It's the year 2010 (but not for long!)

One morning in early December 2003 I woke up extremely relieved and glad to discover that it was in fact still 2003. I had just had a dream in which it was already 2004, and in my dream I was so sad because I had loved 2003 (particularly its fall) so much and I didn't want it to be over yet. December is an odd month in that way - it's usually a lot of fun and a good way to end the year; but it's also bittersweet because the year is ending, and even if there's lots to look forward to in the new year, it can still be sad saying goodbye.

I like songs that mention dates; that set themselves squarely in a certain period, such that whenever you listen to that song later you're taken back. The best two examples I can think of are Mariah Carey's Cruise Control which starts with Damian Marley (who was featured on that song) saying "2008...Watch It!" and then Mariah comes in. I love that because whenever I listen to that song now (or have listened to it since it came out) I always think about a. the first time I ever heard it in A.'s old apt in Kansas City in April 2008 and b. all those times that April and May I repeatedly listened to it. On their latest cd which they released in May 2010, Broken Social Scene has a song called "Water in Hell" which contains the line "It's the year 2010" - which I also love. It's so perfect right now... but in just a few days it won't apply anymore! Though it will still be cool to listen to it in years to come and look back nostalgically on 2010.

Though I usually spend a fair bit of time throughout the month of December thinking about the year ahead, I haven't had plans on New Year's Eve since I was 18 - 8 years ago! I like staying home, which is probably why one of my favourite scenes in the L-Word was from an episode in Season 5 when the power went out in LA causing Bette and Tina to get stuck in an elevator en route to their therapist's office. Stranded (at least for a little while) they proceed to sit facing each other, both leaning against opposite walls of the elevator, and discuss why they are good together and what their relationship would be like if they got back together. One of the points Tina makes is that they both like staying home on New Year's Eve. I loved that point! It's not that I don't think a relationship could work if one person loves partying on New Year's and the other likes staying home, but I do think it's easier if both people agree!

I cared a lot (read too much) about New Year's Eve in high school, and always had to be going to a party or doing something with friends because I felt like such a loser if I didn't. A guy at my high school, A.S.R. always went to the movies on New Year's Eve with his mom and her friend. However, they could never agree on which movie to go see, so each of them went to their own, all starting around the same time so they could arrive and leave the theater together. Even though I thought that was super cool, I still felt the urgent need to be doing something with friends. Happily, I now no longer care if other people think I'm a loser (and fortunately, I know they don't) and so I do what I like best and stay home. I'm not sure exactly why I don't like going out on New Year's though since I love champagne and like fireworks - two essential components of the evening. It's also not that I don't like socializing. I enjoy having or attending dinner parties or bigger parties for that matter. Maybe, and I think this is probably the best explanation, it's the hype that surrounds the evening. There seems to be a lot of pressure to have a good time. It's not just a regular party or evening out, it's New Year's Eve !!!! (the exclamation marks are essential!) and everyone must have a fabulous time, or else, it is implied, the year is off to a bad start. All that said, if all my best friends happened to be in the same place on New Year's Eve, of course I'd want to get together with them and of course I'd stay awake until midnight. But when I'm just at home or on vacation with my parents, I like having a glass of champagne with dinner, another with dessert, and then getting into bed with my book, going to sleep in one year and waking up in another.

A bookworm's favourite place

I have always loved being surrounded by stacks & shelves of books, be it in bookstores, libraries or my bedroom in Toronto. Sometimes I think that in the future house I eventually live in I want to have a library, like those old-fashioned country estates in the English countryside that I've only ever seen in movies or read about in books always seem to have. But then I think that it's really better to have books spread out across every room of the house.

The libraries on the Berkeley campus were the best, and will always be my favourites! I like the law library at McGill. It's pretty nice and some of the rooms have huge windows which is great. But nothing will replace the Berkeley libraries. During finals time I used to love studying at different libraries throughout campus because the main libraries got too busy. My favourite was the business library followed by the music library. But during the regular semester, I stuck to Doe (side note: to this day my most favourite public bathroom is in Doe. It was always clean, had windows overlooking this main part of campus, and had the best, biggest and most flattering mirrors!). L and I would go to the library together all the time. We were among the small group of (proudly) nerdy students who were standing outside the front doors before 1 pm on Sundays waiting for the campanile to strike 1 pm, for the doors to open and for our studying to begin! I liked both the main and east reading rooms on the second floor of Doe. They were very grand, and distinguished, but still comfortable. But L. and I also loved studying in the stacks which went floors underground. Throughout the fall of 2004 when we both lived on northside, L. and I went to Doe together several nights a week. We especially loved being there on the nights C.M. worked (he was a check-out clerk) and we'd hear his voice reaching through the intercom that went throughout the whole library announcing the closing of the circulation desk at Doe (at 9 pm) but assuring us that the library remained open for studying until 2 am (although we usually left by 10 pm anyway). C.M. lived at my co-op and was an all-round super cool and attractive guy who L. and I both had crushes on despite his having a girlfriend. My favourite part of our evenings at Doe was always our walks home. We were happy because we'd accomplished some good studying and then we could just talk and laugh about other things. The following fall (of 2005) I missed L. (who was still in Santiago) the most the nights I studied at Doe, especially when someone else's voice would announce the circulation desk's closing time. C.M. had graduated (and presumably gone on to bigger and better things), L. was enjoying springtime (my favourite season, which I had missed that year due to my being in Santiago then too!) near the bottom of the world, and I walked home from the library on those dark fall nights missing how things used to be.

My love of libraries extends to city public library systems as well. At the end of July 2006 I went to New York for the weekend to visit N. who was there for the summer. I got in mid-morning on the Friday but N. was at work until 5 pm. I had originally planned to just walk around and maybe go to a museum but the bus I took in to Manhattan from La Guardia dropped me off in front of the New York Public Library. Fueled by both curiosity and a desire to keep reading my book - Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies (if you haven't read it, you should!) I went in. After finding a reading room which reminded me of the East Reading Room of Doe, I sat down, read my book and occasionally looked up either to people-watch or to admiringly think about what a beautiful library it was. I emerged 3 hours later back into the bright afternoon sunshine feeling happier than when I'd gone in that morning. I've been back to New York twice since then but haven't gone to the library either time, being too busy shopping, walking, talking, visiting cupcake shops etc. But I don't mind; the library fit the circumstances of that July day perfectly, and I feel certain I'll one day go back.

