December 5th, 2022

The Ragman’s Horse and Other Family Frustrations

Here’s a story: about ten years ago, I was walking with my parents in a park and my dad and I started talking about our shared love of animals, and he told me a story (meta!) from his childhood. He was very little, still living in Brooklyn so less than 7–this would be the early 1940s. And he was playing in the alley by his house and the ragman drove up with his horse and cart, and leaving them in the alley, went into the house to bargain with my grandmother. My father, in the alley alone with with the horse, was entranced, and like any little kid would, started to try to feed the animal grass and pet it, just see if it would interact at all.

The ragman came back and my dad was scared of getting in trouble for bothering the horse, but instead, the man lifted him up onto the horse’s back and urged the horse to carry him down the alleyway. A tremendous gift to a little boy–my dad was astounded at his good fortune and at the feeling of being in motion atop this huge, muscular creature, carried along down the alley, to the lip of the street.

I flew into a rage upon hearing this very charming story. Like any parent, my father had many anecdotes that he repeated over and over–some I enjoyed hearing again and again, some I tolerated, some I cut off at the introduction. But THIS story, I only heard that one time, walking in the park, nearly 70 years and a nation away from when it happen. You lived in the time of door-to-door ragmen?? People travelled in Brooklyn with horse-and-carts in the 1940s?? They left you alone in the alley when you were so little? Where was everyone else? WHY DID YOU NEVER TELL ME THIS LOVELY STORY BEFORE?

I was, and remain, furious at the caprice of memory. Someone mentioned to me recently being sorry they didn’t ask their parents more questions before they died and that’s the thing: I DID ask my dad all the questions I could think of. But you just can’t elicit interesting stories by demanding them–you have to know specifically that there was a ragman to ask if he had a horse, and to know that there was a horse to ask if anyone ever got to ride it.

Up until a few months before he died, my dad was telling me new stories–not often, but now and again. He was 80 years old, and wounded when I accused him of holding out on me–he didn’t always remember, both the stories themselves, and what he had or hadn’t already told me. But…then he’d think of something new.

Something I tell myself as a writer is that an accurate map of the world is the size of the world–and, the parallel, that a true retelling of a life would take a lifetime. We edit the details to give a sense of the whole, but nothing is ever the true whole except the thing, or the person, itself. This is, in my darkest moments, cold comfort.

I have been talking about family history again and every time I learn or figure out a new fact, it fills me with joy but it also all drives me crazy–so much I don’t know, so much I will never know, can never know, because so many people insist on being dead.

I have long thought I would someday write a book called The Ragman’s Horse and Other Something-Something. I don’t know what the subtitle should be. I don’t even know what the real subject should be–my family’s history or my somewhat bonkers attitude towards my family’s history (took me quite a few paragraphs to admit I know I’m not being rational, didn’t it?)

In the meantime, that story is really very sweet, isn’t it? Horses, in Brooklyn, in 1942ish! Is that what you would’ve imagined? I would never have thought of it I wasn’t told.

November 21st, 2022

Copyedit time

The sweetest plums of publication vary by writer, but for those of us for whom the call is coming from inside the house, as it were, I think one has got to be the copyeditor’s style sheet. Would you like to see the one for These Days Are Numbered, which edges daily closer to be real book and NOT a collection of online ramblings. Or possibly it’s both. LOOK AT THIS GORGEOUS FUNNY THING. I think I said this with my last book, but if it were an option to publish this instead of the full text, I would consider it.

Spelling, Hyphenation, and Abbreviations
A
air conditioner
Alice (younger cat)
Allan Gardens

B
backup (n.)
ballcap
Bleecker St (not Bleeker)
BlueJeans (app)
the Bureau of People We Know, the Bureau

C
CanStage
CareMongering (Facebook group)
catio (cat patio)
Census
convoyers
Covid-19
contract-trace (v.)
co-worker (Dundurn style)

D
Double Unicorn
drugstore (Can Ox)

E
Evan (elder cat)

F
Facebook (not FB)
Fimo
freezie
FreshCo
front line (n.), front-line (adj.)
Frosty (Wendy’s)
Furama Cake and Dessert Garden
FYI (for your information) – not fyi

G
Gaelan
the Great After
grown-up (n., adj.)

H
Halloween (Can Ox)
health care (n.), health-care (adj.)
heat wave (not heatwave)
HMU (not hmu)
hot spot (Can Ox)
Houseparty (app)

I
iMessage
Instant Pot
internet (Dundurn)

J
jeez louise

K
L
lineup (n.; CanOx), line up (v.)
Liquorice Allsorts (brand name), but licorice (Can Ox) for general mention
lockdown (n.), lock down (v.)
Lycra

M
Mark Sampson
Mattermost
meal plan
mini-putt
Mominator

N
O
okay

P
PayPal
People magazine

Q
quaranfree
quaranlove

R
Regis Korchinski Paquet

S
Sampsonblum
sani (sanitizer)
seat belt (Can Ox)
self-defence (Can Ox)
set-up (Can Ox)
social distancing (n.), social-distance (v.)
spray-paint (v.)
St. James Town (SJT)
staff (sing. n.)
stage 2, stage 3
stay-at-home order

T
T-shirt (Dundurn)
takeout (n. & adj.; CanOx)
TBH (not tbh)
The Mandalorian
TL;DR
tone-match (v.), tone-matching (n.)

U
uh-huh
under way V W
Walmart
Wellesley St
Wi-Fi (Dundurn style)

X
Y
Z
Zoom (upper-case when referring to video platform) #

November 15th, 2022

One night in Minneapolis

I don’t love it when people say “These things only happen to me”–I think it implies a certain lack of empathy with the universe, which is very vast and we are always following in each other’s footsteps. And yet…sometimes I do feel little bit alone on my asteroid, having experiences without echo. Anyway, I tried to go to the Mall of America and this is what happened:

The clerk at the hotel from whom I asked directions evidenced frank and visceral disgust at the question, which he only somewhat covered. In truth, a mall was not my first choice for a Saturday night either, but I had not succeeded in making any friends at the conference, I was too tired for something more adventurous, nothing was within walking distance of the hotel, and at least by going to the largest mall in the western hemisphere I would have…accomplished something…? Or something… Also eating in a food court seemed like a good compromise between sitting in a nice restaurant sadly alone and huddling on my bed with takeout like a goblin.

