Domestic Thursday: Rye Beer and a Christmas Tree

My evening classes are finished for the semester, so I celebrated with some beer.

Not this beer, though. My celebratory drink was a tulip glass full of Trappistes Rochefort 10, which knocked me out for the night. This was from a few days before, but I have only had time to write about it now.

Forked River is a new-ish brewery from London, Ontario. This is their Riptide Rye Pale, which at first I found to be as pleasant, but also as discreet, as its very tasteful label. However, the more I drank, the more I liked it. It doesn't slap you with hops, but there's a pleasing roundness, with a bit of spice from the rye to keep you drinking. By the end of the bottle, I was a fan. Oh Riptide. If I could take back my initial middling Untappd review, I would. Let's be friends forever.

And, in non-beer news, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas 'round the apartment.

I feel like a December is incomplete without a Christmas tree in my place, turning the whole apartment into a giant fire hazard. I don't know why--I'm not even religious. I had to fight for this tree too. Dan hates Christmas and all of its related ephemera (decorations, cards, music, holiday specials, eggnog); with the exception of cookies. I out-stubborned him though, and this glorious tree--more asymmetrical than my haircut circa 2008--was sourced from the Kitchen Table, Forest Hill's Finest (and only, in the Village) Food Shop.

I guess I was sort of crafty in frugally fashioning the tree topper out of glitter glue and aluminum foil, but let's be honest. That's some sub-kindergarten artistry right there.

I also didn't notice until later that the colourway has a certain mustard and ketchup vibe to it. Oh well. Season's/Condiment's Greetings to all of you.

Domestic Monday: Cakes and Ale Edition

Everyone copes with stress in different ways; I happen to bake out my feelings. Why? Because baking has rules. You follow them, and order (cookies, muffins, cakes) is produced from chaos. This is unlike cooking, where chaos appears whenever it pleases.

Last Sunday I baked honey spice madeleines. Hazard a guess at my emotional state.

If you guessed fraught, you're correct! This caused me to make a few mistakes while baking. I used salted instead of unsalted butter. I chilled the batter in the fridge instead of letting it relax room temperature. I filled the madeleine pans too high.

Magically, they turned out just fine, and I probably have this beast of a cookbook to thank for that miracle. In the Sweet Kitchen is about the size of a bible, with a suggested retail price of $60, except I found it at a book sale for $3. It's out of print now, but if you find a secondhand copy, buy it. Half of the book is foolproof recipes for elegant yet satisfying desserts, while the other half covers baking theory and pantry essentials. You could also use it as an emergency step stool in a pinch--it's kind of a brick.

As for the beer, I decided to head out of the province this week. Or rather, BC came to me. Through whatever mysterious process the LCBO uses to stock its shelves (Why are there suddenly six kinds of Mikkeller beer?), Phillips beer is back on the shelves. Or at least the Amnesiac Double IPA is. As you would expect, the hops aren't shy in this beer (tastes of citrus, pine and pineapple) but there's still enough maltiness (toasty!) that it didn't make me pucker. Oh BC. I miss you. I'll come visit, and I'll bring madeleines.

Book Pile for November 20, 2014

1. Something I Will Read: Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, on this Kobo. Or maybe some SciFi. I haven't picked my e-reader up in weeks (I tend to go through print-only phases) and it's probably time to make sure this still works.
2. Something I Am Reading: Mark Avery's A Message from Martha. It's about extinction, the "Martha" coming from the name of the last passenger pigeon.
3. Non-Fiction I Recently Read: Emily Horne and Tim Maly's The Inspection House: An Impertinent Guide to Modern Surveillance
4. Fiction I Recently Read: Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer's All the Broken Things

Canada Reads Thinkpieces

1. A Book I Did Not Like
The last time I paid much attention to Canada Reads was back in 2011. I was still living in BC, in an apartment that didn't have Internet, or a real oven. Listening made me feel connected to the east I had left, at least until some of the panelists started saying asinine things about graphic novels.

So it made me feel connected for all of an episode. Yes, this was the season where Jeff Lemire's Essex County was a contender, at least until Ali Velshi reminded us all that it's not "Canada Looks at Pictures." Well, okay then. Apparently, it's "Canada Reads Deeply Unfunny Funny Books" instead.

Yes, I finally got around to reading the eventual winner, The Best Laid Plans, except I did so three years too late. I should have waited longer, preferably forever. By chapter two, I had started to hate the narrator, by midpoint the book, and by the end I mostly just loathed myself for being able just to put the book down and walk away. The hero (one Angus McLintock) lurches from unlikely political triumph to triumph, layering the Scottish tics on so thick he basically ends up as Scrooge McDuck with an MP's office. While Angus has too much personality (he plays chess, is a stickler for proper grammar, builds hovercraft etc etc) the narrator has none. At least that's an improvement over the narrator's love interest. All she gets to do is talk about Canada's Senate (bad) and have elided sex with the narrator (presumably worse). When it comes to earnest Canadian content, my personal hell would probably be to listen to this on audiobook while my eyes are propped open, Clockwork Orange-style, to watch Murdoch Mysteries on loop. Gah!

2. A Person I Don't Like Now
Because I am a generous, sharing sort, I then complained loudly about a four-year-old book to anyone who would listen. Since this period coincided with the ongoing  Jian Ghomeshi story, the conversation would often shift to the ex-Canada Reads host.

"Martha," my brother told me, "you should really take down that comic."

My brother was referring to this comic, which was a half-joke on autobiographical indie comics, and a half-joke on myself. If you don't want to subject yourself to my art, it chronicles my failed attempt to talk books with CBC's Shelagh Rogers, and how that ended many dreams including that of producing the next CBC host, Banff Hunter-Ghomeshi.

Yes, there was a time that I found Jian to be sort of attractive, instead of just a fucked-up abuser enabled by the CBC and our prevalent rape culture. I'm not going to pretend that it didn't happen. And though I can say that I soured on him about two years after reading that comic, it wasn't because of the rumours. It also says something about how common they must have been if even I, the least connected person in Toronto, heard something eventually. I had just grown to dislike his interviews, and so when I heard that he liked younger women, and was far too creepy in pursuing him, I wasn't even concerned. Instead, I shrugged, like "Can you expect more from a man with that much cultural capital?" Of course I should have been, and I should have expected nothing more or less than the basic requirement of consent.

3. What I Read Now
That's all I have to say about Jian Ghomeshi, not because there isn't more to it, but because so much of it has already been covered in so many ways. Why women don't report, how our conversation about that in the strict terms of stigma ignores other factors, why people believed him, what the CBC knew, what they hid, the political economy of the situation, and even the ethics of his lawyers. I collected many of these articles for my friend in a spreadsheet on Friday, so she could use them in an article for her legal clinic. The spreadsheet contained dates, titles, authors, publications and key topics. I had to stop when I reached fifty entries. It was only a few hours of work, and more articles could have easily been found.

As a feminist, I had already been reading about many of these issues, but without the specifics of Jian. That may be why I feel so burned out right now. At least it's made people talk about sexual asault and reporting, I tell myself; at least more people now say the word "rape" when they talk about Bill Cosby. Even the prospect of a Ghomeshi-free Canada Reads is promising. But I still worry about the others that are still out there, and if we'll talk and write about them the same way when we find out.

Pillow Blog: Assorted Pieces of Canadian Culture That Almost Make Me Patriotic

In the tradition of the Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, here's a Pillow Blog: an observational list on some subject or another. 

