Guelph By The Thingies: Off The Shelf, The Bookshelf Newspaper

This is The Bookshelf (courtesy of Google Images.) Explaining it to Outlanders was one of my most difficult tasks while living in Montreal. I could make it through "local independent bookstore" - Oh, that's great! - "it's pretty much the only one in town" - Cute! - "and sometimes it feels like it has a Medici-like stranglehold on local arts and culture" - which would then earn a disbelieving look. Alright, I exaggerate just a bit, but it's a complex containing a bookstore, restaurant, café and art cinema, so unless $5 popcorn and Avatar is your thing, it's where you'll probably end up in Guelph.


It also publishes its own bimonthly newsletter, complete with cinema listings, book reviews and ads for local therapists and life coaches. A lot of them. Eleven out of forty one ads, if you include Irish spirit wheel workshops, which I do.

At first, I wanted to make fun of that hilariously high percentage, and how living in Guelph sometimes feels like you're stuck in a Dykes To Watch Out For comic strip. Or a historical village dedicated to the 1970s,with very intense interpreters. However, I can't say I would change a thing. There's something comforting, and positively Guelphian (in both senses) in all the therapy media. It's not that this newsletter is saying you must be a better person, or that you will be a better person. It just seems to think, that with enough work, you can be a better person. All problems can be solved, all sexual dysfunctions put to work and all Irish spirit wheels turning as long as you just find the right person with the right credentials.

In this case, Jungian psychoanalysis seems to have the advantage. Two out of eleven ads, for three therapists.

Here's a breakdown of the rest of the ads, just in case you were interested. Me? I just like making pie charts.

Back To Ontario

To continue my last post: So, I moved. There was a last-minute snafu involving - who else? - Quebec hydro, that lead to a mental breakdown, a lot of swearing and then a significant outlay of funds. However, I managed to overcome that last little wrinkle, and barring a threatening phone call from my old landlord or the girl who's taking over my apartment, I am free of Montreal.

And it feels kind of gross.

Especially since I've become the cliche of cliches, a New York Times Magazine article. Yes, I am now one of those twentysomethings who has taken wing, soared above the city... and turned right around and back into the nest. I rather exhausted my savings being unemployed in Montreal, and until I find a job in Toronto, I am living in Guelph.

I keep on having terrifying premonitions that this whole experiment will end with me eating cheezies and watching The Price Is Right at two in the afternoon, entertaining erotic notions about Bob Barker and wondering why I now have to settle for Drew Carey.

Anyway, I want to get this blog back on a 1962 recipe-making, movie-bitching path, but I think that's at least a week away while I deal with my quarterlife crisis. Until then, I'm going to try and explain my hometown with daily posts on particularly Guelphy artifacts, starting with the local independent bookstore/ art house cinema's bimonthly listings. Oh yes, in Guelph we believe in versatility.

I Hate Craigslist

So, I'm moving. And, like many a person who has to move, I have a surplus of stuff. And so, again like many person who has to move, I have turned to Craigslist in an attempt to offload it all.

And now I hate humanity.

First, of all, the reading comprehension skills of the average Craigslister are dire. If I put "Frontenac Metro" in the title of my post, why do I then get three e-mail responses asking me which metro I'm closest to? Maybe I should send the answer to them in a series of clues.

The first clue: Look in the title.
The second: No, seriously, I do not live at Metro Slow Cooker For Sale.
The third: Or at Metro Vendome.
The fourth: Rhymes with "Trontenac.:
The fifth: I hate you.

Or when I saw "pickup only", I should also not get an e-mail asking if I deliver. It's a 10 dollar shelf. TEN DOLLARS. Get your lazy ass over here and get it, I am not The Brick.

Also, I've noticed that a lot of people will e-mail you, you'll give them your contact info and then you'll never hear from them again. In a weird fit of anxiety, I always wonder if they're okay. Like, what if they're hoarders, and a pile of newspapers from '95 fell on them, and they're pinned underneath all the print unable to hit send? That would be an awful lot of guilt for me to bear.

However, I will say this for Craigslist. It's awesome at getting rid of the old appliances your new tenant decided she didn't want anymore. Even if the washer goes to one very optimistic, and very strong, Russian who ends up moving pretty much the whole thing all by himself, except for the part where the washer fell over and put a gash in my foot. Still, the blood spilled was worth it, as I didn't have to pay to have it disposed. And that is truly the greatest gift of all.

