March 25th, 2010

Incidents and accidents

1) In class yesterday:

Me, looking over the shoulders of two grade 11 girls as I walk past their desks: Girls, c’mon! I said no phones. (keep walking)

Girl, calling after me: Sorry, miss! We were just–

(I turn to them)

Other girl: Trying to look something up.

(Me internally: Dictionaries live in phones now?)

First girl: Yeah. How do you spell “schizophrenia”?

Me: Oh, well, er– Yeah, fine. Look in your phone.

First girl: Thanks, miss.

Me: You’ve won…

Other girl: Yes, miss.

Me: …this round.

This proves that the reason I refuse to get a cell phone is that I am afraid they are smarter than I am (and I’m probably right, because what I was actually think began with “s-k-” until I realize that was nuts. People think I’m a good speller but I really just own a good [paper] dictionary and sit with it open at my left elbow, which is why I spelled “schizophrenia” correctly above).

2) On the subway, I laughed aloud at something I was reading. What I was reading was Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood, so it’s not so surprising that I laughed, because it is very funny. But it’s a little surprising because I almost never laugh aloud when alone. I don’t know why, but somehow I think laughing is a communicative act, though semi-involuntary. I like funny movies and go to a fair number on my own (for reasons of necessity brought on by [occasionally] having extremely bad taste–I can’t accept that they would bother to make a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine unless that had something important to say about the subject) and I’ll laugh with the audience in happy solidarity, but not really reading and watching tv alone (from what I remember).

Anyway, but then I did, last night, and it caused the drunk guy behind me to say something obscene to or about me. Which is not exactly positive reinforcement to keep doing it.

3) I was walking down the sidewalk this morning and a truck travelling the opposite way made that “ffffffftttttt” sound that I always associate with air brakes although I actually have no idea what it is. But the truck was still moving along at a good clip, and then I noticed that a little jet of steam/smoke shot out under the *front* bumper in time with the noise. I was staring at this in perplexity when I realized the driver was waving at me in a hey-there-old-friend jaunty manner. I definitely don’t know him. There aren’t a lot of pedestrians in that part of town, perhaps he was just offering solace to an endangered species. Or maybe he was just glad I liked his truck?

Does anyone know what the noise and/or steam mean?

RR

Posted in Me, Random, Reading, Transit | 1 Comment »

March 23rd, 2010

Lookalike

Remember a few weeks ago this meme went around Facebook about how you were supposed to post a picture of the celebrity you look most like? Well, you probably can’t remember, because you have better things to do, but I don’t, and was really amazed at how many of my friends bear a shocking resemblance to people I haven’t heard of (but are famous, and attractive [natch, because I have attractive friends]).

Anyway, I wanted to play, too, but couldn’t, because I don’t look like anybody. Well, I look like my mother, who is a delightful person to look like (it makes me very happy when I introduce her as my mom and people say, “Well, obviously!”) but she is sadly not (yet) famous for anything. So I didn’t to do the meme.

Then, this afternoon, I was at the gym in my ponytail and sweaty t-shirt, trying really hard to do a good clean and jerk (I can do it, too, but I just can’t admit what’s on the barbell) and it came to me! It’s not the comparison I’ve always dreamed of (which is: perhaps someday someone will tell me I look like Winona Ryder in *Heathers*, pretty much my standard of female beauty).

I had to take this picture myself, so I’m not sure it really captures the striking similarities, but I still find it spooky:

Do you see it? Not, like, twins, but some definite correspondences!

RR

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March 22nd, 2010

Good things happen

There are some things it is dumb to wish for, because they may not happen, because there’s nothing you can do to make them happen, and it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things anyway. So when such things *do* happen, like, say, being given an elaborate bouquet of roses or being asked for your autograph on the bus, you don’t even have a response prepared, and have to just hope you somehow make your delight apparent.

When I return to complaining about how hard my life is, someone really needs to remind me that the above both happened to me this weekend

To read about some other good things that happened to me, you might take a look at my thoughts on publishing with Biblioasis, posted this morning on That Shakespearian Rag.

RR

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March 10th, 2010

The Baby Zoo

I keep forgetting to tell you guys about the Baby Zoo! This has nothing to do with anything, but it’s something that makes me happy and maybe you’ll like it too.

Even back in the days when I thought babies were sticky, noisy emergency-room-visits-waiting-to-happen, and wouldn’t hold one unless I was sitting on the floor (less falling distance, should I happen to lose my grip) (uh, that would be my whole life up until about three years ago, when the first of my good friends had one), I still liked looking at babies from a distance. It’s pretty much the future of the species in adults finding babies cute-looking, and someone really got all the design elements right on that project.

Even now, when I know some babies quite well and enjoy hanging out with them, my most regular baby glimpses happen at the Baby Zoo. This is an indoor playground that has an entire wall of windows. The architecture probably has more to do with allowing the babies to see out rather than passersby to see in, but it definitely works both ways.

The room is full of soft furniture of indeterminate function in bright pastels (er, brighter than a normal pastel, but not white free of dilution…er, you know what I mean?) There are little climbing ramps and big weighted beachballs for the older kids and musical instruments that can be shaken or whacked for the littler, immobile ones. And there’s parachute silk everywhere!

