I'm swapping out the Big Mac for the burger pictured below. This is a Wimpy's Jr. ( 6 oz.) burger, w/onion rings. And all the fixin's, as they say.

Wimpy’s Jr Burger w/Onion Rings

Something is going awry. The first few bites were heavenly, then I was pretty much done. I coulda, shoulda, stopped there but I didn't. I ate half the onion rings. That is a diet coke in the background which I left most of behind.

At one time, I would have jumped in and downed this whole plate in less than 10 minutes.

I think the trick, in the future, to "indulge", is to order the burger, skip the onion rings, and just eat half the burger. I'm not "trained" to throw food out – it feels wasteful. But maybe, once in a while, I need to learn.

As for the onion rings, they were "ok", but not worth the caloric investment. I did get a big hit of "whoa – CNE midway!" when they set the plate down in front of me, and that was fun. The best onion rings I ever had were in a restaurant that no longer exists in St. Catharines and featured a crispy corn meal coating, and almost no grease. Those, I would not be able to leave behind.

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I'm having fun preparing some playlists / CDs for my party on Sunday. I know, I know, there is supposed to be live music – and there will be. But the musicians need a break too … and people might want to listen to something more danceable than we can produce with guitars, bongos and mandolins.

Not surprsingly, I'm also tossing in a few nostalgia pieces. I have 45 years of a severe music obsession to cover off, after all.

In the period of time between living in residence @ my college, post-break-up, and moving into the light-filled condo I now live in, I lived in a basement apartment in East York. Two rooms, 400 sq. ft., no windows to speak of. It was pretty bleak, really. I tried to make the best of it but any depressive tendencies I may have already possessed were pretty much given full rein in that dark little place. Especially in the two winters I spent there.

One Saturday evening, I remember driving home and listening to Finkleman's 45's. Crazy Danny Finkleman played these rare nostalgia pieces, as well as more popular stuff, from the 50's and 60's, mostly. And he'd rant on about a variety of things between songs. On this particular night, I was feeling particularly low and hoped that Danny would have something to cheer me up. He did – a relatively rare recording of Ray Charles doing You Are My Sunshine.

I was hooked. I've had it in my collection since then and just hearing the opening chords and first few lines can pick me up, for some reason. The song itself isn't an especially happy one, but it seems to work some kind of magic on me.

Sunshine on Sunday has been promised me … I've added this song to the playlist as insurance … a talisman of good things – past, present and future.

You Are My Sunshine

Ray Charles

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream

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Last June, I had occasion to go to the Hallmark site to send an e-card. Lots of birthdays in early June … and, in mid-June, there is Father's Day. I found this image dominated the Hallmark site on that particular day and, frankly, found it puzzling and slightly disturbing.

Can anyone explain why they would use this image, and maybe what it means? What is your response to it?

Father’s Day Image – Hallmark

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Here is a partial list of the foods I plan to eat in my birthday week, starting with Jeffmas on Sept. 27: 

• KFC (one piece only – that stuff'll kill ya … )
• Big Mac
• Pasta with blue cheese, asparagus, shrimp and pancetta
• Indian Food @ Trimurti
• Blue cheese on anything (everything?)
• Ace bakery baguette with some kind of crumbly old cheese (probably not the whole baguette …)
• Bacon
• Sausage (the good stuff)
• Portuguese Custard Tart
• Dark chocolate
• Peanut Butter Cookies from Tim Horton's
• Cake, preferably chocolate, with icing
• Butter cookies from Kaivalya
• A cheesy croissant
• If Lex were to volunteer gnocchi,  I wouldn't turn'em down.

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I had a "what are we going to do next with this post-diploma program" meeting scheduled this evening across town and decided to bike to it. There is a distinct chill in the air these days, although it isn't exactly "cold" … it isn't balmy, either. I bundled up a bit for the bike ride.

My meeting was at a coffee shoppe at Spadina and Queen. I left early enough to bike leisurely. I'm not an experienced enough cyclist in this city to know the "best" route from A to B, but it is fun trying to figure it out. I tend to sort of make up my route as I go along.

I proceeded along Wellesley, past Church, towards Yonge. Church/Wellesley has been, for better or worse, the centre of my world for over 20 years. A focal point, a hub, even when I lived far from Toronto. It is plump with memories and energy. Some good, some not.

