January 23rd, 2008

Department of Bad Days

In a land far far away, Wren is posting again, and there is much rejoicing. And she informs us that someone said that today is the most depressing day of the year, which seems about right to me, the afternoon, anyway. Even before I read that insight, I was working on a list of the 10 worst things people have ever said to me. These are social context, not yelling on the street or anything–the people who said this stuff allegedly like me. In fact, some were actually flirting. Tomorrow, I’ll go back to 1000 Things of Positive Goodness, I swear. Because tomorrow is not the most depressing day of the year.

“Is that a lisp I detect?”
“What do you mean you haven’t read *Harry Potter*? I thought you *loved* books?”
“It’s good to see a woman who isn’t self-conscious about how much she eats.”
“Where are you from? I mean originally? I mean your family…what *are* you?”
“You’re a proofreader? I found a typo just the other day…”
“If you’ve never seen that tv show, I’ll just give you a little backstory.”
“Oh, I don’t drink either. Just some wine on special occasions, or beer if it’s really hot, or like before dinner…”
“Hey, you’re a writer? That’s so cool, I’ve been looking for someone to tell about my idea for a novel.”
“You always wear something interesting.”
“You know what’s wrong with the publishing industry? Too many Jews.”

Humanity sorta makes you want to weep sometimes, doesn’t it?

Oh shoplifter / why did you take her?
RR

January 21st, 2008

Librarians

When I was a wee one, what I wanted to be when I grew up, more than anything, was a librarian. I felt it drew together my love of books and my obsessive organizational tendencies so perfectly. I was as serious about this dream as possible for a grade-schooler–I alphabetized my own books, rigorously dusted my parents’ shelves (I was not allowed to reorganize them, as my father had his own arcane system) and volunteered at the library every day after school until, as often happens in these tales, I lost interest when I entered high school. And though, when at libraries, especially when I worked (civilian position) at one, I often admire the work of librarians, and think fancifully of what they might do in a day, I am pretty sure that I lack a number of personal qualities, not to mention the years of training, necessary to make a good librarian. The patience, the pedagogy, the knowledge of catolguing and archival systems, the interpersonal skills necessary to deal with the public at all levels of knowledge–what an incredibly demand job. No wonder I didn’t rise to it.

I try to remember this when a librarian tells me that the edge of my shoe is touching the couch, in a cooing voice that clearly implies that I am not only a heathan but a moron.

And recreate a place in my own world
RR

January 20th, 2008

Technical Difficulties

You might have heard about the technical difficulties that recently took out my blender, coffee maker and season 2 of *Arrested Development*. They have more recently been preying upon *all* of my email addresses. I don’t imagine there’s too much pressing need for people to talk to me, and if there is, it’s likely by people who aren’t reading this blog, but just so’s you know–I probably didn’t get your email today, or possibly other days, either (it’s a bit hard for people to tell me this, since they can’t write to me!) If it’s urgent, call, or Facebook, or, um, pebbles at the window. But it’s probably not urgent.

I have seen all the fuss / and it’s no big deal
RR

January 17th, 2008

Sorts

You might have heard me lambaste the loose way the phrase “I’m the sort of person who…” is bandied about, as if a single fact gave much insight into the speaker’s personality. Of course, the amount of insight is not nil, but the limits of extrapolation are pretty narrow in my opinion, if ill-defined.

For example, knowing me fairly well–in fact, being me–one might suppose that my immaturity, frivolity, and love of magic would lead me to enjoy Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

But I didn’t. I hated it.

This is contrary to type.

Ugh. There was no *point* to anything that happened; any event could have come before or after any one in the book, as there was nearly zero cause and effect, cemented by the *shocking* ending (don’t let me spoil it for you): it was all a dream! I think the poem-parodies would have been funny to me if I’d known the originals that they were parodies *of*, but I’m about 100 years too late to the party and only recognized “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” I did laugh at that, and the Lobster Quadrille, but maybe that’s all. I felt terrible for Bill the lizard, and didn’t know why Alice had to be so *awful* to everyone.

Would it surprise you very much to know that, despite my frivolous nature, my favourite children’s books were about plucky young girls, often orphans, who struggled in the face of adversity? You just can’t trust to sorts!

I am very disappointed in the whole affair. I’m also sorry if *Alice* is your favourite kids’ book–I recognize that it is likely some small spot of curmudgeonliness lodged deep in my soul that is causing this reaction. But *Alice* is still going back to the library, pronto!

