Out of Range

My earliest memories of the radio were listening to Blue Jays games (back in the heydays of the Jays in the early 1990s) as I fell asleep. As a little girl I had this slight aversion to falling asleep (and every once and a while even today I'll get the feeling too), as it seemed weird and a bit scary to one minute be awake and conscious and the next minute to wake up and find that 8 hours had passed. So I used to insist that I listen to the Jays games (like my dad and brother were doing, although usually for home games they watching them on TV downstairs) on my little pink radio, and I'd fall asleep to that. But somewhere along the way, the Jays won their two World Series and then stopped even making the playoffs, and I stopped needing the radio to help me fall asleep. In fact, I stopped listening pretty much all together...

In the car, I usually played a cd or my ipod, mostly because driving while singing is one of my favourite things to do and so I needed to be sure I would always know the words. But starting this fall, that has all changed. About three quarters of the time at work (the other quarter of the time it's either Abba's or Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits), the radio is on - set to EZ Rock 97.3. And while it plays entirely too much Backstreet Boys and Michael Bublé for my liking, I am super into the people who work there.

EZ Rock's whole thing is that it's Toronto's "favourite at work music station" - a point they make over and over. The daytime host guy continually says "10 great EZ songs getting you through your workday" and he always counts down to lunchtime, and then to 5 o'clock. These comments always make me smile because the picture of the working world he paints sounds almost too depressing. I imagine rooms of bored people sitting at their cubicles, ears glued to EZ Rock 97.3, suffering through their workdays, and counting the minutes (or songs) until 5 o'clock when they get to go home. I'd like to think there are a lot of people out there who actually enjoy their jobs and don't view each day as something they have to endure before they can leave. But maybe the people who do like their jobs don't listen to EZ Rock? He also makes continual comments about the weather - cheering when it's unseasonably warm (like it was last week) and bemoaning another "rainy day in Toronto" whenever it rains. I'm looking forward to hearing what he'll say once it starts snowing...

I've realized that the radio is actually a lot of fun - it's full of surprises (you never know which song will be played next), it's reliable, it's also romantic, in a way, to think about voices and songs and talk and music travelling over invisible air waves, and I enjoy the feeling of community (so cheesy I know!) I get whenever he starts talking about the weather and I know exactly what he's talking about. I haven't abandoned my ipod and cds in the car, I just sometimes choose instead to tune in to EZ Rock and sing along with the Backstreet Boys...

Tuesdays & Me

Of all the days of the week, I have the most complicated relationship with Tuesday. It's a difficult day to pin down. It's not Monday, which everyone has an excuse to feel a bit down on. Instead, it comes in second. It's how February is to January - second best. (Side note: I've always been glad I was born in January and not February because if you're going to be born near the beginning of the year it's better to be born in the first month rather than the second.) The coming second to Monday reason aside, Tuesday, in the past, was never that great a day for me. A disproportionate amount of not so good events - getting dumped (twice! both times in high school and both times on a Tuesday!), getting some really bad news, forcing a conversation neither me nor the other person involved seemed to particularly want to have but which was necessary (pretty predictably it ended dramatically with me running out of the cafe where said conversation took place in tears) - occurred on Tuesdays.

But this fall, my feelings towards Tuesdays have drastically changed. Tuesday has become a day I actually look forward to! It has become, in fact, the new Sunday. Since I work on Sundays and don't work on Tuesdays I have adapted Sunday behaviour to Tuesdays. For example, I sleep in. Then when I do wake up/get up, I lounge around in my pajamas. (Around noon I will usually get dressed, but only in to sweat pants. No real clothes unless I have to go out.) I generally relax. A few weeks ago on a Tuesday I took a really nice and really long bath in the middle of the afternoon. As I was climbing in to the tub I felt a twinge of momentary guilt, a split second where I wondered "am I allowed to be doing this? It's a Tuesday afternoon! Shouldn't I be doing something else?" But then I quickly banished that thought and cheerfully accepted that yes, while most people I knew (and billions of others I didn't) were probably, at that exact moment, doing something productive or more Tuesday afternoon like, I wasn't and that was okay.

