The Internet is Cool

Call me a late bloomer, but I've just discovered the joys of Craig's List. Sure, I'm all down with eBay, since it's just a new form of shopping, and shopping comes very easily to me, but this whole "act local" aspect of Craig's List is so refreshing! And posting is free!
I put up a post today advertising that I had a big stack of bridal magazines to get rid of -- I couldn't bear to throw them out, they represented a substantial investment of time and money -- and within an hour I had three responses. I gave them to the first girl who emailed me, who turned up tonight and took them off my hands. Re-using and recycling at its best.

Confessions of a Panty Pack-Rat

In the spirit of extreme self-divulgence, I have a confession to make. On a recent household purge, I had to admit to myself that I own way too many pairs of underpants. I could go three months without doing laundry, and still have a clean pair to wear on the first of the fourth month. When I travel, I take probably twice as much as I need. Weekend out of town? I've got 8 pairs with me. I mean, what if there's an emergency like you fall in a river, or you meet Will Ferrell and he makes you laugh so hard that you pee yourself and then you need a clean pair of underpants?!? What if you get into an accident and there's a cute doctor and before he cuts your jeans off, you have a chance to change into cuter panties? At border crossings, I'm always a little worried about them going through my luggage. "Like what are you, lady? Some kind of weird panty smuggler?"
But I can't get rid of any of them. I take really good care of all my clothing, underwear included, and so even older ones are in good shape (I'm not like some gross boy, with a disintegrating string that barely covers my balls hanging from a worn-out elastic -- my barely-there elastic and string is intentional, and well-looked after). I've just managed to accrue way too much. There's the fact that I can't visit the UK without visiting Marks & Spencer and picking up a 5-pack. Or two. (They're such good quality!) Also, whenever I've ordered from Victoria's Secret, I can't help but throw in an order for a few more of those comfy "Pink" ones. Then there's the "specialty" pairs - ones that came in a matching set with a cami or bra. And don't even get me started on the stuff I managed to acquire from my bachelorette party.
As a solution, I have decided to embrace the fall fashion trend of layering. I'm envisioning solid coloured thongs under meshy briefs, or lace boyshorts over patterned bikinis, or for a sportier American Apparel type thing, two of the same pair in different colours arranged just so. Don't think of it as wearing two pairs of underwear; That's weird, in a my-uptight-Granny kind of way. Think of it as resource management. Wait a second... Now I'm going to need about 16 pairs for the long weekend. I hope La Senza is still open.

Gainfully employed!

It's time to sharpen up my pencils and buy a new pair of sensible shoes. As of September 5th, I will be starting my new job as a proofreader for a major publisher of women's fiction. That's right: torn bodices, feisty virgins, and throbbing manhoods here I come!
I am already vividly imagining what my life will be like when I have a regular schedule and a regular income. I will get up early and go to the gym, instead of rolling in around Ten. There will be urgency and motivation as I get dressed in the morning - and not in sweatpants, nooooo, in something suitable for an office.
By Four in the afternoon, I will have nearly completed a full day's productive work, not be slouching around the apartment feeling guilty that I haven't done the laundry/cleaned the sink/written a poem that will change people's lives/done a painting that will reveal my true artistic genius. My regular paycheck will allow me to make personal purchases of things other than food, and pay off my credit cards in full every month in a manner that will please my fiscally responsible husband. Life with a real job is going to be great!

Miss Camps-A-Lot

Or, Why I Love Camping Even Though It Makes You Dirty And Exhausted.

