I was so fat...

A few weeks ago, in between attending sports matches, I was asked to participate in a piece of choreography that would open the second night of Toronto Alternative Arts & Fashion Week. This was amusing for two reasons: my dance career is long over, and I am far from fashionable* Nevertheless, I found myself in the Distillery District's Fermenting Building on a Thursday night surrounded by beautiful hipsters.



The hours leading up to the show became progressively more frenetic. When I arrived, there were a few sound techs on seemingly permanent smoke breaks, random dudes in skinny jeans listening to ipods, and dancers rehearsing.



Gradually the models trickled in. Through the door of the hair and make-up room drum and bass was underscored by the whine of hairdryers. Racks of plastic-sheathed garments created de facto dressing rooms. Along the back wall sat a row of stoic models - the bored centers of a cyclone of brush-wielding make-up artists.



The dancers were also subjected to the brushes.



There was a flurry of styling (both hair and clothes) and the bass got louder and the audience babble rose, and the stage manager's headset crackled constantly. The washroom was filled with nervous pee-ers and delicately painted lips were bitten.



The dancing was over in a second. I wasn't nervous so much as incredulous that I was actually performing again. Feeling my body lift and fall and be caught and spun. Glimpsing audience faces reacting to my presence, my performance. Suddenly thinking with my whole body. Breathing down to my coxis.

After, I stood in the wings watching the spectacle. I'd never been to a fashion show before,** and the progression of beplumed bodies reminded me of the elaborate marionettes sold under the bridge in Prague. In the hands of master puppeteers, the strings disappear into a blur of colour and angular limbs.



There were moments when I wondered if I'd somehow fallen through the rabbit hole into a world where gin and tonics flow like water, and everyone is well lit.



But, like the ballet, the glamour stays on the runway side. Once behind the curtains, girls break their languid gaits and scurry to the wardrobe room, shedding clothing and hairpieces with every step. Faces resume normal expressions as models gasp for breath and wince as they slip out of towering stilettos.

I had a blast.



--------------------------------
*unless you count a wardrobe of jeans, cons, black tees and hoodies fashion.
**unless you count the one in the children's section of the Orchard Park Sears in about 1987. I rocked that runway.

juxtaposition

I am eating lunch at my favourite cafe. (Actually: caffe.)

My bowl of udon soup is underscored by a plate extolling the virtues of Camembert, "creme fine de Normandie."

Wholesome Sunday

There was sunshine and crowds and people with brooms. There were kosher dogs with honey mustard, corn relish, and sourkraut. Peanuts in the shell, cracked open and eaten without taking our eyes off the batter. Shell dust covering my knees. Shells crunchy underfoot.

A grand slam.

A center field collision.

We actually stretched during the 7th inning stretch.* And we rated the home team's at-bat music. You can tell a lot about a guy based on his choice of at-bat music.

Baseball cards wrapped in wax paper.

Nine dollars well spent.



*I always assumed that the 7th inning stretch referred to the notoriously long 7th inning. Are 7th innings notoriously long? I have no idea.

Ripe with surprises

Who knew a trip to the family homestead for Easter could be so illuminating? In five short days I learned that the soundtrack to the city of beauty is a 24 hour hit list of power ballads of the early 90s, that I still have the power to shock (and deeply piss off) my Harper loving relatives, and that finding a wireless signal is akin to tracking the elusive snow leopard.

I also learned that I deeply, deeply love minor hockey.


My dear friend R had a spare ticket to game five of the series* between the Rockets and the Thunderbirds, which he kindly forked over after I repeatedly threatened to tie him to a chair and read excerpts from Naomi Klein's latest tome. R watches live hockey games a lot. I have been to two: once when I was eight and once when I was eighteen and living in Wales, birthplace of ice sports.

We found our seats seconds before the game started and had barely gotten comfortable when the Rockets scored.


The arena erupted. Everyone was yelling. Two burly, bulldogish men beside us high-fived and man-hugged. Two rows down, a permed 40ish woman had, I think, managed t jump onto her chair while holding a beer and a bag of popcorn.

Then we all sat down again. By the end of the first period we were up 2:0 and I had learned what the blue lines were for and how hockey offside differs from soccer offside.

