September 13, 2007
Elusive boys are hard to find
Now reading Gifted, which has been wonderful from the start, and, interestingly enough, wholly in compliance with my previous observations regarding the difference between British and American fiction about immigrants. The British is so much grittier. Tonight I went out to Le Bar a Soup with my friend Jennie, and then we had coffee and dessert on a patio, staying out talking until it was too dark to see.
September 11, 2007
Blowing off dust
Today was exciting for a number of reasons: that I woke up and sat down to spend the morning working on my manuscript, which has been living under my bed since April. Had to blow off a layer of dust, but it was easy to get started, and strange to be affected by words I’d written so long ago they’ve ceased to belong to me. My goal is to finish this final revision by the end of this year, and then what’s next would, quite naturally, come with the future. Further exciting, was lunch with my old dear friend Erin Sanko who I’ve not seen in at least five years. Nice to have it feel like no time had passed, and her boyfriend is lovely. (I was also happy to hear that she had so much enjoyed Half of a Yellow Sun). I spent the afternoon shopping, for skirts, shoes, and turtleneck sweaters. Also for a new backpack, and any number of things to replace hideousness. And then I had my first visit to Ben McNally Books, which was a marvelous experience, and I had the good fortune of picking up a copy of Jonathan Garfinkel’s new book Ambivalence. It’s a beautiful book, and I am very happy for him. I also look quite forward to reading it.
September 10, 2007
En vacance!
Oh what a joy it is, not only to arrive in a brilliant city for the very first time, but to have friends there (as friends in interesting places are a most precious commodity). And how happy we were for ours, as Rebecca showed us all the best spots, as well as her new apartment with its death-defying staircases. Stuart and I got in a rather broad exploration of the city, ate all the required foodstuffs (and loved them), walked off the calories, spent a rather lazy Sunday relatively speaking, I spoke French and was understood, the train was a sweet dream as we played Tetris and read our books, our hotel was fantastic, brunch was amazing, we have bagels. Also I have the day off tomorrow, to return to my novel after four months away, have lunch with a friend I’ve not seen in years, and to buy clothes so I can work this Fall without looking like a ragamuffin.
September 7, 2007
Mini-Break
We’re on vaca for the weekend, off to Montreal. Thanks to Chapati Kid for her suggestions of what to do there, and to my other friends who offered advice. I am taking Atonement and A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian for the train, and is it strange that I am as excited about the train as I am about everything else?
September 3, 2007
The dog in the nighttime
Off to Peterborough this weekend, to visit family and friends, which was delightful all around. The summer lingers, but not in a tired way, and autumn seems like a possibility rather than a sorry fate. My dad took us out for breakfast Saturday, and practised our throwing arms. We went camping Saturday night, using our new tent for the first time (a charm). It was a gorgeous night, and we had a brilliant fire, roasted smores, saw fireworks across the lake, the sky thick with stars– we saw the milky way! Retiring to bed with the cricket hum, and then the dog on the neighbouring campsite started barking, howling. The howling kept us up most of the night. From time to time an inhabitant of one of the tents there would call out “Shut the f*ck up Darcy.” Because apparently the dog’s name was Darcy. Dog didn’t understand English, however, and so the language was ineffectual. Someone else came over and tried to kept them to quiet the dog around 3:30 but they just ignored her. We got up then for the bathroom and the moon was so bright we didn’t need a flashlight. Soon the sun rose, and Darcy kept on. Geese were honking. It was morning. I’d slept that night on the cold hard ground, and I had hardly slept at all. This doesn’t mean that camping wasn’t hilariously wonderful, but just that Sunday was shot to hell as we spent the day en-mattress. Mom-cooked dinner, and then out in downtown Peterborough for fatigue-laden hijinx. Fun was had. We came back to Toronto this morning.
August 28, 2007
Nothing on earth can equal
Curtis is moving to Ireland, and he wants us to come visit him. Last night he told us that in the new flat “we’ll have a spare bedroom”. And there was something in his “we”– I had to get down To the Lighthouse and get Virginia Woolf to explain:
“‘We went to look for Minta’s brooch,’ he said, sitting down by her. ‘We’ — that was enough. She knew from the effort, the rise his voice to surmount a difficult word that it was the first time he had said ‘we’. ‘We’ did this, ‘we’ did that. They’ll say that all their lives, she thought…”
It was the second time in the past while that I’ve needed Virginia Woolf to sum up love– in June, you might remember, I read this passage from The Voyage Out at Bronwyn’s wedding, and nothing has ever been more appropriate. And Mrs. Ramsay was able to describe what made Curtis’s “we” so significant, far more succinctly than I ever could have. I love the relevance of VW’s words, not long from a century after they were written. A room full of ordinary people, ordinary conversation on a Sunday night, and that Virginia Woolf mattered there. It surprises people, I think, what she knew about love. What she knew about joy.
