When Good Workers Go Bad

Posting on this blog might become a weekly phenomenon, unless there's an undiscovered reserve of energy hidden in my foot I can find and tap. I work, I come home, I yell at the cats, I sleep (until feline voices wake me) - hit repeat, and that's my week. Not only does it leave little energy for writing, it provides even less material, as I'm sure few of you are interested in the tales of horrid customers and petty resentments I gather at work. And sharing them would probably get me fired.

Though it would be pretty cathartic.

Actually, the past week at work has me pretty worried. Worried that I've been replaced by Dark Protagitron, that is. Where I used to be friendly, helpful, and labouring under a massive guilt complex, I'm now a little surly. The jangly indie pop I used to listen to in my office has been replaced with rap and hip hop. I now give the phone both middle fingers instead of just one. And so on. I suppose it's a defence mechanism you evolve in customer service, but I just don't want it to get out of hand, until I start spitting venom all over freshmen.

Begin... Radical Frugality

There were no New Year's Resolutions this year, mostly because resolutions 1 through 5 would have been "sleep." Between moving and the usual stress of dealing with a new crop of classes and textbooks chez job, I was just too damn tired to come up with any. Now that January's almost over though - and I still haven't bought a half-price calendar, so it really snuck up on me - the time has come. Here we go:

1. Get my G2, a decade after I turned 16, so I don't have to depend on the kindness of strangers (or brothers) to drive me around
2. Read A Dance to the Music of Time. After finally finishing Proust, why not tackle another key cycle in 20th century literature? I guess I could also read A Song of Ice and Fire, but 20th century British social commentary is just as exciting as dragons and titties to me.
3.  Knit a simple red wool sweater. Something I've always wanted to own, but never made.
4.  Master omelet making
5. And finally... practice radical frugality. I'm bad with money. I'm not "using one credit card to pay off another" bad with money, but I never save, I tend to spend, and then there are weeks of lentil-only living to be suffered through. So, starting next month and until I get into grad school, I'm going to try to cut down on my shopping, eating out, and boozing (or just the first two.) Maybe even find a second job. Basically, I'll live like my immigrant great-grandparents. I will try and aim to get fewer goiters though.

Wham Bam, No Thank You, Man: Gangster Squad Review

Gangster Squad is so bad, it's like the Expendables of respectable actors. Ryan Gosling, James Brolin, Robert Patrick and Sean Penn... welcome to the seating chart at the Golden Globes, except here they're breaking skulls instead of applauding politely. 

My friends and I left the theatre and realized we couldn't name most of the characters we had just spent 90 minutes with. Even though it felt like 180. Hours. So in the following review, I'll refer to them the best way I know how.

It's 1940s Los Angeles, and Sergeant James Brolin O'Something has returned from the war, only to realize the real battle is in his backyard. Yes, the despotic threat of Main Bad Guy Sean Penn's overacting goes unchecked. Main Bad Guy (Cohen??) runs every racket in town, and owns nearly every cop. However, he still hasn't bought Chief Nick Nolte. After James Brolin's antics busting up a prostitution ring earn him press, condemnation, and probably a visit from the ACLU, Nick Nolte asks him to put together a team of men to take I'm-Pretty-Sure-It-Was-Cohen down. There's Jerry (Ryan Gosling), Cowboy Man (Robert Patrick), Tech Weasel, Hispanic Guy and Black Guy. They're off the books. Nobody knows their name, nobody knows their badge numbers. Many, many nameless faceless thugs will know the shape of their fists though. It isn't all unchecked violence, and quickly elided awkward moral questions from Tech Weasel, however. A romance develops between Jerry and Grace (Emma Stone), complicated by the fact that she's Cohen's doll. Will they find love? Will Cohen fall? If I don't care to know the names of the characters, I don't care to tell you. It was more interesting to try and bet on which of the principals would be whacked for the greater narrative good. I had my money on Black Guy.

Gangster Squad looks good, but the script has been pumped full of lead, and the cast is seems too drunk on period costuming to care.

Bonjour Tristesse and Gin and Tonics

There's a rhythm to the radio silence on this blog. I work a job that alternates periods of intense stress and business with stretches of relative calm. Last week came from the first category - classes were back in session, and the children-who-are-our-future were banging on my door, demanding textbooks. But, for once, my job wasn't the thing weighing heaviest on my mind.

I haven't yet put Project OKCupid out of its misery, though recent events have me reaching for the shotgun. If they were hilariously awkward dates, I would write about them here in excruciating detail. Perhaps there would even be diagrams. But, instead, it's the fairly banal fact that some people* don't like me as much as I would like them to. I try to reason with myself. "Noted philosopher Bonnie Raitt wisely noted that 'I can't make you love me'," I'll say, before returning to gaze morosely out of the streetcar window. "It's not me, it's him. Or the situation. But definitely not me. I'm perfectly acceptable." But these sunny-ish thoughts fail to stop the deluge. It sucks that he doesn't want to see me again, it sucks that I can't change that, and it particularly sucks that I feel this way after just a few nights spent with the boy, because that is irrational. And I want to be a creature of reason instead of bad habits.

Oh, if I could have a feeling-ectomy I would, and have all this silliness neatly cut out of me. Unfortunately, with the current state of medicine, that's a no. And as much as I'm (again, irrationally) hurt with the fella, I'm really mad at myself. Every time this happens, I worry about my judgment. Then there's the wasted hours of reflection, which I probably could have used to write, knit or at least clean my room. The time I just spent reading the dating advice book of a friend's friend isn't helping. I feel like I'm stewing in relationship slurry. So, tomorrow: we cancel the OKCupid account, we sign up for a class, and we start drinking instead of thinking.

*Well, a particular person, but it ain't like it was the first time.

