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...

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 :)