April 17th, 2008

Book Salad

It is National Poetry Month in April, and I believe that nation is the US, but it’s spreading, as poetry only should. I thought I’d be celebrating this week by starting my Introduction to Writing Poetry class, but it was cancelled *due to low in enrollment*, which is horrifying to me. Doesn’t everyone want to write a good poem? I really do, so will try to self-educate by reading lots, which is the actual point of National Poetry Month anyway.

The usual problem when I read poetry is that poems are short, I read quickly, and my commute is long. By the time you’ve read a dozen pages you could easily have read a dozen poems, but if each poem is an entire world, the development and refinement of a theme or character or emotion, I shouldn’t be simply nodding and turning the page. When I do that, a dozen pages later I am at work with a jumble of half-remembered phrases in my head and nothing truly sustained or sustaining.

I’ve heard a number of good methods to ration out collections of poetry into brain-sized bites, but the one I’m using currently is to read two books at once. I picked up the next two books I on my to-read stack pretty much at random and got lucky, but perhaps some care might need to be taken in the match-up. Anyway, if you get a pair that fits, it can be wonderful to read, as I’ve been doing, one poem from Ken Babstock’s Airstream Land Yacht with full intent concentration. Then, you take a moment to collect yourself, shut the book and flip open Mil Millington’s *Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, and read merrily away with 2/3 your concentration, the other third reserved for working through “Etymology of blizzard
unknown.”
and sundry other packed lines and thoughts and images, which the quick reader would inevitably miss. Milington’s book is so effortlessly, undemandingly entertaining (it is the lad lit of which I spoke in the previous post, dating from those halcyon days of 2002) that it leaves portions of the mind and soul free for this. And yet, the light book *is* quite good; its entertainment is stimulating, not deadening. And the hero, Pel, (think it’s a roman a clef?) possesses a certain baffled male insight glances off Babstock’s fierce curiosity and interest in the world rather well. Of course, you can’t measure

‘This bastard deleted my essay!’ shouted…the student on top, indicating the bastard he was talking about by punching him several times in the mouth.

‘Fffmiminak!’ counted the student on the bottom. An effective reply, as what he lacked in clarity he made up for by bleeding heavily.

against “form that gives if you hold it when there’s only you”

That’s not fair–Babstock is a brilliant writer and Millington is a funny guy. But they work well together, and my commutes these days are quite pleasant. Will see how it goes next time–Ondaatje’s *Secular Love* paired with…recommendations?

Ready to bolt
RR

March 10th, 2008

Scenic

Standing at the bus stop, kicking a frozen snowdrift, talking about how much everything sucks.

D: So you wanna stand here and wait or you wanna walk?
Me: Walk!
(we start walking single-file, D in the lead)
D: I wasn’t sure if you’d want to walk through all the snow…
(sidewalks unploughed since Saturday’s blitz)
Me: This will be hilarious, and end in tears.
D: As long as we get both!
(walk for some time, talk about cartoons. Arrive at massive snow mountain in middle of sidewalk, constructed by snowplough. Toronto officially hates pedestrians. D climbs mountain, begins descending other side. I climb halfway, teeter sideways, half collapse in snow, right myself, climb to top. Descent looks far steeper than ascent)
Me: This is where it ends?
D (turning to look) Ends?
Me: It’s over.
D: As in, the end of you?
Me; Yes!
D: Death?
Me: Yes.
D: The drapes go or I do?
Me: Oscar Wilde!
D: Do you want a hand?
Me: Yes!

March 6th, 2008

Peterborough Panel Post-Mortem

Though I did have to get up at 5 in order to be at the bus station by 6:15 in order to hang around for half an hour to get the 6:45 bus, the trek out was sadly without incident. I read a bit, took a nap, avoided eye contact with the guy who was talking to no one. When I arrived I was under instructions to take a taxi to Trent, for which I’d be reimbursed. I was dreading this, because I am afraid of taxis (I am not even embarrassed about this phobia. I really don’t know more people don’t have it–you spend your whole formative period being told that if you get into a stranger’s car, they will kill you in a disgusting manner, only to later be told that it’s ok if you give them money.)

