Can people be in heat?
I also just fell in love with Bas, the teller who provided me with loonies and quarters at HSBC.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Icey Roads and Breaking Hearts
It looks like winter is finally hitting Montreal.
I managed to drag myself out of bed at 5:45 this morning to get myself to the early morning yoga class. The class is at 7:00, and doesn't really justify such an early wake up, but my yoga partner, Cristyn, lives further away and has to get up earlier, and so I feel like it's only fair that I wake up when she does.
Also, I have made the mistake of going to yoga after just having downed a bowl of Raisin Bran, and that is not an experience I would like to relive. The fear of vomiting partially digested bran onto my super absorbent yoga towel has never struck my heart quite as palpably as it does when one does floor bow. Dhanurasana actually sounds like the perfect onomatopoeia to accompany vomiting...
So yes, digesting time is key when one intends to wake up for early morning yoga.
So, in addition to the dangers implicit in waking up so early in the morning - ie. homicidal urges - I had the joy of discovering what it means for winter to finally strike one of Canada's supposedly most frigid cities. It means that freezing rain creates a slick and precarious coating over my entire street, turning the 1 minute walk to St. Laurent into a 5 minute midway funhouse reincarnation. Without the fun.
As if that were not an indication in and of itself of what this day was likely to turn into, it was my last conference as a T.A. for American History. While I am wildly impressed that I managed to pull off the semester teaching a subject for which I am not even remotely qualified with few slips, I am pretty sad to end my tenure with these kids. I actually pretty sincerely liked a bunch of them, and would have been very content to facebook friend them, but, alas, I was just their T.A.
Not to mention that I think I was in love with at least 4 boys in my Friday tutorial. Each has a special place in my heart. There was V., who was simply beautiful; wavy chestnut hair that he was always pushing out of his eyes, a crooked smile, and just an indy adorable. And N., who was just so earnest and goofy, enthusiastic, but often wrong; he reminded me of my brain dead golden retriever, and when he lamented that he "just wants to know how to improve from his mistakes, because he honestly does the readings and goes to every class" I confessed that he was breaking my heart. J. I could never make extended eye contact with, because I was certain I would blush. The looks he gave me every class made me feel like he and I had an inside joke that no one else had the privilege of being in on, and I always wanted to talk with him longer after class, but he was infallible, so there was no reason to. Sigh. And, of course, M., my favourite skinny asian homosexual, who loved feminist theory and Betty Friedan in particular, and would walk with my after class, going out of his way to keep chatting about anything on his mind.
I don't think I have the heart to actually be a teacher. I want to much to be loved. I am Woodrow Wilson.
ps- when choosing a "label" for this post, "Going to Die Alone" appeared, unbidden, as one of them. I don't know what I'm supposed to make of that cruel serendipity. Is Mary Kay Latourno alone?
I managed to drag myself out of bed at 5:45 this morning to get myself to the early morning yoga class. The class is at 7:00, and doesn't really justify such an early wake up, but my yoga partner, Cristyn, lives further away and has to get up earlier, and so I feel like it's only fair that I wake up when she does.
So yes, digesting time is key when one intends to wake up for early morning yoga.
So, in addition to the dangers implicit in waking up so early in the morning - ie. homicidal urges - I had the joy of discovering what it means for winter to finally strike one of Canada's supposedly most frigid cities. It means that freezing rain creates a slick and precarious coating over my entire street, turning the 1 minute walk to St. Laurent into a 5 minute midway funhouse reincarnation. Without the fun.
As if that were not an indication in and of itself of what this day was likely to turn into, it was my last conference as a T.A. for American History. While I am wildly impressed that I managed to pull off the semester teaching a subject for which I am not even remotely qualified with few slips, I am pretty sad to end my tenure with these kids. I actually pretty sincerely liked a bunch of them, and would have been very content to facebook friend them, but, alas, I was just their T.A.
