The queen is dead.

Not really. She's just changed neighbourhoods! Click here to check out her slick new digs.

A story about candy.

When was the last time you had Bridge Mix? You know, the chocolate-covered confections that comes in the yellow, retro-stylin’ packaging? Never? Really? Huh.

Me, I just had some the other day. I had already eaten my brown-bag – er, cloth bag – lunch but my stomach was howling for something sweet. I tried to reason with it – “You have a delicious green apple waiting upstairs at your desk” I said, trying to calm my stomach’s fervid demands.

“Feeeeeed me sweeeeeeeeeets!”

My stomach is ruthless, like a cold-blooded dictator who will stop at nothing to make her psychotic desires become reality. Sweeties: doesn’t sound like the yearnings of a madwoman, but my hips (the stomach’s voiceless enemy) tend to disagree.

Anyway, the point is that the other day I wanted something sweet after lunch, so I went to the candy store. In a sea of cheerily-wrapped candy bars, my eyes were drawn to the plain packaging of the Bridge Mix. Score!

I was excited to eat this candy that I hadn’t had in ages. It was like I held my childhood, boxed, in my hands. People were wrong – there was a way to go back to your childhood, to recapture your youth (don’t ask me why I ate these old-lady candies when I was a kid. I’m jus weird like that, I guess).

But after I tried a few of the chocolate nuggets, I realized that I didn’t like the stuff inside. Sickly sweet flavours that couldn’t possibly be natural filled my mouth like an abrasive stranger invading my personal space. Get out, get OUT! I said, and spat a gooey, chocolate-and-candy hunk to the sidewalk. I picked out the ones that I knew for sure were peanuts and offered the rest to a person experiencing homelessness who was sitting in front of the bank, asking passersby for money. He turned his nose up at them. Could I blame him? Ha!

Anyway, the point is that buying Bridge Mix the other day reminded me that in fact Goodies are the old-lady candy that I liked as a child and NOT Bridge Mix. How could I confuse them? Either way, I’ll never make that error again.

I'll eat you, Kate Moss.

Kate Moss recently shared with the world one of her "mottos": "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

This is a contentious statement. It promotes unhealthy body image in a Western society that is already rife with women who obsess over their dress size or the circumference of their thighs. It is a damaging message to send to young girls, and one that you can find plastered all over the sad forums in pro-anorexia sites (yes, they exist).

I don't understand why the utterance of this "motto,"this thinspiration, is so shocking, though. Take one quick look at the supermodel and it's obvious that eating isn't one of her regular indulgences. Her 2005 cocaine scandal would lead us to believe that she prefers snorting her energy instead of chewing it. So why are the words ("I don't eat") worse than the image of a woman who clearly eats very little? Her teeny-tiny frame has become normalized (sad, yet true) through repetition in the millions of photos of her (and others like her; she's by no means the only one) in which we see this almost child-like body glamourized and adored. But we throw our arms up in outrage when the bony woman explains how she maintains such perfect emaciation. What's with that?

I also think we squirm at celeb admissions like these because there's some part of our female psyche that wants to believe that she's "naturally" thin. Amazing genes! A metabolism that's faster than Usain Bolt! Believing in such things allows unknown, non-stick-thin women to uphold the fantasy that models and actresses possess superior DNA than the rest of us (and maybe some can thank Mom and Dad for their natural thinness) and that's why they're so darn skinny. But when someone admits that they're thin because they don't eat, it shatters the illusion that those famous bodies are predisposed to thinness through some evolutionary "advantage." No one said the truth was an easy pill to swallow.

Being healthy feels better than being overweight or obese. That argument I buy. I have qualms, though, with the notion that being uber-tiny feels inherently better than being healthy. I mean physically speaking. I think that what might feel good about being extremely, celebrity-like skinny to some people is that they've achieved an ideal - not my ideal, but society's "thin ideal" - and this elevates them somehow, it sets them apart from the rest of us who are thin (but not shockingly so), or healthy, or chubby, or fifty pounds overweight. Our society praises people who have achieved this insane ideal. We see that message reinforced in every single piece of media that we consume. In Kate Moss's case, her skinniness is rewarded with mutli-million dollar modeling contracts and superstardom. So it's easy to see how, for Kate Moss anyway, being skinny feels pretty damn awesome.

Maybe things are changing, with celebs like Beth Ditto, America Ferrera, and Jennifer Hudson, among others, offering fresh representations of the female body in the media. There's also curvier model Crystal Renn who wrote Hungry about how, by gaining weight, she gained confidence and landed more gigs that she ever had as a twig with disordered eating. I haven't read that yet, but it's on my to do list.

I don't know. This is a complex issue - it's heavy, too heavy - and one that I've personally invested too much time, energy, and anguish into. I know I won't solve anything in a blog post, but it's good to talk things out. I could literally go on and on and on about this forever and still have more to add to the Appendixes. I studied a lot of fat/thin related literature while working on my mother-of-a-paper for my grad program. So, as a pupil, I've studied about the pressures and effects of the disappearing female body in contemporary media and, as a woman of that society, I've lived it.

In closing, I should also mention that there's another part to Kate's motto. Here it is in full: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. You try and remember it, but it never works." Huh. Weird. It sure looks like it works to me.

All of thinking has tuckered me out. Now I'm gonna go stuff my face with cheesecake and watch Oprah.

Banana pankakes.

Made delicious banana pancakes for the first time in Dave's new place yesterday. Felt like a christening, like his place was finally really his now that we had made yummy flapajcks with warmed bananas like buried treasures in them. What could be homier?

I love that no matter how frustrating, irritating, or hectic the rest of your day is, you can take comfort in the fact that this crazy day started with a platter of piping hot banana pancakes with homemade maple syrup and fresh coffee. Not nobody can take that moment away from you, no amount of impatient public transit-waiting can screw with the bliss of that morning peace.

Weekend Horoscope:

I only believe in these things when they tell me that I'm destined for a life of great happiness, achievement or wealth. I tend to dismiss those that are of the more horror-scope genre. Like a superstar celeb who only reads good press, even though everyone tells her not to. This one's pretty sweet, though. One to return to when I'm feeling like a thunderstorm, all rainy and gray and thundery:

AQUARIUS
The sun moves into the area of your chart that governs your dreams this weekend, so you've got cosmic permission to think the unthinkable - and you'll soon be doing what others say cannot be done. For Aquarius, all things are possible.

Blogging is boggling.

Ah, wordplay. It's one of my favourite things. Especially when you create a phrase that is catchy, but also truth-revealing.

