December 21st, 2008

Bring in the light

This year, the first night of Hannukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, falls tonight, late enough in the calendar year to coincide with Winter Solstice, the day with the shortest period of sunlight in the year, celebrated by many as the “rebirth” of the year that ushers in the lengthening of light period of days.

Whether you’ll be celebrating either, both, or nothing in particular this evening, lightness and brightness to all.

They always did the best they could
RR

December 20th, 2008

Link it up

The Maclean’s blog calls me Rookie of the Year. A lovely review of *Once* on Rover Arts. Camilla Gibbs‘s blog (and next book?) are all about Pho! August and Writer Guy offer two different views on rejection letters.

In less litsy news, tomorrow Hannukkah starts! Yesterday and tomorrow we had/will have blizzards! And I am absolutely untroubled by any inclement weather, because for the first time since last December, I am on actual, really no-work-or-stress-involved holiday.

Let the frolicking begin!

Gonna keep on thinkin bout you
RR

November 24th, 2008

Minor pleasures

Because there can never be too many, here are some minor pleasures to try:

1) Telling strangers their dogs are cute.
2) Getting an up-to-date phone book and recycling the old one.
3) Touching paper over glass. Seriously–the nicest sensation. There was an ill-placed window in the changing room of my gym that they just recently papered over (I never noticed it before, but that doesn’t bear thinking about) and I am now in love with touching that window. Cold through dry–I can’t explain it. It’s lovely.
4) 14 second video of a kitten falling asleep.
4 a) The fact that when I mentioned this at a party, everyone wanted to see.
b) The fact that when we searched this on someone’s iPhone at the party, there were *pages* of sleepy kitten videos
c) Other people’s iPhones, one of the only things on the planet that inspire technolust in me.
5) A peck on the cheek.
6) Feeling smug about buying nothing on Buy Nothing Day

They always did the best they could.
RR

November 2nd, 2008

Quoting Hallowe’en

“At the Vietnamese butcher…where else would you get lungs?”

“Is this food? Oh, no, this is not food.”

“Who are you? No, not your name, your costume?”

“This sex doll is not very sexy.”

“This is what happens when you take apart a frog.”

“There’s goody bags!!”

“Well, that’s very creative.”

“These eyeballs stick to the wall.”

“Why are you squeaking?”

Wife: “They don’t get it. Nobody gets it.”
Husband: “Well, it’s what I’m wearing. I’m wearing it now.”

“Oh my god, strobe light! Seizure! Run away!”

“The standard first-year university costume for girls is skank.”

“Is it potato salad? Is it fish? What?”

“Can you move?”

Me: “Who are you dressed as?”
Man: “Mike Holmes… *Holmes on Homes*, it’s a home renovation show.”
Me: “I’m a girl.”
Man: “Right. Nevermind”

“And he just started screaming, ‘7 of 9, 7 of 9!!'”

“I get it! Oh, *now* I get it! I do, I really do. Wait a second…”

“Wait for the really naked girl.”

K (to me): “Ok, short people in the front for the photo.”
Me: “Am I short?”
K: “Well, if you have to hop up and down to be seen, you are short.”
Me: “I’m not hopping because I want to be seen, I’m hopping because I am cold. People can see me.”
K: “Fine. Stay where you are then.”

“What does dry ice feel like? Oh, it’s wet.”

RR

October 31st, 2008

It’s Hallowe’en

…but I’m only sort of half-assedly celebrating. I mean, I’m in all black…except for the rose-patterned tights. I ‘ve got green eyeshadow and black lipstick on, but I passed up a severed ear made out of chocolate (and scabs made out of dried cranberries, and an eyeball made out of who-knows-what) because it sort of squicked me out. Lame, I know, very lame, but the actual Hallowe’en party I’m attending is tomorrow (All Saints party?) so I’m getting another crack at the whole thing.

In the meantime, I leave you with the completely unspooky but totally astounding Against Me. I especially recommended “Borne on the FM Waves” (track 4)…oh, Tegan Quinn, you are adorable-punk.

Anxiety anxiety / you give me no mercy
RR

October 20th, 2008

I give up!

I love Hallowe’en more than I love most things, but this year I cannot come up with a costume. This is a sad and embarrassing failure; I wouldn’t blame you if you thought less of me, even stopped reading this blog. But if you are still reading, here are my excuses:

1) The party I am going to is TV-themed, and I haven’t had a working television in 4 years.
2) Prior to 2004, all my favourite shows were sitcoms, and all those characters look approximately like real people. How would you *know* I was dressed as Bailey Quarters, even if I straightened my hair?
3) I am insanely busy these days and will actually be away for most of this week. Even when I am not insanely busy, I am a poor seamstress and have had bad luck with hair dye. Whatever costume I wind up with cannot be complicated, blond, or bulky (the party is also very far away–I don’t want to spend an hour trying to keep my wings or antennae or whatever to myself).

Are these constraints not imposing? I am seriously thinking of covering my clothes with Styrofoam peanuts and going as no-signal snow… If you have a better idea (and almost any idea is better than that) please please share it. I will be forever in your debt. I’ll bring you candy!

After twelve / just as well
RR

October 13th, 2008

Thanksgiving

It would baffling and onerous to try to make a list of all those things for which I am thankful–this is the burden of good things, I suppose, insufficient time in which to list them. But really, though Canadian Thanksgiving was originally conceived as a harvest holiday and it is supposed to have vague connotations for being appreciative of all good things, I believe most stereotypical images of Thanksgiving feature mainly a) family and b) nice things to eat. And I certainly am grateful for both, and will now attempt to encapsulate that emotion in the following transcription of a conversation held earlier today:

(my father and I rummaging through the coffin-sized deep-freeze in my parents’ basement)

Me: Green beans, green beans, oh, pizza! Green beans, green beans…

Dad: Beets, do you like beets? Do you want these?