I carried on, past Yonge, to Bay. The traffic lightened up here and it seemed as good a time as any to head south. As I pedalled along Bay, past Grosvenor, I realized that I was passing the downtown Y – a place near and dear to my heart – from a perspective that I don't usually see. I approached College St. and noted that I was only one block from the MaRS building, another landmark for me. A tad further along and I was at a building on Bay known as LuCliff Place, famous in my life as being the place where a bunch of us used to gather regularly about 12 years ago to play pub trivia in a pub that no longer exists. Further still on this street, I realized that I was just north of City Hall and had last been here with Dry Ice and her husband as we strolled to the art exhibit this summer.

Veering right on Queen seemed a good idea, given the traffic patterns at that moment. I kept my eyes carefully on the road as I crossed University, but if I had been able to look up a bit, I would have seen the sculpture that one of my friends in undergrad dubbed "Gumby Goes To Heaven" shortly after it was unveiled 24 years ago. About a block and a half along Queen, past University, I passed Trimurti, the best Indian restaurant in the city that I have had the distinct pleasure of introducing several people to. The complex aroma wafting from Trimurti almost caused me to be late for my meeting!  Steeling myself, I forged onward. Traffic was oddly quiet in that moment so I decided to head south again because I mistakenly thought the Lettieri was at King and Spadina, rather than Queen and Spadina.

I hit King just east of John, which took me past the Second Cup at King and John and, moments later, Mountain Equipment Co-op, which all the cool kids refer to as MEC.  This whole stretch of road puts a silly little smile on my face. Just as I reached Spadina, I noticed a stray, lost baguette in front of the streetcar stop on King. It cried out to be photographed and I can see that I'm starting to stretch beyond the limits of my equipment and my skills. But, you get the general idea of what I was going for here. The pedestrians, and the drivers no doubt, wondered what the hell this person was doing crouching down in the gutter with her bike helmet still on, light flashing, to take multiple versions of this with a variety of settings.

The Lost Baguette

Moments later, I had reached my destination. After the very enjoyable and enlightening time with an alumni of our retired post-diploma program (RIP), I headed north on Spadina. I think I've eaten at at least one restaurant per 100 metres along this stretch, both sides of the road. I carried on past College and remembered attending meetings at the U of T's women's centre on Spadina Circle. A right turn on Harbord puts me almost directly under the overhanging "O". Its existance is a bit of a mystery, but there it is. I drive under the "O" about six times a week, heading to/from hockey. The lights at Huron remind me of a long, cold walk and a long, cold and teary conversation with someone I was seeing briefly a few years ago. I love cycling through Queen's Park but at this point I noted with alarm that the batteries were fading in my headlight – it is really dark in that park at night!

I was shortly back on Wellesley, headed directly for home.

If you had told me 20 years ago that I would find myself happily living in downtown Toronto, I would have said "You're insane". I remember saying Toronto was a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. I found the energy of the place too frenetic, too fast-paced, too self-indulgent. Visting Toronto from the outside would inevitably put me in a state similar to caffeine-induced jitters. Yet, here I am – no jitters at all. Feels pretty peaceful, really. Roots have taken hold. It seems to fit me at the moment, and I like that feeling, that sense of place and fit.

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Now that I've figured out how to dodge around that DRM business (in most cases), I feel positively giddy with music sharing. 🙂

It was early November 2005 and I was pretty stressed out in preparation for the fundraising concert I was producing,

Legends in the Livingroom

Legends in the Living Room. It was late on a Sunday, and I was sitting on my couch, with a pad of paper on my lap, making notes and lists. CBC radio was on, bless them. A show called Fuse in which the producers invite two quite different artists to do a concert together. I was only half listening as I was lost in thought about what I wanted this concert to be like.

I had had the concept of inviting my friends to come perform together for ages, and I wanted it to feel as though everyone was coming to my house. Of course, there had to be room for an audience and a stage … so not so much like a "house" party, really. But that was the concept. I wanted it to be comfortable and easy. I wanted people to just enjoy the night, enjoy the energy, and discover some new talents. And I wasn't sure at all that I could pull it off.

So, as I sat there, lost in my thoughts, my mind tuned into some lyrics that were emanating from the stereo.

