While We Devoting, Full Time To Floating

UNDER THE SEA! woo!
when i was a little girl, i wanted to be a mermaid when i grew up. once my parents so kindly informed me that there is no such thing as mermaids (oh the fun of literalist parents), i started devoting much of my time to fantasizing about being a mermaid instead of fantasizing about growing up to become one.
now im 24 and im beginning to think that this is a pipe dream. that being said, i dont think i will ever tire in my efforts to force the laws of physics and biology to bend to my will and allow me to breathe underwater. i dont know if this whole mermaid thing was the cause or the effect of my love of swimming, and i dont think it really matters, but i will say that i have always felt more comfortable in the water than out of it.
i have written about my love of swimming in the past, so i apologise to any of my long time readers who may feel this is old hat, but i would just like to revisit some of the main points here, mostly because i had an awesome swim today that embodied everything i love about it.
for me, swimming is the only time i really feel at peace. i dont think about anything except the sound of my breathing and the number of lanes i have done. its etheral. it doesnt matter how stressed out i am about something or for what reason, just give me forty minutes at the pool and the problem will be pushed from my mind.
sometimes, like today, i hit this stride. it sounds kind of corny, but its almost like achieving higher consciousness or something. i cant really describe it accurately, but its like i have complete awareness of every single cell in my body and i have this intuitive sense of the water and how its moving and interacting with me. when that happens, its as if i am manipulating the very fabric of the water molecules in order to achieve my own ends, and my body is this fantastic, perfect well-honed machine that i have complete control over. its a very powerful feeling. its almost like i can see my heart beating and feel my lungs and its almost like im actually coordinating all of it with my muscles voluntarily. im sure it sounds kind of bizarre to read it like that, but its the best way i can describe it, and i imagine that this is what those crazy running bastards are on about when they talk about their runners high. anyway, i dont know what i would do if i didnt have swimming for an outlet. i dont think i will ever really give up on becoming a mermaid. no matter what my parents think.

21st Century Mythology

so today i want to explore two modern myths:
1) people dont read books anymore.
although the statistics surrounding the the publishing industry certainly indicate that people dont really BUY books anymore, i really dont think that people have stopped reading. i come to the library every day, and there are always shelves upon shelves of requested material waiting to be picked up. although its true that the digital age has changed communications and publishing forever, i dont think we will ever see the day that people cease picking up books altogether. though it may be true that books may take on a new form in the future (think communicator devices in star trek, which we basically have in the form of smartphones already), i dont think it means people arent reading.
2) express check out
most grocery stores have an express 1-8 or 1-16 item check out that is supposed to be faster. in theory, it should be, because everyone in the line is going to be checking out fewer items. THIS IS A MYTH. the problem is that everyone thinks this is going to be the fastest line, so even when everyone is obeying the rules and is within the number of items designated (which is often not the case, compounding the issue), the line for express is two or even three times longer than the regular lines! youre lucky to get through it in half the time it would take if you had just waited in a regular line. and people constantly get sucked into this idiotic notion! i dont know what it is (i suspect its the letter 'x') but the general population cant resist the allure of the express check out. lets all band together and end this madness. stop using express checkout. its for your own good. (i would like to point out that i am completely enraged about this, because my boyfriend ALWAYS GOES THROUGH THE EXPRESS CHECKOUT LINE because he thinks its faster, and we stand there watching all of the regular lines rush on by)

Grief and Relief

which i suppose is a sort of obtuse way of saying theres good news and bad news. i think i am like most people when i say i prefer to receive the bad news first and then the good news, so that is how i will give it to you.
the bad news is: I BUSTED MY BLENDER/TABLE TOP MIXER! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! i realise that for many this would not be a crisis, but for me it is HUGE. smoothies are a HUGE part of my diet, and i use my blender almost every day. as for the table top mixer part, i dont use it as often, but its still a tragedy. my dad gave me the machine when i was in second year, and i was so excited. at the time i was doing a lot of baking and so i was using both parts quite frequently. i was SO excited, in fact, that i gave my super awesome black and decker blender to my brother who lives in calgary. i dont know what he did with it, but knowing him, it disappeared a long time ago. anyway, i learned very quickly that my mixer/blender wasnt quite as strong (as in the power of the engine) as i would have liked. i couldnt do large batches of cookies, for example, and i wouldnt have even attempted to make bread with it. that being said, i did get QUITE a lot of use out of the blender portion of the machine, but i admit i often pushed it beyond its capacity, knowing full well that it wasnt the machine it pretended to be. i guess what im saying is i am paying the price for my own negligence. but now i have a blender full of unsmooth smoothie sitting in the fridge that i dont know what to do with. maybe one of my neighbours will let me borrow their blender.
anyway, as for the good news: last week i was super excited (this is really lame, just to warn you) to receive my first ever book via inter-library loan. this was something that i had been fascinated by since i was a child, but had never had occasion to take advantage of. i suppose that actually speaks to the quality of the hamilton and mcmaster collections, because between the two of them, i have never had a problem getting my hands on anything i want. anyway, finally, my day of reckoning had arrived. i was looking for barrel fever, one of david sedaris' first publications (see posts from august to october 2009 for reviews of david sedaris) and the hamilton library didnt have it. i admit i didnt check at mcmaster, but that has no bearing on this story. SO i ordered it through inter-library exchange, and it arrived a couple of weeks later from thorold public library (of all places, i dont even know where that is. dave said its east of hamilton but west of toronto). i must admit, i was more excited about the success of the inter-library exchange than i was about the book itself, but that just reinforces all of my prior claims of nerdiness.
now, as i have pointed out, i have never gotten a book through inter-library exchange, but i guess the way it works here at the hamilton library is the hamilton library creates a temporary bar code that they put on the outside book by attaching a sleeve to the cover. it says all over the sleeve that you must not remove it. which makes sense, because the hamilton library cant scan bar codes from the thorold (or anywhere else) library because the different computer systems are independent. so the temporary hamilton bar code gets scanned and the material just gets checked in or out as "interlibrary exchange materials." the point is, the hamilton computer doesnt know WHAT the title of the book is, only that it isnt from our library, which is why its important to hold on to the sleeve (i expect youre beginning to see where this is going). as i imagine is becoming obvious, i lost the sleeve. i dont know how, but i was super pissed. all i know is i had the book in my bag on the go bus and i pulled it out in the dark. when i got to the subway and saw the cover of the book, the sleeve was missing, and i ripped my bag apart and it was nowhere to be found. the only explanation i can come up with is that it fell off the book on the bus and fell onto the bus floor and by the time i noticed, it was too late.
i have always prided myself on my excellent treatment of library materials and the rarity of my having overdue fines. i think if someone were to pull up my borrowing history for the last two years, they would be floored at the sheer volume of material i have taken out. so i saw it as a personal failing that i lost the stupid sleeve with the temporary bar code. it was worse than even losing a regular hamilton book, because i felt like i was misrepresenting hamilton to thorold, like i was a poor ambassador (which is extra stupid because thorold isnt going to even KNOW that i lost it).
i think it goes without saying that once i got over my shock and anger at myself, i quickly fell into a mind numbing panic. i dont know about the cities where you live comrades, but in hamilton, the librarians that work at the check out desk (as opposed to the ones that work at the information desks on each floor) are down right frightening. i started strategising over what i was going to do to avoid the librarian wrath. i started picking out the nicest ones in my head and trying to figure out the algorithms of their shifts. i started planning elaborate lies to explain my crime ("well i had a seizure in the rain while i was reading it, and when i came to the sleeve was wet and completely dissolved"). i even thought about calling the thorold library and making dave drive me there to return the book and then have THEM call my library to explain i had returned it (what put me off of this idea is that at least in hamilton i know how scary the librarians are. for all i know the ones in thorold are even worse.)
which brings me to the good news. by the end of this week, my time would have been up and i would have started amassing one dollar a day fines, so i bit the bullet and brought the book back. luckily, i got one of the less scary librarians (although i think the only reason she isnt so scary is because she is a little afraid of anne, who once threw a video cassette at her head). i just explained that i lost the sleeve and i was very sorry and so on and so forth and she sorted it out without any hostility or violence of revoking of my library card or inter library exchange privileges. so there it is. the ongoing saga of my library adventures.

Body Worlds!

so the other excitement this weekend was going to see BODY WORLDS, the super famous exhibit about the human body. the original body worlds was in toronto three years ago, and i wanted to go SO badly, but i didnt get the opportunity. so i was super excited to go this time around, with a whole new exhibit that places considerable emphasis on the heart and cardiovascular system (any long time followers of my blog know that as a huge geek and science graduate, the heart and cardiovascular system is my favourite system. only geeks like myself have favourite systems, i know, but you can see why i of all people would be chomping at the bit to see this show).
so for anyone who doesnt know, body worlds (warning: this sounds kind of gross but i cant think of a more delicate way of putting it) is an exhibition of real human bodies that have been "plastinated" which is a type of preservation i guess that makes the tissue hard, like a sculpture. whats so cool about it though is that the artist/scientist/plastinator guy (whose name is gunther von hagen) takes the skin off the bodies, revealing the musculature, skeleton and organs. then he places them in provocative and often athletic poses.
this exhibit was everything i hoped it would be and more. trevors boyfriend remarked that i was like a kid in a candy store, which is a cliché, but accurate simile. this show touched every single one of my personal happy places (except for maybe the part that involves jack white and/or michael phelps being my lover(s)) simultaneously. my love of anatomy, biology, physiology, sports and art all in one place! i didnt think it was even possible! i will concede that body worlds is not for the faint of heart. but for a certain kind of quirky biologist/artsy type, it is like being on very excellent, expensive drugs. a dream come true.