1. Léolo: This movie is everything Canadian cinema should be, but rarely is: big, bold, a little grotesque. Instead we usually get reel after reel of earnestness. With each year that passes since Jean-Claude Lauzon's untimely death, I worry a little more about Léolo's legacy - give it a viewing and save me from this anxiety.
2. Beautiful Losers: Leonard Cohen, as walking, croaking, bagel-buying myth can rub me the wrong way, probably because the fact of his talent is so evident. It's annoying. Anyway, I read Beautiful Losers decades after it was published, when I was still only 19, and still knew it was cooler than I could ever hope to be.
3. Pas de Deux: Perhaps some of Norman McLaren's other work is more groundbreaking, but Pas de Deux is arresting in its beauty. Somehow through the repetition of ballet dancers and their bodies do you find their form and purity.
4. "Raven and the First Men," Bill Reid: There's something about including a piece of indigenous art on a list that includes both "Canadian" and "patriotic" in the title that makes me stop; it makes those words sound hollow. As they should, I think. Perhaps what I'm listing here are the things, made within the borders that set out a concept called Canada, that make me feel honoured to share that space with them.
5. Canadian Heritage Minutes: Here's a tonal shift from my last entry. And let's talk about earnestness! Still, as commercials for Canadian history, CHMs have taught the subject as well as most middle school teachers can manage, or at least those I encountered at the Upper Grand District School Board. The Sam Steele one is indisputably the best.
6. Joni Mitchell: I listen to "Both Sides Now" and open one can of beer. Then "River" and I'm drinking two. If I make it to "A Case of You," I'll be finished all six that night, so don't disturb me before 11am tomorrow.

Domestic Sunday: Turkey Day Edition

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving! I hope your dinner chart looked much like mine: 33% turkey, 33% stuffing, 24% mashed potatoes, 10% carrots, and then all the gravy you want poured all over that. With the gravy, that's more than 100%, but Thanksgiving is about the two G's - gratitude and gluttony - so why not give 110% to your food?

In the ensuing tryptophan haze (urban myth), I nearly forgot that I had planned to bring back Domestic Whateverday to the blog on Sunday. Perhaps barely Monday morning still counts?

Unfortunately, the domestic craft portion of the post is not all that inspiring. In fact, it's a bag of fabric:

The plan is for this to become a new quilt for my new apartment. That was also my plan when I moved into the new apartment. At the end of June.

While that photo may not be that inspiring, I assure you that I've done something over the past three months. Behold:

Why, that's like six finished squares, and a few more than are halfway there! I only need to sew about 75 more, sew those together into the quilt top, get the batting and the backing, quilt all that together, and...

Whoah ho ho, it's beer! Let's move on to the other domestic part of Domestic Sunday, the brew. This is the Country Bumpkin from Niagara Oast House Brewers. It's probably much lighter than it appears in the photo, which was taken inside of a King Street bar that has its dimmer switch perpetually set to "smoky 17th century coffeehouse", ie, dark. This disconcerts me in the same way that a casino's censure of natural light bewilders a gambler, so that I probably spend more money than I should, and then act like a cave salamander when I finally head out into the bright and irritating light of day.

Or so any "working lunch" there usually goes. At least this time I kept to one pint. I picked the Country Bumpkin because October is the time for pumpkin beer. Pumpkin beers seem to be coming under increasing criticism from beer folks, and I resent that, because they're often delicious. I also resent the distinct note of sexism I've started picking up, alongside the notes of clove and cinnamon in the beer. Even supporters will feebly celebrate pumpkin ale as, essentially, gateway craft beer for the ladies.

Yes, some pumpkin beers do taste a little too sweet, going heavily enough on the spice that they start to taste less like a beer, and more like a carbonated Pumpkin Spice Latte. And so people will extend their stereotypes of PSL drinkers to beer. But screw 'em. More beer for me, and even a dudely hophead should have few issues with the Country Bumpkin. It was low on the carbonation, and the expected pie spices were supported by the hint of something vegetal. It's worth checking out, both as a decent beer, and as a fine introduction to the style.

Protagitron: Editorial Assistant, With Kung Fu Changes Tracking Action!

Greetings from... almost a month after my last post! Good Lord. I didn't realize that the soggy post about crying at work would remain front and centre for over a month, or else I would have written about a book cover, or my cat, or anything else to push it down the page.

This September I turned 27, wound up with a different job at work, signed up for two continuing education classes, got some bad news, and bought a new bike. I'm now an editorial assistant, so it should be little surprise that one of the classes is for copyediting. The copyediting class is a humbling experience - I went through school when teaching the fundamentals of grammar was out of fashion. I've read enough that I can fake it sometimes, 'sensing' that things are wrong without being able to explain why. Now I have to face that my understanding of when to hyphenate compound words is quite shaky, best described as 'when it doubt, hyphenate.'

I also find myself quietly resentful of the online message board, which is full of people's well-articulated questions about cases and tenses, that is, well-articulated evidence that they probably aren't working 9-5 EVERY SINGLE DAMNED WEEKDAY.

Yeah, you heard me, "Ruth." Take five minutes away from the keyboard, sometime.

I think I will like copyediting though. Reading every word very slowly and constantly referring to the style guide capitalizes on my all-consuming anxiety. I also yearn for consistency, and have a certain megalomaniacal urge to turn chaos into order, so style guides are right in my wheelhouse. I'll just have to remember that I can't rewrite everything to sound like me: sentence fragments, caps lock, and chock full of puns.

The Waterworks: A Damp Geography of my Employment History

In recession-era 2009 I fell into the employment pool, with something that definitely sounded like a splat. Since then, I've had four full-time jobs, triple the number of job interviews, exponentially more job applications, and a brief part-time stint at a butcher shop on Roncesvalles, where I quickly became famous as the clumsiest person to ever work there. All of these jobs were a little different, but it didn't matter what city I was in, or the sort of work that I was doing. I always cried. 

I cried at desks, and I cried on park benches, but most of the time, I cried in bathrooms. 

Yesterday, I found myself in that most familiar place: trying to sniffle softly enough so that the person in the stall next to me wouldn't hear (horror!), try to investigate (no!), and then attempt to console me (I'll just drown myself in the toilet, thanks.) Sensing a pattern, I was forced to confront my own failings. 

Eh, no. That would have just made me cry harder. Instead I thought about all of the bathrooms I have cried in. 

First, there was the rather dingy affair of my first job. This will forever be known as "the porn job," though it was more of a writing gig and no cameras were ever, ever involved. Shared bathrooms are bad enough for crying - everyone must hear, but pretend not to know, your shame - but this one smelled of urine and was perpetually out of toilet paper. Colleagues would head down or up one floor just to crap in nicer surroundings. Clearly, not ideal. In fact, most of my crying was eventually done in a parkette across the street, the traffic of St. Laurent hypnotizing me back to calm. 

My next job, a publishing internship out in BC, was an improvement in both prestige and weeping areas. A floor above, in a barely tenanted area, was a solo bathroom. The ideal workplace cry, in the ideal bathroom. Unfortunately, with the next job, at a university bookstore, it was back to the stalls. Worse, these bathrooms were shared with the very customers I had to serve, and I didn't want to show any more weakness than I already had. A weakness probably shown by crying at my desk. Here's a platitude for you: Sometimes you don't need a bathroom to cry, because you carry the bathroom inside your heart.

The stalls have also followed me to my current occupation, where I work in sales and customer service at a publishing company. They are better than the other shared bathrooms I have known - cleaner the first, and customer-free compared to the third - but we share the floor with two other offices. So I am perpetually scared of roving bands of stray women, practising a kind of tissue terrorism with their sympathy and concern. 

I should let them in. But I would rather be alone behind the metal door, please and thank you (it's just some allergies!) Not just because I'm bothered when others see me cry, but because all the tears bother me. I feel like I've gone past the stereotype of the emotional working woman, crying in between bites of desk-drawer granola bars, and all the way back to something real: a girl, the tearful child I used to be, again reacting childishly to what is only a regular, and pretty manageable, life.

And so I always grab the rough brown paper towel (no matter the location, this has been constant), blow my nose, and get back to work. Because every time I hope this will be my last trip to this soggy geography, and at the very least: I've never had to cry it out in a port a potty.