I walk past this place at least once or twice a day, depending on what I’m up to, and have for years, so I can tell you on good authority that the babies go bananas in this place! They can’t be unattended even for a moment, so you see a baby laboriously scooting backwards up a slide on his butt while a mom or dad stands at the top, cooing and encouraging and/or (quite often) filming. Sometimes babies just run or crawl on the squishy floor and the parents chase them. Sometimes, in a sea of babies, two will encounter each other face to face and suddenly realize that they are not alone in the universe–you see the occasional ET-style finger-touching moments.

Sometimes babies ignore all the cool expensive equipment in the Baby Zoo and just try to escape, ducking into the cloakroom and trying to clammer back into their strollers and be taken away. Yes, the cloakroom’s windowed, too–as is the eating area where you can watching some of the older babies (I guess these are toddlers) smear themselves with pizza sauce and/or frosting, while the parents eat ravenously and listen for choking. Once, I saw a small small boy in a brown corderoy suit desperately suckered to the window (mouth and nose, too), trying to osmose through to reach the goth teenager who was sitting on the ground just beyond the class, eating grocery-store chicken.

Sometimes, I walk past the Baby Zoo at night and then, of course, there are no babies. Occasionally, instead, I catch sight of the old man who cleans the place, carefully vacuuming the everything-resistant rubberized surfaces of the floor and all the equipment. He’s chubby fellow with a grey-white beard, a kind of dissolute-looking Santa, and his clothes are the sort I wore too when I cleaned for a living–nothing you’d be too upset about getting puke or pizza sauce on. He probably cleans a lot of office buildings and the like, at night, but you can tell the Baby Zoo is his favourite. He takes off his enormous filthy sneakers and pads barefoot on the squishy pastel floor–and once I saw him toss one of the bright enormous beachballs across the room.

RR

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February 9th, 2010

Print Psychiatry

On the weekend, I dreamed that I was a verso page, madly in love with a recto. Is that weird? I mean, of course that’s weird, you’re weird for even understanding that, but…really weird?

There’s 1001 what-sort-of-bramble-bush quizzes on the Web, but this one Rosalynn at the Literary Type is pretty special (she has such good taste). It’s like a five-minute psychological/typographical analysis, and it’s very soothing. Except I turned out to be Courier, when I feel very strongly that my personality is Times New Roman.

Yours in lunacy,
RR

Posted in Books, Random, Typography | No Comments »

January 15th, 2010

Week-ender

Thanks so much to all who chimed in (or even thought chimeful thoughts) on my vocab-rant last post. I don’t think anything on Rose-coloured has ever garnered 11 comments. Thanks for letting me know/reminding me that word definitions are whatever most people understand it to be, my last subhead was defeated by its own cleverness, and the rules of grammar do not apply to David Mamet–I’m feeling considerably more chilled out about things now.

Except rhetoric–comments from smart people indicating that they don’t understand that word have undermined my own confidence that I understand it! So, coming soon: a post about rhetoric.

But today promises to be the busiest day ever, so not today. Today I’m just enjoying about simple things like: a) it’s sufficiently warm in my apartment (example of the simple joys in my life: I got out of the shower and didn’t want to die), b) my headache from yesterday went away, c) the video below, and c+) the fact that I may have learned to embed it correctly (we’ll see), d) that if I can just make it through the busiest day ever, I get to Skype with far-off friends, and tomorrow, someone is going to make me sweet-potato soup (Rose-coloured philosophy: hooray for sweet potatoes! I recognize as a philosophy that needs work).

I have noted that not everything in the world is good. Accidentally watching the news from Haiti last night on the gym left me near tears on the elliptical trainer, I am so sad about the loss of P.K. Page, and I think certain friends are having some tough times these days.

I’m not saying that this video ameliorates any of that, but I do think it’s very funny and it’s only 47 seconds long. 47 seconds of distraction is worthwhile, I think. (Thanks, Ben, for the link!)

RR

Posted in Current Events, Random, Words | No Comments »

December 16th, 2009

Randolinquent

Written on the back of a bus seat in Wite-Out pen:

“F*ck the free world!”

But not the dictatorships?

RR

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December 2nd, 2009

How tired are you?

I just washed my face, and when I went to wash the facial-cleanser bubbles off my hands, I picked up a(nother) bar of soap to wash them off.

I am very tired. Also, very clean.

RR

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November 20th, 2009

Sorry

That toothbrushing thing? The allegory doesn’t hold up in the cold light of day. It *was* fascinating to read everyone’s oral hygience routines though, so please accept my thanks for playing along, and apologies for not doing more with the material y’all so generously contributed.

RR

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November 16th, 2009

I may or may not be going somewhere with this

Here’s what I do:

1) Wet the toothbrush under the tap.
2) Put toothpaste on the brush.
3) Brush teeth.
4) Spit.
5) Brush tongue.
6) Spit
7) Fill a glass with water.
8) Take a sip of water; swish it around mouth; spit (3x).
9) Take final sip of water; swallow.
10) Rinse toothbrush.

What do you do?
RR

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