Anyway, the desk clerk told me to walk five blocks to the light rail stop, then take the blue line south to the end of the line. I was worried about getting on in the right direction but he said not to, because the train would just go two stops north, then loop around and go back the other way, so either way was good. He also said the trip would take 20-25 minutes, or a bit more “with traffic.”

Well, the part about 5 blocks was true. I just missed a train–so close I was touching the door–and then stood in the shelter with a man who passed the time by spitting. It was 15 minutes until the next one and the wrong-direction train came 4 minutes sooner, and I was VERY COLD, so I took that one. At first, the man at the desk seemed to be right, in that after two stops people came on and removed some garbage from the train and then an announcement that the line was ending went out, but then we were ordered off the train. No one stood, so I thought maybe it was just a formality. Then the train started up again and I thought awe, it’s turning around, but it got about 100 metres out on an elevated track and just stopped there. For…a while. At first I wasn’t too concerned–transit has its delays–but then I thought they DID tell us to get off. The other people on the train were an unhoused-seeming gentleman in shorts who was either glaring at me or glaring at nothing, and a group of rowdy kids goofing off. When the kids started to notice we were just sitting alone trapped on a train above the train yard, and were sort of tapping on the windows worriedly, my heart started to beat fast.

Of course, we weren’t in danger–I had my phone and could have called…someone…to let us out. But how long would that take and how positively STUPID would we all seem? Also, if the train turned Lord of the Flies, obviously I would be the first to go. I stood, thinking not much of anything, and then the train started finally went back the way it came. It had probably been about 10 minutes but if felt pretty long.

The ride out felt longer–it took an HOUR, and the light rail is not affected by traffic, so the guy at the desk didn’t know what he was talking about. The group of kids ruled the train and many came and went, all seeming to know each other and what car to enter and leave from–it was very odd, a senate of light rail teenagers. The man in shorts never altered his gaze. A lot of people on the train seemed to be having a hard time–transit does not seem to be the province of the middle class in Minneapolis. At one point, a young man–dressed ok, but a little dishevelled, Black–seemed to be in distress, pacing up and down the car, yelling and whimpering, crouching down to hold his head in his hands, rummaging through his pockets and not retrieving anything, screaming obscenities. Just for a moment, he noticed me watching him, and his demeanour completely changed: he straightened, calmed, smiled pleasantly. “How you doing tonight, ma’am?” I was startled, and sad that whatever he was going through, he made it a priority for his self-care–for his safety–to assuage a person like me. I have aged since I’ve last been in the States, and was dressed at the outer edge of my prissy professional looks for the conference: I looked like the sort of person that might make life worse for a person like him. Ashamed, I said I was doing all right, and smiled, and cast my gaze elsewhere, to let him get on with whatever he needed to do.

By the time I got to the mall, I no longer wanted anything to do with it and wished I hadn’t started, but I had invested so much time in the endeavour I got off the train and went in. The first thing I saw was a sign saying guns are forbidden in the Mall of America, which indicates to me that there are many guns at the Mall of America, as I have been to many malls–even many malls in the states–and never seen such a sign, or any guns. This was not an auspicious beginning.

I was genuinely impressed with the amusement park, though it is oddly dark, and the aquarium, though I didn’t go in. There are lots of nice stores, including one I like that had a pretty party dress I wanted to try on, but the thing is the mall is so vast you spent forever finding what you want–in my case, an Ulta, a bathroom, and something to eat. So I had no time leftover to ever go back to the party dress and in any case I couldn’t remember where it was. And I never found the food court and ended up having pretzel bites for dinner, an enormous disappointment, though they were sold to me by the rudest customer service person I encountered in Minn, where the service was pretty uniformly excellent, so that’s a landmark.

The whole thing was basically horrible and also rushed–I probably would have liked the mall if I had a few hours and could just browse around and had been there with friends who like that sort of thing. But then it was closing and they literally started turning out the lights and I had bought 1 thing if you didn’t count the pretzel bites. Upon discovering I had lost my return train ticket, I decided to treat myself to a cab, walked all the way to the “cab pickup” point on the mall map, called it, waited a bit, called again to confirm it was in fact coming, and the dispatcher only THEN informed me that it would take an hour. She seemed surprised that I was surprised, and we agreed not to do business.

I walked all the way back to the train terminal, by now exhausted and full of dread for the return trip. I just missed another train (of course I did) and bought a replacement for my lost ticket. There was a train waiting in the station so I went and sat in that to get away from someone standing in the station and screaming. After a couple minutes someone came and sat close behind me in the otherwise empty car, which I knew was not a good sign but I tried to ignore it–I was so tired, maybe it was nothing.

It was not nothing. He was rustling around and pulling things out of bags and I don’t know what and after a lot of this, he said, “Excuse me, ma’am? I got some rabbits here, if you might be interested?”

Of course this was a confusing and intriguing sentence and of course I turned and OF COURSE they were vibrators, still in the boxes (small mercies).

“Nope!” I swung to my feet and was in the aisle and down the step in an instant–I like to think this bit was somehow very graceful??

“Oh, that’s how it is, is it? You don’t gotta run away!”

He was so…whiny??? And the evening had been so dreadful, and the day no bowl of bananas either, let me tell you, that I turned again, even though I know I should have just kept going and not engaged.

“Do you usually get a better reaction? What were you expecting, trying to sell vibrators to strange women alone on the train?”