Pillow Blog: Some Things I'll Miss About Tim's

Tim Horton's and Burger King might join forces. And though it's kind of like when Tim's and Wendy's did the same a few years ago, that doesn't stop it from being big news. For Canadian news, that is. The "man on the street" interviews seem mostly concerned with one thing: Would that mean Burger King takes over food operations at Tim's? Could extra large sodas and salty fries replace our double doubles and sugary donuts? Eh, probably not. Tim Horton's has its finger on the sluggish, cholesterol-choked pulse of Canada's food tastes. Still, if the worst did happen, here's what I would miss about our national coffee chain:

• Bagel BELTs. But only when hungover. And with some sort of cheese-covered specialty bagel. God, you're gross, but also suddenly sober. 
• Sour Cream Glazed Doughnuts. Here's the secret about Tim Horton's. They may put the date on the coffee pot, but you don't really know how long the doughnuts have been there. I once saw pumpkin spice 'nuts for sale at a Tim's. In March. However, the sour cream glazed doughnut is a reliable choice. The dough is already moister thanks to the sour cream, and the glaze seals it from even the most punishing rest stop air. These are the things you learn on many family trips along Canada's highways! 
• Timbits at work. With nearly any other work treat, you're limited by shame and social graces to one piece. Not so with Timbits. As long as no one is looking, who's to say if you had one Timbit or six?
• Related: the work Tim's run. Social bonding at its finest.
• The Honey Crueller doughnut. If I'm feeling lucky, I pass over the reliable sour cream glazed for the treacherous, yet occasionally rewarding, territory of the crueller. What mysteries are contained in its many folds and crevices? What fairy magic renders its insides so spongy and delicious? Perhaps a second one will unlock its secrets. 
• Oh heck, the Iced Capp. But only once a summer, because it's the adult Slurpee. 

My Marvin Troubles

Marvin isn't taking the move in with Dan well. And, like all concerned parents, I wish I could outsource my parenting issues to picture books. Here's what I would buy Marvin:

... AND HE TURNED PRETTY WELL.

If he could read, that is. Marvin remains stubbornly illiterate, though not silent. Oh no, everything but that. He was vocal before (I named him after Gaye not Lee for a reason) but ever since the move he's been a non-stop howling machine. For a while, he would regularly howl between 4:30 and 4:40 in the morning, before his regular 6am hour of howling power. Then he would keep it going throughout the day, before finishing off with an evening recital of demonic yowls and then a well-deserved dinner. 

It made me cry. It frustrated Dan. It made me angry. And finally, it made me hopeless. 

We tried the calming collar ($20.) Then we took him to the vet for shots and a hormone spray (nearly $300). There were more toys and a collar so he could go outside ($18). The the hormone diffuser ($60) and another collar because he hid his first one, as well as more toys to keep him entertained ($18.) Finally, a scratch box and a squeaky squirrel ($19.) Now he's going for blood work on Saturday ($money I don't have.)

And still, he howls.  

We had to stop letting him outside because his favourite activity, according to several concerned neighbours, was to lounge in the middle of the road, letting cars come at him. My little death wish kitty.

On Friday, the noise was so bad that I held Marvin and cried. After nearly strangling him. I cried because I was frustrated and tired, because I wanted to seriously hurt an animal, and because I didn't know what else I could do, or at least afford. 

Marvin watched me cry before letting out a truly horrendous yowl. I looked at him, anime eyes and all, and realized that I wanted to do nothing more than something I thought I would never, ever consider: surrender an animal. 

Yes, I wanted to surrender this face.

I felt so guilty for considering it, but that didn't stop me from googling it. And of course I cried some more, for being the kind of person who would just give up. That guilt means Marvin is still here. Good for Marvin. But there's a bit of shame in knowing that I didn't want to do the right thing, so much that I didn't want to be the person who did the wrong one.

Cottage Reading

I've been meaning to write something to push the "O woe is me, I am so sad" post down to where it deserves to be. Below the fold! Away from here!

But work got in the way, which I suppose is a better reason for my silence than being overwhelmed by life in general. Some very kind friends got in touch after that post to see how I was doing. And while I didn't write it for that reason - I was angry, and tired of putting a cheerful face on a desperate situation, and wanted that feeling to go on the record somewhere - it was a pleasant side effect.

Other than that, the good ship SS. Protagitron putters on. I was reading The New Jim Crow, which was good, but as anger-inducing as a book about mass incarceration in the US (and on its way to a Canada near you!) needs to be. Then I had the chance to go to a cottage. The ideal cottage reading has at least three of the following five things: a dead body in its pages, embossed type on its cover, pink everywhere, sex scenes that aren't quite a hard X, and some historical aspect because come on, we're classy. The New Jim Crow has none of those things, though it is a very worthy book, so I left it behind.

Why I thought finally finishing Kamouraska was the right choice though, I'll never know. Let's relax with a fractured, jumpy, poetic narrative about a love triangle in 19th century Quebec! WHAT FUN! Bodices were almost ripped, but it turned out I was pinning all my hopes for cottage diversion on what felt like four sex scenes, three mentions of pus, and a lot of sleighs dashing through snow. It's a beautiful book, but the last thing you want to feel in an Ontario summer is the bitter cold of rural Quebec and/or a stifling marriage.

Of course, I also spent my time at the cottage hauling old shingles, so maybe my reading material was appropriate.

I can't wait for my next trip to the cottage, when I can finally unwind, pour myself a beer, and really lose myself in the diverting decadence and sparkling wit of, uh, Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano? Oh crap, I am not doing this right.

Dispatches from Blue Valley

I've been struggling to write a few posts for the last few days. First, I wanted to write about detective shows, and violence, and how my Mom's fearful reaction to them both - she had just been for a visit and insisted on securing all windows and doors - affects me. But I couldn't.

Because I am depressed as fuck.

And then I struggled with writing about that too. Writing about all of that, the Big D, makes me angry. It's like the bitterness has become cystic, and writing slices it open. It might be cathartic, but the result is unpleasant. I also have a policy, a mostly reliable one, of not posting anything written through tears. The emotional tone is so embarassing the morning after, and there are so many typos that need to be fixed, that it's not worth the bother.

So I looked at the half-finished but already overwrought post, and deleted everything until the "fuck." There it is. I am depressed now, but I also know, as the benefit of so many trips to the emotional valley, that I won't be sometime soon.

Better luck tomorrow.

Pillow Blog: Sounds that Remind Me of Montreal

• Fireworks that I can't see
• Taxi wheels at 4am
• Drunken men yelling
• The metro announcer's pronunciation of "McGill"
• TamTam drums

Alone Again (Naturally, Fortnightly)

Dan has left for a two week trip to Europe, which means I have our new apartment all to myself. 

So check Craig'sList while I try to unload Dan's vinyl collection in his absence for some sweet deals. I'll give all the Zeppelin away for free!

Oh, I couldn't be that cruel. Though I am scared enough of the record player that Dan will return to a two-inch layer of dust on the cover - I just look at vinyl, and it scratches. 

Instead, I'm enjoying life spread-eagled on the bed, with Marvin (the Demon Cat) making a shockingly quiet foot warmer. It's time to Netflix in bed and think about cohabitation. I'm kind of scared that Dan and I won't make it to six months, that we'll have to break the lease, find a sublet, chainsaw our Ikea Kallax shelf in two for equality's sake. I know that's the risk anyone takes moving in with another person, even in a strictly platonic context. Things might not work out. Familiarity will breed contempt, and the kind of resentment that leaves one counting toilet paper purchases and floors mopped for signs of inequity.

There might be hope though. I'm happy for the extra bed real estate, but I already miss Dan. I can't wait for him to fly home and sprawl out, which makes me think we can make it. 

If not forever, then at least until our lease goes month to month. 

Domestic Thursday: A Baby Hat and Beer

Knitting for babies is great - small garments take less time to make. Knitting for babies is terrible - there's a non-negotiable deadline, since the babies insist on eventually being born. 

Here's my recent experience with the paradox. With two people pregnant at work, I had bought enough yarn to make two matching baby hats, and even cast on for one, before ignoring the whole enterprise to move. 

