Ephemera, etcetera

2005-11-08T12:17:00.000-05:00

I'm considering taking this blog up again and recommencing posting...

I'm not sure if I have anything interesting to say...

I'm not sure if that matters...

hmmmm.

I still don't know which way this will go.

Channeling Marilyn

2005-05-24T21:59:00.000-04:00

I hate skirts.

I normally never wear them. However, before moving here for the summer I was warned by numerous people about the hot and humid summer weather awaiting me. So I brought skirts; in fact I brought very few pants for work. And of course, Murphy's Law being a major player in my life, it's been grey and chilly most of the time. So I haven't really even needed the skirts. But I have to wear them.

Not having the habit of wearing skirts, I am not the most graceful person in a skirt. I've already ripped one trying to do something that can only be done in pants, or so I learned that morning. And I try to walk too fast. Pantyhose does not help. Right now, there is one skirt that causes me extra headaches. As I walked to work one morning, my skirt kept twisting round and then my pantyhose started creeping down. I was on a major downtown street, so there was no hope of doing any kind of adjustment until I got to work. So I walked to work with progressively shortened strides, hoping that no one noticed that my my skirt was 90 degrees off-centre. It brought back memories of a similar experience, where Merrill and Charles very patiently put up with me geisha-walking three very LONG blocks in southward-bound pantyhose and a narrow skirt that kept twisting around.

Today I didn't have to deal with twisting skirts. No. Instead, due to unfortunate convergences of gusty wind and inclines and all kinds of metereological phenemona I don't understand, I did a couple of Marilyn Monroe impressions this morning. You know the immortal picture from The Seven Year Itch, where she's standing on the grate in the white dress with the skirt blowing up around her ears? I had 2 of those moments on the way to work. Two! I was then paranoid for the rest of the day, and clutched at my skirt every time the wind picked up.

Well, my laundry's done and so is this story, so I'm off to bed. I'm off to another concert tomorrow night. I love cheap tickets for students...

Apparently I'm all about the food.

2005-05-23T21:46:00.000-04:00

Well, that was over sooner than expected. Both the mope and the weekend.

I came out of my funk on Thursday and things have been going fairly well since. Had a very good day at work and a great evening on Friday. Learned lots of new things and saw a wonderful concert - a brass band, a violin concerto, and lemon gelato, all in one night. Yay!

Saturday included lots of sleep, a jog, and a long distance phone call before heading over to a friend's place for a delicious supper. The meal was "Snackbar cheeseburgers", a tribute to our regular Sunday suppers in France, when the residence cafeteria was closed and the closest source of food was the Snackbar in the empty lot across from our building. The Snackbar consisted of a trailer, from which the sole proprietor/cook/server prepared wonderful burgers (bien cuit, s'il vous plait, no undercooked ground beef for me), served in baguettes and topped with shoestring fries. These days, I have chicken instead of beef, and no fries, but they're still delicious.

We then walked to a downtown park to enjoy Sarah Harmer in concert and had a good time, despite the rain and the chill. She performed in a short skirt and sleeveless shirt - I have no idea how she managed not to freeze to death. Although I think her knees were knocking due to the cold by the end of her set. But she performed fabulously.

I then returned to the apartment to make an appearance at my flatmate's kegger, and another flatmate was patient enough to be my teammate at the foosball table. Yep, my eye-hand coordination is still non-existent. Just checking. Needless to say, we lost, but my teammate was a very good sport about it. I received another confirmation that I'm old when I realized that I couldn't follow a conversation with any of the drunk people I encountered. Which I took as a sign to head to bed.

Sunday morning started off with a two hour amble around the market which is only a 10 minute walk away. Bought some fresh vegetables from the vendors, who were unfailingly courteous and friendly. The market is quickly becoming one of my favourite places here. I also splurged on some cheese, and enjoyed wandering in and out of the little shops. I came across savon de Marseille!! Hooray! And cheap vegetarian samosa! Baked, no less! Does life get better? I later made a second foray for groceries, this time to the big grocery store. This shopping trip was much less enjoyable than the first, but needed to be done. Thus provisioned, I made an ad-hoc vegetarian curry. With this as a reward, I managed to get myself out for a jog, albeit a short one, and quite enjoyed it, despite the rain. I then enjoyed my curry under the suspicious eye of my flatmate, whose most flattering description of my supper was "gruel". He did, however, generously offer me some chai tea, which was an awesome treat. He also introduced me to a most decadent concoction of cookies 'n cream chocolate dipped in peanut butter. I didn't need to know about that.