“What, you think this is sexual? This isn’t–“

“I do think that! I do think that!” And I stamped my little foot, for emphasis or sheer rage or I don’t know what. And finally realizing the conversation was unproductive I stomped the rest of the way down the car and to another one, where I sat alone and the rest of the passengers by and large let me be. (the more I think about it the more I think that dude had no game plan–even if he had someone how found the exact woman who was planning to go home and buy one of those exact vibrators online tonight, who would have bought it from an apparent thief [surely they were stolen] and weirdo on the train? AND even if somehow he encountered someone who WOULD buy them, who carries cash nowadays? Did the train-vibrator-man have a Square for credit card transactions? That would really be adding insult to injury, as my colleagues and I spent an hour on Wednesday trying to get our Square working, only to find it doesn’t do USD transactions.)

When I got off the train another hour later, I still had to walk the five blocks back to the hotel, plus a bonus block I accidentally walked in the wrong direction. And it was FREEZING. I wasn’t exactly hungry, because the pretzel bites were very dense, but I was a bit malnourished, since I hadn’t consumed any actual nutrients. I kept hoping I’d encounter a store or restaurant where I could buy a vegetable but of course, downtown Minneapolis doesn’t seem to have any of those.

I finally got back to my room past 10:30pm, having spent over 4 hours buying a small makeup palette and eating pretzel bites. I was exhausted and wanted to go to bed but I was kept up by my brain firing dementedly: possible scenarios where I spent the night in the trainyard, the pretty red dress, questions about race in America, the second amendment never envisioned malls, some of the pretzels at the pretzel store had pepperoni on them, it seems unfair to rabbits to name a sex toy after them, how did all those kids on the train know what car to get on, and on and on. Of course I put on all the makeup, for the benefit of no one.

I think I might hate Minneapolis.

November 10th, 2022

Short Story “The Action” in Hermine Annual 3

So I haven’t published short fiction in five years. That’s weird. I did write a novel, or several drafts of one–soon I’ll write another draft and maybe eventually publish the thing. Or not. Who is to say! But that took a lot of my fiction-writing energy. I also wrote a diary-type memoir, coming to a bookstore near you next spring. So I don’t think I’ve been lazy or anything–it’s just that I miss short stories, my first and somewhat purest writing love.

Which is why it means a lot to me that my short story “The Action” is published in Hermine Annual 3 out this month at this link and in more discerning book and magazine shops. It’s so nice to be in the short fiction game again, at least a little. And while the diary memoir is about the pandemic and the general tumult of the past 2.5 years, “The Action” is gently inspired by a slightly earlier tumult. The pandemic is so big it has a way of blocking out the previous wild stuff that happened–I like to be reminded of it, now and again.

If you’re curious, below is a paragraph from the story–one of my favourites from early in the piece. I guess writers are not really supposed to have favourite paragraphs, in a kill your darlings way or in a parents don’t have favourite children way but–whatever, I often do.

***

They are approaching a large high fence with no obvious breaks in it, which Joe worries about. He can usually climb a fence if he has to—he’s clumsy and not in great shape, but not terrible. Today, though, his shoes are muddy and wet, and he wore tighter, stiffer jeans than he really should have for a long march, much less climbing anything. He shouldn’t have tried to look hot. And he actually doesn’t, anyway, is the worst part—the wind is messing with his hair and he had to zip his coat against the cold, but it looks better open. And who will care how well the jeans fit when he’s falling off the fence?

November 5th, 2022

Done the basics of the clean up

Ok, I finished my big clean up of this blog–if you find a broken link, at this point that would be surprising and please report it to me. I have gone through the books, bio, and publications pages and updated any links that have moved and deleted any that were gone for ever. I hadn’t done this task in a loooong time and it was very sad–lots of long gone publications and websites, and lots of great spots don’t keep archives. I wrote a bunch for the fab old blog The Afterword at the National Post books section–all gone now. Canadian Notes and Queries doesn’t seem to have archived the stuff that was once on their website, although of course if you have a paper copy you are good. The New Quarterly DID keep up everything on their website from way way back in the day, but a lot of the oldies moved behind a paywall, which is completely legit. The Danforth Review 1.0 went to the Archives of Canada, where you can still read whatever you want, actually–it’s just a little surprising to go through the Archives interface. There’s also a TDR 2.0 that rose and fell later and you can still access directly.

A lot of smaller, briefer venues are gone entirely, but a lot remain. There’s a bunch of classic RR stories and articles in the publications tab, if you would like to read something I wrote–or listen to it, as there are a few audio and video links in there as well. And if I’m sad that the older stuff is not as permanent as I had hoped, I guess I’ll just have to write and publish some new stuff…coming soon! Although if there is a particular old story that anyone out there in blog land really needs for some reason and can’t find, I will of course try to help you (I see such people as a fair part of this blog’s readership–perhaps 3-4 loyal friends and 3-4 mildly interested passersby, plus the occasional student who saw the title of one of my book/stories on a list of essay topics and wants to work on it because it looked interesting/easy/short).

Also on the topic of blog updates, a very kind blog reader asked me about how one subscribes to this blog, and I have NO IDEA. How does anyone subscribe to any blog? I have an ancient Blogger reader that I suppose is some sort of RSS feed for dummies, but there are more modern ways, I think? I have been bashing around in the back end of WordPress for a WHILE and believe me, I have exhausted the limits of my own intelligence on this matter, so if there is a way a dumb person can do this for themselves, please let me know in very small words and I will be forever grateful. If your way is hard, though, just…nevermind. I have been very humbled by my failure on this project–me and WordPress are barely speaking at the moment.

October 31st, 2022

What is this, 2012?

When I told Mark I had a reading this week and a short story coming out soon, he said “What is this, 2012?” which is what I had already decided to call this post, so further evidence that we were in lockdown together to long!