Not to mention that I think I was in love with at least 4 boys in my Friday tutorial. Each has a special place in my heart. There was V., who was simply beautiful; wavy chestnut hair that he was always pushing out of his eyes, a crooked smile, and just an indy adorable. And N., who was just so earnest and goofy, enthusiastic, but often wrong; he reminded me of my brain dead golden retriever, and when he lamented that he "just wants to know how to improve from his mistakes, because he honestly does the readings and goes to every class" I confessed that he was breaking my heart. J. I could never make extended eye contact with, because I was certain I would blush. The looks he gave me every class made me feel like he and I had an inside joke that no one else had the privilege of being in on, and I always wanted to talk with him longer after class, but he was infallible, so there was no reason to. Sigh. And, of course, M., my favourite skinny asian homosexual, who loved feminist theory and Betty Friedan in particular, and would walk with my after class, going out of his way to keep chatting about anything on his mind.
I don't think I have the heart to actually be a teacher. I want to much to be loved. I am Woodrow Wilson.
ps- when choosing a "label" for this post, "Going to Die Alone" appeared, unbidden, as one of them. I don't know what I'm supposed to make of that cruel serendipity. Is Mary Kay Latourno alone?
Everest
This paper may just kill me. Mostly because it is all I have to focus on between now and Wednesday.
I know, I know, poor baby, right? One paper!
But I am getting too much in my head for it. There isn't going to be any way for me to pull this off the way I would like to. I wont be able to finish the novel the paper is based upon, let alone to adequate research on the auxiliary topics I necessarily have to touch on. So I am getting stressed - do I just keep writing out my ideas until I have exhausted them all, and then turn to research? This seems obviously wrong, but at the same time I am desperate to get some words down so that, at least superficially, I will not be starting from square one.
And, as one may expect with a 947-page book, there is such a variety of topics I need to cover. The reception of the novel, in France, Germany, and North America; the nature of guilt and responsibility during total war; France's relationship in the past to artistic representations of of the Vichy Regime; Historiography of Germany's WWII motives/responsibility; the uses of fiction by historians; the nature of testimony; the list goes on, believe me.
And I am just not in a writing state of mind. I am an excellent bullshitter when I want to be, and usually when I need to be. But now, when I need to weave my magic web of articulate and charming bullshit, my abilities escape me.
I am starting to feel old. My mind and body are clearly deteriorating. The skills I had as a vivacious undergraduate are slipping away from my mind, like a dream upon waking. And I'm getting fat. To make myself feel better about this physical and, yes, I will grant, likely imagined, degeneration, I went to Holt Renfrew with Claire and bought makeup. Grown up women need to spend top dollar to keep themselves looking youthful, when their minds and metabolisms have quit. And it is always nice to have a salesclerk explain that "really, you don't need much foundation - you're skin is beautiful." Why thank you. And that thank you is, of course, directed at Keihls and Olay, jointly responsible for keeping me young.
In keeping with this (pathetic?) nostalgia which has seemingly reached into my soul lately, I nearly burst into tears today when I thought of my friend Heather. My heart actually aches from missing her; I was on the verge of sobbing in savasna. In response to this news, she, equally nostalgic, shared with me the following quote, from Dante:
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
I know, I know, poor baby, right? One paper!
But I am getting too much in my head for it. There isn't going to be any way for me to pull this off the way I would like to. I wont be able to finish the novel the paper is based upon, let alone to adequate research on the auxiliary topics I necessarily have to touch on. So I am getting stressed - do I just keep writing out my ideas until I have exhausted them all, and then turn to research? This seems obviously wrong, but at the same time I am desperate to get some words down so that, at least superficially, I will not be starting from square one.
And, as one may expect with a 947-page book, there is such a variety of topics I need to cover. The reception of the novel, in France, Germany, and North America; the nature of guilt and responsibility during total war; France's relationship in the past to artistic representations of of the Vichy Regime; Historiography of Germany's WWII motives/responsibility; the uses of fiction by historians; the nature of testimony; the list goes on, believe me.
And I am just not in a writing state of mind. I am an excellent bullshitter when I want to be, and usually when I need to be. But now, when I need to weave my magic web of articulate and charming bullshit, my abilities escape me.