This Is The Night
For every road you ever took that led you somewhere
Dark and crazy with the lots of wind n'rain             
For every word you spoke when someone didn't listen                                      
For every tear you cried that hit the ground in pain.                           

Show me a thunderstorm and I'll show you the sunlight
Show me the black n' white and I'll show you the gray                
Show me a tragedy and I'll show you a hero                   
Tonight every thing is gonna to be OK

This was exactly the song I needed to hear in that moment. The line "For every time you justify the way you feel" hit me then, as it does now, like a ton of bricks. I stood up immediately, went over to the computer, and ordered the CD – Love Sweet Love by Lynn Miles.

This Is The Night

Lynn Miles

Lynn Miles' music is deceptive in its simplicity. Her lyrics always seem to capture me, even if I'm listening for the zillionth time. Yet, musically, she sounds just slightly like she is making it up as she goes. My fantasy, after hearing This Is The Night, was to close the show with it. But we were too far into rehearsals to plan to throw a new piece into the mix. It was hard enough getting the guitarists and mandolin/percussion folks from Welland in the same room with the drummer from Scarborough and the keyboardist from Port Hope. And it isn't the kind of song one attempts on one's own. (No, no … instead, one tries for the equally deceptively simple "Book of Love" with practically no rehearsal … but that is for another post …)

So the CD arrived and it is filled with treasures and dark humour and bittersweet challenges to our romantic natures. Or mine, at least. Here is a beautiful song that sounds vaguely like a lullaby … but the lyrics pack quite a wallop.

Sweet And Tender Heart
Your heart is a well of fire, Melancholia and sweet desire
And sometimes it's not your own, It won't behave, or lead you home
And the world can turn it blue, Can weigh it down
Make it lie to you
And that's the truth, oh every part
Of your sweet and tender heart

Your heart can be so cold, Feel so sad, feel so old
And when it's done, It's traveling it'll need true love more than anything
And that's the truth, oh every part
Because that's your sweet and tender heart

Sweet And Tender Heart

Lynn Miles

The title song of the CD, Love Sweet Love, again deceptively simple, contains one of my all-time favourite lyrical phrases.
There's no love without courage
There's no courage without fear.
When I first heard this, I said to myself, "Yes. That's it." Love is always, always a scary risk, especially at the beginning. There are no guarantees. There is always vulnerability. And hope. One has to be prepared and resilient to survive the vulnerability/risk while simultaneously optimistic enough to envision the sweet possibility of reward. A delicate balance …

Love Sweet Love
You're living in the city, You're cool as you can be
Your future looks like roses, As far as you can see

Oh Love, Sweet Love (4x)

Love Sweet Love

Lynn Miles

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This was one of those oddly haphazard days in which interesting things kept happening, sort of out of the blue. Mostly good things, but not all … in fact, let's just do a little breakdown, shall we?

The Good
The Phone Call: I made one phone call, signed and faxed back a document, and saved myself about $2K. Good phone call, that was.

The Work-Out: Last time I worked out at the gym, Sunday, I wasn't able to finish my full weight routine. I finished my cardio, I got part way through the strength training and my muscles said, "Mmmm … no." So I stopped. I've been told to pay attention to what my body says. Monday was hockey (cardio), Tuesday more hockey (cardio) and, today, I did the gym thing again. I whizzed through my sets – I don't mean I hurried. I mean I was able to do two full sets of everything for the first time. I guess my body just needed more time to re-build. I'm ready to raise the weight on the gravitron and to increase the reps on the fearsome free weight rowing thing that I have a love/hate relationship with. I can do 2 x 20 back extensions, no sweat. (Well, some sweat.) Progress!

The Weigh-In: Went from the gym to my weighing in place. I was pleased to find out that EVEN with the pizza on Monday (twice!), the dreaded Tim Horton's cookie and illicit corn chips on Tuesday … I am STILL at my lowest weight ever since second year undergrad. I've lost 66 lbs in total. Even more exciting, although my weight maintained this week (a miracle), my inches dropped dramatically. I lost 2.25 inches in one week, almost entirely around my waist/abdomen. Total inch loss: 54. I shrinketh!

