We have reached the tail end of a moderate snowstorm during which it has been unusually, bitterly cold, with highs of -6F, although it is currently 5F.
Things are winding down, the powder is heaped in piles feet tall on every corner. Front end loaders fill dump trucks with snow, which then carry it to its final destination - the mighty St. Lawrence.
In this deep, quiet, windless cold, the mirrorlike flakes drift slowly to their destinations, reflecting flashes of city light.
I imagine their descent, their view of snowbound Montreal from thousands of feet up, the city flawless and twinkling below for long minutes during the gentle journey. They never have to see the dirt, the hassle, never hear the arguments or the politics. It's all hidden, muted within walls - beyond and below the ken of snowflakes. Just drift. Just let gravity be the guide.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Inspirations
You know, it doesn't matter if there are witnesses. Doesn't matter if there was no picture taken, no record of it, no eyes present to see it or understand it or a mind capable of comprehending the sacrifice and ingenuity that it took to accomplish it.
It is still a great work.
It is still a great work.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Tantus Labor Non Sit Cassus
On Sunday night with a pair of good friends, I watched a children's movie, The Secret of Kells. It's a story about the mythical creation of the Irish national treasure, the Book of Kells, a gloriously illuminated text from the 9th century.
It really affected me.
It wasn't just the marvelous watercolor scenes or the unusual animation, or even those things combined with the lovely and magical music.
Information completely overwhelms us nowadays. It interrupts us, inhibits our social skills, destroys conversations and work ethics, distracts us from other information that is more important in a given moment. It's cheap - almost free - for most of the Western world. It has become a convenient pest.
A thousand years ago and more, knowledge was a priceless treasure. A single book could be worth a war, and it would contain the life's work of hundreds of people crafting at the height of their skill. Is there an analogy of such a thing today, other than these treasures that are locked in sealed vacuums, forever of the past? Even the continued existence of what once was priceless is now cheap, a bittersweet memory, for it can be reproduced, restored, shared. Anyone can see and make and create. A great number of us possess more knowledge than an entire century of wise men from a thousand years ago before we reach our fourth decades. There are so many great works now that the meaning of "great work" has become irrelevant. Every day there is a new great work being showcased, soon forgotten for a new, equally novel creation, and another, and another. They march past, similar in their complete lack of similarity.
I feel like such a selfish beast to say it, but the idea of 7.114 billion humans walking upon the earth is just utterly depressing. Maybe our planet is a jewel of rarity floating in unfathomably empty hollowness, but from down here, it is a brilliant, filthy place of clamoring geniuses searching for their recognition as they stand on the backs of the impoverished.
The notion of knowledge and skill as a rarity sounds so romantic only because I know I'd be one of the few, the wise. Ha. That's funny. Nobody writes about the paupers because they lived short, backbreaking lives and died illiterate, nothing interesting about their lives, no. That's what I am now, basically. A common serf, an ignorant prodigy. Or maybe just a common serf who is average. Maybe if there were a few less of us, I'd be special.
Or maybe I am a coward. Too afraid to actualize my great work because so many others before me have successfully done so. It's not hip to be a success - everybody's doing it.
Why do I feel so abashed to be privileged? So certain that I'm supposed to be unhappy in the name of equity? It was an accident, I swear, all of it. I am not privileged, at least not like the Zo'e people of the Amazon rainforest, who have no concept of "stress" because their lives are exactly how human lives should be. Everyone contributing to the greater good in starkly visible ways, every single day. What did you do today that immediately benefited the greater good? How did you touch 200 people around you? Can you? Can you love and know 200 people and be willing to live your entire life with them, supporting them and being supported by them?
Nobody would die alone.
Who the fuck am I? Will I ever find out before I die? Does it even matter?
If not, then at least there is another soul, among the billions of us, who loves and feels and cries for all of us. Sometimes selfishly, sometimes not.
It really affected me.
It wasn't just the marvelous watercolor scenes or the unusual animation, or even those things combined with the lovely and magical music.
Information completely overwhelms us nowadays. It interrupts us, inhibits our social skills, destroys conversations and work ethics, distracts us from other information that is more important in a given moment. It's cheap - almost free - for most of the Western world. It has become a convenient pest.
A thousand years ago and more, knowledge was a priceless treasure. A single book could be worth a war, and it would contain the life's work of hundreds of people crafting at the height of their skill. Is there an analogy of such a thing today, other than these treasures that are locked in sealed vacuums, forever of the past? Even the continued existence of what once was priceless is now cheap, a bittersweet memory, for it can be reproduced, restored, shared. Anyone can see and make and create. A great number of us possess more knowledge than an entire century of wise men from a thousand years ago before we reach our fourth decades. There are so many great works now that the meaning of "great work" has become irrelevant. Every day there is a new great work being showcased, soon forgotten for a new, equally novel creation, and another, and another. They march past, similar in their complete lack of similarity.
I feel like such a selfish beast to say it, but the idea of 7.114 billion humans walking upon the earth is just utterly depressing. Maybe our planet is a jewel of rarity floating in unfathomably empty hollowness, but from down here, it is a brilliant, filthy place of clamoring geniuses searching for their recognition as they stand on the backs of the impoverished.
The notion of knowledge and skill as a rarity sounds so romantic only because I know I'd be one of the few, the wise. Ha. That's funny. Nobody writes about the paupers because they lived short, backbreaking lives and died illiterate, nothing interesting about their lives, no. That's what I am now, basically. A common serf, an ignorant prodigy. Or maybe just a common serf who is average. Maybe if there were a few less of us, I'd be special.
Or maybe I am a coward. Too afraid to actualize my great work because so many others before me have successfully done so. It's not hip to be a success - everybody's doing it.
Why do I feel so abashed to be privileged? So certain that I'm supposed to be unhappy in the name of equity? It was an accident, I swear, all of it. I am not privileged, at least not like the Zo'e people of the Amazon rainforest, who have no concept of "stress" because their lives are exactly how human lives should be. Everyone contributing to the greater good in starkly visible ways, every single day. What did you do today that immediately benefited the greater good? How did you touch 200 people around you? Can you? Can you love and know 200 people and be willing to live your entire life with them, supporting them and being supported by them?
Nobody would die alone.
Who the fuck am I? Will I ever find out before I die? Does it even matter?
If not, then at least there is another soul, among the billions of us, who loves and feels and cries for all of us. Sometimes selfishly, sometimes not.
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Find Yourself
I've been taking some additional small steps recently to move away from relying on what gigantic multinational corporations are telling me I should want and buy.
For example, one day I decided that I didn't care to buy overpriced, chemical-laden laundry detergent anymore, and I that I didn't want to lug jug after plastic jug of it back to my house several blocks on foot (as we don't own cars). I bought borax, washing soda and pure soap from the hardware store and dissolved them together with water to make a detergent gel that costs, oh, maybe $.01 per load? I haven't found any fault with it.
My colleague recently described to me how his wife outfitted every window in their sprawling suburban house with Hunter Douglas shades and window treatments in one fell swoop. I was both intrigued and repulsed by the idea of spending thousands of dollars on a houseful of shades that a thousand, ten thousand people have in their homes. Most people in the western world don't realize that they don't have to purchase what fashion and advertising dictates they should want and have.
They can make it themselves, more beautifully, more creatively, more healthfully, more effectively. This is my vision of the ultra modern home.
I find that people I know who came from poverty-stricken nations to find success in North America are behind in their development, although I understand why. They are preoccupied with the idea that now they can afford to pay for the things they need and desire to be prefabricated for them. They have separated themselves from the handmade and don't value it, as it symbolizes to them a lack of resources and waste of time. I have watched in fascination and mounting depression as a newly-rich acquaintance of mine from southeast Asia designed a lavish mansion and hired housekeepers and maids to ensure that his wife, a stay-at-home mom, won't have to lift a finger to manage anything, including their only child, and has the dubious freedom to spend all of her days at the spa.
I can't tell you how many friendly but heated arguments I've had with a Pakistani friend about the value or lack thereof of being self-reliant instead of spending money and resources doing things like hiring housecleaning companies and buying disposable cutlery. He sees organizing, cleaning and domestic creation as detracting from what life should be - an endless swirl of bars, hookahs, lounging in the park, picking up women, deciding whether or not he should read a book, etc. He dreams of finding a sweet, intelligent, serious, modest (and yet tantalizingly wild) young woman to marry, upon which he anticipates showering gifts and attention to the point where she doesn't want for anything. He would foresee every trouble and protect her from anything that would threaten her pristine spoileditude. He knows that she would adore being cradled within his bubble of love, protection and funding.
As his expansive description came to its naive close, I told him that I would hate it. Hate everything about it. He was taken aback. Why? How could anybody hate that?
Because the struggle, the yearning, the self-reliance, the self defense, the resourcefulness, the self-proving and self-discovery is what life is all about. He pretends not to, but I can tell he's listening to me, an attractive, well-educated Swiss/Dutch blonde woman from the US, and meditating about what his society and his culture have taught him.
I am worried that we are losing our yearning, our self-reliance, our resourcefulness and the inherent individual creativity that we all possess. "Proving oneself" has become a meaningless and empty race towards excess and pointless, embittered competition.
And thus, last weekend, I finished my roman shades and made my own Marseilles soap with a jug of sodium hydroxide, olive oil, coconut oil and water. It is beautiful, but it will be too soft yet for the next couple of weeks.
For example, one day I decided that I didn't care to buy overpriced, chemical-laden laundry detergent anymore, and I that I didn't want to lug jug after plastic jug of it back to my house several blocks on foot (as we don't own cars). I bought borax, washing soda and pure soap from the hardware store and dissolved them together with water to make a detergent gel that costs, oh, maybe $.01 per load? I haven't found any fault with it.
My colleague recently described to me how his wife outfitted every window in their sprawling suburban house with Hunter Douglas shades and window treatments in one fell swoop. I was both intrigued and repulsed by the idea of spending thousands of dollars on a houseful of shades that a thousand, ten thousand people have in their homes. Most people in the western world don't realize that they don't have to purchase what fashion and advertising dictates they should want and have.
They can make it themselves, more beautifully, more creatively, more healthfully, more effectively. This is my vision of the ultra modern home.
I find that people I know who came from poverty-stricken nations to find success in North America are behind in their development, although I understand why. They are preoccupied with the idea that now they can afford to pay for the things they need and desire to be prefabricated for them. They have separated themselves from the handmade and don't value it, as it symbolizes to them a lack of resources and waste of time. I have watched in fascination and mounting depression as a newly-rich acquaintance of mine from southeast Asia designed a lavish mansion and hired housekeepers and maids to ensure that his wife, a stay-at-home mom, won't have to lift a finger to manage anything, including their only child, and has the dubious freedom to spend all of her days at the spa.
