September 7th, 2007

Long Friday

Today at work, I dropped my employee id in the toilet. Almost worse: being discovered washing said id in the sink.

Hey, remember that time I was going to the Biodome for some Intro Geography field trip and the girl sitting at right angles to me on the Metro projectile vomited on my new jacket? And continued on vomiting (into her gloves) until the next stop (Pie-IX??) so she couldn’t apologize before I ran away in grossoutedness. Once off the subway, I had no idea where I was, so I went into the only nearby business, a car rental agency and begged to use the restroom. I didn’t explain why, but perhaps the lady behind the counter could guess from the smell, because she let me. I was scrubbing both my jacket and my sweater (yes, it soaked through) in the sink when an enormously pregnant rental-car-agency employee came in, *did* bat an eye but only once, then went about her business.

When I left the restroom (finally) I asked the counter clerk for a plastic bag to put my dripping wad of wet laundry in, and all she had a was a garbage bag. So I show up late at the Biodome with a garbage bag thrown over my shoulder like a hobo sack, and freezing cold because I’m minus two layers. Some nice boy from my class found me and reaffiliated me with the tour, and eventually took me home on the *bus* (I went the wrong way, should never have even been on the Metro) and I was so cold and mizzy that I never even bothered to flirt with him. I think his name was Anthony. Nice boy from first-year geography class, if you are reading this, is your name Anthony?

Remember when I thought I was going to major in geography? Ha!

Enjoy a little kiss and tell
RR

September 3rd, 2007

Weekend Summation

–What blue blue skies!
–Tequila Bookroom has a rooftop patio that is gorgeous. Did you know that? I didn’t know that.
–I bought patent leather shoes. They are very shiny.
–Kim(berly) came to visit and she has been in the sun so much this summer that she is blonder than ever. Lemon blond, Barbie blond, it’s insane. And she is also well and charming as ever, and the visiting cat adores her.
–Oh my goodness, the weather was so gorgeous–sunny and warm, but with a coolish breeze and at any hour the sun seems to be on a tilt. I guess this is what they mean by Indian Summer. Is that expression still acceptable, political-correctness-wise?
–I also bought a $98 sweater for $24. That makes it easier to accept that sweater-weather is coming.
—High School Musical: the Concert lacks exposition.
–Long weekends are nice.
–What are we celebrating on Labour Day again?

Get your head in the game!
RR

August 17th, 2007

This Linkable Life II

Most websites and even blogs have a link-list of the owner’s favourite and/or most visited sites on the web, sources of news, information, entertainment, pornography, whatever. Other than my personal friends , and publications I’ve been involved with, I have no such list. Not that those lists aren’t content-rich in their own rights–the book reviews at Pickle Me This and music at Idle Tigers are worth your time even if you have no idea how charming Kerry and Ross are personally. And all of the journals there are primarily content purveyors that I am really only marginally involved with. I can spend an amazing amount of time waltzing around The Danforth Review and The New Quarterly especially.

But non-literary, non-personal links? There are zero. I surf for journals and Facebook and email and blogs now. That’s it. It wasn’t always that way. I used to read a lot on the ‘net. I wonder what happened to those sites I used to like, back in the day… (if this were an episode of Scooby-Do, the screen would go wavy now…

In first year university, I got my own computer and whippet-fast internet in residence, and discovered there was more you could do than email and pathetically try to contact your friends in Winnipeg via IRC on *dial-up* (I was an idiot as a kid, ok?) and crash the computer and have your dad yell at you. I found out about websites in 1997. Is that sad?

Anne-Michelle (of no internet presence) recommend Prehensile Tales to me. Their motto was “stories that grab you”–get it? Like prehensile *tails* on monkeys. Ahahaha. Erm. Now, when I check back, the motto is “stories to make you soil yourself,” which, in my opinion, is less funny. The site’s no longer being updated, but the old content is still archived, included much from after I stopped reading, when apparently things were largely given over to critiques of pornography. But the creator, Halcyon, who back in 1997 was just an amusing and oddly hot web designer with too much free time, is now apparently sort of famous. I had no idea! He has his own tv show, Cocky Bastard TV, and billions of websites that this linkable life will not be linking, as they all proliferate off the one above. After following an endless link trail, I eventually got to what Halcyon was up to as of last week, nearly 8 years after I was last paying attention to his words. It’s a weird feeling:

“But with the help of Spotman, John The Grease Angel, GriffinOne, and my Mom, I have adopted and transformed this neglected Winnibago into a pink chariot of love.”

It’s a really weird feeling.

I forget who suggested I might enjoy The Shaaazay Cafe (yep, three As) but they were right. It’s an *NSYNC parody/humour site, which hasn’t been updated since 2004, apparently. It looks like after I stopped reading it went downhill with the departure of KD and WD, the Swedish and Midwestern (respectively) webmistresses and snarkheads.

“4. What worries you most about running an NSYNC humor site?

KD: That I might get bored and lose interest. OR! That people I respect might find out.”

What was I *doing* during undergrad? Not a lot of work, apparently.