But then I saw a lovely city bus that helpfully said “Trent” right on it. When I got on, there was Nine Inch Nails playing on a little stereo under the driver’s seat, and when I didn’t have the right change, the much-pierced driver said not to worry about it.

Peterborough is awfully awfully pretty. I’ve already forgotten the name of the river there, but it’s gorgeous. The campus is nice, too–a few strange fan-shaped buildings, and rather sprawling (the bus drove for a long time on-campus before we got the library) but it has a bridge *right over the river*. Between classes, the bridge crowds up like a school hallway, only more scenic.

I hung around the library for the morning, got given all the coffee and fruit I could handle (I won a bonus cup in roll-up-the-rim-to-win! This post hasn’t even reached noon or any literature yet! I am going to focus!) and a room with a view to read and write in. Then there was lunch, which was good even though I couldn’t really identify what kind of sandwich I had. It had some sort of fish in it. (Focussing=failure.)

The panel *was* intimidating*, but in a good way. The other participants had done this sort of thing before—several of them are profs and do it all the time—and they seemed able to formulate complete thesis statements on the fly. The conversation seemed to me remarkably cogent and focussed, mainly about the role of writers outside of writing fiction and poetry. Thus, we talked a lot about teaching and learning, which I felt qualified to talk about at least a little, and a lot about critics and “public intellectuals, which is something that intimidates me greatly. I always *mean* to figure out how I could usefully review and criticize (two different things, I’m pretty sure) but I really haven’t yet. The discussion gave me some ideas.

*Shut Up He Explained* is nearly 400 pages, and it’s quite wide-ranging, so a lot of the things that hit me hardest–how a writer transubstantiates fact into fiction, and how artistry operates on a sentence level–didn’t get covered. Maybe there will be another panel?

Then there was coffee and chatter, and I was most relieved that it was over and I hadn’t said anything horrid (though I felt a bit guilty for having introduced the phrase “the joy of the text” to the discussion—surely I could’ve thought of a less lame way to convey that). Some of the writers went to another writer’s house for drinks and classy snacks, including something that, though I ate a lot of it, could really have been anything. Italian antipasto, but with corn? Salsa, only sweet? Some sort of chutney? Why am I still *on* about the food?

In this more informal discussion, I was still pretty bug-eyed and silent, but I asked enough questions (“Wait, *who* did he punch?” “Is that person dead?”) to follow the flow. As illuminating as the first, really.

Then there was an early dinner, because apparently if you are in PTBO on a Tuesday, you either have leave by 7:30 or sleep there. I will restrain myself from describing that meal (curry!) Everyone refrained from rolling their eyes when I said the day had been “a wonderful experience” (worse than “the joy of the text”) and I got on the Greyhound and went home in the blizzard. When I got here, there was lightning in the snow.

It really *was* a wonderful experience, though, is the thing.

What is this love
RR

December 17th, 2007

Snowy days

Hey, we had a blizzard. It was great–I bailed on all parties (which, to be fair, would also have been great), all errands and the world at large. I spent the entire weekend reading and writing and, when I got too stir-crazy, going to the gym. I managed to lure writing/performance partner J. to the house last night, but other than that, I did not see a lot of other humans.