I can't tell you how many friendly but heated arguments I've had with a Pakistani friend about the value or lack thereof of being self-reliant instead of spending money and resources doing things like hiring housecleaning companies and buying disposable cutlery. He sees organizing, cleaning and domestic creation as detracting from what life should be - an endless swirl of bars, hookahs, lounging in the park, picking up women, deciding whether or not he should read a book, etc. He dreams of finding a sweet, intelligent, serious, modest (and yet tantalizingly wild) young woman to marry, upon which he anticipates showering gifts and attention to the point where she doesn't want for anything. He would foresee every trouble and protect her from anything that would threaten her pristine spoileditude. He knows that she would adore being cradled within his bubble of love, protection and funding.
As his expansive description came to its naive close, I told him that I would hate it. Hate everything about it. He was taken aback. Why? How could anybody hate that?
Because the struggle, the yearning, the self-reliance, the self defense, the resourcefulness, the self-proving and self-discovery is what life is all about. He pretends not to, but I can tell he's listening to me, an attractive, well-educated Swiss/Dutch blonde woman from the US, and meditating about what his society and his culture have taught him.
I am worried that we are losing our yearning, our self-reliance, our resourcefulness and the inherent individual creativity that we all possess. "Proving oneself" has become a meaningless and empty race towards excess and pointless, embittered competition.
And thus, last weekend, I finished my roman shades and made my own Marseilles soap with a jug of sodium hydroxide, olive oil, coconut oil and water. It is beautiful, but it will be too soft yet for the next couple of weeks.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Random Funny/Inappropriate
My husband has gotten slightly famous these past couple months on the interwebs for GMing a tabletop RPG (JP's Rollplay Dark Heresy) for four truly famous internet personalities and e-sportscasters. The Youtube videos receive thousands of hits; tens of thousands of people are watching these 4-hour sessions when they stream live.
My favorite comment:
"I like how into it [Caspian] gets. Plus he's got that slight sexualisation to his voice, whenever he says something it sounds almost like he's orgasming on his words."
My favorite comment:
"I like how into it [Caspian] gets. Plus he's got that slight sexualisation to his voice, whenever he says something it sounds almost like he's orgasming on his words."
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Ridiculous Mornings
I have been sharing my office with a high-ranking executive, as the facade of the building is being ripped down and rebuilt.
A very awkweird thing happened today. I was minding my business, drinking my coffee, listening to some jams, getting some tasks completed, when I laughed at something stupid and inhaled quite a large swallow of coffee.
Now, in this moment, there were only two thoughts in my mind: 1) MUST COUGH and 2) MUST SWALLOW, as I still had a gulp in my mouth. My body was just trying to keep itself alive, and there would soon be no way to hold back the frantic choking and hacking. I did the only thing I could do.
With a horrible gag and a mighty, disgusting-sounding, swishy gurgle, I spat the coffee in my mouth back into my mug (and all over myself, as I was spasming with suppressed, earth-shaking coughs) and then proceeded to cough like... Like a tidal wave of burning coffee had just inundated my upper airways.
Meanwhile, my poor colleague thought I had barfed on myself and then proceeded straight into death throes. He leaped up, ran over to my desk, and frantically shouted, "WHAT IS HAPPENING! WHAT IS HAPPENING! SAY SOMETHING, SHINSEIKO! Do you need the heimlich?! Nod if you need the heimlich!" as the tears and coffee drips rolled down my face.
As I sat gasping, I couldn't help but continuously loop the stupid noise I'd made when I'd first started choking, in the slow, unsuspecting silence of a happy office morning. It had been ridiculous.
A very awkweird thing happened today. I was minding my business, drinking my coffee, listening to some jams, getting some tasks completed, when I laughed at something stupid and inhaled quite a large swallow of coffee.
Now, in this moment, there were only two thoughts in my mind: 1) MUST COUGH and 2) MUST SWALLOW, as I still had a gulp in my mouth. My body was just trying to keep itself alive, and there would soon be no way to hold back the frantic choking and hacking. I did the only thing I could do.
With a horrible gag and a mighty, disgusting-sounding, swishy gurgle, I spat the coffee in my mouth back into my mug (and all over myself, as I was spasming with suppressed, earth-shaking coughs) and then proceeded to cough like... Like a tidal wave of burning coffee had just inundated my upper airways.
Meanwhile, my poor colleague thought I had barfed on myself and then proceeded straight into death throes. He leaped up, ran over to my desk, and frantically shouted, "WHAT IS HAPPENING! WHAT IS HAPPENING! SAY SOMETHING, SHINSEIKO! Do you need the heimlich?! Nod if you need the heimlich!" as the tears and coffee drips rolled down my face.
As I sat gasping, I couldn't help but continuously loop the stupid noise I'd made when I'd first started choking, in the slow, unsuspecting silence of a happy office morning. It had been ridiculous.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Summer Lovelies
More and more, I am toying with the idea of only writing my thoughts by hand. I want to share, but the internet never forgets, and the NSA touches a whopping 1.6% of all internet traffic. And why do I want to share? To shock you? To impress you? Does it have nothing to do with you at all? All of the above plus more? Probably.
I had a beautiful week of vacation in the mountains of northern Quebec and came home to lovely mountains of work. I say "lovely" because there is nothing more lovely than a mountain of work that I find interesting and fun to complete. There is no better day than a day full of intellectual tasks, laughing with colleagues, enjoying simple things like observing funny dancing old men in the metro, eating local spun honey, talking amiably with my boss for hours about science-fiction. A day of not enough work is not worth my time. I swear to you that I truly feel that my work is my escape, that I often feel more exhausted after a day of simplicity than of "running around," meeting deadlines, communicating, even failing repeatedly and trying again.
I have also been pondering often the idea of a childfree lifestyle vs. parenthood. I flip flop often, but more and more, I am coming to the conclusion that my spouse and I may not be as happy as parents. Maybe much less happy. I ask myself if this is okay. I think it is. I am more and more willing to accept "missing out" on whatever it is that everybody tells me I'm missing out on in favor of not finding out. I think I will find not finding out to my taste. Not like I have to decide now or anything, just some ponderating.
Life has been simple and enjoyable recently, and I'm not sure why. Our new house feels like always being on vacation; so sunny and beautiful, full of the things I find worthy and soothing. Every morning is full of light. On the weekends, we jog together along the canal and watch the boats traverse the locks, and then we buy our week's worth of fruits and vegetables from the farmer's market - Ontario plums and Quebec watermelon, cucumbers and sweet corn.
On the advice of a dear friend, I have joined her story club, and I'm finding it surprisingly inspiring. I wrote a horror piece about dimensions splitting and splitting again, and a young man loses/finds his soul. For this month, I can't decide on whether to submit my in-progress love story or my ghost story.
All of the above pictures were taken by my sister during our trip last week, near Percé, Québec.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Progress
Progress
Mutemath
Pulling your confidence through
Some courage is well overdue
I believe solely in all your promise
Why waste a second in doubt
You could be helping you out
Keeping your head in the clear
Like an instrument for a song
Like the sun for tomorrow's dawn
Every moment of time is just an answer to find -
What you're here for, what you breathe for
What you wake for, what you bleed for
Everyone's counting on you
Say for yourself what to do
Life is a card that you lay down sometimes
To search for the best way of all
Is finding the best way to fall
Keeping your head in the clear
Every moment of time is just an answer to find
What you're here for, what you breathe for
What you wake for, what you bleed for
What you hope for, what you live for
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Black & White
Today made me wonder if any of it is actually worth it. Any of this shit we call our human lives.
At least if I were a zebra, threats would be crystal clear and my wants and needs would be perfectly in sync. I would want to be alive and be free and have enough to eat and make new zebras. Everything would be so, ahem, black and white.
Even my end would likely be clean and nourishing, not some slow financial and physical decay drawn out for decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I find myself so disconnected with the raw, terrible and lovely struggle for survival. The powerful bond of the family and the community has been lost. I am preoccupied with stupid, idiotic details that don't mean a damn thing and I'm fucking sick of it. I'm lost, sometimes. This time. Almost always.
Yūgen. This is a Japanese word that, according to Wikipedia, is "used to describe the subtle profundity of things that are only vaguely suggested." The term "suggests [something] beyond what can be said, but is not an allusion to another world. It is about this world, this experience. All of these are portals to yūgen. It is a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe and the sad beauty of human suffering."
There is no sad beauty to my suffering. Am I suffering because wrong has been done to me? I am suffering because I feel like everything I am and want and do is just a path to lack of rightness. A path away from what is pure and clean and ethical and close to deity.
Maybe there is beauty to be found here, as deep as anything. Just because I am a privileged, educated white woman in a developed democracy doesn't mean that I can't feel profound, real, existential pain. I never give myself enough credit to acknowledge that yes, what I am feeling is true, it hurts, and it it pushing me towards something that is not the norm. Something dramatically simple.
But what is it?!
At least if I were a zebra, threats would be crystal clear and my wants and needs would be perfectly in sync. I would want to be alive and be free and have enough to eat and make new zebras. Everything would be so, ahem, black and white.
Even my end would likely be clean and nourishing, not some slow financial and physical decay drawn out for decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I find myself so disconnected with the raw, terrible and lovely struggle for survival. The powerful bond of the family and the community has been lost. I am preoccupied with stupid, idiotic details that don't mean a damn thing and I'm fucking sick of it. I'm lost, sometimes. This time. Almost always.
Yūgen. This is a Japanese word that, according to Wikipedia, is "used to describe the subtle profundity of things that are only vaguely suggested." The term "suggests [something] beyond what can be said, but is not an allusion to another world. It is about this world, this experience. All of these are portals to yūgen. It is a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe and the sad beauty of human suffering."
There is no sad beauty to my suffering. Am I suffering because wrong has been done to me? I am suffering because I feel like everything I am and want and do is just a path to lack of rightness. A path away from what is pure and clean and ethical and close to deity.
Maybe there is beauty to be found here, as deep as anything. Just because I am a privileged, educated white woman in a developed democracy doesn't mean that I can't feel profound, real, existential pain. I never give myself enough credit to acknowledge that yes, what I am feeling is true, it hurts, and it it pushing me towards something that is not the norm. Something dramatically simple.
But what is it?!
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Still Unmoved
We postponed one week and I'm going bonkers. I am seriously tired of being unmoved.
Tired of the piles and walls of boxes and the kitties ricocheting off of them in the middle of the night. Tired of not being able to find the proper cooking implement even though it feels like I've packed, unpacked, cooked with, washed and repacked all of them already since I started packing three weeks ago.