Last fall after moving back to Toronto I discovered the awesomeness that is the Toronto Public Library system. There are so many branches all over the city, and two within easy walking distance from my house. Aside from checking out Red Hot Chili Pepper's Anthony Kiedis' memoir Scar Tissue (at M.'s recommendation!) one winter break while I was still at Berkeley, I hadn't gone into/used the TPL in years. Back when I was 13/14 I regularly visited the library to check out Baby Sitters Club books. But after I stopped reading those, I didn't use the library that much. I've always liked owning books just because I do re-read books from time to time, and because, as I wrote above, I like being surrounded by books. But last fall I started using it again. First because I needed a few books to help me with my classes at Seneca, and then because I started using it for books I wanted to read but just didn't want to own or buy. (Usually kind of trashy books like embarrassing to admit but Tori Spelling's autobiography, and then some other books I'd heard about and thought sounded good but wasn't committed to buying.) It was also very nice to discover that all of the TPL branches I've been in are very busy. Even in the middle of a weekday there are lots of people reading, using the computers etc. The TPL is actually one of the things I miss most about Toronto.

For this post I googled quotes about libraries and Jorge Luis Borges' was my favourite: "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." That is a version of paradise I would definitely love to visit.

Missing American Thanksgiving

So while I only officially celebrated American Thanksgiving on the actual day (my aunt hosts a Thanksgiving dinner on the following Saturday in Annapolis, Maryland which I've gone to a few times, and am going to this year) once while living in the States (and even then we didn't have turkey or cranberry sauce or pie) it's one of things I miss most about living there. For starters, Thursday is my favourite day of the week and so I like that American Thanksgiving is always on that day. But more than that, I like its position at the end of November. Canadian Thanksgiving being on the second Monday in October just seems too early. It's too close to Labour Day to really need that holiday, and then it's so long to go without a holiday between Thanksgiving and Christmas. C. told me how his mom hated how close American Thanksgiving is to Christmas because she felt a lot of stress and pressure with two big family gatherings so close together, wanted to make them as successful as possible, etc. I can definitely see the (potentially limitless) possibilities for stress, but I actually like how American Thanksgiving kicks off this whole month long holiday period. It's a great way to end the year!

What I miss most though is actually a feeling, or a specific time period, more than anything else. Case in point: American Thanksgiving in Austin was never anywhere near as amazing as American Thanksgiving in Berkeley. Thanksgiving in Berkeley meant parties the Saturday before (where something monumentous, or so it definitely seemed to 19/20 year old me always happened) and red eye plane rides and the end of the semester in sight (which was always bittersweet). I loved going home to Toronto, and thus not even being in the US for Thanksgiving, and recharging for 4 days and then coming back ready to take on finals and enjoy all the fun that always encompassed December in Berkeley. So while it never (at least I don't think so) meant for me all the things it means to Americans, it was still something I looked forward to every year. I also think it says something that in a lot of ways November was my favourite month in Berkeley (tied with December and June, and then followed by March), which is odd, because it's one of my least favourite months everywhere else I've ever lived.

When I became good friends and started hanging out a lot with K. and her sister my last semester/June in Berkeley, they told me about how a few days before real American Thanksgiving they always have Friends Thanksgiving where they celebrate with their friends. I love that and it made me sad I didn't become friends with them until it was too late for me to go to it too! It's always fun to hang out with family on holidays but I think celebrating with friends is great too. N. and her roommates at the time hosted a big Thanksgiving dinner my last year in Berkeley exactly a week in advance and it was very cool - lots of food, lots of drinks, everyone in a good mood. It was more like a party in that there were too many people to have a sit down dinner but I think it was actually better that way.

In the vein of friends and Thanksgiving going well together, in 2008 I decided I better stay in the US for actual Thanksgiving day and celebrate it with one of my friends as after that year I wasn't going to live there anymore. So I went to Salt Lake City to spend it with S. It was great! While we didn't have the traditional food, we did spend a long time cooking (after watching movies all morning which was also really fun!)sweet potatoes, cauliflower, carrot cake, and S.'s best ever spanakopita, and just talking, lounging (I wore leggings all day) and hanging out. It seemed like even without the turkey and the trimmings we still got the basics of Thanksgiving - good food and even better company! - down pat.

So while I can't really say I miss American Thanksgiving as a holiday per se (which is actually a bit of a problem as I feel, in general, that I have way less holiday spirit of any kind than I used to; but that, I suppose, is a topic for another post... :)it makes me nostalgic for a very happy time and place in my life.

Sunday Blues

One Sunday back in June 2007 I was writing in my diary in a cafe near the Pantheon in Paris when I got a text from my friend S. asking me to meet her in the Luxembourg Gardens. When we met up she explained she had a very bad case of the 'Sunday blues' and needed to get out and do something. I saw S. again the next summer when I was back in France, and she explained to me that her Sunday blues had gotten so bad the fall of 2007 (by which time I was sadly no longer in Paris) that she'd started going out drinking every Sunday, mostly only managing to push her blues to Monday.

Though I'd never heard the term 'Sunday blues' before that June day with S., it definitely resonated with me. I have a complicated relationship with Sunday in that my feelings towards it have gone through so many stages. Sometimes I love(d) it, other times I hate(d) it. Since I was a kid though, I have always loved the feeling of Sunday night when Monday is a holiday - that is one of the best feelings! Sundays are always romanticized in songs - a time to laze around in bed and enjoy the fact that it's still the weekend. But somehow the songs always make it sound better than it usually is. Although, all last winter and spring I liked Sundays. They were relaxing, and fun. I could sleep in, take a long time reading the newspaper, do whatever I felt like... And even though I usually did do some work for my Monday classes, I really enjoyed going to work, and didn't feel that much pressure so even when I had work to do on Sundays it was never this really stressful thing. In fact, my Sundays were like the painting below (which I love, and which I have a card of currently on the wall behind my kitchen table in my apt), which is called Sundays at La Rochelle. That woman looks like the epitome of relaxed and like she is very much enjoying her Sunday.

