Rivers to skate away on

I was in Ottawa last Friday, and finally got a chance to skate on the Rideau Canal, the world's longest skating rink. Unfortunately, timing issues and lack of skate rentals downtown conspired against us, meaning we didn't get on the ice until it was dark. And it just wasn't as good. The lighting was pretty bad, making it difficult to see - pretty necessary when skating on a bumpy, naturally frozen surface. I'm still glad I got the chance to skate on it though. And I'd like to think that if I lived in Ottawa I'd skate on it as often as possible. Apparently some students, depending on where they live in Ottawa, are able to skate to their university during the winter. How cool is that! As much as I love walking places, I think I'd be happy to skate places instead for 3 months of every year. The only problem would be where to put your skates once you reached your destination. Although I did see a fair share of people walking the streets of Ottawa (particularly those close to the Canal) with their skates slung over their shoulders. You could tell they were seasoned skaters...

Skating is definitely one of my favourite parts of winter; and while it probably is extra nice to do it outside, I like indoor rinks too. They all share this particular smell of artificial ice, excitement, and cheerfulness. Though most skating rinks (indoor and outdoor) share the same shape I don't get tired of it. I can go round and round and round, never feeling bored or dizzy. It is especially easy to not notice the same old pattern when skating with someone else. (My favourites being S. and L. and J. who did a phenomenal job when we skated with him at Rockfeller Center!)

So while I generally do prefer skating with others, I wish I felt better about skating alone. I have no problem swimming alone (in oceans or swimming pools) or walking alone when other people are in the pool or on the street. But I don't like skating alone in Toronto. I went to the local outdoor rink near my house one time last winter and I just felt awkward. Everyone else was there with their kids or their friends or someone, and even though I'm sure no one was staring at me or gave a second (or even a first) thought to the fact that I was there alone, I didn't like it. With swimming your face is in the water at least half the time, and with walking, you're going somewhere, but skating alone on a rink with other people is really unappealing to me. It's annoying too because neither S. nor L. nor J. live in Toronto. So I really have not been very good about going skating this winter, despite it being something I love.

I would be totally happy, however, to skate alone on a totally secluded rink with no one else around. I would love that actually. It's the other people and the zamboni guys and the ice monitors and all the other people that have every right to be on a public rink that get in the way of my dreams! A long standing fantasy of mine, which I hope to one day fulfill, is to spend a week at some secluded cabin somewhere in the French (or Swiss, or maybe even Italian or Austrian - I am not picky) Alps, a short walk away from a gorgeous and perpetually empty Alpine lake frozen into a skating rink. (Something like the picture below, except I'd be the only person on it.) Someone else (or multiple people) could be with me at the cabin but the lake/skating rink would be all mine. Every morning (and maybe again around twilight) I'd sling my skates over my shoulder and walk to the skating lake where I'd skate round and round, in perfect solitude with no one else around, to my heart's content.

In the meantime, I think I will try to get in some more skating before winter ends!

Breaking through the Clutter

Amazingly, I very recently finished organizing/decluttering/making sense of my bedroom. I say amazingly, because this project took the better part of five months. In August, back from my trip and ready for the fall to start, I decided to face the indisputable fact that my room was a jumble of objects/belongings/stuff from the 1980s/1990s/2000s. And since I was now going to be sleeping there on a regular basis and couldn't forget about the clutter until my next visit home, I needed to do something about it. I managed to make pretty good headway on about half of the room; I even partially cleaned out this little closet in my room - which I had not touched in years - that was full of old toys. I have to admit I felt pretty proud of myself.

I couldn't ignore, however, how my bookcases were in dire need of help. My tallest bookcase was literally sagging under all the weight and it was getting difficult for me to find anything. In awe of (but also inspired by) my friend N.'s perfectly organized and lovely bookcase - she even has a favourites shelf! so cool! - I knew I had my work cut out for me. The only problem was that the bookshelves my mom had bought in May were still sitting in the basement, in their boxes, so not put together... And in that state they remained for the entire fall until luckily, my uncle F. came to the rescue at Christmas, swooping in like Santa Claus and assembling all three one night (he stays up late) while I was sleeping. I woke up the next morning to discover 3 beautiful (but book-less) book shelves.

