Pillow Blog: Paired Pros and Cons of Cohabitation

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

Dan and I have been living together for about nine months, and Marvin has still not stopped bitching about it. Like my extremely annoying but rather cute cat, cohabitation has been a mixed experience. In no particular order, here are some of the pros and cons of living together I've experienced so far:

• Dan works from home, so I can get him to pick up my holds at the library
• I have basically recreated my parents' relationship dynamics, which is weird and gross
• I now have access to Dan's impressive collection of DVDs and Blu-Rays
• My living room now has a shelf that functions as a shrine to dying technology, and I would really like to put an armchair there instead
• Regular warm body to cuddle up next to
• Regular obstacle to complete bed domination during sleep
• Dan's feelings towards the cat have improved
• Marvin's feelings towards us have worsened, and he now believes Dan and I have banded together to annoy him
• I now have a deep fryer, microwave, and popcorn popper
• Our kitchen isn't big enough for all of our kitchen crap
• Someone to talk to
• Someone who tries to kiss me when I'm trying to think
• Shared living costs
• Financial decisions must now also be shared
• Someone to watch Mad Men with
• Someone who refuses to watch Game of Thrones with me
• We can team up to make doughnuts together on a Sunday morning
• ... 
• ...
• There's no cons for that one

Overall, the pros are somewhat stronger than the cons, though the cat would beg to disagree.

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.

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. 

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!

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. 

Always Moving, Never Resting

A few weeks ago, the owner of my current building sold the house. With these glad tidings (for the landlord) came the sad tidings that all of the renters would have to vacate the building. Our little ramshackle house was going to finally catch up with the rest of the street, and return to being a single dwelling for some well-heeled, well-educated family.

My roommate and I are okay. We will be moving, with the collection of cats, to a nice place at St. Clair West and Bathurst. There's an ice cream parlour and Filipino bakeries in the area, so I'm getting ready to let my pants out. Unfortunately, before I can do that, I need to pack up. Again. It's a process I should be familiar with, given the recent timeline of my life:

August 2010: Pack up 6 years of Montreal living; return to Guelph
September 2010: Move to Victoria
April 2011: Move to a new place in Victoria
September 2011: Move back to Guelph
February 2012: Move to first apartment in Toronto
August 2012: Move to second apartment in Toronto
January 2013 (proposed): Move to third apartment in Toronto
May 2013 (proposed): Give up; move to Fort McMurray... forever

But I don't really feel like I have another move in me. Probably because I moved into an apartment with what appears to be six waiter's friends and an apocalypse-appropriate store of red lentils, and who knows where it should all be packed and why.

So, if you know me in real life and you happen to be in Toronto the first weekend of January, please lend a hand. My sanity depends on it, and I can pay you in lentils. 

Plant Killah

I think it's time to accept the fact that my orchid plant is dead. First I over-watered it, then I under-watered it and then I decided at the 11th hour to have a regular watering schedule and try and tend the thing.

Unfortunately the top part looks suspiciously like a Tim Burton film (curled and choppy) and the bottom isn't looking too hot either. Rest in peace, brave orchid, and at least you fared better than the Indian Rubber Plant I used to dump my orange juice into. Fermentation is only a good thing in wine and beer, people.

Anyway, I'm beginning to wonder if my inability to keep houseplants alive is a sign of some pathological inability to settle down. I've been in this apartment since July and some of the rooms still look as if I haven't fully moved in yet. I bought a curtain rod at Ikea two or three weeks ago I still haven't got around to putting up. It just sits there, mocking me with its industrious Helvetica font and easy mounting system.

But I've decided not to worry about it and buy the only solution: an aloe vera plant. Those things are nigh impossible to kill.

Back to Box

The good news: I finally found a place to live. I've been waiting to move out on my own for a while. I like my roommates well enough, but at some point you just want to be able to walk around naked, drinking juice from the carton and watching "Commando" at will in the living room. Finding an apartment within walking distance of my new job, which is sort of on the cusp of becoming the Plateau, proved... distressing at best. All the decent places have been carved up by hipsters with their lederhosen and their adorable haircuts, and after seeing one too many cramped shacks priced to move at 800 freaking dollars, I gave up walking to work and/or being trendy.

After tossing my leggings in the garbage, I headed out to Verdun and Hochelaga/Maisonneuve. I've liked living in Pt. St. Charles, but it's way too residential for me right now. I need stores and restos! Well, I found a place out by the Frontenac metro station, almost where Hochelaga/Maisonneuve begins. So, those stores are going to be the Salvation Army, and those restos are going to be strip clubs, but that's kind of awesome. I'll have a 2 bedroom apartment with lots of light all to myself and my cat, and am prepared to learn French or at least valuable swear words to get people to back off.

The bad news: Oh my God, I have to pack. I already junked a whole bunch of stuff, or at least farmed boxes of books out to my parents, but I still have SO MUCH STUFF. Like, I don't even remember *why* I bought some of the things, and I don't know how to get rid of them. I know we live in a decadent consumer society, but the sheer amount of my stationary is still ridiculous.
And, I'm moving on the 1st, so it's been impossible to get a moving truck and I don't get the day off, so it looks like I'm moving on the 4th and couch surfing until then.