Since September however, Sundays have become quite tough. Truth be told, I've had a bad (and recurring) case of the Sunday blues. The other night C. mentioned how he's been suffering from the 'Sunday Night Crazies' (I love variations on the same thing!) and it actually, though I definitely emphasize with him, made me feel better that I'm not the only person feeling a bit crazy. I've tried to do things to improve my mood like talk on the phone or read the NY Times Style section online but the feeling won't go away. It's very persistent, and has made me really dislike Sundays here. This Sunday I'm determined to go to the library as I feel that sitting around my apt has not been helping. In any event, I'm hoping that it's just a phase and that I'll get out of it soon. At least there's only about a month left in the semester and in the winter, my Monday schedule is much more agreeable than my Mondays are this semester. I've also decided that this Sunday coming up (and the ones to follow) I need to make a conscious effort to look at the woman at La Rochelle on the card on my wall and try to absorb some of her Sunday calming vibe.

An Apple A Day

Even though I eat apples year round, it does feel especially good to eat them in the fall knowing I could potentially be eating ones I picked myself. E. and I went apple picking last year and it was my first time going in forever. It was really fun! Orchards are very calming and lovely places: the rows upon rows of fruit trees, the greenery, the fresh air. When I visited S. in New Hampshire way back in July 2003 we went for a few walks in this orchard near her house and it made me feel like I was in a L.M. Montgomery novel. It would be so pleasant to get to walk in an orchard on a regular basis. In July 2005, I visited my friend M., who I first met in Berkeley in Fall 2004 when he was a Brazilian exchange student, in his little town of Fraiburgo in southern Brazil, which is known as the 'Land of Apples' because they grow so many apples there. M. was an agricultural engineer (or something like that...) for this big company that owned many of the orchards in Fraiburgo. It was their winter, and he had to check on the apples (really just buds I think) twice a day. So I went along with him in his little car, driving throughout the orchard making sure all the apples were okay. Afterward we went to a barbeque with people from his work and this nice woman who also worked there gave me some Pink Lady (which she pronounced laid-gee) apples to eat. They were very good, even for non-McIntosh apples. As far as jobs go, M.'s seemed great if you like agriculture and apples and being outside. And I love the idea of one's whole job being centered around apples.

Though I like the names of different apples like Red Delicious (I think that was Snow White's favourite!) and Golden Delicious, I only love to eat one type: McIntosh. I will also eat Pink Lady, if McIntosh aren't available, but even those pale in comparison to my love for McIntosh. It's a bit odd to passionately love the taste of one apple, but not like the taste of others. But that's just the way it goes sometimes. I eat a McIntosh almost every day with some cheese. Apples & cheese are an amazing combination, and one I never get sick of!

Apples are also the only fruit I don't like cooked (making them the opposite of cauliflower and broccoli, which I love cooked but won't eat raw). I wish I could like apple pie as it's such a traditional, popular, feel good food. But I just don't. Although L. once told me that a diner in Florida she was at served her a slice of cheddar cheese with her piece of apple pie. I just did a little googling on the issue, and apparently that's quite popular in both New England and the midwest. So now my new food/travel goal is to find a diner the next time I'm in any of those places and hopefully find apple pie on the menu. I'd be willing to put aside my dislike and eat that one piece if it came with a slice of cheddar cheese.

A Tale of Three Cities

Every city has their symbol - something the rest of the world can identify them with. Some are easy, like San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge; but others - like New York, is it the Statue of Liberty? The Empire State Building? London, Big Ben or the Tower Bridge? - are more difficult. My two favourite cities in the world both, in my opinion, have easily identifiable symbols - Paris and the Eiffel Tower, and Toronto and the CN Tower. I don't know what people actually from Montreal would say is the symbol for their city, but in the short time I've been here I've identified the cross at the top of Mount Royal as my symbol.

Even though I was suffering from jetlag and a fair bit of nervousness over how everything would pan out in the coming months, some of my very favourite memories of Paris are of those first days I spent there in January 2007. I was a just turned 23 year old (an age I had always thought (and still do!) is so cool!), and more than anything I was so happy to be in Paris. I couldn't believe I was actually there, and that something I had thought about for so long had finally happened. That first week I spent an irordinate amount of time staring out the huge windows (really sliding doors) of the family friends' apt I was staying at, watching the sky over Paris and the Eiffel Tower. The family friends lived a little outside Paris, with an amazing view of the city from their fifth floor apt. My first night there I was sitting at the dining table on the internet, occasionally looking up and out from my emails, when the Eiffel Tower started sparkling. I didn't know it did that! I knew it lit up at night but the sparkles were new! (And they are incredible! The sparkling happens for the first 5-10 minutes of each hour (and one good thing about the winter is that it sparkles more) and it never failed to be exciting.) Sitting and staring out at lovely or happy views is one of the most relaxing things to do. At that apt, I liked thinking about all sorts of things, with Paris and the Eiffel Tower as a backdrop to my thoughts. Whenever I'm in Paris, I always feel thrilled whenever I see the Eiffel Tower from different parts of the city. I love the view of it from Place de la Concorde, or any of the bridges over the Seine, or from near the Pantheon. Or the really far away views of it from the 19th or 20th arrondissements. The best is when I am just walking along, and then out of nowhere I get a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower; always a highlight of my day.