During the first intermission R and I headed to the concession stand to get beverages. There were kids everywhere, mini people in jerseys counting out quarters for twizzlers or dodging in and out of the queues for bathrooms or beer. More kids than I have seen in one place for a really long time. (Incidentally, where do Torontonians keep their children? I live up the street from an elementary school and I rarely see any human being under four feet tall.) On the way back up to the bleachers, I watched an older brother slip an ice cube down his sister's back.


A few goals by the Thunderbirds evened out the score, and, to the apparent delight of fans, some questionable checks turned into a small brawl.


According to R, my fountain of information, hockey fights last for as long as the refs think nobody is going to be severely hurt. Obviously, this decision can lead to problems, but, as you can see, our little interlude was well supervised. Serious injury, R assured me, is rare - most fights end because one player loses his balance on an overzealous swing.

The next highlight of the evening was the zamboni run.

Zamboni technology has clearly advanced since my childhood - these things were fast.


Later, at the pub I inevitably end up in when I am "home", R and I decided that hockey was far more fun than the Shock Doctrine. Perhaps not as good as the 80s and 90s nooner, but still pretty freakin' rad.**

*If you have to ask what series this was, your ignorance of high culture appalls me.
**Yes, in the land of my childhood, all things are judged based on their relative levels of freakin' radness.

lazy monday

endurance art

I've been procrastinating this afternoon. My sole task, to re-jig one paragraph of a cover letter, loomed like the proverbial mountain and I spent the better part of four hours reading the interwebs.

There's been a lot of that the past month. After two years of nearly non-stop stuff I needed a break. And then I got one and realized that unemployment doesn't suit me. I'm too neurotic to relax and, when I finally do relax, I am too lazy to rouse myself or even just my mind.

However, there is only so much Gawker a girl can read before her eyes bleed, and I found myself listening to The New Yorker's podcast of Adam Gopnik talking about magic. Talking about David Blaine, Gopnik referred to him not as a magician, but as an endurance artist.

I like that.

Dealing with the unemployment and the uncertainty and the terror and the boredom? That's not coping. That's Endurance Art.

My inner twelve year old is less impressed with a kind of magic that relies on patience and a stubborn aversion to quitting. The twelve year old likes time travel.

And she got a taste of it earlier this week when I went back to Montreal for the first time since I graduated from university. Three years isn't very long in geological time, but enough stuff has happened since I vacated 88 Bagg Street that three days in the Plateau were challenging.

The little Chinese restaurant has closed. So has the tiny grocery store with the ancient cash register run by the (similarly) ancient Jewish couple. Otherwise, the universe was as it should be. Sort of. I guess I thought I'd just slip back into the city and it would fit, but what I thought I was slipping back into only exists in memory. (I can't remember if I've written here about my relationship with memory, and, unsurprisingly, I'm too lazy to check right now... suffice to say that I spend most of my time in the present - the past too full of pathos and the future unknowable.) Stomping through what used to be home, I kept slipping into scenes that only played out before my eyes. It was like suddenly becoming a reflective 93 year old man.

Fortunately, I was kept from total reminiscence by wonderful people who filled me with delicious food, wine, beer, tea and laughter. There were long walks to the pastry shop and midnight jazz and enough time spent at Thompson House to make up for the three year lull.

I could get used to such endurance art.

culure...flu...culture...flu...

the national ballet performing "An Italinan Straw Hat"... Tallis Choir...lots of sudafed... Immaculate Machine... Jenn Grant... Wil... Sexually Attracted to Fire (didn't actually hear them but met one of them and he was a stellar dude.) ... more sinus medicine... The New Pornographers... Be Kind Rewind... totally incapacitated by flu 2.0

distraction

I've got nothing to relate except that The Gladstone Hotel makes really good grilled cheese sandwiches.

Peak.

The amaryllis is dying now. Paperwhites going strong.

(And go listen to Idan. He kept me sane today.)

Imbibing.

Ingestion of all sorts has been on my mind lately.

There is a nebulous plan afoot for serious writing about edible/drinkable things. If I get my act together, (read: if I do some research!) the plans should solidify early next week.