Oh, man, it’s just as well I don’t much bother with the web-world now. The lit journals and friends mentioned before refer me to good stuff much of the time and the rest of the time…well, it’s clear I’m not good at making my own decisions. I think I’ll not pursue this trip down memory lane any further, as it is getting embarrassing. People I respect, indeed!

Sweet lady
RR

August 10th, 2007

Order and Reality

Those are two things we probably need more of or less of, respectively or in concert. I’m not sure. Those who know me know that I’m a far bigger fan of the first than the second: I know where all my books are, even those I haven’t and won’t need in years. I could probably guess how much money is in my wallet within a dollar or so, how much food is in my fridge to the nearest onion, whose number I have in my phone book, etc. I like being on top of my game, such as it is, knowing what’s going on. The more knowledge I have of my little world, the more I feel the world is manageable, and therefore ok.

So it is curious, then, how much I do not like to read nonfiction. I want to read and write novels and short stories about other people’s little worlds; I do not want to read about the big world as a whole. My current theory as to why is because I’m never going to get a grasp on everything in the whole big world. I’ve got complete control over my hard-drive, my spice rack and my wallet–they are available to me to be exhaustively known, and then confidently ignored. Possibly, there is a feeling in the back of my head that if I tried to read about, say, the oil trade, I would not be able to understand more than a near tenth of any article, and then my obsessive tendencies would take over and I would be found a year from now, body crushed under an avalanche of back-dated New York Times.

Perhaps not. But I do know I like manageable things that I can completely consume. And that is why the one form of non-fiction that I let into my life is The New Yorker. Let’s be honest, it’s where I get all my information on the world that I don’t glean from conversation or fiction. I don’t watch television, I don’t read the newspaper and I change the radio station when the talking comes on.

Are you going to stop reading this blog?

Please don’t. I like you.

The New Yorker is a truly fantastic magazine, and it covers political, environmental and cultural issues about as exhaustively as a WASPy American weekly ever could. It’s quite dense for 90 pages a week, but if I read seriously on the cross-trainer an hour a day, I can read every word of every article and review (I skip the capsule reviews of live shows in “Goings on about Town,” because there’s no way I’m going to see them). Then the magazine is fully consumed, I know as much as I’m going to know about the world that week, which is actually not all that much in the scheme of things. But I know everything about The New Yorker that week. I like that.

This strangeness was driven home to me yesterday when I turned to Elizabeth Kolbert’s article. Normally Ms. Kolbert writes about global warming and other environmental issues. She is very thorough and passionate, but sometimes I find her writing a little…technical. I seem to recall her describing molecules. Fascinating, but not my bag. And then this week, our relationship changed (I feel very close to all the regulars at the magazine. This probably also not a good sign about my personality). Her article “Stung” is about an obsession of mine that predates TNY or having my own spice rack or wallet or anything: bees.

As a child, I loved bees and ants. An incipient obsessive, I loved learning about their perfectly ordered societies, rigid life roles and hierarchies. They lived in little cells! They had life roles assigned to them from larval stage and they *never did anything else*. (You know what else I liked as a child? Feudalism.) As I devoured the article, I thought fondly of my illustrated insect guides, my “pet” ants (country children do not have ant farms; I played with ant hills in the yard). Kids are weird, kids are obsessive. Some grow out of it, some don’t. At least I don’t wish I was a bee anymore. Much.

Possibly this is all twitter, and definitely self-involved, better left to for a consciousness-raising seminar (uck, how I would hate that–so unmanageable). But reading matters a lot on this blog and it has long been a sticking point for some (hi, Scott!) that I don’t read nonfiction ever. Isn’t it interesting that there is a solid psychological reason why not?

Or maybe it’s just that I’m actually an insensitive person and don’t care about global warming. Either way, you should really read the bee article. It’s interesting and bees are awesome and Kolbert, when she’s not writing about the end of civilization, is hilarious.

I can’t stand up / for falling down
RR

August 9th, 2007

News from the Land of No News

I’m like some sort lizardy creature who thrives in the sunshine but, when there is a higher than average humidity rating, can barely function just lying on her rock. I even started to hate my rock a little during the nadir of the Civic weekend, when the sky was one colour all day and hair just never dried post-shower. Eventually I mopped the floors of my rock (abandoning simile), which is good since I’m hostessing a dinner party tonight. Also because it improved morale. But really, as holiday weekends go, this one was subpar.

You know who else hates humidity? The main character in Douglas Coupland’s JPod. I’m just mentioning it because that doesn’t come up in fiction a lot. Also because that book was funny. Silly, actually–a big hodgepodge of invention and gags and mess, not your typical CanLit. Jolly good fun, I thought. Even though it probably killed my Canadian satire essay. Oh, well, that essay had lots of problems, really.

You know what’s weird: I might never write an essay again. What a strangely awful thought. Also weird: the fact that it is now cold and humid. Why does this city seem to be perpetually clammy? More weird: girl who just walked into the library looked just like the “this one time? at band camp?” girl from the American Pie movies.

