sometimes all at once.

It was also sitting there for the three days that my workplace was closed, taking in non-stop information on the attacks, that I realized that Toronto could never be my home, and I needed to get back to Montreal where I could breathe and think and be myself and actually build a life. Less than three months later, I was on a one-way ticket home, with everything I owned once again stuffed into a hockey bag. One of the best decisions of my life.

you are getting very sleepy

2012-01-06T23:59:00.000-05:00

"day 6: something you would like to change about yourself"

So many things. My god. I'd like to be taller, but I'd also like to have an easier time finding pants that are long enough. I'd like to grow my nails, but I'd like to be better at using my iPhone keypad. Mostly though, right now, I'd like to have an easier time ignoring blatantly sexist drivel posted on Facebook (I know!), because what I'd like most to change about myself in this very moment is the fact that I am still awake.

none of the vampire movies ever end well...

2012-01-05T23:31:00.000-05:00

"day 5: something you would change about the world"

I would perhaps change the world's outer protective layer, maybe fill in some of the holes that have worn through it. I'd also like to clean up its air and its water, and do something about those 7 billion parasites that just keep eating away at it - there has to be a way for this to become a synergistic, mutually beneficial relationship for both the host and the parasite to survive in the long term.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/
http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator/index.htm

why stop there?

2012-01-04T15:56:00.000-05:00

"day 4: how you think your life would change if you achievedyour dream"

Well, now. That’d mean I’d picked one dream and stuck withit, which would mean I’d “become a normal individual”. That’s kind of boring.Unless you were born that way and you’re perfectly happy, in which case, huzzahfor you, my friend. But honestly, I don’t see myself achieving one dream andthen sitting back and counting the ways my life has changed. I’d rather keepchasing them and count all the blessings I stumble over along the way. I justdon’t see the point of doing one thing and then spending the rest of your daysbeing a smug, complacent SOB*. Who wants to be that guy?

*Unless that one thing is, like, curing cancer or AIDS orconservatism, in which case a certain amount of smug is certainly justified.

Image on left: Complacent SOBs

Image on right: Klaus Peter Ossenkopp, who, while he appears to be a smug SOB, started with the effects of electromagnetism on lab rats with cancer decades ago and branched out from there, and so while he may have the right to some smugness is certainly far from complacent. His level of SOB-ness I can't testify to though.

another snarky list post!

2012-01-03T16:31:00.001-05:00

"day 3: what you think your reason for being here is"

My oh my, these are oddly worded, aren’t they?

Taken literally, I assume my parents wanted me, and so hereI am. Taken otherwise, it really depends on the day. So far today I have feltlike the answer to that includes (but is not limited to):

1 – To act as lookout at the bus stop while everyone elseshelters inside a building’s lobby

2 – To be given free daily “newspapers” as violently and aggressivelyas possible without it actually being illegal (Resistance is Futile! You Will Takea Newspaper! There is No Escaping it!)

3 – To scramble to find shelter for 7 ½ months pregnantladies on half a days’ notice

4 – To unwittingly evict someone and feel bad about it onlyto find out later that not only can they afford a better place, they haven’teven been using the place they were removed from

5 – To be stood up and subsequently abused by the Good KarmaCleaning Co.

6 – To manage the day-to-day affairs of people who areotherwise intelligent, capable, and high-functioning

7 – To stand in endless lines with absolutely no result

8 – To catch your cold

9 – To go through an ungodly amount of paper

10 – To feed the cat

snarky list post!

2012-01-02T09:44:00.001-05:00

Day 2 of this meme reads "Something that's illegal but you think it should be legal". How can anyone write anything in response to this other than either a huge treatise on harm reduction or a snarky list? Obviously I'm going with the list, for the sake of not contributing to the huge amount of over-eager, over-correct blog entries in the world - at a certain point, that stuff wears out its welcome and the message gets lost in the resultant irritation. So herewith, a list of some of the things that are illegal, but I do not think should be, with no mention of drugs:

1 - Punching people in the back of the head for any of the following things:

Public use of any white iProduct
Public wearing of a Canada Goose jacket
Walking or cycling four across
Walking or cycling (or driving) in anything other than a straight line
Stealing seats on airplanes
Refusing to poop & scoop
Asking veg*ns where they get their protein
Any other act of General Douchebaggery

2 - Videotaping or otherwise recording images of police officers on duty

3 - Being in a park after midnight in a non-residential area

4 - Selling alcohol with veg*n food under a restaurant license

5 - Saying anything against The Harper Government™ (if it's not already illegal, give it time, the maniac's got four more years in power)

6 - Topless breakfast diners

7 - Prostitution

8 - OK, fine. The possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. However, the public consumption of such when every single person within breathing distance has not given their consent should be subject to a punch in the back of the head, under the General Douchebaggery clause of point 1

9 - Breaking service contracts with wireless providers over shoddy service

I'm sure there are more. I'm just trying not to think too hard about things that upset me today, I don't want the stress on my last day of vacation.

Day 1 - hopes, dreams, plans with a photo? really?

2012-01-01T14:34:00.000-05:00

Net posted a while back that she was doing this 365 meme thing, and I miss blogging and frankly need the discipline, so here I am. I assume some days will be more interesting than others, and that's just how it goes. Maybe one of my plans ought to be to say as little as possible when I have nothing to say but am forced to "speak" anyhow. Good plan, actually.

OK. Here we go. Day 1: "Hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days with a picture of yourself"

I hope that there will be fewer grammatical errors in the world. I dream of a world with no egregious comma-related offenses. I have no plans that involve a photo of myself in the next 365 days. Ha. Take that, poorly-written meme thing. (Well, I do need to renew my passport, but that's hardly a big exciting plan with a photo of myself.)

Seriously: I hope I will grow the discipline to sit and do this every single day. I dream of waking up early enough to do it first thing so it's over and done with. I plan to sneak it in at my desk at some point during the day, which I refuse to feel guilty about since I haven't taken a lunch break since, oh, 2007? Maybe one time in 2008? I also plan to eventually request that all those untaken lunch breaks henceforth be rolled into a noon finishing time one day a week, so I can take an afternoon class rather than being limited to what's on offer after 6pm, and both hope and dream that this will fly. It's doubtful though; after a year of not setting any boundaries at this job I expect people to be *really* put out about my starting to do it more actively now (rather than just the quiet turning off the phone and pretending later to have been in the metro or at the movies).

Finally, while my plans for the next 365 days with a picture of myself really are limited to renewing my passport and getting a new student ID card, I'm willing to be the bigger person and assume the original writer of this meme meant to write "plans for the next 365 days, with a picture of yourself" (this is why we need the Oxford comma, people!). That said though, I really don't like posting pictures of myself on open internet forums, but I do very much enjoy posting pictures of my cat*, so please enjoy this festive image of Santa Paws.

*The cat is badass enough that I may actually assign her Power of Attorney over my affairs at some point, so in a way she is a representation of me. Kinda. Not in a creepy cat-lady way, though. I have a boyfriend. I don't plan to die alone. Also she is an only cat and it is likely to stay that way. Enough cat talk now.

2011 meme thingy

2011-12-21T12:43:00.002-05:00

Totally lifted from Net - thanks!

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?

Bought an airplane and a boat. Not for me, obvs, but still. Visited the Maritimes. Called the cops on an excessively noisy neighbor. Clearly, became “that girl” who does shit like that. Gave up shampoo (worth it!). Taught myself to knit.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I didn’t make any last year, but, again lifted from Net, going to make a stab at the 365 meme for 2012.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Two wonderful old friends made themselves two pretty adorable babies

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Thankfully, no; fingers crossed for the last ten days of the year to be the same!

5. What countries did you visit?

Just Canada, although it’s safe to say that work is on a totally different planet.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

A paid vacation somewhere warm, a full sized bathtub, a settled sleep schedule, average levels of physical energy, a greater level of social ease, and a decreased level of general anxiety. A more tangible sense of security. <-- All of this. Stolen from Net. Also, a puppy, a salary that reflects the job I do and how well I do it, and selective hearing.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

September 17, two awesome people had the best wedding ever. September 18, biked the biggest damn hills of my life. September 21, walked in the ocean for the first time in adult memory.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Biking those damn hills! Deciding what I wanted and making it happen – twice. Also, I really cannot overstate the importance of those hills.

9. What was your biggest failure?

All the times I accidentally ate gluten come to mind, but really any fail is a fail. Oh, and failing to negotiate a better salary.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Injured my neck and shoulders so bad I haven’t been on a bike in two months. Heartbreaking.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Sadly, my iPhone. So douchey, yet so useful.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

The Boyfriend, especially at Thanksgiving. The cat. Warren Buffet. The boss this week. OWS. Net, Nat, TravelJulie, and especially Sarah for going so far above and beyond in September. Jack Layton. James and Marie-Helene.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

The Harper Government. Those 53% types. The boss the other 51 weeks of the year. Fat Man, always.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, books, a bit of travel, gifts, and the best/creepiest washing machine ever.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

That trip to the Maritimes. Having next week off. Getting a new washing machine.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

In a bad way, that piece of shit thing that just says “I have a hangover” over and over and plays alllllll day long on the work radio station. In a good way, “Bad Romance” and "Home" – Sarah’s wedding was the best fucking dance party EVER.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Mostly happier, but miss working from home some days.

ii. thinner or fatter? The same, but actually able to absorb nutrients the normal way now, so I feel a million times better.

iii. richer or poorer? Richer. Which feels poorer, because when you don’t have any money, then suddenly do, all the things you’ve been depriving yourself of become urgent necessities, despite the fact that really in the grand scheme of things you’re still poor, just less poor than before.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Writing. Sleeping. Yoga. General art-making. Reading. Knitting. Judging from the state of my kitchen, I guess I should include dishwashing here.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Letting jerks that don't deserve my time and attention monopolize my thoughts. ß This. Also: Working, duh.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

Sleeping, getting The Boyfriend more and more into “Lost”, going to yoga, reading, knitting, making art, and having a little party.

21. At any point in the past year did you do something that you consider completely out of your usual character?

I got an iPhone. And scheduled regular haircuts. And more or less stuck to a budget.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?

With so many people, places, and things…

23. How many one-night stands?

Nada, cf. The Boyfriend.

24. What was your favourite TV program?

Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, Community, Breaking Bad, and a whole bunch of things that are no longer on the air. Also this is maybe not a popular opinion, but I kind of like The Office without Michael..

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

Everyone who pisses me off does so with their behavior rather than who they are. Except maybe Harper, but I’ve had a hate-on for him for years now.

26. What was the best book you read?

Beatrice & Virgil. Bel Canto. Run. There’s probably a lot more, but I’d need to look through the pile, and it’s pretty high…

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

The Cinematic Orchestra, and Russian composers.

28. What did you want and get?

A massage or six, although not for fun reasons. So many books. A new wallet with elephants on it. A Charlie Brown tree. A yearly yoga membership.

29. What did you want and not get?

A full sized bathtub. A puppy. All the other books. This one pair of boots that is ridiculously expensive.

30. What was your favourite film of this year?

I don’t even remember seeing any. Is that bad? I mostly get DVDs so I end up seeing things long after they’re in theatres…

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 34, and we went for a bike ride to the bookstore and the candy store, then we played Monopoly. Yeah, 34.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Slightly more money, and clearer personal boundaries. Hey, look, I found another resolution for 2012!

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Is it clean? Is it warm? Do I feel like it today?

34. What kept you sane?

The Boyfriend. Yoga. Knitting. Biking. Walking.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I miss Jack. <-- Ditto.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

OWS, and the NDP’s rise in Quebec.

37. Who did you miss?

See #35, plus all the people who live in other places (and the ones who live here but I never manage to see).

38. Who was the best new person you met?

That’d be two of my new co-workers.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

Nova Scotia has some hills.

An emergency fund should ideally have three months’ expenses in it, but really at minimum it needs to be enough to buy a new appliance on a moment’s notice.

If the phone rings and the little voice in your head says not to answer it, listen to that voice.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

“Passenger Number 24
I've got a bag of cocaine and I cut my hair short…”

Ha. No, really, it’d be more like:

“Who made up all the rules?
We follow them like fools,
Believe them to be true,
Don't care to think them through”

With a shot of "I need a dollar, dollar, a dollar is what I need" on the side.

from the photojournal of Captain Obvious:

2010-11-01T21:35:00.003-04:00

("Bench")

reasons to move: #136

2009-12-04T12:51:00.003-05:00

I'm working from home today, which means it's totally OK to answer my phone. I should have gone into the office:

(Ring, ring)

Me: Hello?

Landlady: Sorry to bother you, but I'm really constipated, and it hurt, so I used a suppository, and now my ass hurts so much I can't walk, sit, or stand. Has this ever happened to you?

Me: Uh, no. Have you gone to the doctor?

LL: No.

Me: Maybe you should.

LL: Maybe. And maybe one day, this will happen to you.

Me: Frankly, I hope not. You take care now. (Hangs up).

Thank god I'm seeing five, if not seven, places tomorrow.

open letter to landlords, subletters, etc.

2009-12-03T22:35:00.001-05:00

Dear Landlords, Subletters, or other people legally renting out an apartment:

Renting a place can be challenging and frustrating, I know. As a public service, please allow me to offer you these guidelines that will help you rent your places faster, with far fewer annoying email and phone call exchanges before even getting anyone in to see the place:

1) Specify, specify, specify. Everything. Is there a washer/dryer hookup? A proper bathtub? A balcony or yard space? Is it freshly painted/are you willing to repaint? Is it heated? Does it come with a fridge and stove? What floor is it on? What kind of building is it -- a triplex, a prewar graystone, a Soviet-style concrete block? Is it hardwood floors, parquet, laminate, lino, or grey econo carpet?

2) Location, location, location. Don't just say "(rich/trendy area)-adjacent", give at the very least the nearest major intersection (for example, the intersection you would give a cabbie late at night). Is it walking distance to a metro or bus stop? Which one? If there's no laundry facilities (cf. point 1), how far away is the nearest/best laundromat? Is there anything of interest or use within a short walk (for example a library, swimming pool, shopping district)? If you can give an exact address, so much the better: It allows potential tenants to Google Street View the place, and weeds out those who will decide against the place based solely on curb appeal (or lack thereof) without you wasting your time at a pointless showing.

3) Man's best friend: Be very clear about your pets policy. Two indoor cats would be fine, but one that goes outside wouldn't? A purse-sized terrier is OK, but a pit bull not so much? No animals allowed at all ever at any time? Say so. If you don't, and then later discover that your prospective tenant has a furry friend, please don't expect them to give up their pet. There are a million apartments out there, but there's only one Mr. Whiskers. Apologize for wasting their time, and make your next listing clearer. Also: Do not try to charge extra rent because a person has a pet. Odds are, the pet has no income and can't contribute to the household in any financially meaningful way. That request is in no way logical (or, in Quebec, legal).

4) Be honest: Is it basically one room with a stove hookup at one end and a toilet at the other? Does it have only one closed bedroom, making it ideal for couples or a single person but totally inappropriate for roomies? Is it a basement? If you have answered "yes" to one or more of these questions, then what you have is *not* a loft, 2 br, or open-concept executive suite. What you have is a studio, 1 br, or basement apartment, or any combination thereof.