The reading is Tuesday evening, 7pm, (EDIT: an earlier, dumber version of this post said Monday–OOPS!) just an open mic night with the The Writer’s Union of Canada–Ontario chapter, so a modest gathering (not open to the public but if you are a chapter member and feel like attending, I would love to see you there!) I am stoked to be getting my sea legs back reading after a loooong (2 years??) hiatus. After I finish writing this, I guess I should go…practice!

I realized after the reading was only a few days away that what I should read from should probably be my short story “The Action” since it’s forthcoming in the lovely journal Hermine Annual in the next few weeks. This hiatus has been even longer–nearly 5 years since I published any fiction. My last short story was published in the Short Story Advent Calendar 2017. I feel so sad saying that–I wrote a whole novel and a memoir since then, but still! Short stories!! My heart!

Anyway, I’ll post an update here if I totally muff the reading–or not–and one when Hermine is on sale.

October 24th, 2022

Two Cemeteries and a Wedding

One of my oldest friends got married yesterday and I was delighted to stand for her. The whole run-up to the wedding–meeting everyone, planning the bridal tea, any tiny conversation I got to have about it–have been a real dream. I get that long-married people can be kind of a drag about “why don’t you want to get marrieeeeeeed???” and I try never to do that–there are so many ways to have an excellent life and marriage is going to be a big problem (imho) for anyone who doesn’t enter into it not just willingly but thrillingly. But I personally love being married so much and it has been an excellent experience for me personally, so I can’t help but be overjoyed when I see people I care about choosing this path as well.

Yesterday was the warmest, sunniest October day maybe ever. Mark said he read a headline that the fall leaves are extra bright and colourful this year but didn’t read the article so why don’t know why–but that certainly tracks with our drive down from Toronto to my hometown. It took just under two hours with traffic, but we left four hours just in case (it’s a WEDDING, plus we don’t rent cars very often) so went out to lunch at Dennigers, my parents old favourite German food place, and then went to the cemetery to see my dad. The big municipal cemetery looked spacious and gorgeous under the bright sun–there’s still wide open areas with no occupants–and I felt so wildly happy running across the grass to get some water for the flowers, thinking of the miserable muddy February of his funeral and how far we’ve come. When I got back, I announced to the stone monument, “J is getting married today,” because I knew he would have been happy to hear it, and then promptly felt the sting of tears. How strange it is to be so old, and not live in that town anymore, and not to have my father alive. I don’t think I will ever stop being surprised.

We went to the church, and were still very early so we went around back to yet another cemetery. Mark and I walk in old churchyards all the time–we like the history and to gather stories from the inscriptions and we just find them peaceful. This was a lovely old churchyard with flame-bright maples and some stones going back before 1900, but it was pretty much the only one I’ve been to where I kept coming across people I knew, including one old friend of the family who I hadn’t known had died. It was very a melancholy walk. Sometimes I feel pretty disconnected from my hometown but really, I lived there a long time and knew a lot of people.

By the time my friend M and her family arrived, I was really really ready for some fun society, so we went in and got dressed and put on makeup and ran around trying to find everything and everyone. This was the church of my youth, the one at the foot of my road that many of my friends went to–we always went to the spaghetti dinners there and yard sales, our 4-H meetings were there and my piano recitals–I did everything there but actual worship. There is now a lovely modern addition but the main part of the church and the basement looked just as I recalled. I even sat where I remembered for spaghetti suppers and felt there should be pie. And that I should be there with my parents.

The wedding was SO WONDERFUL. I just felt so HAPPY for their happiness. J was as kind and thoughtful as she always is but I could tell she was nervous until the vows were said and the rings were on and then, when we were signing the registry and she could stand chatting and joking with her HUSBAND they were both light as air–that felt so right. The service was really good and interesting too–it was the kind where the family and friends have to voice their “I do”s to the idea of the couple getting married too–making explicit the idea that the wedding is about a couple as a part of larger community. I love that and I think it’s so valuable. It’s something I’ve really valued in my marriage and my community and hope to contribute to all my friends, married and otherwise.

I was in many many photos under a beautiful tree, and saw my old piano teacher who played for the service, and the wedding cake was banana cake, a little baby wearing tulle was super cute and mad, I chatted with the bride’s brother who I hadn’t seen in a billion years and is just a fascinating person and I think I later saw moonwalking, and I just had the BEST TIME. The caterers brought too much food so they gave us all leftovers and I didn’t have to cook dinner tonight either and my attendant gift was pickles and preserves made by the bride herself, and traffic back into the city was absolutely outrageous for so late at night, but nothing could extinguish my glow. Sometimes I really wonder, what is this life? How are we doing this? I mean, what?? But aren’t we so lucky, too? I mean, incredibly??

October 18th, 2022

Tidying Up

I’m slowly cleaning things up around here after our 18 month break, just in time for me to actually start doing things again. For example, after many delays, Cynthia Flood’s gorgeous and moving new collection, You Are Here is coming out on October 25, with an introduction by yours truly–the launch is the evening before, Monday October 24, 6pm, Queen Books. I’m not reading, but I’ll be there and thrilled to be, if you care to join me!!

If you click on the Bio link a the top of the page, you’ll get a nice clean page with no dead links AND a new headshot. Just in case you aren’t in the mood to click up there, I’ll put the photo down below, too. Photography by the gloriously talented Claire Sibonney.

Ok, that’s all the updating for right now but there’s more to come!

October 7th, 2022

Thanks for holding

I’m not sure if anyone would be reading this blog anymore after a YEAR AND A HALF of silence but here I am again. What happened to the blog is that I got really into posting on Facebook during the pandemic. You can see some of the pando FB posts that I started moving over here in the omnibus posts prior to my giving up on the whole thing. FB was a really rewarding outlook for me during the lockdown, loneliness, and dread–it was easy to just take 5-10 minutes at some point in the day to pop down a few quick diaristic thoughts on how things were going at work, in the news, in the neighbourhood and in my head. All somewhat bad, but in all different, interesting, sometimes amusing ways. It was nice the way so many people were just ON facebook so they would see the posts and there were instant conversation partners just around all the time. It was very rewarding to chat there.