I am starting to feel old. My mind and body are clearly deteriorating. The skills I had as a vivacious undergraduate are slipping away from my mind, like a dream upon waking. And I'm getting fat. To make myself feel better about this physical and, yes, I will grant, likely imagined, degeneration, I went to Holt Renfrew with Claire and bought makeup. Grown up women need to spend top dollar to keep themselves looking youthful, when their minds and metabolisms have quit. And it is always nice to have a salesclerk explain that "really, you don't need much foundation - you're skin is beautiful." Why thank you. And that thank you is, of course, directed at Keihls and Olay, jointly responsible for keeping me young.
In keeping with this (pathetic?) nostalgia which has seemingly reached into my soul lately, I nearly burst into tears today when I thought of my friend Heather. My heart actually aches from missing her; I was on the verge of sobbing in savasna. In response to this news, she, equally nostalgic, shared with me the following quote, from Dante:
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.
Canto V, lines 121-123
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Vanquished Red Head - Impolite Library Patron
So after just over a year as a spicy red head, I have returned literally and figuratively to my roots. Courtesy of the Funky Toque, the outrageously francophone salon I go to (in 2 trips I have had 3 people deal with me who "don't really speak good English"), I am once again a brunette. This decision was made initially on a strictly pragmatic basis - it is too time consuming and costly to maintain the fire engine shade of rouge that I liked best, and my inexplicable inability to book a hair appointment before my style has irritated me to the brink of a sanatorium trip left me often times looking like a ragged carrot. Ragged. Carrot. Let the image wash over you. I am a poet.
However, I am taking the opportunity to cue in a more metaphysical change. Because, with no philosophy in my life, I miss metaphysics.
Perhaps I will post a picture of this revolution inspiring hair-do when I am not sitting in the McLellan library not working on my 6'000 word paper. I have one week to write this paper which is, in case I have not already wined about this, based on a 947 page novel which I am 440 pages into. My previous hope that I would be able to write my paper without completing the mammoth tome has been quashed by reviews remarking at the incredible turn the novel takes at its mid-point. Great news.
It would have been far more appropriate if I had posted this prior to procrastinating in the library, but here is my comprehensive list of bad habits which I hope to expunge alongside my ginger coif:
However, I am taking the opportunity to cue in a more metaphysical change. Because, with no philosophy in my life, I miss metaphysics.
Perhaps I will post a picture of this revolution inspiring hair-do when I am not sitting in the McLellan library not working on my 6'000 word paper. I have one week to write this paper which is, in case I have not already wined about this, based on a 947 page novel which I am 440 pages into. My previous hope that I would be able to write my paper without completing the mammoth tome has been quashed by reviews remarking at the incredible turn the novel takes at its mid-point. Great news.
It would have been far more appropriate if I had posted this prior to procrastinating in the library, but here is my comprehensive list of bad habits which I hope to expunge alongside my ginger coif:
A propensity to avoid yoga
My tolerance for dishevelled living arrangements
An inability to reply promptly to a facebook message or wallpost, e-mail, or phone call
Putting off necessary chores - grocery shopping, filling prescriptions, getting laundry appropriate coinage from HSBC...
Binge drinking
Binge eating
Leaving school work to the last minute
Procrastinating
Not answering on Skype
Leaving my cupboards open
Using my cat to kill spiders with which I have made inconvenient peace treatie
Talking myself out of working at the library
Bringing my laptop to bed with me - in the non sexy, playing sporcle to 2 am way
Playing sporcle until 2 am
the Biggest Loser
Sunday, November 21, 2010
So This is What 6 am on a Sunday Looks Like?
I have officially cued the start of my healthier living.
After having a ludicrously late night and making some rather alcohol fuelled choices last Sunday, resulting in the mother of all 2-day hangovers and an exodus to find my purse - which I left at the house of someone I didn't know, and didn't remember the location of, with my phone in it, leaving me unable to contact anyone who could direct me to its location - I have vowed to start taking myself just a tad bit more serious.