Sink v. Protagitron

So, either I'm PMSing or I'm having a psychotic break. Or maybe it's my deep, deep sense at shame over how I spent my Saturday night. While others were out in Montreal enjoying Nuit Blanche, I was locked in a pitched battle with my sink. It was my wits and the chemical contents of my apartment against the most stubborn drain in all of Quebec. Too late to go buy Drano, I decided- the drain having destroyed my last faint glimmer of sanity - to follow the directions on the back of a box of baking soda. For drains it detailed a complicated multi-step process. Toss 3 table spoons of soda down the train, then a 1/2 cup of vinegar. Stopper the drain for fifteen minutes, and then- and this is the best part- pour boiling water down the drain until the bubbles stop. So, you've got to keep a kettle going the whole time.

It will work, but only after you've done it a few times, and run out of white vinegar and resorted to apple cider vinegar. And plunging. Lots and lots of plunging. I felt a certain sense of satisfaction when the water started to sluggishly drain, only mitigated somewhat by the knowledge that I had spent a few hours of a perfectly cromulent Saturday either mainlining Homer or battling household plumbing.

So, if you've made it this far through my pipe wows, amuse yourself with a few links:
Learn! What's the deal with AIG.
Relive! The most glorious moments of Stallone.
Be Confused! Or Delighted! At birds with human hands.
Sniffle! At the Kiwi Bird.

Home and Garden

Here's a list of things I will do, in the interests of home improvement
1. Put Ikea furniture together
2. Hammer in nails
3. Use a power drill
4. Use anchors
5. Use a screwdriver

And here are those I actually do well:
1. Use a screwdriver

I have had to do all of them in the past few days. The results have been mixed.

Life AM: After the Move.

It's a truth Protagitronly acknowledged that moving sucks. It's annoying to pack- where does the bundt pan go? It's both round and bumpy! It's useless. It's annoying to lug things up and down the stairs, particularly armoires silly people blithely purchased from the New Rez furniture sale only to realize they weren't even going to provide a furniture cart. And it's annoying to unpack, when you realize you have to figure out how to hang things on walls when you have a pathological fear of banging things into walls. How would one manage a major drywall malfunction? 

And then there's the Ikea furniture. Allen wrench, my ass. 

Anyway, I've been pretty busy with that and running errands for it, so there's been little knitting or blogging happening lately. Fortunately, I met a woman at my job who also knits, which means a new recruit for the Knitting Club. 

Also in the plus column: seeing Dark Knight for the second time. I don't think it's a perfect movie, but I think it's the best super-hero movie I've seen so far. In spite of taking some liberties with the canon, it stylistically hews closer to the source material, or at least the source post-seventies O'Neill and Adams. What bothers me though is the coverage in the press, which now frequently runs a companion piece all about what the film is saying about the Bush administration. Read the rather unfortunate Klavan piece that started it all here, and then the NY Times follow-up. Now, don't be mislead. I'm a good little cultural studies student, so I know that context matters; that every movie, even the seemingly benign, has an ideological agenda; and that that ideological reading depends on a complex, fluid relationship between the art and the viewer. I read the books. I passed most of the courses. But it's this dogged insistence that every movie be projected through the lens of post-9/11 America that bugs me. Klavan's article was mocked in blogland, but it wasn't a wild connection to make about a blockbuster. I remember when 300 came out, and every review I read saw it as naked (rather, shirtless and oiled) propaganda for the Iraq war. I don't think the current mess hasn't had an effect on cultural consciousness. Rather, there are other factors, and simply focussing on the Iraq War as the only way to read new movies is, well, myopic. 

Open Letter to a Skunk

Dear Mr. Skunk,
While I admire your tenacity in making it in the big city, it would be nice if you could spray somewhere that is not right underneath my apartment window. I am currently agonizing over a minor life choice, and your fragrant emissions are adding a certain unfortunate je-ne-sais-quoi to my cogitations. Try the entrance to the Atwater Metro, it's not like your stink would stick out there.
And yes, Mr. Skunk, I realize that I am thinking way too much about this, and that I'm taking my stress out on you, but... but... you smell bad. So there.

Yours,
Protagitron

Protagitron SMASH.

