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.