First step - not more belgian waffles.
the "grocery" store near my house, which in no real sense is a grocery store, but a glorified drugstore with a dairy and chintzy produce section (it will be the reason I get scurvy, mark my words), carries, in addition to dairy and wilting asparagus, packaged belgian waffles, coated in sugar, which, it turns out, are ideal for popping into the toaster, coating in Light Butter (yeah, who knew you could make, by definition, fat, lighter?) and easing myself into obesity with. Hence step one.
Also, Cristyn and I have started taking our fitness seriously. We have gotten to the gym the last 2 days in a row as well as yoga. Thank God. I, again, fell off the wagon with yoga. Yoga is crucial step two. Not only because it will keep me sane as well as active, but because I discovered that, though I don't plan on being in Montreal for another whole month, it is 100$ more to buy a 20 class pass than just a Month Unlimited. So, I haven't done the math yet, but I think it would just be best if I tried to go every day from now until I leave for Calgary.
Next step - time to start educating myself a bit more seriously. I am actually actually going to start going and working in a coffee shop. I've been really bad about talking myself out of working away from home. If it's the library, I tell myself "if you're going to read, you may as well read where you can be comfortable, and you don't want to have to walk home after it's dark and gets significantly more freezing out;" when it comes to working in a coffee shop, "really, you're going to end up spending money that doesn't need to be spent on goods you don't need to be putting in your body." And then I end up asleep in my bed with waffle crumbs on my sheets.
So I am going to the 8 am Moksha class with Cristyn shortly. I am supposed to then go to the Otto Dix exhibit with Claire. However, her texts last night had some superfluous letters, explained that I should "call tho cuz i am fuckev" and debated the pros and cons of doing coke. Debated may be too lofty a word: "yay ir nay?" At least I am making an attempt at being cultured. If all else fails, Cristyn and I will be meeting up again to watch rugby this afternoon. And then the library.
Gosh, this new Sydney is going to be so learned and fit.
After having a ludicrously late night and making some rather alcohol fuelled choices last Sunday, resulting in the mother of all 2-day hangovers and an exodus to find my purse - which I left at the house of someone I didn't know, and didn't remember the location of, with my phone in it, leaving me unable to contact anyone who could direct me to its location - I have vowed to start taking myself just a tad bit more serious.
First step - not more belgian waffles.
the "grocery" store near my house, which in no real sense is a grocery store, but a glorified drugstore with a dairy and chintzy produce section (it will be the reason I get scurvy, mark my words), carries, in addition to dairy and wilting asparagus, packaged belgian waffles, coated in sugar, which, it turns out, are ideal for popping into the toaster, coating in Light Butter (yeah, who knew you could make, by definition, fat, lighter?) and easing myself into obesity with. Hence step one.
Also, Cristyn and I have started taking our fitness seriously. We have gotten to the gym the last 2 days in a row as well as yoga. Thank God. I, again, fell off the wagon with yoga. Yoga is crucial step two. Not only because it will keep me sane as well as active, but because I discovered that, though I don't plan on being in Montreal for another whole month, it is 100$ more to buy a 20 class pass than just a Month Unlimited. So, I haven't done the math yet, but I think it would just be best if I tried to go every day from now until I leave for Calgary.
Next step - time to start educating myself a bit more seriously. I am actually actually going to start going and working in a coffee shop. I've been really bad about talking myself out of working away from home. If it's the library, I tell myself "if you're going to read, you may as well read where you can be comfortable, and you don't want to have to walk home after it's dark and gets significantly more freezing out;" when it comes to working in a coffee shop, "really, you're going to end up spending money that doesn't need to be spent on goods you don't need to be putting in your body." And then I end up asleep in my bed with waffle crumbs on my sheets.
So I am going to the 8 am Moksha class with Cristyn shortly. I am supposed to then go to the Otto Dix exhibit with Claire. However, her texts last night had some superfluous letters, explained that I should "call tho cuz i am fuckev" and debated the pros and cons of doing coke. Debated may be too lofty a word: "yay ir nay?" At least I am making an attempt at being cultured. If all else fails, Cristyn and I will be meeting up again to watch rugby this afternoon. And then the library.