Boggle is my favorite board game, even though it doesn't exactly have a traditional board with pieces that you move around it. But it still fits into that cateogory of games that you stash on a book shelf in the study, or a toy room, if you're lucky enough to have one of those. When someone says, "Let's have a games night!" I always say, "Cool! I'll bring Boggle." People don't usually respond to the suggestion enthusiastically. So then I figure that Boogle will be the proverbial uncool kid at the boardgames party and then by extension I'll be the actual uncool kid because I brought it. And then that would make me sad. It would be pretty lame of me to sit in the corner and try to beat myself at Boggle (which I've tried before, and it's hard).

My dad's mom (aka my paternal grandmother, if we're gonna get all fancy here) was a diehard Boggle lover, as well. Don't you think that's weird? Sometimes, if my mom's in a charitable mood, she'll humor me and play a few rounds. As I'm giving her a good ass-whooping and dropping 8-letter words on her like bombs over Baghdad, she recalls how the exact same thing happened when she played with Mary (my dad's ma): she got beat, badly. Repeatedly. One day, she said "I must be a masochist" and wondered why she agreed to playing with me in the first place. Sometimes I wonder if Mom feels like she's playing Boggle with a ghost when we go head-to-head?

Other things that Mary Drummond loved that I also love: canoeing, crossword puzzles, my dad.

Catherine and I used to dabble in Boggle every other Tuesday or so at one point in our lives. I took her under my wing, she was my word-spinning apprentice. I showed her some of my tricks. She got real good. She may have beat me once or twice. We haven't played in a while. Maybe we could have a rematch?

So, yeah, if I ever ask you if you want to play Boggle, you should say yes. I'll most likely beat you, but we'll never know until we try.

p.s. That's me and my mom in the pic. We're happy like that when we're not playing Boggle!

Cheers to rebirth.

Here is part of a message that my friend Barrett sent me on Facebook a while back. The subject, our decaying blogs.

So our blogs are hurtin eh? I just checked yours yesterday after a long time of forgeting about the blogworld and I noticed that you're still running that marathon. Your legs must be PUMPED! I'm still going to nuit blanche...

So then I says to Barrett, I says:

Yes, our blogs are in quite a state of disarray. Maybe I need more pictures? Thing is, my digital camera died during a dance floor disaster at a wedding last summer, so I don’t really have the luxury of uploading artsy shots of my azure toenail polish or my raccoon-ransacked green bin every day. Fascinating stuff, but better represented by a pic, not by words. I’d have to do it old-school styles and get the film from my non-digital Canon developed at the drug store. I think they give you a disk, though, with your pics in digi-form, so I could upload them from that. But it ain’t as free as uploading them straight from your camera, is it? Nothing’s as free as free.

We gave these blogs life. They cannot exist without us. When we neglected them by not updating them, we essentially left them for dead. So if we have the power to birth them and the power to kill them, then surely we have the power to resurrect them? I think I’d like to try that. It could be an experiment for both us. A challenge. We could be each others cheerleaders. Then we could write about...on our blogs : )

So. That's the plan for now. Barrett, are you in?

My nose drips like a leaky tap.

I wrote a note to my nose today. It went like this: "Dear Nose: Please stop running. You're a nose, not an Ethiopian marathon star. So relax. Stop running. p.s. I like the way you smell!"

Not sure my nose has received the memo yet, considering the amount of crumpled Kleenxes in my waste basket.

Runner's Delight

On Sunday, I ran my third half-marathon (the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon). Go, me.

I felt nervous before the race started. It was still dark outside when Dave and I arrived at Nathan Phillips Square at 6:45 in the morning. The caffeine from the cup of coffee that I downed before leaving the house had given me a buzz: it made feel energized and excited, but it might also have been the source of my jitters.

Or, maybe it was all of those serious runners that made my stomach fill with butterflies. Some of those runners looked real intimidating, like they had a giant electrical current running through their bodies that made them ripple from head to toe every time they took a step. But I tried to ignore the hardcore racers and visualize the race that I was going to run. I said good-bye to Dave (he started in a different corral than me since his pace is much brisker – they were colour-coded according to your estimated finish time) and felt slightly at ease when I looked around at the runners gathered in my corral: these weren’t superstar marathoners. They were average people like me, who were probably just as anxious to get started as I was. Some of them wore humours, self-deprecating t-shirts that said “Training for Boston 2043” and “I will finish this, whether I run, walk, or crawl.” I smiled, which relaxed me. I felt at ease with the average-joe runners surrounding me. They weren’t there to win the kitty, or break world records: some were running for their mothers who were battling breast cancer, while others were running for their nephews diagnosed with bone marrow disease. They were running to prove something to themselves: that they could reach their goals, no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears it took. Let alone hours.

Once I started running, my fear evaporated and I felt good: there were no aches and pains, no doomsday thoughts dragging me down. The sky grew lighter. By the third kilometre, lots of people in my corral had slowed to a walk (amateurs, clearly; started out with too much gusto) and I breezed past them, still feeling confident, relaxed, ready to work – and yes, maybe a tad pompous, because I had so much steam left at a time when others were strolling lackadaisically, as if they were window shopping on Bloor Street.

Kilometres passed. I climbed hills, gave the “thumbs up” sign to my cousins whose cheering made me run faster (thanks, guys!), and wondered why I was doing this again, as a creeping ache colonized my right calf.

When I got to the 19 km mark, I said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I wanted to quit and walk it in (head bowed in defeat). All I could see in front of me were sore, tired runners who didn’t look like they would make it to the end. Seeing all of these people ahead of me made me feel claustrophobic. It made the finish line seem impossibly far away. “If I just stopped now…” I started to think, but I put the kibosh on negativity and made a compromise with myself – the same one I had made during the previous half-marathons: “Fine. I’ll run to the end. But I’m never doing this again” and I kept moving my legs, one foot after the other, until I crossed that damn finish line. (As I neared the end, I could hear my mother’s voice calling my name – “Katie! Katie! Go, Katie!” – from the large group of spectators gathered on the sidelines. I looked left to see if I could spot her, but everything was a blur. I couldn’t decipher her in that faceless crowd, but just hearing her chant helped me squeeze out the last dregs of energy needed to cross the finish line just a tiny bit sooner.)

Finally, after 2 hours and 2 minutes, the finish line had been crossed (conquered). Relief. Exhaustion. Dehydration. I walked with the enormous hoard of runners as we snaked our way through the fenced-off finish line behind City Hall to the open space of the square and I realized that, though I usually despise crowds, I didn’t mind this one so much; because this was a special kind of crowd. This was an accomplished crowd. This crowd didn’t have a subway to catch, or a meeting for which they absolutely could not be late. People felt proud – pooped, sure, but proud. They (we) wanted to languish in the charged glow of achievement. We wanted this rare, blissful, fleeting feeling to linger. And we wanted to do it right smack in the middle of the city.