5) Don't forget the obvious shit! How much is the rent (per month, please)? What is included? When is it available?

6) Be available by email. You're on the internet. You've posted a listing on craigslist. We know you have an email address. Don't cut yourself off from people who work nights by only being available by phone for twenty minutes a day. Those people probably make a nice night-shift premium and will therefore not have trouble paying the rent, not to mention that they're asleep during the day and not around at night, so there'll never be a noise problem with them.

7) Post photos. Recent ones. Taken during the day. With the auto-focus turned on. Again: You're on the internet, it's free to post up to four photos on craigslist, there's no excuse not to. Ideally you want a photo of the kitchen, bathroom, living room, and bedroom (if two of these are the same, then feel free to throw in a photo of the balcony, the view, or any unique and charming feature of the apartment). Don't have a camera? Ask a friend or neighbour for five minutes of help. Good photos help weed out the people who wouldn't take the place anyhow without you wasting your time on a pointless showing.

8) I judge you when you use poor grammar. To me, "No Dog Building" means I can't use the premises to assemble dogs out of spare animal parts. If you've had this problem with previous tenants, I probably don't want to live there. Similarly, "quite" and "quiet" are not the same thing -- one makes me wonder, the other makes me want to rent. Also: Turn off your caps lock key, and find a keyboard that has shift, period, and comma keys, as well as possibly a space bar and a return key.

9) If you are posting on behalf of an agency, for the love of Christ, be professional. This means no caps lock, no spamming, no exaggerating, use your damn spell check, and no recycling the same four photos over twelve different listings. Putting your full company contact info on there is a nice touch too. Remember: It's craigslist, not the local daily -- you're not paying by the character.

10) If you are a scammer, please fuck off and die.

Following these very simple guidelines will help make the whole process faster and less painful for everyone involved. Especially number 10.

Sincerely,
Frustrated Apartment Hunter

adventures in apartment hunting

2009-11-26T13:58:00.004-05:00

Honest-to-god phone call I just made about an apartment:

Me: Yes, hello, I'm calling about the apartment?

Landlord: Yes?

Me: Um, how big is it?

LL: It's 4 1/2

Me: And what's the rent?

LL: $600

Me: Oooh, that's a bit more than I was looking for, good luck--

LL: How much you want to pay?

Me: Maybe $500?

LL: Ok, you come look, if you like you pay $500

Me: OK, well, does it have washer/dryer outlets?

LL: Yes

Me: And is it OK to have a cat?

LL: You tell me.

Me: Um, well, I like having a cat, so I think it's OK?

LL: So then it's good, just don't bother anyone, and don't let the cat outside. The cat stays inside?

Me: Yes, she's the equivalent of 100 years old and doesn't get out of bed anymore.

LL: Cats can live that long?

Me: Yep. She's no trouble, she can barely walk so I'm sure she won't be in the garden.*

LL: So then why don't you pay $600?

Me: Because my budget is $500

LL: But there's two of you. You pay $600.

Me: But one of us is a cat. The other is a human. One human. Who can only pay $500.

LL: Well, I want $600.

Me: OK, well good luck with that, thank you! (hangs up)

__________________________

* Smallest Cat does not merit a mention with landlords who appear nervous about animals. I know better. It's like saying your roommate is Hannibal Lecter. Good luck with *that*.

and the award for naffest lawn ornament ever goes to...

2009-09-25T12:21:00.003-04:00

Foxes don't ride tricycles, and if they did, they certainly wouldn't offer lifts to raccoons. Jackass.

reasons why I need to move: #21

2009-09-21T20:50:00.000-04:00

I am lucky in that I live in a place that allows tenants to have their own washers and dryers. If you’ve ever had to use a common laundry room, or a Laundromat, you know what a big deal this is, and it’s actually on my list of non-negotiables when apartment hunting now. Never again will I subject myself to the laundry thieves and Laundromat Nazis of the world when having your own appliances can be as easy and affordable as a trip to the Salvation Army (or Sears, if you’re a little less broke).

I love the convenience factor of having my own machines right there in my kitchen, and I love even more that my current next-door neighbour is never actually home, and my Landlady upstairs is deaf as a post, so I can run them at any time of day or night without consequence. It’s a nice bonus that with an old shelf laid on top of them, they make an excellent bar and buffet when I have a ton of people over.

If my laundry life is so great, you ask, then why do I cite this as a reason to move?

Because all my outlets and connections are actually not in my apartment. They are in Landlady’s basement, on the other side of my kitchen wall. This means that not only are they completely out of my sight and usually inaccessible if something goes wrong, but also that they are reversed: Hot is right, cold is left, up is down, and so on. Now, if I lived in a building populated by normal people, this wouldn’t be a problem: I would simply have figured it out when setting the appliances up after moving in, made sure everything was installed properly, and put it out of my mind. When I moved in, I did exactly that. The part where I went wrong was assuming that I had moved into a building populated by normal people (although in my defense it was only a few days after moving in, so I hadn’t yet been hit with the full force of my neighbours’ combined insanities, and it still seemed like a reasonable enough assumption).

Cut to one rainy afternoon, a few years later. I am home, cleaning up, and decide to put on a load of laundry. I decide to start with all my super-expensive yoga clothes and really delicate sweaters, since they all need to go in a cold-water, “hand-wash”, no-fabric-softener cycle, and if I do them first then there will be no residual softener or broken-off zipper pulls or button pieces or anything from any other load I would do that day. I take all of these pricey delicates and put them in the washer, add the soap, and press start. I then decide to do a load of dishes, but for some reason there’s no hot water coming from the kitchen sink. I turn to go check the bathroom sink and see if the problem is just in the kitchen, and that’s when I see it.

Steam. Great clouds of steam coming from the washing machine.

I panic, and stop the washer right away, praying that the door lock mechanism will let me open the door and pull my cold-only delicates out of the steaming, scalding water. It doesn’t. It’s more interested in protecting my floor from a tiny flood than in saving easily $1000 worth of clothes (acquired bit by bit over time, don’t judge) from total ruin. I look at the dials on the washing machine, and see that it is set to cold water delicates, as it should be.

I am stumped.

Until I remember hearing people walking around in the basement the day before, coming very close to my kitchen wall, and hearing squeaky pipes.

Luckily, Landlady was home, and let me into the basement right away so I could check things out. Sure enough, the pipes from my washing machine had been un-reversed, so that Hot was left and Cold was right, only this made Hot come out of Cold on my side of the wall. A little bit of chatting to Landlady revealed that she had had her laundry appliances moved up into her kitchen from the basement the previous day, and that she had saved money by having Crusty Old Guy from across the street come do it rather than hiring someone after her own son had refused to do it for her. Clearly, Crusty Old Guy had somehow mistaken my connections for Landlady’s, undone them, found his mistake when trying to move Landlady’s appliances without success, and gone ahead and reconnected mine without checking that they were done as he’d found them.

It was an innocent (but slightly stupid) mistake, and I suppose Crusty Old Guy meant well when he reconnected my machines. But that doesn’t take away my paranoia every time I hear voices behind that wall (and paranoia is exactly what you need if you think you’re hearing voices), and it doesn’t stop me from always checking the water temperature going into the washer as soon as I start a load now. Call me high-maintenance, call me picky and ungrateful and demanding, but I’d kind of like the extra luxury of knowing that when I set my washing machine to cold, cold will come out every time, without fail. I’d like it if my washer/dryer connections were actually in my apartment as originally advertised. I’d really like it if I didn’t have to worry about hearing voices anymore, too.

reasons why I need to move: #85

2009-09-15T14:44:00.003-04:00

Last week, I turned on the kitchen faucet to do some dishes, and at that moment heard the long beep of death from my microwave.

The coincidence was unsettling, but for all the screwy things in my apartment, the water and the electricity are by and large separated properly, so I grabbed an extension cord and tested my microwave in another outlet on a different circuit, and sure enough, it worked. I reasonably enough assumed that the fuse that had been there for at least twenty years had finally blown, so I replaced it. When the new fuse also blew as soon as I put it into the fuse box, I decided that this was officially a problem for an electrician, and advised my landlady.

Landlady took down a variety of days and times I would be available to hang out and wait for the electrician, and promptly called. Who she called, though, turned out not to be an electrician, but the crusty old guy who lives across the street. Crusty Old Guy came by, went through the same checks I did, and also told Landlady that this was officially a problem for an electrician, so we went through the whole exercise again, and an actual, legitimate, certified electrician was called in.

Cut to this morning, 7am. My alarm goes off, earlier than it has for months, and I reluctantly roll my ass out of bed, cursing Big Nameless Electrician Company that has promised to send an electrician at some point today, anytime between 7am and 7pm. I have a shower and make some coffee, and start doing whatever I can to keep myself awake and busy for possibly the next twelve hours. At 9:30, there is a knock at my door.

It is the best-looking electrician I have ever seen.

Young, fit, tan, blond, broad shoulders, strong arms. Much, much nicer on the eyes than Crusty Old Guy and his nasty, saggy sweatpants. Also he speaks actual French, rather than the Fritalian dialect common in my neighborhood, so I can actually follow every word he's saying, which is a definite bonus if I have to deal with a stranger in my house at a time of day where the idea of social interaction is downright offensive to me.

Cute Electrician does his thing and has the problem sorted in under an hour, and leaves me with a bunch of free fuses he had kicking around in his truck. Just as he is finishing up, there comes another knock at my door. It is Landlady, come to see how Cute Electrician is doing. He tells her he's finished and he was about to come up so she can sign the invoice. Landlady then tells Cute Electrician that he can always stay downstairs and make out with me rather than make her sign an invoice.

Yes.

Landlady tried to pimp me out rather than pay the electrician.

This is like the bad old days when Landlady would sit on the balcony and call out to passing men that there was an unmarried woman living in the building (which stopped as soon as she realized that A: I have a boyfriend, and B: There are really no eligible bachelors that walk down our street, only decrepit old men, drug dealers, and middle-aged married shits taking their kids to the park), only so much worse and so much creepier because it was in my house, and related to money.

reasons why I need to move: #73

2009-09-13T15:15:00.002-04:00

I caught my landlady trying to break in through my living room window.

That's right.

She wanted to say hello.

Yes.

Rather than calling me on the phone, or knocking on the door, she decided to come bang on my windows, and when I didn't answer, she started trying to open the windows from outside.

Now, in my defense, I was in the bathroom and therefore not available to immediately go running to the window to chat, but for all she knew I could have been out, which is what scares me about this. Obviously I came out of the bathroom as soon as I was done, and from where I was in the hallway I could see out but no one can see in, and I wasn't sure I was seeing correctly, so I quickly put on some shoes and ran outside. Lo and behold, there she is, my landlady, bent over in my window, with the screen already open, hard at work on the inside glass window, right there on the street for any criminally-minded douchebag kid (which my neighbourhood is overrun with) to see exactly how to go about breaking into my place, and to realize that if an 82-year-old woman who is half blind with cataracts can figure it out, then so can they.

everybody poops

2009-09-03T17:09:00.002-04:00

Dear Smallest Cat:

It's true that everybody poops. Nobody else takes it out of the litter box and chases it around the house, though. Freak.

Sincerely,
The Human.

is this what the Boy Scouts are referring to?

2009-08-18T14:41:00.004-04:00

I’m biking back from a friend’s place one night a couple of weeks ago, and it’s nearly 11 at night, and it’s a beautiful clear warm night with just a bit of a cool breeze, the kind of night that’s perfect for fireworks, and I’m at the start of a decent ride as this friend lives a good 15km away from me, but it’s a nice 15km right through the heart of the city, and I’m biking along with the iPod going, cursing the neighbourhood I’m in for its notorious potholes and being glad that I spent the money on a suspension post for my seat, when all of a sudden I hear a low kind of thunk and feel the back end of my bike go all wobbly.

The last time that happened, in that neighbourhood, I’d snapped a spoke, and the best solution was to just unhook my back brakes and ride slowly and carefully home, and pray that my bike guy hadn’t fallen off the radar as he’s prone to doing sometimes, so of course I stop and dismount and check out the back wheel. Spoke by spoke. Twice.

No broken spoke.

I try again from the other side of the wheel, because in my deranged little head that’s somehow going to make a difference, and realize that the problem is not a spoke, but a bolt. Specifically, the bolt that holds my mud guard and milk crate rack to the frame, and without which biking another 12km along quasi-paved city streets with a loaded milk crate could spell disaster if the ends of the rack or the mudguard slip inside the frame and jam up the spokes, sprockets, or chain. My first instinct is to just go buy a bolt (or even a screw) and ask at the store if I can borrow a tool to fix it, but also, it’s 11 at night and I’m in an area that the only thing really happening at that time is maybe some online marital infidelity, so that’s out. My next thought is that it’s not that far a walk to the nearest metro station, and I can always just haul the bike home by metro and fix it in the morning, but it is in fact a fireworks night (and perfect weather for it too – sigh) so bikes are barred from the metro. That leaves me with option three: Tear my bag apart looking for anything that might be in any way useful to me in this situation, just as a temporary fix, so I do not have to walk my tired ass all the way home, pushing my bike, in shoes so old there are actual holes in the bottoms (shut up, I love them and you will have to pry them from my cold, dead feet before I give them up).

So this is what I do, right there, on the sidewalk. I tear apart my bag. Carefully, of course, because the last time my bag got taken apart on the sidewalk while looking for something it cost me an iPod (and that’s another story in itself). I find all kinds of things in my bag: A book, a clean shirt, an apple, soy milk, toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, clean underwear, a gazillion flyers and receipts, two dead turtle lights, tampons, condoms, 58 cents, three kinds of lip gloss (for the record, I was only cat sitting at my friend’s house. Ugly Cat. Remember her?) – apparently I am ready for anything. Except this. And then, way, way down at the bottom, one solitary, skinny, ouchless hair elastic. How the heck I found that all the way down in a bottom corner of my bag under all that other crap, I have no idea, but it turned out to be the perfect temporary solution.

Now, if ever you are in this situation, please learn from my next mistake.

This:

Is not the correct way to use a hair elastic to solve this problem. This will get you all of about 5km closer to home before everything falls lose and you end up with the mud guard, rack, and a hair elastic jamming in your sprockets and chain, and if your luck is like mine, that’ll happen in the middle of a busy intersection full of drunk drivers. You want to be doing this instead:

See how the elastic wraps around both parts of the frame, rather than just the upper bit? That held the rest of the way home and all the next day before I got off my ass and fixed it properly.

Please god no

2009-08-12T18:15:00.003-04:00

I know grunge is back, but this?

This needs to not be part of that trend.

Works mostly as advertised...

2009-08-11T18:15:00.003-04:00

A very nice person gave me a Kensington ComboSaver Notebook cable lock for my birthday.

This was actually a well-thought-out gift, since the person in question knows damn well that sometimes I take a little chance in cafes or libraries when I really, really need to pee and don't have a friend with me to watch my laptop. I used to just take it in with me, but ever since my battery died for good, I'm tethered to a wall outlet at all times. Shut up. It's not like I'm actually working while I pee.