Perhaps that is why, despite the ONE AND A HALF HOURS it took me to get to work, I found the commute a great pleasure. The bus was so packed with so many humans going crazy, and yet everyone was in a good mood. Things that happened on the bus:
–woman speaking to a toddler, both aloud and in sign language, about how many people might be on the bus. The tot’s ASL was still weak–she kept signing the zero first in 50. While this was being debated, we hit a stop and someone boarded. The caregiver was patiently explaining how digits worked, when the little girl, who could not speak, impatiently signed something. The caregiver laughed, and said/signed, “Ok, yes, 51.”
–a teenager shrieking into a phone, “You *broke Jordan’s nose*?? That’s not good. Ok, how? Is it really broken? Is she ok? Ok, honestly, that’s sort of funny. Has school started yet? I’m gonna be *so* late.”
–when I finally got a seat, it was next to a man with an enormous, old-school, 1990s-style CPU in his lap. It came up to his chin and out to his chest, but when I dropped a piece of paper on the floor and couldn’t reach it, he got it for me…somehow. So chivalry isn’t dead.

This is a message
RR

December 13th, 2007

Little Big World

Occasionally I de-pod in transit, put down my reading and tune into the world around me. Usually that world consists of cellphone conversations between my fellow TTCers and people who aren’t in the world around me.What can you do, ours is a “virtual” culture. Still, it never fails to amaze me how freely people will discourse cellularly, at much higher volumes than they’d ever have a conversation in person. I’ve heard people talk about what they’ve stolen, about fistfights at work, abortions, alcoholism, violent relationships, and trips to the food bank. I guess when people raise their voices talking about this stuff, they aren’t really thinking about privacy; they have bigger problems. Joy can wait until they disembark, I guess, since I rarely overhear the job acceptances, happy birthdays, just-called-to-say-I-love-yous.

The other morning, I found myself eavesdropping on the fellow behind me, though I could not understand him. He was talking on his cellphone in Hindi at 8 in the morning, but with such intensity that I felt I was following the rise and fall of the covnersation . Though there was heated emotion in his voice, he was speaking in long, reasoned-sounding sentences, and I couldn’t tell if it was a business or personal conversation. Then, appropos of what I don’t know, he said a sentence in English: “It’s not a routine, I call you every day because I *want* to talk to you.” Almost a thesis statement really, outlining almost everything else that had been spoken and would be so far.

He went back into Hindi after that, but I felt that understood the rest of the conversation perfectly, even before he gave another couple subject-lines in English a few minutes later. When he got off the bus, he passed my seat and I of course turned to see what he looked like–a college student with an enormous backback, sneakers tied by their laces hooked onto it. He was still talking, somewhat miserably. I don’t think he was convincing whoever it was on the other end.

The man next to me visibly craned his neck to see the speaker’s face. I smiled at my fellow voyeur and he somewhat awkwardly looked down into his lap, confused at my attention maybe, or startled at being caught out. Me, I felt sad for us all, but strangely happy to be a part of this bizarrely connected world.

He came to inspection / before me in sections
RR

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

August 31st, 2007

If they were going to abbreviate something, why TGIF?

Isn’t it nice enough to spell out in full? Especially on a day when one has the leisure time to do so.

Mmm, a three-day weekend, haven’t had one of *those* in a while. No, that’s a lie, I had three days off in July, when I went to Ottawa. But travelling, while awesome, is not *relaxing.* This afternoon when I got home, I took a *nap.* I might take another one before bed tonight. We’ll see (there’s good comedy sketch floating around somewhere, about Ronald Regan, featuring a bedtime nap–think it’s on YouTube?)

Actually, tonight after I have digested dinner I’ll probably go the gym. I meant to go for a run in the glorious cool sunshine, but the nap and the dinner made it later, and the long shadows in the ravine at dusk freak me out. Plus the new gym is still new enough to feel fun. For one thing, it’s right around the corner, so I can go late in the evening, go spontaneously, not shower or change after, just lunge home. Gosh, this is boring.

Ok, the really cool thing about the gym is that they have televisions there, and if you bring your own headset you can plug yourself in and choose from 5 or 6 scintillating cable shows.