Tired of not having a place to be that's not full of shit other than my office. I just want to be able to finally sit down in an environment that's ordered the way I want it to be ordered, a clean place with everything where it should be.
My mind is so chaotic and full of things that without an ordered, organized and squeaky clean environment, I can't function for long. I think we're starting to pass that limit.
I'm tired of not having access to that stupid, beautiful, stainless steel contraption that waits for me to insert dishes and soap, wait awhile and take them out again sparkling clean and dry without me having to don my rubber gloves and scrub. The mythical dishwasher. I just think the word and rays of heavenly light illuminate my path, a path blessedly free of scrubbies and sponges and day-old oatmeal residue.
Every day for the past week, I've visited the new place, examined every lovely, modern inch of it, measured its three wall-sized windows for double-sectioned roman blinds that I will design and sew myself. I've scrubbed every nook, washed every cranny, bleached every bleachable surface. Appliances have been dragged out and floors and walls scrubbed and rendered sterile. I spent three whole hours one evening washing all of the baseboards and the closet walls.
It is marvelous. It has birch floors and stainless steel appliances and a sandstone kitchen floor. The toilet has two flush settings and looks like a porcelain Porsche. The walls are slanted in the bedrooms, lending a snazzy air to the place while making it more difficult to fit furniture. There's a wall-mounted AC with remote control that I can operate from bed. Come visit, my friends, explore this beautiful city.
I feel like the world is my oyster, we've found success and strangeness and have and dug out our little niche here. I have the most beautiful, loving, intelligent, most feminist, most caring and hilarious husband in the universe. He secretly sneaks truffles into my lunches.
I can't wait to be in our new place place, with all of my happy little things arranged around me, many of them the work of my hands. I have two chairs that I finished and upholstered myself, the kitchen table that was hand-finished by yours truly. The pillows, the curtains, all designed by me. Almost every piece has been changed to suit my tastes, some of them from my parents, who acquired them when they were young and irresponsible and silly. I like that.
And St-Henri? What a lovely and colorful neighborhood. It's the new Plateau - the place where all of the artists in Montreal are moving because it's now too expensive to actually live in the Plateau. There are oaks and verdant lawns and streets of iconic Montreal townhouses with steep staircases leading up to the second floors. Lots of weird little places to eat that are likely fabulous.
The squirrels are fat and happy and the stray cats sit on fence posts, begging for pets at eye-level.
Tired of the piles and walls of boxes and the kitties ricocheting off of them in the middle of the night. Tired of not being able to find the proper cooking implement even though it feels like I've packed, unpacked, cooked with, washed and repacked all of them already since I started packing three weeks ago.
Tired of not having a place to be that's not full of shit other than my office. I just want to be able to finally sit down in an environment that's ordered the way I want it to be ordered, a clean place with everything where it should be.
My mind is so chaotic and full of things that without an ordered, organized and squeaky clean environment, I can't function for long. I think we're starting to pass that limit.
I'm tired of not having access to that stupid, beautiful, stainless steel contraption that waits for me to insert dishes and soap, wait awhile and take them out again sparkling clean and dry without me having to don my rubber gloves and scrub. The mythical dishwasher. I just think the word and rays of heavenly light illuminate my path, a path blessedly free of scrubbies and sponges and day-old oatmeal residue.
Every day for the past week, I've visited the new place, examined every lovely, modern inch of it, measured its three wall-sized windows for double-sectioned roman blinds that I will design and sew myself. I've scrubbed every nook, washed every cranny, bleached every bleachable surface. Appliances have been dragged out and floors and walls scrubbed and rendered sterile. I spent three whole hours one evening washing all of the baseboards and the closet walls.
It is marvelous. It has birch floors and stainless steel appliances and a sandstone kitchen floor. The toilet has two flush settings and looks like a porcelain Porsche. The walls are slanted in the bedrooms, lending a snazzy air to the place while making it more difficult to fit furniture. There's a wall-mounted AC with remote control that I can operate from bed. Come visit, my friends, explore this beautiful city.
I feel like the world is my oyster, we've found success and strangeness and have and dug out our little niche here. I have the most beautiful, loving, intelligent, most feminist, most caring and hilarious husband in the universe. He secretly sneaks truffles into my lunches.
I can't wait to be in our new place place, with all of my happy little things arranged around me, many of them the work of my hands. I have two chairs that I finished and upholstered myself, the kitchen table that was hand-finished by yours truly. The pillows, the curtains, all designed by me. Almost every piece has been changed to suit my tastes, some of them from my parents, who acquired them when they were young and irresponsible and silly. I like that.
And St-Henri? What a lovely and colorful neighborhood. It's the new Plateau - the place where all of the artists in Montreal are moving because it's now too expensive to actually live in the Plateau. There are oaks and verdant lawns and streets of iconic Montreal townhouses with steep staircases leading up to the second floors. Lots of weird little places to eat that are likely fabulous.
The squirrels are fat and happy and the stray cats sit on fence posts, begging for pets at eye-level.
Friday, June 28, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Happy Little Stories
It has been horribly hot and humid in Montreal these last few days. I just walk outside, and the water condenses on me. It's almost like the weather got some sort of memo that it's officially summer now and decided to ditch the unimpressive 50s and head straight for 90.
I was laboring through the tunnel under the expressway after leaving the metro station on the last leg of my commute this evening when a blue Honda hatchback passed me on the exit ramp... And suddenly exploded. Smoke poured out from under the hood and it rolled to a clattering stop - something was seriously wrong with it, that much was obvious.
A 20-something girl rushed out of it and I ran over to help her over the barrier and onto the sidewalk. She jabbered in the French version of a southern accent - my favorite, so colorful and lilting and graceful/awkward. I love it so much more than the cold, perfect crispness of my French prof's Parisian version. She was from off-island and had an exam for her online class in 30 minutes and absolutely had to get to it!
I asked her if she had a phone, she answered that she didn't. I extracted it from my purse and told her to call her most reliable friend, since it only had 4% power remaining. She took it gravely and dialed up "Vincent" from memory, which impressed me deeply, since almost nobody bothers remembering people's phone numbers any more.
She told him that her car had exploded and that she was abandoning it in the middle of the one-lane tunnel on, "Wait, madame ['mademoiselle' is almost never used by anybody under 50 to refer to any female, young or old], which street is this?" I told her. And then that she would grab a taxi. She blithely left the car there and told me she knew exactly why I was walking, ouashhhh. I told her where to find a taxi and wished her good luck on her exam. She squeezed my shoulder and I was pretty satisfied.
I was laboring through the tunnel under the expressway after leaving the metro station on the last leg of my commute this evening when a blue Honda hatchback passed me on the exit ramp... And suddenly exploded. Smoke poured out from under the hood and it rolled to a clattering stop - something was seriously wrong with it, that much was obvious.
A 20-something girl rushed out of it and I ran over to help her over the barrier and onto the sidewalk. She jabbered in the French version of a southern accent - my favorite, so colorful and lilting and graceful/awkward. I love it so much more than the cold, perfect crispness of my French prof's Parisian version. She was from off-island and had an exam for her online class in 30 minutes and absolutely had to get to it!
I asked her if she had a phone, she answered that she didn't. I extracted it from my purse and told her to call her most reliable friend, since it only had 4% power remaining. She took it gravely and dialed up "Vincent" from memory, which impressed me deeply, since almost nobody bothers remembering people's phone numbers any more.
She told him that her car had exploded and that she was abandoning it in the middle of the one-lane tunnel on, "Wait, madame ['mademoiselle' is almost never used by anybody under 50 to refer to any female, young or old], which street is this?" I told her. And then that she would grab a taxi. She blithely left the car there and told me she knew exactly why I was walking, ouashhhh. I told her where to find a taxi and wished her good luck on her exam. She squeezed my shoulder and I was pretty satisfied.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Heeeehehehehe
Half a bottle of champagne later, a coupla chairs are finished being... Finished, and a stool was painted and 18 boxes of books were filled with... Books? And ---
Caspian is watching Ip Man and I'm kind of tired of kung fu and want bedtime. Nitey.
Caspian is watching Ip Man and I'm kind of tired of kung fu and want bedtime. Nitey.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Bon matin, luh!
After we move, I am going to miss the old guy that hands me the newspaper on the way into Georges-Vanier metro station.
He comes from Lac St-Jean and says, on sunny days:
"Bonjour, luh [là]! Il fait beau, luh? Merci beaucoup, bonne journée, luh! Bon matin, luh!"
On rainy days, he skips the second sentence.
I'm going to miss the snarky graffiti in the tunnel I walk through every morning. People write things like, "Hell is empty. All the devils are here." And "KNOW who you ARE," "Toke is LIFE," "The beginning is near..." Whenever the anti-graffiti troupe comes through every summer, the same people write the same things in the same gray-painted squares, adding little comments like "FUCK COPS" and "ILLÉGAL!"
He comes from Lac St-Jean and says, on sunny days:
"Bonjour, luh [là]! Il fait beau, luh? Merci beaucoup, bonne journée, luh! Bon matin, luh!"
On rainy days, he skips the second sentence.
I'm going to miss the snarky graffiti in the tunnel I walk through every morning. People write things like, "Hell is empty. All the devils are here." And "KNOW who you ARE," "Toke is LIFE," "The beginning is near..." Whenever the anti-graffiti troupe comes through every summer, the same people write the same things in the same gray-painted squares, adding little comments like "FUCK COPS" and "ILLÉGAL!"
Friday, June 14, 2013
Moving Time Again
We're moving in three weeks, to a beautiful, BEAUTIFUL new place.
Unfortunately, to secure this beautiful new place, we have to pay for both apartments at once for two months, unless we can find somebody with good cred to take our current lease, which ends in September.
No big deal, sacrifices must be made in the name of finding a marvelous and modern 4 1/2 in an upscale, secure building full of privately-owned condos, right next to a metro station in a tree-filled, quiet area of town. It's necessary for one to jump on that. We managed to negotiate the price down twice, to an unbelievably low amount, given that it is brand new with gorgeous birch floors and granite counter tops - and twice the square footage of our current place. If we really love it there, I might even decide to consider buying it from the owner.
I spent last week + weekend refinishing furniture and thinking logistics - and I'm actually feeling relaxed and happy about this move. We ordered used boxes for packing and hired a moving company to do all of the transport and lifting for us.
But this week, I've been writing. I wrote 5,000 words in two weekdays. That is some pretty concentrated writing for having no time due to work, painting, dancing, ceramics, French class and reading books about K2 and Mt. Everest.
Among my favorite passages in all that writing:
Unfortunately, to secure this beautiful new place, we have to pay for both apartments at once for two months, unless we can find somebody with good cred to take our current lease, which ends in September.