The same goes for the CN Tower - I love seeing it from different parts of the city. My favourite view is looking at it from the east, but I also like how I can see it all the way down Yonge Street when I'm walking to Eglinton Station. Or like with the Eiffel Tower, it's fun to be surprised by it. I went running down by the lake a few times in the spring, and it'd be fun to be running along and then suddenly see it in front of me. Seeing it from a plane is also very cool. The CN Tower gets lit up in all different colours at night too - some nights red or purple or green. I've grown up with the CN Tower, and probably because you can see it from all over it, it really represents Toronto to me in some ways. Driving home along the 401 from the airport to my house, the CN Tower is visible (albeit it appears very small) so whenever I come back from somewhere else, it's one of the first things I see, and confirms to me that I'm home. When I move back to Toronto, I really want to live somewhere from where I can see the CN Tower, and spend lots of time staring out at it and thinking.

I like the big mountain in the middle of Montreal a lot. It's particularly nice right now as all the leaves have changed colour and so it's a canvas of reds, oranges, and yellows. I suspect it will look pretty in the winter too. I can see the cross at the top from my apt, and as is clear from what I wrote above, I love looking out windows at well-known symbols. The cross is also lit up at night (my favourite time to look at it) and, I am sure, enjoys watching over the city from high above.

This Serious Moonlight

So one night last week just after turning off my light to go to sleep I was delighted to discover that I could see the (nearly full) moon from my bed here. Lying in bed looking at the moon is one of my very favourite things to do and it brought me back to the days when I lived on Hilgard in Berkeley and fell asleep and woke up right next to a big window. Each night I watched the planes fly overhead, and some nights I'd get to enjoy seeing the world through the glow of moonlight. One morning that fall I woke up to see this huge glowing slightly pink moon setting in the early morning light. That morning remains one of my favourite memories of the apartment.

Berkeley was an especially good place for moon viewing, particularly among urban environments. Due to the lack of skyscrapers and tall buildings in general, the sky always appeared more visible, and closer, and it just seemed easier to see the moon. The full moon rising huge and yellow behind the Berkeley hills (and the fall full moons were always the brightest and best of the whole year) continue to be highlights of my time there. In Toronto, my views of the moon are more easily obscured by buildings or trees. Although I love the view of the full (or nearly) moon from the windows in my front door. It often does get blocked by trees, so those glimpses of it are always exciting. Happily Montreal, or at least my neighbourhood, also seems to be great for moon watching.

A bit of a cliché to be sure, but I've loved the moon for as long as I can remember. Growing up I adored Kit Pearson's Looking at the Moon. I read that book so many times even today I could probably recite entire passages from it. One of the ideas in that book, which I now know is a common one but seemed really novel to a 12 year old me, is how no matter where people are in the world, they see the same moon. I never get tired of that idea, or think it's cheesy or silly.

Sometimes I think I like the full moon best (just because it's the brightest, most romantic etc) but it always makes me really happy to see a crescent moon in the sky, especially right after a few moonless nights. When C. and I went to Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil five years ago, we learned that while usually access to the falls is prohibited at night, when there is a full moon the falls are open. I became determined then, and am still determined now, to one day go back there on a full moon. Seeing the moon (preferably full, or nearly) over any body of water (especially lakes and oceans) is one of my favourite ways of seeing it.

The idea of the moon as a person is also cool. I have a magnet on the fridge of 'La Luna' (see picture below) and she is clearly female and has very pretty bright green eyes. The moon in the other picture below appears male to me, although I guess it could go either way. Mostly that picture just makes me think how great it would be to play on a tire swing attached to the moon. It's fun in images to see the moon as a person but I never think of it as being either male or female when seeing it in the sky. Instead, it's just this mysterious, though familiar, object looking down on us. Something bright and familiar I can see no matter where I go.

Fabulous First Ladies

So I have to admit that I have a secret love for first ladies - namely Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni. In some ways I see them as real life Disney Princesses, in that I love them in kind of the same way I love Snow White and Belle (and all the others too!) Mostly I just think they're really pretty; and I like their clothes, and their personalities that come across in pictures, and interviews.

Michelle Obama is super cool for so many reasons: she's a lawyer (obviously a cool profession :), she's from Chicago (a city I've only been to in passing but totally want to really visit), she's tall (5'11 I think! I find it cool she's tall because I've always wanted to be taller... 5'9 would be my ideal height...), her birthday is January 17 (so the day before mine!), she likes J Crew (and always looks super rad in their clothes!), and she seems to have great relationships with her kids, mom and husband. All around, she is very appealing. It's interesting because in Canada, the whole idea of knowing/caring about the 'First Lady' (that term isn't really even used here) is uncommon. I've read maybe one or two articles about Laureen Harper (the Prime Minister's wife) and I've seen a few pictures of her, but I really couldn't tell you very much about her at all. Whereas I know quite a bit (albeit somewhat superficially) about Michelle Obama.

I've liked Carla Bruni since way back in the fall of 2003 when someone gave me a mix cd with two of her songs on them. I loved those songs so much that I bought the whole album. Carla Bruni was so intriguing -- an Italian supermodel, who now lived in Paris and wrote and sang her own songs in French! Her second album came out while I was living in Paris in the spring of 2007, and of course I bought it. She also made a public appearance at a record store near my apt but I couldn't attend, much to my chagrin, because of work. A few months after I left Paris she became romantically involved with the recently elected French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and in February 2008 she married him. My biggest regret was that I wasn't in Paris to read all the Paris Match and other glossy magazines which must have been chronicling their every move. A few months after their marriage, Carla Bruni was on the cover of Vanity Fair and told them she'd voted for Sarkozy's opponent in the French election (albeit before she'd met him, but still) which I thought was very cool.


My love of both of them has most definitely been encouraged by the Huffington Post's Style page. It is such a fun website to visit. It loves putting together slide shows of different models/actors/princesses/first ladies and asking people to vote on which outfit/hair style/shoes are best. I rarely vote, but I do love looking at the pictures! The site regularly has Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni slide shows. My personal favourites have been the slide shows of official state visits or summits when I get to see pictures of the two of them together. The Style Page loves the whole Obama family. There are regularly pictures of them walking across the lawn of the White House either about to board a helicopter to, or having just gotten off one from, Camp David, or on vacation, or walking/playing with the dog, or at any number of other various events. Sometimes it can feel a bit weird to be clicking through picture after picture of this family I don't actually know hiking in Maine or eating ice cream in Hawaii or playing with their dog, but mostly it's just fun so I don't think about it too much.