Now we know that Casa Rose-coloured is tv-free since the unfortunate incident that I actually didn’t witness but that broke my tv somewhere in 2004. And as for cable, it has never been a presence in my life. I grew up in a so-called dead zone (note: not a metaphor) where none of the cable companies are willing to run service. That’s right, “willing”. We used to think that they weren’t *able* for some reason, but it turns out that the population densitiy is just too low to make the initial investment in infrastructure worthwhile. It’s very annoying, but it probably made for a purer childhood.

I’ve almost never, for example, seen music videos. Not even at friends’ houses, as most friends who were close enough to share appliances also lived in the dead zone. We really thought that half an hour of *Video Hits* Sunday afternoons on CBC was as good as it got.

As I got older, I realized how wrong we were–at parties, in hotel rooms, other people’s houses, university residence. And of course, my folks did some sort of satellite fandango the year I moved out and got *everything*. The year I moved out, figures. But it’s hard to make it a priority, you know? So the gym is really my first chance to watch whatever I want (well, Much and some other version of Much) for as long as I want. Which as it turns out, is most of my cardio, which is bad news indeed for the *New Yorker* (hmm, note to self: *New Yorker* not person, cannot be offended nor miss you.)

Oh, and did I mention I go to a “women’s gym” where everyone’s fiftyish and monied and “concentrating” (so why did I choose it? It was the cheapest, strangely.) The only people young and even vaguely hip are the staff, who I guess set the channels. So when the permanent wave ladies stroll past me as I’m chuckling away at My Chemical Romance and those cheerleaders in gasmasks (brilliant–what’s that song called?) it makes me feel vaguely young and hip, too.

Also I’m getting lots of cardio in, which is good.

Also it took me nearly two hours to get from work to the doctor’s office today (it was a half day). BIRT this is not a TTC rant way-station. Hence, perhaps, the need for the nap.

I took a shuttle on the shock wave
RR

June 20th, 2007

I went away…

but now am back. Hooray? Well, it’s nice to see Toronto again, especially this morning, after last night’s mini-hurricaine washed away the humidity and smog (less of an improvement: the lightning took out the big tree in front of the library). But really, I was starting to grow pretty attached to NYC and certainly didn’t see nearly enough of it in the scant five days I was there. No one wants the play-by-play, I am sure, but the gist is that it was fabulous. In short:

JetBlue is an amazing airline of punctuality, mini-tvs, legroom and animal crackers.

I was delighted by how navigable the subways were. You just look at a map to see where you want to go and where you are, then find the line(s) that go in between (or check hopstop.com for various routes). The whole express/local distinction takes a little getting used to, but otherwise easy-peasy.

Small Kitten is well and thriving, with a cute apartment, amusing friends and a fine sense of style. Sabrina has instituted a policy of biting where I am concerned, but I think I love her anyway. She’s just too beautiful not to love.

I ate many delicious things, including a classic New York bagel (far better than Toronto, though very different from/possibly not as good as Montreal bagels). Also IHOP pancakes, which are as fantastic as everyone says, complete with pink strawberry syrup and unlimited coffee. Mmmm….

I walked like a crazy person–from Chinatown through Little Italy and Soho to Washington Square on Thursday, along the Coney Island Beach and then across the Brooklyn Bridge to the South Street Seaport on Friday (thanks, Melaniah, for your tour-guiding fortitude), 30 blocks along Central Park West and back on Saturday (I got confused), and from somewhere I can’t remember to and through Columbia on Sunday. Whew. It was fantastic.

I went to Coney Island, from whence my people sprung! It was neat, but I am still not sure I felt *of* the place. We ate at Nathan’s, but I had roasted chicken and vegetables because there are no veggie dogs in all of New York City. How weird and antidiluvian. Also no recycling bins. More on these topics later, I’m sure.

I met many of Melanie’s fascinating friends, and somehow let them suck me into singing in public. We are still not sure how that happened.

Ok, so that’s the short version and it is not all that short, and there is more to come. The point is that I had a fantastic time, and can’t believe the party is over and that I am at work eating a weird vegetarian sandwich that appears to consist mainly of shredded carrots. I miss you NYC, Melanie, Sabrina!!!!