As I recover from last weekend's car-camping eat-a-thon, and frantically try to plan a Labour Day Weekend canoe getaway, I pause for a moment to consider just what it is about camping that I enjoy so much. I've had a big summer for camping: Four trips, which is about three more than I usually manage to do. I had never thought to question my motivation before, as the joys seemed so self-evident. However, it was brought to light recently that not everyone really ENJOYS the camping, so much as endures it.
It started in Junior High, because my parents certainly didn't take the family camping when we were kids. No, my mother was the B&B and a play in Stratford type. I think her Honeymoon camping in Scotland pretty much did her in for wilderness adventures.
So, Junior High, and our tiny alternative school did a yearly trip to some provincial park. Despite the stresses of splitting up into three-or-four person groups to camp, (who likes me enough to be in my group?!) it was always a much-anticipated event. There was no drinking, an activity that became closely related to camping in later years, but we were a bunch of pre-teens far far away from our parent's watchful eyes, with essentially no rules beyond our day's planned activities, and no curfew as long as you could exit your tent quietly and avoid the patrolling teacher's flashlight. I hooked up with my first little boyfriend on one of those trips. Sure, it only lasted 27 hours, but it was a milestone event. We had to be fairly independent on those trips, even cooking our own meals. I had no problems there. It tested friendships: I fought with the girls in my group over who would sleep on the crack between the air-mattresses (we ended up taking turns - after the first night we realized that although you might end up partially on the ground, it was also the coziest spot and totally safe from the possibly rainy edges of the tent) and I lost my temper when one of them freaked out that she'd got dirt on her designer jeans (um...what part of camping did you not get?). But man, those trips seemed to take up more of the school year than anything else.
It was also on these trips that I became close personal friends with Her Majesty - the ancient tent that my father provided for us. This tent. How do I begin? Her Majesty is a canvas tent in a zesty pumpkin colour. Her Majesty has enormous metal poles whose elastic bits have long since rotted, and thus have to be carefully assembled by hand. They are almost too heavy for a 12-year-old to handle, never mind that the canvas itself weighs a ton. Her Majesty has to be erected in a manner just so; any deviation from the instructions -- given to me verbally by my father on a test-run setup in the back yard -- will result in leakage and probable collapse. Once you've got the tent proper up, you have to repeat the entire process with a fly. The guylines were a minefield of tripping hazards surrounding the tent. Maybe it was the inherent danger of Her Majesty that made me love her so. Once, my family loaned this tent to some friends -- Israelis: hardy, resourceful people -- and they were completely done in by Her Majesty. They came back from their Canadian wilderness adventure declaring that you would need Abdul the Tentmaker to help you set up that monstrosity. I don't think they've been camping since. Let me just say, after years with the big orange beast, Abdul ain't got nothing on me.
Throughout high school, my friends and I would take off for camping on long weekends. These were opportunities to escape, bond, drink and meet the locals. It would be the core group of just-us-girls, with the rotating guys in our lives moving in and out for the different trips. I have a scrapbook dedicated almost entirely to these either sun-and-sambuca or cold-and-whiskey drenched excursions. I'd post some pictures, but you know, none of us were at our best in those years. It was so great to not care what you looked like for a whole weekend, and to know that the friends you were with were not only in the same boat, but liked you that way.
Her Majesty never made an outing during high school -- too many other people had modern, nylon and plastic tents for us to have to bother with Her. Still, she had a revival later: I took Her Majesty on one particularly enterprising excursion involving a bus, a taxi, Penetanguishine, and a potentially dangerous pickup truck drive-by, where Jessica and I hid inside Her and waited for the threat to pass. And again on an autumn trip where, in the heavy, warm confines of Her canvassy protection, I told my future husband for the first time that I loved him.
The new tent that is now "our" tent was a gift from said future husband. I don't remember if he gave it to me before or after the accident that caused me to miss the yearly Labour Day Weekend canoe trip and be bedridden for a month, but I do know that having it in the corner of my bedroom while my bones and bruises healed was a great comfort.
So do I love camping because I am sentimentally attached to my gear? That might be part of it, only in the way that when you go camping you have to be a pared-down, basic version of yourself and your worldly stuff. It is definitely more than "getting back to nature". Nature, as such, is readily available on a day trip walk in the woods. Getting out into the back country is more about getting back to your nature. It can be revelatory, to realize how capable you are. It can be inspiring to suffer through and survive a wilderness-inspired hardship. More than anything, it is humbling to suddenly find yourself as a smaller part of the larger scheme of things. In a city, which is totally by-and-for humans, you can never get the sense of the world as it actually is: a living, changing, enormous world where we are barely managing to scrape by.
And yeah, I like being dirty and exhausted. It feels good. Bring it on.