Terre de Nos Aieux

wow. i have so many things to write about, i feel like my head is exploding. we will see how it goes, i may do multiple posts instead of one long one for the sake of organisation. time will tell! so first of all, how awesome was the canada/us mens hockey game? if you didnt see it (why that would be, i cant imagine, but i will humour you), it was the best fucking hockey game i have ever seen. EVER. i dont know how any of us can possibly watch another hockey game without feeling like it isnt up to snuff. it was so exciting! and awesome! its twenty four hours later and you can still feel the love. i have never experienced anything quite like this victory. its amazing how the olympics in general, and the hockey game in particular, have brought this country together. its so inspiring to see everyone celebrating and being patriotic together. i think we really did accomplish what we set out to do. by that i mean we proved that we are a sovereign nation, not just "america junior" as homer simpson once referred to us, and that we can hold our own on the world stage when we really put our minds to it. i am so proud of my country and our athletes and im actually kind of sad that the olympics are now over. i realise that all good things must come to an end, but it was starting to feel like we could just ride this wave forever and ever and ever.
which brings me to the next thing i wanted to write about, which is that i just want to thank all of our athletes for serving our country. i am so grateful to all of them for representing our country with dignity and for putting their best feet forward. i have been so inspired by the entirety of the olympics. i have been performing better at my own sports and their success has driven me to succeed as an athlete. i could not have found this motivation on my own, and for that as well, i thank you.

Hamilton's Finest

so last night i was with the cubs at the fire station, and i have to say of all of the numerous fire station tours i have had to go on, this was by far the best. usually (and its understandable) the fire fighters seem so bored and uncomfortable with the whole thing. i mean, imagine if some ceo had to give a bunch of children a tour of his office. "here are my drawers, they have paper clips in them. here is my computer where i write dirty email to my secretary" etc. its boring to talk about your job. but these fire fighters were so into their jobs and excited about having us and it got the kids excited too. also there was this woman fire fighter who dealt with the group of kids i was with who was so cool. she was like super serious and i think a little afraid of children but also kind of excited to be talking to us. she just has such a cool but also odd demeanour and i really liked her a lot. i think she might be german. she had a sort of european thing going for her. anyway between her and the other guys it was great, so thank you to hamilton's finest. i have done my share of fire station tours and that was the best. seriously.

Affecting Change

you know, i have come to realise that sometimes we have more of a voice than we think we do, we just dont always see the results of the things that we have said or done. for example: yesterday, i reported a would-be throw down between two homeless guys to the security at the library, and today there is a new security desk in that particular lobby that wasnt there before. another example, i told my super that i heard our balconies arent up to code, and now all of a sudden we are having balcony inspections (me and my big mouth, i was forced to tidy the apartment).
my point is, so often we think that we have no power or we arent listened to or were just small fish in a big pond, but i think that we all affect change, every day. we just dont always get the opportunity to realise it, because so many of our interactions with the world at large are transient or fleeting.

Hurry Hard!

i think part of the reason the olympics are so exciting is that we get to have all sorts of fascinating conversations that we only have once every four years. for example, we talk about how cross country skiing is wildly unpopular in canada or how womens hockey doesnt get televised often enough even though the women play so very much better than the men. my personal favourite of these quad-annual conversations is everyone's favourite"why is curling in the olympics"
here in ontario, curling is not that popular, and even the people who play the game do not all agree with the midwestern prairie zealots who are such fanatics about this "sport." surprisingly, curling is actually the most played sport in canada, beating out skiing, skating and hockey. what i find so interesting about this conversation is not so much the hilarious quips everyone comes up with about curling or the fact that if you hear it from another room it kind of sounds like porn with no music, but rather the more relevant discussion that never seems to take place.
the reason some people get very heated about this issue is because it all comes down to the meaning of "sport". how do you define a sport? is it a game of skill? is it a game where there are winners and losers? is it about being athletic? well how do you define athletic? take weight lifters, for example. they have great upper body strength and bulky thighs, but no cardio. are they more or less athletic than, say, a marathon runner who has very low muscle mass and great cardio? these are the questions and i really dont think there are concrete answers, but i will say this:
i am of the mind that curling is a game that does require skill, talent, practice and finesse and a certain amount of physical fitness (those brooms must really take the wind out of you), all of which amounts to me having respect for the people who play it. that being said, i really dont think it belongs in the the olympics, because it really does make a mockery of the elite athletes who have spent their entire lives and in most cases the lives of their families sculpting their bodies into winning machines. but thats just me.
ps. to the newcomers of my blog, i dont usually write about sports so much. once the olympics are over, i will be back to my usual meanderings.

Say What?

i noticed something a couple of years ago when i was at the worlds biggest bookstore with trevor and i noticed it again recently because it still bothers me. at some of the big box/franchise type bookstores, there are displays called "books for boys" which have some fantasy books, some vampire books, and the diary of a wimpy kid series, to name a few. although i have yet to see one, let us assume for a moment that there is also an equivalent "books for girls" display. so whats the big deal? ill tell you.
although i acknowledge that publishing is an industry (and a flagging one at that) like anything else and they try to market their products to the relevant demographics, the notion that a novel would be more appropriate for either gender offends me. the books on these "books for boys displays" are not the equivalent of those trite "dear diary/bffe/lets do each other's nails" activity books for girls either, by the way. they are simply novels, no more, no less, and by putting some books on a shelf for boys and not others and excluding those same books from a shelf for girls (if one even exists) simply reinforces gender stereotypes that have no basis in reality. furthermore, how is a little girl going feel (this is how i happened to discover the books for boys display) when she sees the book she grabbed off of a different shelf on the boys display on her way to the cash? my guess is at the very least, confused. i think this is an archaic notion and should no longer be tolerated, regardless of whatever marketing research the bookstores may or may not have to defend it.

With Glowing Hearts

well well well comrades, the olympic fever seems to burn brightly (aside: i can never remember that saying, feed a cold and starve a fever or if its the other way around. i wish i could remember because i tend to get fevers when im sick). anyway i was pretty excited to watch christine nesbitt of canada win the gold yesterday in womens long track 1000m speed skating. it was especially excellent because i watch the short track men and women and the relays and canada didnt do as well as anticipated. also, i am really looking forward to watching the womens hockey team tromp the usa when the time comes. ive decided that if that game isnt on during the weekend, im going to have to beg barbs husband to let me watch it with him at their house. im sure he will let me if i promise to be quiet. anyway, i guess there isnt much more to say about that at the moment, but lets all keep watching and cheering for our team!!!!!!!!!!! o canada!

True Patriot Love

well comrades, the time is upon us! not only are the opening ceremonies of the olympics starting in approximately 7.75 hours, but they are right here, in canada! i am so excited for the olympics this year for three reasons. first, most of my favourite sports to watch are only really televised during the olympics (ie. speed skating, all of the skiing events). second, they are here in canada this year so we have all the more reason to support our athletes. and third, i dont know if you are aware of this, but canada is the only country to have never medaled in olympics on its own soil. this is no small thorn in our national side and so there is alot of pressure on our team to perform well this year, which makes the festivities all the more exciting. it should be noted that this state of affairs is not necessarily only a reflection on our individual athletes, by the way. it is more indicative of a lack of funding for our teams. it doesnt matter how talented and hardworking our team is, they simply cannot compete with countries who have funnelled millions and millions into their olympians. supposedly, though, since we found out about vancouver 2010, we have been concentrating more resources on our olympians, so hopefully it will all pay off.
i hope you all hunker down and enjoy the ceremonies tonight and stay tuned into the events. let the games begin!

The Downside of Pets

well comrades, seeing as this blog is called "science, tea and cats," you cant hold it against me that every once in a while i am bound to mention the cats. i havent in a while and im feeling a little strapped for a topic so i guess the cats are a good standby. anyway, i always thought that its my just my idiot cats who start acting like complete idiots this time of year, but i dont think so. i noticed on a friends facebook today that her cat is acting strange and i doubt we are alone. there is something about this time of year, they get the stirrings or something and they are driving me nuts! honestly i wish i could just leave them to their own devices for a month and then come back in march to a normal household. i dont know if any of you, my beloved readers, are pet owners (well except for callie) but i would love to hear if february madness is as common for you as it seems to be here in hamilton.