As I broke away from the crowd to find my friends and family, I thought, “Why can’t people always feel this good? This proud? This unbothered by the strangers around them?” I spotted my posse by the fountain (Dave was there too, victorious). They were smiling and I returned the gesture, feeling very happy to see them and glad that the run was over.

And then: “Never again,” I promised myself. “Never again.”

Love actually

Fall is hands-down my favourite season. I don't love what comes after it (the humourless, drawn-out winter), but there are a million autumnal pleasures to savour - most notably, the season's fashion.

I almost died when I saw this Smythe jacket in the Globe and Mail Style section this weekend: I have to have it! I shrieked, already piecing together the perfect outfits for casual shopping days, nights out, and weekdays at the office. I love the chunky hardware on the pockets and the loose, button-less style. It's so effortlessly chic and avant-garde that it's no wonder they called it The Left Bank blazer.

My heart was pounding and my hands got clammy when I saw the picture of the edgy jacket in the newspaper and I knew that could only mean love. I was falling in love - instantly, unconditionally - with the perfect image in front of me. This jacket is so me that seeing it for the first time was like looking in the mirror, like it was already part of my identity. It was the culmination of all my fashion prayers, flown down to earth from the sartorial heavens, just for me.

But my elated heart shattered when I read the fine print and saw the price tag: a horrifying $575.00. So not in the budget. When I realized I couldn't possess the object of my desire, I desired it a thousand times more. It consumed my thoughts and I lost my appetite because what good would eating do me if I couldn't do it in my Left Bank blazer?

I knew that like any dejected lover, I needed to move on. I inhaled deeply and assured myself that Club Monaco or H&M would have a rip-off version on the shelves in no time. But these imitations would hardly satisfy because I would always know that it was a copy and not the one for which I truly yearned.

Actually, just knowing that I can't have the original version has pretty much already ruined my entire season, before even a single leaf has turned.

Sara's Bachelorette

Forget about Jillian. In my opinion, Canada's favourite bachelorette is my adorable friend, Sara.

A few Saturdays ago, we threw a party at our house to show her how much we love her and how excited we are for her upcoming nuptials. There were no sleazy strippers, but there were cupcakes, sushi, pictures of a stripper (long story), karoake and trampolining, and even candy nipple tassles for the bride-to-be. Sounds all of the ingredients for a smashing bachelorette bash. Here are some highlights.

That's some serious bling, Sara!


A few bachelorette tramps take a break from the afternoon trampolining session to pose for a photo opp.


Sara in her bachelorette garb (plus a little somethin' extra in the background).

Fellow party organizers, Robyn and Gudrin, and of course the blushing bride.

Sara belts it out diva style (this looks like a Mariah song to me).

Sara sings her finale after a long night of champagne, karaoke and lots of laughs.

Congrats, Sara! Can't wait for the big day!

No Money, Mo' Problems

I used to read the newspapers at the beginning of this mess. You know, back in August when the megabanks on Wall Street sank and everyone had recession on their lips.

It wasn't long, though, before I was also drowning - fighting to keep my head above water in a sea of opaque moneyspeak. It was easier to flip right to the Style section to read my Horoscope and preview winter fashion trends instead of trying to decode confusing (let's not forget depressing) financial news.

Eventually, I felt so lost and uninformed on the topic that I was afraid of any articles with headings that included "recession," "bailout," "hiring freeze," or "economy." These words made me feel dizzy and scared. I mean it. I broke out in hives or lost my breath if I stumbled upon certain financial catch-phrases. So I recoiled from my fears and created a euphoric bubble of ignorance for myself, completely void of any frightening, gut-wrenching recession headlines. I knew that the world had no money and mo' problems than ever, I just didn't have a clue about the details.

This doesn't sound like an intelligent confession. But it's also the honest-to-God truth. It's not that I have raspberry pie filling for brains; it's just that they made me anxious, all those gloomy reports about the tailspinning economy. Especially since I was looking for permanent work with hardly a penny to my name and an anchor of student loans tied to my toes.

But my story ends well, for two reasons: (a) I got a permanent full-time job (phew!) and (b) I listened to an episode of the radio show This American Life over the weekend and I feel enlightened. I feel less afraid now. Dave had told me about this episode, "The Giant Pool of Money," before, but I always forgot about it once the conversation was over. Last Saturday, we took the Go bus to Dave's parents' house in the country and listened to the episode on our way there. Let me tell you, I was a different girl as we re-entered the city later that evening: finally, I felt brave enough to stare down a scary headline in the Business section of a newspaper - and maybe even read the article, too.

"The Giant Pool of Money" is smart, hilarious and touching. I'm by no means an expert on the crisis, but I at least have a better understanding of the factors that led to the economy's demise. So, even if you're sick to death of reading or hearing about the recession, I still say you check it out. It's the safest investment of time you'll make all week and the returns are immeasurable.

Click here to find the episode and listen (for FREE!)

McBeautiful

My high school drama teacher was fabulous; she was vibrant, eccentric and ginger-haired. Although she worked in Windsor, she and her husband lived in a posh Detroit suburb and she believed this gave her the authority to claim that Windsor was “the armpit of the world.” I didn’t spite her for this, though, because the truth was, I agreed: any way you looked at it, Windsor was a cultural black hole.

This notion became painstakingly lucid when I was seventeen and working at the McDonald’s restaurant across from Windsor’s largest shopping complex, the outdated and aesthetically repulsive Devonshire Mall. It was wintertime and I was working the late shift. Some asshole had missed the chrome bull’s-eye in the basin of the urinal and it was my turn to clean up.

Morale was low as I scrubbed the rancid tiles in the men's room and my teacher's shrill warning tore throuhgout my skull like a fire alarm. I buckled over and puked into the toilet bowl I had just polished after a sickening realization punched me right smack in the gut: I am living in an armpit and working in an asshole.

Everything about that workplace reeked of asshole. The patrons who left their half-masticated remains on the tables were assholes. The teenage boys who made it their Friday night ritual to break beer bottles in the bathroom were assholes. And my boss, Dom*, the man with the striped golf shirt and the golden name tag, was also an asshole; a corporate, all-powerful, capital A asshole. Dom wore this uniform to distinguish himself from the bunch of us lowlifes in our modest burgundy tees. Without speaking, Dom's fancy Oxford shirt proudly announced his superior ranking. He neglected the corporation’s teamwork policy and instead created a culture of tyranny in a fast food restaurant that epitomized American democracy and idealism.

So citizens of “the Armpit” came into “the Asshole” demanding food. It’s when they ordered this food and I worked my ass as fast as it would move to fetch it for them that I became a slut to society. I became, suddenly, a “Big Mac Combo” Hoe. I transformed into White “Vanilla Cone, please” Trash. You could tell from the burns on my forearms that I was a “French Fry” Wench. My plastic nametag insisted that I was a “Customer Care Specialist,” a clever corporate euphemism for “Cheap McDonald’s Whore.” I was the first to admit that’s exactly what I had become: I sold my body for $6.40 an hour and performed filthy, degrading acts for a man I'd never love - night after night after unholy night.