My new favourite thing about Tuesdays, besides deciding I now really like it after years of varying degrees of hatred, mistrust, and ambivalence, is how I've made Tuesday afternoons my kitchen time. I bring my laptop downstairs to the kitchen and listen to a podcast of This American Life (which A. got me listening to and which I thoroughly enjoy each week) while trying out something new. Today I made granola, because I just have not been able to find any here that I like. Yes I felt so crunchy and so "I belong in a co-op" that I almost couldn't stand it, but it was also a lot of fun. And the granola turned out great! So there it is, Tuesdays are now cool and me (and my kitchen, and sometimes my bath tub) couldn't be more pleased.

An Ode to Step

I recently read an article on how 2009 is the 20th anniversary of step aerobics. As a die-hard stepper ever since I started doing it last fall, the article made me think about why I love it and what's so cool about it. One step teacher interviewed declared: "Once you're a step fan you're always a step fan." And I whole-heartedly agree!
I like how it's set to music and how some of the moves include jumping jacks and how it involves a lot of energy and how stepping up and down is a natural movement and something most of us do on a very regular basis, if not everyday, and how, cheesy as this is, I actually find myself smiling while stepping.
What didn't become clear to me until after I came back to Toronto and had said goodbye to my Austin step classes and step teachers forever, is the importance of teachers in step. I had major friend crushes on the two step teachers I had in Austin. They were both young (early 20s), super friendly and super enthusiastic. The first couple of times I took their classes I was surprised and even a tiny bit taken aback by how many people spontaneously cheered during their classes. But after a few weeks, I got it. People cheered because the classes were so fun. And while I never did join in on the random cheers throughout the working (although I did always clap along with everyone else at the end) I became totally addicted to their classes. Tuesday and Thursday Step Express from 11:15-12 noon became highlights of my week. Both teachers - M. and C. - were totally encouraging and supportive and made you feel a. super glad that you had come to step class, and b. like you were a step superstar.
For most of the summer, I did a lot of step in my basement with a Kathy Smith Step DVD. (Scroll down for a picture!) I like Kathy Smith - her workout is good, she seems cool, she's friendly and encouraging, and she has a whole bunch of other steppers/teachers doing it with her who are fun to watch. But doing step alone in my basement somehow just isn't the same. It's still a great work out and I still feel like smiling but I miss having other people around. Though I still sometimes do the DVD I joined a gym here mostly so I could take step classes.
My new teacher is P. and he's male (a first for me in step) and while his work out is awesome, there's something missing. It's like, I want to have a friend crush on him but I just don't feel it. In so many aspects of my life I always want to connect with other people, and I like relationships of any kind better when I feel there's a genuine connection. Obviously some relationships have deeper connections than others and it's not as if I felt I connected on a deep level with either M. or C. But, we connected in a really good way on a step teacher- step student level. With P., though I haven't been taking his class for so long, I just don't see that happening yet. And he's also nowhere near as encouraging or as cool as M. or C. either. But for now, I'm just glad I have more options than my basement. I'm also still holding out hope that P.'s one of those people who get better and more open with time, and that one Tuesday night during his class, when I least expect it, he'll do something really cool that will propel him in to friend crush territory :)