Let the Poison Spill

have you ever sat on the toilet and thought, "what would i do if i had to have diarrhea and puke at the same time?" be honest. we all have. well i had the lucky opportunity to find out this weekend after a violent, violent round of food poisoning. sadly, i think i now have taste aversion to egg salad, but that isnt really why im writing. i wont go into all of the nasty details, but i find it fascinating how being ill can cause even the best of us to regress back into six year olds. as i sat there, wiping the snot and tears off my face and praying that the last of my liquefied intestines had found their sordid way into the toilet, all i could think was, i want my mum, i want my mum, i want my mum.

My Nightmare

Rambling

why is it that when you are having a dream that is super realistic you arent really sure if it is a dream or not, but when you are awake and not dreaming there is absolutely no doubt that it isnt a dream? what a bizarre feat of consciousness. you know the strange thing about facebook is it gives us a way to hold on to the past while pretending to embrace all that is current.

How To Write a Poem By Accident

alright

you fade into ellipses,

and i'll burst forth in hi-def as an exclamation mark.

because i

am awesome

Gotta Love Those Europeans

and how can you not? i was sitting in a recliner at a client's last night when his oh so portuguese father says "so, did you lose some weight or what?" now if this was virtually anyone else on the planet, i would have been offended and probably embarassed, but there is something about european people that they are just so blunt and not intentionally cruel or mean that you actually find yourself liking them for saying something so ballsy and personal. and without even thinking you say, "well i suppose i did."

Who We Are and What We Do

i have come to realise that in as much as most of us would like to think that we are so much more than the sum of our parts, we cannot deny how our day-to-day working lives affect our lives outside of work whether we like it or not. for example, years of being a driver has made dave rather obsessed with listening to traffic reports. my mothers on and off stint as a cleaner has made her more than a little psychotic when she has to do the dishes at home. and for me, being a wheelchair pusher has given me an almost unhealthy preoccupation with weather reports. the other subject that plagues me constantly is accessibility.
everywhere i go, whether im working or not, every crack in the sidewalk and every building with stairs and no elevator seems to present itself as a creation put on this earth for the specific purpose of ruining my life. i am forever drafting angry letters in my mind and assessing the dimensions and door operation of bathroom stalls. it seems like craziness, and perhaps it is, but it has gotten me thinking about the greater issue at hand here.
the reason all of these little nuisances are so irritating is because more often than not, disabled people (and their support staff) seem totally invisible to the outside world. whether its lack of accessibility for a wheelchair or the fact that a high functioning adult feels the need to NOT disclose the details of their intellectual capacity to new people they meet, the general population seems to find the disabled community so alien and uncomfortable that they prefer to act as if it doesnt exist. then, if you confront people on it, they fire back with this brilliant argument about how "i thought that disabled people wanted to be given equal rights so why should they be given special treatment?" the fact is that is absolutely correct, and no one wants special treatment. they want equal treatment.
it is not equal treatment when an individual cannot enter a store or travel on a sidewalk because of inaccessibility. it is not equal treatment when an adult paying customer at a retail outlet cannot get service or even eye contact from the staff. it is not equal treatment when someone has to leave a public place in search of a washroom that can accommodate them. and it is certainly not equal treatment when people presume to understand what living like this is like.

Trendsetter?

so i had a funny thing happen at the pool last night. i realise this sounds like the start to a "dear penthouse, i never thought it would happen to me" article, but sadly this story isnt so scandalous. there is this girl who i noticed at the pool a few months ago. when you swim as often as i do, you start to recognise the regulars... not unlike how people who take the same bus to work every day begin to recognise and get to know each other without ever actually speaking. anyway, this woman is probably in her mid to late thirties and does a pretty slow breaststroke, which is fine as long as she stays out of my way. a while back, she had left her bathing suit in the locker room, where it hung for a few days before disappearing. she either picked it up or its in lost in found... i sincerely doubt that it was stolen. the people at my y are pretty honest and i was impressed to recover a bra that i left there. plus, it was hanging in the change room for a few days, as i said, so if it was going to be stolen it wouldnt have lasted that long.
anyway i hadnt seen her at the pool since her swimsuit disappeared, but that doesnt mean anything. she could very well be going to a different swim time, and it really has no bearing on this story other than it had been a while since i had seen her and the last i had, she was wearing the aforementioned suit.
so last night, i get to the pool and there she is in my fast lane (where she doesnt belong, i might add) wearing THE SAME SUIT AS ME. now, i realise that there arent THAT many styles and colours of women's athletic suits and this in and of itself could merely be a result of her and i having the same taste, or even, coincidence. however, she was also wearing the same silver cap that i was wearing in all of my prior contact with her (i have since switched to a red one as my silver one busted, as is the fate of bathing caps). as i already mentioned, when you swim alot you get to know the other swimmers and how skilled they may or may not be. if it isnt totally clear already, i am a much faster and more skilled swimmer than this woman, which is the result of years of practice, hard work and professional training. not, as i can only assume she thinks, because of my outfit. i was so distracted by being in the same lane as this woman who MUST have copied my ensemble on purpose that i was actually losing count of my lanes as i composed this blog post in my head. it was so weird and funny and now i cant stop thinking of my bathing suit as having super powers, which i usually pretend i have when im swimming anyway.

Sierra Grill

in other news (what a busy weekend) sunday was daves parents sixty-second anniversary (or as i usually say in conversation, their bazillionth). so daves brother john invited the whole family to sierra grill for lunch. i am embarassed to admit that this restaurant is a five minute walk from daves house and yet we have never been there. anyway, the reason i am writing about it here is because i opted for the salad bar, and let me tell you, this salad bar was TO DIE FOR. they had so much good stuff and it was so delicious and it included soup and there was fresh bread and pita chips and it was so cheap and ive been fantasizing about it all day long. awesome awesomeness.
ps. im not going to get into details but there was some family drama with daves family and i came home to hamilton, and swear i have never been happier to hear my mothers voice on my machine. say what you like about us, but ill take our particular brand of crazy over the alternative any day.

Walk Like an Egyptian

well we went to the king tut show on saturday and it was tres excellent. unfortunately these IDIOT security guards were following us all around the gallery afterwards but other than that it was great. its so amazing how all of those artifacts have lasted for thousands of years without being completely destroyed. and the ancient egyptians were such an advanced civilisation.. more than i had really considered up until now. the detail in all of the artifacts was so incredible and the workmanship was unreal. also, i had never really noticed when you see the pictures, but to see all of the various sculptures up close they really do have distinguishable faces. by that i mean they dont all just have this generic look to them like i had always thought. you really can distinguish the facial features and expressions of one subject versus another. to think that these sculptors were able to capture all of that with what were surely primitive tools. i also kept thinking about how its funny that we are standing there oohing and aaahing over what was, in many cases, simple furniture. i was just imagining a museum exhibit three thousand years from now of super modern humanoids reading a blurb about how this was an average, middle class pull out bed, fashioned at a place called "ikea" back in the digital age when they had these quaint methods of manufacture called "factories." kind of strange to think about, really.

I Should Have Worn My Boots Today

it was a tough call. i knew it was cold and my feets would get cold, but i also knew i would be wasting a disgusting amount of time indoors which would cause bebooted feets to sweat. so i went without but now its still really cold and i still have some outdoor wheelchair pushing to do before the day is done. the good news is i think i will be taking a pit stop at my place so i can go get my boots.....so yeah.
anyway i finally caved and joined facebook. i find the whole thing a little confusing and i really do prefer blabbing on here but maybe being on there will rustle up some more readers! so welcome, new readers! please leave comments!
man this post is going no where fast. i really should get off my ass and finish the errands i had planned for today. im going to buy some protein powder and oil of oregano. i seem to be coming down with a cold. i left my oil of oregano at daves, but i find that its best for me to have one of everything at his place and one of everything at my place so i dont really have to worry about bringing stuff to and fro. except for my bathing suit and usually some knitting.

Compare and Contrast

this is anne.

and THIS is an ethiopian.

what do these two people have in common? i have no idea. but, last week this REALLY old woman beckoned to me citing "wanting to talk to me" as her reason, which is usually bad news for the old wheelchair pusher. luckily enough, it turned out to be a dose of hilarity rather than the verbal abuse for which i had prepared myself. you see, this elderly lady told me that she had worked in ethiopia for thirteen years and so she was JUST WONDERING where anne was from. and i said, shes from canada. and the old lady said oh, really i was wondering if she might be ethiopian. HAHAHAHAHAHAH! no i said, she is canadian. i decided not to explain that she is native (i think she also has some black in her but i dont really know the details of her genealogy) because thats what this woman really wanted to know. i get so frustrated with this attitude that a lot of elderly people have where they assume that just because someone isnt white, they MUST be an immigrant. like give me a break. it was even more hilarious because anne, as i mentioned, is NATIVE so that means that her ancestors were here long before the pale faces, making her more canadian than the rest of us. anyway, i was giggling about this conversation for days because anne looks about as ethiopian as i do.