Then, suddenly, it was Friday, the last day of work for one co-worker. And I had maybe an inch of their future kid's hat finished. Well, that's no problem that a looooong working lunch can't solve, at least if I can fuel myself with a massive burger. Here's how the hat looked when my burger arrived:

And here's how it looked about an hour later. 

I handed it off just as my co-worker was heading out the door, and felt like Indiana Jones sliding out out of the temple just before the gate slams shut on the booby-trapped boulder. The pattern is the Golden Pear Hat by Melissa Thomson, in three shades of Cascade 220 Superwash. Here's hoping it still fits when winter rolls around. 

The liquid fuel? Left Field Brewery's Sunlight Park Saison. A great, tasty well-rounded beer. Drink it watching a baseball game, or while knitting a baby hat, though I think the second actually moves faster.

The Caviar Fridge

Greetings from beautiful, overwhelming Forest Hill. 

Where the local grocery store has a tiny caviar fridge for all of your fresh caviar needs. 

And my caviar needs are great. 

Anyway, sorry for the lack of posting. Moving took up most of my time of course. There was also some professional disappointment mixed in there too, so as irritating as moving is, creating order out of chaos, packing box after box, had a therapeutic effect.

Of course, eventually the last box is broken down and the last piece of Ikea furniture (shakily) assembled. At that point I had to make some kind of accounting of myself, and my future in my current industry. And so the answers I arrived at were: "B for effort", "outlook poor", and (to an unasked question) "Why yes, it's time to open another beer."

Which means one thing... tomorrow Domestic (Beer) Thursday returns!

The Ballot of Protagitron

Dateline: Ontario. Election Day 2014.

First: Get a shovel.

Yes, I voted. No, I was not enthused with any of the parties. Not to the point of spoiling my ballot to make a statement, but to the point where I kept on letting out long wistful sighs while waiting for the polling station to open. 

Then an older man ahead of me turned around, and said to his wife:

"Look at how long the line is! So many good people out here."

Without any irony at all. 

Yeah, I expect my medal in the mail, good sir. In fact, I was such a "good" citizen that the line I was in WASN'T EVEN FOR MY POLLING STATION. I hadn't bothered to read my registration card closely enough, wandered into the first place I saw on St. Clair with orange arrows, and tried to vote there. The man in charge sent me to the correct place, probably thinking I was another silly person about to vote for the cutest candidate. 

Ha! Wrong. I was actually going to vote for the person with the best-sounding name. 

Well, really, I had forced myself to sit down with my laptop last week and research who the best MPP would be for my riding. But getting back to the voting thing - I do think it's important to vote. But it dominates the discourse of political action (and newsfeeds on social media), when it's only a fraction of what it means to be truly engaged. Compared to the constant, daily work of effecting change, taking a few minutes to mark up a ballot isn't a huge accomplishment. There are many other days of work to do. The next day you have to hold the people with the most ballots accountable, and sometimes you're forced to accomplish what your representatives are too cowardly, too hamstrung, or just too tired to do yourself. 

So let's tone down the self-congratulation. Put the back patting on pause. It's also worth looking at who's not with you in that line, and why. That's a good place to start the rest of your work. And maybe next time, more "good" people might be able to join you.

Ontario Cider Week Recap

 

I used to be a cider drinker. I hadn't quite developed my taste for beer, and I didn't get wine, so cider seemed like a fraught-free thing to order. Then I discovered the Snake Bite/Black Velvet (terminology dependent on bar), a deadly combination of stout and cider.

And I'm so very sorry, beer purists. But it's good.

It was also probably the grease on the slope I slipped down into becoming a craft beer drinker. The Guinness lead to other macrobrews, then to similar styles from local breweries, and eventually to me drinking specialty one-off casks brewed with three different adjuncts and twice as many hops. Along the way, cider was left behind.

But only by me. While I was busy with beer, others in Ontario were doing interesting things with cider. In an echo of the craft beer movement they were perfecting the standard pub cider, while also expanding the boundaries of what a cider could be. The options are no longer limited to Strongbow (except on the shelves of most LCBOs) - West Avenue, Brickworks, Puddicombe, Spirit Tree and more are all doing wonderful things to apples, including mixing them in with raisins, cherries, and ginger, and seeing what settles out.

And what settles out is mostly good. I finally reunited with cider last week, after discovering Ontario Cider Week. At the All-Day All-Ontario Cider event at Bar Volo, in fact, I reunited with exactly seven of ciders. The West Ave Crab and Cherry and their Ginger Rhubarb were my favourites, the Crab deliciously tart, and the ginger pleasantly spicy. This was enough cider to dampen my existential life crisis to a dull roar. On the patio, in the sun, chatting with people I would probably never, ever see again, life seemed okay. And cider? It was better than okay.

University II: Scholar's Revenge

Today my job shipped me off to the Congress of the Social Sciences and the Humanities, a yearly gathering of homo academicus. Every year it takes over a different university campus in Canada, hosting panels for a week, and leaving nothing behind but empty dessert trays and complimentary pens.

Or so the legend goes.

Sitting behind my company's booth, I wondered if it was appropriate to use newsie-style calls to entice the roving academics to pick up our book titles. Fortunately, I didn't have to startle them. We had dessert squares. The refined sugar did it all.

Some academics always seem hungry - like the memory of being a starving graduate student, and even hungrier sessional, has never died. Even post-tenure, they seem worried that someone will take it all away, and they'll be back with the rest of us, sunk deep in the dusty gutter of department-funded cheap wine and brie events.

A further observation: Roots Tribe Leather satchels and briefcases are the bag of choice for the ambitious young male academic.

A further further observation: The bag of choice for entrenched older male academics is whatever the hell they feel like. Now hand them a dessert square.

Wandering through the booths, looking at all the books I want to, but will never read, I felt a phantom pain for my imaginary scholarly career. With different choices I could have been reading that book, participating on a talk about that topic, dodging... that undergrad, and that undergrad's mother. Oh woe! I have the Roots bag (specifically the "Modern Satchel - Tribe"), but not the teaching contract to stuff inside it.

But I also never became a lawyer, or a doctor, or a writer, or any of the other careers I played mental dress-up before discarding. There's a persistent worry, three-parts Sylvia Plath's plums and one part Beast in the Jungle, that I will spend too much time trying to decide on what to be, to ever really be anything at all.

Persistent- but not overwhelming. I have always tried not to mix crises of being with events that have an official hashtag.

I shook it off, bought a book, and went back to the booth. I would have been a lazy grader anyway.

A Special Bike to Work Day Post: Cycle Fashion for the Unfashionable

Today was Bike to Work Day in Toronto, a day to bike with others, get free pancakes, and try to ignore the rank stupidity you just know will blossom in the comments from any blog posts covering the event.

Or, you could be like me and do none of those things.

Instead, contract some weird stomach bug in the morning, like I did! You'll miss the communal bike ride, the pancakes, and most of the comments as you crawl to and from the washroom.

I did make it to my bicycle after the rush hour had passed, and was very grateful that the city had finally re-paved the road near Bathurst and Vaughan. Contents under pressure should not be shaken too much.

All of the Bike Month coverage has made me start thinking about what I wear while cycling though. The Grid even has a helpful guide for us: Fight leering men with shorts under your dresses. My suggestion: wear the shorts or skip them, but give the assholes the surliest look you can muster as you bike by. Yes, they will probably tell you to smile, but you'll be far enough away (thanks to your two wheeled freedom) it will just register as an "Smmmugh."

As surly as my face can be, I will confess that I do wear shorts under skirts. Old WASP habits die hard, while chafing never sleeps. I recommend either cheap leggings (Old Navy>H and M>Ardene's) or stretchy black shorts. Pretend you're cosplaying and they're knickers.

You should also think about shows. My running shoes are undeniably the safest and most comfortable riding shoes. This fact hasn't stopped me from biking in slick-soled flats, Doc's, Birkenstock slip-ons and heels. Not only will you look great, you'll feel great in the way that only almost dying because your shoe slipped off the pedal can provide.