Anyhow, this cable lock was the best one available at a reasonable price point, according to the gift-giver, and I trust their judgment implicitly on things like this, since they've usually done an insane amount of research on anything they buy, and something I'd been meaning to look for a good deal on since March. Birthday present = best deal ever, and so, giddy with delight at crossing this off my to-do list, and thrilled to have the freedom to pee without worry, I opened up the box as soon as I could, tested it out on the factory-set combination, and then followed the instructions to set my own combination.

Since the lock worked perfectly when I tested it on the factory setting, and I know I set the new combination properly, I was expecting the test run with my own combination to also work properly. Just in case though, I didn't actually attach the other end of the lock to anything.

That was a good call, since, as it turns out, this lock has been known to occasionally reset the combination to something completely random, usually while stuck into your laptop, making you look like a thief everywhere you go until you somehow get it out, and this is exactly, predictably, what happened.

My first stop the next day was my regular cafe, where I knew they wouldn't think I was suddenly working on a stolen laptop. My second stop was Google. Apparently Kensington key locks are incredibly easy to pick, but the only thing I could find for cracking a combination lock was some complicated way of holding the lock while turning the tiny little wheels and trying to feel when the tumblers line up. Let me tell you, if you're not a professional thief who does this kind of thing 40 hours a week, and if you're not lucky enough for the lock to magically open on its own the first time you try this, it's damn near impossible.

My third step was to call Kensignton directly, since while reasearching this online I'd read a few user comments from people this had happened to, one of whom had actually called Kensington directly and been told to have a locksmith take it out and that Kensington would pay the locksmith charges in addition to replacing the lock. I called, hoping to hear the same thing, but instead I was told (in so many words) that there was nothing Kensington could do to help, and that I needed to take this up with the store where the lock was purchased.

Luckily, the person who gave me the gift was with me at the time of its malfunction, and had immediately handed me the receipt, just in case, so I called the store where they got it, hoping the store would be able to help. I suppose I should have known better, since that store is Future Shop, and I suppose in light of that I shouldn't have been surprised that I would have to tell my story to four different people before being hung up on, but frankly that kind of rudeness always shocks me a little.

So there I was, with a lock stuck in my laptop, and no real help from anyone. I decided to go see a locksmith anyhow, and hope it wouldn't be very expensive, since that seemed like a safer bet than advertising on craigslist: "Professional thief wanted to pick combination lock. Will pay in cupcakes." The locksmith I went to is well-known in my neighbourhood, and is in fact the only one who is just a locksmith and not also a dry cleaner, cobbler, or pawn shop owner. They knew right away what the problem was, and told me they used to sell the exact lock that was stuck in my laptop, but stopped very quickly because this problem kept happening and the only solution they had found for it was a circular saw.

The idea of a saw going anywhere near my laptop not being something I was willing to even contemplate, I thanked them and moved on. Next stop: The local IT guy, who also took one look at my laptop, knew immediately what had happened, and refused to do anything about it, since all he could do would be to crack open the computer case and try to work it out from the inside, but he refuses to touch Macs since they're so delicate. And as frustrated as I was at the time, it's probably for the best, since the idea of my computer being cracked open by a random dude who does not work for Apple is only slightly more appealing than the image of a circular saw, turned on high, barreling right down at my laptop.

The only thing left was the one thing I had most wanted to avoid: Sitting down in front of a pile of DVDs, and running through all 10,000 possible combinations, one by one, until I found the right one. So on goes season three of The Sopranos, and I started turning.

I broke all my nails off by 1000.

I had a callous building on my index finger and Meadow slept with Noah by 2000.

The wheels actually all jammed together from over-use at about 2500. I gave up and went to sleep at that point, but not before extracting a promise from the gift-giver to pass by my place with a small bottle of teflon-laced oil to unjam that shit the next day.

The wheels started turning freely again at 3000.

They stopped dripping oil all over me and the gift-giver was coerced into taking a turn at this for me at 4000.

Gloria Trillo got bunny-boiling nuts at 5000.

I started becoming numb to the whole experience at 5500.

Jackie Jr. got whacked at 6000.

The fucking lock opened at 6873.

That's right.

I sat on my ass for two days and turned a lock 6,874 times.

You can imagine how thrilled I was to know that it still wasn't over, because the damn thing still had to be taken to Future Shop and exchanged.

The girl on the returns desk at Future Shop, like everyone else in this fiasco, was not at all surprised to hear that this had happened, and exchanged it for me no questions asked. I have a brand-new one now, that so far has worked properly, but it'll be a long time before I go into any cafes where I'm not a regular right before closing time. Just in case.

___________________________

If you're reading this on the real internet (ie, not Facebook), I'm sorry for the fugly design. Blogger convinced me to switch to layouts and I'll have it looking pretty again soon, I promise.

Seriously?

2009-08-06T20:38:00.003-04:00

Dear Oldest Cat:

I now understand that your difficulties with operating the litter box in relation to your ass are only half due to your blindness, and that the fact that Smallest Cat has been using the litter box as a bed might also play into this situation. I apologize for placing all the blame for the mess on your shoulders, but would still appreciate if you could at least try to aim properly when the litter box is not being slept in.

Sincerely,
The Human.

__________________________

Dear Smallest Cat:

WTF? Seriously? You know better than that.

Sincerely,
The Human.

_________________________

For those of you who have been wondering what happened with Ugly Cat, two days after my last post about her, I got an email from my friend's roommate letting me know that the cat had indeed been found by someone in the neighbourhood, the very day I started to worry about her absence, and this well-intentioned soul had taken the cat to the vet. How it turns out that that was the cat's regular vet, and someone in the vet's office was nice enough to find out the friend's roommate's email address and let her know that Ugly Cat was at the vet, I don't know, but let me tell you, I've never been so evenly split between relief and total annoyance in my life. I think this might be the last time I look after an outdoor cat.

And you're not compostable, either

2009-08-01T19:41:00.003-04:00

Dear Smallest Cat:

You are reusable, and you are definitely reduce-able (when did you get so damn fat, anyhow?), but you are absolutely not recyclable. You have until Thursday morning to get out of there before we have a problem with the city.

Sincerely,
The Human.

The cat did not come back the very next day

2009-07-31T02:01:00.001-04:00

I’ve been cat sitting for a friend. Not a big deal, since cats are normally pretty easy to deal with, and it gives me a new place to sit and work for a little while, and it’s a friend I’ve known for eons, so it really isn’t a huge hassle. The thing is though is that his cat – let’s call her Ugly Cat (even though she is not ugly at all) – is an outdoors cat.

Now, I’ve known plenty of people with outdoors cats. If I lived in the country, I’d probably be one myself. But I don’t. I live in the city. Pretty close to some major intersections. Half a block from a really busy street. Close enough to the highway that most people think they’re still on it and drive accordingly, despite the playgrounds and crosswalks everywhere. So I don’t let my cats out, which is fine with Oldest Cat, because she’s old and really can’t be bothered to walk more than the distance between her food bowl and the litter box. As for Smallest Cat, she’s stupid enough to get involved in some kind of trouble with the local strays and/or try to take on a truck barreling down the street at her, so she doesn’t know it, but really she’s fine with staying inside too. Ugly Cat, however, is not my cat, and she knows that, and she loves going outside, and since she’s not my cat and normally she’s allowed out, and I’m visiting her so we’re in her normal territory, who am I to argue?

So Ugly Cat is outside. Which is fine. And she went out at 3:30am when I left last night (I work better at night, don’t judge), which is fine. And she wasn’t waiting at the door when I got here today, which is totally fine, because if she was then she’d actually be a dog, and I’d have some serious explaining to do when my friend comes home. But now I’ve been here for almost seven hours with the door wide open, and no Ugly Cat. Big Orange Tabby from next door did come and hang out on the balcony for a while, but no Ugly Cat.

If she’d been here when I got here, I wouldn’t have worried. But she was out all night last night, and all day today, and this is my first time actually being responsible for an outdoor cat, and part of me is secretly convinced that Ugly Cat came by a few times during the day, saw that no one was home, and decided she’s been abandoned and has gone off to find a new family, and that’s one of the only two things that would be more awkward to explain to my friend than accidentally turning his cat into a dog, so I worried. And then I did what all people do when they’re looking for the cat: I went downstairs, in my bare feet, and stood on the porch, shaking her food bag and calling her name and making that clicking noise we all think animals understand and meowing a little.

And I’m standing there, shaking food and meowing like an idiot, feeling the dirt grind into the bottoms of my feet and the mosquitoes feasting on my bare arms, and it occurs to me that anyone walking past will immediately assume that I am but a pathetic single girl in her 30s, rejected even by her pets, one bad date away from becoming a junior member of the League of Crazy Cat Ladies, and on top of it there are at least two people I went to high school with who live on or very close to this street who could walk by at any moment and see me with my dirty hair and old jeans and shitty top calling a cat’s name and meowing and shaking kibble in the middle of the night and make that very assumption, and I start to laugh, and have to stop myself from adding “I have a boyfriend! I won’t die alone!” in between each repetition of the cat’s name.

So there I am, on my friend’s porch, laughing at myself and hoping to god that this cat is fine and has somehow gotten into the back door of a sushi bar and is now living the feline dream and I’ll see her again tomorrow when the sushi master finds her and tosses her out, and I realize that this is exactly what my mother had to do at my age. Only she had three kids crying because their indoor cat had accidentally gotten out. And not been home in three days. And also it was December, minus twenty, and she and my dad had to walk the streets in their pyjamas shaking cat food and calling the cat’s name (which, believe me, when you let three little girls name their new kitten, does not make this a name my dad could have been happy to call out in public under the best of circumstances, let alone in his pyjamas in the middle of the night in a neighbourhood where he knows everyone), and now I’m too busy being spooked that I can hear my mother laughing at me from the beyond to worry about what people think.

_____________________

The cat, if anyone’s wondering, is probably fine. I’m assured by my friend via email that she’s disappeared before and may in fact be crashing at a neighbour’s again.

You couldn't do my ironing, could you?

2009-07-30T22:12:00.003-04:00

Dear Smallest Cat:

If you have a hairball in my dryer, I will put you on perma-press. Also, you kind of look like Jabba the Hut here. Maybe less time spent on fluff setting, eh?

Sincerely,
The Human.

yep, I'm living the dream alright

2008-10-27T13:32:00.002-04:00

I don't know if I'm more amused by the colleague who keeps raving about this fabulous "vegan tofu" she found, or by the other one who is totally repulsed by the very notion of "vegan tofu".

Oh well. At least no one wanted to know what my grapefruit was made of.

__________________________________

After four days of no coffee, I miss it. Very much. I don't just miss the taste and the smell, I also miss how much faster I bike in the morning when I have a nice vanilla soy latte hanging off my handlebars. Chai is good, but it's just not the same, and it takes me four full minutes longer to bike in in the mornings now.

adventures in Maomisitting V

2008-10-24T15:19:00.002-04:00

Dear Mom and Dad:

Don't worry, I am fine. Physically, that is. Emotionally, it's a little rough right now: I appear to have not only developed some kind of Stockholm Syndrome-like affection for the guards here, especially the tall loud one, but I am also having to come to grips with the fact that despite all my skulking and sneaking and batting at that glass enclosure, the little orange prisoners remain captive, and I have failed at my mission.

I wish I could write more, as I miss you so, but I am so despondent over this that the only thing to do is go eat a big bowl of that junky food the big one and the older one seem to enjoy so much, and then sit in a corner crying quietly to myself until it is time for me to go home.

Love you, miss you, et à bientot...

xxx
Maomi la Minoune

_________________________________________

Caffeine-free sucks. I do not buy this green-tea-coffee-substitute crap. Not one bit.

adventures in Maomisitting IV

2008-10-23T14:54:00.002-04:00

Dear Mom and Dad:

Don't worry, I am fine. As you can see I got myself into a bit of a situation when the big one caught me snooping, but I worked my way out of it. I tried to play innocent about it too when the tall loud one questioned me later, but alas, they have security cameras here that caught the whole thing, and now my cute-harmless-kitten cover has been blown. I will have to think very, very carefully about my next move.

I have been assigned a new work detail as punishment for the above fiasco. I am now working in the mechanical engineering department, maintaining the personal transport device the tall loud one uses when she goes off to her other job. I am considering tampering with the brakes, but I am worried that there may be security cameras monitoring my activities there, too. In fact, it's entirely possible that someone may also be monitoring my correspondence. Hello, nice security people! By "tampering with the brakes" really I meant decorating things with flowers and sunshine! Oh yes!

I must go now. Trust no one.

Love you, miss you...

xxx
Maomi la Minoune

____________________________________

I think I might do it. I finished the coffee this morning. I think I might see how long I can make it before I buy another.

I am fucking terrified.

adventures in Maomisitting III

2008-10-22T16:43:00.001-04:00

Dear Mom and Dad:

Please don't worry, despite the photo below I am still fine. As you can see I have made a small amount of progress in my mission: Remember yesterday when I mentioned three guards watching over the orange prisoners? Late last night, I managed to overpower the tall loud one, using only my feline wiles. Attempts to exfoliate her into submission with my tongue failed, but not by much. I think tonight I will wait until a little bit later and hope she is more tired than last night; she seems to be moonlighting somewhere else during the day, but as you know this is my quiet time of rest and personal reflection, so I am unable to take advantage of this opportunity.

Speaking of rest, I must get more so I am fresh and strong and focused for tonight's operation. Wish me luck!

Love you, miss you

xxx
Maomi la Minoune

adventures in Maomisitting II

2008-10-21T17:40:00.005-04:00

Dear Mom and Dad:

Don't worry, I am still fine. I have been upgraded to a private room, perhaps due to the importance of my mission. It's a decent room, with an eating area and my own litter box, and I'm happy enough to spend my days resting and reflecting quietly on my mission and my life in such peace and privacy. At night when I am out working I suspect the bigger one is sneaking into my room and trying to use my litter box, but it is a very fancy thing with a tunnel-like entrance and she's just too big to make it.

The mission is progressing more slowly than I would like. Every night I go out and walk around and try to look inconspicuous as I investigate this glass enclosure, and every night I am stopped repeatedly by the guards. One of them isn't always paying attention, so I get close sometimes, but then I'm always caught in the act -- there are three guards, and the tall loud one has busted me so many times that she stationed the oldest one to be on constant watch now. I don't think I'm supposed to have noticed that, because the watch station is a good ten feet or more from the enclosure, but I'm smarter than they think. I am. It's true.