I have nothing to say. I am groggy and damp and tense. The minor-celebrity-doppleganger might be the highlight of my morning. Maybe not. I maintain hope, though minor, that things will improve before noon. The afternoon will definitely be better, because I can go to the gym and be mindless, followed by meeting Kerry to mindful and literary, and then my very literary dinner party. It’s a good thing I know so many smart people–they can fill in the blanks when I am like this. Whatever this is–I can’t think of the noun right now.

Tomorrow will be better
RR

August 2nd, 2007

Dispatches from Department of Dumb Ideas

#1–I have installed a hit-count-thingy on this site. My bro thought it would be interesting, but I said, “Nah, I have four readers and I know who they are.” (Hey, guys!) He said, “Maybe people you don’t know read it, too.” And he was right! Or, at least, either that or you four are strangely mobile! Anyway, now I can check on that and see how I’m doing, hit-wise, whenever I feel like wasting time. Not a good temptation to have. But hello, strange new readers, whoever you are. I like you already.
#2–A small child yelled angrily at me in a foreign language from her stroller. A library patron was rude on the phone. I am upset about both these incidents. Clearly I am being silly and thin-skinned, yet I am sad.
#3–I threw a rubber chicken at one of my students because he wasn’t paying attention.
#4–I put chunks of watermelon in a ziploc instead of a tupperware because it would take less space in my bag that way. Now, of course, it is a big sticky smushy mess. Of *course* I’m going to eat it anyway!

Well, there you have it. The day can only improve, though, with a swim, some writing workshoppery, hwae dop bop and *The Simpsons* movie all afoot for later. Yes, yes, Simpsons. I maintain that this is not part of my streak of bad ideas. The trailers are funny, anyway.

He is surrounded by sound
RR

July 26th, 2007

Called On Everything

A Rebecca assessment:

“You’re definitely not shy about expressing your opinion; you just don’t always have one.”

[sound of me thinking]

“You know…that’s a pretty accurate way of summing me up, actually.”

“Blog away.”

“How did you…?”

“Well…”

June 24th, 2007

Sunday at the library

I’ve never worked a weekend before, and it’s not as quiet as one might imagine. When the library hasn’t got many students, it draws out members of the general public, independent scholars and lunatics. Also, today, a bird; I got to chase a small frightened sparrow around with a box for a while, which was kinda fun. And talk to some visiting scholars from Venezuala and Korea. Oh, now my colleague is looking at puppies on the internet. Aww, pugs.

Ok, it’s pretty quiet here. Only 1 hour and 17 minutes to go!

You can read my face / and my biography
RR

June 4th, 2007

Minor troubles

This past week has been fraught with mild distress as two good friends moved permanently out of the city and a number of others went far far away temporarily (vacations! such a weird concept). Also the weather was weird and the smog was gross. Also I wrecked my favourite pair of tights. And I’m not getting as much work done as I should be on le livre. And yesterday I got caught in a torrential downpour that rendered my t-shirt a public decency issue in *half a block* and when I finally got indoors I discovered that rain had come in the open windows and mixed with dust on the ledge to form a toxic grey sludge. And I am working too many hours this week. Also one of my students informed me he had kissed a snail.

Obviously, my problems are not insurmountable. And they are ameliorated by bright spots like: A’s cooking, company and cool friends on Saturday night; and watching C.R.A.Z.Y. with P and the girls on Sunday.

This week’s projects include freaking out about punctuation and paragraphing (more soon), planning how to reach the Bronx from JFK without falling into the Hudson, and being excited that Ben returns tomorrow from the Middle East. So things are really looking up. Right? Right.

One day the little girl and the little boy / were both baked in a pie
RR

June 1st, 2007

Quotations

“What I know, love and desire in another person isn’t inside him like a nut in its shell, but it is everywhere that he is, forming him. My identity isn’t inside me–it is how I am. It is hard to express the way we know the forms of things, but this is the knowing that art exercises.”
–Hugh Hood in “Sober Colouring: The Ontology of Super Realism”
Maybe I need to get out more, but I think that is the sexiest writing lesson I’ve ever read.

“You take a chance the day you’re born. Why stop now?” That’s Barbara Stanwyck, speaking as Lorna Moon in the Louis Meltzer’s screenplay of Clifford Odets’ play Golden Boys as quoted by Anthony Lane in a New Yorker article on Stanwyck’s career last month. I like the line, of course–always good to be reminded not to be a chicken. I also just like the layers of quotation–obviously, Odets, Meltzer and Lane liked the line, too. I actually thought about doing the citation in MLA style, just for fun, but then I thought, “Do you want to be the sort of person who does MLA style ‘for fun’?” Ahem.

One final quote note: In case anyone was deluded, my signoff lines are not original; though uncredited, they are from pop songs, usually good lines, often from bad songs. My point may or may not be that anything can sound deep taken way out of context, or perhaps I just like a lot of silly music. But I’ll put a good one today, because I’m in the mood for other people’s wisdom,

I’m walking up the face of the mountain
Counting every step I climb
Remembering the names of the constellations
Forgotten is a long long time

That’s Paul Simon, I believe I’ve quoted those lines here before, but they are really really good.
RR