And finally, don't make the same mistake I did with the culottes. I found a pair from Club Monaco at a secondhand store, in a first-rate print. Thinking they were the perfect genetic splice between skirt and shorts, I bought them. The first day I biked down Bathurst the legs billowed out around my hips, like two great sails, while the crotch made it impossible to sit on it like a skirt. The stupid Dr. Moreau Chimera Bottoms provided absolutely no modesty. Just thighs for all!

Moving On Up

A few things that happened since my last post:

1. Dan and I awkwardly went back and forth on the question of moving in together
2. We decided not to move in together
3. I realized most decent bachelor and 1 bedroom apartments were out of my solo price range
4. On an unrelated note: the question of moving in together was suddenly reopened
5. We decided to move in together
6. We found a place we liked
7. We got it
8. We're moving on up to Forest Hill!

Anyway, if you don't live in Toronto, Forest Hill is uptown. The homes are large, the trees are leafy, and the lawyers are busy. It's the place where a couple recently took another couple to court because, among other things, the other wife just kept on staring at their house for seconds at a time. Though it did prompt this visit from the judicial burn unit:

[24]           As I explained to Plaintiffs’ counsel at the hearing, a court cannot order the Defendants to be nice to the Plaintiffs. Litigation must focus on legal wrongs and legal rights – commodities which are in remarkably short supply in this action.

The apartment building Dan and I will be living in is likely far, far away from that part of Forest Hill. But you can never be too careful. Fortunately, I know three people fresh out of law school. And I'm sure (if they define billable hours in cookie units) I can mobilize them if someone so much as squints at my rusty bike and wheezing self. 

Domestic Thursday: A Saison and Change

Last weekend I was at Bellwoods Brewery. It was a beer event (Beer for Boobs), and beer festivals usually mean two things: I drink too much and I drink weird. There's a festival mindset that makes you pass over perfectly good pilsners and brown ales because another beer is brewed with breakfast cereal. And so, after all that sampling, I needed to go back to basics. I lurched over to the Bellwoods Bottle Shop, and bought two beers: an IPA, and the Farmhouse Classic Saison. 

The saison is definitely one of my favourite styles of beer. Usually spicy, often fruity, it's complex while remaining drinkable. This Bellwoods version isn't as spicy as some saisons, but there's something kind of grassy in the beer. As if you're really drinking it at the farm, instead of in a city where you're lucky to find an allotment garden. 

Well, that's the craft beer, but the domestic endeavour this week isn't even a craft. Which is fine by me - this past month I've found curiously little time for crafting, even knitting. Instead, I'm thinking domestic in the big picture, as in my domicile. 

Seems I'm planning to move. 

Marvin, The Best/Worst Cat in the World, will be coming with me. The chair he destroyed probably will not. 

This leaves me with two months to find a new place, which means Dan and I have about a month to awkwardly go back and forth on whether we're moving in together. One the one hand: we spend enough time together already, we may as well save on rent. On the other hand: he's allergic to my hellcat, and I like to fart without shame. Somehow, though, I don't think it will mater. Toronto's depressing rental market will just make the choice for us. 

Spring Biking: Further Indignities

This year, spring is a mean drunk. It's here, it's not here, it's dumping rain on you like it's trying to start a fight in a bar.

Well, no dice spring. I'm not going to fight you.

I'll just ride my bike anyway. 

I was on the chariot today, even though the rain was cold and bitter, while the wind threatened to blow me into every delivery van on Spadina. I even rode it last week - or was it the week before? - when it unexpectedly snowed, icing up my rear brake. However, you really only need 50% of your brakes, when you have Nature's Brake - the foot. 

The brake has since returned to working condition, at least to whatever degree anything is ever working on the Silver Bullet. As I've already complained on Facebook, the Bullet has declined to the point where unicyclists are passing me on my morning commute. This happened on Tuesday. I want to defend myself by saying that he had fenders a fender on his wheels wheel, and therefore was a professional at this unicycling thing, but still. Simple arithmetic tells me I should have been going twice as fast, right?

I have to do something about the Silver Bullet this season. Even though I've been commuting by bicycle since last summer, I still don't know what to do with a bicycle except ride it. I can't even put air in the tires, or grease the chain. Though I bought lube just a few days ago, which is at least half the battle, or even three quarters if I'm feeling generous with myself.

The physical form of the Silver Bullet doesn't invite tinkering. It's a big knobbly mountain bike creaking behind the sylphlike Linuses of the streets. There are bar ends and shocks and more gears than I probably need. Sometimes I wander through bike stores just for the thrill of imagining one of the sleek, colourful city bikes is mine, and that I wouldn't look out of place upon its Brooks leather seat. But the Silver Bullet works. It's cheap. And I sympathize with it. Though not pretty, it's reliable, and I can always trust that I'll find it chained to the ring and post where I left it.

So, the Silver Bullet stays, but with a few tweaks. Step one: pry off the bar ends. Then we can move on to step two, which is either figuring out how the air pump works, or greasing the rusty chain. I'll never have the stomach to do anything about the shocks though, so step three will be: 

Facebook Official

Yesterday marked exactly one year since I first met Dan, aka The Suitor. We marked this momentous occasion (the longest relationship either of us has had so far in the following ways:

1. Dan bought me flowers
2. I bought Dan a vegetable peeler
3. We had dinner at the same pub as our very first date
4. Then we played trivia, because it was our regular trivia at Dave's, so it was convenient as well as cute
5. I finally changed my Facebook status to "in a relationship"

Anyway, we placed but fourth at trivia, which I hope isn't a bleak sign that the good ship MarDan is headed for the rocks. 

The Facebook relationship update, on the other hand, was very well received. Last count: 42 likes. The interesting post on gentrification I posted hours later? Two likes! Maybe my friends just felt awkward that they were checking their Facebook in a bougie cafe that had displaced a Colombian social club. Still, there is a striking difference between how Facebook handles relationship stuff, and how it handles any other sort of life event. 

Relationships, engagements, marriages and (I guess) break ups: "life events." All other things: mere "status updates." You get a big star on the life event posts, along with a little photo montage of the parties concerned. I dodged that bullet thanks to Dan not being on Facebook, so now it just looks like I'm delusional. 

Of course, I know I haven't hit "peak like." There are at least two life events and one status update that could still top this occasion. I could:

1. Give birth
2. Get married
3. Win some sort of major, international award (debatable)

Maps and Bar Legends

I just spent three hours playing geography quizzes online. This is, shamefully and honestly, more time than I ever spent studying for my one high school geography class. 

And what's it all for?

To do better at bar trivia, of course. It's not about bettering myself. It's about doing better than the three middle aged guys who always sit at the bar, Pinky and the Brains (formerly God's Particles.)

The trivia questions come from PubStumpers, an outfit that's clearly run by boomers for boomers, so the Brains have a natural advantage. They were all alive when Falcon's Crest, Dallas, and Dynasty were on; they can make meaningful distinctions between those shows. I count it as a victory that I can list them. My knowledge of celebrity trivia and eighties pop songs is no match for their lived experience of Dad culture.

I need to improve in other areas. Starting with geography, because Andorra... is not where I thought it was. I would have guessed the Caribbean. It's in Europe, of course. 

This is marginally less embarrassing than when I thought Guyana was a small island in the (again!) Caribbean. I don't know why the Caribbean has become the go-to destination in my brain for when I'm unsure of a country's location, like it's a global junk drawer and I'll find Andorra there next to some orphaned pen caps and a spool of kitchen twine. 

But there it is. So I either learn more about the world I live in, or I go to plan B: catching Pinky and/or a Brain in my honey trap. I'll excite them with my youthful energy, turn them into a double agent, and make them ID Marla Maples on the photo round so I don't have to.

Multiple Z's

I don't know why, but I have been TIRED this month. It's why I haven't blogged much at all in April. I just couldn't bear to think of a topic.