Finding Cake Again

I can't remember where I read it, or when, but I do remember reading that the moment you realize you will never read in Remembrance of Time Past is the moment you realize you are no longer young. So I set it to read it a few years ago in a bid to LIVE FOREVER. Now that I'm two years older, I realize that literature doesn't work that way. But in spite of my time-ravaged face and (presumably) worsening eyesight, I've rounded the corner on the final book of Proust's work.

So, I asked for madeleine pans for Christmas. Cheated out of eternal life, I wanted at least to be able to dunk a fresh-baked madeleine into a cup of tea the moment I hit the final period. And thanks to that timely gift and Julia Child's recipe for Madeleines de Commercy (reproduced on hungry sofia ) I think I will be able to.

French recipes for baked goods are, of course, fussy as fuck, but these are worth it. They "humped" perfectly in the oven, and once cooled had a slightly crunchy exterior that was perfect for soaking up tea. Or forcing you onto a journey of remembrance, as the case may be.

Even Smitty approved.

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. 

In the Bleak Midwinter

This week brought to you by the colour grey.

I wanted to post something cute and quirky, but ever since Friday, all I can think about are all those little boots and mittens, that are probably still on a cloakroom floor. When things like this happen - tragedy that seems like it should have been written, not lived - the general consensus is that it makes you think. About what? Judging by my friends on Facebook, it's an even split between gun control, mental health advocacy, and a deep aversion to ever reading the news, ever again. I find myself falling, distressingly, into the third camp. The first two issues are crucial, but even together they don't seem enough. And every time someone re-posts a simplistic condemnation of the "media" to their wall, the arithmetic gets worse. So, I'm not sure what to do. I go out, I keep busy, and then I write here, hoping to connect, in a warm room which keeps the cold at bay.

Domestic Thursday: Double the Bubbles

 Today was supposed to be a day of rest. With a doctor's appointment scheduled for the morning, I decided to take the whole frigging day off. My guidelines for when and why to choose work? If I will be spending as much time on the bus as I will at the job, then I might as well not go. And all was well, all was good, yoga classes were planned and library fines paid off... and then I called Rogers.

Nearly two hours of combined hold time later, I was done. Not only with that telecommunications company, but with the day. I didn't much feel like browsing the very limited beer selection in my neighbourhood LCBO for this week's installment of Domestic Thursday, so off I went to 3030.

This Red Ale is the first Church-Key beer I've covered on this blog, and it's an odd one. Not flavour-wise - it's a pretty mild red ale, noticeable carbonation, and a high note that made me think peach. It was just a little strange to have it in the context of the last Church-Key beer I had tried, which was the rather intense Holy Smoke. This one needs something else. Hockey, maybe. Or food.

And on to my related domestic endeavour... the production of closet beer. It's a maple stout, and so far it's merrily fermenting in my closet. I keep on threatening to call it Pride Beer once it's bottled and out of the closet. And hopefully, some of you will threaten to punch me for making such an awful, awful pun.

This Is Why I'm "Curvy"

In spite of my better judgment, the online dating profile persists. At the very least, it's been an interesting sociological experiment, from confusing mating rituals - God bless the man who worked KFC into a pick up line - to what an algorithm thinks is my type. Which is somebody who loves food. More than they could ever love me. Every time OKCupid barfs up another potential suitor, it's inevitably a white dude, with a beard, who mentions kimchi in his profile.

Now, I like to eat. And I really like to eat kimchi. But as excited as I am to try out good restaurants, I secretly love bad food almost as much as well-done ramen. A recent article on the AV Club reminded me of this - and now I'm sharing it with you all, in case you want to forward it to OKCupid's algorithm robot.

1. Wine gums. I once ate a pound of wine gums in what was probably, if I'm being generous with myself, an hour. I tried to undo the effects of this decision by then eating one slice of pizza, a case of food calculus that only made sense in my head, and never to my digestive system.

2. Popeye's Chicken Dinner. Everybody loves Popeye's biscuits, but I'm all about the coleslaw. Fuck the biscuit. Just give me two styrofoam bowls of coleslaw and some friend chicken bits, and I'm a happy, lipid-high lady.

3. Chicken McNuggets. I don't know why McDonald's felt compelled to proudly announce to the world that the McNuggets were "now" made with white meat. What the hell was I eating before? Oh well, even if it was ground-up donkey, it's still delicious when dipped in honey. Side note: you can't get honey for dipping in the UK. I now understand why my American friends fought to free themselves from British tyranny.

4. Kraft Dinner: Anyone who follows the box and divides it into four servings is a liar. Each box feeds 1.5 people, or 1 person who's depressed post-breakup.

5. Tim Horton's Bostom Cream Donuts: The crappiness of my workday can be gauged by which donut I've ordered. Sour cream plain? I'm on the ball! Honey crueller? Things are getting dangerous. Boston cream? I can probably be found crying in the bathroom.

Domestic Thursday: Future Past Edition

It's the 100% Instagram Edition, celebrating my glorious arrival into the present!

First, the beer:

Black Creek has a new beer available in liquor stores - Dray Horse Ale. It's supposed to represent the brewing traditions of Canada in the 1820's, and comes with a history lesson on the side of the bottle. The taste is very malty - with a chocolate flavour that might even be a little peaty. Like all of their beers, it's low on carbonation. 

Then, the knitting:

This orange blob has been keeping me company on all of my recent bus trips. It's Knitty's Que Sera pattern, worked in some vintage yarn I found at a liquidation centre years ago. It's nice, simple knitting now that I have the lace pattern memorized - except for the time I realized I put the button hole in the wrong place, and had to rip back two inches of lace worked in grabby mohair yarn. I survived though, and I am a stronger woman for it.

And here's my completed Summer Flies shawl. Finished just in time for... November. Oh well, there's always summer 2013!