A New Low

or a new high, depending on how you look at it, which is how i started this anecdote when i was talking to trevor this morning. many moons ago, trevor and i decided that we should have our own talk radio programme called "things i would never admit in public" which would basically be a hilarious show about the things that single people living alone do all the time simply because there is no one around to see them. for example: eating mayonnaise out of the jar, or jumping up and down in front of the mirror naked. anyway, we are still waiting to get the radio contract (so if any radio casting directors or programmers are reading this, please call us) but that doesnt mean we dont tell each other about new material as it arises.
which brings me to my newest confession. yesterday, i worked an extremely long day that was also immensely physical and i already had a slightly aggravated/overworked lower back so by the time i got home i was in some serious pain. (in case anyone is interested, i still am). anyway so i realised i needed to take a super long bath, not my usual ten or fifteen minute stint. i was too tired to read or do puzzles and it was too late to call anyone, which is my preferred in-bath activity. have no fear comrades, i still came up with something! i knew i needed some sort of distraction to keep me in the tub for as long as was necessary to heal my ailing muscles..... so i hauled my tv and dvd player into the bathroom, propped them up on the toilet and watched two episodes of flight of the conchords. goooooooooo me!

Pulitzer Worthy Journalism

im going to try something a little different today for a change of pace. im going to interview one of my clients, R----. so here goes.
me: so R, tell me something about your day today.
R: my mum is so silly and because my mum dont like me and...
me (and his mum laughing hard): R, that isnt true your mum likes you. but that isnt really about your day. what did you do today?
r: i went swimming... my life is the same like your life. we both have the same life.
me: but i havent gone swimming yet today. im going to go after i leave your house. so what are you going to do when i leave?
r: um, i dont know.
me: if you could say anything to the world right now, and they had to listen, what would you say?
r: um, i dont know. i dont know. um the weather is cold?
me: whats your favourite thing to do at school?
r: math
me: math? since when?
r: um today. because math is good. to make you learn.
(mum laughing in the background).

When Days are Hot, When Days are Cool

in my swimming pool. well folks, i think i actually had a personal best on my 2k yesterday, but im not entirely sure. i suppose i should use this achievement to start doing flip turns on all my lanes, not just the breast stroke ones, but its so damn tiring. anyway, once again, i am in front of a computer and have completely forgotten all of the things i meant to write about and all of the things i meant to look up on google. i really should start writing these things down. *sigh*

The Latest in Library Drama

well anne and i are sitting here innocently using the 30 min express computer stations, and behind us in line there is some drama. apparently some girl almost tripped over some guys foot because she was looking at her cell phone and they had a big argument over who was being rude to who. *sigh* times are tough. speaking of which, my pay was surprisingly high, which is a good thing, but now im all paranoid there was some sort of accounting error or something. although my last pay was surprisingly LOW so i suppose it all works out even in the end. or maybe i was late submitting a paysheet or something and so it got carried over to this pay period. i dont know. i really. dont. know. this is why they should just pay me a salary instead of forcing me to keep track of 12 different paysheets every pay period that go to two different offices and come from three different funding sources. gotta love the government.

Hilarious Hobbies

so ive realised that the people who work at the shopper's drug mart next to my building probably think i am insane, and im ok with that. in fact, i have kind of gotten to a point where i find it entertaining how mental i always end up appearing when im there. allow me to enumerate my favourite highlights:
1) there was the time i was wearing my pyjamas and bought a two litre of gingerale (im thinking i was probably hung over). realising i looked like a mental case, i decided to try and look "saner" by purchasing some snacks as well. it wasnt till after that i realised the pyjamas werent really doing me any favours.
2) there was the time i was looking at the clearance rack for, oh, i dont know, 40 minutes or so and got into an altercation with the girl working because i opened a three dollar box of perfume to smell it. i ended up buying it, thinking, hah! i showed her by taking the high road! only to realise i hadnt bathed and was still wearing the makeup i had slept in the night before (i was definitely hung over that day)
3) which brings me to today. im pretty sure when i go in there, one of the staff kind of shadows me to make sure im not stealing. anyway, its like minus twenty today with the wind chill and the wind gusts are getting up and over 50 km/h. so, i had taken out my recycling and decided to buy a candle at shoppers because my apartment didnt smell right and i only wanted to leave the building once. so i was wearing my crocs with bare feet, my winter coat, my 12 foot wool scarf wrapped around my head and neck like some sort of eastern european matriarch, and was carrying a 16 litre bucket and four empty green bags. (remember: i had just taken out the recycling) and once again, i was in my pyjamas (although, i would like to point out that i was NOT hungover). anyway, so i was looking pretty mental when i purchased a single candle and left, but i was laughing myself silly on the way home.

Inquiring Minds Need to Know

does superman wear those red boots inside clark kent's shoes? if he does, does that mean he has to buy clark's shoes a size bigger? maybe they are more like red socks or something....

ARG

SOOOOOOO i have been trying for literally DAYS to get my resumé printed off so i can take it to the bank because this woman who served me suggested i do so, and you will not BELIEVE how much trouble ive had. first i got it printed off but the fucking computers at the fucking library dont have fucking MS WORD so the other programme reformatted my resumé and i didnt notice until i got home. so then i went back to the library to reprint it and lo and behold i lost my FUCKING JUMP DRIVE. SO I WENT BACK TODAY TO START A NEW RESUMé IN THE FUCKING ALTERNATIVE TO WORD FUCKING PROGRAMME AND IT TOOK MORE THAN AN HOUR BECAUSE IT DOESNT HAVE RESUME TEMPLATES AND I HAD TO DO EVERYTHING MANUALLY AND THEN THE FUCKING LIBRARY COMPUTER SHUT ITSELF DOWN WITH NO WARNING AND IT WASNT SAVED.
so now im at an employment centre using a computer that does, in fact, have word. my resume is done, saved, printed ready to go. suck on that, library.

Customer Service

believe it or not, i actually had a pleasant experience at the bank. crazy talk, i know. BUT i had an appointment and the woman who was supposed to see me had called in sick and i was like ok fine ill come back tomorrow and the customer service woman reversed my service fees for this month because of my inconvenience. and i walked out of there feeling just fine. now the point of this story is that as much as i thought it was very cool that this woman provided me with such good customer service so i didnt walk out of there in a blinding white rage (as i am wont to do) it really bothers me that this sort of thing should be the norm, not the exception. there was a time when you always got good service everywhere you went, and if you didnt, then someone's ass was getting fired. sadly, this doesnt seem to be the case anymore and i dont know why. but it drives me batshit crazy.

Tom

hahahaha so dave and i went to see the vanity fair portraits at the ROM yesterday, and let me tell you, it was excellent. callie, you would have loved it. anyway, THIS fine photograph was the hilarious piece de resistance. you see, not only was this cruise family mountain picnic moment the cheesiest photo in the whole show, this was the ONLY image that didnt have a little blurb beside it about the people in the photo and the photographer. which brings me to my question...... did tom cruise tell them not to write anything about him because he is a crazy control freak (dave's theory)? was the ROM at a loss for words because this ridiculous photo speaks for itself (my theory)? or, did the church of scientology forbid comment because tom cruise has so deftly embarassed them in public that they were covering their asses? let me know what you think.

ps. if i disappear sometime in the near future, it is because the scientologists hunted me down. goodbye cruel world!

Reader's Choice

so last week the 2009 View Magazine (our hamilton alternative paper) Reader's Choice Awards was published, and i thought i would take a moment to write about the more hilarious winners. in ascending order of hilarity, here are my top four picks.
4) the snooty fox won for best clubhouse sandwich. this is hilarious for two reasons. first of all, the fox for years touted itself as THE wing joint in town. it hasnt won a reader's choice award for best wings since i was in first year. since i am completely juvenile and spiteful, i take a certain amount of pleasure in this, as i used to work there, and things ended badly. (this exact same reasoning applies to the fact that they didnt/havent won for years in the "best beer selection" or "best pint" categories, either). what is even far more hilarious though about this is not what they didnt win, but what they did. if they are still making club sandwiches the way they did when i worked there, then the view readers/voters havent been getting out enough. you see, we would pre cook the peameal bacon in the oven (all the way through i might add) until it had a dried out consistency not unlike cardboard. we used the same crappy serca foods frozen and water injected chicken breasts for every chicken item, and the club was no exception. anyway, we would take these two terribly over baked, rubbery meats and REHEAT them on the grill, so that any possible remaining drops of moisture or flavour were eradicated. THEN we would mash them onto under or over (depending on who was cooking) mayonnaised slices of texas toast, top them with unwashed lettuce and unripe tomatoes, and serve with a side order of lukewarm unsalted fries. YUM.

3) apparently there are a lot of single people in hamilton who are remaining so because of logistics. you see, reader's choice for best place to meet straight men was at a couple of bars, while the best place to meet straight women was starbucks (?) or tailgate charlies, which is a club. its a good thing the view published this, so that all of the single people can come up with some kind of middle ground because they clearly keep missing each other.

