July 6, 2005
Collect
I enjoyed reading “An English Professor’s Credo”, the Victoria College Baccalaureate Address by my former professor C. Anderson Silber. A very odd but interesting article by Lionel Shriver, whose “We Need to Talk About Kevin” I finished this afternoon. Oh my, what a book. You wouldn’t think a book that you know from the start winds up in a school massacre would be able to twist so far at the end, but it did. Lionel Shriver, politics aside, is an absolute genius. On the Things I Miss About Britain list is celebrity chefs; Zoe Williams skewers Nigella on the telly. Matt Seaton. who wrote a book about cycling that I actually enjoyed, recommends his ten best cycling books. I don’t know if I’ll go so far as to read them. AS Byatt on the still life as metaphor.
Have organised my photo albums, CDs, and am getting started on all the rest. We are streamlining my collection of collections. I had half a Dairy Queen Blizzard Yesterday for the first time in two years, and it was brilliant. We are going to Toronto from Thursday until Sunday. Canada is a very good place.
July 2, 2005
Booknews
Interesting things I observed during my eight hours as a bookseller today: everyone secretly wanted to buy Monica Lewinsky’s biography but no one would admit it, the first books sold were all my Beatles stuff left over from my adoloscent obsession, at every lawn sale someone comes along and asks to buy the furniture the stuff is sat upon, everyone loves Ramona Quimby, if you tell certain people that certain books are “Women’s Studies Books” they will buy them without question, the woman who sang me songs from her native healing circle for no particular reason, a lot of people want to buy your vinyl, people really like Russian history and no one wants my 17th century lit anthology (including myself), there is a woman who spends every Saturday cruising yard sales to find books by Belva Plain, the old lady who wanted to know if we had Stephen King, no one wants Life’s Little Instruction Book. The unsold books I took back for myself were The Summer Book by Tove Jansen, Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing by May Sarton, Nightwood by Djuna Barnes and Stuart took Brave New World because he hasn’t read it. In other book news, I bought a magazine called Geist today. In my new poor student incarnation, I am allowed only one magazine a month IF it is under $5.00. I also received George and Rue by George Elliott Clarke from my parents.
July 2, 2005
Long Weekend
Why do I have wireless internet on my front lawn? I don’t know, but I’ll take it as it comes. We have jet-lag and as a result were up at 6:00 this morning, which was fine as we had our book sale ready to go at 7:00. We sold more than half the books and made over $100. It was a splendid way to spend the day too, talking to lots of people and reading The Globe and Mail for the first time in over a year. It’s a real shame their free internet content is next to nothing. or I would be doing some mad linking. There were really great stories today and I still have three sections left to read. We are enjoying Canada, and I think between Tom Cochrane, beers on patios, fire works, twee parades and a yard sale, we’ve had the ultimate experience. Even unemployed, Saturdays are special.
July 2, 2005
Massive Book Sale
Massive Book Sale tomorrow! Everything for one dollar or best offer. Fiction, biography, YA and childrens, plus lots of non-fiction (history texts, and a great collection of feminist works). At my house on Water Street beside the Red Cross building. Get there early!
July 1, 2005
Happy Canada Day
Here I am at the top of my mom’s house, and there is wireless internet. We don’t know how or for how long, but we’ll enjoy it while it lasts. And there are just way too many things to do, boxes to sort and people to see for me to know which way to turn, so I think we’ll lay low for a few days. The flight yesterday was alright, and it was good to be home but strange. I’ve been away for three years, and it’s as though I’ve moved to an entirely new place and I’m worried I won’t like it. I’ve just hyped it up a bit and don’t want Stuart to be disappointed. We spent a glorious while opening wedding presents yesterday. I am going to have such lovely things in my kitchen. My Hello Kitty in a kimono made it here in one piece, losing just a ribbon from her garb and I will glue it back on. “We Need to Talk About Kevin” is brilliant but controversial, provocative. I look forward to formulating my opinion on it. I look forward to reading The Globe tomorrow. And to being less scattered. Here’s to Canada then! Happy Day.
June 28, 2005
Oh Canada
My weekend is all booked up. On Friday, we are going to see Tom Cochrane at the Festival of Lights, and then we are going to The Mustang Drive-In on Saturday night. What a perfect way to arrive in Canada, and on a long weekend no less. We hope to be in Toronto the next week finances providing. (The only thing that would be better would be Kim Mitchell live at The Pines in Bridgenorth).
June 27, 2005
Recommended buy
“Unplayed Piano” by Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan. It’s a beautiful song and all proceeds go toward Campaign for Burma
June 27, 2005
Mother mother
There goes the doomsayers, with a double dose of feminist backlash. Infertility is a ticking time bomb, reports the BBC. This mongering only provoked a roll of the eyes in my house, when we heard it on the radio last week. Others are more susceptible to the mania. Writer Rebecca Seal, 23, goes through a checklist of horrible possibilities- woo hoo! she drinks waaay too much so that might be bad, the may-be-lurking menace of chlamydia, maybe her boyfriend has a low sperm count. Seal’s article is not terribly passionate, and you get the feeling that she wasn’t that bothered about her fertility until this story was assigned to her on the basis of her demographic. She talks to others, and comes up with offensively drippy quote such as, “If I got pregnant by accident now, even though it’s really not the right time emotionally or financially, I don’t know if I could have an abortion. I couldn’t deal with the idea that I might discover in 10 years that I had thrown away my only chance of having children.” And, “What if I met someone who wanted children and I couldn’t give them what they want?” So, women must start having children earlier. India Knight supports this, proposing we start taking the shame out of young motherhood. And Danielle Crittenden certainly agrees in her book which told us how we should be unhappy with our mother’s feminism. I, however, do not.