Then in the days between Christmas and New Years when the kind of internet sites I like to read (Huffington Post's Living section, Salon) were full of reflections and tips on and for 2009 & 2010, I came across a fabulous blog entry with 27 ways to keep order and declutter a house! One of the tips reminded readers to ask themselves, before storing away an item, if they really need to keep it at all. Since I couldn't even remember one single item I had put in that little toy closet in my room in August, I knew I needed to continue where I'd left off from the end of the summer, and this time do a much better job. Thus round two of my decluttering project began in the first days of 2010.

Just like anything, decluttering can feel extremely overwhelming when right in the middle of it. But then the end result usually makes it all worthwhile. I cleaned out the little closet (it's now the happy home of my suitcase) and I organized all my books (I now even have my very own favourite shelf, and the bookshelves in the basement are full and happy) and unlike the last time, I can legitimately feel proud of myself this time. But, I have a confession to make: I secretly like clutter. Yes of course my room is neater now, it's easier to find things, there's more space, but there's something about cluttered rooms that makes me smile. They are very lived in, and very full of life; and those are always good things.

Pacific Standard State of Mind

I am endlessly fascinated with time zones; so fascinated, in fact, that I get very excited every time I travel to a new one. There's something special about specific times of day repeating themselves over and over around the world. Ani Difranco has a line in one of her songs "How I miss this time zone" which just rings so true for me. I do miss other time zones I have lived in, and always feel a sense of comfort when I am back in them.

Like the Pacific Standard Time Zone for example - that time zone just encompasses everything I love about the west coast (the ocean, the vibe, the clear, fresh air, the landscape) and will forever have a special place in my heart. I was born and grew up in Eastern Standard, and I really do love it. However, as a teenager when I used to dream about moving out to the west coast I always thought about how when it was midnight in Toronto, it was only 9 pm in Vancouver or San Francisco. While my night was coming to an end, someone just like me's night - on the other side of the continent - would be starting.

Often I love both a place and its time zone, or a time zone and its places, and once that relationship starts I get really attached. When I first moved back to Toronto from Berkeley in July 2006 and then from Paris the following summer, it took me over a week both times to finally change the clock on my laptop to Toronto time. Every time I turned on my computer and saw the time, I felt bittersweet. Even though I was back in Toronto, my computer still hadn't said goodbye. Changing the time on my laptop seemed so final, like I had really and truly left Berkeley or Paris behind; and since in both cases I was either really sad (Berkeley) or in denial (Paris) to have/that I was gone, it was quite an important moment when I finally adjusted the time three hours forward or six hours back.

When I visited China in the summer of 2008, I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that it was 12 hours ahead of Toronto. While I was eating dinner around 8 pm, someone back home was eating breakfast. While I was sleeping peacefully at 3 am, someone was still working away. It gave a whole new meaning to the notion of Asia being on the other side of the world.

It is both interesting (lots of people to visit, cool stories and experiences to hear about) and at times hard (I miss all my far-flung friends so much!) to have people I care about living all over the world, in many different time zones. Sometimes it gets quite complicated too as I'm always trying to keep track of what time it in places across oceans and on the other sides of continents. But ultimately, it is so cool. I love how as I finish this post around 2 pm on a Thursday in Toronto, someone in Los Angeles is just starting to think about lunch, while someone in Paris is having a pre-dinner kir, and someone else in Beijing is fast asleep, and someone in Auckland is eating breakfast on Friday morning.

Making a List & Checking it Twice

One of my favourite things to do is to make lists. I just can't get enough of them. I make them in the little notebook I carry around in my purse, on scraps of paper or backs of used envelopes (usually the ones my credit card bills come in :) ) I leave in my bedroom and in my kitchen, and in my Gmail inbox where I have two permanently saved drafts (very originally) entitled "to do" and "to do # 2".