2) next on my list would be the best place to meet gay men, which apparently is at one of the bathhouses. for those of you who are unaware, bathhouses are where gay guys (usually old and ugly ones) go for some good ol' fashioned anonymous, possibly disease ridden sex. generally speaking, bathhouses are a shameful blight on the gay community, and people like myself and trevor make fun of them endlessly. i am pretty sure that very few gay men actually voted in the readers choice awards this year, and so this category won due to the naivite of the idiot stoner straight guys who read the view.

1) and my personal favourite requires a quick anecdote from 2008. last year, the "best place to breakup with someone" was tim horton's. which i found hilarious. i also found it hilarious that someone would actually have so many breakups under their belt that they would have a "best place" to begin with. anyway, this year the winner is: FACEBOOK. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. i dont think i need to say anything more.

This is my Theory

ok so i have this theory that hamilton librarians get old and turn into hamilton library security staff. but only the women. the male security guards are like the polar opposite of their geriatric counterparts. cause seriously, the security guards are like, a bazillion years old. and they are total, complete bitches. i think they save up all of their hateful book vibes and kinky librarian disciplinarianity (oh, yeah thats a word now) and channel it into octogenarian security anger juice that fuels them. i think its the only thing keeping them alive. and then they die in the stacks and the young male security guards hide them in the basement where the public isnt allowed to go. prove me wrong, i dare you.

These are the Daves I Know

sadly, my dave count is down. you see, there is this guy named dave who anne and i know from swimming. he is high functioning special needs, and a group of people from his group home used to go to the same swim that anne and i did. so we would see him and his friends every thursday. dave was great. his group home is right around the corner from my home, and every time id see him he would ask how annie is doing and tell me what he was up to. his best friend is brian, also a very sociable guy. they went on a trip up to a cabin this past september and they were both so excited, because neither has a worker right now, and havent had much opportunity for recreation lately. anyway, so i ran into brian on my way home after getting off the go bus like i usually do on monday mornings, and brian told me that david is dead. he was only 65. he went in to the hospital for some surgery and was home for a few days and then fell in the bathroom and died. i expect there is more to it than that, but brian didnt really know all of the details. anyway, it was a very sad way to start the day. brian is down a best friend, and i am down a dave. nonetheless, i am going to remember him as he was. thoughtful and friendly, i once got him to help me carry a canvas to my apartment. he was fascinated with numbers and was forever writing them down in his notebook. i cant believe he's gone.

MENSA

since i am still immature enough to send out subtle messages of contempt to the world at large, i am thinking i might take the mensa entrance exam. this is partly inspired by a david sedaris essay, and partly by a conversation i had with my mother this morning. you see, as much as she may deny it, my mother is keen on labelling her children for no real reason whatsoever, except perhaps that she has some bizarre fear that without her labels, we would all cease to have identities and perish. as such, my siblings have always been beguiled with labels that fall under the "talented" category, while i have always been laden with "smart." the problem here is that i have always felt that i am simply smart enough to know how profoundly smart i am not. this leaves me feeling like the smart nomenclature is a paltry consolation prize for being considerably less attractive and talented than my siblings. i prefer to think of my "talents" as being more along the lines of having the ability to walk extremely fast despite having comically short legs, or being able to crack two eggs at a time without breaking the yolks.
anyway, i figure if i take the mensa entrance exam, it will be a win win situation. if i do well on the test, then i can make fun of mensa (see? they let ANYONE in, intelligence is so overrated, it clearly does not count as a "talent") and if i do poorly then i can derail the "chloe is so smart" train once and for all.

ps. mum, before you get all defensive, this post is not meant as some sort of jab against you.

Chloé versus Library

so i stuck it to the library yesterday, and i was SO proud. you see, last week or the week before, i got a call saying i had an overdue book, and i thought hmmmm i dont think so. so i went in to ask what book they were talking about, and they said holidays on ice (see review below). and i said, well.... i remember returning that. not, i THINK i returned it, or i THOUGHT i returned it, but i REMEMBER returning it. it was a monday. anyway, so the librarian puts a "return claim" on the book, which means they will stop charging me overdue fines while they look for the book. and i said ok fine. but it was really bugging me, because i KNEW i returned it. so the next day i went back in and asked them how this return claim process actually works. and they told me that every couple of weeks they take the return claim list and go through the shelves and see if they can find this. and i suppose they do this at all of the branches. they said that if, after a few months the book doesnt turn up, they charge you for it. and i said... oh. so i left but it was still really bothering me big time that they had lost the book but were going to charge me for it. and it bothered me that i was going to have this hanging over my head for weeks and possibly months before it got sorted out. in case you are new to my blog, i go to the library almost every day, and i take out a copious number of books. AND i read them so quickly that they are seldom, if ever, late. anyway, so i was irritated. SOOOOOOOO i came in yesterday and i thought, fuck this im not waiting around for months for this to get sorted out, im going to find it myself. even if i have to go to every single branch in the city and scour the shelves. so i looked up on the computer where the book OUGHT to be if it had been shelved, and lo and behold! it was here! at this very library! where i RETURNED IT TWO WEEKS AGO! it had been reshelved without being checked in. so i marched it up to the check out desk and told her i FOUND it on THE SHELF and she knew i was pissed and was very apologetic, and that is the tale of me winning. so. there.

Restored

well i suppose my faith in humanity has been slightly restored, because a few days ago, i lost my wallet. i didnt realise it was gone until a few hours later. so i was pretty bummed. there wasnt any money or valuables in it, but i did have my sin card and birth certificate and health card (the red and white one!) not to mention pictures of clients and my dead weather ticket stub. on top of all that, it took me SEVEN years to find a batman wallet, and ive only had it since june. anyway, long story short, someone returned my wallet to the police station, so i got it back, intact. the only thing stolen were my bus tickets. which is kind of lame. but thank the good lord, i was so relieved and happy.

The Raw Shark Texts

so then i moved on to The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall (i think, i have to be more on the ball with these reviews, because i really feel like ive missed a few books somewhere along the line, but maybe i just slowed down the pace a little bit). i have to admit that while i was reading this book, i was thinking of ways to describe it in review. and i came up with two ideas that i couldnt decide between, so i shall present you with both. take your pick.
1) this book would be best described as the kind of thing my sister would like.
2) this book would be best described as an artsy-fartsy version of science fiction and thriller
perhaps numbers one and two are synonymous. i dont know. anyway to give you the basic frame work it goes like this: (bear with me, i didnt write it) there is this guy named eric who doesnt remember anything about himself before waking up on his bedroom floor. absolutely nothing. eventually, he discovers that he is being hunted by a "conceptual shark" that swims in the ocean of ideas that link concepts together. he realises that in his previous life before his memory loss, the shark got a hold of him and that was how he lost his memory in the first place. rather than trying to hide from it for the rest of his life, he seeks out some people who maybe able to help him capture and/or kill it. if you can bring yourself to swallow all of the bizarre conceptual fish hunting a real person stuff, the story is very interesting and reads like any other mystery or thriller. on the whole it is enjoyable and entertaining. that being said, i do have some negative criticism.
first, the ending. this is an arguable point, and ultimately a question of taste, but i felt that the author had set up the climax to end in a completely different (and i think much more satisfying and less feel good) way. if i were writing the screenplay, i would most definitely insert MY ending because it would be awesome. im trying to make this point without spoiling anything or giving to much away, so forgive my vagueness and take my word for it. or dont, and go read the book yourself.
next, there are a lot of passages that are very, shall we say, "high thinking" descriptions about the shark and the conceptual ocean. for example, the shark is made of guilt and shame and fears, etc. although these passages serve their purpose in explaining this rather complex idea and help the reader with the necessary verisimilitude required for this book, its as if the book cant decide if its supposed to be an abstract way of looking at otherwise intangible ideas or if it is just using this method as a platform from which to launch an otherwise ordinary piece of genre fiction. or both. it is as if the author had this great idea (sea of ideas, sharks made of negative concepts) but felt like doing something MORE with it (writing a novel about a guy trying to hunt the shark). because of this confusion, it made the book seem like it was having an identity crisis.
ANYWAY that being said, there were some very memorable passages, especially towards the end when they are going through a labyrinth made entirely of paper. and the story was interesting and entertaining enough to put the above criticisms aside and just enjoy it.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

so after spending the better part of the summer shunning my beloved young adult fiction and trying to branch out a little, i found myself without any library books to my name, nothing on the reserve list, and no ideas. so of course, of course, i found myself browsing in young adult. and this is what i found. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks is the account of miss frankie's hijinks at her super fancy expensive prep school. specifically, there is a secret society (of course) that has been around for decades (of course) and only boys are allowed in (of course) even though the school has been coed for ages. so frankie gets a little pissed that shes being excluded for no reason, especially when she realises that her preppy, older, popular and much coveted boyfriend is the leader of said club. not to mention the fact that all of the pranks that the club has pulled recently have been really lame. so with a little smooth identity theft, frankie manages to start running the club in secret, and her ideas are so good, no one bothers looking into why the club management has gotten so strange.

this book was a fresh coming of age tale, without all of the obvious cliché. it is written in such a way as to be relevant to today's teens, which unfortunately is not always the case. i also enjoyed how the book didnt go in the direction of the "woe is me, im so rich and have an unfillable void in my life" as so many of these types of books do. anyway, i must admit, it has been a few weeks since i read this book and almost as long since i started this review, so i dont really remember what i wanted to say about it. i can say that i enjoyed it and it was a nice, fun read for any age.

