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."