I definitely recommend checking out the Style Page. Maybe you will start to love Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni too, if you don't already!

Revenge is a dish best served cold

It all started with The L-Word. Before I began watching that show on DVD on my laptop from the comfort of my own bed in February 2009, I had been living a TV-less life for nearly seven years. When I was younger I watched (and loved) a lot of TV shows, with all my time favourite being Beverly Hills 90210. But I got off TV pretty much cold turkey when I moved into the dorms during first year of university. A. had a TV and once I went to his room specifically so we could watch (what else?) the special 10 year anniversary since they graduated from high school Bev Hills 90210 special. But otherwise, I never watched it, and I didn't miss it.

I went through the rest of university, and beyond without ever wanting a TV or actively watching any shows (with the notable exception of Sex and the City. However, somehow that seemed different; I think because I had to make a special effort to watch it, and never just had a TV I could flip on or off whenever I felt like it.) But then, everything changed with shows suddenly becoming so available on DVD and on the internet. The L-Word was the first show I watched on DVD and it was addictive! It was so easy to just watch the next episode, and then the one after that. My favourite thing about watching shows on DVD is that the season is already done, and I can just watch episode after episode without having to wait another week to see an episode.

E. recommended Veronica Mars to me back in the fall, but I didn't get around to asking her to lend me all three seasons on DVD until the beginning of April. From the first episode I was hooked. I watched seasons 1 and 2 (44 episodes) in a three week period, one time watching 4 episodes in one day. Excessive? Definitely. But I was also able to, so figured, why not? Plus, both seasons 1 and 2 feature season long mysteries which culminate in the season finale, bringing every episode one step closer to Veronica solving the mystery.

I just recently discovered Party Down, which is created by the same person - Rob Thomas - who did Veronica Mars. Many of the same actors are on both shows. Party Down is so funny, and sadly is already cancelled after just two short seasons of 10 episodes each. I only have one episode left, and I'm saving it for a reward after things - my apt, classes, my life in general - become more settled in Montreal. Overall, Party Down makes me glad TV exists.

True Blood is another show I started watching this spring. I rented the season 1 DVD and was given one week to watch 12 episodes. After 5 days and 3 episodes, I felt certain I would have to re-rent it (or risk late fines) in order to watch all the episodes. But then I went a little crazy and watched 9 episodes in 3 days. Time well spent. I've since watched all of season 2 and am having to endure watching season 3 as it airs, meaning the excruciating cliff hangers at the end of each episode (and season) which I avoided for 1+2, are a fact of life for season 3.

Really, over the past year and a half I've come to understand that I never knew, even during my Beverly Hills 90210 obsessed days (although granted I was ages 9/10/11 in the peak of my loving that show), that TV could be this good. I used to (embarrassingly) pride myself on the fact that I didn't have a TV and didn't watch any shows, but now I just wonder what I was missing all those years. It seems I have a lot to make up for, and therefore am happily planning to watch Freaks & Geeks, and then Six Feet Under next. Very exciting!

PS: By now you've probably noticed this post has nothing to do with revenge. However, "revenge is a dish best served cold" is a line/concept used on both Veronica Mars and Party Down that I really like! If I were into getting revenge on people (although thankfully I'm not) I'd definitely serve it cold.

Summer in the City

This is the first summer in a long time that I've actually been at home in Toronto all of July and August; and it's been so great it now makes me want to always take my vacation in May or early June so that I can be home all summer. I loved the two Junes I spent in Berkeley. Both times I experienced and enjoyed a vibe that just wasn't there during the school year. And I'm noticing the same thing about Toronto this summer.

The last Friday in June was very hot and very sunny. After a lunch with E. and C. where we started off outside but before our food came had to seek shelter in the air conditioned interior to relieve the steady sweat that dripped off, and the glaring brightness that surrounded us, E. and I took her dog to the park. The whole time there was so relaxed. First we hung out in the off leash area with lots of other dogs and their owners, and then we moved over to a different part of the park, sat on E.'s blanket and proceeded to just lounge around a whole lot more. After a while I told E. I should probably go home, to which she replied "why?" Realizing I really didn't have an answer and that I had absolutely nothing pressing to do at home, I happily continued to hang out.

Though I started work 10 days after that, and therefore have not been able to wile away as many afternoons in dog parks as I would like, that late June day really set the tone for a July and August filled with lots of sunshine and lots of hanging out. This summer has also seen 2 picnics on M.'s front lawn (which, despite my initial reluctance given the fact that I'm not a big fan of sitting on the ground, even if on a blanket, were actually super fun!), some tanning/lounging on the chaise lounge in my backyard, 2 shows at the Molson Amphitheatre, and just generally enjoying being outdoors.

I always tend to make comparisons in my head about lots of things (my moods, my situations, my feelings about this or that, etc.) and so fittingly, I've found myself comparing summer, to its polar opposite, winter. During the past winter I stayed indoors, a lot, and wore warm sweat pants and big sweatshirts and often went to bed with my hot water bottle. And I actually really liked it. I love warm clothes, and the feeling of being completely covered and warm in those clothes. This summer, in contrast, has been very hot, and very humid. Other than my bed, my favourite place to go on the internet (and the place I do most of my work) is the dining room table. The air conditioning doesn't reach the dining room that well. Therefore, on really hot days in July I became desperately in need of something cool to wear. One would think I would just choose shorts and a tank top, but no, when I'm at home I'm all about lounge/sleep wear. So I found my old black nightgown, which is light, low-cut and short - leaving lots of my skin exposed, and therefore keeping me cool. After having not worn it for over a year, the black nightgown has become my defacto summer-at-home outfit. Sometimes I sit at my dining room table and instead of working, have fun imagining I'm a bored housewife in lingerie waiting for my husband to come home. Those fantasies are all well and good, but I know that I'd be so embarrassed if anyone - be it a neighbour, the mailman, or even a friend - happened to see me in it.