BUT.

I am getting a good sleep tonight and I have the day off tomorrow. I'll hopefully wake up rested, rejuventated, and ready to write something that's not just "Me so sleepy."

Oh hey, it's a March resolution wrap-up

Hey. Does this thing still work? Hello?

I would like to say that I was off doing exciting things this past month, but not so much. The weather took me down, I think. Another endless slog of grey days and cold nights, the occasional nice day only serving to give false hope because it would be snowing the next day.

Frugality also doesn't do much to gladden the spirits.

So on this, the last day of March, a recap of how my March resolution went: it was a minor success. Three out of the four weeks I was quite frugal, and I felt guilty enough on the fourth week that I think it counts. I never quite mastered the art of only spending the cash I had taken out on Friday for the whole week. But I did bring my lunch to work far more regularly, and cut down on the socialization.

Well, by like one day a week.

Of course, travelling is not conducive to saving money. And I am travelling. After three years away, I've returned to Victoria for a week, but my wallet was out even before I left the GTA.

(It's amazing how reasonable getting the eggs benedict at the -sigh- airport Casey's can seem when you're still hungover from the night before, and have a five-hour flight coming up.)

But, I've made some other, wiser choices. Instead of paying for a hotel, I'm crashing on a friend's couch. I have instant oatmeal for breakfast, and hummus sandwiches for breakfast. It's a slow process. But I'm getting there, and eventually my bank account will as well. 

March Resolution, Week 1: Are we ready to be RESPONSIBLE?

First, let's check in on my February resolution reset. Was I able to knit a sweater in two weeks?

OH HELL NO.
But there's been progress. I've made it to the part where the sweater transforms from being a tube of enjoyable mindless knitting, suitable for subway or lunch hour distraction, into a collection of stitch holders that feels like wrestling a sea urchin.

I'm sure it will be finished by the end of the month, if I don't run out of the decades-old and impossible to trace yarn, at which point the sweater will become a vest. And I will cry.

So, onwards to March. I've successfully completed one (1) week of frugality. Lunch was brought from home four out of the five days of the week, carousing was kept to a minimum, I ignored the cute skirts and dresses in expensive boutiques, and bought two (2) pairs of pants from Old Navy. They were already on clearance, and a sale meant I received a further 50% off, so I spent a whopping $8.40 for two pairs of pants. I have spent more on one (1) cocktail at a bar.

Uncomfortable questions were raised by this purchase. I was proud of my frugality, but also ashamed. When pants cost $45, it's easy to ignore the chain of supply, demand, cheap labour and pesticide-grown cotton that brought them there - more difficult to do so when two pairs cost the same as a combo meal at McDonald's. I saved money by buying my pants this way, but I wondered if I was being cheap instead of wise.

Go West (For a Week)

Big news: I'm finally going back to Victoria. And I mean it this time - the flights have been booked, though the rest of the trip remains unplanned. Where am I staying? Quite possibly in one of the many fine bus shelters of Victoria! Where am I eating? Er, Hernandez at least once, the rest from whatever is conveniently located within walking distance of said bus shelter. Entertainment? Books.

THANK GOD THE BOOK LIST IS ALL PLANNED OUT AT LEAST.

So, prepare Victoria. I'll be arriving, with my books and possibly no living arrangements, on March 29. 

Domestic Thursday: Plowman's Progress

My sweater knitting continues. I'm still behind, but catching up. As you can see, I have a few repeats of the body pattern finished already. I'm attempting Laura Chau's Thermal from Knitty Winter 2006, with a fuzzier yarn and looser gauge. We'll see how it goes.

I also have another slouchy beret ready to be mashed upon my head (and rained and snowed and slushed on.) The yarn was a gift - one skein of Manos del Uruguay, in a delicious blue-green shade. Only one skein though, so it had to become a hat. After poking around on Ravelry, I decided on the Star Crossed Beret, and it turned out just fine. It's a little poofier than I had hoped, but not too ridiculous.

And, as always, I've been drinking while knitting, because something has to dull the pain of this weather. (Update on my previous drinking story: the bill was no fake!) Here's the Plowman's Ale from Grand River. It's a good beer to drink in large quantities or with big meals. More malty than not, there's no real bitterness until the end, and then it's very manageable. It's just beer. Simple, delicious beer when the weather is awful, and you just want to sit and knit.

Never Shop Drunk

I was going to do a book pile for my post, but then the most absurd thing happened to me tonight and I figured I would share:

My brother's a busy guy, but we were finally going to spend some quality spending time together last night. Since he's an East Ender, we had picked The Only Cafe to drink in, which only takes cash. Fresh out, I found a TD and withdrew $60. Broke one $20 on booze at The Only, and another on food at Square Boy. These two places are like night and day. Literally. One has neon lights that shine bright as the midday sun on a fleet of cranky Greek man of indeterminate old age, and the other is black as pitch with two young'uns pulling pints behind the bar.

Now in a slightly inebriated state, I went home, but stopped off at the grocery store first. I picked up a green pepper, some hummus, tortillas and fruit juice. Dropped the green pepper in line. Gave the cashier the split green pepper anyway, telling her I'll take it since it was my fault. Feeling pretty classy, I hand her one of the $10 bills I have in my wallet.

"Uh, I think this one's fake," she says.

This knocks me out of my stupor. Fake? Really? I handle the bill. It does feel kind of weird, and as I would later discover, is completely missing the holographs, though it does have the braille pressed on it - glad the counterfeiters care about accessibility!

"Oh weird," I say, "I just got that in change from somewhere."But I have my suspicions. Between the lights and the combined century+ of counter service experience, I doubt it was Square Boy. The Only, on the other hand? I probably wouldn't have noticed if they had returned a $100 bill instead of a $10, it's so dark. (though it later turned out to be genuine - see note below.)

I hand her my other, acceptable $10 and she hands me a bag.

"Don't take it into the bank," she says, "because they won't give it back." Weird, I hadn't asked for a bag, and doubly weird, why should I keep on trying to pass off a fake bill? Should I go to the cops or the bank? Would they care about a fake small bill, or should I just tear it up? These are the questions that keep me occupied all the way home.

So occupied that I don't notice how weird my bag feels. It's only when I'm almost at my house that I look at the bag and realize what's gone wrong. Either the cashier forgot to give the person her second bag, or she left it behind, because the lady in front of me had the multiple cartons of oat milk I noticed on the till, but instead of my tortillas, green pepper, hummus and fruit juice, I had:
One pack of bacon.
Another pack of bacon.
And a whole package of sausage.

So, I'm out $10, and my groceries. But I do have one thing:

MEAT

2/20 UPDATE: The bill was not counterfeit! The police said so. However, the ill-gotten meat remains in my fridge.

February Resolution, Week 1 Version 2.0

So, the frugality thing didn't exactly happen this week, nor will it happen this month.

This is my gentle way of saying that my attempts to save instead of spend experienced a hiccup on Monday, thanks to trivia night, with a bit of a stutter following on Tuesday, before the whole enterprise finally descended into a full-on Hindenberg fireball on Thursday, when I charged a ridiculous lingerie purchase and realized there was no salvaging the resolution for this month.

But, in a way, it was a wake-up call. I didn't spend a ridiculous amount on fancy bras because I wanted to. Instead, I fell in love with the 3 for 2 deal, didn't check the prices of the individual bras, and felt awkward about saying anything at the till. Oh well, I needed bras, and the stiff, backhanded reality check the whole experience provided.

I have learned that I need to become a smarter consumer, and I'm giving myself two weeks to practice before attempting the resolution again in March.

Instead, I'll be attempting to knit a whole sweater in the next two weeks. And since the great failure and shameful reorientation, I have... a bit of a hem:

Crap. February is a cruel month.