No big deal, sacrifices must be made in the name of finding a marvelous and modern 4 1/2 in an upscale, secure building full of privately-owned condos, right next to a metro station in a tree-filled, quiet area of town. It's necessary for one to jump on that. We managed to negotiate the price down twice, to an unbelievably low amount, given that it is brand new with gorgeous birch floors and granite counter tops - and twice the square footage of our current place. If we really love it there, I might even decide to consider buying it from the owner.
I spent last week + weekend refinishing furniture and thinking logistics - and I'm actually feeling relaxed and happy about this move. We ordered used boxes for packing and hired a moving company to do all of the transport and lifting for us.
But this week, I've been writing. I wrote 5,000 words in two weekdays. That is some pretty concentrated writing for having no time due to work, painting, dancing, ceramics, French class and reading books about K2 and Mt. Everest.
Among my favorite passages in all that writing:
If I couldn't telemark enrobed in the blackness of deep space, maybe I could feather step embraced by the gentleness of a summer evening sky.If I could just get this book finished by our Gaspésie trip...
Saturday, June 1, 2013
I'm Kinda Surprised
That 4.5 hours of sleep seemed to be enough for a productive day at work, and I have suffered no ill effects (other than persistent tinnitus) from the SUPER AWESOME AMAZING INCREDIBLE HIGH CONTRAST SHOW THAT I WENT TO ON THURSDAY NIGHT! AGLAGLAGLAGL!
I was so impressed. He was humble and amused and interacted so genuinely with his audience. He is one of those rare and truly skilled DJs who work with series of mixing panels, turntables and macbooks to somehow formulate completely new and dynamic music in real time, and every. Single. Mix. Blew my mind. I don't even know what they do when they're up on the deck surrounded by control panels, pressing buttons and flipping switches, but it must be close to magic.
If it had been a Friday night, I would have stayed past 3 for sure. He has had such a huge influence on me since 2005, I'd like to just give him a big ol' hug.
Monday evening at arount 7 pm pire, I walked across the stage at McGill and received my diploma.
Afterward, Caspian and I went to the candy store and loaded up on malted milk balls, licorice jawbreakers and smooth & melties. We have yet to open the champagne - perhaps tonight?
 |
| High Contrast, AKA Link Barrett, 6/30/2013 |
I was so impressed. He was humble and amused and interacted so genuinely with his audience. He is one of those rare and truly skilled DJs who work with series of mixing panels, turntables and macbooks to somehow formulate completely new and dynamic music in real time, and every. Single. Mix. Blew my mind. I don't even know what they do when they're up on the deck surrounded by control panels, pressing buttons and flipping switches, but it must be close to magic.
If it had been a Friday night, I would have stayed past 3 for sure. He has had such a huge influence on me since 2005, I'd like to just give him a big ol' hug.
Monday evening at arount 7 pm pire, I walked across the stage at McGill and received my diploma.
Afterward, Caspian and I went to the candy store and loaded up on malted milk balls, licorice jawbreakers and smooth & melties. We have yet to open the champagne - perhaps tonight?
Friday, May 24, 2013
Warning: Anger, Depth and Anguish Ahead
I have a special fascination with mountaineering books and stories of life and death from the rooftops of the world - the eight thousanders. Those mountains that rise into the Death Zone, into, literally, the stratosphere. I have read the books, examined the notes of the great climbers of the world, seen the pictures. And I don't understand. I just cannot fathom, using my heart, my brain or my soul - why people climb them and die upon them, year after year.
The majesty of the mountains is compelling. Being a hopeless romantic, I am positively wooed by their bleak lack of malice. To see a picture of Annapurna I or Kanchenjunga looming gloriously before a sunrise, capped with their own lenticular clouds, sends a shiver down my spine. The texture of the corniced rock and drifted snow is fascinating to me.
When I sit back and think about the quantity (if there could be such a quantifier) of human striving that has been directed toward Mount Everest and the other eight thousanders, I am staggered. I reflect on our smallness, the smallness of our works, the shortness of our sight, the quickly fading sparks of our souls in the darkness, and I think of a line of ants summitting a picnic table. To be the first to do this, to be the first to do that, ah, it just screams to me of such a great depth of pointlessness that I get depressed trying to fathom how to describe it.
And now we have people straggling in queues to achieve the summit of Everest, commercial climbers who seek returns on their significant investments, causing such bottlenecks that people are stranded and die in the Death Zone from waiting to descend. How can the Goddess not be offended by us in our fluorescent pink designer jackets as we flick off the cameras at base camp? How can She not roll her eyes just a little bit as we make our little plans, design our little schedules, buy our little crampons and float around in our little planes in order to creep, suffering, along the high altitude ridges, bringing our oxygen with us and wearing high-tech materials to ward off the subzero temperatures?
Bodies litter the flanks of the giants in eternal cold. The commercial climbers disperse at the end of the summer, and the ones claimed by the mountain stare glassy-eyed for decades as the stars wheel overhead, the snow falls and is blown away and falls again. There is such a deep and morbid beauty in this image. I love all of you who have failed, who have striven and fallen. I love all of you who represent landmarks for the ones seeking the top of a little boulder in a little corner of a little planet. I want to guard your hopes and dreams and take them with me.
Why do I despise those who "succeed"? Because they are the ones remembered and cherished and celebrated?
What are great works? To overcome obstacles? To inspire, without intent or knowledge of it, somebody else's overcoming of an obstacle? To invent obstacles and then overcome them? To connect with others who are just as flawed as we are? Who is the prime judge of our great works?
We are. And I so don't give a damn about we some days. We are such weak and foolish things and, when I add up the good we've done and weigh it against the bad, there's a serious deficit there. Can we even say that we are brilliant when a quarter of us spend all of our fucking time trying to undo the harm that another quarter of us has done, while the other half of us sit by in ignorance of it all? When people have destroyed others' "great works" - records of their thoughts, genius, art and beauty - in the name of power, of ethnic cleansing, of religion? We are losing. Not only do we destroy ourselves, but we destroy everything else we touch. The Goddess is in pain.
Everest is just a microcosm of human existence. The most extreme forms of darwinism and purest altruism occur upon this faceless, eyeless, indifferent piece of rock. The little schedules that I write in my notebook every morning are as significant as the notes of the climber as she decides which route to take. My eyes slide by as the homeless sleep in their corners, as her eyes slide around the corpses of the fallen in her path.
Why not throw ourselves at a hunk of rock and crow when we mount it, our shadows crossing the minute forms of the husks of the unfortunate, who will remain on its slopes until the end of time.
"Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion."The late Anatoli Boukreev's words help to illuminate some of the mystery, but I'm still left scratching my head a bit. He was killed by his cathedral.
 |
| K2, as impersonal as its name |
The majesty of the mountains is compelling. Being a hopeless romantic, I am positively wooed by their bleak lack of malice. To see a picture of Annapurna I or Kanchenjunga looming gloriously before a sunrise, capped with their own lenticular clouds, sends a shiver down my spine. The texture of the corniced rock and drifted snow is fascinating to me.
When I sit back and think about the quantity (if there could be such a quantifier) of human striving that has been directed toward Mount Everest and the other eight thousanders, I am staggered. I reflect on our smallness, the smallness of our works, the shortness of our sight, the quickly fading sparks of our souls in the darkness, and I think of a line of ants summitting a picnic table. To be the first to do this, to be the first to do that, ah, it just screams to me of such a great depth of pointlessness that I get depressed trying to fathom how to describe it.
And now we have people straggling in queues to achieve the summit of Everest, commercial climbers who seek returns on their significant investments, causing such bottlenecks that people are stranded and die in the Death Zone from waiting to descend. How can the Goddess not be offended by us in our fluorescent pink designer jackets as we flick off the cameras at base camp? How can She not roll her eyes just a little bit as we make our little plans, design our little schedules, buy our little crampons and float around in our little planes in order to creep, suffering, along the high altitude ridges, bringing our oxygen with us and wearing high-tech materials to ward off the subzero temperatures?
Bodies litter the flanks of the giants in eternal cold. The commercial climbers disperse at the end of the summer, and the ones claimed by the mountain stare glassy-eyed for decades as the stars wheel overhead, the snow falls and is blown away and falls again. There is such a deep and morbid beauty in this image. I love all of you who have failed, who have striven and fallen. I love all of you who represent landmarks for the ones seeking the top of a little boulder in a little corner of a little planet. I want to guard your hopes and dreams and take them with me.
Why do I despise those who "succeed"? Because they are the ones remembered and cherished and celebrated?
What are great works? To overcome obstacles? To inspire, without intent or knowledge of it, somebody else's overcoming of an obstacle? To invent obstacles and then overcome them? To connect with others who are just as flawed as we are? Who is the prime judge of our great works?
We are. And I so don't give a damn about we some days. We are such weak and foolish things and, when I add up the good we've done and weigh it against the bad, there's a serious deficit there. Can we even say that we are brilliant when a quarter of us spend all of our fucking time trying to undo the harm that another quarter of us has done, while the other half of us sit by in ignorance of it all? When people have destroyed others' "great works" - records of their thoughts, genius, art and beauty - in the name of power, of ethnic cleansing, of religion? We are losing. Not only do we destroy ourselves, but we destroy everything else we touch. The Goddess is in pain.
Everest is just a microcosm of human existence. The most extreme forms of darwinism and purest altruism occur upon this faceless, eyeless, indifferent piece of rock. The little schedules that I write in my notebook every morning are as significant as the notes of the climber as she decides which route to take. My eyes slide by as the homeless sleep in their corners, as her eyes slide around the corpses of the fallen in her path.
Why not throw ourselves at a hunk of rock and crow when we mount it, our shadows crossing the minute forms of the husks of the unfortunate, who will remain on its slopes until the end of time.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Woohoo!
Did I ever mention that me, Caspian, Natty and Pepper have rented a beautiful chalet in magnificent Gaspésie for a full seven days later this summer?
We are going to hike, whale watch, play poker, explore, go boating, avoid other humans and cook gourmet meals until heartily sick of these things. Yay!
Sat down this morning and listened to Daft Punk for the first time. I can honestly say now that the only thing smoking hot about them is the helmets. I cleared my Grooveshark queue out of boredom after an hour or so; the music was lacking in inspiration, musicality and diversity. Pah. Serious limp dishrag stuff with no passion, or maybe I just drew a bad sample?
 |
| Rocher Percé |
We are going to hike, whale watch, play poker, explore, go boating, avoid other humans and cook gourmet meals until heartily sick of these things. Yay!
Sat down this morning and listened to Daft Punk for the first time. I can honestly say now that the only thing smoking hot about them is the helmets. I cleared my Grooveshark queue out of boredom after an hour or so; the music was lacking in inspiration, musicality and diversity. Pah. Serious limp dishrag stuff with no passion, or maybe I just drew a bad sample?