Gosh, this new Sydney is going to be so learned and fit.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
"If You Want Some Advice..."
"don't eat this brownie all at once."
Uh, no, guy at the coffee shop. I don't want your advise. And I could do with a little less judgement, ok? Maybe I just have a heartier constitution than you do, and can digest more efficiently. And maybe I have an addiction to sweets, and you can kiss my ass.
So, I promptly went home and ate the whole brownie. And yes, I do feel a little sick. What's more, it wasn't the only shameful decision I made today.
The spider turf war has come to a rather cowardly end. My emotional and moral investment in this respect for life had escaped the bounds of reason. Every time I showered, I would glance nervously into the corner to see what sort of progress Charlotte had made, and the larger the web got, proportionately with how much bigger she got, and the more friends she acquired, the more I had to convince myself of the evils of gentrification and the benefits of tolerance. Well tolerance went out the window today when Charlotte decided to make the mission out of the bathroom, across my kitchen and up onto my bed. I screamed, jumped up, and yelled at her for being so unappreciative. No, not joking. I couldn't bring myself to squish her though. So I do what ever any guilty self conscious general would do - send in vociferous and merciless troops to do my job for me.
Long story short, She Ra ate Charlotte and my bathroom is mine again.
Uh, no, guy at the coffee shop. I don't want your advise. And I could do with a little less judgement, ok? Maybe I just have a heartier constitution than you do, and can digest more efficiently. And maybe I have an addiction to sweets, and you can kiss my ass.
So, I promptly went home and ate the whole brownie. And yes, I do feel a little sick. What's more, it wasn't the only shameful decision I made today.
The spider turf war has come to a rather cowardly end. My emotional and moral investment in this respect for life had escaped the bounds of reason. Every time I showered, I would glance nervously into the corner to see what sort of progress Charlotte had made, and the larger the web got, proportionately with how much bigger she got, and the more friends she acquired, the more I had to convince myself of the evils of gentrification and the benefits of tolerance. Well tolerance went out the window today when Charlotte decided to make the mission out of the bathroom, across my kitchen and up onto my bed. I screamed, jumped up, and yelled at her for being so unappreciative. No, not joking. I couldn't bring myself to squish her though. So I do what ever any guilty self conscious general would do - send in vociferous and merciless troops to do my job for me.
Long story short, She Ra ate Charlotte and my bathroom is mine again.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Bathroom Beautification
I have a subletter in my bathroom.
Somewhat uncharacteristically, a few weeks ago I decided to spare the life of a spider that had set down roots in the upper corner of my shower. She has long spindly legs, is about the size of a loonie. I (unoriginally) named her Charlotte. And when I say is about the size of a loonie, I mean was. She has doubled in size. And has brought a friend. How far should this "live and let live" philosophy go? I think we are getting dangerously close to embarking on some turf warfare.
I also, blissfully, visited Kiehl's yesterday. I spent 54$ on handcream. Fifty. Four. Dollars. This is what 54.00$ hand cream looks like.
I don't know that I come in physical contact with people often enough to justify having skin that soft. But a girl hope to change that. With enough lip balm, eye cream, volumizer and body butter I will be irresistible.
Somewhat uncharacteristically, a few weeks ago I decided to spare the life of a spider that had set down roots in the upper corner of my shower. She has long spindly legs, is about the size of a loonie. I (unoriginally) named her Charlotte. And when I say is about the size of a loonie, I mean was. She has doubled in size. And has brought a friend. How far should this "live and let live" philosophy go? I think we are getting dangerously close to embarking on some turf warfare.
I also, blissfully, visited Kiehl's yesterday. I spent 54$ on handcream. Fifty. Four. Dollars. This is what 54.00$ hand cream looks like.
I don't know that I come in physical contact with people often enough to justify having skin that soft. But a girl hope to change that. With enough lip balm, eye cream, volumizer and body butter I will be irresistible.
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