Not that I don’t love you, little blog, but I was just feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, and deeply lonely and there were so many PEOPLE on Facebook, and then I got into a groove with that. A lot of other things happened–BLM riots, Biden is the US president now…wait, who am I talking to here–the actual blog, this piece of the internet? readers have surely been able to access other news sites in the past 18 months…ok, for me personally, I got laid off from my job of 14 years in July 2021, had a wild ride of job searching, freelance working, novel writing, and existential crisis-ing for 13 months before becoming managing editor at a small feminist publisher in September 2022. Yep, I just didn’t blog the whole nadir of things. YOU’RE WELCOME!!

But actually just kidding, really, because those Facebook posts got solicited as a book and are forthcoming from Dundurn next June in the form of These Days Are Numbered: Diary of a High-Rise Lockdown, so you can still read all about my slow-motion freak-out if you want.

So we’re not really up to speed but we can call it that–I still live in the same place, still married to the same dude, same cats, similar friends (a few dropped off the radar during the pando but you never know when they’ll drop back on!) Hopefully I’ll update this space a little more regularly now that I am WILDLY BUSY AGAIN. That always seems to be the state of affairs that suits me best. Things have been a little too slack the past couple years. Good to be back in the thick of it.

January 7th, 2021

Pandemic Diary: July 14 to July 23

Day 124: I have never really liked to watch TV by myself. It wasn’t something we really did in my family growing up, both because the layout of the house made it hard not to hear the TV wherever you went and because my brother likes to curate and share shows–he’s a show-sharer, and I grew up thinking that’s how TV gets consumed. Thus when I moved out, I watched relatively little TV, only occasionally with my roommates or friends or dates who would invite me specifically to sit down and watch something because “you would like this.” I wasn’t interested in sitting down when other people were watching something and seeing if I liked it and then figuring out the backstory on my own–if someone else wasn’t guiding me into the show. why bother? I also watched SO MUCH tv in my first two decades I was ok with watching nearly none in the third. Then I met Mark and discovered tv is great for when you want to spend tonnes of time with someone but eventually run out of stuff to say. We also have closely aligned tastes and are willing to negotiate–we’ve watched a lot of great stuff together.Now, in the pandemic, would be a great time to be cultivating some modest TV independence, and I had started with terrible Mark-unfriendly shows like How to Get Away with Murder and that Station 19 show, but those ended and now I just don’t care about anything. If Mark isn’t sitting right beside me being annoyed by fidgeting, I will lose interest in everything in 20 minutes. He has a few shows he likes that I don’t and will simply sit for an hour and watch them by himself, which i find…unfathomable, but that is how tv is watched. My attention span is really shot, is what I am trying to say, but also I think tv is a social activity, which doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, this is why I haven’t watched more things in this time of over-abundant time and also why, when you recommend shows to me, you are also really recommending them to Mark, fyi.

(2)

Today’s dialogue:RR: I think I’m going to try wearing all my makeup…that can be my next pandemic project.Mark Sampson: All at once?RR: No, over a long period. Like, try all the products and see what has gone off and should be got rid of.MS: I see. Sorry, was that a silly question?RR: Not as silly as it would have been 6 months ago, actually. I’m running out of ideas, so you never know.MS: Ah.RR: Can I put some mascara on you?MS: No.RR: !!!!MS: I’m going to work out–it would run.

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Further to this morning’s post, here’s some TV we’ve been watching around here, with recos and cautions:Normal People: We finished it because so many people loved it. I didn’t, though it did get better as it went on. It all seemed very far from what I knew at that age. At once point, 18-year-olds hold a dinner party in their nice flat and then, when it’s proposed they go out dancing after, the host says she’s “exhausted” and stays home and does the dishes. 18! Free on Gem. The Birth of a Family: This is a documentary about 4 siblings who were separated in infancy during the 60s Scoop, all adopted by different families. They finally got to all be together in the same room a few years ago. I watched it for my Indigenous Voices discussion group and really liked it. It doesn’t shy away from how dark what happened was, but it’s also just a gentle, sweet film about what appears to be a lovely group f people. Free on Gem. Community, season 6: Thanks, Christine Enright Gilbert for reminding me there was one more season of this show. It’s very very silly now and most of the cast has left (remember when this show included Chevy Chase, Donald Glover, and John Oliver?) but my favourite character, The Dean, remains, played by Jim Rash. The show no longer makes sense but it never really did, so it’s fine. Mark Sampson is tolerating this mainly because it’s almost over and because I’m willing to watch the next one… On Prime (although I believe the other seasons are on Netflix for some reason)The Simpsons, season 19: Pure nostalgia porn at this point, with the occasional zinger. We watch it when we’re too tired for actual good TV. On Disney+Hamilton: As good as I’d hoped, although very long. Disney+ is finally showing some value.The Politician: A wild California fantasy that is so far about a teenager running for class president but according to the trailers eventually gets into actual party politics. Desperately silly and impossible–he’s in grade 12 and already receiving university acceptances, so he’ll be president of what exactly–but I LOVE it. It’s all Broadway actors in it for some reason (plus Gwyneth Paltrow) and the acting is VERY BIG. Everyone’s supposed to be rich and the sets are gorgeous. Apparently if I keep watching long enough, Bette Midler will turn up. What’s not to like? Netflix.Hollywood: Another nonsense Netflix show in the same vein as The Politician but this one takes itself a bit too seriously. It’s about movie making in the 1940s in general and attempts to integrate the industry in particular and it all goes shockingly well despite the period and several of the characters having side-jobs as gigolos (I think that was honestly an attempt to titillate rather than any sort of metaphor). I think American TV likes to present racism as a problem already solved, taking place in a past era, so audiences can feel virtuous and also like no self-examination is necessary. If you can get past the moral lessons, the clothes are cool and the fantastical storyline occasionally integrates some pieces of true Hollywood arcana and it’s fun to figure out which is which. NetflixThe End of the F**king World: I still really like this show but it is heavy, so I only watch it when I’m feeling strong. Weird but emotionally affecting, and funny too. NetflixSpaceforce: I watched one episode and was on my phone for half of it. Only liked Lisa Kudrow, as the inexplicably jailed wife. Netflix