Anyways, I should get going. Miss you lots, love you more...

xxx

Maomi la Minoune

____________________________

Normally I have no problem going places as a vegan. Hell, I even managed to get a vegan meal at a steakhouse a few weeks ago (I didn't point that out to them in case they took it off the menu, but dammit, I did it). However, the next time I decide to go to the amusement park for a full day of fun and a hell of a lot of walking without packing a good vegan lunch, please remind me of the moment seen below, when a mouthful of the world's worst pasta and some chips and some watery flavorless cucumber salad left me so nauseous that even standing in line for the observation desk make me want to vomit, die, and then vomit some more, and ruined the rest of my day, and all because I forgot my lunch and the falafel guy ran out of falafel.

adventures in Maomisitting

2008-10-20T12:11:00.003-04:00

Dear Mom and Dad:

Don't worry, I am fine. Things are better than I expected: We have heated shelter and fresh water, but the sleeping arrangements are still a bit muddled. It'll work itself out though, I'm sure. The other cats are mostly treating me well: The old one seems fairly mellow and sleeps all the time, which means I do more work around camp, but one day I'll be old too and then it'll be my turn to nap all day. The big one seems unsure of what to make of me and gets a little too close for comfort sometimes and that scares me, so I try to stay out of her way, but I'm also very curious about such a large beast and sometimes I can't help sneaking up to have a sniff around or to say hello and see what happens. So far she hasn't liked that very much either. Hopefully one day we can be friends though.

I had my mission assigned to me last night. I can't talk about it in too much detail, but it involves liberating some little orange prisoners being held in a glass enclosure full of water. So far my efforts have been for naught, so it's a bit frustrating, but I will keep trying until I succeed -- I am nothing if not persistent. I owe that to you, Mom and Dad. You taught me well.

I miss you both very much, and love you both even more!

xxx
Maomi la Minoune

the first step is admitting you have a problem

2008-10-09T16:02:00.003-04:00

It’s really late Wednesday night, after midnight actually so I guess it’s Thursday morning. I’m standing in my kitchen, boiling water to make another pot of tea, because I will look for any reason to procrastinate even if I’m on or past deadline with any of my projects, and I’m looking around, and thinking about cleaning the coffee pot and my travel mug so I don’t have to do these things tomorrow morning, and a thought occurs to me.

A very, very scary thought.

There was once a time that I didn’t need to do these things every day, because I wasn’t allowed to have any coffee at all during the week, only tea.

It seems drastic, I know, but I was only drinking half as much coffee on weekends as I do now, and somehow I was still getting through the week. Granted, I was going out a lot less than I do now, and not juggling even half as many commitments as I am now, so I was getting way more sleep, but still. And yeah, for a while that was because I was on medication that interacted very badly with caffeine, and I stupidly chose to continue taking it during the week and give myself drug holidays on weekends so it wouldn’t build up too much in my system, and then I thought carefully about that and stopped taking it altogether. And yeah, I know that ever since I’ve been self-medicating seven days a week with coffee, but it could be worse, because so many other people who should be on this drug self-medicate with various combinations of marijuana and cocaine or speed instead, or gambling, or cutting, or anorexia, or any other of a number of much more dangerous things than a simple, rich, dark roast, finely ground and steam pressure brewed with a good thick crema on top. And yeah, I’m well aware that this is just one of the signs that perhaps, just maybe, there’s the slightest of chances that I could possibly be addicted to the stuff, and addiction is a sign of weakness, and blah blah blah I’m a bad person.

__________________________________

It’s now Thursday afternoon. I punked out. I’m still on the bean, but still only one cup a day. It would be nice to lose my taste for it and cut it out entirely. It would also be nice to live in Vancouver and be a hippie and go to bed at 8pm so I can get up at five to go for a hike. We all know that’s just not going to happen.

__________________________________

Dear Smallest Cat:

You can play dumb all you like. The feathers caught in your fur behind your ears tell me that you might indeed have something to do with the tear in my duvet.

Sincerely,
The Human

Weak Wednesday Whining

2008-10-08T16:46:00.000-04:00

I'm the only vegan in my office.

This is not really surprising, considering that there aren't that many of us in the world to begin with, and that everyone I work with is from the school of "Your main goal in life must be to marry before you're 30, move to the suburbs, buy a big stupid house and a big stupid car, pop out some kids, and have nothing in your life other than your kids, car, and day job." Because I so clearly don't fit that mould I stand out so much I could eat half a side of beef a day and still be an anomaly (actually, anyone eating that much beef is an anomaly, but I digress), but the veganism is a whole new twist for these people. They've not only never encountered this before, it's never even occurred to them that such a thing is possible. It leads to a lot of stupidities like "Why aren't you eating any of the cheap-ass listeriosis-contaminated cold cuts that are passing for the big meal we bought in place of giving bonuses?" and "Well, this pie has no butter in it, I made the crust with Tenderflake, and I don't see why you're being so stubborn."

Because the veganism is relatively new, too (only 10 months), there's also a lot of Mother/Father-Knows-Best that goes on every time I turn down an egg-laden bagel: "But what did the doctor say? Isn't there some kind of medication you can take? It just seems like such a shame that you have to live like that..." Never mind that I feel way better now than I did before I started getting sick all the time, never mind that having to take some expensive synthetic chemical three times a day that will slowly poison me so that three times a day I can eat food laden with cheap synthetic chemicals that will also slowly poison me doesn't really sound like a great way to live, and never mind that frankly it's none of their darn business.

All of this is really annoying. Really, really fuckin' annoying.

But I would gladly put up with it every day for the rest of my life if they would just stop coming over to my desk when I am trying to eat lunch, sticking their noses right into my plate, and saying "Ooooh - what's that you're eating?"

It's a salad, jackass. With lettuce, tomatoes, and other salad-type vegetables. Take your face the hell out of my food.

___________________________________________

OK, one more point about this week's raging debate and then I'll let it go: Someone said to me last night that it would be different if someone won the lottery and wanted to stop having a day job so they could do their own things. As much as I adore and respect this person, this pisses me off. Why would we respect the choices of someone who gambled twice a week for years until they got lucky and it paid off, but not the choices of someone who either has a *really* supportive partner or is just going to go on a wing and a prayer?

___________________________________________

Speaking of debates (no pun intended), I tried so hard to watch Obama and McCain last night. I really did. But it was so boring: Neither of them are really great public speakers, they're conversationalists, but there was no conversation. There was no exchange of ideas, no spark, no dialogue even, just two competing monologues. And also McCain looked like a robot. A robot that needed to pee. It made me really uncomfortable in addition to being bored and I had to turn it off after an hour. I know the US election is supposed to be the big important one to follow for economic reasons, but I have to say, our little Canadian one is much more engaging, and our debates were actually fun to watch despite the crappy moderators in both languages. I guess that's just one of the benefits of not limiting ourselves to a two-party system.

Tenuous Tuesday Tract

2008-10-07T09:19:00.002-04:00

So, yesterday’s note provoked some pretty strong reactions. Let me clarify a few things, in the interests of making sure that if people are aggrieved by this at least I’m sure they’re aggrieved at points I’m actually trying to make:

The thing that I don’t understand most is at what point taking care of the people you love and spending the rest of your time on volunteer work or other projects or even building a small business became such an undesirable option that it’s no longer even really talked about, except in very embarrassed and hushed tones. Yes, it’s a luxury, and one I would love to have, but why do we generally see it as such a worthless use of time that anyone choosing that path gets derided as a drain on society? And since most of the people who end up on that path are women, why do other women especially come down so hard on them for it? There was a great opinion piece in Time about this a few months ago, and of course now I can’t find it, but I did find this one that shows that men think about this too.

As for not being taken seriously by people should I choose to skip the whole day job thing and just take care of people I love and work on my own projects, well, I’ve already been not taken seriously, discounted, and dismissed just for having boobs. I can’t imagine being not taken seriously, discounted, and dismissed for being a happier person with boobs feeling much worse, or being any more justifiable. I’m also confused as to when exactly this became OK: My mother stopped working when she had me, and did not go back until my youngest sister was starting kindergarten, so I would have been probably 11 when she went back to work. That’s a huge luxury right there, and I know I am very, very lucky to have had those extra years with her. And when my mother did go back to work, rather than not being taken seriously for having made the choices she did, she was given as fair a shot at things as anyone else, because back in those days – only 20 years ago, mind you – the choices she had made were still considered valid choices, with a social value to them. By the time she passed away, she’d been an executive vice-president at three consecutive companies, and if I recall correctly was actually meant to be starting at a fourth the morning of her funeral. I think that’s a pretty good sign of having been taken seriously in the business world. I think the number of people who showed up to honor her that morning or who sent cards and notes and made donations in her memory are an even bigger sign of having been taken seriously by the world at large.

And for the record, lest anyone think I’m a spoiled brat looking for an easy life, my family was not and is not wealthy (by Western standards) in any way. It was public school, public transit, and generic Kraft dinner all the way at my house. We had a small house, which is much more than a lot of people in the world, I know, but it was absolutely not the life of Riley – I actually remember the live-able space as being not too much bigger than my apartment. But on the plus side, it taught us to enjoy having a small space crammed full of people and pets and love and laughter, and it taught us to appreciate the very small luxuries, like a BBQ in January to celebrate a birthday. It also taught me not to mind so much when I got to university and had to make a pack of ramen stretch three days. And if I can go so far as to make a pack of ramen last three days, then I think there’s little room for doubt that I am self-sufficient, have generally always been, and probably always will be, just by nature. My quibble is that the other option seems to no longer be acceptable, even for those who can afford it.

(And to the Man, if you’re reading this, DO NOT PANIC. This does not mean I want to get married and make babies and never work again. I am very happy with what we have now. It just means I’m questioning at what point so many things stopped being valued by the world we live in, at what point “work” starting being defined solely as “shit tasks for shit pay in shit corporate environment”, and also a little bit at what point it happened that a person can not daydream and imagine out loud without it turning into a big debate.)

______________________________________

I thought I’d be on a little break from cupcakes and things for a few days, and instead try to make meals from things already in my house and/or for less than $1 worth of additional ingredients. Last night was easy, it was leftover spanikopita. Tonight will be veggie burgers, but not really: It will be the chickpea cutlets from veganomicon, but switched up to have kidney beans rather than chickpeas, and probably a few other subs as well knowing me, with peach chutney (find a recipe you like for mango chutney, then use the last few withered peaches at the bottom of the basket instead of mangos, and raspberry or another slightly sweet vinegar instead of whatever it says in your recipe), on homemade rolls.

That’s right.

Homemade rolls, on a weeknight. They were actually made last night, because baking bread is so totally the same thing as writing to meet deadlines, and building websites to meet deadlines, and cleaning and cooking and baking and planning for events and daytrips and so on. Completely and totally the same thing. That delicious smell of freshly baked bread saturating my apartment? That’s the smell of productivity, organization, and creative output, people. Smells like victory.

Actually, what it smells like is a massive case of ADD. I was innocently putting away dishes and about to wipe down the counters before sitting down to write and be productive, when a recipe on the side of a bag of flour caught my eye, and I couldn’t resist the challenge: Not to veganize it, it was already pretty much vegan, but to imperialize it. It was written entirely in metric (entirely, even the temperatures), not a set of measurements that I really understand, and of course I have no internet at home to just google the conversions, but from what I gathered it sounded good, so off I went, as follows: Preheat oven to 100. Pour 1 ¼ cups lukewarm water (not too warm or you’ll kill the yeast!), 1 tablespoon oil, 1 tablespoon honey (I used maple syrup instead, we’ll see what happens there) into a bowl and mix. Add 1 tsp each active dry yeast and salt. Mix a little more. Add 3 cups flour (I used 2 cups white all-purpose and 1 cup whole-wheat bread), wash your hands really well, and get in there and knead for 10 full minutes. Cover the bowl and let rise for 45 minutes in 100 degree oven (I mixed in an old stainless soup pot with no handles left on it and just stuck that right in the oven). Remove dough from oven and raise heat to 400. Knead a few more times, maybe for a minute and a half or so, and shape however you need it – you can throw it right into an oiled bread pan as-is, roll it out into a short baguette shape, sculpt it into something dirty, or make rolls like I did (roll it into a slightly thin baguette, then twist and pinch off rolls one at a time, you should get anywhere between 6 and 9, depending how long you rolled it out and how thick you want your rolls), but regardless, once it’s ready to go, throw it into an oiled pan of some kind (or one lined with parchment; I’m sure that would work too but I ran out and couldn’t test the theory) and let it rise another 20 minutes. Brush the top with soymilk if you want a bit of a darker crust. Bang the thing in the oven, set the timer for 30 minutes or so, and walk away. If it starts smelling TOO good before the timer goes, then check it, smaller rolls will bake faster and you don’t want them to burn. If you made one big loaf, it will probably need a full 40 minutes. I made small-ish rolls and accidentally left them in for 40 minutes and they seemed a little crusty when I took them out; we’ll see what happens when I try to eat one later. Anyhow, when it’s ready to come out of the oven, turn it out from the pan onto a cooling rack right away so it doesn’t stick, and remember that even if the crust on the outside is cool to the touch after ten minutes, the inside will still be steaming, and it’s not worth burning yourself over, just wait another little while before you try to eat it.

____________________________________

Dear Oldest Cat:

Would it kill you to move your ass a quarter of an inch further in, so that you pee in the litter box instead of next to it? Because if it would actually kill you then we’re all good, I will continue single-handedly keeping Cascades’ stock at a healthy price, but if you think you might be able to at least try making this change, I’d be most grateful, and you would benefit too: If I spend less on paper towels, that frees up some cash to spend on the good expensive all-natural hippie cat food you like so much. See how this works?

Sincerely,

The Human

Massive Monday Missive

2008-10-06T17:56:00.001-04:00

I got through Saturday on one cup of coffee just fine. Sunday was a disaster though, brunch made it impossible to keep track of how much I had.

That’s a lie. I hosted the brunch. No one forced me to keep pouring refills and brewing more pots. Brunch is just a good excuse to fall off the wagon, even if it’s only for one day.

_____________________________

I think I overdosed on baking and cooking this weekend. I had two houseguests, one of whom is gluten-free, and a pile of baking to do for a couple of friends, so it was vegan organic gluten-free a-palooza at my place. The spanikopita came out better than ever, and the gluten-free version (rice paper wrappers instead of filo), in the words of my gluten-free guest, looked “like small turds, but tasted delicious”. The gluten-free cornbread was also delicious, but Sunday morning’s gluten-free scones spread rather than rising and got a little rubbery. As for the stewed butternut squash, I think these kinds of stewed squash dishes are going to be this winter’s staple food: So simple, so easy, and so, so good.

Then there are the cupcakes. I don’t know what the heck happened this weekend, maybe it was the political debate going on in my kitchen while I baked, or maybe it was the heat finally being turned on in our building, or maybe my oven is dying, or maybe I kept forgetting some crucial ingredient or adding too much of something, but of 49 cupcakes that came out of my kitchen this weekend, 19 were of acceptable quality, 6 were gluten-free and don’t count, and the rest are offensive to both eye and tongue. They’re all sitting in my freezer, and there they will stay until I figure out just what the sweet jesus went so horribly wrong. I just hope that’s sooner rather than later, especially with the Orphans’ Thanksgiving next week.

_____________________________

Dear Smallest Cat:

Thank you for being so well-behaved with all our guests this weekend. Thank you for not hissing and spitting and swiping and clawing. Most of all, thank you for making sure I woke up on time to make brunch by getting up on the nightstand right next to my head and hawking up a loud, painful hairball at 8 o’clock Sunday morning.