Let’s get something straight: I didn’t stick around that dump for long. My breaking point occurred at a staff meeting when Dom grunted at me after I politely inquired why we didn’t recycle the dozen newspapers that we daily threw into the garbage.

“Can’t.” His sentences were as stumpy as his figure.

“But isn’t it our social responsibility to respect the environment? If every McDonald’s restaurant is doing this, surely we’re causing harm to our planet?”

“Don’t care. Not gonna happen, sweetie.”

He glowered and swiftly moved on to the next topic (how to increase productivity by cutting down on the construction time of a Quarter Pounder with cheese by .03 percent) and I silently made (and seconded) my motion to submit my two-week notice of termination. I quit the habit, just like that, over newspapers and a guilty social conscience.

I don’t where that drama teacher is today, but I owe her for my salvation. She’s probably still fabulous and sashaying into drama classes across Windsor on an impassioned campaign to ensure that young Armpitonians are sensitive to beauty and don’t end up living and working in corporeal crevices for the rest of their lives.

*Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Squeezing into my skinny jeans

My skinny jeans don't fit.

I'm not talking about drainpipes that cling to your thighs like Saran Wrap and are impossibly narrow at the bottom. I just mean the comfortable bootcut jeans that, as of last May, fit me like a glove and were a wardrobe staple. In ways, they were like a best friend: they were comfortable, reliable and familiar and they made me feel good about myself.

It's not that I don't love my lady lumps as they are - they're a bit more plush, perhaps; there's more jiggle in my wiggle, if you will. And I'm not striving for a scrawny physique like Kate Moss', either. It's just that I fit into those smaller jeans during a period when I ate because I was hungry, not because I was feeling anxious, or overwhelmed, or inadequate, or terrified or just plain bored. I listened to what my body wanted and needed and kept up a regular exercise regimen. That made me fel happy; gloriously, unabashedly happy. These smaller jeans, then, have come to symbolize a healthy spurt - a balanced, nutritious time when I was taking care of myself and feeling good about my eating habits.

It's all boils down to control, or the illusion of it, anyway. When things in my life feel frantic and disjointed, my eating habits follow a similarly frenetic pattern; routine creates a sense of safety or security and when I feel stable in other areas of my life, it's easier for me to control my diet. Now that I have a steady income and a 9-5 work routine (that stability I've craved), my goal is to create that necessary balance in my life again. So this desire to fit into my old jeans is not a total act of vainity; the greater goal I'm hoping to acheive is to re-train myself how to stick with the good habits that make for a that naturally healthier, stronger self. Fitting into those jeans is just one of the positive side effects of completing this goal.

To prove to myself that I was serious about reaching this endpoint, I've been doing the jeans test before getting dressed over the last few weeks. I've also documented how they fit from one day to the next to mark my progress (no matter how marginal). Here is the log so far.

Monday: Can pull them halfway up my hips. Really tight in most areas except the ankles.

Tuesday: See above.

Wednesday: See above (ugh!).

Thursday: Decided to skip the test for today, predicting results would be as uninspiring as the last three mornings.

Tuesday: After an intense workout last night, I can edge the jeans up higher onto my hips. Still a large gap between the button and its hole.

Thursday: Can do up the button (yes!), but movement severely restricted.

And, folks, that's all I've got so far. But I will continue with my plan for a calmer, happier, healthier self and hopefully, just in time for skirt season, I'll be able to slip on those jeans without any awkward yanking, twisting or grunting.

The way home

Rode the early train home from Windsor this morning and kept my eyes peeled on a flaming sun that rose violet, amber and tangerine behind a squadron of dark trees. My eyes, weak with sleep, wrestled to stay open because it all looked so pretty, so goddamn peaceful, out there on the other side of the dusty windowpane.

I felt happy and thankful for a lovely weekend with my kin. We celebrated resurrection with a turkey and chocolate eggs wrapped in fluorescent tinfoil. On Sunday, we dug a hole in the ground and planted a lavender hydrangea bush at my father's marble plaque in the churchyard. I silently thanked him (my dad) for being my dad and for all the lessons he taught me during the fifteen years we shared together.

At 10:10 am, the train chugged into Union Station and I was glad to be home, back in this chaotic, glittering city.

I met up with Emily in Rosedale for a run after work. I was exhausted, but oh well; the run re-energized me and I was glad I did it. On our way home from the subway station, we passed a crime scene. It looked exactly like they do in the movies, or on CSI: the policemen, the fire trucks, the ominous ambulance and the yellow tape surrounding the site, alluding to danger. We shuffled by, horrified to see thick pools of blood glistening on the pavement. It was fresh - the wounds, the violence, even the spectators who gathered and recounted what they had seen or spun theories about what they had missed. There was a stabbing here, but we didn't know that yet. Someone was strapped to a stretcher in the back of the ambulance, out of sight, but his white sneakers, coated now in blood (his own? the attacker's? a morbid splattering of both?) were left on the sidewalk. There was a single sock there, too, missing its mate. At least there weren't any faces for our brains to remember, no open wounds to dwell on.

We walked home, disturbed and shocked into silence. We told Catherine what we saw. We checked the radio, television and Internet for details, but no one had updates. Finally, 15 minutes later, we heard that it was a stabbing. No other information was available at this time. A stabbing, right over there. Can you see? Right there, next to the corner where you wait for the bus every morning.

We sat at the kitchen table and ate dinner with friends. Old friends. Good, solid-gold, true-blue friends. Conversation was easy and comfortable; the grilled food was delicious. We laughed and chatted and gossiped like we always do. For the most part, we'd already accepted that violence erupted just around the corner from our cozy home.

It's bedtime now. Or probably past it if we're going to be dead honest. The early rise this morning will probably screw up my sleeping schedule for the rest of the week. I call my brother. He is playing video games in Windsor and he reminds me that I left my scarf at his apartment this morning. That is so characteristic of me it's almost frightening. My forgetfulness is as predictable as Time. The shower I took at 5:00 am seems like a lifetime ago. I nestle into a bed with clean sheets and am thankful to have made it here, finally, after a very full day.

Experiments Lab (no safety goggles required)

My new favorite Twitter account is this guy Arjun Basu (https://twitter.com/arjunbasu). He's an American dude. A writer. And he composes short stories using only 140 characters in the status field. They're enjoyable snipits to read and it's amazing how much he conveys in so small a space. I thought it would be a fun exercise to try, so I stole his idea. It's kind of addictive once you get started. Here are a few I wrote over the weekend. I suppose they're a decent start.