After 125 days of lockdown, I went to my office!! This is the longest I have ever been not there in the nearly 13 years I’ve worked at the company (in the usual way of things, my personnel file has me celebrating my 10-year anniversary last Saturday). I was very excited and meant to take photos but in the end it was frazzling and stressful and I took none. Here are impressions instead (this is very very inside baseball, and if you aren’t a Nelsonite or alum, you may wish to stop reading now) (upon further reflection, even if you do work at Nelson, you may not be all that interested in what I found on the floor of my office…??)–I was driving a borrowed car, and this was also my first time behind the wheel in a while and I expected to be super-anxious but was so happy to be back in Scarborough travelling the familiar route that I forgot to freak out!–the LRT is coming along! When last I saw it, there were grooved tracks in the intersections (like streetcar tracks) but now there are raised tracks everywhere else (like GO tracks) and even little signals in places. It’s still a construction zoo, but looks like…it could actually happen???–the parking lot was largely empty but there were perhaps 10-12 cars there, as the warehouse is still operating and some people have to come in for other stuff…–I had to call from the parking lot and a facilities staffer–R–came out to get me. We were both wearing masks. Then I went inside and there was a little cart set up with hand sani–I had just put some on but I used more to set my colleague at ease–and nitrile gloves, plus a sign-in sheet. VERY OFFICIAL.–In my department, some of the perms people were there! It was so exciting to see them and we were yelling but then I realized I was taking up someone’s time to escort me to my office so I had to say goodbye. –Everything looked the same except the lights were off. of course, everyone left thinking they’d be back pretty soon so nothing was boxed up or even tidied. It was like coming in real early on a Monday. There were some printouts on my desk someone probably left for me when I started lockdown slightly early owing to my TTC ridership.–I couldn’t the lights on, and my actual purpose in the office was to get the big monitor off my desk (finally!) and it plugged in in three different spots, so it was all very challenging. There was some concern about me taking such an expensive item away, but no concern about crawling around on the floor yanking cords in the dark.–While I was on the floor, I found my spare pair of office shoes. It was like winning the lottery, since my other shoes have taken the opportunity of the pandemic to disintegrate. I am down to a pair of flats from Zellers and a pair of sandals from Nine West to last the summer, both stores that no longer exist, both pairs of shoes that shed parts of themselves every time I wear them. This find was a 50% increase in shoes for me! I shoved them in my bag.–Other things I took from my office (I would have taken everything if I hadn’t been wasting someone else’s time): prescription drugs, two plants that were in surprisingly good shape (our VP has been watering them occasionally), a gift my niece wanted in February and now will likely be mystified by.–R got the lights on and I was finally able to disconnect the monitor from the tangle of other wires. It would not fit in the bag I brought for it and I couldn’t carry it with everything else, so R had to carry it–I felt like a gender stereotype. Also my office looked like it had been robbed by someone having a stroke and I longed to clean it up but we had to go!!!!–We lugged everything downstairs and I signed back out, then R put the monitor in my car and I hauled over the plants. Goodbye, Nelson–I don’t know when I’ll see you again!–I had meant to go berry-picking at a bush I know about near the office, but someone had scheduled a meeting!! So no berries. I did stop and get drive-thru, because I drive so seldom and it’s such a treat. It took a while but I got a 99 cent Frosty, which is in itself an icon of Scarborough summer to me, along with a relatively healthy salad from Wendy’s. –It took me two trips to get everything upstairs in the elevator. On the second time, I had the plants and I had to very carefully press my floor with my elbow. The guy in the elevator said, “Do you want me to do it for you? Oh, you did it!” I shrugged modestly and said, “I’ve been working on my moves.”–Mark is at work today and now we’ve had a day where we both went to work and when he gets home we can talk about it–wheeeee!

Day 128: Two days of Facebook silence from me–very unusual! I actually left town for a day and a half on the mini-est of minibreaks! Mark and I were trying to figure out when we’d last stayed away overnight anywhere–we were in Toronto for the December holidays, so probably the fall…?? Anyway, it had been a while! Possibly I was a bit over-excited for this trip, since I was unduly disappointed that it rained on Thursday and one of my shoes fell apart in the rain (remember when I said the shoes were almost dead? I didn’t) and I had a pretty bad migraine in the night (remember when I said it had been a strangely long streak without them? I didn’t) BUT we visited some nice vineyards, had a lovely drive, stayed at a gorgeous inn, and spent yesterday at the beach in Sandbanks, so it was still an excellent trip.But as perhaps you’ve noticed, these posts are mainly concentrated on things that I find fun or interesting or challenging to write about, so let’s concentrate on the negative for a moment. On Thursday evening at about the nadir of my sorrow, it was raining and we had pretty much given up finding a socially-distanced restaurant patio that wasn’t soggy that was actually nice and settled for diner-burgers, and I was pretty miffed about being dealt this hand. You ordered and then sat to wait for things to be brought. A young server came with my drink. I looked up, smiled, and said thank you, as i was raised to do, and she grunted and stomped off.This was exciting! The surly teenaged service staff is a trope you see often in movies and tv, but you rarely encounter it real life–most teens are actually quite polite to strangers who might tip them, in my experience. Also, in movies and tv and books, you often see a character moving through the world encountering only other character in the exact same mood as she is, like pathetic fallacy but with people, which is dumb in writing but very pleasant in real life–I felt briefly in tune with the universe in my bad mood. It was very satisfying. It was also satisfying to see some resolutely not try at something, since I am always so worried about everything and it’s exhausting. When she returned with the food, instead of setting it on the table, she simply loosened her grip and let it fall! Amazing–I wished I could have filmed it (it was burgers wrapped in paper, so they weren’t harmed–it was just such a jerk move though). I am not going to start doing the my-life equivalent of dumping burgers on people’s tables, but this surely teen was fun to watch in a grim sort of way, and reminded me that being kind is a choice, so if I do it, I choose it. Sometimes I forget that.