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Goodnight, Goodnight
Sometimes certain songs are like little funerals for parts of me that have died as life changes, people grow old.
And I cry and heal and cry.
Every time I hear them, it's like walking into the old house that my grandparents bought when they were newlyweds for $100 cash. There's a smell there, not a perfume, nothing bad, but it is a beloved scent that wends its way so deeply through memories - joys of childhood, sorrows of death and dust, even grief for the losses yet to come - that just to smell something that even remotely reminds me of it brings emotions strong enough to send me reeling.
It's something to hate/love. I want so desperately to listen, but it always hurts.
At Griffintown Arts School where I take my ceramics classes, there are little warrens and rooms that possess an ambiance... The oil painters have left their turpentiney mark in the air, the century-old stairs creak in a particular way, the balance of light and shadow so exquisitely perfect...
I remember sitting and watching the ducks land on the river and having only one simple thought in my simple mind: I wanted to be a duck, landing on the river of a summer evening.
And I cry and heal and cry.
Every time I hear them, it's like walking into the old house that my grandparents bought when they were newlyweds for $100 cash. There's a smell there, not a perfume, nothing bad, but it is a beloved scent that wends its way so deeply through memories - joys of childhood, sorrows of death and dust, even grief for the losses yet to come - that just to smell something that even remotely reminds me of it brings emotions strong enough to send me reeling.
It's something to hate/love. I want so desperately to listen, but it always hurts.
At Griffintown Arts School where I take my ceramics classes, there are little warrens and rooms that possess an ambiance... The oil painters have left their turpentiney mark in the air, the century-old stairs creak in a particular way, the balance of light and shadow so exquisitely perfect...
I remember sitting and watching the ducks land on the river and having only one simple thought in my simple mind: I wanted to be a duck, landing on the river of a summer evening.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Even as I doubt myself...
I discover again that I am understood and loved.
I won't post a picture of my bounty on social media sites, since no camera can capture it, no eyes can read between the pixels to understand it.
I will sit in tranquility and privacy to meditate upon this fact, and find a way to transform it into a gift for all, even as my secret is kept.
Thank you, RH.
I won't post a picture of my bounty on social media sites, since no camera can capture it, no eyes can read between the pixels to understand it.
I will sit in tranquility and privacy to meditate upon this fact, and find a way to transform it into a gift for all, even as my secret is kept.
Thank you, RH.
Read them.
I just finished the Lighthouse Duet by Carol Berg. Do not be fooled by the pensive, pale, kitschy youth gracing the covers (although guy #2 is pretty smokin')... These books are incredible.
They make me wonder if my life so far has been some sort of dream and that I just need to learn how to wake up and be who I truly am.
I cried when I reached the end. There just needs to be more of this in the universe.
They make me wonder if my life so far has been some sort of dream and that I just need to learn how to wake up and be who I truly am.
I cried when I reached the end. There just needs to be more of this in the universe.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Stuff I Have Learned at Work
My first foray into the private sector has taught me many things:
P.P.S. - Never said I paid $800.
- Unpolished + immediate is never acceptable over submittable + later. Polished + immediate is best. Good luck.
- Drafts are no good and have no point.
- Never assume that people don't trust you enough to always review your work before submitting it to important stakeholders. Read: Always assume that people trust you overly much (no matter that you've been with the company for 3 months) and never review your work before they shoot it off to terrifyingly powerful people. REVISE YO SHIT. Thrice.
- Never say "but... the chain of command!" when somebody asks you to pull high-level executives out of meetings to somehow force them to finish their pieces of your little-in-your-mind, unrelated, yet extremely important project.
- There is no chain of command.
- Salary doesn't directly correlate with more power or less power.
- Never assume that people who make 10x your salary do better work faster than you.
- When people tell you "you can't have this because you are not authorized," do not go to your boss and say "I am not authorized." Get authorized or lie.
- Your concerns are not stupid. Voice them.
P.P.S. - Never said I paid $800.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Fire and Ice
I wore one of the most fabulous dresses I have ever owned to a party at Felix's house last night. It's floor length with a black background covered with art nouveau splashes of bright greens, magentas and purple flowers. It's skin tight and floor-length with a false sash around the hips created by artful ruching and almost kimono-style with a waist-deep plunging neckline. I had to hem it up 10 cm, but it's perfect now with flat sandals.
It was kind of a strange gathering. Caspian and I took the train out of Montreal, and it was a lovely ride despite the fact that it is very early spring in eastern Canada, and there is no green apart from lawns, tulip leaves and crocuses. Traveling straight west is just so beautiful - cute neighborhoods, wild places that are deceptively close to the city, and the river channels to the north have such violent and deep currents that they create deep crashing dimples and waterfalls sucking at the foundations of the bridges. The St. Lawrence is no lazy river around here. Whenever I see it, whether it's at the quays or traveling off the island, I'm shocked by how cold and deep and powerful it is. It is so wide in places that the opposite bank is just a line on the horizon, and always roiling with treacherous undertows.
The only people I knew at this gathering were Felix and his long-time man. I met his millions of sisters for the first time (he preceded introductions by taking me aside and giving me an adjective like: "This is M, my angry sister. That's N, my cool sister. This is M, my tomboy sister."). Also present... Were Felix's long-time previous dance partners. It was hilariously like meeting a bunch of your boyfriend's ex-girlfriends, and yet completely not like that at all. They are both over the top, simple people who love to show off. How different I am. I watched them dance quite a bit (neither of them are standard dancers) and wonder what Felix thinks of my intense seriousness compared to S and G's flashy, impassioned imprecision. We are like fire and ice, and I'm the ice.
I was hungover this morning.
In other news, Caspian and I finally glimpsed the Gentleman Jackhammer (as Caspian calls this particular person) today as we were gardening. GJ is the until recently anonymous fellow who dates our upstairs neighbor, a neurological researcher.
GJ is so nicknamed because M (the neighbor's) bedroom is just above our living room, and when, at unusual hours they, ahem, "have relations," as my elderly OBGYN would say, it sounds like an unimaginative clogging performance. Poor M.
It was kind of a strange gathering. Caspian and I took the train out of Montreal, and it was a lovely ride despite the fact that it is very early spring in eastern Canada, and there is no green apart from lawns, tulip leaves and crocuses. Traveling straight west is just so beautiful - cute neighborhoods, wild places that are deceptively close to the city, and the river channels to the north have such violent and deep currents that they create deep crashing dimples and waterfalls sucking at the foundations of the bridges. The St. Lawrence is no lazy river around here. Whenever I see it, whether it's at the quays or traveling off the island, I'm shocked by how cold and deep and powerful it is. It is so wide in places that the opposite bank is just a line on the horizon, and always roiling with treacherous undertows.
The only people I knew at this gathering were Felix and his long-time man. I met his millions of sisters for the first time (he preceded introductions by taking me aside and giving me an adjective like: "This is M, my angry sister. That's N, my cool sister. This is M, my tomboy sister."). Also present... Were Felix's long-time previous dance partners. It was hilariously like meeting a bunch of your boyfriend's ex-girlfriends, and yet completely not like that at all. They are both over the top, simple people who love to show off. How different I am. I watched them dance quite a bit (neither of them are standard dancers) and wonder what Felix thinks of my intense seriousness compared to S and G's flashy, impassioned imprecision. We are like fire and ice, and I'm the ice.
I was hungover this morning.
In other news, Caspian and I finally glimpsed the Gentleman Jackhammer (as Caspian calls this particular person) today as we were gardening. GJ is the until recently anonymous fellow who dates our upstairs neighbor, a neurological researcher.
GJ is so nicknamed because M (the neighbor's) bedroom is just above our living room, and when, at unusual hours they, ahem, "have relations," as my elderly OBGYN would say, it sounds like an unimaginative clogging performance. Poor M.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
GREEN!
Oh. My. God. I saw a mosquito. I SAW A BUG! A real live bug. Does that mean that spring has finally arrived in Montreal?
What is this, this lovely shade of wonder that blends so delicately with the greys and the warm beiges and the deepest ground-espresso shades of new-turned earth that tumbles so deliciously about the little feets of the squirrels, who sit on their fuzzy haunches, eating... Eating... EH! STOP EATING MY BULBS, LITTLE STINKER!
So! What's up with me? Tons.
First and foremost, I received a notice to buy my cap and gown for commencement in May, and for the first time in all of my years of higher education, I am ready to totally eat up some pomp and circumstance with a huge grin plastered across my face, because it is expensive. I'm going all the way. There will be caps and gowns and champagne and kisses of congratu-fuckin-lations!
Second and not quite foremost, I have finished my 2nd week of individual ceramics classes in Griffintown. The very walk into Griffintown merits a book chapter, much less the Griffintown Arts Studio itself, owned by the mysterious and legendary Mr. Diamond. I have already made, trimmed and slipped two gorgeous pieces and can't wait to see them glazed.
Thirdly, without talking to me and without my knowledge, my dance partner realized that something was up between us and took it upon himself to go to private lessons and kick some ass. I think in the last three weeks we have jumped up a level and a half as the result of those lessons, plus me turning into a hardass during practice.
Fourth, we have decided to move to a bigger place.
What is this, this lovely shade of wonder that blends so delicately with the greys and the warm beiges and the deepest ground-espresso shades of new-turned earth that tumbles so deliciously about the little feets of the squirrels, who sit on their fuzzy haunches, eating... Eating... EH! STOP EATING MY BULBS, LITTLE STINKER!
So! What's up with me? Tons.
First and foremost, I received a notice to buy my cap and gown for commencement in May, and for the first time in all of my years of higher education, I am ready to totally eat up some pomp and circumstance with a huge grin plastered across my face, because it is expensive. I'm going all the way. There will be caps and gowns and champagne and kisses of congratu-fuckin-lations!
Second and not quite foremost, I have finished my 2nd week of individual ceramics classes in Griffintown. The very walk into Griffintown merits a book chapter, much less the Griffintown Arts Studio itself, owned by the mysterious and legendary Mr. Diamond. I have already made, trimmed and slipped two gorgeous pieces and can't wait to see them glazed.
Thirdly, without talking to me and without my knowledge, my dance partner realized that something was up between us and took it upon himself to go to private lessons and kick some ass. I think in the last three weeks we have jumped up a level and a half as the result of those lessons, plus me turning into a hardass during practice.
Fourth, we have decided to move to a bigger place.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Be Free Where You Are
I am sitting at my desk with a glass of wine, having just finished washing the dishes and eating a handful of Cadbury mini-eggs, reflecting upon my life. Bonobo's new album The North Borders is cranked up in my studio headphones. Track: Transits.