Domestic Thursday: Gruit Exploration

If you know someone who pickles their own trotters, and makes oddly herbal bitters, serve them a gruit if they ask for a beer. But, you may ask, what is a gruit? And how is it pronounced? Er, well, I'm not 100% sure on the latter. Seems like you make it into a long "ooo" sound. As for the former, gruit is just math: beer, minus the hops, plus a bunch of herbs. Hops didn't always enjoy their current monopoly on beer flavouring. Before the hoppy takeover, brewers could, and often did, throw in a potion's worth of herbs and spices to flavour and preserve their beer. 

 

And, now that we can drink like King Midas thanks to spectrometry, it's not surprising gruits are back as well. I tried my first, a special from Beau's called St. Luke's Verse, at the beginning of the month. It contains lavender, thyme and rosemary, and I liked mostly for its striking resemblance to Brio. Maybe it could have used a heavier, malty base. That's what the bartender thought, but I also think it would have been perfect as is, if only in the summer. 

My second is also from Beau's, but the Bog Water is easier to come by. You might still be able to find it on the shelf at the LCBO, and it features bog myrtle from a real Ontario bog. This beer is an odd one. The taste made me think of spicy floral, and I could feel (instead of really taste, somehow) a bitterness at the back of my throat. And yes, I drank it out of a mug because why be fussy about the glassware of a gruit? It comes from a freaking bog!

Interestingly, both of these beers contain something you would expect in a regular beer, but maybe not a gruit: hops. Turns out that hops are just better at preserving things, including the tradition of the gruit. 

February Resolution, Week 1

Frugality! A worthy quality, a noble goal, and something I have never, ever managed to achieve. Learning to budget and save has been a constant life goal, appearing annually on my list of New Year's Resolutions, but disappearing quickly (along with the money in my bank account.)

So why not try being frugal again, but this time only for a month? Then I wouldn't feel so bad when, inevitably, I use my credit card to shop away my feelings.

That was my thinking when I started the month. I was helped in my endeavour by the greatest saving strategy ever devised: Having Just Paid the Rent With the Next Paycheque Still Seven Days Away. Eating out is one of the largest drains on my money, so I decided to drop the number of times I bought my lunch to one, and eat all of my breakfasts at home. And I did it, even though I barely have the energy in the mornings to chew.

Still, good intentions can't overcome all obstacles. And on a hectic Saturday morning that would soon transmogrify into an awful Saturday shitstorm, I had to take a taxi. Four lunches later (er, if you get pizza) I arrived at my destination.

Oh well, this was only week one. Onward and upward with the savings! Plus I can always sell one of the less essential organs if I fall off the wagon again.

January Resolution: Week 4, and Conclusions

With the phlegm cleared (sort of - I'm still coughing up some ectoplasm even now) the last week of my January resolution went better than the whole month that preceded it. Have a look at how the week broke down, yoga-wise, in diary form:

Monday: I gamely stretched along to an Ekhart Yoga YouTube video and Esther Ekhart's weirdly calming accent. Trying to get a home practice going has somehow been more difficult than going to class. At least in class I'll commit to the whole thing. At home, anything longer than twenty minutes seems like a gross imposition on my time. Can you put a price on nirvana? No, but a time cap seems promising Still, I found one benefit to practicing at home: if you have cats, they'll attempt to join your practice, mostly by standing under you when you're in your downward dog. Aww.

Tuesday: Off to Perfect Butt Station with my girl Chloe for a Gentle Hatha and Meditation class. Farts were kept in check throughout the yoga portion. I couldn't keep my thoughts in check during the meditation part though. Never try to meditate while hungry.

Wednesday: Meditation. It's important to balance rest and meditation with more active forms of practice. Also: sometimes you get tired of dragging your yoga mat around Toronto. My meditation was guided by the Stupidest Article Ever Written About Yoga. Here's a synopsis of the article: white girl goes to yoga class, a Black woman sets her mat down behind her. Then the white girl can't concentrate on her practice because she feels bad at how whitewashed her studio is, and is convinced that the Black woman is hating her, specifically her, for it. Two real problems are identified in this piece, but only one was done so intentionally. Something has gone sour with yoga (at least as practiced in the West- can't speak to the rest) and who feels like they can practice it. There's a reason why Kula, my favourite studio in Toronto, started some positive space programs. However, there's another problem in this article, and it's that people with privilege often think being an ally means being a spokesperson. They can authoritatively know how everyone else is feeling, and what they're thinking - and, of course, all those thoughts must be about them!

My meditation got stuck on how I could avoid doing that. Was I a good ally, a misguided person, or was I sometimes an ugly racist? Also, what to do with the outrage accelerator that is the Internet? Oh, to think about food again. I think I just ended up falling asleep as I listened to the guided meditation, all of my questions left unresolved.

Thursday: To Perfect Butt Station, Downtown Branch, for a Core Yoga class. I'm concerned that it will just be pilates with added gongs, but fortunately it's an enjoyable, flowing class. I also experience the odd sensation of sweating while being completely cool. It feels damn weird.

Friday: On the last day of my resolution, and unable to schedule a real class with all of my other commitments, I give up and just do a few sun salutations to wake up. Marvin keeps me company. Waking up this way isn't as effective as an espresso, but it's at least on the level of a strong cup of tea. I'll try and do my sun salutations more often.

And with that, it was February. I've continued to go to yoga classes since then - once on Sunday, and again today. In a development that would shock absolutely no one, I am not perfectly calm after 30 days of B-grade practicing. However, I am somewhat more limber, and perhaps a touch more reflective, which seems like a B+ result.

January Resolution, Week 3

*****PHLEGMWATCH 2014 UPDATE****

Buckle up phlegm-watchers: we have an exciting update on my lung fungus! It appears to be... receding! Maybe it was the inhaler. Maybe it was the antibiotics. Perhaps it was the three bottles of cough syrup I drank. Or was it acupuncture? Nope, it was probably most definitely the antibiotics. Anyway, the percentage of my day spent coughing has gone from 85%, to a reasonable 10% (the science never stops on this blog.)

Has the upswing in my health meant that I'm closer to achieving my January resolution, and finding better living through yoga? Ha! No. I pulled some muscle (look at how in tune with my body I am!) around my ribs, and now it hurts every time I cough. Or bend forward. Or twist.

It was the excuse I have always been looking for to attend nothing but restorative yoga, which is like nap time for adults. Unfortunately, my yoga buddy didn't see it that way, and picked an Ashtanga class for us to attend at the Yonge and Eg studio I mentioned last week, Perfect Butt Land.

If you're not a citizen of Perfect Butt Land, let me say that Ashtanga is a dynamic style of yoga where you match your movement to your breath, flowing through vinyasas as part of a set series of postures. Unfortunately, something else needed to flow during that class, and so as I moved into navasana, I let a massive fart rip. The Yoga Ken next to me didn't even wobble in his posture.

All of which proves I should have paid more attention to the "Kundalini Yoga Meditation to Reverse Negative Attitude, Frustration & Depression" video I used as a meditation aid the day before. That night, my attitude swung right back to "negative" when the lady told me to "squeeze the anus." If I had only heeded her words. So, for the next (and final!) week of my January resolution: more squeezing of the anus!

Pillow Blog: Brief Descriptions of Three Nightmares I've Recently Had

Recent nightmares:

• I'm working in a Chapters Bookstore (this isn't the nighmarish part)... but I'm a bad employee. I'm perpetually late to work. The manager calls me out on this, and I try to convince him to let me keep my job, but he makes it clear that he thinks I'm stupid and fires me anyway
• I'm watching a movie in a theater. A fight breaks out, and spills over into the hallway outside. I try to go and break it up, but then one of the people fighting picks up the other one and THROWS HIM OVER THE BALCONY (you would think this would be the climax of the dream, but no.) The theater manager is giving refunds because of the murder and all, but when I ask for one he says "I don't want to give YOU one." I tell him I went out to stop the fight, but he smirks at me and says "I'm sure." No refund for Marty - just the gift of PTSD
• I need to file some form with the government. I recognize the girl working there from high school. She's singularly unhelpful, and when I try and play the high school buds card, she gives me what for. Apparently I was the WORST in high school, and now she's going to get some cold, bureaucratic revenge on me

Analysis: I have some issues. Also, I need to avoid movie theaters.