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Some of you who follow such things may have seen–and if you didn’t, I’m here to tell you–that Extinction Rebellion Toronto is shutting down in a really miserable and sad way, via a letter on their FB page. I’ve known this was coming for weeks and wasn’t exactly sure if it was a secret or not, so I’ve just been quietly upset and it feels good to have it out in the open now. I hate secrets.I want to speak only for myself here so I’ll say this: I was a member of XRTO for almost exactly a year. It was my first sustained attempt at activism–I invested a lot, and did a lot that scared me, and felt that I made a tiny difference. It was difficult for me, who just wants to get along with everyone, but I found it very meaningful and joyful a lot of the time. This has been a huge loss for me, and a lot of people, I would imagine, to have the organization just eat itself like this.That said, I wasn’t part of the main coordination group that did a lot of the heavy lifting, never saw any of the dark stuff mentioned in the letter, and when things got really ugly at the end, I just quit–I imagine it was a lot harder for many others. Next time–and I do hope there will be a next time for me–I will be more careful about getting involved with a sustainable, organized group with time-tested policies, and careful of how much of my heart (and calendar) I commit.

Day 129: Did you at some point agree to “forsake all others” not realizing that you’d encounter a pandemic with this degree of forsakenness? Have you spoken mainly to your spouse or partner for 129 straight days? Would you like some tips to liven things up? Well, this is not really going to help but here you go:–play the occasional game of Scrabble until the one of you who never wins wins, then never play again–talk about investigating whether the Wii still works so you can play wakeboarding for the first time since 2017, but don’t actually do it–talk about which of your friends and family you’d like to emulate in life while sitting on the couch and eating chips–fight about a picture being askew–fight about which rooms plants go in–fight about which of you has too many shoes–read the same book at the same time so you’ll have something to talk about, discover neither of you really likes the book, and have all conversations degenerate into kvetching. Have this happen twice, then give up.–imagine a life for a dead person had they not died (only fun to do for celebrities; too sad for actual personal connections)–ask each other a lot of concerned questions each time anyone coughs, even if it’s clearly because of dust–step up your pet grooming routines to the point that pets are enraged–brainstorm mealplans despite the fact that one of you doesn’t care, so that it becomes a mealplan monologue–brainstorm rich interior lives for pets–brainstorm rich interior lives for neighbours–brainstorm rich lives for actual rich people as you stroll around their neighbourhoods day after day, peering into their yards, garages, and windows–brainstorm what you would do yourselves if you became rich. Make plans for what would go behind each of those many windows. You can’t be too prepared for this sort of thing.–embrace and then immediate comment on how sweaty the other person is–discuss the latest literary explosions on twitter (note: ideally one would only discuss such things with loved ones, and not ever on actual twitter)–fight about kinds of tofu, and whether they exist.–fight about kinds of laundry detergent.–fight about whether one can buy a nice gift at a Staples–spend some time in separate rooms–agree that you are lucky to have found each other, because who else would put up with all this?

Day 130: So I’ve decided to try out all my makeup to see what is still good, what I still like, etc. Though not, as previously mentioned, wearing it all at once, to expedite the process, I’m doing a complete “look” each day, which I would never do normally except for readings, job interviews, and formal events, so I intimidate myself each time I look in a mirror. I am currently wearing eyeliner, something last seen in public at Karen Maybury‘s wedding, I believe (she married a person, just a person not on facebook). Although I sure do own a lot of eyeliner. Time to purge some? Time to wear it more? Time to just glory in possession?? I have twin urges not to have clutter and not to have waste. I am careful to give away surplus possessions in a useful way–I’ve volunteered at some charities and seen how they can be treated as “guilt-free garbage” (people give things indiscriminately, leaving the volunteers the labour for sorting, cleaning, repairing, and/or discarding) and I try to be very intentional and genuinely generous when I donate, not just happy to be rid of stuff. But there’s little I can do about makeup, since it’s touched my face. I used to be in a “tradesies” club with people I knew well (remember, old friends?), and we would offer each other no longer wanted makeup along with the complete backstory of when and how we’d used it, and try to wipe everything down as much as possible. Honesty, it probably still wasn’t the *best* idea, but I got and gave some nice stuff, and there were no ill effects, as far as I know. Clearly, it’s game over on that sort of practice in pandemic times. So what of my many eyeliners then? Are they destined for the landfill? This is bad. I will have to do better in future but makeup is my big weakness.

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Oh yes, something else to complain about: vertigo! I started suffering from vertigo about 5-6 years ago, mainly on my left side. I think vertigo lives in your ears somehow, so if I’m right about that mine is mainly in my left ear. It happens with a radical change of position, so lying down or sitting/standing up after lying down, or rolling over in bed. Just sitting/standing, or lying still, no problem. As with most conditions I’ve developed over the years, the first incident was the most intense and terrifying–everything spinning in a nauseating way. Since then, I have had other intense vertigo flares (is that a thing? times when I’ve felt it more strongly) but it’s often this very gentle little spinny feeling when I’m lying down to go to sleep at night. Obviously, the intense version is bad and I hate it, but the very gentle version is sort of…nice? Almost like being rocked to sleep. I think I might have had this part of the vertigo all my life because I remember imagining I was spinning spinning spinning when I was a tiny kid trying to fall asleep at night. It just got more intense over time until eventually it became an actual problem.And yes, I have tried all the home remedy half-somersault things and nothing seems to work, and the condition isn’t dire enough to put on the list with all my other medical conditions. 3-4 times a year, stuff spins. I honestly have a suspicion that it’s diet related, but it’s not an exact one-to-one correlation–like, it’s triggered by certain foods, but only if I eat a lot of them and also am tired and not feeling well, you know? So it’s hard to exactly self-police enough to keep it at bay. So I will settle for complaining and feeling sorry for myself. Feel free to very little pity for me, I get it–also, happy to hear other stories of vertigo adventures if you have them!