Sincerely,

The Human

_____________________________

One of the hot topics at my kitchen table this weekend was women not working, but rather taking care of their homes and families, and doing volunteer work or other personal projects. It might be my fault. I don’t remember exactly how it came up, but I know I suggested at one point that I might actually be happier to not work at a day job, and instead take care of the people I love and pursue my own projects, and the very strong reactions I got can be nicely summed up as “You’re insane, why would you now that you no longer have to, we’ve come so far”, and so on.

Now, this isn’t something I grew up dreaming of. My Barbie worked. She might have been a dancer one day and a lawyer the next, a painter one week and a vet the next, but she worked. In fact, I’d never even considered not working as an option until it was offered to me last year (and thank god that didn’t work out, or else I’d be in Fort Mac right now, stuck with a lying cheating swine of a husband and not enough money to leave because I’d have funnelled everything into starting a business, as per the plan we made together, and owning and running that business would have kept me there as well, and can you imagine? But I digress), but the more I sit at my desk at my day job feeling like I’m wasting time that would be much better spent on all my other projects and things I’m trying to get launched, the more I think that maybe we’ve gone too far in the opposite direction from where we started.

Yes, fifty years ago, women didn’t generally work after they were married. By and large it wasn’t as economically necessary as it is now. Yes, my grandmother stopped working when she married my grandfather and moved to Canada, and yes, I suppose if she’d really wanted to (or had to) then she could have applied for a work permit to seek employment here. But she didn’t (and she didn’t), so she – didn’t. And yes, my other grandmother’s sister was a nun, and that grandmother was a schoolteacher until she got married and started making babies, and it’s easy to dismiss that as “oh, well, that was seventy years ago, and in a different part of the world, and that’s how they were raised,” but at the end of the day, she didn’t have to work, so she didn’t, and I don’t doubt for a second that she would have if she’d had to, either.

Even my aunt and my mother exercised this option: My aunt, who is only a few years older than I am, could have gone and applied for a work permit when she and my uncle lived in Boston, but she didn’t have to, so she didn’t; and now, they live in the UK, and she could easily go and take a day job if she wanted to, but she doesn’t have to, so she doesn’t. My mother for a long time when I was little did not have a day job, and when she felt the need to generate her own income she started her own businesses, and when my father was laid off and things got tough then she felt a need to work and she went and worked at a day job. Because she needed and wanted to, she did.

All of these women had and have incredible talents for so many things, and passions, and hobbies, and things that they do for themselves. All of them were and are actively involved in their communities, whether it’s working with their kids’ schools, through their churches, or volunteering at the local pool and parks programs, or whatever else tickles their fancy. Yes, there were hard days and hard times and moments when I’m sure they wanted to trade it all in for something else, but who hasn’t had those days and times and moments regardless of how they fill their days, whether it’s at a desk job or otherwise? It’s part of being human. It’s normal. None of these women have been forced into anything. Believe me. I know them. No one could force them into a $10,000 shopping spree if they’d set their minds against it.

So how is it, then, that just one generation later, we’ve become so used to women working full-time that daring to say out loud that I would love to have the luxury of not working provokes such a strong reaction? I mean, I’d never want to be one of those yummy mummies with the BMW stroller and the giant diamond rings, and yes, I probably would be bored if all I did all day was housework, which is exactly why I am bored now (the housework is the highlight of my day compared to the day job), but experience has proven that if I am left on my own all day I will find a million stimulating, creative, and productive ways to fill my time and hopefully make my little part of the world, at least, a better place, so why was that so wrong to say out loud? And furthermore, are we all so used to settling for the first person that comes along and getting into marriages (or relationships) of convenience that the very idea of two people building an actual partnership that allows them each to do what they are happiest at and be supportive of each other in every way is now old-fashioned, laughable, and in some way threatening?

(Just to avoid what I see coming in the comments section: Yes, I know what happens in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and so on. Yes, I know that we’re very privileged in North America. And as bad as I feel for the women who have no choices and no options in the world, and as much as I support just about any action that will help change that for them in the long run, I don’t think that means that women here should ignore that they do have these options because that’s now what’s expected of them – isn’t that just another form of oppression in its own way?)

One-cup challenge, day 3

2008-10-03T15:34:00.001-04:00

I think I'm over the hump. I enjoyed my one cup of coffee this morning, and realized that if I make it last until an hour after I get to work, then yes I do have longer to enjoy it, but also it is stone cold and thoroughly unenjoyable. Maybe this will also teach me not to hold onto things quite so much.

Oh, and I bought a full bag of beans last night. I'm not giving it up entirely. Just sticking to one cup.

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The Conservatives work fast: Overnight, they have lined the main drag in my riding with those horrible "CHEF. LEADER." signs. I counted four within two minutes of leaving the house this morning. The sad part is that I think that little man in those photos may actually be the Conservative candidate in my riding.

The sadder part, of course, is that no one seems to have seen any other candidates in our riding out campaigning at all: Justin Trudeau is most easily spotted shopping in Yorkville with the wife (I'm an insomniac, I watch a lot of late-night TV, and eTalk seems to *always* be on when I need it), and our NDP candidate had only one sign up along my route to work until yesterday, when he seemed to get his act together.

________________________________

Lunch today: the last of the leftover squash. Supper last night: jerk seitan, botched from a recipe that I'm sure a more literate person would be able to make beautifully, and mashed sweet potatoes, also the result of a botched attempt at something. Last night was just not my night. I have two houseguests this weekend though, who follow a no-meat-no-wheat diet, so between the no-wheat, my veganism, and the man being completely and fundamentally opposed to soy, I'm going to have quite a challenge in front of me...

One-cup challenge, day 2

2008-10-02T14:05:00.000-04:00

I finished the soy milk I kept in the office fridge. Now if I want to cave and drink office coffee, I have to drink it black. I've done that once before, and frankly, I'd rather drink my own urine and hope there's some residual caffeine in there than ever do that again. It's kind of the same approach I took when I quit smoking: I gave my last pack, which was full (I'd only smoked one out of it when I decided to quit) to a friend and told her if I asked for one, to charge me $2 for it. The idea behind the $2 was that if it cost me like $60/pack to smoke, then I wouldn't be able to afford it, but once they were out of my hands and the only ones I saw during the day were the nasty half-smoked ones on the floor outside, I stopped wanting them. I hope it works the same way this time.

The more I think about this though the more I wonder if I shouldn't just try to give it up entirely. Lunacy, I know, but it's like: I finished the office soy milk, and the bag of beans at home only has enough left for two more pots. If I'm going to do it, this is such a good opportunity for it. I don't think I will though, it doesn't feel like the right time the way it did when I gave up cigarettes. And the days are getting shorter, I don't think I can deal well with being caffeine-deproved, sleep-deproved, and sun-deprived all at once. That wouldn't be fun for anyone. Maybe I should just see if I can do all of October on one cup a day.

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Lunch today is an improvement: Lightly curried spinach & acorn squash. Seasonal and delicious. Left over from last night (yes, I cooked, half-ignored a recipe I'd been looking at for a while and it was awesome), and actually tastes better the next day. Roast yourself a squash or pumpkin of some kind. Cut it up. Put it in a pot with some onions and garlic and whatever herbs and spices float your boat, and a bit of oil so nothing sticks. Add a bit of water or broth. Turn the heat on medium-low. Let it cook for a few minutes (this is a good time to wash some dishes if you're me). Add some spinach or something else that is also green and leafy and anything else you want (chickpeas might be nice; I had a bunch of zucchini to finish so in they went). Mix it up good. When it starts bubbling, turn the heat down low and cover the pot. When it smells too good all over your house and you can't stand the grumbling in your stomach anymore, then it's ready and you can eat it.

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It occurs to me that last year at this time I challenged a former colleague to give up McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's for all of October, and when he made it to the end I made him an entire box of cupcakes that he could have all to himself. If I'm going to beat myself with a stick over the coffee, I think I need to find a big juicy carrot to enjoy on November 1st. A caffeine-free carrot, of course.

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There's a Conservative Party sign up on a post in the middle of a really busy intersection (Jean-Talon and l'Acadie) that I see every morning on my way to work. In and of itself, this is not newsworthy, but the thing that bugs me about this sign is that it's an intersection in the middle of a neighbourhood full of new citizens, many of whom may be voting for the first time in this election, and many of whom may not speak very much French or English to really follow the debates and dialogues properly. This sign is just a giant picture of Stephen Harper, shaking hands with a smaller man who could be from any number of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, Near Asian, or Latin American backgrounds, and next to that in the biggest letters I have ever seen on an election sign are just the words "CHEF. LEADER." This intersection is the only place in the city that I have seen this sign, and I've been looking for it everywhere I go for the past two weeks when I first saw it.

If I'm honest, it bugs not just because there's something vaguely upsetting about it, but also because it is pure cold-hearted marketing genius, and I wish someone in any of the other parties would have some fun with this and turn it around on Harper somehow.

Skinny Bitch will make me bitchier. Not skinnier.

2008-10-01T15:29:00.000-04:00

Normally, I eat really well. All vegan, lost of fruits and veg, mostly organic, and as much as possible home made (or local, in the case of produce). No processed crap, no white flour or pasta, and so on. Even my coffee and chocolate are the best quality I can afford. I haven't always been vegan either, but even when I did eat things made from animal, I still tried to make a point of getting the highest-quality organic stuff I could, and avoided processed food and fast-food chains at all costs. Lately though, I've been really busy with a lot of different projects (perhaps the four-month gap between posts has tipped you off to this, yes?), so having time to stop and shop and cook really nice meals has been non-existent.

Right now, for example, I am eating lunch. In normal times, this would be a nice big salad, with at least three kinds of veg on top of the lettuce, some edamame or nuts, some avocado, and a handful of berries, and it would be good. Damn good. And in normal times I would then go home at night and prepare something healthy and delicious for supper, like a soup or a stir-fry or if I was feeling adventurous then I would pick up a random ingredient at the store, Google it, and veganize the best-sounding recipe that came up. Today, however, I am eating leftover quinoa for lunch, left over from last night's quinoa and steamed zucchini. It's been like this a lot lately, and there've been more than a couple of nights when "supper" has been cold tomato pizza from the bakery that unintentionally makes their pizza vegan, or a pita with hummus from the 24-hour fruit stand outside the metro. I don't like living like this. I don't feel good, and frankly, it doesn't taste very good either.

Resolving to cook at least once a week hasn't gotten me very far until now. I resolved to do that at the beginning of the summer, and I think the only thing I've made since then (aside from cupcakes) was a garbage soup a couple of weeks ago, and a vegan beef stew last weekend (you read right), so clearly harsher steps are needed here. I thought about it a bit last night and decided to give shock therapy a try, so I picked up my copy of Skinny Bitch (a GREAT kind of summary of about a million other books that tells you in plain English just how disgusting most stuff in the grocery store is) and did a little late-night reading, hoping the horrors described within would invade my dreams and set me straight.

Here's what actually happened:

I got about five pages in, and realized that despite all the other sensible things they say, and I don't know how I missed this the first time, these girls are anti-coffee.

That's right.

If I listen to everything they say, which so far has only done me good, then I should be giving up coffee since it's so acidic and creates a pH shitstorm in your body and so on. (This is also the point at which I previously got totally turned off macrobiotic eating.) And yes, perhaps I am addicted, and yes, most definitely I am sleep-deprived, but still, even if I was neither of these things, it's one of my last three vices, and I will not give it up. Not the liquid part of my soul. No way, no how. I am, however, willing to cut down from my current four cups before noon to just the one on my way in, and perhaps one late at night while chilling in coffeehouses with the man. I am also willing to insist that the morning cup (and as much as possible the late-night ones) be organic and fair-trade -- my regular coffee that I use at home already is anyhow, so that's half the battle.

But even cutting down to one cup is hard. So very hard. I decided there was no time like the present, and started this one-cup policy today. It was a very long morning, especially since I sit about six feet away from the coffeemaker, and the afternoon is not going much better. It's actually about on a par with the first weekend I quit smoking and went out to a bar anyhow. I'm cranky, I'm restless, and I want a piece of chocolate and a nap.

despite this, I still maintain that my bike is better than a car

2008-06-03T19:27:00.004-04:00

So I went out last night, on a school night, and of course I drank too much and stayed too late, because that's what always ends up happening no matter what I tell myself going in. And of course "one drink and home by 1am" turned into getting home at more like 3:30am, and of course I had to be up at 6:30 to start work at 7:30. Because despite appearances, I'm just that kind of irresponsible. But I’m there with a bunch of very cool people, and the music is good, and the drinks are strong, and the vibe is relaxed, and I stop caring about anything else pretty quickly and just enjoy the moment. Every moment. And the drinks that come with them. And because I’m living in the moment and not worrying, I’m also not watching the clock or counting the drinks. You can see where this is going.

I make it home in one piece, lord knows how, and manage not to wake my very light sleeper of a neighbour hauling my bike down the front hall as trashed as I was, and I get inside and start to realize that maybe drinking all that booze wasn't such a great idea, and maybe mixing wasn't such a great idea, and definitely mixing the booze with 7up when we ran out of tonic was a terrible idea (all that high fructose corn syrup I don't normally drink really does a number on me), and for damn sure those cigarettes I bummed off people even though I quit five years ago were some of the worst ideas I've had in a long, long time. Seriously. Very bad condition last night, worst I've felt since... last Saturday when someone had to walk me and my bike home and I vowed never to do that again. Oh well.

I wash my face and brush my teeth and lie on the floor waiting for the nausea to pass, and I'm there with a cold cloth on the back of my neck, because that's the only thing that will keep me from throwing up and there's nothing in my stomach but booze and stomach fluids that I have no desire to see, and my eyes are closed and the cats are poking at me to make sure I'm still alive, and Smallest Cat (who ain't so small anymore) jumps right onto the soft part of my belly, right under the diaphragm, and I think if the booze and cigarettes don't kill me the cat just might, so I roll over and haul myself off the floor and into bed, and I get all nice and warm and comfy under the duvet and by now it's 4:30 in the morning and this is just not good news.

Next thing you know, it's 6:30, and the alarm is going off, and even though I'm under the duvet I'm so cold I'm shivering and can't stop and the backs of my eyes feel like they're being hammered at with a blunt object from the inside out and my face is numb and I know I'm still drunk even as the hangover sets in, but I have no choice but to get up and go to work. So I throw the covers off and jump out of bed really fast before I can change my mind, like ripping off a big, warm, soft, fluffy band-aid (which is actually a pretty apt analogy given that I kind of feel like a nasty, dirty human scab at this point), and pull myself by the hair down the hall to the kitchen, and my legs aren't working so well but I'll get there, and I feed the damn cats, and fill the coffee pot with water and with my eyes closed pour beans into the grinder, measuring by the sound of the beans hitting the blade, and I put the lid on the coffee grinder and I brace myself.

I’m not sure I can do it.