Holidays on Ice

so after curse of the spellmans, i read a book of short stories edited by david sedaris, which i am n0t going to review, because, well, whats the point. they were short, they were stories. anyway, so then i moved on to holidays on ice which was actually WRITTEN by david sedaris. and i am happy to report, holidays on ice was just as hilarious as expected. this book is a collection of sedaris' "essays" (im still not completely sure why they are called essays, i suppose for wont of a better word) all related to holidays, including, but not exclusively christmas. the only downside to this collection is that most of the pieces have already been published in sedaris' other work. one of which i had already read in when you are engulfed in flames. the reason this is a downside is because i have most, if not all of sedaris' other books on hold at the library, and so by reading holidays on ice i have taken a little bit away from reading his other stuff. that being said, holidays on ice has a couple of previously unpublished "essays" and even when i do end up reading the other ones over again, it wont matter, because david sedaris is so very funny, he is worth reading twice. anyway, holidays on ice touches on things like when sedaris found himself working as a thirty three year old elf at bloomingdales. or when his sister had to rescue a whore at thanksgiving. all sorts of fun stuff. as always (well, "always" in this case doesnt mean much, because ive only read one other of sedaris' books) sedaris is hilarious and insightful, lending a voice to the kind of cynicsm and running commentary we all struggle so hard to articulate. if ever you need a laugh, sedaris is your man.

Curse of the Spellmans

so then i read the next installment of the spellman files, titled curse of the spellmans. (see earlier review of the spellman files). once again, we are joined by this odd ball family of private investigators, with isabel remaining our faithful narrator. i think this book took place about a year after the first book finished, but it doesnt really matter. anyway, this time, isabel is staying with henry stone, the detective who handled her sister's disappearance, because she got kicked out of her apartment. her sister and henry are best friends, which is odd, because the sister, rae, is 15 and henry is like, 47 or something. anyway isabel is trying to clear up several mysteries. 1) why is her dad suddenly taking care of his health? 2) why is her brother moping and why has his wife (isabel's best friend) has left town? 3) why does rae suddenly have friends other than henry? 4) why is her mother vandalising some random motorbike? 5)why is her neighbour so suspicious, and why does he seem to have a connection to two missing women? and 6) who is behind the vandalism of some woman's yard? not only that, but why is the vandalism exact replication of the vandalism isabel herself committed against the same woman 15 years prior? (mystery number six is the only one isabel has actually been HIRED to investigate. the others are just due to her impulse control problem and over arching, prominent suspicion of everyone).
anyway, the hijinks are back, and once again lutz has managed to avoid falling into the genre fiction trap. definitely worth the read.

The Rapture

ok comrades, i am way behind on book reviews, so here we go. a couple of weeks ago, i finished the rapture by liz jensen. this book was excellent, if not a little frightening, given how very very possible the storyline is. this book takes place in the not so distant future, where global warming has become even more unbearable than it already is. the main character is gabrielle, a french-canadian (?) parapelegic art-therapist who is starting her first job since her accident at a high security psychiatric facility for dangerous juveniles. her most interesting and dangerous client is bethany, who killed her mother with a screwdriver when she was eight (i think, its been a few weeks since i read the book) and has been in lockdown ever since. at the time of our reading, bethany is now sixteen (i think) and still refuses to talk about the incident with her mother. she has however taken a liking to electroschock therapy, as she feels that the volts enable her to correctly predict natural disasters. of course no one really believes her, but gabrielle starts to notice she does have an uncanny knack for being right. on top of all this, there is a huge group of people who are part of the "faith wave" who are hard core evangelical right-wing Christians who sit around waiting for the rapture all the time. in a somewhat predictable but necessary twist, bethany's father (who refuses to visit her in the facility) is a major minister of the faith wave. anyway, long story short, bethany ends up predicting this massive, massive natural disaster that could knock out most of europe and probably more. (the story takes place in england). eventually gabrielle starts believing in bethany's predictions and then she and her newly acquired physicist boyfriend are trying to make people believe that the disaster is coming, and of course the faith wave people think that they are going to be raptured before hand.
this book is well written and exciting, but as i said, a little frightening. (not to mention i was distracted by all sorts of negative thoughts like, would dave still love me if i was paraplegic?) the only negative thing i have to say about it, is the story is written in the first person, from gabrielle's point of view, and she drags out telling you stuff in an effort to surprise you, but its so friggin obvious from the very beginning. (example: the fact that she is in a wheelchair). also there is this really irritating section of the book where she thinks that the physicist is cheating on her and he so obviously isnt and it is so distracting, because all you can think about is how stupid she is not to see that and have trouble getting through the plot-related stuff. anyway, i suppose i can forgive this because the bonus of having a first person narrative is that the narrator is imperfect and flawed and only sees things the way she wants to. or whatever. anyway, if you want a thought provoking but disturbing read, this is the way to go.

I Could Have Used Some More Sleep Last Night

well comrades, i had a good idea for a blogging topic, but that was like two hours ago, and now i cant for the life of me remember what it was *sigh* anyway, today there is a "wind warning" and it is very gusty. i cant decide if i want to keep up with my book reviews or not... i havent had a chance to do them for the last 4 books that ive read. maybe i will go to the school some time this week and do all four. i dont know. man im so pissed that i cant remember what i was going to write about. maybe i should start writing my blogs down on paper and then transcribing them. that might be an idea. although in my own defense, i am very spaced out today. so im forgetting all things equally. anyway, if it comes to me, i will blog about it. i cant believe how bad this post is going. i think im distracted because im trying to think of an original piece i could do for the cbc literary awards this year. i didnt do one last year but i think id like to. maybe i should write that story ive been thinking about for a while called "giving up the ghost" i also wonder if perhaps i should read some of the winners from previous years to see what sort of writing wins or would actually be competitive... but i fear that would just result in my trying to emulate someone elses style, which would just be stupid..... *sigh*

Downtown Owl

so this morning i finished downtown owl by chuck klosterman. i was so into it i was late for work because i didnt want to leave the house without finishing it. this is yet another from the mcnally robinson flyer. this book was AWESOME. it was genuinely hilarious but also strangely moving. its about a little town in north dakota that gets hit by this unexpected and brutal blizzard that kills 20 people. the book chronicles the lives of three totally unrelated people who dont even really know each other in the months leading up to the blizzard. it is SO cool. anyway, im not going to get into all the details, but what i realised once i finished it is that what this book is really about is how we read articles in the newspapers about tragedies and stuff, but we just think wow that sucks. and we dont think about the reality of the fact that one of those people suffering might be a young teacher who has a drinking problem but only in the most hilarious sense of the phrase. or an old man who may or may not have killed his wife for merciful reasons. or a young boy who hates his football coach and is saddened and proud of the fact that his younger sister is probably the best football player in the state. anyway, this book was un-fucking-believable. it was that good. really.

School Year's Resolutions

alright comrades, for anyone who is still marginally interested in my life instead of what books im reading, here is the update. as of this morning, i have decided to stop drinking during the week. this is officially a weekend only activity (with the exception of the occasional beer at barbs, but that doesnt happen very often). in addition, i am getting my fat ass back in the pool as of monday... possibly sooner. im heading over to the mcmaster website directly to check the swimming schedule. i want my body and mental health back, and by jove, im going to get it!!!!!!!!

Panic In Level 4

alright, so here we have yet another book from the mcnally robinson insert. this book is by robert preston, who wrote the hot zone which is the true account of the ebola virus. if i am not mistaken, the hot zone was the inspiration for the movie OUTBREAK with dustin hoffmann. anyway, so preston is a nonfiction/sciency/journalismy type of guy and this book is a collection of a few of his articles that have been dressed up and revamped and updated a little for the book. in general, this book was excellent. i thought it was brave of him to start with the article about the brothers chudnovsky, who built a super computer and were able to calculate pi to over 2 billion digits, a world record. i found this to be one of the best articles in the book, but i think a lot of people would pass on the book because of it, since i have found that the sweeping majority of the population has a strange aversion to mathematics. (?)
i would recommend this book to pretty much anyone with half a brain, and i was impressed that he did very little over explaining of basic scientific concepts for the lay person, which i was prepared to tolerate and not looking forward to. the only other thing i really have to say about it is it really should have a warning on the jacket or something because some of the topics get a little graphic and gruesome... not to mention some of the photos. (example: photo of a guy who has a disease that caused him to eat off his own lips and rip out his own teeth). BUT if you can handle that sort of thing, it is a very interesting, well written and overall absorbing read.