What then, for the whole story? How do we reconcile that beautiful passage from The Voyage Out with what happened to Rachel? Paul Rayley’s “we” with what happened to “the Rayleys”? With what happened to Mrs. Ramsay? Should the inevitable darkness in Woolf’s work necessarily obliterate the light? I like to think not. Yes, Woolf is dangerous out of context, but there is nothing wrong with pushing the darkness back sometimes– this is what life is. This is what hope is.
Hope is moving away to Ireland on the trail of a girl, and even knowing what I know, twentieth century aside and all, I look forward to hearing Curtis say “we” all our lives. To Bronwyn and Alex, and the refreshingly solid ordinariness of their love, whose power can bring tears to my eyes. It is seeing the world all around us, and venturing forth anyway, and hope is, surely, as Woolf knew, a most heroic act.
August 26, 2007
Please walk on the grass
Take a Canadian, a Brit, and a Japanese girl– all homesick for Hyogo, and throw them into Toronto. To Korea Town, the Annex, the University, Yorkville, Chinatown, Kensington, and home again. Feed with sushi, crepes a go go, good coffee, and then DIY okonomiyaki for dinner once we’re home again– oishi desu! Sunday afternoon on Toronto Island, and walking on the grass. Home once again, and tonight there’s a bbq, topped off by very Canadian Portuguese tarts.
I am now reading Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls, and why aren’t you?
August 13, 2007
Piedust Memories
I’ve been too busy having fun lately to take pictures, and so I bring you one of my favourite shots from our trip to England in June.
This weekend has stretched long with the fun. Someone gave Stuart tickets to We Will Rock You for Thursday eve, and fun was had. Friday evening we met up with Natalie Bay for an authentic Japanese meal at Ematei, followed by authentic ice cream from Sicilian Sidewalk Cafe. Saturday evening was a housewarming at the gorgeous new abode of a certain Ms. Kim Dean (special guest appearence by E. Smith). And then today, a whole day with the future-Smiths. We went out for Chinese food, and then came back to ours for a game of Scrabble on the porch while the rain poured down. And I won! Word I longed to be a word was “piedust”. Best actual word of the game was “zygote”, and Carolyn and Steve didn’t get too angry when Stuart and I cheated (I handed him a tile in the bowl of popcorn). They stayed over until the sun came out, and then dinner was tea and freshly baked scones and jam, which would have been perfect had I not added too much salt. Everyone was very understanding though, and copious dollops of jam rendered them absolutely edible.
Now reading The Raw Shark Texts. I think I will be up quite late tonight reading to get to the very end.
Tomorrow night we’re going to see Crowded House!
August 9, 2007
The non-presence of friends
“I have been careful to give Alicia a few friends. It’s curious how friends get left out of novels, but I can see how it happens. Blame it on Hemingway, blame it on Conrad, blame even Edith Wharton, but the modernist tradition has set the individual, the conflicted self, up against the world. Parents (loving or negligent) are admitted to fiction, and siblings (weak, envious or self-destructive) have a role. But the non-presence of friends is almost a convention– there seems no room for friends in a narrative already cluttered with event and the tortuous vibrations of the inner person. Nevertheless, I like to sketch in a few friends in the hope they will provide a release from a profound novelistic isolation that might otherwise ring hollow and smell suspicious.” –Carol Shields, Unless
August 7, 2007
Pickle Me This goes to Quebec
Another exciting weekend, and Pickle Me This is tired of travel having just endured twelve hours of it by car. But entirely worth it of course, as we visited the paradisical Eastern Townships of Quebec for the wedding of my beautiful cousin/best friend Susannah, and her beloved Loic. An absolutely perfect day, full of sunshine, flowers, good wine and music. A bilingual wedding pulled off without a hitch, and with a Scottish piper for added cultural value. We were so happy to be there, and they’re a wonderful couple we’re so lucky to call family and friends. Find below photos of Stuart and I (representing my English-by-marriageness in millinery fashion), me avec mother and sister, and, of course, the lovely bride and groom cutting their gateau. 