Feel the Condo lovin'

This year's Condo BBQ was the other night - and I was ready. I prepared a tray of lemon-lime squares, because my cookbook assured me that it was an inter-generational favorite, and since generations far removed from mine are heartily represented in this building, I figured they'd be a hit. I put on my preppiest outfit and rosied up my cheeks.
Off we went!
The squares were well-received.
I knocked back a plastic cup of wine-in-a-box (J asked before he poured: "Do you want, er, Purple or Blue?") and wolfed down a gross chicken burger. J tried to be chatty. I hung on. We met a clarinet-playing computer programmer from two floors up. See you at next year's BBQ, buddy. Here's the biggest news: We're now on couples-first-name basis with the electric-blue jogging suit couple. Shouts out to Ian n' Nancy! You're such freaks for getting up at 4:45 every morning! That's right, I think you're freaky! Can't wait to run into you again some morning. This time I can say hi properly.
Burgers done, I transferred the squares onto a plastic plate and abandoned them. We had a whole bunch of episodes of Entourage that needed watching.

Vermont Yoga Retreat

It may be a fairly long way to go, but on a weekend as gorgeous as this past one was, Vermont is worth it. It is always an activity-filled trip; The first day we went for a big hike up the mountain. Even though it's August, up on the trail that morning, we could see our breath as we panted our way up to the pond that sits curiously near the top. Every inhalation was a delight of crisp mountain air, scented of earth and water from rainfall the night before.

Someone dropped their sofa cushion on the trail...

no wait, it's just a big ol' furry albino rodent.

Seriously though, little Jack did a really good job of keeping up with us.

The next day we went for a bicycle ride along the Rec path. I always forget the sheer joy of riding a bicycle and have promised myself to buy one just as soon as I have a regular income. Along the path we passed a local Farmer's Market. Naturally, I made straight for it. J and I shared a piece of blueberry cake made by a mom n' pop duo of farmer and baker that was so delicious that we both stopped walking and talking for the duration of eating it. Then we shared a glass of too-good-to-be-true homemade lemonade. It tasted the way you imagine lemonade tastes if you were to read about it in a story book. I love farmer's markets! We brought home to accompany dinner fresh local organic corn on the cob, and a triple-berry pie that weighed three pounds of fruit. God bless the United States!

All of this is very nice, but the very best thing about Vermont is the yoga teacher at one of the resorts in town: Regina. My first question on arriving is always: "Is Regina still teaching?" We went to three classes in four days. I would have gone to more if there'd been any. On weekends the class might get fairly full, but we were lucky - the most students any one class had was 6, and we had lots of one-on-one attention. Regina has been doing yoga for thirty years. She has the smooth unlined face and the calm aura of wellbeing of the well-practiced yogi. She is fairly stern when she teaches, but also joyful. She pushes you into postures you used to look at and inwardly say "yeah, right," and leads you into moments of pure revelation when everything clicks and suddenly you understand why you love yoga so much. She does things like stand on your toes when you're doing cobra, to push all your toes into the floor, but also because, surprisingly, it feels really really nice. She has healing hands. You want her to have tea with you so you can tell her all your problems and she can fix you.

On Monday, Regina took the class outside. I don't think that there is anything better for your health than doing yoga outdoors in Vermont. It is profound to stand in Tadasana (Mountain pose) while looking right at a mountain - feeling nothing above you, and the whole earth supporting you. So much better to look through your legs in Downward Dog at a gently swaying tree than at the bizarreness of your own face upside-down in a mirror! And is is absolutely invigorating to go through a series of warrior poses with the sun beating down on your skin, and the wind gusting warmly around you. Thank you, Regina, I'm feeling sooo good now.

Places I am afraid of losing my wedding ring

Part of the fear is actually losing my precious jewellery. The more major part involves how awful it would be trying to retrieve it in the various scenarios.

• Down the garbage chute in my building
• Down a sewer grate
• That I will gesticulate wildly, causing my ring to fly off across a crowded restaurant, never to be seen again
• In the big crate of cherries at the supermarket, while greedily hunting for just a few more perfect cherries
• To the bottom of a lake while swimming
• To the bottom of a lake after jumping off a cliff
• In a Thunderbox
• That I will wake up one morning and it will simply not be there

Mr. Plumber is my homeboy

Warning: This post contains graphic content that may not be suitable for all readers.