It is shaming to be a young mother, as the good news is usually met with pity rather than congratulations. I think this does not completely have to do with youth however, but rather the stigma that remains attached to pregnancies that occur outside of marriage. It is disgusting the way that abortion continues to be deemed supreme evil, and then women who choose not to have them are judged as society’s downfallers. Unwanted pregnancy is mortifying. It shouldn’t be this way. However I don’t think the answer is to trumpet babies in one’s early twenties. Perhaps our bodies are made for this, but society certainly isn’t. Knight writes of the smart mommy who has her baby in her early twenties and re-enters the workforce at 30. How easy will it be for her to slip right back in there? Who will support her in the meantime? Any partner of hers similarly aged who makes enough money to do so will certainly not have the free time to be an adequate parent.
Reports like this come along every once in a while to undermine the progress of feminism. In Japan, where feminism is barely breathing, this sort of thing creeps up near-daily. Japanese citizens bemoan the dwindling birthrate, and the culprits of course are the women who are putting off marriage and motherhood to pursue careers. This is happening in the UK too, as primary schools close because there aren’t enough children. These end-of-society-as-we-know-it scenarios are always women’s doing. There is never much response as to what men can do to counter such trends. There is never a mention that on a planet as over-populated as ours, fretting about your country’s (or race’s in some cases) falling birth rate is petty self indulgence.
I spent two years working for Social Services in Fostering and Adoption and came away with amazing lessons. First, that there are more children in need of families out there than could ever be housed. And second, that infertility is not the end of the world. I learned about families that had accepted their situation, whose relationship was strong enough to be sustained in a family of two, and who did great things- first just a couple with a bit more freedom for adventure, and then by accepting other people’s children to raise as their own, with all the challenges and rewards that will bring.
The idea that parenthood is entitled, and an essential part of family life is harmful. That women must sacrifice other accomplishments in favour of it is worse. There is certainly no perfect time to have a baby, but babies for babies’ sake in one’s early twenties is idiotic.
June 26, 2005
Kerry and Stuart's 10 Wedding Cost-Cutting Tips
We are very lucky that our parents offered to foot most of the bill for our two receptions, and on top of that we managed to find some good ways to cut down on our own expenses. We are living proof that you don’t need tons of money (or even jobs!) to have the wedding of your dreams.
1) Buffet! The food was really good and so much cheaper than a sit-down meal. It also made things a bit more laid-back, which some guests appreciated, and easier accommodated specific dietary needs.
2) DIY Invitations. We were lucky to be living in Japan when we made ours, and so handmade paper was really quite cheap, but we were able to make some lovely ones on our computer, print them on card, cut and paste the card onto the handmade paper, and we found envelopes that more or less matched. We spent about $40 on our 80 invitations.
3) DIY Party Favours- We made CDs for our guests of our favourite songs, many of which were played at the reception. We made CD labels and covers for the cases so they managed to look moderately professional. We spent about $25 on our party favours for 50 people.
4) DIY table place nametags- We printed the tags ourselves on white card, black border and a scripted font. We cut them out and poked a hole in them, and tied red ribbon through the hole. We bought sticks of Blackpool rock (£8) in our red and white colour scheme, and tied the nametags to that. It was very cool, and a good souvenir.
5) The stamp! I bought a daisy-like stamp at a craft shop, and red ink (£5). This became the official image of our wedding, and we put it on the CDs, party favours, nametags and my thank-you notes. It was really nice to find something that unified our plans, and it matched the red flowers on my dress and we planned my bouquet to match as well.
6) I didn’t wear a wedding dress, as our gathering was sort of informal. But my dress was suitably weddingy, absolutely beautiful and I got in 20% off at Debenhams- £108 in total.
7) DIY hair accessory- I was looking for a tiara-like thing for my hair. They were £50-£100 and weren’t that lovely. I am not at all crafty and managed to make one myself with a wire headband, wire and beads and I was able to make one that matched the red and white in my dress. Materials came to about $10.
8) Student photographers- we were lucky enough to find excellent photographer, just starting out and eager to build their portfolios. Cost was substantially lower than pros, and the product was good. A real bonus was their flexibility and creativity.
9) Brian the DJ- I think DJs are better than bands at weddings. Bands are just as cheesy as DJs and only play cover songs anyway. Our DJ played what we liked and was a million times cheaper than a band would have been.
10) Civil ceremony at the registrars- It wasn’t what we’d always dreamed of but it turned out to be a really nice, intimate, personal ceremony and now I wouldn’t have wanted it any different. We wrote our own vows, and they made it seem very special and I think it was absolutely wonderful.
June 26, 2005
Interesting
Two images that have stuck with me. I absolutely can’t remember where I read it, but the idea of someone who “collects good days like other people collect postcards.” And from Budapest by Chico Buarque- the idea that when the character returns to his home country, his newly learned Hungarian will be about as useful as his pocket-full of forints. I also like the way that Japanese people used to say the word “other country’s people” for “foreigner”. And the former student who emailed to say the pictures of me dancing at my wedding were “interesting.” Indeed. And you know you’ve been reading too much of Heat magazine when, you read the following headline- “Church hits at Zimbabwe deportations”, and you assume they are talking about Charlotte.