Tomorrow, I am going with Caspian and a group of friends to a restaurant that is kept in complete and total darkness, where the waiters are all truly blind.
I feel a very deep and pleasant soreness in all muscles, especially in my back, shoulders and hips - the result of another excellent class at Ashtanga Montreal last night. I've been going twice a week, for almost 2 hours each session.
I am this close to breaking it off with my dance partner. I feel so constrained. He is just not serious enough, he cancels all of our practices and he doesn't seem to be able to remember routines unless they are danced to the same song, in the same corner of the same room. I have had it with standing off to the side during our lessons while he works with our coaches, and then writing a significant check. And I don't know what to do or how to approach it; it's like breaking up. And the next one is probably going to be skilled but a total self-absorbed asshole with nice clothes and no depth like so many people I've met in this milieu.
Tomorrow, I am going with Caspian and a group of friends to a restaurant that is kept in complete and total darkness, where the waiters are all truly blind.
I feel a very deep and pleasant soreness in all muscles, especially in my back, shoulders and hips - the result of another excellent class at Ashtanga Montreal last night. I've been going twice a week, for almost 2 hours each session.
I am this close to breaking it off with my dance partner. I feel so constrained. He is just not serious enough, he cancels all of our practices and he doesn't seem to be able to remember routines unless they are danced to the same song, in the same corner of the same room. I have had it with standing off to the side during our lessons while he works with our coaches, and then writing a significant check. And I don't know what to do or how to approach it; it's like breaking up. And the next one is probably going to be skilled but a total self-absorbed asshole with nice clothes and no depth like so many people I've met in this milieu.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Why...
Am I so touched by this? It was so unexpected the first time I watched it that tears came to my eyes.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Thoughts on the Second Day of Spring
It's been almost a month, yet it seems like only a week has passed since my birthday.
With French (and related activities, such as going to Randolph Pub Ludique with my professors and their friends), Myth & Magic (my first ever roll-playing experience, with three other friends and Caspian), dance lessons, dance practice and various outings... I just haven't had much interest in the internet this past month.
In Myth & Magic, I'm playing a druid named Maraj who resembles a young man from the San people of southern Africa. Maraj is devoted to a god who takes the shape of a giant antelope, a deity who also created the desert, its cycles and its inhabitants. Maraj came from a clan of snake-riders, but the snakes were afflicted with Madness and turned on their masters... Killing his entire people, except for him.
Driven nearly mad himself with grief and anger at the antelope god for allowing his devoted disciples to suffer such a fate from one of its own creatures, he wandered in the desert, not actively looking for death, but not bothering to avoid it. His powers fled him (since he had turned away from the druidic path) and he almost died of thirst before he found an oasis at the edge of civilization... And had a vision with the first silvery sip of water he tasted. He went east... To meet his god.
And there you have it. ;)
Meanwhile, for a birthday present to myself, I bought a beautiful (expensive) little book of photography from Japan called Misao and Fukumaru (the link will take you to a Google image search). It arrived yesterday, and it has changed my life (it is now a permanent resident of the office I share with our lawyer).
Miyoko, the photographer granddaughter of an old woman who lives by herself in rural Japan, chronicled the daily lives of her grandmother Misao and her grandmother's white cat, Fukumaru. The pictures she took of them describe a difficult life (especially for a 90-year-old woman!) full of beauty and humor and meaningful work.
It reminds me that we need to work hard. We need to feel sadness and boredom in addition to delight and fascination. We need to work with others. People who lament their lives and find nothing there but greyness and emptiness and meaningless work are focused on the foreground while ignoring the rest of the whole, lovely, vivid image. Life is difficult and mundane and breathless and sparkling, all of those things. There are things to learn from the ways our hands move so smoothly as we take notes during our meetings. Visions to see in the lines of the face of the old man examining the oranges in the produce section.
Mourn not. Appreciate the relationships you are blessed with and don't worry about them ending.
With French (and related activities, such as going to Randolph Pub Ludique with my professors and their friends), Myth & Magic (my first ever roll-playing experience, with three other friends and Caspian), dance lessons, dance practice and various outings... I just haven't had much interest in the internet this past month.
In Myth & Magic, I'm playing a druid named Maraj who resembles a young man from the San people of southern Africa. Maraj is devoted to a god who takes the shape of a giant antelope, a deity who also created the desert, its cycles and its inhabitants. Maraj came from a clan of snake-riders, but the snakes were afflicted with Madness and turned on their masters... Killing his entire people, except for him.
Driven nearly mad himself with grief and anger at the antelope god for allowing his devoted disciples to suffer such a fate from one of its own creatures, he wandered in the desert, not actively looking for death, but not bothering to avoid it. His powers fled him (since he had turned away from the druidic path) and he almost died of thirst before he found an oasis at the edge of civilization... And had a vision with the first silvery sip of water he tasted. He went east... To meet his god.
And there you have it. ;)
Meanwhile, for a birthday present to myself, I bought a beautiful (expensive) little book of photography from Japan called Misao and Fukumaru (the link will take you to a Google image search). It arrived yesterday, and it has changed my life (it is now a permanent resident of the office I share with our lawyer).
Miyoko, the photographer granddaughter of an old woman who lives by herself in rural Japan, chronicled the daily lives of her grandmother Misao and her grandmother's white cat, Fukumaru. The pictures she took of them describe a difficult life (especially for a 90-year-old woman!) full of beauty and humor and meaningful work.
It reminds me that we need to work hard. We need to feel sadness and boredom in addition to delight and fascination. We need to work with others. People who lament their lives and find nothing there but greyness and emptiness and meaningless work are focused on the foreground while ignoring the rest of the whole, lovely, vivid image. Life is difficult and mundane and breathless and sparkling, all of those things. There are things to learn from the ways our hands move so smoothly as we take notes during our meetings. Visions to see in the lines of the face of the old man examining the oranges in the produce section.
Mourn not. Appreciate the relationships you are blessed with and don't worry about them ending.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Amazing!!!
I had a rockin' kick-ass day here on this Birthday Eve because of a rush project. Rush = 2 hours until delivery after very first briefing. I produced a complex, precise, professional series of process diagrams using software I only began exploring yesterday morning along with a document that is strategically significant... And for the first time in my life, I watched something that I designed and created come to life and get delivered in its original, me-designed state in the span of a few hours.
In the past, I had to somehow pull together poorly-organized bits of information into something moderately coherent that would likely get completely transmogrified into obtuseness by my bosses and their bosses, or eventually scrapped in its final stages by bureaucratic fat cats anyway, affecting nothing at all after a 6-month fizzling lifespan.
Thank god for pressure.
In the past, I had to somehow pull together poorly-organized bits of information into something moderately coherent that would likely get completely transmogrified into obtuseness by my bosses and their bosses, or eventually scrapped in its final stages by bureaucratic fat cats anyway, affecting nothing at all after a 6-month fizzling lifespan.
Thank god for pressure.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Winter Whites
My eyes are hungry for the color green. I have spent the last several minutes googling "rainforest" and gazing with deep longing at the lush colors and imagining rays of new-formed sunlight penetrating the warm, hazy air at that special angle that shouts "it's morning!" I wish I could plunge my head through my computer screen as if it were a pensieve and inhale that loamy, living, nourishing air.
And it's not even the winter blues either, although the winter sky is blue enough - I am entranced by high-res images of Crete and the coasts of Brazil, the Seychelles, the beaches of the Pacific Northwest.
Here's my world.
What I'd like to be gazing at.
And it's not even the winter blues either, although the winter sky is blue enough - I am entranced by high-res images of Crete and the coasts of Brazil, the Seychelles, the beaches of the Pacific Northwest.
Here's my world.
 |
| @ Guy and René Lévesque, taken by me at sundown today. |
 |
| @ paradise. |
Monday, February 18, 2013
Sick Day Nonsense!
Had to call in. After showering and trying to eat breakfast between coughs, groans and sneezes, I finally realized that I was too ill for office work. The mere thought of walking to the metro sent my virus-riddled brain on a tailspin, much less the notion of riding it. It would be inconsiderate to force this on my colleagues.
I sent my boss an e-mail, knocked back some Nyquil and slept for 4 hours without waking up - all this after a night of 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep. What is up with me? I thought I'd spend some time here, as I muzzily drink my first cup of Pacifico light roast of the day (withdrawal headache still clamoring for attention in the occipital lobe), describing to you (my loyal readers) my most recent obsession: Pilot Frixion .4mm.
All my life, I have put up with a perpetual preoccupation with pens that is placed purely on perspicacity and not at all on price. I have discovered some killer dollar store writing implements and likewise rejected high-quality German models. My journal's companion is a leather and silver encased little gem of a fountain pen with a superfine iridium nib, enameled in brown with silver plum blossoms.
On a whim, I recently bid upon and won a single Pilot Frixion .4mm on eBay... And I'm just flabbergasted at its awesomeness. I refuse to even pick up a pen (unless I have no other recourse) with a rollerball, nib or tip wider than .5mm, and this, this pen has the most satisfying needle point so fine that it's almost invisible against your writing surface. The words one writes seem to float up out of oblivion and imprint themselves magically upon the lucky paper.
Now for the "friction" part of things. Prepare to be amazed. This is an erasable pen, and the mechanism is, you guessed it, friction. The pen has a little rubber nubbin at the opposite end that can be used to send words, godlike, back into the oblivion from whence they came... And it's nothing like those hated, traditional erasable pens, which skip and spit globs of ink, whose erasers quickly wear down and whose words remain etched after erasing, ghostlike and disturbing, upon the page. With the Pilot Frixion, what was done is undone, utterly. And the ink is gel! The nubbin never gets used up, because it's not subsuming the ink, the ink is undergoing a chemical alteration that has nothing to do with the substance of the nubbin! Feel free to quote these medicated words.
If you have no qualms about making trans-Pacific purchases (and waiting 2-3 weeks for your goods to arrive), I definitely recommend these pens.
I sent my boss an e-mail, knocked back some Nyquil and slept for 4 hours without waking up - all this after a night of 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep. What is up with me? I thought I'd spend some time here, as I muzzily drink my first cup of Pacifico light roast of the day (withdrawal headache still clamoring for attention in the occipital lobe), describing to you (my loyal readers) my most recent obsession: Pilot Frixion .4mm.
All my life, I have put up with a perpetual preoccupation with pens that is placed purely on perspicacity and not at all on price. I have discovered some killer dollar store writing implements and likewise rejected high-quality German models. My journal's companion is a leather and silver encased little gem of a fountain pen with a superfine iridium nib, enameled in brown with silver plum blossoms.