This time last week I was dragging a jet lagged boy to Fiesta Farms in search of dandelion greens and quail eggs. We found both eventually, and the rest of the weekend passed in a blur of eating and drinking. Street meat. Lithuanian beer. Omelettes. Ribs and rack of lamb...

When I tried to order a beer (Steamwhistle... it's good and local!) in the cafe at the top of the CN Tower, the server asked me for ID.

This happens all the time.

To wit:

Places I have been carded.*

1. Riley's Cold Beer and Wine Store, Westbank BC, age 19**
2. Some depanneur in North Montreal, age 23***
3. Sommerfield Supermarket, Llantwit Major, age 24****
4. Lufthansa flight 322, age 24
5. Sommerfield Supermarket, Buntingford, age 25*****
6. The CN Tower, Toronto, age 26

Later in the day, when we had descended to earth, we meandered into one of my favourite bars in the city. Smokeless Joe's. At some point the story of my recent carding was related. The bartender took a closer look at me and said "How old are you?"

"How old do you think I am?" I rejoined.

"Twenty-one."

Yipes. Maybe I should start wearing makeup.

Bearing all of this in mind, I plan to sit at home tonight reading a good book and drinking a beautiful Cab Sav. Feeling youthful.


*with end notes. Also, this is not an exhaustive list.
**I had forgotten my wallet and the women wouldn't believe I was of age. Adding insult to insult, the previously served patrons were girls from my brother's grade 11 class who had fake ID.
***I must be the only person EVER to be carded in that city
****The same supermarket I bought beer at when I was at boarding school and actually WAS underage. When I hauled out my driver's license it was deemed unacceptable. I had to go back to the car for my passport which was grudgingly accepted.
*****Clearly, I should never shop at Sommerfield again.

this is not a plant blog...

but you are forgiven for thinking it might be.



There has been on day of sunshine in the last fourteen. The light was so bright and unexpected that we shuffled blindly through the snow in Trinity Bellwoods park, holding each other's elbows and skidding on the flashing ice.

When everything nature is dormant or dangerous, and everything life is upside down, I am surprised and delighted by my ability to nurture living things.

Sky is grey, land is grey...

Snow Day

It has snowed all day, adding 30 cm to the 45 already blanketing (smothering?) the city. I'm dreaming of sun-dresses and sandals and gardening.


amaryllis.


paperwhites.

leggies

These are not for me, they're warming some beloved shins in Calgary.

adjustments.

My new phone takes pictures, has an fm radio, can surf the world wide web, and, if I ask really nicely, will transport me to the future while performing open heart surgery and brokering peace in the middle east.

The new house has a dishwasher, laundry machine, barbeque, insulation, and the interwebs.

An embarrassment of riches.

notes on faith

I went to church this morning. It seems odd to write that sentence for two reasons. Until I moved out of my parents house eight years ago I spent almost every Sunday morning at Church. Since then, apart from a couple of Easter services and a chorister stint at a Presbyterian church during university, I haven't been back.

I never felt as though I'd left the church, eight years can dilute cradle Anglicanism, but it's not long enough to wash it away completely. And I had no beef with my faith: so long a part of my life, believing in God and understanding the new testament was as regular to me as breathing. Something I didn't think about much. Something that just sort of happened.

But there was a shift. Or there is a continual shifting. I'm not sure exactly. Perhaps my complacency made me spiritually lazy or maybe whatever faith I had was only ever a learned habit.

I don't think I believe in God any more.

I'm not sure when this happened, if it's permanent, or what to do about it.

A year and a half ago, when I organized my dad's and grandmother's funerals, I remember wondering how non-religious people dealt with death. At the time, I was thinking more about the structure of funerals, the processes of public mourning. I couldn't imagine organizing a "celebration of life" without any rules during the spinning teacup ride that is the early stages of grief. My family would have been paralyzed by the plethora of choices.

Now the question looms larger, like a guy looking for a fight in a bar. "How're ya gonna do it on your own? Huh? Huh? Wanna make somethin' of it sissy?"

I feel akin to the native Hawaiians, who, when forced to convert to Christianity, chose Anglicanism because they liked the pageantry of the "smells and bells" of the High Mass service. I take comfort in the liturgy because I know all the words off by heart and the music, particularly this morning, was excellent. But, as far as I can tell, there is nothing in me beyond a deep appreciation for the ritual, history and scholarship of the church.