“Stop pulling the crocuses out.” Lara squinted and turned to her mother. “But I’m looking for worms,” she complained. “Go find your father.”

The skyscrapers crouched down to suffocate him. He was sure the sidewalk would swallow him whole. “I have to go,” he said and headed west.

She went to visit her father on Mondays and Saturdays. It wasn’t the same, though, now that he was buried beneath grass and all of that mud.

Sometimes Ed just needed to get drunk. Piss drunk. Fall off the stool, slur your words, “where do I live” drunk. But she’d never understand.

Did I ever tell you about the time I worked for the Devil? Seriously. Her name was German for Beezlebub. Or fascism. A monster either way.

Springing into action

Nothing says springtime in Toronto like the intoxicating whiff of street meat and this afternoon I enjoyed my first noseful of the season. Could it be that happiness is a warm 'dog?

A friend and celebrated blogger warned me this might happen the day I made public my desire to maintain a blog.

“It can be difficult to stick with,” he cautioned in a comment on my first posting and although I didn't want to believe it, I'm afraid the man is spot on. Every month, my posts become increasingly sparse. Pretty soon this blog will look like a dead lawn with a few ratty dandelions desperately clinging to life. It's time I start to tend my blog as if it were my garden - something that will only survive with a little TLC.

For me, blogging is like flossing my teeth, or jogging, or reading before bed: it's a good habit that keeps me happier, and possibly even healthier, than when I don't do it. It's one of those tasks that can seem overwhelming or impossible before its begun, but in the end, I always feel better for having done it. Rarely do we regret doing things that are beneficial to our physical or mental health.

Time. That's the culprit here. But isn't it always? Who has time to do anything these days? It's the same answer we use to excuse our inability to stay in touch with friends in distant places, or our failure to cook a nice meal at dinneritme, or why we've never been to the ballet. What is keeping us so busy that it leaves us with no time to do anything?

My goal from here on in is to keep up with the posts, to plant more seeds in this arid, wintered soil. We'll have flowers sprouting in this brownland in no time. Spring hasn't just arrived in the city. It's arrived here, on my blog, too.

Strange overtones

"Yeah, I just tell people I work for a company called TCM. No one needs to know what it stands for."

Half a breath later, the strange passenger talking on his cell phone loudly reveals the riddle behind the acronym: Toronto City Morgue.

I am sitting three rows in front of this peculiar man on the streetcar. I am traveling east on my way to the gym and am dying to get a glimpse of the man's face. Politely resisting the urge, I pretend to concentrate on the Metro crossword puzzle and continue being nosy.

I dedeuce that the man's interlocutor is also a TCM employee. “Well, did you go to the lounge yet?” streetcar morgue worker asks. “There’s a huge posting there. 4 positions. The city morgue can’t put ads in the paper so they put jobs up in the staff lounge. Ridiculous.”

What kind of qualifications do you need to work at the morgue, I wonder inaudibly. It seems the chatty passenger can read minds: “The ad says you need to be 19 years of age with strong arms and a strong stomach! Exactly the same things they were looking for 20 years ago when I started there.”

Twenty years working in a morgue. Sounds like this particular employee sort of feel into the position and has never looked back. The man's dialogue is peppered with zingers like, "Oh, she's worked for EMS? Then she'll be fine; they see them dead before we do" and "God, no. The TTC has it's own clean up crew. Saves me from having to jump down on the tracks myself." He knows he is performing for a crowd; he can sense that all of the passengers are eavesdropping, no matter how unobvious we're trying to seem.

It's almost my stop. I get up and wait by the doors at the back of the train and finally see the man's face. For some reason, I'm surprised to see a round, pockfaced man in a polo shirt. What were you expecting, Kate? Lurch?

"Everyone around me is breathing,” he says, gushing breezily into his cell phone. “So that’s a good thing. Yes, alright. Uh-uh. Bye-bye for now.”

Queen Streetcar, eastbound from Spadina to Yonge Street. Overheard on a Tuesday in March.

Proust Questionnaire

Every few years, I like to answer Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and record the responses in a journal or a Word document. It's fun to compare answers from year to year, to see what's changed and how, and to realize in what ways you are still exactly the same. Here's the latest.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

An empty streetcar.

What is your greatest fear?

Dying young.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Narcissism.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Self-doubt.

What is your greatest extravagance?

A tall non-fat London Fog and a slice of lemon poppy seed loaf from Starbucks.

What is your current state of mind?

Frantic.

On what occasion do you lie?

To get out of things I don’t want to do.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Genuineness.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Sense of humour.

If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what do you think it would be?

A palm-reader who winters in Florida.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

“I don't know.”

What or who is the greatest love of you life?

My father.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

It’s still in the works (hopefully).

Where would you like to live?

San Francisco or Buenos Aires.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Hopelessness.

What is your most marked characteristic?

My nicety.

What do you most value in your friends?

Honesty. Loyalty.

Who are you favourite writers?

Margaret Laurence, Leonard Cohen, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Tori Amos.

Who are your heroes in real life?

My mother.

What is your greatest regret?

That I was too chicken to write for my university newspaper.

What is your motto?

“I’ll still have a headache even if I don’t go for a run.”

How would you like to die?

With a featherweight heart.

Recession Hair

Who isn't sick of recession talk by now?

Like Ian Brown lamented in yesterday's Globe and Mail, "bleak is chic" and I for one am so bloody frustrated of hearing every subject analyzed through the lens of an economic depression (has it been postulated yet, whether the Raptors' poor performance could possibly be due to a crashed stock market?). The comfortless predictions and myriad reports of joblessness are sinking me into my own personal episode of the ecomomic slump. Enough already! It's effing depressing.

As you can see from the photo above, my hair also reached a state of crisis (I am clearly the one on the left). Yes, for the past month or so I have been sporting Recession Hair. I avoided the salon chair, perhaps, admittedly, for too long, refusing to cough up almost $200.00 for my usual cut and colour. But last Wednesday, I literally made bleak chic and went for an $18.75 haircut from a student coiffeuse at the Aveda Institute on King Street. And I am so in love.

This hair affair exceeded my expectations and in a social climate where words like "luxury" and "indulgence" are taboo, it was a perfectly frugal way to relax and pamper myself. My stylist, a petite Asian girl with funky fringe and the same given name as me (Kathleen), was professional, albeit slow, and meticulous. Every customer receives a complimentery head, neck and shoulder massage (you get to choose your favourite scented oil) and, when my cut was complete and educator-approved, Kathleen asked me if I would like a make-up touch-up. "It's part of the service," she said, after I gleefully accepted her offer for further (free) beautification.

It was an extremely pleasant and positive experience and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to save his or her pennies. It sure beats facing split-ends and the faint echoes of what was once an actual style in the mirror every morning. You can also get your hair coloured for $30.00 - $35.00. Now that's some recession talk I can handle.