On a whim, I recently bid upon and won a single Pilot Frixion .4mm on eBay... And I'm just flabbergasted at its awesomeness. I refuse to even pick up a pen (unless I have no other recourse) with a rollerball, nib or tip wider than .5mm, and this, this pen has the most satisfying needle point so fine that it's almost invisible against your writing surface. The words one writes seem to float up out of oblivion and imprint themselves magically upon the lucky paper.
Now for the "friction" part of things. Prepare to be amazed. This is an erasable pen, and the mechanism is, you guessed it, friction. The pen has a little rubber nubbin at the opposite end that can be used to send words, godlike, back into the oblivion from whence they came... And it's nothing like those hated, traditional erasable pens, which skip and spit globs of ink, whose erasers quickly wear down and whose words remain etched after erasing, ghostlike and disturbing, upon the page. With the Pilot Frixion, what was done is undone, utterly. And the ink is gel! The nubbin never gets used up, because it's not subsuming the ink, the ink is undergoing a chemical alteration that has nothing to do with the substance of the nubbin! Feel free to quote these medicated words.
If you have no qualms about making trans-Pacific purchases (and waiting 2-3 weeks for your goods to arrive), I definitely recommend these pens.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Sick Again
I'm currently in the middle of my weekend cleaning regime, which includes:
Caspian is off at ashtanga yoga with friends T and D and I wish wish wish that I was there with them building my muscle tone back up... But I have a cold. A new cold. I enjoyed 2.5 weeks of health between this and the last cold (which may have been the flu, since it was 3x worse than the one I have now). I'm hoping it won't be like college, when Natty and I would suffer from the same cold for months due to stress, living off of cereal and milk, not sleeping, etc. My ears are ringing, I wake myself up in the middle of the night to sneeze ten times, my eyes are watering, my head is stuffed with wool, no appetite, etc. The usual cold stuff. I weighed myself this morning for the first time in weeks and the scale said 104. I was so alarmed that I reset it four times and re-weighed, with no change. I'd say bring on the chocolate, if I could actually taste it. UGH.
Now that I'm working full-time in the office again, the kitties have become at least three times sweeter and stuff is three times more cluttered/dusty by the weekend than before.
Anyway. I'm drowning in camomile tea and can barely think. Weird how sinuses full of gunk = a brain full of nothing.
Friday afternoon, I took a walk in the Jewish cemetery. It was quite lonely, with one mourner standing in black beside her loved one's grave, reading from a book. The wind was also a constant 100 kph, and it made the most desolate rushing sound as it swept through the incredibly tall trees that line one of the main chemins. The grounds are so large that I walked briskly from one end to the other (along the shorter axis) in 20 minutes. One weathered headstone, inscribed with three lines, caught my fancy:
Our dream lies buried here.
Your love will light our way.
Your memory will ever be with us.
It says exactly what I feel about the people I love who are gone.
- All laundry (including linens and towels - each load must be folded and put away before another is taken from the washing machine)
- Sweep and mop ceramic floors (wood exempt)
- Dust and wash all up-facing surfaces in house
- Wipe down all cabinets
- Scrub toilets, inside and out
- Scrub shower and tub (bleach first, then with brush)
- Find a home for (or toss) clutter that amassed during the week
- File papers and mail that collected during the week
- Pay bills, pay off credit card, money into savings, etc.
Caspian is off at ashtanga yoga with friends T and D and I wish wish wish that I was there with them building my muscle tone back up... But I have a cold. A new cold. I enjoyed 2.5 weeks of health between this and the last cold (which may have been the flu, since it was 3x worse than the one I have now). I'm hoping it won't be like college, when Natty and I would suffer from the same cold for months due to stress, living off of cereal and milk, not sleeping, etc. My ears are ringing, I wake myself up in the middle of the night to sneeze ten times, my eyes are watering, my head is stuffed with wool, no appetite, etc. The usual cold stuff. I weighed myself this morning for the first time in weeks and the scale said 104. I was so alarmed that I reset it four times and re-weighed, with no change. I'd say bring on the chocolate, if I could actually taste it. UGH.
Now that I'm working full-time in the office again, the kitties have become at least three times sweeter and stuff is three times more cluttered/dusty by the weekend than before.
Anyway. I'm drowning in camomile tea and can barely think. Weird how sinuses full of gunk = a brain full of nothing.
Friday afternoon, I took a walk in the Jewish cemetery. It was quite lonely, with one mourner standing in black beside her loved one's grave, reading from a book. The wind was also a constant 100 kph, and it made the most desolate rushing sound as it swept through the incredibly tall trees that line one of the main chemins. The grounds are so large that I walked briskly from one end to the other (along the shorter axis) in 20 minutes. One weathered headstone, inscribed with three lines, caught my fancy:
Our dream lies buried here.
Your love will light our way.
Your memory will ever be with us.
It says exactly what I feel about the people I love who are gone.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
If you don't use it, you lose it.
Whenever I'm at a shopping center or even walking along the streets, I pass the shops of various mobile services and shudder. I can't stand the mobile industry, and I don't even really know why.
Now, since I'm working in another part of the city and commuting often, I talked it over with Caspian and reluctantly agreed that it's probably safer for me to finally get a cell phone, which I've avoided for about 2.5 years (before which I had many, but also before the popularity explosion of data plans and smartphones).
This morning after a deliciously challenging yoga class and a relaxing lunch with our friends, Caspian and I headed over to the Eaton Center to finally make a decision about that little plastic and metal box that most people stare into more often than the eyes of their loved ones... The dreaded mobile phone.
Errrgh, I hate them! Hate, hate, hate! Despise! I actually judge people quite negatively if I see a top rate, leather-coddled smart phone or tablet resting conspicuously upon one's workspace (and mobile phones aren't even allowed in my office, given the confidential nature of the industry - you actually have to walk off the premises to take a call or send a text message, and phones need to be in pockets or purses at all times). People gaze at their phones like lovers, they caress them ostentatiously in all settings, and it seems so obscene to me. To see a 10-year-old with a mobile phone is, in my opinion, parental blasphemy. There has to be a way for us to live happily without them, there just has to be.
Even the employees irk me. I express interest in a simple model and ask questions about its durability and operating system, and they say, "Well, I'm not so familiar with that one, people generally aren't interested in it..." Bingo! Those are the magic words.
Steering clear of giant shimmering screens, the whole Blackberry nonsense and Mac products as well (I can be such an ex-post-hipster when it comes to tech)... I picked out a little HTC, signed over my $35/monthly, declined a data plan, stuffed the little obsession in my coat pocket and went on my way, ignoring the soulless eyes of those drooling over the display cases. Human nature is terrifying. Does patience exist anymore (and this from the most impatient girl in the world, according to her parents)? Are people capable of waiting quietly in doctors' offices without playing with bright and shiny little doodads? Is everybody's catchphrase "entertain me"?
My lovely recycled leather agenda from years ago is still perused every day, refills are purchased each September. My hand makes actual notes in it. No alarms remind me of the myriads of things I have to do, because I've got a brain for that.
Soufflez.
Now, since I'm working in another part of the city and commuting often, I talked it over with Caspian and reluctantly agreed that it's probably safer for me to finally get a cell phone, which I've avoided for about 2.5 years (before which I had many, but also before the popularity explosion of data plans and smartphones).
This morning after a deliciously challenging yoga class and a relaxing lunch with our friends, Caspian and I headed over to the Eaton Center to finally make a decision about that little plastic and metal box that most people stare into more often than the eyes of their loved ones... The dreaded mobile phone.
Errrgh, I hate them! Hate, hate, hate! Despise! I actually judge people quite negatively if I see a top rate, leather-coddled smart phone or tablet resting conspicuously upon one's workspace (and mobile phones aren't even allowed in my office, given the confidential nature of the industry - you actually have to walk off the premises to take a call or send a text message, and phones need to be in pockets or purses at all times). People gaze at their phones like lovers, they caress them ostentatiously in all settings, and it seems so obscene to me. To see a 10-year-old with a mobile phone is, in my opinion, parental blasphemy. There has to be a way for us to live happily without them, there just has to be.
Even the employees irk me. I express interest in a simple model and ask questions about its durability and operating system, and they say, "Well, I'm not so familiar with that one, people generally aren't interested in it..." Bingo! Those are the magic words.
Steering clear of giant shimmering screens, the whole Blackberry nonsense and Mac products as well (I can be such an ex-post-hipster when it comes to tech)... I picked out a little HTC, signed over my $35/monthly, declined a data plan, stuffed the little obsession in my coat pocket and went on my way, ignoring the soulless eyes of those drooling over the display cases. Human nature is terrifying. Does patience exist anymore (and this from the most impatient girl in the world, according to her parents)? Are people capable of waiting quietly in doctors' offices without playing with bright and shiny little doodads? Is everybody's catchphrase "entertain me"?
My lovely recycled leather agenda from years ago is still perused every day, refills are purchased each September. My hand makes actual notes in it. No alarms remind me of the myriads of things I have to do, because I've got a brain for that.
Soufflez.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Don't Mind Me...
I am having an AWESOME time. So awesome, in fact, that I was at work and looked up at the clock for the first time in hours and noticed that the office was empty and it was almost 7 PM.
My new place rocks, and the people there are so fun and interesting and diverse. Everything feels so natural, interactions just click into place.
And for the first time in my life, I am attempting to consciously cultivate an attitude of "I like being in this place." I think one of the big reasons I despised my last major position is because I'd conditioned myself to love being any place (including the dentist's chair and sitting for hours in a doctor's office) but at work.
It's actually extremely liberating to feel free enough to not have an incredibly strong compulsion to run from the building after one's 8 hours are complete. To be free of that compulsion...
My new place rocks, and the people there are so fun and interesting and diverse. Everything feels so natural, interactions just click into place.
And for the first time in my life, I am attempting to consciously cultivate an attitude of "I like being in this place." I think one of the big reasons I despised my last major position is because I'd conditioned myself to love being any place (including the dentist's chair and sitting for hours in a doctor's office) but at work.
It's actually extremely liberating to feel free enough to not have an incredibly strong compulsion to run from the building after one's 8 hours are complete. To be free of that compulsion...
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Work Update
Starting to get the routine down (regarding wake-up times, commuting, etc. - NOT the work itself), here after day three and a killer weather-related cluster migraine. Survived!
Totally grooving to Amon Tobin on Grooveshark and reading and assimilating hundreds of pages of raw information = good time.
Totally grooving to Amon Tobin on Grooveshark and reading and assimilating hundreds of pages of raw information = good time.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Hair Grows!
I've been under this misconception for my whole life that long hair = cute and sexy and short hair = old and frumpy, even though I see women defy these "principles" every day. Also, since I've been planning on competing in the relatively near future, I felt restricted to long hair, because you can do a lot with it.