But I have to. I need that coffee at the best of times. It’s one of my nicest, simplest pleasures to stand under a hot shower in the morning and smell the coffee brewing, so rich and fresh and strong, and that first sip of coffee right after my shower is the finishing touch in washing everything away and starting a new day with a fresh, clean slate. So I do it. I take a deep breath, and I put my finger on the button, and I push. And it hurts, oh god does it hurt, I can feel each individual rod and cone and fibre and whatever the hell else in my eyes throbbing and screaming, and I squeeze my eyes shut real tight to keep them from flying right out of my head and running away from the torture that is the coffee grinder, and I listen for the telltale shift in the level of crunchiness of the beans to know when they’re ground just right for my little Italian espresso pot, and finally thank god it comes, and I pour the coffee into the thing and put it on the stove and get in the shower.

And it’s soooooo nice and warm in that shower, and it feels so good to stand under the hot water and breathe through the hangover, and I feel my face starting to come alive again and I’m so glad I won’t still be drunk by the time I get to work, because my boss is a cool guy but not that cool, and I can smell the coffee after a few minutes and hear the weather report on the radio so I know it’s time to find a towel and get the coffee off the stove before it burns, and that’s exactly what I do.

And I’m there in my kitchen, and I’ve finally stopped shivering despite still being damp from the shower and wearing a towel, and I take that coffee, and I pour it into my travel mug because I know I won’t have time to enjoy the whole thing properly at home, and I add some of that nice vanilla soymilk and fill it right up to the limit, and I take a sip and oh… my… god. Somehow, some-freaking-how, in my mangled and unaware state, I have made the perfect vanilla latte. The absolute perfect coffee that I’ve been dreaming about and working towards for the better part of the last sixteen years. It’s not just liquid gold, it’s liquid life, and it’s fucking beautiful, I love it. If my soul could make a cup of coffee, this would be the one. It made my whole hellish, self-made prison of a morning worthwhile, and I’m sure that the pain that went into making it is the magic ingredient that was missing this whole time. How many times have we all rolled our eyes and (half-) ironically passed comments about suffering for our art? We perpetuate the myth because it’s true, people.

I tear myself away from the coffee, stumble down the hall, trip over a cat (they *will* kill me, I swear), pour myself into some jeans and a clean shirt, and grab my sunglasses. Essential item. I grab my bag, throw it onto the back of my bike, take one more glorious sip of coffee and nestle my travel mug snugly into the cup holder a colleague made for my bike, while making a mental note to bake that colleague yet another batch of thank-you muffins, check to make sure my shoes match (I’ve been here before, and I like to think I learn from at least some of my mistakes), and get myself on the road.

It’s easier than I thought it would be. It’s not too bright out, the cool wind feels good on my skin, and my iPod is throwing up a decent blend of Hot Chip and Arcade Fire, and I get into a good groove. And I’m there, making my way west down Jean-Talon from Iberville during morning rush hour, and I’m doing about 30 km/hour, because traffic isn’t too bad, and the glorious caffeine is wrapping my brain in a soft golden glow, and I’m starting to feel OK about this, and I get it into my head that I’m going to see if I can’t beat my own record and make it to work in St-Laurent (as in, the Ville, not the Main) in under 22 minutes, so I haul ass.

This is where, had I had even two sips of alcohol less last night, or two sips of coffee more this morning, I would have been able to recognize yet another very bad idea. But I don’t.

So on I go, and I’m pumping it, and rolling at 35 km/hour now, and weaving through the construction zones unscathed, and nothing can stop me. Except the red light on Christoph-Colomb, but that’s all good, because then I can take another sip of that fucking perfect coffee while I wait for the lights to change. Thirty seconds later, the same thing happens on St-Denis, and again at St-Laurent, and on any other morning I would be so aggrieved at being delayed in my own personal mission, but today, oh today, maybe it’s the slight leftover buzz I’m trying to burn off on my bike before I get to work, maybe it’s a gentle surrender into the hangover, or most likely it’s just the enormous sense of well-being that this sweet, caffeinated miracle fluid in my travel mug is creating in me, but today, nothing can get to me, nothing can upset me, nothing can distract me, and I’m calm and I’m focused and I know in my bones that today I can beat that 22-minute record.

And as the light is about to change, I take one more greedy sip of that coffee, and I look ahead and realize that if I push hard enough, I can get all the way through Parc and maybe even to l’Acadie without hitting a red light, and I decide to go for it. Today is the day. I know it. I can feel it. The road is telling me that this is my moment, and the light changes, and I shoot on out of that intersection, and thank god today there are no pickups or backhoes or school buses or any other crazy, wide-bodied vehicle hogging the edge of the parking lane, and no one is cutting me off, and I feel so free, and it’s so rare for all of these conditions to occur all at once during morning rush hour, and as I get close to the underpass at Parc I push a little harder, and dare myself to beat my 48.6km/hour speed record through that underpass, and just as I’m about to get over the crest of the hill to go down into the underpass I get down real low over my handlebars and push a little harder on my pedals and I’m already at 39 km/hour, and I’m so glad to be in this moment and it feels like I’m flying as I actually start to pass some of the cars going into the underpass, and I’m watching the numbers click up on my little speedometer: 39… 40.5… 42… 44… 46.4… 47… 47.4…

Bang!

I hit one of the many potholes at the bottom of this underpass, one with a sewer grate poking up out of it, and it’s not a surprise to me that it’s there. I go over it every single morning, and have done for the past year. It’s instinct now to get my ass in the air a little as I get to the lowest point of this underpass, and I do that now like I do every morning, right before I hit this rim-killer of a pothole, and I fly right over it like I do every morning, only today I was going a little bit faster than I normally would have, and that’s when it happened.

My cup holder. My beautiful, MacGuyver genius cup holder, that was immovably installed on my handlebars, actually slips from the impact of hitting this pothole at a greater speed than normal.

It slips down.

It slips down, and my beautiful, sweet, precious coffee – mug and all – goes flying back, past my hand, past my leg, and into traffic.

My cup holder slips down, the liquid part of my soul goes flying into traffic, and my heart breaks into a million pieces all over the road.

And because I’m going so fast from trying to break all these damn personal records I can’t help but keep track of, and because I’m in an underpass, there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. It’s gone. It’s gone forever. I only got to enjoy about a third of it, it was the most exquisite cup of coffee I have ever made myself, and it was gone.

So despite the fact that what I should have learned from this is that it’s not a competition (nothing about not drinking like that on a school night, no, that certainly couldn’t be a good lesson to learn), I’m still proud to say that even with the coffee incident, and later being knocked over into traffic while doing about 34 km/hour by a pedestrian who jaywalked out from behind a bush with her fat dog, I did match my 22-minute record.

Of course, I still had to drink office coffee to try to fight the hangover. I think it might only have made it worse. And now I have to spend all the time I saved this morning going to buy a new travel mug and fixing my cup holder.

The road giveth, and the road taketh away.

they can't stress this enough: do not be alarmed!

2008-01-23T17:55:00.000-05:00

this is why I'm a grammar geek

2008-01-22T18:09:00.000-05:00

Ledger was nominated for an Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain,” where he met Michelle Williams in 2005. The two lived together in Brooklyn and had a daughter, Matilda, until they split up last year.

So, then, when they split up last year, their daughter ceased to exist, or ceased to be theirs? And also, he met Michelle Williams at Brokeback Mountain? That's a real place? Really?

Sloppiness. It's inexcusable.

it's hope, and hope only, that keeps us afloat

2008-01-02T20:15:00.000-05:00

I've gone through five books in the past three weeks. It's almost as if I have nothing else to do, and in the meantime, my house is a mess, I have no more clean clothes, and I'm more panicked about what I'm going to do 25 books from now when the pile is exhausted than I am about what I would do if someone stopped by unexpectedly (please don't anyone stop by, I'm in the nasty and contagious part of a head cold - thanks).

That's a lie. (Not the head cold part; sadly, that's very true. Apparently when you replace "food" with "gin" and "sleep" with "wine", your immune system goes all wonky. Who'd have known.)

I know exactly what I'm going to do 25 books from now: Take the grocery money and hit the bookstore instead.

As usual, in reverse chronological order:

The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood: A retelling of the myth of Penelope and Odysseus, from Penelope's point of view. I can't decide just how accessible this book is: On the one hand, it's much easier going than actually getting through the Homer, not to mention more entertaining, and therefore more readily thought-provoking; but on the other, if you somehow escaped the Classics between all your lit., drama, history and philosophy courses, then the structure might not make any sense, you may not get half the references, and I'd be pretty ticked that you weren't around when I was in school to show me how to skip all that (seriously: The year we had three consecutive teachers do Antigone from A-Z with us, and then a fourth who dragged us to a stage production of it, killed any interest I may have had in Greek drama, but it did make me wonder about what was going on in that staff room. For real, y'all.) It is very well done though, and the chorus passages did help calm my violent hatred of almost all poetry, and one in particular gave me something to think about, especially when taken with two other favorite quotes (look up and to the right -- all three quotes should be there).

Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides: Fantastic read. It's a bit weird, because it says right on the back cover that the narrator is a hermaphrodite, and in a way that has nothing to do with the story, and in a way it has everything to do with the story. I think it's more about not being able to help who you are, what you're born into or as, or who you love, than anything else; but since at the end of the day that's pretty much what life is about, it gets very easy to slot this into an overlap between family epics like A Suitable Boy and bittersweet-adolescence stories like My Girl or (and I hate to be so obvious) The Virgin Suicides. It's also interesting to me that this book also gave me one of the three quotes on the top right, and then the very next book I read gave me another. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to ideas like this right now, I don't know, but sometimes a coincidence is really the world trying to tell you something.

We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver: Inspector Gadget's been after me for at least a year to read this one, but, as with the last book someone chased after me to read, I'm a little disappointed, Orange Prize or not. Maybe it was all the hype, I don't know: I know that when I saw Wedding Crashers at a preview night I thought it was hysterical, but when I saw it again a few weeks later after agreeing with everyone about how funny it was, I think I laughed twice. It's a bit upsetting to me, too, since these are both people who generally know me well enough to be able to judge if something will be up my alley or not. Don't get me wrong, it's still a good book, it's just the kind of horror that Chris Cleaves did much better with Incendiary, and I'm not going to cheat and put Lionel Shriver's most recent novel further down in my pile (I'm looking at you, Bill Know-It-All Bryson), but I am going to read around it as much as I can so that I can try to take that one on with an unbiased attitude. Funny thing though: This book helped me put my finger on what I also didn't like about White Teeth: British writers trying to write in an American voice. No American says "mustn't", and almost no Canadians east of Victoria say it either. Certain film producers took a lot of flak for casting a pretty blond Texan in the role of Bridget Jones, and she nailed it in the end; the least that could be done in return, it seems to me, is to pay attention to these kinds of small details. After all, it's where the devil lives.

A Spot of Bother, by Mark Haddon: See, this is why I shouldn't wait until I've cleared five books to sit down and write about them: Because if they're just good, if they don't get me really excited or irritated in some way (other than being so terribly Hampshire as a state of mind) or make me think of a million other things or in some obscure way connect to something else going on in my life, then I just don't have that much to say about them other than they're good.

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen: Of the five books listed here, this was the one I had the most doubts about. It almost didn't make the cut in the store the night I bought it. I am so, so glad it did -- it's addictively readable, and might even make the second-read cut, which few books have done so far. The only downside is that it's reaffirmed my very unpopular opinion on things like this. Saying any more would spoil things, but dammit, read this book (and the author's note after).

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Never tell me you want a cantaloupe (named Sarah) for Christmas. I will be a little too happy to oblige.

the limbo of loving-not-finding*

2007-12-05T22:52:00.000-05:00

First, the book report, in reverse chronological order - it's gotten much easier to get some reading in with over a foot of snow on the ground and my chickening out of winter biking this year:

Winkie by Clifford Chase: Absolutely hauntingly wonderful story of a teddy bear arrested for terrorism. The blurbs on the cover go on about it being Sedaris-esque and a sharp political satire, and while it is all that and then some, it's also a story about love, life, and the essence of being. For me, the parts about bliss, loss and desire were stronger and worked better to convey any kind of message than the more political bits at the hero's trial, and more than one beautifully written passage had me on the verge of tears in the metro. More than one beautifully written passage about a teddy bear. Read this book. Make it a New Year's Resolution if you have to; it's worth it. Seriously, I can't say enough good things about this book, and it was an impulse purchase while cross-border shopping -- I'd never heard of it before, and was having reverse sticker-shock at US book prices and wanted to thumb my nose at Canadian wholesalers with their sky-high SRPs. Now it belongs on the special shelf that never, ever gets purged. And so does my childhood teddy bear.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith: A good read, and fairly well-timed too: The majority of the main characters are artists and art historians, often with diametrically opposing points of view on representational art, interpretation, and politics, (one is even in the never-ending process of writing a book titled Against Rembrandt), and smack in the middle of this one I found myself at the Vik Muniz exhibit with Mini Me (and side note: It is actually a pretty cool show for artistically-inclined kids to go to; the spaghetti and chocolate sauce pieces were an especially big hit with the little one). Between this book and that exhibit, I started to kind of miss school, and kind of want to start painting and stuff again. Read this if you're a Zadie Smith fan or an art student, but don't compare it to White Teeth or you won't be able to appreciate it for what it is.

Sonde ton coeur, Laurie Rivers by Stephane Bourguignon: A slight, fluffy, obvious piece of over-earnest and rushed writing struggling to be culturally relevant, but so lazy about it that it actually makes references to a US Senator named "Obama Barack", with an ending obvious from the first, random, disjointed paragraph of the whole mess. That's the last time I ever take book recommendations from back issues of Elle Quebec lying around the gym, and if anyone out there wants to help me work on my written French enough to go replace their current book critic, y'all know how to find me.

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*"The limbo of loving-not-finding, the repeated turn toward the absent one." I'm telling you, you have to read Winkie. Quotes don't stay with me and seem to make sense in my soul the way this one does - "the limbo of loving-not-finding" has, in the course of an evening, become such a natural concept to me that sums up so many things so simply and beautifully that it also makes me want to paint, and write, and sculpt, and do so many other things to explore the idea properly.

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If ever you invite me over for dinner, and I, like a normal person, ask what I can bring, and you, like the kind of person I really am and that I am friends with, tell me to bring "spite, malice, contempt... and maybe cupcakes", please expect me to turn up on your doorstep with something like this:

this just in...

2007-11-13T06:24:00.000-05:00

... Apparently, on November 26th, there will be no sky. No sun, no clouds, no nothing. I'm slightly terrified.

famous last words

2007-11-12T21:42:00.001-05:00

I spoke too soon.

Under a bus on the left, over broken glass straight ahead, or through pedestrians on the right -- if you were on a bike and faced with this decision, and only a split second to process it, what would you do?

where's my cut?

2007-11-11T23:17:00.000-05:00

So I'm watching this old episode of Cold Case, and the action on the screen is supposed to take place in 1969, but the soundtrack has that Marvin Gaye song "Mercy Me" playing, and it seems somehow out of place, so I looked it up. According to Wikipedia the song was released in 1971.