We settled on the couch to watch Star Wars: Episode II. Having once been in a relationship with an ardent Star Wars fan for almost 3 years, it's now weird for me to see anything related to Star Wars. I came across a Star Wars pack of M&Ms in April, and it was a jolt to realize that I hadn't had to think about Star Wars in months. Normally, with Episode III having come out last week, I would have seen all of the trailers multiple times, and seen all the documentaries on the upcoming film. But it had completely fallen off my radar. It's amazing how quickly people adjust.

Today has been a little busier. I got up and went for a jog, and headed for brunch with some friends. There was a toddler and an infant in the group, and I had my usual effect on babies: their faces crumple and they start wailing. Good thing I don't want kids, otherwise I'd be massively worried. We then headed to the downtown mall to do some shopping and take advantage of some sales. I got tired after a couple of hours - between the jog and all the walking around on hard concrete floors, my legs were done in and I was ready to curl up at home. So I headed home with my loot and arrived in time to help one of my flatmates with his poli-sci paper, which I've been doing for most of the night, in between study breaks watching CSI. And hey! Speaking of Star Wars, because I was earlier ... if you haven't already seen it, check out StoreWars . It's a hoot. Or maybe that's the residual Star Wars fan-by-association in me speaking.

So I think that's about all the news from this weekend. Apparently I spent most of it eating, or shopping for food, or thinking about food. Perhaps I'll find a new topic of obsession for next weekend. I also spent a bit of time looking for a store that sold a copy of "Runner's World" - it's apparently a bit hard to come by in this part of the world, but I eventually found one. Didn't buy it. Don't ask me why. I'm finding their website pretty useful so far, so I think I'll postpone actually paying for a magazine and killing a tree until I really need to.

I finished training at work last Friday, so tomorrow is my first day out in the wild. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. So I better get to bed and get some sleep.

Excuses, excuses

2005-05-18T22:16:00.000-04:00

Before, I was just being negligent. But now, I officially have a good reason not to blog. I'm off to crawl into a dark hole somewhere and pretend that the world doesn't exist. Or maybe that I don't exist. Nothing serious. Nothing that a good fit of moping won't cure.

See you on the other side.

Secrets

2005-05-14T11:51:00.000-04:00

Postsecret

Thanks to Matt Good's blog for pointing me to the above blog. It's fascinating...

I promise to actually write a substantial post at some point this weekend.

Claire

Thanks Lauren.

2005-05-06T18:06:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure whether or not to be worried . . .

You're a car key, and not only do you unlock the
car, you help everyone get where they're going.
Important to many but often misplaced, you have
something to offer that everyone wants. Just be
sure you don't let yourself become nothing more
than a means to an end.

What sort of key are you and what do you unlock?
brought to you by Quizilla

Isis
Indeed, you are 70% erudite, 75% sensual, 45% martial, and 45% saturnine.

This Egyptian
supreme Goddess is certainly the most influential deity on subsequent
cultures. She was the ideal figure of womanhood, usually compared with
the Greek Goddess Demeter or her Roman version, Ceres.

Isis was one element of a Holy Trinity, the remaining two figures being her brother and husband Osiris and their heroic son Horus. She was the Goddess of Magic for her brilliance, as well as the Goddess of Love because of her tenacious devotion.

She is often shown with wings, curving to caress coffins and sarcophagi
of many a king. In certain papyri she is shown with her falcon wing
headdress, covering her ears. One of her sacred symbols is the sistrum,
a musical instrument that was believed to ward off evil spirits. Isis'
sistrum was carved bearing the image of a cat and was representative of
the Moon.

Isis was the High Priestess and an omnipotent magician as well as the only being ever to discover the secret name of Ra.
She invariably carries the ankh, the symbol for eternal life. Her name
is, by the rules of numerology, adding up to the number “2” and she
just so happens to be depicted on the tarot card “Key 2 – The High
Priestess”.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 26% on erudite
You scored higher than 24% on sensual
You scored higher than 22% on martial
You scored higher than 22% on saturnine

Link: The Mythological Goddess Test written by Nitsuki on Ok Cupid

I am going to die here . . .

2005-05-05T20:19:00.000-04:00

I am the world's most oblivious pedestrian.

I was running errands after work today, and I nearly got hit by some kind of traffic at least twice. And those are just the times I was aware of. I walked down one of the busiest streets in town; the sidewalk crosses several of what I consider to be driveways or entrances to parking lots. Here, there are pedestrian lights at these "driveways", which I'm still getting used to. So there are times when I'm lost in thought as I walk and I just keep walking without even thinking to check the light. To top it off, when I was 3/4 of the way home, I was actually waiting for the walk light at a major intersection and once I started to walk, a bike whizzed past behind me a scant 2 seconds later. I hadn't even registered the bike on the road. Now technically, if the bike is on the road it counts as a vehicle and it has to stop for the red light, which bikes apparently don't do here. But the point is that I never even noticed the bike, not even peripherally, until it passed me.