American Nerd

so this is american nerd by benjamin nugent, the next installment from the titles i gleaned from the mcnally robinson insert in my walrus magazine last month. (sadly, there was no insert this month). anyway, this book is about the history of what a nerd is and how it came to be that this is a "type" of person that we all know and recognise. then it goes on to reflect on why people become nerds and what it is that unites nerds and there are some funny anecdotes relating this topic to nugent's past. the book was interesting, at times amusing, and well written, but it was more akin to something that would be on the required reading list for a cultural studies course. not so much leisure reading, at least not for me. anyway, if you're looking to tickle your brain and have a penchant for nerds and/or history, this book is for you.

Coffee Angels

well, the P.A.M.'s where anne and i go for coffee all the time "renovated" and got new lighting above where the baristas work. and it makes them look like they are glowing from within, and the features of their faces actually appear more defined than they used to. and i told them that they looked like they had descended upon us from another world to bestow us with heavenly cofffee. and as i sat there drinking my tea and looking at them, i thought, there are my little coffee angels. a sweet little piece of the divine.

My Holden Caulfield Moment

well, i have to admit its been a long time since this happened, but on monday evening, i totally had a holden caulfield moment. dave and i were on the subway, on our way to visit trevor for his birthday (happy birthday trevor! wooo!) and there was this very well dressed, good looking, well built man reading a book. and he was drinking a happy meal carton of milk. with a straw. and i just thought it was the most amazing and beautiful piece of humanity i had seen in forever. and i dont think i will ever forget it.

When You Are Engulfed In Flames

so this weekend i read when you are engulfed in flames by david sedaris. apparently, i am even more out of touch with popular culture than i thought i was, because after googling around for this image and some contact info to write him, i learned that he is, in fact, rather famous. i was unaware of this, but i can see why because this book is both excellent and hilarious.
when you are engulfed in flames was the next installment on my list of titles i got from that robinson-mcnally flyer that came with my walrus magazine. the jacket flap bills it as "a book of essays," which is a sort of loose definition. basically, this is the book we all wish we could write and make a living off of. mr. sedaris has basically written a bunch of musings, observations and reflections upon various events in his life. the result is both interesting and insightful, as well as being totally hilarious. if only we could all be captivating enough for people to be interested in our thoughts on quitting smoking or naming spiders that live in our windows. i would highly recommend this book to anyone, and i intend to read his other work once i get through this little reading list ive created from the robinson-mcnally flier.

The Night of the Gun

so i finally finished the night of the gun this morning, and it took me much longer than most books do. this was in part due to the fact that my mother and sister were visiting, so i wasnt reading as much this week as usual, but it was mostly due to the writing. this is not a negative comment, its just that this book was a bit more of a thinker and the writing style was quite unlike most books that i read. i think this is because the author, david carr, is a lifetime journalist. but ill get to that in a minute.
this book was very unique in a genre where being unique is damn near impossible. it is a story of a recovering crack/coke addict/alcoholic and his journey from addiction to recovery, relapse and beyond. what makes this version of a tired story so different is that david carr, being a journalist, decided to INVESTIGATE the details of his own demise by doing research and interviews, treating his own tragic life history like another article he was about to write. in so doing, he was trying to reconcile his own version of events with those of the people in his life. the idea is, i suppose, that the truth is somewhere in between. as such, the whole book kind of osillates between reading like a newspaper article and reading like some sort of university essay waxing eloquence about memory and truth. this is what made the reading a little difficult at times, but you have to admire carr's dedication in providing us with the most realistic account and truthful information he could find.
carr transisitons seamlessly between the past and present, holding the reader's interest. he manages to make this story not just one about addiction and recovery, but an analysis of the nature of memory and perception, truth and recollection. rather than taking us through the past journey of his addiction and recovery, the book feels more like hes taking us through the journey of self realisation and discovery that he didnt see coming when he decided to research and write this book. as such, the book is a stand alone in a genre that has been done to death, and it is definitely worth a read. but be prepared to spend a lot of time on it.

The Spellman Files

so once i got through the appeal i picked up the spellman files, which i had read about in the mcnally robinson insert that came with my walrus magazine this month. i was interested in it because it was supposed to be funny. it was, but not quite as laugh your ass off funny as some of the other books ive read. that being said, i really enjoyed this book. it was super original and well written. also, since there are at least two more of the same series, it was in very great danger of being crappy genre fiction, but it wasnt.

so. the spellman files is about this family of private investigators. with the exception of the eldest child, everyone, including the drunken uncle and 14 year old daughter are private investigators. since this family's raison d'etre is snooping in other people's business, they are all immensly paranoid and obsessed with their own privacy. they are also all obsessed with each other's personal lives, which lends more credence to said paranoia.

anyway the story is told from the point of view of the middle child, isabel, and it is her version of the events leading up to her sister'ss disappearance. at the time of her telling us about it, her sister is still missing and no one knows why. what follows is a hilarious tale of a family that doesnt know how to love without being nosy. this book is well thought out, well written, and i look forward to reading the sequels.

The Appeal

so last week i read the appeal, the first john grisham book i have read in years. when i was younger i read the client and the runaway jury and i got about half way through the partner before i decided i had just about had enough of john grisham. for starters, there is only so much legal intrigue a person can take and secondly, i just find his plethora of characters a little superfluous and frustrating. anyway, the reason i started reading a john grisham, despite my inclination not to is because i had finished the book i was reading (sympathy, as discussed earlier) while i was at daves, and i didnt bring a new book and was getting antsy with nothing to read. especially because it was sunday morning and dave was still asleep, which is what usually happens on sunday mornings. anyway, so i scoured his apartment looking for something to read and i found the appeal. i knew i wasnt going to particularly like or dislike this book, but it got the job done, and it was just interesting enough for me to finish it.

so. the appeal. this book is about a couple of lawyers who successfully sue a giant corporate chemical manufacturer who have been illegally dumping toxins into a valley for years. the toxins have penetrated the aquifer that supplies water to a small town nearby and so the people in the town are dropping like flies from the cancer. anyway so the jury finds them guilty and awards the plaintiff damages to the tune of 41 million dollars. this obviously carries certain ramifications because if the award is upheld on appeal, it sets a precedent for everyone ELSE in the town to sue the company for millions of dollars. SO the company is appealing the decision.

since the owner of the company is evil, he gets in touch with this company who will basically fix an election for the supreme court for the low low price of 8 million dollars. he pays them, they set up a candidate who will win the election and vote in his favour when the appeal comes before the supreme court. the bulk of the book is about this election and the ways in which big business (or anyone else with deep pockets) can manipulate the electoral process in order to have elected officials who will vote in their best interests. the whole thing is pretty disgusting and evil and just makes this canadian reader feel oh-so-smug because we dont elect our judges here in the great white north.

as with most of john grisham's other works, the appeal is very technical and tedious, but i have to give him credit for addressing this issue, because it is a serious one. the fact that there are states who elect their jurists leaves an already flawed justice system open to further corruption. the great tragedy of the so-called american dream is that despite its touting claims of anyone being able to do anything they want, it has manifested itself as a distinctly class driven society where the rich and privileged can do what ever they want, and the poor suffer for it. it is frightening to think that this blight of american civilisation could (or maybe does) penetrate the justice system, which is supposed to be unbiased. if someone doesnt sit up and reform this system, all americans will ultimately be at the mercy of big business and its whims. which is not only unjust, it is inhumane.

Never Thought I'd See The Day

that i was frustrated with bees. you see, bees are my third-favourite animal, and i have always been a staunch defender and rescuer of bees. indeed, my comrades when i worked at the bar thought i was insane, climbing all over the kitchen to retrieve bees and put them outside so that they wouldnt be killed. anyway, without digressing into an explanation as to why i love bees so much, i must admit i never thought id see the day but i have. in case you arent aware (and in case i am incorrect, i got the following information from barb, so you can blame her for any wrong-ness) apparently because the winter was so mild (?) more queen bees survived the winter than usual and so the bee population is larger than usual. i also suspect that the garbage strike in toronto that lasted for the first six weeks of summer didnt do anything but exacerbate this situation. anyway, so theres a noticeable increase in the number of bees flying around hamilton. normally i would find this cause for celebration, but unfortunately, these bees (wasps, too) seem (to me anyway) to be very aggressive. theyre always all up in my business. and im like, yo, dawg, im not a flower. anyway so far i have avoided being stung but well see how the rest of "bee season" plays out.

Sympathy

so ive decided that since i read so many books, i might as well start reviewing some of them. last weekend, i finished this book, sympathy, by dede crane. ms. crane is a canadian writer who was shortlisted for the cbc literary awards (i think in 2006 but im not sure) a very prestigious competition that i entered in 2007 and was NOT shortlisted for. anyway, she was also a professional dancer at one point, but as is the case with professional dancers, she is now retired. anyway. this book was pretty excellent. her dance background shone through because the main character is a retired dancer and the whole time i was reading it i thought my sister would probably like it, because the dancer's relationship with her own body because of dance is a fundamental theme in the work. anyway, the story is about this woman, the aforementioned dancer, who has post traumatic stress disorder because she lost her husband and her son in a car wreck and shes gone all catatonic. so her mother has taken her to this private clinic where shes recieving this cutting edge and somewhat controversial treatment called psychokinetic therapy or something. anyway i wont give much more detail than that.
that being said, the book is impressively written and very engaging. the only thing i didnt like about it was how her doctor was sleeping with his receptionist and she was kind of a slut bag but also totally into him and he wasnt really into her and he was kind of a dick about it. but as you learn by the end of the book thats all intentional because he has a big stick up his ass, not to mention some serious mommy issues, as all therapists do. also the main characters mother was very shallow to the point of being irritating, but this was also done on purpose, so its more a testament to the book being good rather than bad, even though it was so very very irritating. anyway i have to cut this review short because im about to run out of time on the computer, but i will certainly give more time to the next one.