N.B. - I would post the after shot of my new 'do, but my camera's out of batteries and, with savings on the brain, replacing them seems like a splurge.

The fictious rise and fall of my fictious rock band

After doing the random "Make your own album cover" exercise on Facebook, I decided to write the story behind my fictious band, La Malbaie.

Band: La Malbaie
Debut Album: I don't remember, but it's good
(Album cover to the right)

La Malbaie was the name of the seedy bar where Jasper and I first met. I had just moved into the one-room apartment above the establishment after my father evicted me from the dilapidated bungalow we shared on the outskirts of town. My dad didn't like the yellow bursts of nail polish that dotted my fingertips or the smudged charcoal around my eyes. He complained that my singing gave him migraines.

"Besides," he growled, in that deep, Jack-Daniels-and-cigarettes drawl. "You're 21 now. It's high time you faced the world on your own."

I worked as an assistant at the public library in the middle of town. It was close to where I lived, only a 7 minute ride on the 512 bus. I usually wrote lyrics in my pocketbook during the commute and silently composed songs while restocking the Reference shelves at work. You see, singing was my passion, not books. In the evenings, after a long soak in my grimy, old-fashioned tub, I ventured downstairs for a drink in the dim bar.

Jasper didn't make any sense in those dingy surroundings: his brightness and energy made everyone around him seem as tarnished as the ancient ale taps behind the bar. It was impossible not to stare at him, with his tangled red curls and electric green eyes and the black suspenders that always hung loosely around his thighs; or, anyway, it was impossible for me not to stare.

"My name's Jasper, if you're wondering." That was first thing he said to me and, even in that introductory moment, I already knew there were things I'd never be able to tell him. "I'm going to be famous one day."

He was the lead guitarist and vocalist of his band and they had just finished playing a free show on the lofty stage at La Malbaie. Standing next to me at the bar, he popped a small bright pill, downed it with a shot of vodka and then invited me to sing the encore with the band. He had noticed me before, he said, and had heard that I could sing.

I started to be a regular with the band, playing gigs at our favourite bar and other dives in the nearby townships. Locals said that La Malbaie hadn't been so packed since the adored, smoky-voiced Martine (the bar's founder) swooned the crowded room night after night with her sensous covers of Edith Piaf and Ella Fitzgerald. Martine started coughing up blood and finally went to see a doctor. He said it was lung cancer and that she had four weeks to live. Martine's bittersweet finale was the last time the bar had served so many patrons.

That was the sunshine of my life. I loved singing, composing and performing, but most of all, I loved being around Jasper. Sometimes after practice, the two of us would take a case of beer up to the rocky precipe overlooking the dark lake and we would talk until sunrise. I felt like an orchid flower in bloom during that time, my petals slowly unfolding, absorbing new light, becoming something beautiful and complex.

A few months later, Jasper introduced me to his cousin, Clinton, who had recently moved back to our small town after his band in Toronto broke up. He ran out of money and ran back, however reluctantly, to his boyhood bedroom. He said that he missed the pulse of the big city and that he might die in this godforsaken place. I often used to wonder who the embittered Clinton would've beaten up if he didn't have his drums to bang on. In many ways, Clinton's drums were his salvation.

"We're making a new band and you'll be our singer." I never objected to the demand that Jasper made that night. I could tell that he was bored of the small town circuit. He was ready to court the fame he had always prophesized.

Clinton knew people who knew the right people in Toronto. His contacts were good on their promise and two record execs arrived in town one day, clearly outsiders with their fancy suits and shiny smiles. They stopped for a scotch and a smoke at La Malbaie; they wanted to hear us play.

When we finished, the fat city slickers shook our hands and said, "We want to sign you to our label."

Well, that just about blew my mind.

Ecstatic, Clinton, Jasper and I wrote and recorded twelve new songs and for a while we got along famously. But tensions built and the band began to crack. You know the cliche: inflated egos from new-found fame leads to increasing sense of invincibility and dependence on candy-coloured drugs or amber alcohol, which leads to missed practices, fist fights and sloppy strumming, which leads to tragedy. The boys grew sullen and thin; our manager threatened to pull the plug on the deal. I wanted fame just as voraciously as Jasper and Clinton did, but their antics were sending us straight to the gutter.

The climax occurred when Clinton and I found Jasper's limp body draped over an amp at a party on New Year's Eve. Our record release date was only three weeks away. A stoned witness said that a very beautiful woman called Jasper a "talentless hack" just moments before he downed the entire bottle of his trusty tablets.

As I stood in the dark street and watched my friend disappear in a frenzy of orange lights and screeching sirens, I regretted that I never told Jasper that I loved him. Not that it would've made a difference either way.

Three weeks later, our debut album launched. Disgusting rumors swirled around the Internet, claiming that Jasper's death was fake, a vulgar publicity stunt staged to create intrigue around the band and hopefully sell more records. Those who believed in Jasper's death seemed more interested in the troubled, charming, enigmatic guitarist than the music itself. The sadness over our recent loss shrouded our elation at the release party; I hardly sipped a drop of the sparkly Veuve that filled my champagne flute.

Regrettably, I don't remember, but it's good, will be our first and only album. Clinton and I would like to thank everyone who helped us create it and our fans for your unwavering support.

I wonder if every song that I write from now on will be about him?

Fave new thing

I am missing summer. I also miss my brother's old Polaroid camera and the sweet shots it took. Every image looks cooler when surrounded by a thick white border. So I turned some of my favourite pictures into virtual Polaroids (I stole the idea from Dan Levy's newsletter site).



This is my awesome cousin Julie and I at a bbq at her house last summer. Look how happy we are. I desperately need a tan.



I thought the Polaroid effect would complement the vintage-y feel of this picture, with its checker board floor and pink rugby socks.

Televised romance

I can't believe the results of last night's episode of "The Bachelor." How could Jason let Jillian - the beautiful, stylish, intelligent and sincere Canadian girl vying for a chance to be his wife - ride away in that ominous limo like she was a curdled protein shake?

It can only mean that Jason is looking for a tacky, uninteresting, mildly pretty American girl to be his missus and the step-mother of his three-year-old son, Ty. And that's precisely what he'll get, no matter which of the two remaining contestants he chooses during the final rose ceremony, scheduled to air two weeks from yesterday.

The anger I felt towards Jason after last night's episode wasn't justified. He didn't love her (Jillian) and you can't blame a man for that. I guess what bothers me is that he can talk seriously and candidly about the things he wants in the woman he marries, but when Jillian, basking in the romance of a picnic atop a jagged New Zealand mountain, expresses her desire to "marry her best friend," Jason says they're getting ahead of themselves. Double standard, you say? Rage!