Day 131: I dreamed last night that I had a bad cough but I went in to work anyway. It was like that dream where you forget you’re taking the course until it’s time for the exam–I forgot there was a pandemic until I had been at work almost the whole day and then all of the sudden I drew up short in horror and shame, realizing I wasn’t supposed to be there, trying to remember who I’d seen, where I’d been. No one had said anything about me coughing, but I figured they were just being polite and were privately furious/terrified. In the dream, it did not occur to me to wonder what I was actually sick with; it was purely a social failure on my part. I do not have a cough and I cannot go to work. I did not sleep well last night.

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PSA: Apparently the word “polenta” means two things: a sort of firm gelatinous cornmeal cake that comes in a tube and some variant on the gritty powdery cornmeal itself that you use to make cornbread out of (or you do if you’re me). If you don’t know this and you can’t pick it up from context clues in the extremely poorly worded and imprecise recipe in the Globe that your husband sent you and then forgot about, you will end up with a sort of Dickensian gruel for dinner and be extremely unhappy.The slight upturn in the story is that I took the rest of the tube, cut it into slices and fried it so we didn’t have to have gruel for dinner, because the extremely poorly worded and imprecise directions on the side of the tube said you could fry it. It was while looking on the internet for some more precise directions that I found out about the two meanings of “polenta” and became enraged. Mark forgot ever sending me the recipe and was surprised by the whole thing, though he claimed to enjoy the fried polenta. It tasted to me like wet greasy cornbread, so in the future I will just make cornbread and it will be better. The Globe piece did come with a good salad recipe so at least that was nice.Commiseration and very precisely worded polenta recipes (that don’t involve a bbq, because I hear that’s common and we don’t have one) being accepted at this time.

Day 132: I have a fab memory for names and faces. Not as good as it used to be when I was younger, and it often doesn’t apply to actual practical things like where is my credit card or which immunizations I’ve had, but if you are a person with a name and a face, chances are I remember you. This is hella creepy if I met you a couple times in the nineties and then we run into each other on the subway and I want to talk about the minute details of your life that I recall. Largely I have learned to just leave it alone in those cases–there’s probably a reason I haven’t spoken to someone in 20 years most of the time. Also I had facial reconstructive surgery in 2007 and no one who hasn’t seen me since then ever recognizes me (also 13 years is a long time, both because you might have forgotten some details and because if so much time has passed, perhaps we weren’t that close in the first place.Anyway, during the pandemic, I think most of us are occasionally having names of old friends pop into our heads and wondering if they are ok. Since i remember everyone, my list is long. Here are some of the people I’ve wondered about:–classmate from 3rd and 4th year university who carried a kitten named Chub-Chub in the hood of his sweatshirt–adorable couple who dated for all 5 years in my high school and then actually got married–whoever owned my cats before we got them–Coach McGurk on tv show Home Movies (note: not a real person, note: a cartoon, note: tv show was cancelled years ago)–old boss who used to wear basketball shirts on casual Fridays such that you could see his nipples–my nursery school teacher who left to have own baby–superintendent who removed dead mouse (rat??) from first apartment–guy I dated immediately before Mark, who didn’t seem that into it but who didn’t seem to have anything else to do–extremely charming and grumpy university TA (oh, I just looked him up–he’s fine according to Rate My Professor)–old neighbour who let me play with his cats–other old neighbour who briefly and ineffectually tried to video-stalk me (at least I think that was what he was doing??)–other old neighbour who sold tires out of his apartment–Women Woman

Day 133: (RR is working at her computer, MS approaches from behind and hugs her)RR: I’m doing an experiment.MS: On what?RR (turns and faces him) On me!MS: You have lipstick on your nose–is that part of the experiment?

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Omg, after months of nowhere to be, I had a dentist appointment on Monday and was pretty stoked. Yesterday they called to confirm and also asked if I happened to be free to fill in a cancellation at 4pm…Friday? I thought Friday. I said sure, as i’m off Friday afternoon. They just called to see where I was, apparently it was for today. I don’t think I’ve ever missed a dentist appointment in my life. They were sort of decent about it, but I feel like a jerk. I also wonder if they are going to send me some sort of no-show bill, there’s often some kind of penalty, isn’t there? I DON’T KNOW THESE THINGS BECAUSE I ALWAYS SHOW UP FOR EVERYTHING!! Pandemic, you are ruining me!Also, now my dentist appointment is on Tuesday and I’m going to be worried about it until then.

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Wow, it is very challenging to book a vacation right now. I mean, I personally always found it challenging to book a vacation, but now especially since I can make a whole plan and then find that it mainly doesn’t work but I can maybe salvage a little bit of it and rethink the rest or is it just better to start over or… Also possibly the whole thing will be terrible and then I will have waste money and vacation time, plus there’s the whole pandemic thing that no I haven’t forgotten about so that’s a risk, but just to go anywhere without jackhammers (they have started on the other side of the building which is surprisingly just as loud) would be a gift so I am willing to try.In order to keep myself organized, I tried putting all our plans into Google Calendar, which I haven’t opened in a good long time and oh, it was very sad to see all our old plans, long since abandoned, still living on, so foolish and naive, in Google Calendar.