Eat Pray Love: Carnage At The Cinema

My general anxiety level was raised to code yellow (HORROR) recently. Why?

The reason stalks the land on two, long willowy legs, a bunch of pasta in its mouth, superficial Eastern spirituality on the brain, and a hot Brazilian... well, you know. It's also known as Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love: The Movie.

Ahhh! The horror! Alright, my issues with this movie aren't so much with Elizabeth Gilbert, or the problematic aspects of PrivLit, but with the biblio terrorism my Mom practiced when the book came out. I was at home for the summer after a miserable year at university, feeling depressed and unloved. At odd intervals, my Mom would compound problems by cornering me in the kitchen and reading out passages she found particularly amusing or enlightening.

When she was finished, I would remind her that I, too, could overcome my depression if she would only finance my round-the-world trip*. That never stopped her though. And since, considering the way my life is going, there is a 99.99999% chance I'll be moving back to Guelph soon as I relocate my life to Toronto, I'm worried she'll have another go at the memoir form of shock and awe. And while the movie is less portable, random snippets seem much more appealing compared to two hours held captive in a dark movie theatre.

*Working title: Stuff, Drink, Regret. Possible locations: Kansas City, MO; Moscow; Dark Night Of The Soul.

BTO: Binding iT Off

I'm taking a page from the fine philosophers Bachman, Turner et al and making my new life motto TCB: takin' care of business.

So far though, it's more like TCK: takin' care of knitting. About a week ago, I tired of the glut of half-finished and orphaned projects I had kicking around and decided to finish them all. First up, the most tragic knit of all: the Arctic Diamonds Stole.Started at least two years ago, this stole had an unfortunate run in with a leaky container of tomato soup. Instead of spot-treating the stains immediately, I hid it away in frustration. I am wise. I was wiser still in using extra braces elastics as stitch markers, because the rubber quickly degraded and added more, if also more regularly spaced, stains. Yee haw.
I forged ahead anyways and managed to get some of the stains out. I'm willing to accept the finished project, but only with some DRAMATIC FRINGE. At the rate I'm adding the fringe though, it will be another two years before it is complete. Oh well. Think of the DRAMA.
Next: My January Aran is getting sleeves! Consider it a belated 100th birthday shout-out to Elizabeth Zimmerman. By the way, that is a Penguin of Perseverence my Dad bought for me at a street fair. I look to it for inspiration.

Stuck On Pause, With Pasta

Oh mon dieu. I wish I had momentous news from my absence to report, but not so much. For a while there, my life felt like it was stuck on pause. I was waiting to hear back about one job, but thinking about moving back to Ontario. I was going off to volunteer, but coming home to play endless rounds of solitaire. I was on a unicycle, pedaling endlessly in space.

Ok, scratch the unicycle part, although it makes for a fun mental image. No wait, I want to continue with the metaphor. Eventually, though, I decided to stop pedaling and descend gracelessly from the unicycle. Now I am back on my own two feet, I have a plan and I begin to feel semi-competent again.

To celebrate, here's a quick recipe, sans photos, for a dish I've been making a lot recently. I bought ingredients for a pasta salad since there was a picnic on the horizon. The picnic went swimmingly, even though it became an indoor thing thanks to rain, but I still have orphaned artichoke hearts. Hence this pasta dish. Make it when you're lazy, poor and have nuttin' but jars in the fridge and a basil plant on the windowsill.

The Fridge Is Bare And Your Life Is Overwhelming Pasta, or Carbs, Yay.
-enough spaghetti for one person
-a handful of oil-packed, sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
-two artichoke hearts, drained, sliced and separated
-one shot of olive oil
-a handful of finely-grated parmesan cheese
-two generous pinches of fresh basil, chopped
-salt and pepper to taste

1. Make spaghetti. Refer to the box instructions if you must. Drain.
2. Toss with sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke heart slices, and olive oil. Throw in basil, parmesan, and salt and pepper, then toss until the cheese begins to melt.
3. That's it, you're done. Serve with depanneur beer and a side of quarter-life crisis, but finish off with hope.