The best thing about lists is that they help me organize all my thoughts/goals/tasks/ideas. Just writing them down and seeing them in print makes all the items on my lists seem both possible and manageable. While 'to do' lists form the basis for most of my lists, I also like to delve into other areas. After my first school year in Austin was done in May 2008 I was faced with the certainty that I didn't want to continue there after the next year, but the uncertainty of what I did want to do. I remember spending a sunny and pleasant May morning making lists of careers I thought I would like, places I wanted to live, and countries I wanted to visit; and feeling much better about the future as I was doing so. I still have all the lists I made that day, and I occasionally still look at them, and still feel better.

When I was in Paris the summer of 2008 doing research for my masters I attended this conference called France Noir Black France. One of the presenters gave his paper on Josephine Baker and her rise to fame in Paris; included in his power point presentation were photographs of some of Baker's lists that he had come across when doing his research in her personal papers. I was fascinated!! It's really cool to see other people's lists because they show you what that person is thinking about, their plans, their ideas etc etc.

I approached this past fall which just ended with some trepidation - I was starting over (in a way), beginning a new job, trying to get settled and into a routine and I seemed to have all these things I wanted to do but no sooner would I resolve to do them, then they'd leave my head and I'd end up feeling discouraged and down. The solution to my problem came in the form of lists! I made a list of things I wanted to accomplish for the fall in general, and then since I felt so good after writing that, I opted to make a list of goals for October. That went so well, that I made one for November, and then December too. Now it's almost January 1, 2010 and for the first time in a long time I'm actually making New Year's resolutions, and I'm really excited about them - mostly, I think, because I just view them as a continuation (or maybe a slightly glorified and hyped up version) of my monthly goal lists. While I am going to make a list specifically for January, it feels good to also have some ideas in mind for the winter, and for 2010 as a whole. I also have a brand new little notebook whose pages are just waiting to be filled with lists.

When I wake up in my makeup

I've never been much of a makeup girl. In fact, L.'s mom (yet a different L. than the ones before! I have so many friends whose name starts with the letter L) once told me (when I visited L. and her family in Dallas a few years ago) "I'm going natural tonight - just like you!" I think my decision not to wear makeup, however, stems from my inability to do a good job putting it on; not because I don't think it looks good or because I prefer looking 'natural.'

Back in the fall of 2004 when I lived at Stebbins, my fabulous roommate C. was an expert at putting on makeup (both herself and other people). Before parties (and I used to go to a lot of parties in those days, far more than I go to now :) I'd always get C. to do my makeup. I'd sit there obediently while she worked her magic, and when I'd look at myself in the mirror after she was done I always felt transformed, like Cinderella going to the ball. My eyes seemed bigger, brighter, and I felt more mysterious. And happily that feeling would last all night, and usually beyond... Since I didn't regularly wear makeup, I didn't have any makeup remover and regular soap just doesn't do the trick. After brushing my teeth and rubbing a washcloth around my eyes, I'd fall into bed with my makeup still on and the next morning, I'd always be surprised at who was staring back at me in the mirror. Far from feeling used up (as the Hole song suggests) when I'd wake up in my makeup, I actually liked it. Sure my makeup was a bit smudged and faded, but I thought I looked good. My eyes may have been tired, but the black eyeliner still managed to brighten them up. My still made up face also represented tangible proof that I had gone out, that the really fun party the night before had occurred, that I was still the Princess with the glass slippers, and not the maid standing dejectedly on the road next to a pumpkin.

This past summer, I decided I wanted to start wearing eyeliner again, even though I no longer had a C. who could put it on for me. I asked N. for tips when I visited her in July. When I came back to Toronto in August I went promptly to the drug store and bought Cover Girl Exact Eyelights in Vibrant Pearl (aka black). Though N. cautioned me that black is pretty dramatic, I tried out brown a few times and decided I just didn't like it. If I'm going to wear eyeliner, it has to be black. I'm still not very good at putting it on but I can do a decent enough job. I've only worn it a handful of times this fall, and always at night, but I really liked it. It brought back some of that mysterious vibe I had going for me in Fall 2004, and I do think it makes my eyes look good. I've decided my makeup goals for 2010 should be to try wearing it during the daytime a few times and see how it feels, and perhaps even to try lipstick. Exciting!