Sadly though, my days of wearing nightgowns are almost over. I've noticed, particularly over the last 10 days or so, how the sun really is setting earlier. From a window on the landing of the staircase going to the second floor I can see the sunset and it makes me a bit sad that we're almost in the homestretch of summer. Though there are a few things I'm looking forward to about colder weather coming again, I know I'll miss the summer, and particularly this summer, once it goes.

Pedicure Persuasion

When E. and C. gave me recommendations for things to do in Japan, they included getting a manicure on the list. The one & only time I ever got a manicure (it was free, my mom had won it and didn't want it) was on my 21st birthday -- a wintery, snowy day made worse by my dejected and lonely state caused by the weird no-man's land I was inhabiting between Berkeley and Santiago. I chose bright red because at the time I had been listening repeatedly to the U2 song Vertigo and wanted to be like 'the girl with crimson nails' Bono sang about. My nails looked fine but not spectacular, and my memories of that manicure are more about my fragile homesick for Berkeley state of mind than anything else. And since then I've never wanted another manicure. Maybe I worry the manicure will bring all those feelings of that month back and I just don't want to go there? In any event, I returned from Japan without getting a manicure, much to the chagrin of E. and C. who, when I met them for lunch, showed off both their new manicures and pedicures. I gladly admired theirs, but did not feel the urge to get either myself.

Until, L. came to town earlier this month and told me she really wanted a pedicure. I wasn't totally gung-ho but I figured it could be fun, and I wanted L. to be happy. After getting turned away from a few places because they were all booked, we came across a place with a friendly guy outside handing out business cards. It turns out this new salon had just opened, and they were more than happy for L. and me to come in and get pedicures. I'd only ever seen people get pedicures in the movies or on TV, and to my surprise, our experience was exactly like that, if not better.

Everyone at the salon was so nice, from the Asian man and woman who actually did our pedicures to this other man who worked there and brought us water in champagne glasses and chocolates (multiple chocolates in my case). I felt both special and indulged -- a good combination. It was fun getting to talk to L., but we also both read magazines for part of the time which made me think it could be cool going alone too. One of my favourite parts of the whole experience was my mom telling me after I'd gotten home and shown off my new toe nails, that my grandmother (who I died when I was little) wore the exact same colour nail polish (the dark pink in the picture below) as I had chosen. I know that if I'd had the chance to know my grandmother for longer, we'd have gotten along extremely well and though in a way it's a superficial thing, knowing that we liked and chose the same nail polish colour just confirmed that all the more. After all, there were hundreds of colours to choose from and I chose that one.

All in all, I am now completely hooked on pedicures - to the point that I've already begun planning my next one. L. told me that she and her mom and some of their friends get pedicures at the same salon in Dallas every Christmas time, which made me think that getting pedicures in the winter is a fabulous idea. Now I've got something good to look forward to.

Post World Cup Blues

I read an article on Sunday in which one of the organizers of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa said that come Monday (so yesterday) there was going to be a nation-wide case of the post World Cup blues. I totally understood that. It is always so sad when a really great event that has been anticipated for so long is over. I always feel so sad when the Winter Olympics are over, knowing that I have to wait another 4 years before they happen again. Last August when I was in South Africa, people everywhere kept mentioning the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It was really cool to see how 10 months before the whole thing started, everyone was looking forward to it so much. And now it's done...For the last month I regularly watched soccer matches, (or at least checked scores), reminisced a lot about the last World Cup, and had numerous World Cup related conversations. So while I am sure I feel only a fraction of what South Africans feel, I can definitely relate.

I first started to pay attention to/like the World Cup only four years ago, during Germany '06. (Although I went on a school trip to Italy in June 1998 (the World Cup was in France that year), and I remember one evening in Rome there were huge celebrations going on as the Italian team had won one of their games. Rome became a sea of giant Italian flags, honking cars and smiling and exuberant people. I remember my 14 year old self thinking all the celebrations were cool, but the World Cup - and how it could inspire that kind of display - was completely over my head.) L., and her entire family are big soccer/football fans and thanks to her enthusiasm, L., K. and I attended many a game at the Starry Plough in Berkeley in June 2006, primarily cheering on Argentina. We were crushed (absolutely crushed! After the match, we stood outside on the sidewalk in front of the bar trying to cheer ourselves up by acknowledging that in sports there always has to be a winner and a loser) when Germany beat Argentina in penalties in the quarter finals.

This time around, I cheered on Argentina again (although I greatly missed L. and K.!) wearing the Argentina jersey my dad bought me at Winners. Sadly, Germany beat them in the quarter finals...again! It was awful. But even once Argentina was out I still enjoyed watching the other matches, all the way to Spain's victory in the final. I like the World Cup because I think soccer is a cool and fun sport in general, and to watch. And also because I really love the (mostly positive) relationships between team mates, between players and their coaches, and players and the fans. Hugs, high fives, smiles, tears abounded.

What I found most touching of all was the welcome the Argentine National Team received at the airport in Buenos Aires, the day after their loss to Germany. Between 15,000-20,000 fans came out to the airport that evening, singing, waving flags and cheering on the team as the bus moved slowly through the crowd. These fans didn't care that Argentina had lost, they just wanted to cheer on their team. Huge crowds (literally a mass of people and flags) turned out in Montevideo when the Uruguay team came home - you'd think Uruguay had won, not come in 4th. It's difficult not to be inspired by that kind of cheer and good will, and wish it existed all the time. Although I know a big part of what makes the World Cup special is that it only happens every four years; so with that, I already can't wait for Brazil 2014!

Home Sweet Home

When I moved back to Toronto last summer, I was originally determined to make some changes in my bedroom. My room seemed perpetually stuck in the year 2002, with a few 2009 (now 2010) calendars reminding me I was no longer 18. I hadn't changed anything since I was in high school - there were the same pictures on the walls (including a very faded cut out ad from the newspaper of my favourite movie when I was 15 : You've Got Mail) and the same glow in the dark stars on the ceiling above my pillow.

