Domestic Wednesday: Socks and Suds

Because of the awkward placement of Canada Day right in the middle of last week, I was left with two awkward days on either side of the holiday. I knew that, come Thursday morning, I wasn't going to want to wake up and go back to work. So, I cashed in some vacation days and gave myself a five day weekend.

I also decided to give myself a vacation from social media at the same time. No refreshing my Facebook wall, no Twitter scrolling, no Instagram favouriting. The exception would be some Shenmue 3 tweets, but that was out of love for Dan, my Shenmue fanatic. It would be five days of productivity and writing.

Instead it was five days of finally watching Orange is the New Black and knitting.

Eh, you do what you can.

I was working on my second or third attempt at the Pomatomus socks, a pattern that is now ten (10!) years old. I've made it to the foot of the first sock, which was a stunning improvement over my last attempt, which ended with half a sock finished and the rest of the yarn in a massive tangle. I'm using Rowan Fine Art in Blue in this attempt. I don't like the way it's pooling, but I love the way it feels. Hopefully I can make it to the toe of the second sock without the ball turning into a Gordian knot.

And, of course, there was beer on my five day weekend. Phillips Brewery is one of the great lost loves from my time in Victoria, along with my growlers Rock 'Em and Sock 'Em, and the half-dozen unrequited crushes I nurtured while there. So, when I saw their Electric Unicorn White IPA at the LCBO, I had to buy two bottles. It's a brassy, hazy beer, reminding me of a pineapple spliced with an herbal tea bag, with a head like a marshmallow and a yeasty character. It's perfect for the summer, even if you can't spend that season on a deck in Fernwood Village.

Finally, the social media holiday was nice. Maybe a little too nice. I felt more disconnected from the world at large; Twitter had largely become my source of current news, and so I forgot the Greek referendum was even happening until hours after the result was certain. But I also felt less frantic. It was like I had been in a box full of people yelling, and suddenly they were all on mute. I'm half tempted to do it again (though I've checked Twitter nearly ten times while writing this post.)

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. 

TMI: The Less than Incredible Journey, or a Return Trip to My Ovaries

You probably thought you were safe. A few weeks had gone by, and I had never once mentioned the words "transvaginal" or "ovary" on this blog. You probably thought I would never again invite you take a trip inside my lady business. 

WELL, YOU WERE WRONG. 

And you were wrong because I had a followup ultrasound a few weeks ago, and I want you to share in my misery. So sit back, relax, and take a deeply, deeply unsexy trip between my legs. 

I was a little slow in making my second ultrasound appointment appointment, both because I wasn't eager to relive the minutes I spent as a human joystick, and because my menstrual cycle didn't want to cooperate. Of course, all this misery started when that cycle decided to behave like a spoiled reality show star (i.e., it does what I wants!), so that was hardly a surprise. Eventually things settled down and I went in. The procedure was the same; the technician different, but still Eastern European. After it was all over, I was told that it would probably take 3-5 business days for my doctor to receive the results.

So, I was surprised when my doctor's office called me just two days later to schedule an appointment. "Uh, doesn't she want to wait for the ultrasound results?" I asked the administrative assistant. "Oh, we have them. That's why I'm calling. Can you come in tomorrow?" she replied "The doctor wants to discuss the results with you." This was... not the most comforting way to have a medical appointment made for you. I feigned indifference to my colleagues, but I was mentally preparing for whatever terrible news was surely headed my way. My most coherent plans were, first, not to cry in the doctor's office; and, secondly, to keep this from my work and my parents for as long as humanly possible.

Of course, the actual news was not so grim. "Don't worry!" was pretty much the first thing my doctor said. She probably realized that some assurance was required; I must have seemed ready to watch Terms of Endearment while taking notes. "The large cyst is gone. But they noticed several other cysts..." as she started to read from the notes the... sonographer? scientician? had sent her. The scientician's conclusion? I had "bulky ovaries" consistent with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). EVEN MY OVARIES CAN'T LIVE UP TO SOCIETY'S IMPOSSIBLE BEAUTY STANDARDS.

RIP Cysquo, we hardly knew ye; and for that I am very glad indeed. To have PCOS, though, you need to have more than chunky ovaries. You also need to show at least one of the two related symptoms. My answers to these questions were less conclusive than the ultrasound: Excessive hair growth? ("I'm Ukrainian and Scottish, so it's hard to tell.") Irregular periods? ("Not before the birth control.") So, no official diagnosis yet. But... I feel like if it's an inconvenience, I'm sure to have it. Even with PCOS though, I'm still healthy. Dubiously fertile, but healthy. It's a state whose worth I should have appreciated; whose fragility I also finally understand.

Image: PCOS from Wikimedia Commons. 

Howl! A Musical, Starring Marvin

Various men have caused me trouble in my life, from unrequited crushes to condescending blowhards at parties, and yet my most consistent source of trouble is the male I call Marvin.

He's small, he's ginger, and he's a cat.

It's been about a year since I moved in with Dan, which means it's been about a year of regular howling from Marvin and equally consistent crying episodes from me. I tried the hormone spray, the hormone collar, and the hormone diffuser. I let him go outside, briefly, before forcing him back inside before a truck could turn him into an orange pancake, because his favourite outdoor pursuit was sunbathing on the road. Finally, there was the calming cat food and an endless parade of ever more expensive cat toys until I just turned to medication.

The first dosage level worked for a whole month.