Plus, what sort of unjust world do we live in if a a girl like Jillian can't win the heart of a successful, handsome, perfectly spray-tanned, "Aw, schucks" bachelor?

It also bothers me that both of the remaining women are only 24 years old. Their relative youth (Jillian is only 29) is not their fault, but it irks me that the Guy Smiley Bachelor, who is 32 years old, thinks a woman eight years his junior is ready to take on the responsibility of becoming a wife and a step-mother in one swift move. Or maybe, from his previous experience with television romance, Jason sees the spectacle for what it really is and just wants to have a fling with a hot young thing, knowing they'll never make it to "I do." He did, according to People.com, make a proposal, but we all know by now that just because a television Bachelor or Bachelorette is engaged, it doesn't necessarily mean forever.

With Jillian gone, the show lost its credibility (not that it ever had much). She was a classy gal with a cool wardrobe who thought joining the circus of reality television would offer her a new brand of adventure. She never meant to fall in love with the guy. But there she was standing hopeful among the final three, her pretty Canadian heart bursting for the muscle-bodied man before her, pleading for reciprocity.

And then she didn't get a rose. She said her good-byes gracefully, tearfully and I know deep down it's probably for the best that he didn't choose her only to publicly dump her three months down the road.

Anyway. I really don't want to spend more time watching next week's heinous "The Women Tell All" and then the finale and the "After the Final Rose" special in two weeks. And even though I can't stand the glare of Jason's plasticky, neon smile anymore, I think I'm too far gone to turn my back on the whole fiasco without witnessing the wreckage.

In other, unrelated Canadian pop culutre news: MTV Canada's quirky VJ Dan Levy has started his own lifestyle wesbite, DOOP, a fun and blatant spoof of the aforementioned GOOP.

Transylvania Mania!

My roommates and I have an insatiable thirst for vampires lately.

Feels like the rest of society has a similar appetite, too, since pop culture is currently smeared with images of pale, hunky vampires (quite an eerie twist on the "strong, silent type"). Our cultural fascination has shifted from superheroes to the supernatural, as tales of the sexy undead and the female ingenues who fall for them have replaced those about superhumans fighting evil.

The vampire craze at our house began with a gift. Catherine received "Twilight" - the first installment of a four-part series about a lonely vampire who cannot resist the aromatic blood of Bella, the "plain Jane," new girl in town - for Christmas.

Catherine devoured the book in 3 days over the holidays. Emily, also my roommate, borrowed the book from Catherine and 3 days later "Twilight" secured a new fan.

"Twilight" wasn't the only catalyst to the Transylvania mania at 7A, though. One night in early January, Dave and I were hanging out at my house with plans to watch a DVD. Since we had already watched all the movies in my collection that weren't totally girlie, we thought we'd try the one that was still wrapped in its clear packaging. It was a promotional video with a single episode: "True Blood, episode one." We had never heard of it, but we were intrigued.

"Is this painful or amazing?" I wondered aloud, after stomaching inter-species intercourse, violent beatings and a vampire licking a girl's bloody wounds. We both agreed that while it was explicitly over-the-top and unapologetically gratuituous, it was pretty damn awesome.

We shared the news of our latest guilty pleasure with Catherine and Emily. The next day, they watched the episode and I began reading "Twilight." The girls were hooked on "True Blood" and its surly vampire, Bill, right off the bat and made it their mission to watch the other episodes.

When Catherine and Emily put their minds to something, they can acheive amazing results. A friend had the remaining episodes burned on her external harddrive and leant it Emily. A solid start, but not nearly the end.

I returned from dinner with my mom one night and heard wild excitement emanating from the living room.

"Kate!" Catherine exclaimed. "You're just in time! We're starting the second episode of 'True Blood.'"

I was thrilled, naturally, but nothing could have prepared me for what the girls had set up. The living room was filled with a pale blue light, as if I was entering a Cineplex theatre. Confused, I turned to the empty space above our TV and saw the opening sequence of "True Blood" playing across the wall. I didn't know which was more unbelievable: vampire romances or the fact that the girls rigged up a projector to create a home movie theatre.

Unfortunately, I fell behind in my "True Blood" viewings, but, after receiving the second book in the Twilight series for my birthday, I am one step ahead in the reading genre. While it's not a literary masterpiece, it's definitely a cultural phenomenon that I can (pun alert) really sink my teeth into.

Catherine and Emily, however, continued their "True Blood" odyssey and last Wednesday marked the screening of the season finale. It was bittersweet, knowing the excitement was coming to an end, but that doesn't mean they didn't celebrate this monumental occassion. Catherine and Emily threw a fang-tastic exit party, complete with "I <3 Vampires" t-shirts and Pomegranate juice disguised as "V" (the nickname for vampire blood, which some of the townspeople use to get a freaky buzz in the show). Now, they wait with hopeful hearts for their immortal beloved to return when the series resumes with its second season in the summer.

It's interesting that in both stories, the vampires are men. There are female vampires, of course, but the central love stories feature a male vampire and a female human. Sookie and Bella are outcasts, much like the vampires they fall in love with. The girls feel that they are misunderstood by the humans in their worlds and are seduced by the possibility of connection with their vampire suitors. It is the age-old desire, I guess, for someone to "get" you, even if everyone else thinks you're a total freak. Sure, the guy's not human, but finally, for Bella and Sookie, there is that feeling of connection and recognition that we all crave. Just so happens that these dudes also have an ancient craving for the girls' blood (insert mischevious Count Dracula laugh). Except, in both cases, we're dealing with "good" vampires who are "mainstreaming" and trying their darndest to resist their blood lust for a chance at true love.

Here comes the sun

After an extended hiatus, here is last week at a glance (a la Jonathan Goldstein).

Tuesday. It is Inauguration Day and I feel celebratory. There is also excitement over Mrs. Obama's outfit. Will she go haute and show up in Narciso Rodriguez again? Or will she consider our bleak economic landscape and opt for something modest, like the $99 black-and-white Donna Ricco dress she wore on "The View" last summer? The anticipation is overwhelming.

Michelle Obama's lemongrass sheath dress and overcoat (from designer Isabel Toledo) was as bright as the crisp Winter day in Washington and as optimistic as her husband's presidential campaign. She was glowing, sophisticated, stylish. Overall, she was a smashing hit.

Oh yeah, and her hubby's speech was pretty kick-ass.

Wednesday. Dave and I are at his parents' farmhouse in the country. We are each wearing three layers of winter clothing to shield us from the frigid winds that whip across the open filed behind his house. We are cross-country skiing, something I haven't done since grade eleven gym class. I like gliding across the snow and pumping my arms to make the poles push me along. I like the fresh air and the Christmas tree farm at the back of the property. It reminds us of the forest that Buddy the Elf travels through on his way from the North Pole to NYC. We stop for photo opps and I'm sure this will not be the last time I'm on skis this winter.