I keep every single rock / they throw
RR

January 16th, 2008

What to Hate

As the “1000 Things We Like” project winds up, I have been planning a silly little “10 Things I Hate” post, mainly about grammatical errors, bad behaviour on TTC and at potlucks, etc. It was going to be a pretty funny post, but now it seems in poor taste, since the death of John O’Keefe by a stray bullet last Friday night. That’s such a weird sentence for a Torontonian that I can only really process it by thinking of it like a meteor strike or a tsumami–totally random and unpreventable. But it’s not, because apparently people sometimes have guns in their pockets as they stroll around Yonge and Bloor, which is not something I knew before, and is certainly not unpreventable.

So that’s what I hate. I’ll bitch about comma splices some other time.

RR

January 14th, 2008

So much to like

869. Celebrities
870. Caution
871. Morse code
872. Generosity
873. *The Collected Works of Billy the Kid*
874. Finishing
875. When you pay via credit card and the cashier makes you sign with an electronic pen, as if it is the future
876. Seedlessness
877. Shredded Wheat with cocoa on top
878. My parents
879. Fedoras
880. Inspector Gadget
881. Invitations
882. People who know techy stuff
883. Tinsel
884. Favours, given and received
885. Phillip Seymour Hoffman
886. Free samples
887. Palidromes
888. Voting
889. The gym
890. *So You Think You Can Dance*
891. Sidewalks
892. Applause
893. When someone’s glad you called
894. When the lights go down at the movies
895. Disco balls
896. Marshmallows on fire
897. Cheese on fire in Greek restaurants
898. Hugging someone wearing a winter coat
899. Holding someone’s hand wearing mittens
900. Running for the bus and getting it

January 13th, 2008

Weekends Are for Wonderful

I have to say that the Free Biscuit performances Friday night were nothing short of astounding! To say nothing of the fact that Steph and Mark built a *stage* with *footlights* in their living room. To say nothing of the delicious food, the collapsable flying disk printed with sex-ed websites that Matthew brought me, to say nothing of the absolutely brilliant performances. Oh, wait, I already did say something about that. For my own part, I managed not to fall off the aforementioned stage, forget (m)any lines or, you know, die, which if you are one of those unlucky enough to have listened to much of the fretting I was doing about this performance, seemed like a possibility for a while. I’m really sorry about all that fretting, guys–I’m pleased to say that not only was it not horrible, I’m positively delighted I didn’t fake a stroke in order to stay home (also a possibility at one point).

The wonders slowed down slightly yesterday, consisting mainly of the discovery that Penny is right about whipped cream being better than CoolWhip, and that strawberry shortcake can (sorta) be created in January, if all concerned have enough patience and active imaginations. Also the joyous revelation that a first draft of a story that I thought might never be done is in fact nearly done. The thing about me and my dire predictions is that I have such a wide margin in which to be pleasantly surprised.

More pleasant surprises: gentle giants of my university years, the band Pigeon Hole has seemed defunct of late (hence the lack of hyperlink there), have a four-song artist page on CBC3 (search the song “Similar Promises”). This is handy for the vast majority of earthlings who do not own a copy of the chom 97.7 L’esprit 2000 cd, which is where I get my Pigeon Hole fix! Enjoy!

And so, when you wonder about the *next* draft of that story, the mysterious angry muscle in my back, the piercing hour of fire alarm that almost made me cry yesterday (I react really badly to loud noises) (it’s really hard to make me cry otherwise) (don’t try), or any of a dozen other scary things that I have do, we can really do little but be grateful for weekends.

Gloria / I think they got your number
RR

January 11th, 2008

More from Anne-Michelle

Not only does she send me lovely lists, but if it weren’t for Anne-Michelle, I would never have known about numbers 834, 855, 861, and 866 (which I found out when I read the list!) And I’ve received countless glorious 863 from her over the years! Hooray for liking! And I still don’t know about 823–what??

805. Pirate Booty
806. Sneezing
807. The concept of using pigs as currency (claimed to be true in
Vanuatu, on Ideas on the CBC tonight)
808. Home made wrapping paper
809. Clean dishes everywhere
810. Aged white cheddar.
811. Crispness
812. Double Airmiles
813. Remembering to take your vitamins
814. Websites that announce ‘Success!’
815. Big earrings
816. Marlene Dietrich wearing a tuxedo, and other kinds of classy cross dressing
817. Argentinian tango
818. Dancing for no reason
819. The texture of fresh tofu
820. Getting over something
821. Nailing things in/down/up
822. Gingerbread
823. The Liverpool Yellow Lamb Banana
824. Italian grocery stores
825. Saturday Evening Post covers
826. Pictures of Jackie Onassis
827. Stripes, and stars, but not together
828. Red and green onions
829. Really bushy cat tails
830. Seduction via cookies
831. Looking up postal codes
832. Kissing in the Wind (Norweigan kids book)
833. Piglet (fictional and real)
834. The white wild rabbits in Edmonton
835. Cozy
836. Excessive fridge magnets
837. Grand pianos
838. Getting Even by Woody Allen
839. Arthur and George by Julian Barnes
840. Cumin
841. Coriander
842. Culottes
843. Bubbles
844. Red
845. Bandaids
846. The Art of the Fugue by JSBach
847. 32 Short Films about Springfied
848. Flight of the Conchords
849. Someone bringing you a coffee
850. Elton John (I’m sorry, but yes.)
851. Part Time Lover by Stevie Wonder (also sorry, but still yes)
852. Spats
853. Buckwheat pillows
854. Banff
855. Pizza with pear and gorgonzola
856. Rosemary (the spice), still on the plant
857. Albums
858. Unexpected wearing of pyjamas
859. Wheat beer
860. Casablanca (the movie)
861. Eddie Izzard
862. P.G. Wodehouse
863. Postcards
864. The Sting (with Robert Redford and Paul Newman)
865. Records that are supposed to teach you to dance(?!)
866. The fact that Ellen Degeneres and that Portia de Rossi are dating
867. The kind of sunlight that is described with the verb ‘dapple’
868. Rumbling

