Uphill Battles: Further Indignities from the World of Cycling

Because global warming has turned spring into a pleasing fiction from the past, we quickly transitioned from Cold to Hot here in Toronto. Unfortunately, this means that I play Russian Roulette every time I cycle home from work. Will this day be the day my head finally explodes like that guy from Scanners? Or will that be tomorrow? Or Tuesday of next week?

My apartment is in Forest Hill, which is uphill from my job. Unfortunately, it is also uphill from the border of the prehistoric mega-lake that has since receded into Lake Ontario, leaving behind a  sharp shelf for my little black bike to climb. I keep on trying to find an ideal route that combines low hill grades with Toronto's limited bike infrastructure; I keep on failing.

Instead, every day I slowly pedal my way up Spadina until my face is turned a colour Pantone has named "geranium pink." Woe to any car that tries to cross me as I power through the streets at 0.3km/hour. With my dry throat and slack mouth, my violent threats come out as "If ffnyouuuuuurnntrythattttImmmmaklzznznjnyou," but there's no mistaking the look of murder in my eyes. I'll tear their throat out with my teeth! Or pass out on their hood. Actually, if they would just hit me, they could conveniently drag me uphill.

I could get in better shape. I could buy an e-bike. But at either point, I might just do better to move.

Domestic Tuesday: Baby Sweater and a Yukon Beer

Remember that baby sweater I started a while ago? Well, I stalled out on the first sleeve, and I'm not really sure why. Baby sleeves are are barely the size of a washcloth if laid flat. It's like deciding that I don't have the energy to knit a gauge swatch. Oh well.

I finally picked it back up, and now I'm just hoping it will fit. It's not like babies grow quickly or anything, right? Eh. Love those buttons though.

Dulling the pain of knowing this sweater probably won't fit is Yukon Gold's English Pale Ale. I picked it up because I had never tried a beer from the Yukon before, much less seen one for sale at the LCBO. According to the shelf tag, this is the most popular draught beer in the Yukon, though I was a little concerned when the shelf tag then mentioned that the label art captures the spirit of the Yukon. It's definitely an attractive label, but I was worried this was the shelf's way of warning me, like saying "the movie sucks, but the poster sure looks amazing!" I shouldn't have been so worried. I was expecting something quite light, due to its popularity, but it was more robust than expected. Kind of sweet, with an emphasis on the malts, it reminded me of a digestive biscuit. I could drink a few of these in a night; not shocked it's so popular up North.

Pillow Blog: Some Classic Films for Bad Times

Right now, the world seems particularly heartbreaking and awful. The only thing to do is to fix it, of course. There are too many things a person can do, both small (donating money to the Emanuel AME Church) and large (helping to build a more just society) to ever feel truly hopeless. But sometimes I forget to feel that optimistic. When I feel this way, the only thing that can make me bear the real world is to escape into a beautifully constructed artificial one. Golden Age Hollywood films are my tonic of choice. And yes, it's odd that these films both represent and perpetrate so many harmful systems; but reason and comfort aren't always good company. Here are my personal favourites:

1. My Man Godfrey: This film is screwball perfection. The outfits are fashion perfection. Carole Lombard is perfection. Either the gorilla scene or the dishwashing scene will make you laugh, but both probably will.
2. The Thin Man: Nick and Nora are the ideal married couple. They have fun, they're clearly still hot for each other, and they're perpetually drunk off their asses. I don't have the liver for that lifestyle and thus I am likely doomed to a lifetime of unfulfilling relationships (don't tell Dan). I think there's a murder mystery in this, but it's not that important because you're here for cocktails with the Charleses.
3. Singin' in the Rain: Perhaps the best musical ever made in Hollywood. Film history would be a sad affair without Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, and Debbie Reynolds striding arm in arm in their rain slickers.
4. Top Hat: There's something magical about seeing Ginger Rodgers dance in a completely feathered dress. I'm sure it would have looked ridiculous in real life; lost feathers start to litter the dance floor as the scene goes on. Doesn't matter. Fred Astaire and Ginger don't miss a step.
5. It Happened One Night: This movie completely misrepresented the allure of traveling by Greyhound, in that it indicated it might have some. However, Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable are so charming I've always forgiven the film for this lie. It's funny and a little sexy, probably because the Walls of Jericho (the bedsheet separating the unmarried travellers) stays up until the very last scene.