After an hour of looping around the property, we are sufficiently spent and ready for lunch. The sun bursts through the gray clouds as we head in.

Thursday. I blow out 27 candles and resist eating cake for breakfast. I spend most of the day working at the Writing Centre and then meet up with friends and family members for beer and spicy wings in the evening. For some reason, I get to thinking about what I want to do with my life, professionally speaking.

Then I remember that, as an imaginative 12-year-old, my favourite game was to dress up as Julia Roberts from the movie "I Love Trouble," in which she was a reporter and in love with Nick Nolte. I had a vintage purse that I bought at our church's Rummage Sale that I slung over my left shoulder; I kept my pen and notepad in the pocket of my (mom's) trench coat for easy access. I chased the thrilling stories that unraveled in my house and the surrounding area and conducted intense, often frustrating, interviews with people that didn't actually exist. I always reported breaking stories into the large mirror that hung in our front hallway - a poor stand-in for a camera man - with a smile.

I order another pint and decide that I'll try to land a gig as an actress in a movie about a young reporter on the brink of breaking a mega story who tries to convince herself that she's not in love with her boss, a middle-aged curmudgeon with a salt-and-pepper toupe and a razor sharp intellect. And this character, she will only wear the colour lemongrass to reflect her optimism and sunny disposition.

Goop? Please explain.

I kind of love Gwyneth Paltrow, mostly because of her depiction of the beautifully broken Margot in one of my favourite movies, "The Royal Tenenbaums."

There's plenty about Gwyneth that I get: why she dated Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck back in the nineties; why she wore all those mini dresses during the promotional tour for "Iron Man" last fall (and why, for that matter, she loves her new trainer, Tracy Anderson); and why she fell for the charms of Coldplay guy Chris Martin.

However, in many ways, Gwyneth Paltrow is like a Rubik's Cube in Christian Louboutins. Things I don't get about her include, but are not limited to: why she broke up with Brad and/or Ben; why she did "Shallow Hal"; why she road-tripped across Spain with creepy chef Mario Batali for that cooking show; and, finally, and this is probably the most mind-boggling, why she named her recently launched lifestyle website "GOOP."

Goop? Who names a website "Goop"? But, then, you could also ask who names a child "Apple"? That's easy: Gwyneth Paltrow does.

I'm not the only one who finds the naming of this website perplexing. But, from what I've read on the Internet, it doesn't seem that anyone has discovered the true meaning (if there even is any) behind this almost grotesque name.

Maybe it's her initials? Gwyneth Ophelia Olywn Paltrow. Or, Gwyneth Olympia Oprah Paltrow. Who knows.

Could be what she uses in her hair to make it so shiny.

Maybe it's what she says when she's really, really mad.

Anyway, I guess I'm over it now. It's just hard to take something called GOOP seriously. But maybe that's the point - it's an escape to total frivolity in a world with too much bombing and too many bankruptcies. I'll chock it up to one of the universe's great, unkownable mysteries. But there's still part of me that wants to know, "Why? Why, Gwyneth, why?"

I got to thinking about all of this after I visited the website a few days ago (it launched in October and I've been a few times since). The site invites you to "nourish the inner aspect" and is divided into sections: "Make, Go, Get, Do, Be, See." Every week, Gwyneth (or an employee posing as Gwyneth) publishes a newsletter under one of the six categories. When I went to goop.com the other day, I watched a workout video with hardcore butt and leg exercises from Gwyneth's trainer, Tracy, in a newsletter called "Sticktoitiveness" (filed under "Do"). I felt inspired, wrote down the sequence and gave the moves a whirl. Three days later, my whole lower body still aches.

I can blame Gwyneth Paltrow for confusing me with a nonsense website name, but there's no one but myself to blame for the fact that I put so much time and energy into actually caring about it - and then writing about it.

I'm also the only person to blame for the fact that I'm apparently a total weakling since my muscles haven't yet recovered.

Which way to Wychwood?

Last Saturday, my roommate Catherine and I woke up early to check out the farmers' market at the newly-renovated Artscape Wychwood Barns at St. Clair and Christie. The former streetcar repair barns got an eco-friendly makeover that still maintains the original feel of the place (high ceilings, exposed brick, plenty of natural light). The barns now house a daycare, a greenhouse, artists' studios and, on Saturday mornings from 9-12, the "covered street" barn hosts a farmers' market with lots of yummy, locally-grown fare. A dog park, a skating rink and a jungle gym surround the exterior and presumably provide endless hours of outdoor glee. Checking out the market was something that Catherine and I said we wanted to do since the barns opened at the end of November and now, after weeks of lip service, we were finally making the trek.

The market was bustling and smelled like breakfast, which is exactly how Saturday mornings should smell. We bought a cup of organic, fair-trade coffee for a buck fifty, tasted a chatty vendor's all-natural honey (Catherine bought a jar), sampled gluten-free blueberry scones and ogled the overprized cupcakes at the "healthy junkfood" stand (I prefer my junkfood junky). On our way out, beautiful blooms of oyster mushrooms caught our attention. We approached the vendor and inquired about his goods. "I'm the 'fun guy,'" he said and we laughed politely, quite enjoying his culinary pun.

The market is one of my new favourite things - a great neighbourhood gem that isn't a total zoo (this ain't no St. Lawrence Market of the north). The goods are pricey, but all of the items that we bought (organic lettuce, two loaves of bread and that honey I mentioned) were delicious. I'd say it's worth a peek, even just to check out the cool new renovations.

Allow me to introduce myself

Topping my list of things to do today: Create blog. Check.

This isn't my first blog. I had to create a blog for what I thougtht would be a dreadful class that I took during my first year of a masters degree at Ryerson - Design for Interactive Media. We ended up covering some pretty cool topics and I started to embrace the courses's blogging component as an interesting way to engage with the material and share thoughts/ideas with classmates and my professor. The blog was pretty much defunct, though, once the class was over and my summer holidays began.

Last summer, I took another stab at blogging. This blog included musings on the joys and agonies of unemployment, how the scorching, mid-afternoon sun made breathing impossible in my non-air conditioned apartment and highlights from a New York Times article about an insightful priest with advice for choosing Mr. Right. I didn't tell anyone that I created it, though, so no one knew that it existed. Go figure.

So now I'm taking the plunge: I'm creating a blog and actually telling people about it!

Now that I can scratch this off my list, I am moving on to the second item of the day: Seek strategies for overcoming severe addiction to Diet Coke.

I kinda fell of the wagon again and started drinking too much low-calorie, caffeinated soda (like, 3 cans a day sometimes). Much like Oprah, I find myself screaming: "How did I let this happen again?"!