January 8th, 2008

Liking, CanCon Edition

780. The Great Lakes
781. The Stills
782. Pop
783. *The Edible Woman*
784. *Twitch City*
785. Brian Mulroney’s voice
786. Fries with the skins on the ends, bought from a truck at the fair
787. Squeaky cold snow
788. Tegan & Sara
789. That French TV show with Pamplemousse–Telefrancais, was that it?
790. Bears
791. Avril (sad, but true)
792. Lake perch
793. Sugar pie
794. *The Cinnamon Peeler*
795. Montreal
796. Egalitarian education
797. Cross-border shopping
798. Awkwardness about greeting-hugs
799. Hawksley Workman
800. Canada’s Wonderland
801. Jokes about moose
802. Colm Feore
803. Grade Five, not Fifth Grade
804. Chinooks

January 5th, 2008

What You Could Read

I know everyone adores playing “1000 Things We Like,” but I thought I’d post about something else for a change. Like some things that I have been reading that you might like.

For example, I would suggest reading Prism International. If you live in Ontario, this will be very hard, as they did not send our province any fall issues for some reason, but that’s the issue I’m recommending you order it because contains the beautiful story “Some Light Down” by S. Kennedy Sobol. It was my privilege to read that story in very early form, and it was heart-stopping then, and it’s thrilling to me now to see it having evolved so far. Of course, this means S. Kennedy and I know each other, but we didn’t when I first read the story, so you should take my word when I say it’s brilliant.

Another recommendation I have for the literary-minded is Jim Munroe’s mega website, No Media Kings. If you move in Toronto indie circles, you may have heard the name Jim Munroe before even if you’ve never read his books or comics, seen his movies, been to his shows or readings, or played his video games. I once had a strange job wherein (a) I often had no work, (b) I was not allowed to read books or magazines, (c) I was not permitted to surf the internet unless the sites pertained to books. These rules made no sense, but I got around them in large part thanks to Mr. Munroe, who bills his site as an “indie culture site.” Basically, if you work in one of the above media and don’t want to let your get caught up in corporate R&D, promotion, editing, distribution, etc., Jim will tell you how to do it yourself. Even if you are willing to go a little corporate, there’s still useful reading on the site–for authors, there’s stuff on grant-writing, touring, etc. that’s very practical, friendly, and go-go-go. There’s stuff on there that’s not at all practical unless you are the dynamo that is Jim Munroe–book tour via bicycle, for example—but it’s very entertaining.

Of course, all this partically obscures the reason I was curious enough about the guy to google him in the first place, which is that he is a pretty good novelist. I read his first book, Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask when I was a kid and got hooked. That was his first book, published with HarperCollins Canada, the experience that so annoyed him that he declared himself the anti-Rupert Murdoch, or, I guess The King of No Media (heh). He went on to write a number of novels: *Angry Young Spaceman, Everyone in Silico, Roommate from Hell* (all available at the above link) and to publish and distribute them himself. No small feat, though it helped I’m sure that the novels were good (if you like semi-sci-fi and silliness, and PCness–I do). Still the sheer number of hours, and the force of will to overcome not only self-doubt but the logistical nightmares… Impressive.

I interviewed Jim Munroe in the summer of 2003 for a school project (would that that transcript still existed–stupid dead hard-drive). He did it because I emailed him and said if he talked to me I’d buy him lunch. He wrote write back and said ok, showed up when he said he would, and tried to pay for his own sandwich, so obviously I was more than a little impressed. I guess there’s bias all over this post, really, but still, these are reccommendations worth checking out–it’s not my fault I’ve met so many talented people.

Smoking the same damn cigarettes
RR