S. told me the last time I saw him in Austin a year ago that he only likes staying at his parents' place in Baltimore for at most a few weeks at a time, because because being there makes him feel like a kid. "I still have my childhood bed" he told me somewhat sheepishly. Then last September I read an interview with Gwen Stefani who talked about how crazy it was to come back to her parents' house at age 26 after a year of touring with No Doubt to find all this fan mail. She said she lay in bed at night in her little single bed, totally surprised by how popular the band had become. She also made fun of herself for still living at home at age 26.

Well, I'm 26, I'm living at home, I still sleep every night in the bed I've had since I was 6, and I totally don't feel sheepish! (I think it may help that I love my bed (and have loved it since I was 6!) as it's high and has bed posts which are super cool.) Maybe it's because I didn't live at home from age 18-25 and so I know I can get by and be happy away from home, but I've loved living at home this year. It's been very stress free. I also love all the windows and my bath tub (I will forever & ever love that bath tub) so much. My bedroom is also a corner room - which are my favourite types of rooms. I realized the other day that probably my love of corner rooms stems from the fact that my bedroom at home is a corner room. It's interesting how certain likes or dislikes become so ingrained that we don't realize where they come from. I lived in and benefited from windows on two sides for the majority of my life, so it's no wonder that that's the type of room to which I'm most drawn.

Usually I love putting up pictures and making a room my own, but I actually barely made any changes to my old bedroom this year. Maybe it was because I had slept here for so many years before, but it just felt so comfortable exactly the way it was. So I still fall asleep each night under my glow in the dark stars, and they still make me happy like they did when I first put them up when I was 13. I have to admit that I am looking forward to living alone again in the fall; but I will miss my bedroom, and my house, and my parents very much. I won't be putting up glow in the dark stars in my new apt, but I like that my bedroom in Toronto will always stay - and feel - the same to me whenever I come home.

Strawberries & Skyscrapers

Before I went to Japan, I had so many ideas and images of the place in my head. I had wanted to go there for so long, but I was a bit worried that it wouldn't live up to what I had imagined. When I was in high school, my next-door neighbour moved to Japan to teach English and I thought that was the coolest thing ever. Over recent years, my imaginings of Japan grew bigger and more varied. Classical paintings of Mount Fuji or of majestic blue ocean waves juxtaposed with Tokyo's bright lights and skyscrapers from Lost in Translation. When I read Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood in the first (cold, snowy) days of January 2006, I couldn't put it down for many reasons, but I especially liked when the main character(s) would take long walks around Tokyo. That city seemed like somewhere I desperately needed to visit.

Before leaving Berkeley four years ago, I was loading up on supplies at (my favourite store) Avant Card, and came across this really striking card of a Japanese woman with long black hair and a peace sign necklace. For me, this woman, in ways I couldn't and still can't quite express, represented another facet of why I wanted to go to Japan so badly. She seemed so confident, and alluring, and the peace sign necklace came across as totally genuine - and added another layer to her 'personality' - instead of being cheesy or tacky. As much as you can say/know this about a picture, she was someone I wanted to be friends with.

Sometimes we anticipate something for so long or build something up so high that it almost seems inevitable it won't be what we hoped; that reality will be much less cheerful than what we expected. Fortunately this time for me, Japan in general, and Tokyo in particular, surpassed all my expectations. The country has gorgeous (green at this time of year) scenery, and genuinely cheerful, friendly, and helpful people. I was so happy to be in Tokyo. It is a city I would definitely live in, and a city I could see myself being very happy in. I loved the skyscrapers and bright lights I expected, but also the things I hadn't expected: the smaller streets with their little shops, the parks, the way the trains run right next to parks with tall trees whose branches and leaves lean over the tracks, the stationery stores that had better collections than I could have ever imagined, the outfits (both men's and women's), the French patisseries whose selection of cakes and tarts in the windows would give any Parisian patisserie a run for its money, and the preponderance of strawberries. I have long loved berries (raspberries the most, but strawberries are second) and the Japanese love strawberries. I found (and of course bought) some very sweet strawberry stationery, and I indulged in quite a few pieces of strawberry shortcake while there. If I really did live in Tokyo, I think I'd want to spend an hour (or more) each week, staring out the window at the city and the skyscrapers before me, while writing letters on my strawberry patterned paper and eating some strawberry shortcake.

Celebrity Withdrawal, Or Not...

Last December, sort of out of nowhere, I decided to stop reading two celebrity gossip websites (People and Just Jared) I had been reading every day for a long time. I'm not sure what exactly prompted me to stop. I think I just finally (and really about time!) got bored of looking at pictures of celebrities I really didn't care about go about their daily lives. I also realized how the approximately 20 minutes (give or take) I was spending each night looking at these two websites while I ran my bath, could be much better spent doing other things. I have not, for a second, regretted my decision. I now don't stay on the internet as late anymore and instead spend more time reading my book every night; as well, I now more regularly read and look at other, much more interesting blogs like Salon and Jezebel (which conveniently regularly mention celebrities...)

So in a way I quit cold turkey, except that I still read the Entertainment section of the Huffington Post almost every day. Clearly I haven't been able to tear myself completely away from celebrity gossip, and I wonder why? The desire to click through 30 barely different photos of Jennifer Garner (or any other celebrity) walking down the street is thankfully gone (was it even ever there to begin with? I'm not sure... It must have been in a small way, but it really became more automatic in the sense that I went to Just Jared and clicked through the pictures pretty much on auto pilot). But, the desire to know more about celebrities' lives is not. Every time I watch a movie or a TV show and like one of the actors in it, I always look them up later on the Internet Movie Data Base. I like seeing their birthday, where they're from, what else they've been in, if they are married or dating anyone, if they have kids, etc. etc. I think it's just because I am inherently interested in people, and different aspects of their lives. And aspects of celebrities' lives - though often in distorted ways - are out there on the internet, just waiting for me to find them.