Lipstick, Pearls and Bodyguards

Last night my mom and I were watching the news when highlights of the speech Libyan leader/dictator Colonel Gaddafi gave to the UN were shown. As we watched clips of him tearing up the UN Charter, and proclaiming that Obama should be President for life, my mom told me she'd read that he has all female bodyguards, and that they all wear pearl earrings. Of course this intrigued me very much and so before going to sleep I did a bit of googling and discovered that he always travels with a troupe of 40 female bodyguards (out of a total entourage of between 200-300 people!). Apparently, they guard him 24 hours a day, are all virgins, wear lipstick, nail polish and high heels, and are trained experts in firearms and martial arts. Their fighting abilities aside, virgins, Gaddafi believes, are especially good at sensing danger. Rumours, however, exist that Gaddafi demands sexual favours from them.
So many questions: I wonder what type of relationship he has with these women? Is it strictly professional? Or more personal? Even if no sexual favours are involved, if you spend 24 hours a day with someone it seems likely that some sort of affection or emotional attachment could develop. I also wonder how long these women stay in his service? And their average age? Is there a head bodyguard? Once they stop working for him do they go on to lose their virginity and maybe have children? Or do possibly some of them choose to remain virgins even after they stop working for him?
I find all of this very fascinating because it is unique and does not have parallels (that I know of) in standard gender dynamics and politics. For most of history, women have usually uniformly been seen as the ones needing protection, not the ones doing the protecting - at least in a physical sense. So the fact that Gaddafi relies on women to protect him seems like both a novel, and an empowering thing. But then, the fact that they all have to be virgins questions how empowering it actually is. This situation shows how female sexuality is still so loaded as I highly doubt any leader - dictator or otherwise - from anywhere in the world would be able to find enough men to populate an elite male virgin bodyguard squad. Although why would they want to? Male virginity has never been (and most likely never will be) equal to female virginity. By requiring his female bodyguards to remain virgins Gaddafi seems to be keeping them in a weird no man's land - unable to have sexual choices and options. But I probably only think that because I am coming at it from a Western perspective. If women are expected to remain virgins in Libya until they get married, then I guess it makes sense Gaddafi would want them to be virgins. He probably feels that if they had husbands and/or children their first loyalties would be to their families, and not to him. And while wanting them to remain virgins, by letting them wear make-up and high heels he is, in a way, letting them express their sexuality.
My interpretation and analysis aside, all I know is that I wish one of the bodyguards would write a tell-all memoir full of juicy details... I'd be first in line to buy it.

Labour Day in the Air

Just like summer started (and really every year starts) long before the official solstice on June 21, it ends long before September 22, the first official day of fall. When I went to school in both Berkeley and Austin, the beginning of classes at the end of August marked the end of summer. This year, the last day of summer is today... Labour Day. And while it's been great that thanks to Labour Day being the latest possible date it could be this year we got an extra week of summer, I actually feel ready for today, and ready to put this summer behind me. Ever since J. and I took that trip to the Texas Gulf coast in mid-May I've felt in summer mode. And even though I've been steadily fairly busy since then, I am craving a more regular routine. That to me - more than changes in weather - is the real difference between summer and fall. Falls are beginnings-- time to start new activities or jobs or plans or ideas. Something about summer makes me feel entitled to taking it easy, while something about fall always urges me onwards and upwards and to do this and to do that. Fall, come to think of it, is actually a pretty exciting season.

Plus, yesterday morning walking up the stairs I caught sight of the faded sandal tan on my feet. And sure enough my tan on the rest of my body has faded too-- what was a deep brown in May and June has become a pale beige now. To me, that's the surest sign summer is over. Tans go with summer like snow goes with Christmas. Tans and Fall, well they may get along for a bit, but they never really get to know each other.

I like Labour Day because it's a bridge between the two seasons. It's the last day that it's acceptable (preferable really) to take it easy, to be mellow, to say goodbye to summer before tomorrow morning arrives and fall gets started.

Thoughts on South Africa...

It occurred to me when I was in South Africa earlier this month that I actually had a lot of generalizations in my head about 'Africa' - as a continent, as a place, as an idea - that didn't become apparent until I was actually in Africa. The images in my head were primarily rural - sun drenched and sun baked landscapes, wide-eyed children, and women carrying baskets on their heads. So it was a bit of a (much-needed) shock to realize after being in Cape Town for a few days that there are cities in (South) Africa too. I suddenly wished I knew much more about urbanization on the continent in general. It's not all just bush and sun there. South Africa has big cities with tall buildings and lots of people and shops and noise and streets and things that I always associate with cities. And I wonder what urban areas in other African countries - like Mozambique or Kenya or Senegal - are like.