Then I thought, fuck all that. I'm cutting it off short to an awkward-for-ballroom length and nobody can stop me.
And so I did.
And then I bought some sexy outfits.
And on Monday, I will be starting my sexy new job. Screw you, gray clouds and routines and salty sidewalks and expectations!
Then I thought, fuck all that. I'm cutting it off short to an awkward-for-ballroom length and nobody can stop me.
And so I did.
And then I bought some sexy outfits.
And on Monday, I will be starting my sexy new job. Screw you, gray clouds and routines and salty sidewalks and expectations!
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Lack of Observation for 20+ Years
Ophthalmologist [peering at length into my dilated eyes with bright light]: So, you have some blind spots?
Me: Yep. Left eye, big round one to the left of center in my FOV and a flock of speckles to the lower right of it.
Oph [holding my watering eyes open as he magnifies]: And when did you start noticing these blind spots?
Me: Oh, about a week ago?
Oph [completely flat, unamused voice]: Hmmm. Well. You are hilarious. I see some scarring there that is probably over two decades old.
Me: Uh. Does that mean I've had this blind spot since I was a little kid and never noticed?
Oph: Pretty much, yeah.
Me: No brain tumors?
Oph [gives me a flat, unamused yet intense glare]: ...
Why are all ophthalmologists so weird?
Me: Yep. Left eye, big round one to the left of center in my FOV and a flock of speckles to the lower right of it.
Oph [holding my watering eyes open as he magnifies]: And when did you start noticing these blind spots?
Me: Oh, about a week ago?
Oph [completely flat, unamused voice]: Hmmm. Well. You are hilarious. I see some scarring there that is probably over two decades old.
Me: Uh. Does that mean I've had this blind spot since I was a little kid and never noticed?
Oph: Pretty much, yeah.
Me: No brain tumors?
Oph [gives me a flat, unamused yet intense glare]: ...
Why are all ophthalmologists so weird?
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Quel pain!
The new year has started out with a strange mix... Partying with sister and beau-frère in massive snow. Then, interviews and the eventual award of a new position, the French test for Québec immigration (during which there was a 40-minute power outage and we had to start at the beginning of the oral comprehension test again).
Next... I experienced the worst pain of my life for three full days. I had the toothache from hell. Three years ago, I had an abcessed molar that needed a root canal, and certainly there was pain, but it was completely manageable with a mix of painkillers and I didn't miss work.
This time... There were two nights I spent on the floor of the kitchen, weeping and begging for it to end (it was a weekend, and the antibiotics prescribed by my dentist hadn't reached significant levels in my bloodstream yet to kill the infection). I had never imagined that such pain was possible to endure without blacking out. I don't know if it is possible to describe this pain. All-consuming, time stops, brain completely overcome, forget to breathe, hiccuping between suppressed screams, floor-pounding, fevered oaths to various deities, etc. That weekend was spent in bed with a heating pad (refused to call the dentist for narcotics).
My teeth apparently can't stand fillings. Both of these molars died after receiving composite fillings by two different dentists.
The root canal was a relief. I had spent the previous five days (root canal was 5 days after the intense pain started) fantasizing about the initial injection of novocaine (or whatever they use these days) and I wasn't disappointed. I sat back and almost enjoyed the 2-hour procedure, nevermind that it will end up costing about $2500 when the post and crown are completed.
Unfortunately, the "big guns" antibiotics prescribed for me have completely thrown off a couple of my necessary internal functions by killing my good bacteria. :(
Et puis... Vision anomalies! Argh! I have two dim spots in the vision of my left eye, which merited a trip to the optometrist and then, next week, a trip to the ophthalmologist to make sure my retina isn't detaching. After conversations with my sisters, parents and brothers-in-law, I learned that they've all had experience with these dim spots, or floaters as they are funnily called, and didn't feel so old and decrepit (they are all younger than I, except my parents).
And this morning... I finally and decisively came down with the cold that Caspian has been nursing for exactly a week.
Next... I experienced the worst pain of my life for three full days. I had the toothache from hell. Three years ago, I had an abcessed molar that needed a root canal, and certainly there was pain, but it was completely manageable with a mix of painkillers and I didn't miss work.
This time... There were two nights I spent on the floor of the kitchen, weeping and begging for it to end (it was a weekend, and the antibiotics prescribed by my dentist hadn't reached significant levels in my bloodstream yet to kill the infection). I had never imagined that such pain was possible to endure without blacking out. I don't know if it is possible to describe this pain. All-consuming, time stops, brain completely overcome, forget to breathe, hiccuping between suppressed screams, floor-pounding, fevered oaths to various deities, etc. That weekend was spent in bed with a heating pad (refused to call the dentist for narcotics).
My teeth apparently can't stand fillings. Both of these molars died after receiving composite fillings by two different dentists.
The root canal was a relief. I had spent the previous five days (root canal was 5 days after the intense pain started) fantasizing about the initial injection of novocaine (or whatever they use these days) and I wasn't disappointed. I sat back and almost enjoyed the 2-hour procedure, nevermind that it will end up costing about $2500 when the post and crown are completed.
Unfortunately, the "big guns" antibiotics prescribed for me have completely thrown off a couple of my necessary internal functions by killing my good bacteria. :(
Et puis... Vision anomalies! Argh! I have two dim spots in the vision of my left eye, which merited a trip to the optometrist and then, next week, a trip to the ophthalmologist to make sure my retina isn't detaching. After conversations with my sisters, parents and brothers-in-law, I learned that they've all had experience with these dim spots, or floaters as they are funnily called, and didn't feel so old and decrepit (they are all younger than I, except my parents).
And this morning... I finally and decisively came down with the cold that Caspian has been nursing for exactly a week.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
Blind Hemming
Everybody knows I totally dig sewing, and I'm pretty good at it, too. I couldn't make a period-true Renaissance gown, I can't embroider and I'd need a more versatile machine to make jeans or dance costumes really well (and a lot of patience to fit them properly), but I can cut, create and tailor modern clothing and fabrics without trouble. I learned the basics in two sewing classes, but the rest I learned through trial and error, failure and triumph.
Take today, for example. I guess I mentioned that I bought a few pairs of nice slacks, in various neutral shades, made of poly synth and wool blends with a bit of stretch. In my previous professional position (meaning I was in an office with a strict dress code), I couldn't be bothered to take action if my slacks were too short or long for the heel of my shoe. If they were too long and moderately expensive, I brought them over to Wang's Tailoring for $8 and had them done.
Now, my "work-worthy shoes" all have heels between 2-3.5 inches (I did this on purpose), so I tried on my slacks one by one and pinned them up to a position that would fall in an acceptable range when worn with all of the shoes, but specifically tailored to the most comfortable/versatile pair. I love continental heels, and almost all of my dress shoes have a very vintage (1940s) profile with rounded toes.
Then I took out my blind hem foot, which I have been putting to completely different ends than it was originally intended for (like top-stitching extremely close to a hem). I can do blind hemming by hand, but it takes forever. I was never confident enough in my skills to actually cut up and hem a pair of nice trousers... But I took the plunge and, with a nervous squeak, decisively sliced off the desired amount from the legs of the trousers. No going back now.
I had some trouble with the pinning, which looks complicated but is actually pretty simple, and then my stitches/foot/machine weren't calibrated properly for the first couple attempts, which I ripped out with the seam ripper. Finally, after trial and error (and stupidly, not a single glance at the millions of tutorials on the internets), I discovered and understood what stitch length and other calibrations would do to the hem, and how long to make the stitch for the folds I'd put in, etc. And it looks MAAAAAHVELOUS.
So. If you are a seamstress and have never tried blind hemming with the machine... Do it. It rocks and looks super professional.
Take today, for example. I guess I mentioned that I bought a few pairs of nice slacks, in various neutral shades, made of poly synth and wool blends with a bit of stretch. In my previous professional position (meaning I was in an office with a strict dress code), I couldn't be bothered to take action if my slacks were too short or long for the heel of my shoe. If they were too long and moderately expensive, I brought them over to Wang's Tailoring for $8 and had them done.
Now, my "work-worthy shoes" all have heels between 2-3.5 inches (I did this on purpose), so I tried on my slacks one by one and pinned them up to a position that would fall in an acceptable range when worn with all of the shoes, but specifically tailored to the most comfortable/versatile pair. I love continental heels, and almost all of my dress shoes have a very vintage (1940s) profile with rounded toes.
Then I took out my blind hem foot, which I have been putting to completely different ends than it was originally intended for (like top-stitching extremely close to a hem). I can do blind hemming by hand, but it takes forever. I was never confident enough in my skills to actually cut up and hem a pair of nice trousers... But I took the plunge and, with a nervous squeak, decisively sliced off the desired amount from the legs of the trousers. No going back now.
I had some trouble with the pinning, which looks complicated but is actually pretty simple, and then my stitches/foot/machine weren't calibrated properly for the first couple attempts, which I ripped out with the seam ripper. Finally, after trial and error (and stupidly, not a single glance at the millions of tutorials on the internets), I discovered and understood what stitch length and other calibrations would do to the hem, and how long to make the stitch for the folds I'd put in, etc. And it looks MAAAAAHVELOUS.
So. If you are a seamstress and have never tried blind hemming with the machine... Do it. It rocks and looks super professional.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Ah, aesthetics...
You may think me frivolous for saying so, but I have recently been researching advanced cosmetics techniques. Now, at age almost-31, I am doing what I'm kind of glad I didn't waste my time doing when I was 17 (too many books to read): Practicing applying makeup.
It's loads of fun. I even learned how to *really* do my eyebrows well, which are blonde and nice overall, but with a few cowlicks in weird places. I realize now that there are no such things as perfect eyebrows unless you make them so yourself. I spent $30 dollars on 5mL of Pupa eyeshadow base and have been going to town, with new colors and blends appearing every day.
That, plus the hundreds of dollars I spent this last week on high-end professional shoes, jackets and slacks, and all the jewelry I received for Christmas, makes me feel well-prepared for my probable (85% certainty) sojourn into the world of finance in a few weeks.
Third and final interview next Wednesday.
It's loads of fun. I even learned how to *really* do my eyebrows well, which are blonde and nice overall, but with a few cowlicks in weird places. I realize now that there are no such things as perfect eyebrows unless you make them so yourself. I spent $30 dollars on 5mL of Pupa eyeshadow base and have been going to town, with new colors and blends appearing every day.
That, plus the hundreds of dollars I spent this last week on high-end professional shoes, jackets and slacks, and all the jewelry I received for Christmas, makes me feel well-prepared for my probable (85% certainty) sojourn into the world of finance in a few weeks.
Third and final interview next Wednesday.
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