January Resolution Week 2

Last weekend it seemed like my cold/flu/whatever it was (I'll call it a lung fungus because... science) was starting to get better. I was a little congested on the weekend but full health seemed like it was a mere sleep away. Then I woke up on Tuesday morning and it seemed like somebody had mashed a hand mixer down my throat.

So, another week of trying to wake my immune system out of its stupor meant that the whole resolution thing achieved limited success.

Sure, I could have probably made it to a gentle class, or a restorative class, and spent most of my time laying down (I really, really love those classes.) However, you don't make friends by aggressively trying to hork up a pound of mucus during everyone's savasana. Also, I ended up going to a walk-in clinic hoping they could napalm the lung fungus, and I felt that was enough yoga. For it required me to practice the principles of unity, and mindfulness, and waiting for multiple hours in the dingiest of waiting rooms. 

After a regimen of antibiotics, inhaler, and hourly shots of Benylin Dry Cough (magic in a bottle), I felt like I could finally trudge to a class on Friday. A power yoga class, even. Downward dog, knee to the nose, step into a lunge, attempt a handstand... fall to the side, off the slippery rental mat. Sweat, sweat, and repeat. At least I only coughed once. The next day, I headed up to Yonge and Eglinton to try a new studio. If you're not in Toronto, I think that's technically Midtown, but it feels like Uptown. Downtown, they wait in line to buy tacos at Grand Electric. Uptown, they wait in line (and out the door) for the Pickle Barrel*. It was a surprisingly intense Hatha class, and my mat was behind a girl who had perfect skin, perfect hair and a perfect butt. At least resentment helps to focus the mind, and unite the breath to the body. 

*I witnessed this outside of the Yonge and Eg Silver City post-class. Yoga and a movie? Nah, dinner and a movie is still better.

Pillow Blog: Four Books I'm Ashamed to Have Never Finished Reading

1. Ulysses - James Joyce: I sometimes miss teenage Protagitron (let's call her Protagiteen.) Yes, Protagiteen was a seething mess of hormones and pretentions, but she had spirit. For example, Protagiteen purchased a hardcover edition of Ulysses from a used bookstore in high school, convinced she would not only finish this modernist masterpiece, but complete understand it. Eight years later, the bookmark remains on p. 288
2. To The Lighthouse: Another book added to the to-read list in high school, except this one was never even started. I blame the patriarchy for that. And my laziness.
3. Infinite Jest: I meant to read this last year. I bought a copy and everything. I convened a book club around this, partly as a joke (who would have a book club on Infinite Jest?), partly to make myself read more of it. It didn't work. The voice of my generation sits, silenced, on my bookshelf.
4. The Bible: But it's not like I'll get in trouble for skipping this one, right?
   *pits of hellfire open beneath feet*
   ... crap.

January Resolution Week 1

Did you read my blog, then wait on tenterhooks for what my first monthly resolution would be? I’m sure you did not, but in case you did… IT’S A CLEANSE.

Ha, not a chance.

I tried that once and ended it early, due to erotic dreams featuring hamburgers. However, my current monthly resolution is something equally cliched: a month of daily-ish yoga. Now, before you groan and picture another skinny white girl with a bouncy ponytail and a bouncy Lululemon-covered ass hustling off to class smoothie in hand, that’s… semi-accurate. I’m definitely white, and I own one item of Lululemon (but not the pants! My pants are a pair of $10 Old Navy legging specials!).

However, I am on the thicker side, and don’t take it all too seriously, so at least I’m subverting some expectations.

And I always go to class in the best of faith. It’s just that instead of concentrating on my breathing or my intentions, I tend to meditate on what I could be eating, if only class would end soon. Like: What kind of food? Where will I buy it? Oh crap, we’re moving into downward dog again. And exhale!

The instructors tell me to acknowledge the distraction and move on, but my mind still returns to sweet, seductive hamburgers. So why bother to go, if I can’t keep my mind off of meat? And let’s not ignore the uncomfortable layers of cultural appropriation and capitalism that have settled over yoga. Here I am, cutting off only the slice I want from a millenia-old tradition, and that piece only for my own benefit.

Because I’m going to yoga in the hopes it can teach me something about stillness. I’m a busy person. I talk fast and speak frantically, and I want to do a thousand things (even though I barely accomplish ten.) I’m also a person who can’t seem to keep my hungers in check. Like those vivid dreams of hamburgers I keep on talking about (I want a hamburger so badly right now and I’ve just been writing about them.) But I hunger for other things as well, and I would like to stop feeling so empty.

I don’t expect satisfaction in a month, and my yoga practice so far doesn’t indicate this is likely. I went to a class on January 1st, but my schedule since then has mostly involved YouTube videos. I’ve also decided to integrate days of rest, which has come in handy since I got sick. Even if I did have time for a class, I doubt the other students would appreciate me coughing loudly during shavasana. But once most of the viral/bacterial invaders are out of my bloodstream, expect me to be back. Thinking hungrily of cheeseburgers, once again.

Protagitron Still Has a Cold

The cold has stuck around for a second day, which means I have moved on to watching BBC miniseries while chain drinking NeoCitran. Currently, I would be watching Wives and Daughters (though North and South is obviously the money Gaskell, because Richard Armitage) except my Internet connection is being moody. So I am writing to you.

And I will write about how it is COLD AS BALLS out there. After work, I left to wait for my chariot, the Spadina streetcar, which promptly arrived whenever the fuck it wanted. It was probably only five minutes, but with the windchill it felt like an hour. The crowd of human fleshicles shuffled on, and so the car was already half-full at King and Spadina, which meant it had reached uncomfortable levels of body Tetris by Dundas. This, as any TTC rider knows, won't stop people from trying to ram their way in by sheer will and persistence. Well, not so much will as a stubborn insistence that if you get on the steps of the streetcar, your face butt-level with the last person who tried this, and refuse to move eventually a hole will open in the space-time continuum and they will have space.

Strangely enough, it even works sometime.

So I was all excited to climb over the stacked bodies at Willcocks for a sweet breath of freedom. My joy curdled, or rather froze, as the wind hit me again though. Dear God, I thought, why not leave all this for a career as a toasty and carefree Morlock?

Hopefully this post will shame me when I start complaining about the heat.

Protagitron Has a Cold

I have a cold. This isn't as exciting as when Frank Sinatra had a cold. Since it developed on the bus back from Guelph (my Mom's birthday meant I've double dipped on family time this month), the only other creatures you can ask for an opinion on me and my cold are my cats. And they would only say that I'm terribly cranky, then ask for food. 

It's an ache-y kind of cold (or flu?) The kind that feels like it's living deep in your joints and head. I want to curl around a cup of NeoCitran and sleep for seven days. Unfortunately, tomorrow is the first day of what will surely be the second busiest time of year chez job. Why? Because I work with professors, and so January is a bit like a mini-September, except the weather is worse and most of the instructors are much less prepared. 

And so I dragged my laundry to Toronto's seediest laundromat, because I didn't want to wallow in my own filth.

A similar movement will be repeated with my own body tomorrow. Oh well. There's always the consolation that any anger at any issues can be solved by letting out a feeble laugh over the phone. 

The Year of Living Realistically

Goodbye, 2013. Hello, 2014. The tradition on my blog is that I reflect on the past year's resolutions, and come up with a new batch for this year. However, my completion rate has declined from year to year, to the point where zero - absolutely zero - of my resolutions from 2013 were completed. 

So let's try not to set ourselves up for that kind of failure again this year. However, I can't do away with resolutions entirely - there's a masochistic part of me that loves setting ridiculous goals. So my new plan: one resolution a month. I have a month to succeed (or fail) then I can move on. With 12 opportunities, I hope we can at least bring the completion rate up to a stunning 8.33%. 

To 2014! And reasonable expectations!