Waiting

well comrades, im sure i speak for all of us when i say that i think we are losing hope of my ever recieving the wedding photos from callie or the photos from trevor that i wanted. and, to add insult to injury, i am now waiting on a third set of photos (also from callie) from the family get together we had in stratford. alack and alas. and my poor blog has been neglected because of all this painful waiting. as i pointed out a while ago, i was hoping to blog about all of these events shortly after they happened, so i wasnt wanting to blog in between, in order to maintain some semblance of consistent chronology, but apparently i need to give up on that plan. because it would appear that i am never going to recieve the pictures i asked for, at least not any time soon.

WEIRD

so ive been looking for work, and youll never believe that CSIS (like the canadian CIA, as in SPIES) actually has job postings advertised on the internet. lol. who'd have thunk? if only i could relate this information back to my high school self... you see, back in high school, kate and i were rather obsessed with CSIS and were always claiming that seemingly innocuous or abandoned offices belonged to CSIS. and there they are, with a website just like everyone else. HMMPH. way to go, canadian spies... although i bet theyre going to find this post and then track me down and then make me disappear into thin air for criticising them. well if thats the case, let me say goodbye cruel world......

Long Weekend

well comrades im back in the hammer after this past long weekend and let me tell you, it was super relaxing. it was so relaxing, in fact, that i had absolutely no desire for it to end. going back to work after a nice and much needed long weekend is like getting splashed by a puddle when it isnt even raining. or something like that. anyway, with all of the running around and nonsense that dave and i had to take care of prior to my uncles wedding (sidebar: im sorry i havent blogged about that, i am STILL waiting for photos from the sister unit before i do so. which by the way is totally messing up the chronology of my blog. thanks alot, callie.) we really needed a chance to chill out. and that is exactly what we did. the only blips on the radar were taking his dad to a visitation for a family friend who died and then the subsequent shitshow of buying his parents groceries and cooking them dinner, but other than that we did almost nothing. and it was FANTASTIC. and thats all i have to say about that.

Back To Our Regular Programme

so, comrades... sorry i havent posted in a few days. there are two reasons for this: 1) today is the first day i have been to the library this week, because i have been busy with mundane things like buying groceries and doing laundry (i love my job) and 2) i must admit i was waiting for my sister and trevor to send me the photos i requested, because i still want to blog about the subject of said photos. anyway, i still havent heard back from either of them, and i know trevor is heading out to montreal for the weekend, so it will be next week at the earliest, methinks. unless callie sends hers along tonite, but whatever, it doesnt even matter.
anyway, now that im all distracted by this pointless explanation that isnt even interesting, i forget what i actually planned to write about. i dont know whats gotten into me lately, but i feel like i keep forgetting EVERYTHING. i dont recall ever being this scatterbrained, and i cant possibly imagine why this is happening. my only guess is that i just have so much on my mind and i am so busy that its making me forgetful. i dont know if that is actually possible, but lets run with it.

Rhetorical Question

WHAT KIND OF A WORLD DO WE LIVE IN WHERE SOME PREGNANT MORON JUST LETS HER OTHER BABY SIT IN THE STROLLER AND SCREAM AND SCREAM AND SCREAM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOOD COURT AND JUST KEEP TALKING TO HER GIRLFRIEND LIKE IT ISNT EVEN HAPPENING????? AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

well ive been sitting here for like an hour and a half doing crosswords trying to come up with something to blog about. this is the problem with not having the internet at my house, i cant just blog whenever the mood strikes me. for example, last time i blogged about the dead weather concert, i was actually planning to do three separate posts because i had three different things to talk about, but i ran out of time and now i cant remember what the other two are. besides, even if i could, im not as pumped up or excited as i was at the time so even if i did remember what i was going to write about, the posts wouldnt be as good as they would have last week. so there you go.
anyway, im going to put off blogging about my uncle's wedding until i get the pictures, so callie if you could send them along id appreciate it and if you could ask mum to send hers along i would also appreciate it.
i guess i could talk about going out with kyle and trevor on friday, but there isnt that much to say. *sigh* why am i so boring? im beginning to think its because i dont have a camera. but its probably because im just boring. sorry comrades, i dont have much today.

Chloé Loves Dave

well this past wednesday, my main man dave took me to see THE DEAD WEATHER aka JACK WHITE'S NEW BAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! anyway, it goes without saying that it was AWESOME. awesome of the awesome-awesomeness variety. that boy makes me so happy. and so does dave. anyway, the only thing i really have to say about it without actually REVIEWING the concert is that the reason i have an interminable love affair with my beloved jack is because his music speaks to me like nothing else does. the day of the concert, i had a very physical day, and my legs and back were killing me. i was also totally exhausted. but as soon as jack stepped on the stage, all of my discomfort and preoccupation disappeared. and for two blissful hours, the only thing i could think about was how much i love his music. it completely absorbs me and consumes me and while im listening to jack and reeling from being in the same room as him, breathing his oxygen, i am not myself, im not anyone or anything i am just the music, and nothing can touch me or hurt me and nothing and no one else can make me feel that way.

And Speaking of Trannies

oh, speaking of trannies, we learned this weekend that apparently my story about getting yelled at by the tranny from zelda's is worth ten bucks. i was explaining this story to shayla while dave and i were out with her (welcome back shayla! it was soooooo good to see you!), which by the way, i dont even think its a very good story, which is why i never mentioned it on here when it happened, and some guy sitting on the patio thought it was so funny, he bought us a pitcher of beer. so there you go. i will be telling this story loudly in bars for years to come, in hopes of scoring more free beer.

Women's Sandals

well comrades, just when you think it all, hamilton manages to introduce you to yet another character, someone even stranger than you could have imagined. today i will be discussing the man in the women's sandals.
so for the last, i dont know, maybe two weeks, there has been this man making his presence known in jackson square and the library, who i have thought of in my head as the man in women's sandals. anyway, he wears women's sandals and some feminine looking beads and disheveled clothing that ranges from gender to gender. the strange thing is, he isnt like a regular transvestite or drag queen, because he isnt dressed up like a woman or trying to come across as a woman, hes just wearing a few select pieces of women's clothing. anyway, i had noticed him aruond, and he was a new addition to the wonderful cast of characters here at the library, but i never really thought anything of it until i had a conversation with him.
last week, after i finished posting about having the afternoon off due to weather, i went out on the roof of jackson square to have a cigarette. the man in women's sandals came up to me and bummed a smoke and then didnt actually light it, which i took to be his way of seeing if i was safe to talk to. when he discovered that i was, in fact, safe to talk to, he started talking. he started telling me about how the people at the library are always kicking him out because of his clothing (doubtful, i think he tries to provoke them into kicking him out) and how they called him a faggot (really doubtful) and how everyone in hamilton is so rude to him because they think hes a faggot and hes black and he just went on and on and on about his whole persecution complex over being black and gay. i listened quietly, because i could tell he was just a mentally ill homeless guy with strange delusions of racism/homophobia but he was pretty interesting. so there you go. i just wish i could have gleaned this information without having to hand over a cigarette.

JackJackJack

so i was a little pissed when i found out my beloved jack had started a third band.... i want another white stripes album! stop starting new bands! but then i read this article in spin magazine and this new band, the dead weather, sounds AWESOME. also jack said a new white stripes album should be out in the next year, so i felt placated. anyway, other than waxing eloquence about jacks OBVIOUS greatness, i will just leave you all with this fabulous, fabulous quote. if you cant see why i love him, then i guess we arent all that close.

"we're all struggling with the trouble that this industry is in right now. and its not about sales; its about beauty and romance and a relationship to art thats turning invisible, and its affecting peoples perception of music. its affecting whether they think of it as a viable art, because its so fucking disposable. its not about being modern or retro or a luddite or being hopeful or pessimistic about the future; its about clinging on to what makes sense of our lives, and what gives our lives value, and what gives us a commonality and a feeling of belonging."
-jack white III

St Clair

we were leaving a coffee shop on st clair street west
and there was a dying bird on the table
i guess it flew into a window
and i looked at him trying not to cry
because he hates to see anything suffer
and he knows he cant fix the world
but he sure would like to try
and later that day it started to rain
and i thought of that bird on st clair street west
spending its last minutes in the rain
and i looked at him and i tried not to cry
because i hate to see him suffer
and i know i cant tell him i will fix the world
but i sure would like to try