I can't even blame this on a walkman or anything because I wasn't using one. I'm just naturally clueless. Which doesn't really surprise me because I've had problems with traffic in major cities before. My Australian roommate in England got so frustrated with me when we were passing through London.

Maybe I should get one of those electric dog collars, and rig it so that it gives me a shock as I approach intersections . . .

Priorities

2005-05-03T20:40:00.000-04:00

We just had a fire alarm in the building. Between school and work, I think I've gone through too many fire drills. They no longer spark the thrill of danger that they once did. I am now far too lackadaisical (to borrow a word from a dear friend) about them. Tonight, I did what you're told not to do. I stopped to gather what I felt were important belongings. I grabbed my laptop - I just got this thing going again, and it has all my schoolwork on it, I'm not leaving it behind. I grabbed my bag with my wallet and dayplanner - if I need to phone friends or crash in a hotel, I'm going to need phone numbers and money. I grabbed a change of underwear - the minimum required for a change of clothes; you have to give me credit for not hunting down clean jeans, shirt, etc. I grabbed my grandmother's diamond engagement ring - how would I replace that? And I made sure to leave the phone message that I had been writing down for my roommate when the alarm went off in a place where he would be sure to see it, should the place not burn to the ground.

It all made perfect sense to me at the time. Of course, there was no fire and I was never in any danger. I would probably be singing a different tune if I had been trapped in a burning apartment because of my attachment to material goods.

There's a Buddhist lesson in here. How the heck am I going to reach enlightenment if I can't let go of a few electronic files and a ring?

A humble beginning

2005-05-03T19:56:00.000-04:00

Okay. So I've finally started the blog. These first few posts may be a little scattered because I've been here since Saturday afternoon and I have plenty to catch up on. Okay, I'll be honest - all my posts are likely to be scattered, since that's the way my brain is.

It's Tuesday night, and I started work yesterday. In a way, it's good that I couldn't start on the blog until this evening, because it's given me time to think about the direction that I want the blog to take. I've decided that I'm not going to blog about work that much; discretion is the greater part of valor in this situation. It's partly because I do believe in the importance of discretion and confidentiality; it's also because I REALLY don't want to get fired (see Queen of the Sky (although it could be worse, check out the Committee to Protect Bloggers). I think the deciding moment came as I signed two oaths as part of my paperwork - I'm not sure whether the Queen would approve of me blogging about my work.

As a result, this blog will be composed primarily of non-work-related anecdotes. Such as how, upon leaving a Second Cup after work today, I noticed that across the street, at the corner of a fairly busy intersection, behind the juniper bushes that flanked the entrance to a Catholic Church, a woman was hoisting up the bottom of her jacket. The movement caught my eye as I headed to the crosswalk to wait for the light, and as she suddenly dropped behind the junipers I realized what was familiar about her actions. Anyone's that had to go to the bathroom while wearing several layers, and has had to fumble under long jackets to undo their pants, knows what I'm talking about. So this woman was peeing between some juniper bushes and the walls of the church. I had this childish urge to say to the nearest person "Did you see that? There's a woman peeing in the bushes over there!" I managed to resist, but I couldn't help a smile when the woman popped back into view a few moments later.

So that's the kind of thing to come. Enthralling, I know .... You'd think that with me being in a major city, with all kinds of cultural, political, and social institutions to visit, that I'd have all kinds of terribly deep and intellectual stories. But no. Maybe they will come later. But right now I have a story about a woman relieving herself in front of a church. And I'm not even going to get started about the symbolism there.

Despite the rather ignomious start involving potty humour (pardon the pun), I'm happy to have started the blog. In that vein, today I'm grateful for:

- a wonderful summer job
- having started the blog
- the helpful salesman at RadioShack
- having gotten my laptop up and running again, for a lot less money and hassle than I had anticipated.
- great roommates for the summer, especially one very generous soul who, in addition to being an all-around great person, may have provided me with the means to play around with UNIX, which is something that I've been wanting to do for awhile
- the peeing lady, for reminding me of both the absurdity of life and of the value in questioning assumptions; because really, why shouldn't people be able to pee in front of churches?

Day 1

2005-05-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

Today was a really good day, but holy crap am I tired.