Pillow Blog: 5 CBC Personalities I Thought Would Go Down Before Evan Solomon

In the tradition of the Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, here's a Pillow Blog: an observational list on some subject or another. In this case, five CBC personalities I thought would go down before Evan Solomon, with their absurd potential malfeasance:

• Ian Hanomansing for stealing all that maple syrup that went missing in Quebec
• Rex Murphy for drug smuggling
• Peter Mansbridge for running a fight club behind his Stratford home
• Wendy Mesley for importing knockoff designer bags
• IdeaswithPaulKennedy for stealing copper wire from the recording studio

And yet, somehow, it's Evan Solomon for making art deals on the side. The code names are a fun touch though, "the Guv" for Mark Carney, and "Anka" for Jim Balsillie. If I ever buy art from a CBC host, I want my code name to be "El Camino" and the host to be either Steven or Chris, but not both. Anyway, this whole affair is doing a great deal to restore my interest in Evan Solomon, an interest formerly drained by nearly every episode of Power and Politics I ever tried to watch.

Hot Takes: My Job Application to become a Globe and Mail Columnist

Margaret Wente and I have reached an understanding. I avoid reading her columns and pretend that she doesn't exist; she doesn't care to know that I exist. In this way, we have achieved harmony, balance, and a meaningful reduction in the number of times I cry blood while reading her column. 

But sometimes, in spite of myself, I read it. Usually because she's said something so outrageous that my friends will complain about it, and they'll ask me if I've read it too. I tell them about the understanding, but even as I say that I won't be giving the Globe and Mail the pleasure of my clicks, I inevitably click on her column. 

Before the blood tears come, there's at least one thing that always gives me satisfaction. As a young women with a university degree in the humanities, I'm used to being somewhere in the third quartile of Canada's societal power rankings. Jobs are scarce, good pay almost extinct; I occupy so little space in the public consciousness that many Torontonians will try to walk right through me on a sidewalk and are shocked when my shoulder checks them. However, in Wente-land, this is not the case. There, I am part of a dangerous cabal plotting to rule over a ruined Canada with not one but two iron fists. One is poised over a Rape Culture Alert button, while the other repeatedly checks the "sociology" field instead of "petroleum engineering" on every university application. 

Margaret Wente had us, or at least a particular segment of us, in her sights again last Tuesday. She managed to build a whole column around the presentations at this year's Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities without attending any of them. This is the columnist's equivalent of giving a book report without having done the required reading. The offences she found at Congress included daring to critically study video games (an industry worth an insignificant 25 PLUS BILLION DOLLARS) and making "the virtues of everything indigenous" a theme (a particularly galling statement since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was wrapping up in Ottawa at the same time as Congress was happening). I suppose gender is never explicitly mentioned in her column, but notice what's in the titles of the presentations she mentions by name ("breasts", "female sex tourism", "lesbians") and check who is presenting them. Add in the context of Wente's previous column on the gender wage gap, and... the subtext is practically text. 

Oh, what could I say to Wente about this column if we ever stared each other down in an elevator? That people who worked hard to research and prepare for their presentation deserve more than a glib dismissal by a known plagiarist? That it doesn't make sense to complain about scholars focusing too little on Northrop Frye and Jane Austen when they are hardly "practical studies that will pay off in a good career" like she praises the "aspirational children of new Canadians" for pursuing? That SHUT UP, WENTE, YOU HACK??? No, cathartic as the latter might be, I'm not going to beat her. I'm going to join her!

Because if she can make a living wage with her contrarian word spew (eruptions occur twice a week), I want the same deal. It's only fair. We both have English degrees, so she knows I am fit for nothing else. Here are the three writing samples I'll be sending to the Globe:

Column Preview #1

Column Title: Young Women: What Is to Be Done?

Synopsis: I don't trust young women. They're asking to be treated like real people, and one of them was mean to me once. It's okay, I can say this stuff because I am also a young woman. 

Hot Take: Young women have it easy, it's young white men who have it hard. 

Sample Sentence: "The woman--more of a girl, really--hit me with her tote bag as she left, and I knew there was a  Feminist Geographies of Public Space class somewhere on her transcript."

Column Preview #2

Column Title: I Read a Book

Synopsis: I read a Book about Something. I will then condense the author's arguments, use them to make my argument for me, and apply no criticism to their work.

Hot Take: Everything you thought about a thing was WRONG because I read a Book that said so. 

Sample Sentence: "Global warming, it turns out, will be barely warm enough to steep a proper cup of tea, as Book Author points out in the Book whose product description I read most of on Amazon."

Column Preview #3

Column Title: True Patriot Love and Hook-Ups: My Canadian Election

Synopsis: I discuss the upcoming election entirely on the terms of an extended and increasingly tortured Tinder metaphor. Because I am a young woman, and we like apps. 

Hot Take: I'm not going to swipe right on anyone, because I need to learn to love myself first--and so does Canada. 

Sample Sentence: "Mulcair's beard is rich and his baritone is practically platinum, but you know he would just endlessly debate you about Bill C-51 via chat before you even had a first date at Terroni."

Salary-wise, I want whatever Wente's getting. And if the Globe adds another grand, I'll even wear a low-cut shirt when my columnist photo is taken.