I have just completed the most disgusting household chore ever.
My bathroom sink was clogged and draining really slowly, so I decided to take off the U-bend and clean it out. I know you're thinking: "But wait, you have a husband. Why isn't HE taking off the U-bend (whatever that is)?" Simple. That's just not how it works chez nous. If I wanted that to happen, or anything household-task-related to happen, I would have to nag and nag and nag and nag. Given the choice of turning into an unstoppable nagging bitch, or a man, I have chosen to be manly and complete these tasks myself. Change a lightbulb? Check. Hang a picture? Check. Paint a room? Check? Assemble Ikea furniture? Check. Kill a spider? Check. Open my own jars? Check. Carry one side of a ridiculously large and too-heavy television set because you have your husband erroneously convinced that you're some kind of brawny, capable, uber-chick? Check.
And now: taking off the U-bend.
Got my rubber gloves. Got my wrench. Put a bucket under the sink and started to loosen the nuts (or whatever they're called). I had an inkling that it was going to be ickey when some murky water and a few scraggly, scummy hairs slithered out of the newly-loosen joint. I had no idea just how bad it was. I'm actually gagging a little bit just thinking about it. Sweet Jesus, there was SO MUCH hair! It was all scummy and slimy. And I think there were fingernails!!! I felt like I was pulling an entire desicated corpse out of that tiny little U-bend, one slimy hairball at a time. It was like CSI - only I was discovering just how much I shed. I am frankly in wonderment that I have any hair left on my head. I am so grossed out by my own hair right now that I'm considering shaving my head bald.
I then proceeded to scrub the entire bathroom clean from top to bottom, and then showered to get the last bits of grossness gone.
On the upside - my bathroom sink now drains like a dream!

Day Trip to the United States

Left the Big Smoke just after rush hour and headed for the border. My mother, sister and I had decided to take Ffion, a visiting Welsh lass, over the big invisible line to show her the wonders of The United States of America. Ffion had to register at US Customs by having her picture taken and her index fingers digitally scanned. That was cool. She had two black eyes due to a Muskoka boating accident over the weekend (only the best of Canada for our visitors!) and we were concerned that US Border Patrol might think she was our abused white slave that we kept locked in a pantry and forced to produce unreasonable amounts of Welsh Rarebit - the only possible thing I could think we'd specifically need a welsh slave for. We were also concerned since two of us had distinctively Arabic stamps in our passports - Mine from my honeymoon in Morocco, and Z's from an archaeological dig in Jordan. Z got drilled a bit on the Jordan thing, but we had no problems and the corn-fed American cutie doing the paperwork even recommended we get some Buffalo wings. We're pretty sure he was flirting and not lookinig for MidEast sympathizers, while a smiling portrait of George W. Bush beamed out over the office. I'm not used to such leader-worship, and was reminded of Morocco, where portraits of the King preside over every business.
Then it was off to Target. I adore Target. I got a fake-vintage rock T-shirt with The Beatles on it, and also one of Bon Jovi. This raises lots of interesting quesstions about authenticity and manufactured coolness (or lack thereof), but I was most interested by the 14-year-old girl that also looked at the Bon Jovi pierced-heart and skulls rock design and declared "Cool." Now, I actually dig Bon Jovi, and not even in an ironic hipster way. But this girl, if she'd ever heard Bon Jovi on the radio it wouldn't have been any of the diggable rock anthems of his early career (mainly anything from Slippery When Wet, which I own on cassette) but the incredibly mediocre recent stuff, like the pussy-fied "Bed of Roses" or "It's My Life" or even the undeniably crap "Have a Nice Day." Are you kidding me? Have a Nice Day? You were a rock GOD, dude. No-one in leather pants and with that much hair should say Have a Nice Day - not even in an ironic hipster kind of way. That shit sucks. So, is this little girl digging the total rebellion as represented by the bleeding skull and gothic lettering - albeit purchased at the ultra-sanitized Target and not out of the back of a van at some sweaty concert? Or is Bon Jovi so freakin' uncool in her mind, so completely ironic, that it's cool again? I digress...