If you can make it there
RR

May 5th, 2007

Did they make prom weekend earlier this year?

Or are stretch SUV limos just suddenly all the rage? Just wondering.

How can you know you’re right / If you’re not nervous anymore?
RR

April 11th, 2007

Scarberia

Yesterday started out well enough: a reasonable amount of dawn-time work, a trip to the gym, delicious lunch with Charming Kerry (guess who remembered how to do links?). Then, though, I attempted a dry run to UTSC in preparation for invigilating an exam there on Monday. I had never been via public transit, as my kindly supervisor always drove me last term, and this term all my hours have been saved for this behemoth exam (between that and my regular jobs, I will be working 80 hours next week, so there won’t be much action here at Rose-coloured). Anyway, I figured the day of the exam was not the time to be experimenting with routes, so I set off to time transit, and things went straight to hell..

You know when you ruin your own day and don’t even have anyone good to be mad at? Yeah, it was like that. It’s totally not Scarborough’s fault I got Kennedy station confused with Scarborough Centre (the concept of “end of the line” messed me up–two different lines, two different ends). Once at Kennedy, I fast realized that there was no 38 bus there, but at that point I didn’t know how I’d gone wrong, so I just wandered around, looking for lines full of student-type people. I tried looking at route maps, but most had helpfully been taken down. Argh.

At TTC stations, there really is no central repository of help info for the lost and disoriented. Once you are on a bus, most drivers are decently helpful, but if you don’t know *which* bus… The message seems to be, “Small incompetencies are ok, but if you really screw up, you’re on your own.” So I got on a couple random buses and asked who went to UTSC, and tried waiting for some red herring busses and eventually got a milk run 116 that took me, ever so slowly, to the campus. By this point, timing out the process had become moot, but if you are interested, it was now more than 1.5 hours since I’d boarded the train.

The 116 driver was gentle in pointing out (I went over to chat with him after almost everyone else had gotten off the bus, 20 minutes into the ride) that I was doing things the most inefficient way possible. He suggested various better ideas. I sighed, and realized I was going to have to do a non-stupid dry run and waste another afternoon. Then I took a little nap and then we got to campus.

I had brought my campus map but not the directions to where I was supposed to go (at this point, all four people who read this blog are saying to themselves, “I’ve got to stop reading this blog, this girl has the IQ of pudding.”) But, points in my favour, I did find the building and then the English office just from fuzzy memories and intuition. I was so thrilled with that success that I wished to present myself at the office simply to say, “Dry run successful, seeya Monday!” but of course it was closed for the day.

So I went back to the food court and got a root beer from the A&W concession. How come UTSC gets a real, mall-style food court and we get Aramak? Theirs is so much better. I think somewhere in that sentence lies the moral of this tale: It’s not Scarborough’s fault. It’s not their fault that they are far away and confusing. It sure seems popular enough a burgh, judging from all those many bus routes it has. And the root beer was delicious, and the girl I asked for directions was very nice. I lifted the title above from a friend who has lived and loved in Scarborough, but I strongly suspect that I, a disorganized interloper, is not allowed to use such a pejorative. It’s like how I can make fun of my little brother, but no one else can. What do outsiders know?

And when I found a 38 bus for the return trip, it was very efficient, and allowed me the delight of the RT from Scarborough Centre to Kennedy. Delight is a slightly qualified term, of course–it’s just as well I was alone, as that thing makes a sound like God gargling, precluding all conversation. But still, it’s an elevated, the only one in the GTA (I think). It’s so great just to be able to look out, even if it is over fields of parked garbage trucks and scrap yards, and some of the most amazing breakfast-cereal-inspired graffiti ever seen.

And so, sadder but wiser, I made my way home, to appraise the post, make salmon and asparagus for supper and plot never again to leave the core-city, or perhaps my apartment, ever again.

I could be your favourite girl
RR