Me: Sure. Thanks. Green beans, Broccolli…

Dad: Yellow beans, green beans…you know, I don’t really like vegetables anymore.

Me: What? You like vegetables. You’ve always liked vegetables.

Dad: Some of the thrill is gone, I think. I don’t even know what the hell this is.

Me: (peering intently at frozen green blog in his hand) Is it broccoli? It could be broccoli.

Dad: (speaking to the green lump like Hamlet spoke to the skull of Yorrick) That may be. That may well be.

RR

February 29th, 2008

Leap Day

Today is a day that comes but once every four years. Possibly people say that about other things–the Olympics, elections, anniversaries, what have you, but those *dates* come around annual, it’s just the events that don’t. Today is, as far as I know, the only *day* we don’t get every year.

So it’s a good day for leaping–a leap of faith, a leap of logic, a game of leapfrog? I think we should try to at least hop a little; even if we don’t like it, it’s just the one day and then we won’t have to do it again for four more years. Seems like something to try, anyway…

If you were the floor / I’d wanna be the rug
RR

December 27th, 2007

Neglected Likes

In honour of the warm after-glow of Christmas, I’m offering a special collections of things I like that, I fear, are not liked by many others. I try to like them extra, to make up for it!

462. Fruitcake
463. Chicken liver
464. Small talk, especially about the weather
465. Waiting rooms
466. Airports
467. Hospitals
468. Sleeping in public
469. Really really long lists

In other news, Christmas was nice. In case you doubted that I could do otherwise, I’ve been writing more or less steadily, but that’s a lot easiser when you don’t have anything else to do besides eat, sleep, read, and go to the amusing local gym, where you NEVER run into people from high school, even though you are totally braced for it. In fact, given the low-demand life I am leading, I’ve accomplished very little, but I do not care because I haven’t had more than one day off since July. I am totally entitled to sleep 10 hours a night and eat as much fruitcake as I can find. Also to watch a *Fraiser* marathon on television for reasons that now escape me, and play copious *Dance Dance Revolution* (OMG–I do not have my *Chicago Manual of Style* with me and I do not know what appropriate citation style for a video game is. Italics? Quotation marks? Something I haven’t even thought of yet, like angle brackets? Oh, the shame!!) My bro borrowed the PlayStation and *Dance Dance* (going with the italics for now) from his girl, and it’s been quite the hilarious entertainment. I fell off my mat, but only once.

Um…I’ve been outdoors. No, really. I went to see AMT for breakfast this am, and she was charming and her t-shirt showed a tiny mouse screaming, “Books rule!” and also she had red leather gloves. I have black leather gloves which are so elegant and grown-uppy, and I adore them and I know not how this meshes with my not eating beef. Cows–too cute to devour, but I’ll wrap my hands in their skin? Well, apparently, at least for now. I’ll get back to you on this.

I *do* like presents. No particular thing, just *stuff* for *me* you know. I think what I like best about gifts, letters, anything in the mail, really, is that it is evidence that someone thought about me when I wasn’t around. Something about the image of a loved one standing in a card shop, glaring at one of those Shoebox-silliness cards, thinking really hard–“Would RR laugh at this?” That just kills me.

I think a lot of thought went into this holiday. I am kilt.

This comes to you courtesy of my new Magnetic Fields’ cd, 69 Love Songs, vol. 2

Epitaph for My Heart

Caution caution caution
To prevent electric shock
Do not do not do not
Remove cover.
No user servicable parts inside
Refer servicing to qualified
Service personel.

RR

December 1st, 2007

December 1

Yes, I know Blogger will apply the date for me, but this is a date that requires a header, too! It’s the beginning of the silly season (I think New Yorkers apply that to an entirely different time of year, but oh well) when shopping is a serious pursuit and everyone’s always about to go to a party and no gets anything done at work because all the key people are away on vacation. I think enough Christmas carols, or nearly enough, have now been written that we might be able to get through the season without hearing any given one (or version of one) more than eleven times, but who cares if we do?

Things are shiny in Rose-coloured land. I got out the Hannukkah hand towels last night (it has gold embroidery floss on the candle flames!)

Two things to do today, being posted way too late, but no one’s really free today anyway. But if you were, you could go to:

Friday, November 30, 2007
CITY OF CRAFT ESSENTIALS
WHAT: City of Craft
WHO: 60+ craft vendors, community groups, installation artists & workshop leaders
WHEN: Saturday December 1, 2007, 11am-8pm
WHERE: The Theatre Centre, 1087 Queen Street West at Dovercourt (enter in the blue doors on Dovercourt).

Possibly followed by a staged reading of
THE HOUSE OF MANY TONGUES by Jonathan Garfinkel
With Hrant Alianak, Maev Beaty, David Fox, Janick Hebert, Daniel Karasik, Julian Richings
A house in Jerusalem, 2003, is home to Israeli General Shimon, and his 16 year old son Alex, who’s busy trying to bring peace to the Middle East through improved sexual techniques. When Palestinian writer Abu Dalo returns to the house he left 40 years ago, pursued by his long-lost daughter, we realize somehow these four people are going to have to live together – if they don’t kill each other first.

Whatever you do, I hope it’s great day! Really, though, it could hardly miss.

A very shiny nose (like a lightbulb)
RR