The rural image of Africa exists in Cape Town too though- or at least in tourist shops. A few days after getting there I found myself in a gift shop and drawn to this magnet of a woman balancing a baby on her back and some wood on her head, with a sun setting in the background. I instantly wanted to buy it, and then I thought, "Wait. That isn't the South Africa I've seen at all!"

However, when we left urban areas and went up to the Kruger National Park in the north-east part of the country, I did end up seeing parts of that idealized Africa I'd had in my head-- women with their babies strapped to their backs with cloth, brush and bush stretching for miles in every direction, and a bright red sun slowly dipping below the horizon. I realized, then, that in South Africa - like everywhere else - rural and urban both exist. And now, back in Toronto, I am left wondering (and will hopefully one day be able to investigate this more) about the millions of ways the two interact with, and compliment (or not) each other.

I did end up buying the magnet (currently and happily now stuck to my fridge) and while it may not be the best representation of the South Africa I saw, it reminds me that things aren't always as simple or straightforward as I sometimes think they are. For me, it's enough to know that yes, that Africa exists somewhere and I saw a little glimpse of it near Kruger. And just for good measure, I also bought a magnet that says 'Cape Town' to remind me of what I actually did see :)

Window to the World

I'm of the mind that windows can make or break a house or apartment. All the best houses or apartments that I've ever seen have always had one thing in common: large windows that let in lots of natural light. Rooms that don't get very much natural light usually seem somehow a bit gloomy. And while it can definitely be very cozy, especially in the wintertime, to be in a room warmly lit by lamps - in which case, who cares if the room has natural light or not? - naturally dark rooms seem preferable only in the winter. Big windows also have the added bonus that usually, if they let in lots of light, they also have great views.
Throughout the six months I spent living in my most favourite apt on rue des Batignolles, (the picture at the top of this post is the closest I could find to what the windows looked like in that apt) which was truly everything an apartment should be, I was convinced that street views were the ideal. The apt was a corner apt (the best possible type of apt I believe!) which meant (the reason for why I think they are the best) that the living room had windows on two different walls, affording two different (but equally) intriguing views. Rue des Batignolles was a very busy street and I used to stand in front of the window overlooking it for (what felt like) hours at a time, completely mesmerized by the goings on down below. I would watch the people disappear into the boulangerie only to reappear a few minutes later with one or two (or sometimes more!) baguettes tucked under their arms, I would watch people enter the pharmacy, the deli, talk on their cell phones, chat with their companions, walk their dogs, push their baby carriages, honk their car horns after their friends got married at the Mairie just down the street and on and on. From the second window - which I liked but not as much as the first, the second overlooked a sidestreet and so had a less interesting view - I would watch people in the small mysterious restaurant on the corner. I could never figure out when this restaurant was open - or the logic (there probably wasn't any) to its schedule. Some nights there would be people there until midnight and then for days at a time it would be closed. In any event, that living room, or more accurately those windows, were a highlight of my life for those six months, and thanks to them I became utterly devoted to windows and apts that overlook busy streets.
However, then C.'s apt in Montmartre came along and I am now torn as to what I think is the best type of set-up/window viewing. C.'s apt is long - it consists of three adjoining rooms (the first is the kitchen and then there are two more rooms) all in a row each with at least one (although I think both non-kitchen rooms have two) large windows that overlook this triangular shaped courtyard and look directly into other people's apts. I spent a good 15 minutes (and could have spent far longer, and if I lived there most undoubtedly would) staring out the window of C.'s bedroom into her neighbours' apts both to the left and straight across. I loved it -- even though I just caught minuscule fleeting glimpses of these people's lives I was totally captivated. C. hasn't lived there for long but I wonder if after she has, she'll develop any type of relationship with her across the courtyard neighbours? If I stared into someone's else window every day I'd want to at least be on waving terms - and possibly much more - with them. But how exactly do those types of relationships develop? Who makes the first move? The person who's braver? The one who stares more? Hopefully C. will find answers to all these questions and be able to tell me.
In closing, as much as I'd love to live in an apt like C.'s, I think, ultimately, that I'd still choose rue des Batignolles. There's something about observing busy city streets from the comfort of your own living room that I can't get enough of.