Don't music and continuity supervisors make in the six figures to keep track of this kind of thing?

a time and place for everything

2007-11-10T23:03:00.001-05:00

Dear Smallest Cat:

I appreciate that you want to be by my side every moment of the day. Truly, I do. And I understand that you express your affection for me by rubbing up against my legs, and jumping into my lap and purring, and generally climbing all over me, and normally this is totally fine. But sometimes, it's just inappropriate and unwelcome. When I am on the toilet is one of those times.

Sincerely,
The Human

with a capital A

2007-11-09T23:41:00.000-05:00

Dear Sir:

I saw you today in the metro. I was coming down one escalator, when I spotted the elderly homeless man on the landing, slumped against the wall, sound asleep, holding his flute in tight to his chest, with his cap laid out in front of him. Maybe he'd managed to get warm and comfortable enough to doze off peacefully, no small feat under those circumstances, or maybe he was just too exhausted to keep going and needed a moment's rest. I started rummaging unsuccessfully in my pockets for change, then I caught your eye as we both neared the top of the second escalator off the landing. You smiled at me, and stepped aside to let me on the escalator first, then pulled a handful of change from your pocket and turned back to the old man asleep on the landing. I was about to register some kind of warm, fuzzy emotion at a simple act of human kindness rarely seen in this city, when you completely destroyed the illusion by whipping your handful of change at the old man's head and yelling at him to wake up and play some music for his money. Then you laughed and walked away.

You, sir, are an asshole.

Sincerely,
This is why I hate the metro

if only Moses and Jesus had teamed up to open a courier service...

2007-11-08T21:21:00.000-05:00

Places you cannot under any circumstances ship things to via ground service:

1 - Hong Kong
2 - Australia
3 - Tokyo
4 - England
5 - Guam
6 - India (especially if it is a wad of cash, and doubly especially if you are trying to insure that shipment for $1500 more than it is worth)
7 - China
8 - Prague
9 - The Slovak Republic
10 - Germany
11 - Any other location which requires crossing an extremely large body of water to arrive at

Reasons why you cannot ship to such locales via ground service:

1 - Union forbids delivery persons from swimming more than four hours without a rest break
2 - UPS' canoe has sprung a leak
3 - Puro trucks will not have waterwings implemented until after 2010 Olympics
4 - Tunnel to China still being dug
5 - Truck drivers can't find wetsuits to fit
6 - PETA busted DHL for abusing trained dolphins they were using to transport such shipments
7 - Bridge to Terabithia is a work of fiction, not an actual shipping laneway to some far-flung place
8 - The continental plates have shifted and the continents are now largely separated by large bodies of water we call "oceans"

neither gone nor forgotten

2007-11-07T21:42:00.000-05:00

First, let me offer the lame excuses: Crazy busy, super stressed, working on too many personal projects, yadda yadda yadda, here I am. And as lame as all those reasons why I haven't been around much are, they're all true. Too true, in the first two cases.

And now that that's out of the way, down to business: Archigeek (aka Smurfette) was promised another book entry weeks ago, and I've been remiss on this point as well. The thing is that when I get really busy, my only reading time ends up being on my way to and from work, which is fantastic in the winter when I am on public transit, but not so great from about mid-March through mid-November when I am on my bike. What does this mean for you? It means more talk about my bike and less talk about books 75% of the year, that's what.

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Book talk:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Yeah, I'm a geek. Sue me. (Don't really sue me, I have nothing and you'd just waste your time.) I did the whole standing-in-line-at-midnight thing, drunk, with no costume (give me some credit please), and it wasn't as much fun as I remembered it being the last time I did it. I finally got out of the store, sobered up, biked home, and read the whole thing in one sitting, and realized about two-thirds of the way through that I wasn't so much reading out of joy and anticipation, like I had with the previous three books in the series, but more out of a deep fear of being spoiled by the media: All it would take would be one loudmouth on CNN blowing the ending, and I'd be so bitterly disappointed that I'd never be able to finish the book. As it turns out though, I was so bitterly disappointed in the ending anyhow that I might as well have been spoiled within the last 150 or so pages and saved myself the extra two hours (the first 450 pages, I was only disillusioned at realizing that while JK Rowling is a great storyteller, she's not really the best writer out there).

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell: I've been slowly making my way through this since well before the last Harry Potter. At over 1000 pages though, and set in the very early 19th century (an era I usually avoid like Britney Spears avoids lithium), it might not have been the best choice for a summer read when my reading time is fairly limited to begin with and my attention span, due to uncontrollable factors, generally tested by fluffy in-flight magazine articles. It is good, though. Very good. Footnote-loving, 300-pages-devoured-in-the-past-two-days good, and an excellent way to keep from being so disillusioned as to stop believing in "English magic" after the letdown of Harry Potter. I'm sure some grad student somewhere is hard at work on a thesis about that very notion, and ten years ago I might have had the same idea had I just read these books back-to-back, but now I'm just happy to visit the grown-up world of magic in Jonathan Strange and not have to ruin it with homework.

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Bike talk:

No major disasters this year, really:

- Got hit by a car on the way to a job interview, went to the interview anyhow, got the job, and probably should have thought about the omens before accepting, but what can you do.

- Got my seat, seat post, and tail light stolen while at the gym one morning, which was triply depressing because 1: It destroyed a little more of my faith in humanity; 2: I was especially broke that week and it costs money to replace all that; and 3: The circumstances behind my gym visit that morning were hard enough to deal with, and this was just the shit cherry on the shit sundae that day. It took me almost a month to start feeling comfortable locking my bike in places where it would be out of my line of sight for a couple of hours at a time again, despite the fact that I bring the new seat inside with me, and the whole thing pushed me over the line into considering leaving the city. It doesn't help either that my new tail light as well as my headlight got stolen while I was at yoga the other night.

- Had coffee with an old friend a few weeks ago, who, from our seats on the terrasse (hard to believe it was terrasse weather just a few weeks ago) pointed out that my rear tire was completely bald, and he should know, as he's the Michelin Man (he's not really, but he does work for a tire company, and it's fun to lovingly tease him sometimes). I laughed it off, and then just four days later had a major wipeout in the middle of a busy intersection in a rainstorm during morning rush hour because - you guessed it - I had no traction left on my rear tire and couldn't control the skid I went into. For the record, ten years is a really long time for a bike tire to last, and at that point you should probably be thankful for the long and helpful life it has given you and replace it before you find yourself looking way, way up at a bunch of SUVs from flat on your ass on the pavement in the pouring rain.

- Did 95% of my own repairs, 99% when you take into account that the shop I went to for truing completely screwed up my front wheel and I wound up fixing it myself anyhow. Also did all my own tune-ups and adjustments. Tore a cuticle or two in the process, but it felt pretty damn good, and I kind of wish I had the cash for a winter bike, not to mention the tolerance for cold

sorry excuse for a blog

2007-06-24T21:51:00.000-04:00

I know. I suck. I know. One hundred percent. I know. I won't even apologize, because no amount of apology could possibly begin to make up for yet another long absence from the wide, wide world of web. I won't even launch into some sob story about where I've been, except to say that there's just been a whole lot of stuff going on that has no place being discussed on the internet for the time being. I will also admit to having changed jobs in the past two weeks, and in a completely unrelated development, having rediscovered just how good beer really is. I will further admit to having fallen in girl-love with a dress, and now being in such a big, immature sulk that the dress (a one-of-a-kind) was bought by someone else in the time it took me to secure permission to wear it to a wedding and get my ass back to the store that if I didn't have to give a reading at this wedding, I would probably just throw up my hands and wear yoga pants to the damn thing. Of course, given that the only other dress I have seen in the past six months that I liked was at Dior, and my budget is more Old Navy, the yoga pants may just happen anyhow.

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I spent today at MiniMi's dance recital. I thought that the highlight of the day, aside from MiniMi of course, would be the tall, goofy instructor with the perma-grin and wildly expressive body language chewing up the stage while dressed as a giant crab in a Little Mermaid-themed piece. The highlight of the day instead turned out to be the 9-to-11-years group doing a piece centered around Metallica's "Enter Sandman", complete with spooky shiny masks you would expect to see more in a Broadway musical production of The Shining or Children of the Corn (again, you know that someone, somewhere is working on these at this very moment) as opposed to at a child's dance recital. Seriously, this kicked so much ass in this context that once the DVD is released by the dance school, I plan to beg MammaMia to upload that clip to YouTube -- y'all have to see this to believe it.

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And now, it's time for our monthly Book Report section -- but first, I'd like to call your attention to a new bit over in the side bar. Look on the right hand side of the screen, towards the top -- see it? That nifty new box labeled "Songs stuck in my head"? This is what will replace the old playlists. The really cool thing is that if you want, you can play any or all of these full-length MP3s while you read this. Go ahead, try it, it won't bite! (You might think the music bites, but I promise, the actual feature won't.) Got some tunes playing now? Yes? Good, let's talk about books.

Lonely Planet Guide to Montreal: Um, yeah. I'm really glad that I'm just about done with the travel books that were in the pile, because there's nothing worse than reading about your own city and discovering that the best shopping can be had in downtown malls full of chain stores, and that apparently a first date in Montreal doesn't end well if it doesn't end at the lookout on the mountain. Sorry, but I'm not going to be taking fashion and dating advice from a book with "Lonely" in the title any time soon. Suivant-next!

How to be Good: I *heart* Nick Hornby. I do. He's probably the most consistently readable mainstream author I've taken to in the past decade. If he were a radio station, he would be BBC One. (Note to British readers: BBC One is far, far better than any station we have in Montreal. Sad but true. Note to Montreal readers: BBC One can be listened to live by clicking here.) This novel is just as enjoyable as anything else I've read of his, despite the fact that key plot points include poverty and London's homelessness crisis. I just wish I hadn't read Vanity Fair's Africa issue (guest edited by Bono™) right after this book, because I'm still coping with the urge to give away all of my belongings and take in a homeless person or three and let them live rent-free in my apartment while I go off to build schools and irrigation ditches in the Congo or something.

Love in the Time of Cholera: Love this book. Love love love it. Love the free-flowing style, love the characters, love the sense of humor, love the whole damn thing. The only thing I don't love is that I picked it up thinking I would finally be able to cross one off the list, only to find that Smurfette beat me to it by a hair. We really need to co-ordinate this workload-sharing thing a little more. We need like a private Facebook group or something where we can keep track of this, because I'm starting to feel like I'm slacking even though I did try...

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Yes, I did read this the first time when it was released. Yes, I was even one of those saddos who lined up in the bookstore to get it at midnight when it came out. Yes, I will be doing the same damn thing the night of July 20th. Yes, I know this makes me really sad. But -- but! -- at least I'll still be under 30 when I do this, which makes it marginally less sad. And yes, I did indeed decide to re-read books five and six in the series to prepare myself for the the seventh; which, yes, makes me so sad that if you're still reading this then I should just be glad to still have any friends left in this world. That said, though, I forgot just how much happens in this book, without much of anything really happening until the last hundred pages or so. I'm curious to see how they managed to make the movie be more than twenty minutes long, but less than four hours.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: See "sad", above. Without giving anything away for anyone who may not have read this yet (and frankly, what the hell are you waiting for?), page 556 left me feeling punched in the stomach when I first read it two years ago, and it did the same at three o'clock this morning when I re-read it. Unless that was the beer. Or maybe both. Who knows. I also won't repeat any internet speculation here, but I came across a theory last week that upon re-reading book six, I'm inclined to agree with; and it in fact seems so obvious upon re-reading book six that I sincerely hope JK Rowling has come up with something even better than this theory, because if it is right then I will feel spoiled. I have also taken a vow not read any more internet gossip about book seven, so as to avoid any possible disappointment come the afternoon of July 21st when I finish reading the last book.

if you ask life for lemonade, don't be surprised when it hands you a pile of lemons and tells you to get to work

2007-05-27T22:37:00.000-04:00

I've been having some trouble with the things I'm finding on the Skin Deep site. The thing is, right, most of the products I've been using for whatever insane reason are coming up as either so toxic that if I am able to have children at all, they will probably end up looking like that three-headed fish on The Simpsons, or my products are showing up as being tested on animals (which is probably also related to the three-headed fish, but that's a problem for Matt Groening). Anyhow, my point here is, I have a beautiful, clean, fresh, green bathroom, that I love seeing every day, which is unfortunately full of the most toxic stuff imaginable, and every day, I one way or another smear myself in it. Obviously, I want to switch to less-toxic things, but because I think I'm such a smart shopper, I've been stocking up on my stuff every time it goes on sale. This, of course, means that I don't just have a bathroom full of toxic items, I have a bathroom storage that is also full of toxic items.

Not wanting to clog up landfills with this stuff, I decided to make the switch to healthier products as I ran out of things, progressively, also thinking that this would be easier on the bank account than starting over all at once with everything. In a couple of cases, though, this really frustrated me: Take my nail polish, for example. I was first introduced to OPI Nail Envy during the Great Airport Manicure of '06 (thanks, Raoul!), and fell in love with it right away. It works. It really does work. For the first time in my life, I found myself actually needing to trim my nails, instead of just waiting for them to break and rip right off as they used to do whenever I so much as turned the page in a book. Needless to say, I was devastated when I accidentally broke the lovely glass bottle of the stuff at a time when funds were extremely tight, and had it been only a question of my giving up food for a week then I would have replaced it right away, but dammit all, Smallest Cat needs to eat or she won't have anything in her tummy to throw up all over my floor, so I scrimped and I saved and finally last month I went into a salon and bought a new bottle, and when I got it home I was so excited that I did my nails every day for two weeks.

Then I found Skin Deep, and I started plugging in the names of products I use. OPI Nail Envy is quite possibly the most toxic nail treatment available in North America right now, which made me very unhappy because A) I love it and B) I had just bought a brand-new bottle that cost more than most Chinese families make in a month, and despite my decision to let the products run out before switching to cleaner versions, every time I so much as looked at my nails this week I got a bad feeling; but still, I did nothing.

Until tonight.

Tonight I did something, alright. Not on purpose, mind, but oh boy, did I do something. I'd been tidying up earlier, see, as a way to avoid a whole bunch of other things, and then I got bored of that before I got to tidying the bathroom, and I went away and did a whole bunch of other stuff, and then next thing you know it's 10 o'clock and time for a shower, and that's when it happened: I got out of the shower, water dripping in my eyes, reached for my towel, and smash! I knocked that little glass bottle of future health problems right off the counter and watched helplessly as it exploded all over the tile floor, bouncing once or twice to make sure that the contents got flung around nicely.

Nail polish everywhere. Broken glass everywhere. Clear nail polish and broken glass everywhere, covering the floor between me and anything I could possibly use to clean it all up, and spattered across my feet. In the end I opted for a weird one-legged hop back to the shower to rinse my feet, followed by a long jump to the hallway, the naked 20-yard dash to the kitchen for some paper towels while praying to god that Risey McShiney hasn't decided to take out the garbage at that particular moment, picking up as much as I could with the paper towels, and trying a Swiffer WetJet on the rest. I know, a Swiffer WetJet is not the most eco-friendly, non-toxic thing in the world, but it's good for emergencies where you might not have time to fill a bucket with water before the mess dries, and OPI Nail Envy dries so quickly that many a time in the past have I done my nails and sat down to blog not two minutes later with no disastrous results (or at least, no disasters on my nails).