Given all of this, is it ironic, that I'm considering singing in a church choir again?

Somehow, no. Singing would be no full court press to find God, rather, choral music is one of the more wholesome salves for my quarter-life crisis panic attacks. And I'm trying to spend more time in quiet, contemplative spaces.

the city is at its best...

... on Thursday mornings between 8:30 and 8:45. When the light on Bloor street is luminous pewter and the grocers are watering the buckets of cut flowers that somehow survive the icy wind.

The to do list:

1. Pay attention. Use my mind more. Float less. The statute of limitations on befuddlement looms.

2. Clean my desk. Last Sunday, a zen Buddhist teacher interviewed on CBC's Tapestry said people seeking enlightenment should clean up their kitchens. I'm neither seeking enlightenment nor do I have my own kitchen, but quick extrapolation led me to conclude: Buddhists seem to have their shit together. The Buddhist guy and I agree that clutter and mess is bad. My desk is a mess. I should clean my desk.

3. Eat breakfast. This has nothing to do with a morning egg-fest being the most important meal of the day. Rather, a commitment to morning eating has unforeseen positive externalities; I will get up on time and keep a reasonable amount of food in the house.

4. Stop procrastinating. An all encompassing task, as I seem to be able to procrastinate about doing laundry as easily as filing taxes.

5. Have more fun.

For Lake Simcoe, turn right...

On Wednesday morning I was in a hurry. I gave no thought to my attire* and forgot my ipod. I also forgot to bring something to read on the subway. Thus, on the 9:15 train, I found myself doing the shifting stare - five seconds on the anti-gambling advert above the door, three seconds on the business woman in the seat across the train, a glance at the floor, seven seconds studying the train map...

Two stops before I alighted, a man walked into my car. He was older, with scraggy, greying, brown hair and a quilted jacket that probably had a flannel shirt under it. He bounced a little as he walked, and, in marked difference to the comatose commuters around him, looked around alertly. Perhaps too alertly. A whiff of crazy or chemically enhanced floated around him.

He walked down the car and stopped in front of me. Close enough that there was no obvious alternative place to look. Swaying slightly (with the movement of the train? with beat of his own drum?) he looked down.

"Those are great boots... And I like your hat. You look great!"
-Beat-
"Do you fish?"

"Uhh... no" I stammered.

"Huh. Too bad." He rejoined, and carried on down the car.

I seem to have found my people in Toronto: crazy ice fishermen.


*I was decked out in jeans, Sorel boots, a down vest, and completely unmatching scarf, hat, and mittens. I probably looked like a homeless person who had robbed MEC...

flight dream

It always happens in the last hour of a flight away from BC. That patch of time after I have to put away my computer and the inflight movie is turned off, and I am maybe filling out a customs declaration card or flipping through the airline magazine and lazily reading the feature article in french.

Relatively unoccupied, my mind drifts toward what will happen when I get off the plane. I'll wrestle with carry-on bags (when will I come to my senses and get civilized luggage with wheels? Only 16 year old soccer team members fly with duffel bags), hike through airport tunnels that smell vaguely of bleach and sweat, and will walk through frosted-glass sliding doors into a sea of expectant people.

I'll wind my way to the exit en route to the bus or train or taxi that will zip me anonymously to wherever home is.

Having thought my movements through, I'll scramble around for transit fare, put my shoes back on, and return my chair-back and tray-table to the upright position.

And for a second I'll let my mind flit to the recurring fantasy:

I'm not sweaty or dehydrated. I've thought to retouch my subtle makeup and brush my hair in the airplane bathroom before the seatbelt sigh flicked on. My luggage is neatly packed in a chic rolling suitcase which I negotiate perfectly. And when I walk through the sliding doors, I scan the waiting faces for the one that lights up when we see each other. And then I'm wrapped in a tight hug and a voice in my ear says "I've missed you."

Left unchecked, I can spin the whole daydream out to include flowers, a quick drive into the city and dinner reservations somewhere warm and quiet.

Regardless of how far it is from reality, on my way out to the taxi stand I allow myself a quick scan of waiting faces, just in case.