No posting because I've been slacking off in every interesting area of my life. My stash should be confiscated for failure to appreciate it. My sewing machine as well. What has been taking up my time, besides summer classes, poor life decisions and painful gym sessions? Apartment drama llama ding dong.
Basically, I'm trying to negotiate between what I want, what my beloved roomie wants, what new roomie wants, what my old landlord King Douche wants*, and what my cat wants. Only the cat is being satisfied right now, because all he wants are scratches and food. So, all of my entries would be totally dull right now anyway, because it would just be re-hashings of contingency plan A or B, and parts of the Régie de Logement, and the math of subletting our place at a price that moves without losing more money.
King Douche has also installed what I like to call the TetanusGiver. For whatever reason, the perfectly nice banisters on the outside stairs were removed and replaced with odd bits of wood haphazardly nailed together. You'll either get slivers, poked by a rusty nail, or fall off the side if you apply any pressure to it. I had hoped it was a temporary measure, for something, but that period has now stretched into a week plus. At least I will have a handy tool of suicide should this situation remain ever bleak. If the broken neck from my fall doesn't get me, the tetanus from the rusty nails eventually will. Or massive hemorrhaging from a sliver.
I would post photos of the Tetanus Giver, but my camera cord is temporarily out of my custody again. So my blog posts won't be getting any more exciting any time soon.


*Who, by the way, looks suspiciously like Buffalo Bill. Hopefully what he wants is not my skin for his lady suit.

Curse Bell!

I arrived safely in Montreal on Saturday, to find a suspiciously clean apartment. I'm a little concerned that a single thirty year-old with a bong can keep house better than us, but no matter. All my energy is currently concentrated on wishing Bell a painful and drawn-out death. I even hope that Alexander Graham Bell is being prodded in the ass by Satan, if there's an afterlife. Heck, I'm even thinking of switching to a religion with an afterlife so that I can fervently pray for this event.

Yes, I'm having technical and billing issues... why do you ask? Is it because I've been repeatedly stabbing a stuffed beaver in effigy of the Bell mascots? And I want to dance in their entrails and make a hat out of their little beaver livers? Because I am. National animal, or no national animal, the next beaver I see industriously chewing down a sapling is getting punted into the next field.

But it hasn't been all rage blackouts and psychotic thoughts. La Roomate and I hit up the free movies downtown with friends to see Bon Cop Bad Cop, and we wandered through Lush and ended up buying a few massage bars. I also finished my Bobbi Bear, with Fu Manchu, but sent him back to Guelph. I'll post pictures once I figure out how to transfer them from my new cellphone. Until then, I'll be constructing a small ranch house out of cardboard boxes, and wondering how I ended up with 8 sticks of deodorant.

Donna Martin Graduates; My Brother Follows

Sorry, another hiatus was undertaken. My beloved elder brother, the one who shot me in the face with a pellet gun and tackled a fellow football player who was heckling me, graduated from Carleton University today, and I simply had to go down and see my brother. I'm completely, un-ironically, proud of my brother today. He worked hard for this, and seeing him walk across the stage, handsome in his gown, and both older and younger than he's been in a long time... I got a little sad. My brother's moving on, moving up, moving out- and I wish him all the best.

As a fitting reward for a day of warm and fuzzy sisterly feelings, I came home to a message on the answering machine from John, the guy who's sub-letting our apartment in Montreal. The phone and Internet were down there, and he was sure that I had forgotten to pay the bills. Which, of course, sent me into twitches and tics, since I had made sure to pay of both bills. I don't even have a choice about paying my Internet bill! Bell invasively charges it directly to my credit card! After I ate an emergency donut, I checked my e-mail, and John had checked with Bell and both bills were paid in full. But I'm still vexed and annoyed, because I feel like it still reflects badly on me somehow, even though it is the work of that demon, Bell. And now there are no more donuts.

Bell strikes again.

Cursed!

See? The door really is broken. And the fuzzy green blob continues to grow.

Argh. I am coming down with a cold, and it seems like nothing is working out easily. We still haven't found someone to sublet our heap, no one wants to adopt foster kitty Oliver, our phone line went wonky for a day, I have to pack, and my balcony door broke. The good news is that it was the exterior door, made even better because the door IS IN PIECES. I came home from Hot Fuzz to hear the door banging in the breeze, and looked out to see the frame hanging off it at some acute angle. Oh, and the best part? The glass for the window was completely gone, and peering over balcony showed me that it was three stories down, on the ground, in a multitude of shards.
My roommate came out, saw that the glass was missing, and asked if it was ok. No. No, it wasn't.
The good news is that the landlord is going to fix it soon. And he didn't seem that angry, although a little unconvinced that the wind had caused it. Well, it's his own damn fault for not installing the latch better, because that stupid door has always had problems. Plus, he bears an uncanny resemblance to Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.

I hate this time of year, anyway, because everyone is packing up and shipping out for the summer. Sure, the weather is nicer but it gets so melancholic. I feel even worse this year because I'm missing that end of the year bliss you get when you've finished your final exam. That's right, I want to be writing exams. Please send help. At least more of my friends are beginning to stay in Montreal. I'm sure that number will only go up as the years go on, and I'll probably be staying next year myself to take some classes and maybe work a little. It's a little weird seeing all your friends slowly turn into adults, and realizing how close we all are to that time when all those adult actions are taken. Those years when it seems half your friends are getting married, getting real jobs, moving into houses and making payments on cars. And then what? Houses, sometime kids, divorces and bankruptcies. I don't want to be a child any more, but I'm not sure I'm ready to be an adult.

Well, the sweater calls to me.