But after the 3:30 am wakeup screeches resumed, I decided things had to change. I told my old roommate (she's responsible for my ownership of the cat, through a tale that's telenovela-complicated) that I was going to surrender him. She said she was sure that her cousin would take him in a week. The day before he was supposed to leave, the cousin backed out. Then, Marvin's previous owner was supposed to call me so he could go on a one-week trial with her. She never did. Finally, my friend's cousin expressed some interest, before cancelling the day she was supposed to visit him. I haven't heard from her since, and I have now resigned myself to the fact that we'll never be separated. I'll be dead in the cold, hard ground, while Marvin naps on my grave in the afternoon sun.

I still have the surrender forms I printed off the Toronto Humane Society website, and I fill parts out during idle moments at work. But I probably won't send them in. Though he still spends most of the day making sounds that are like the wail of a banshee crossed with the blare of a car alarm, he sleeps through the night. That's enough. And it only took one simple trick.

I doubled his medication dosage.

Pillow Blog: Thoughts I Had While Watching Avengers 2: The Age of Ultron

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, the thoughts I had while watching The Age of Ultron. Mild spoilers follow.

• "Remember when they used to hand the 3D glasses to you when they ripped your ticket? That was nice. It was almost as if you mattered, instead of having to root around in some battered cardboard boxes like a GARBAGE ANIMAL."
• "That freeze frame with all of the team members in action? Dumb. So very dumb."
• "Were movies always this loud?"
• "The next time Tony Stark makes a quip, I hope another character just walks up to him, swiftly kicks him in the nuts, and then walk away WITHOUT SAYING A WORD."
• "Hey, it's Linda Cardellini! Girl, you're everywhere this year!!"
• "This scene between Black Widow and the Hulk would be a lot more touching if the dialogue hadn't just implied that she was a monster because she was infertile. Guess the more birth control pills I take, the closer I tap dance over to the dark side."
• "I'm really concerned about all of these people in this African city that Iron Man and the Hulk are tearing apart, but I guess we can count on Tony to throw some money at the problem. Why did they ever give this guy a super suit? His most useful superpower is just great gobs of cash."
• "I'm sleepy. I want a nap."
• "Hawkeye is totally Giles and the Scarlet Witch is definitely a Buffy/Willow hybrid in this moment."
• "I hope I die like that, making a glib quip about my violent and impending death."
• "Won't the thousands of people displaced when Ultron turned their Eastern European city into a flying saucer need to be housed somewhere? Maybe one of the Avengers could superheroically monitor the water quality at the refugee camp??"
• "Ugh, I hope Vision saving Scarlet Witch doesn't mean we'll get a retread of their nutty love story from the comics in film form. Magic robot babies, and so on."
• "Can I still make the last train? No."

My Month-us Horribilis on the Bicycle

In happier times...

This winter felt like an endless concrete wasteland, with the exception of any time spent on the TTC, and then it was briefly a stinking jungle of sweat and GoreTex. So, you can imagine how happy I was to get my bike back a month or so ago. Bike freedom! The wind in my hair! Personal space! Being insulted by random drivers! Alright, the last one isn't so pleasant, but still. On the balance, cycling is better than transiting, and don't let a streetcar-themed hat or subway-printed tote bag fool you.

And then the universe decided to pop a squat on my happiness. First of all, I was horribly out of shape after a winter where my most active hobby was eating my feelings. My first ride was uphill, which quickly became a walk uphill. After a week of wondering if I was the slowest cyclist in Toronto (non-folding bike edition) I decided it needed a spring tuneup. 

But everyone else had decided the same thing, and so the bike spent a week in the shop. After I retrieved it, I had a glorious day and a half with my love. Everything was running perfectly, and the choir at the local Anglican church even burst into song as I pedalled by on my way to a friend's party via the Russell Hill bike path. I told Dan that, between the bicycle and the choral music, it was just like the opening of an Inspector Morse episode, and I half expected to turn up dead. 

Instead, on Monday, I had to solve The Mystery of Why the HELL Do I Have TWO Flat Tires? Because I live in Toronto, and I cycle, and the Sun and Star love publishing articles about the Menace II Society this makes me, my sense of persecution is overdeveloped. I called sabotage. Dan was less dramatic. His idea was that the shop just overfilled the tires.

We wheeled it to the local shop (a different one). There, three nice, young, and probably stoned men got really excited by my situation. "Double flaaaaaaaats" they drawled to each other. "Double fllaaaaats!" Twenty minutes later they were both fixed, the culprit identified as a piece of glass. From then on, I vowed never to call this shop "That Shifty Place", as I had done before, but "The Place that Looks Shifty, But Isn't."

A week later, I was texting my friend that I was late, but on my way, and should be there soon. "All hail the power of the bicycle!" I wrote, before I jumped on the bicycle and... nothing much happened. My chain was off, as another cyclist helpfully yelled out as he pedalled by. The chain guard, so helpful most days, wasn't being all that conducive to a roadside fix, which didn't stop me from trying. Instead, I gave up, walked it and my greasy hands to the closest bike shop (this would be yet another one) and threw myself on their mercy.

The heroes fixed it for free. "I'm not a hero," the guy insisted, "just a guy who works in a shop." Nope, he was a hero to me, and anyone else so inept with mechanics that they should probably just buy a car that's under warranty, and give up this cycling thing entirely. Oh well. There's always May.