We drove around outside Buffalo for a bit - got lost going this way and that on the I-90. Finally saw a sign that said "Canada" and went for it.
All the way up to the border crossing, my mother was saying that we'd just be truthful and declare everything we'd bought, it was just a little tax and not worth the bother of trying to hide our purchases. Then, when the border guy asked about how much we spent, she blithely lies: "Oh, around fifty dollars."
I start blushing furiously. Fifty? Yeah, maybe EACH. At each store we visited!
He asks to see reciepts and Z and Ffion each hand over only a couple. Then he asks to look in the trunk. I'm pretty sure that if he'd looked me in the eye at this point and spoken to me, I would have blurted out: "Busted!" and maybe peed my pants. There's a fucking mountain of Target bags back there. He tries to open the trunk, but it's locked. It's a new car, and Z is fiddling urgently with the trunk-unlocky-thingy, but he still can't get it. Then, things start getting the way they do in my family: intense. Z is frustrated and almost yelling from the driver's seat: "It's unlocked!" My mom gets out to go sort out the incompetence. This wins her a "Please step back into the vehicle, Ma'am." Finally, he gets it. He pokes about looking for the smokes and booze that we don't have - ignores the heap of Made-In-China apparel - and sends us on our way. Phew.
Off to Niagara Falls. We went, we saw, we appreciated.




Then we went to Niagara-on-the-Lake and soaked up the cutesyness. This place used to be adorable, but now has kind of a theme-park taint to it. Nevertheless, it still has the very best fudge shop on Earth. I know that every small town in Canada has an "authentic" Olde Fudge Shoppe, but I will stand by the "Maple Leaf Fudge shop" in Niagara-on-the-Lake as the very best. It's creamy. The air is so sweet in there you get a buzz just from breathing.

Strolling down main street past all the Shoppes.

Our last stop was for dinner in Port Dalhousie, which is genuinely cute. It was too hot to even go look at the beach there, so we piled back into the air-conditionned car and headed home.

Side note about The United States: J and I have decided that it would be fun to always call it The United States and talk about it like it was some quaint place we'd heard of - i.e. I've been to The United States! People were so friendly in The United States. I know someone from The United States...Do you know Monica?

Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff

I was at an art gallery recently and had the priviledge of taking in Janet Cardiff's installation piece "Forty Part Motet".

http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/janetcardiff/

We walked into the gallery space, an empty room with 40 black speakers on stands set up in a circle. Two flat gallery benches were set in the centre, and were occupied by flabby tired gallery-goers. I was disappointed in the abscence of any real sculptural quality to the arrangement. I'd read that it was a sound installation, and so was surprised that the room was silent. After reading the blurb on the wall, and discovering that each speaker was supposed to be a voice, I wandered over to the nearest speaker. Sure enough, as I put my ear right up close, I could hear a child's voice reading the title of the piece, clearing his throat and chit-chatting with the person next to him. I drifted to the next speaker to continue the chat. This went on for a few minutes, I could hear papers rustling, singers warming up. It felt like eavesdropping. Then, faintly through all the speakers, the way you would hear if you were part of the choir, the Choirmaster addressed everyone. I paused and waited.
Then - from the speaker I was standing right next to - the first voice broke out, clear and gorgeous, carrying into the room. It was an incredible moment, the luck that put me right next to that particular speaker, and I savoured it. The singer carried on his solo opening for a bit, and I drifted towards another speaker to see what was happening. At that precise moment, the second singer started up - from the speaker I was standing right next to! I am now overwhelmed by the piece, and completely sucked into it, since I have the strange feeling that it is meant for me alone. The recordings are crisp and lifelike. Many voices join as the piece goes on. As I waft around the circle, sharing the intimacy of each choirmember's voice, the speakers take on a new dimension. The black-meshed fronts are now like monk's hoods, and I'm longing to pull them back and stare into the eyes belonging to the voice emitting from each one. I'm completely inside the music, and the artist has turned it into a personal experience, but the personalities of the singers are withheld. This mystery keeps me in the room, unable to leave part-way through, and I move hungrily from voice to voice. As I pause by one silent speaker, a new voice errupts, a deep bass. This time, tears spring up in my eyes. They feel like they came from somewhere behind my breathless lungs. What wonderful magic made me so fortunate as to experience the direct song, not once but three times?! I am in love.

If you get a chance to experience this artwork, do it.