Fog Magic

When I was little I remember being really excited to be given a copy of this book called "Fog Magic" because the title had totally intrigued me when I saw it in the bookstore. It turns out I now can't remember anything about the plot (which says something...) except that I was disappointed that the story didn't live up to its name - because really "Fog Magic" is such a good name, and conjures such a lovely, and true, image.

I first became consciously aware of fog as both a phenonema of nature, and also as something real and alive with a personality of its own when I was living in the Bay Area. Berkeley is a place that is often visited by fog, in pretty much every season - although some months seem more prone to it than others. I remember how in October 2005 when I was living in my most favourite apartment ever on Hilgard I would often wake up to fog and would lie in bed for a few extra minutes some mornings just watching it and trying to get a feel for the day. Sometimes it would seem thick and insistent, as if it were there to stay; and other times it was breezy and light, and gave the impression of just passing through. The best part about fog in Berkeley though was that usually even if a day started off foggy, by mid-afternoon (sometimes earlier) the fog would "burn off" leaving sparkling sunshine in its wake. Fog was very much a morning (and middle of the night) presence there.

San Francisco - Berkeley's faithful neighbour across the Bay - is a city known for its fog, and twice I had really memorable fog experiences there, both times with L. The first time was 5 days before I was leaving Berkeley for good at the end of June 2006. We went to the Cheesecake Factory on the top floor of the Macy's at Union Square and around the same time that our cheesecake arrived, the fog started rolling in, heavy and full from the Bay. I was amazed at how quickly it moved; it seemed to me like time, in the sense that we can't stop it and that it just keeps coming. L. and I. watched the fog roll over and cover Union Square the same way time had rolled over the last four years, bringing an end to our time in Berkeley.

Fittingly, both fog and time kept rolling, all the way to a Monday night in May 2008 when L. and I again found ourselves in San Francisco- although now under very different circumstances. I didn't live in the Bay anymore, L. lived in the Richmond district of San Francisco, and we were both, on a relatively cold night in mid-May, on the verge of beginning summers that would, when I look back from the benefit of retrospect now, be really important for both of us. But on that night, our summers were not yet yours and all L. and I really knew was that we were cold, and tired, and wanted to drink tea and eat the left over lemon cake L.'s mom had made while talking about our afternoons (mine in particular had been quite eventful). But first, after making it to L.'s apt, we realized we had forgotten something in her car, and so, back out in the cool night we went, only to find the fog had decided to make an appearance. Standing at a street corner waiting to cross the street I have a distinct memory of the fog coming in quickly and thickly again, much like the June night nearly two years before. And though I really wanted to be warm and inside, I was also completely mesmerized by the fog and by how some things, like friendship and lemon cake and foggy San Francisco nights, can always be counted on.

So given my somewhat emotional attachment to fog, I was delighted to discover that fog exists in Toronto too! While I have always loved Toronto as a city and have some really great memories of it from high school (and earlier) I seem to have forgotten a lot about it too. Until this fall, I really wouldn't have been able to do a good job describing falls in Toronto to you; and I certainly don't have any memories involving fog in Toronto. It must be that noticing things like fog just weren't on my radar until now. I guess fog didn't become something cool or noteworthy until I had first hand experience with it in the Bay. In any event, there have been some quite foggy days in Toronto this November and I have loved them! The best was just over two weeks ago when I took a cab home pretty late from L.'s (a different L. than the one above but no less fabulous) birthday party. Though it had already been looking a little foggy when I got to the party, when I left L.'s apt the city was covered in fog. It seemed to get foggier the farther north (and closer to my house) I got too. I couldn't help but exclaim to the taxi driver as he drove down my street just how foggy it was! When I stepped out of the car, my entire street was shrouded by fog - but a very friendly fog. Unlike the persistent and quick San Francisco fog, this fog seemed content to just languidly float above the houses and trees and hang out.

When I woke up the next morning the fog was gone and the sun was out, leaving me to only marvel at the fog magic from the night before and to be glad that though far away from the Bay Area, fog has found me here.

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...