When I studied abroad in Santiago, my parents came to visit me at one point. I asked my mom to bring me some gossip magazines. Feeling tired from their long flight, my parents went to sleep pretty early on their first night. I, on the other hand, stayed up late, wrapped in blankets (it was May, and quite cold being almost winter there), and caught up on months of celebrity gossip. After I was done reading US Weekly, Star, and In Touch, I gave them to C. so she could catch up too. At her birthday party a few weeks later, after we'd had the cake and sung Happy Birthday, one person found the magazines and soon everyone was gathered around, discussing, exclaiming,and savouring the link to American celebrity culture which wasn't present in Santiago. Looking back now, I definitely feel I've come a long way. But I still look back fondly on that first night with the blankets and the tabloids, and how, as sad as it may seem, I did get genuine pleasure out of reading those magazines.

The prominence of celebrity culture can also be found in unlikely places. In December 2006, while on a trip to New York, I had lunch at Cafe Fuego, a Cuban restaurant in the East Village (sadly now closed) that was owned by model (and also Halle Berry's then (but now ex, which I know thanks to Huffington Post!) boyfriend Gabriel Aubry. I had read online about the restaurant and how tacked to the bathroom wall were People and US Weekly magazine covers. Naturally I went to the bathroom to investigate, and sure enough there were 3 magazine covers - recent ones too, leading me to believe they were regularly changed. I still can't decide if I think that's funny and cool, or a bit tacky. Were they trying to make fun of celebrity culture? or embrace it? Probably a little of both, which is about where I am too.

Ash Clouds and Empty Cities

My friend N. was trapped in Berlin last month during the fall out from Iceland's volcano. Her three day stay turned in to a nine day stay before she was finally able to make it back to Oxford. N. explained that the city seemed to be paused, no one was leaving, and no one was coming in. I read an article by a journalist based in London who described how the city was empty of both many of its inhabitants (the volcano erupting during school holidays, thus trapping a lot of vacationing Londoners abroad) and of tourists, who couldn't get in due to the cancelled flights. He said he'd never seen London so empty, and that he really appreciated it like that.

These thoughts of static Berlin and London bring to mind images of ski towns in summer or beach towns in winter. I can never decide if I like them or not. On the one hand, it's nice to be somewhere that is normally bustling and crowded and instead have it all to yourself. But on the other hand, something seems really off. There is this lonely, abandoned, disused feeling that permeates and sometimes makes me feel utterly alone.

I was also reminded of a somewhat related incident closer to home. Last summer all City of Toronto workers were on strike. While the largest downside was the lack of garbage pick up (public garbage cans on the streets were the most disgusting as they were literally overflowing with trash...), there were some upsides, depending on who you were and where you lived. I read an interesting article in the Toronto Star in which a woman who lived on Ward's Island (one of the Toronto islands located in Lake Ontario, just across from downtown) described how she was actually enjoying the strike. City of Toronto employees operate the ferries which ship mainland residents and tourists to and from the islands (during the strike there was still one ferry running - maybe by a private company? - to let actual residents of Ward's Island get back and forth). So no regular ferry service meant the islands were very quiet. The woman interviewed said it was really peaceful, and that the island residents were savouring having their home completely to themselves during a time of the year when that never usually happens.

I've never been in Paris in August - the month in which most Parisians supposedly leave en masse for the beaches and sun in Cannes and St Tropez, and Paris becomes overrun by tourists. But the whole concept of that month fascinates me. The underlying implication seems to be that while the Parisians want to enjoy a summer vacation by the Mediterranean, they also want to get out of Paris precisely to avoid all the tourists. It seems like a mutual (unfounded) dislike in which tourists love to say Parisians are rude, and Parisians love to hate tourists. I, for one, don't find Parisians noticeably ruder than inhabitants of any other city, and I also don't find tourists in Paris any worse than tourists in other cities. I do, though, think it would be very cool if one August there was another volcano ash problem (or something along those lines)keeping all the tourists out and letting the Parisians -who for whatever reason did not go south- the chance to have their city all to themselves.

All About the Lace

Twice a year, in January and July, all the stores in Paris have big sales (soldes in French). I arrived in Paris in January 2007 in the middle of them. But preoccupied with finding a place to live and getting my life in order, shopping was forced to take a back seat. Luckily, I was still in Paris come July. Walking home one warm summer day I decided on a whim to go into this lingerie store I'd long had my eye on. One hour later, I'd tried on half a dozen night gowns and was leaving the store with a black nightie with lace trim. The next July, back in Paris doing research for my masters, I happily indulged in more sales and more lingerie - complete with lace trim.

It seems my favourite material just might be lace. It is the perfect compliment to clothing of any kind, especially lingerie. Somehow wearing a nightgown or camisole that has lace in it makes me love it all the more. It's very pretty and feels nice as a fabric too. Lace also works well on its own. I already have a lace shirt, and black lace leggings, and my dream is to one day have a lace dress.

But lace and lingerie aside, sleepwear (of all kinds) are my favorite type of clothing. Maybe it's because I really like staying home, in bed and in my pajamas, reading or on my computer. So I want to have a good wardrobe for those activities. I also like how sleepwear is supposed to be both comfortable, but also any number of other adjectives like pretty/cute/sexy/warm. A person can pick and choose depending on their mood. Even though I am asleep the majority of the time I wear any sleepwear, it's still nice to go to sleep and to wake up wearing something I like and that makes me happy.

I sometimes think about and miss Paris, and its (among other things) fabulous lingerie stores. But most fortunately, Toronto has good ones too, one of which (Beestung, see picture below) happens to be about a 7 minute walk from my house. After seeing and falling in love with a nightgown in the window, after walking by it several times over a two week period, I finally went in there on a chilly Sunday afternoon in March and bought it, despite the lack of soldes. I'll always love Paris for (among other things) introducing me to excellent lingerie, but it's nice to know I can still get my fix on this side of the Atlantic.