Sadly, OPI Nail Envy appears to be the exception that proves the Swiffer rule. I am now barred from entering the bathroom, as are the cats, until the lovely coat of nail polish on the floor dries; and tomorrow, I will get to find out just how much nail polish remover is necessary to clean my bathroom floor, which I'm sure isn't the least bit toxic at all.

But on the plus side, now I have an excuse to replace the hideously expensive nail polish I just bought a few weeks ago.

a terrifying way to spend an afternoon

2007-05-24T12:31:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about all the chemicals I inadvertently use every day. Sure, I use either homemade or all-natural cleaning products, and I try to eat organic and local as much as possible, but it still happens that I use synthetic chemicals on a daily basis. There is no way that John Frieda Frizz-Ease, for example, grows on trees; and as for my hand sanitizer addiction, that is definitely not natural, in more ways than one.

I first started thinking this much about it over the weekend, when I was scouring my neighborhood trying to hunt down some cedar chips for Arial (the person, not the guinea pig), and all I could find were these cedar-scented closet hangers that when turned over, had things written on the back of their packaging like "WARNING: Contains pesticide. Do not ingest. May cause skin irritation. If swallowed, contact a poison control center immediately." Well, really. Why would I want to have poisonous pesticides that may cause skin irritation all over my clothes? That's just stupid. And also, why would I try to eat that? I am not a moth, and it's not marketed as a snack, for crying out loud. And so the quest for cedar chips continues today, but in the meantime, it really got my wheels turning into overdrive. What's in my laundry detergent and fabric softener, which also go all over my clothes, that would also be considered toxic? And how about my shampoo, shower gel, body lotion, deodorant, and all that other stuff that I put directly on my skin one way or another? It just doesn't bear thinking about, but, being me, of course I thought about it.

I thought, and I thought, and I thought some more, and then I hit the internet, where I began poking and prodding and trying to sniff out some answers, when I came across the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep site. This is an awesome website, in so very many ways: Just about every "beauty" type product you can think of is in their database, and the information they have dug up on these products in many cases is so scary that it is truly awe-inspiring. The products are all rated on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being least likely to cause you harm and 10 being, obviously, most likely. Being me, I can't help starting to punch in the names of stuff I use, and seeing what comes up (my sunscreen? More likely to give me cancer than the actual sun would. How's that for irony, Miss Alanis Morrisette?). The other fun part about this site is that once you've searched for your product, you can click on it to see exactly what would be considered harmful or toxic, and why; and as a bonus you also get to see what companies are still, in this day and age, conducting animal testing.

That last part threw me almost as much as the story with my sunscreen. It's not just that some products are actually still being tested on animals, it's which products they are. The one that freaked me out the most was a brand that markets itself as being pure and natural (which I now know it definitely is not), and places full-page color ads in yoga and other health- and environmentally-minded publications, and unfortunately has a very strong presence in my bathroom as it is one of the few brands whose products do not routinely irritate my skin: Aveeno.

My head just about fell off when I read that. I can't believe that Aveeno, of all the brands in the drugstore, tests their products on animals.

So now, not wanting to be wasteful and throw away half-full bottles of products that it would cost a fortune to replace all at once, I am phasing everything over to all-natural products that pass the Skin Deep test as I run out of them, but in the meantime, I am so very much in shock over all the things I have learned on this website that I just can't wrap my head around it.

let the games begin

2007-05-20T20:01:00.000-04:00

I knew it couldn't last.

I've been avoiding bike shops since last year's great debacle, in which it turned out that the shop that did my tune-up used the wrong size tube in my front wheel and I did not catch the mistake until I'd repeated it a half-dozen times myself. By and large, this has turned out to be a good thing: I've learned a lot and gained a lot of confidence in matters bike-related, not that it's really all that difficult when you consider that this is basically 19th-century technology we're talking about here. Pure mechanics and basic physics, really -- that's all it is. (But no, I don't regret opting out of the science stream in high school, thanks.) I even did my own tune-up this year, gears and all, and I was quite proud of how well my bike was running.

And then.

And then came that hot, sunny weekend, when some pretty cool friends from Calgary came to visit, and we were hanging out and running all over the place, and a spoke snapped on my rear wheel. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but intact spokes are kind of integral to the safe operation of a bicycle, especially a bicycle used for daily commuting about town. Riding with broken spokes would be like trying to walk in stilettos whose heels had started to separate from the shoe, or, to stay in the 19th century, like riding a horse with one broken leg: Just not the best plan out there.

So, armed with my newfound confidence in matters velocentric (and yes I probably did make that word up), I started calling around to see where I could buy some spokes to re-thread my rear wheel (if one is broken, it's a sign that they're all fatigued, and should all be replaced before they start snapping on you at the worst possible time, and usually the furthest distance from your house.) Apparently there is nowhere in this city to buy spokes and do this job yourself, you must pay a "professional" to do it for you. Not even places that advocate DIY bike repair and to that extent sell every tool you could ever possibly need to perform any repair imaginable, including thousand-dollar professional repair stands, will sell you spokes. They will, however, be happy to recommend some shops that either they've had good experiences with themselves or that they at least have heard good things about.

So there I am with a list of about six bike shops in my area, calling around to see what they will charge me for doing what seems like a simple enough job, and to see how quickly they can get it done because I was leaving the country two days later and really needed my bike to get all those pre-travel errands taken care of. Of those six shops, only one was open on a Sunday. A beautiful, warm, sunny Sunday in an area full of bike paths, and only one bike shop open. It seems to me that five local business owners are perhaps missing some pretty good opportunities here, but again, I digress. On the sixth call, finally, someone answers the phone, and they let me know that right now it will be about a week for that kind of job. At this point, I make what is at best a very risky decision, and decide not to take my bike in until right before I leave for the airport, and just do all my errands locally with the rear brake disengaged as the missing spoke has caused the wheel to warp just enough that the rim is in constant contact with the brake pads, making it very slow, hard, and embarrassingly loud going to ride with the brakes properly installed. On the plus side, though, assuming I haven't been killed in an accident in the two days left before I leave, this means that the week I am without a bike and the week I am out of town are, conveniently, the same week, so off I go to run all my errands, do all my laundry, and all that fun stuff.

On the appointed day, I run the last of the errands, and wheel my bike into the shop, where I make sure it's written down that all that needs to be done is to change the spokes on the back wheel and check the truing on the front wheel, and maybe also to double-check the bearings in the crankshaft as I was told last year to replace them but they feel just fine to me, so I want a second opinion, and off I go home to pack, shower, and head to the airport, confident in the thought that when I come back, my bike will be good as new, and that once the jet lag wears off it'll be back to business as usual for me.

Ten days later, I'm back home, and while the jet lag hasn't worn off (and the crazy Pakistani monkey flu is kicking in big time), I miss my bike a whole lot, so I go to pick it up. For the first time ever, I actually get to talk to the person who did the work, and she (yes! She! There are actual female bike mechanics in this city!) tells me that she replaced the spokes, trued the wheels, and the bearings are just fine but it might be time to consider replacing my brake levers, and that as a bonus, she'll only charge me for the work on the back wheel. Needless to say, I am delighted that this is costing me less than I'd expected and that the recommended extra work is something not really necessary and that I can probably do myself, so I pay the girl and ride off into the afternoon.

Here is the important lesson to be learned: Never, ever go pick up a bike, or a car, or anything else like that, from a repair shop while you are exhausted, feverish, unsure of what day, time, and country it is, or otherwise in any state that makes you so easily distracted by the promise of a discount that you forget to check the work. Here is how I was reminded of this fundamental truth: A few days later, I (foolishly, under the circumstances) decide to start biking to work again, in the hopes that the exercise and fresh air will help kick the flu (they don't). I get on my bike, and start down my street, but something doesn't feel right. I stop and check everything out, but don't see any problems, so I simply shrug it off as being down to the fact that it had been two weeks since I'd biked anywhere and continue on my way. Three block later, I hit a pothole, lost control of my bike, and luckily ended up on the sidewalk, so I decide to walk my bike back home and stick to the metro; a decision that sticks for another two weeks as I know better than to take loads of cold medications and try to bike through rush hour traffic (again, a lesson learned the hard way). Now, finally, yesterday, feeling almost human again, I decide to ride my bike to yoga, but again, something doesn't feel right. This time, though, I decide to keep going all the way to yoga, which is only at most a 10-minute ride, so that I can try to get a better sense of what is wrong, but I arrive home two hours later no wiser than when I left. Today, I woke up determined to get to the bottom of this, so I subject my bike to a full-on inspection, and I discover that not only were the rear spokes not all replaced as requested (only the broken ones were), but the front wheel has been put on -- wait for it -- backwards.

Backwards.

I don't even understand why they had the front wheel off in the first place; it only needed truing, which is easily done with a stand and a spoke wrench, no disassembly required. It does explain why the front wheel felt oddly like it was dragging on the way home yesterday, and why, when I went slowly enough to notice every little thing, it felt like the wheel almost wanted to roll back towards me. But still. I took my bike to a repair shop, and they put the damn wheel on backwards, in addition to not properly fixing the other wheel which did actually need to be removed for repairs.

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Note to fellow yogis: If ever you go to class, and the teacher announces that you're going to be spending some time doing what she calls "dolphins", be prepared to be sore and a little annoyed the next day.

funny how time flies

2007-05-15T20:11:00.000-04:00

... and yet, not very much of it has been fun.

It's hard to believe that it's only been a month since I posted here. (I know -- only a month. I'm so sorry.) So much has happened, so much has changed, and yet it feels strangely like I'm stuck back in the same place I was in a month ago, only I know many more things than I did a month ago. But enough moaning.

I did have the chance to do a fair amount of reading over the past month, though; and so, for want of anything more cheerful to talk about, here are some random thoughts on what I've plowed my insomniac way through in the past few weeks:

Lonely Planet Guide to Canada: Before the Trip that Ate October, I'd only been to Quebec City once, in the third or fourth grade if I'm not mistaken, and from what I recall it sucked (mostly because we were just too young to appreciate any of the history, and at that age it hasn't yet occurred to most kids that school trips are vastly improved by the smuggling of alcohol). I'd also been to Ottawa a few times, most notably one Easter when a certain family member got it into their head that we could go skating on the Rideau Canal -- this was unfortunately a year where Easter fell at the end of April, but no matter, since it was a nice day out anyhow. There was also the trip during which I got beaned with the business end of a gladiola chucked at me by none other than Dame Edna, but that's another story for another day. Aside from those two spots, and of course the requisite apple-picking, cheese-buying, farm-visiting day trips to "local" areas, I hadn't seen much of Canada. During the Trip that Ate October, I saw mostly airports, airport bars, hotels, hotel bars, the dirtiest (and best) parts of Vancouver, and met a lot of crazy, rich old men who'd spent their lives following their passion, many helpful WestJet employees, and a few interesting locals. Oh, and I got to see a fair amount of Penticton and the better part of the lower BC Interior, but again: Another story for another day. My point here though is that I obviously didn't have much of an urge to see different parts of the country in the past, and while the Trip that Ate October kind of had me looking for a few more travel opportunities, it also made me want to stay home for a while before traveling again. Then I read this book. I read this book in airports, and on airplanes, while traveling to places decidedly not in Canada, and continued reading this book while outside the country, and now I kind of wish I had a year or two off and a ton of money to travel and see at least two cities in every province, as well as things like Polar Bear Jail. Stupid guide books, making me wish I could go places and see things, giving me dreams and things to aim for.

The Book of Bunny Suicides & Return of the Bunny Suicides: "Little fluffy rabbits who just don't want to live any more." "If you are a bunny contemplating suicide, then this is the book for you." Classic, brilliant stuff that just speaks for itself:
The Alchemist: This has been in the pile for quite some time. I've perhaps been finding excuses to dodge it, but the time had come to piss or get off the pot, so I read it. It's possible that my mistake was in listening to the hype and reading all the "This book will change your life"-type quotes printed on the cover, but basically, if you've read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, or even the Yoga Sutra, then there's no real need to pick this one up, unless you've been asked to read from it at a wedding or other such event, in which case just read the thing already -- it's quick and easy, I promise. (It's also a good choice if you are stuck in an interminable airport security line, especially on a good day at Heathrow Terminal 3: Odds are, if you start it when you get into the line, you'll be done with it by the time you put your carry-on through the x-ray machine and can thus trade or donate it to a fellow traveler. On a bad day at Heathrow, I recommend the Oxford English Dictionary or the Collected Works of Shakespeare for the same purpose.)

The Timewaster Letters: Reads somewhat like an audition piece for the role of Michael Scott (or David Brent) in an off-Broadway adaptation of The Office. (Shut up, you know perfectly well that if they made a musical out of Titanic, then someone, somewhere, is hard at work on this very concept at this very moment.) Funny stuff, but a bit disappointing, especially on the heels of the Bunny Suicide books. Maybe I should have read more than just a 167-page Oprah special between the two. Oh well -- hindsight and all that.

Notes From a Small Island: I picked this up partly because I thought I had enough distance from my last brush with Bill Bryson (The Mother Tongue, which I found didactic and needlessly snobbish at best, especially from a faux-Brit/former Yankee) to be able to enjoy it, partly because I didn't realize that it was another frigging travel guide disguised as narrative non-fiction, and partly because I am constitutionally incapable of walking past a bookstore without going in and buying a half-dozen books. Honestly, it's beyond my control. It's as if books are about to be made illegal here in Canada, so I have to buy as many as I can here to save them from being burnt, and then buy as many as I can while outside the country so I can smuggle them back in and prevent my personal supply from ever running dry. Not even when I smoked cigarettes was I this bad about what is essentially a legalized addiction. But I digress. Which is what this entire goddamned smug book does. I'm so excited for the other Bill Bryson on my reading pile. No, really.

great. now Risey McShiney thinks I'm the crazy one.

2007-04-12T21:17:00.001-04:00

Dear Smallest Cat:

Thanks so much for making me have to stand in the entryway the other day and explain to you that cats live inside, and the cats you see outside aren't really cats, they're werewolf-robots disguised as cats. No, really, thanks.

Sincerely (no, really),
The Human

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Apparently, San Francisco is banning plastic bags. That's awesome. So is some place in Manitoba whose name escapes me at the moment. Also awesome. For those of you who've been living under a rock, plastic bags take 1,000 years to decompose in a landfill, not to mention all the crap generated in manufacturing them. If there are even two cities in North America banning them (and levying fines for distributing them after the cutoff date), then it's not much, but it's a start.

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Many people have asked me in the past why I do yoga. (I don't know how they know I do yoga, but they do. They must be a wee bit psychic, I don't know.) My answers have tended to be along the lines of "Because it feels good", "Because I like it", "Because I'm a sucker for punishment", and so on. But now, after two weeks of not practicing, I am here to tell you the real answer: I do yoga because when I don't, I have all kinds of crazy-ass dreams where government terrorists are chasing me through alleys so they can kidnap me and cut off my feet.

Thankfully, I started back with classes this week. I don't intend to stop like that again. I like my feet where they are right now -- joined to my legs at the ankle.