The Feedback: Got some amazing feedback out of the blue today. An online buddy from another site took the time to tell me in some detail how much she liked my blog, which was really lovely. (Thanks!) Then, this evening, I get word from a former student who has just got ANOTHER promotion. This fellow is smart, talented, extremely focused and hard-working. He didn't get any of that from me, but he was kind enough to thank me for my contribution to his career progression, which was really nice to hear. Especially this early in the school year. Keeps me motivated and focused, too.

The Confirmation: It is official – five of my favourite muscians are coming to my party next week. Four members of Kindred and Beth … hurrah! Now, we're cookin' with gas …

The Sale: I usually don't look at advertising flyers. Such things tend to go directly into the recycling bin that is strategically positioned right beside our mailboxes. But, today, one caught my eye. My fav store is having a sale and the thing I need most – semi-dressy pants for teaching – go on sale tomorrow. Some people shop at stores like, oh, Fluevog and Holt's … me, I'm a Mark's Work Wearhouse kinda gal. Winner's, Goodwill and Value Village are right up there, too.

The Not-So-Good
The Productivity Lapse: I did get a lot done today. Just not as much as I wanted. Poo.

My Screw-Up: Someone sent me a funny riff on Sarah Palin and the Republican take on things through e-mail and, without fact-checking, I just slapped it up on my FaceBook. It amused me. I trusted the source. I was hasty. Well, moments ago, I just got called out on it as a couple of the facts are a bit wonky. I could delete the whole thing, comment and all, and pretend it didn't happen. But I think I'm going to leave it. It will keep me humble for next time … lol …

If Wishing Made It So: One of my friends who had been looking forward to my party now can't come and I wish she could. So does she.

The Bizarre
I can't actually decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a big thing. I've been a member of a particular online discussion community since December 2001. These forums were part of the online presence for a well known, glossy lesbian magazine. Sometime, oh, 2004 or 2005, I was asked to become a moderator of these forums, along with 6-7 other long-standing members. The quality of the forums currently is questionable, but it did have its golden era a few years ago. Politics. Sex. Sexual politics. Humour (lots of it). Art. Popular Culture. Debate. Witty, and often just juvenile, repartee. Like an online global coffee shop.

I've met some fine fine people through these discussion forums. I've learned a lot, and I've made my contributions.

My routine in the morning includes … make coffee, turn on computer, check e-mail, check FB, check the forums. As a moderator, I'm looking more for trolls and skanky postings than interesting discussions. I nailed a racist joke the other day and I was pleased about that. Anyway, this a.m., I do my thing and … no forums. Gone. Vanished. No re-direct, no "we are down for maintenance, please come back later" … just … gone.

It is a bit like showing up at the playground that you always go to and finding that the city has plastered it over with concrete and fancy glass/steel monstrosities that you can't interact with. You, and all your friends, as well as the collection of school yard bullies, misfits and shy observers are standing behind a chain link fence, looking at where there used to be well-worn greenspace, climbing apparatus, and stuff that you could hurt yourself on if you weren't careful. But it was OUR playground, dammit! 

I feel very mixed about this. The manner in which this has occurred is really, well, cheap and disrespectful. No warning, not much of a contingency plan that I have a lot of faith in. I think the plug has been pulled. To be completely frank, the forums were attracting a much less engaging demographic than they need to really thrive and I was finding it quite tedious and difficult to stay engaged. But … just pulling the plug like that? Brutal.

On Balance …
Life is like this, isn't it? Hopefully more good than bad, and the occasional thing that makes you go "Huh?"  In between, there are bills to pay, laundry to do, mistakes to make, lessons to learn, and deep thoughts to think. This was the kind of day that makes me glad to be around … I get to do it all.

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"Does it really worry you, or do you feel obligated to worry?" Cate asks. Because she asks excellent questions that make me stomp and huff around in my mind, kicking the furniture and waving my arms, until I can answer them.

"Worrying" is a ridiculous waste of energy and I try not to engage in it actively. I've seen so many people work themselves into absolute frenzies about things they can't control and I just can't go there. When I "worry", I am usually wondering if I've "done the right thing" or if I'm prepared enough for something, or if I've forgotten to turn the stove off or unplug the iron. Actually, I iron so infrequently that this worry almost never happens. Except, on the rare occasion that I am forced to iron, I almost always obsess over whether I've unplugged it. Usually, I'm about 50 miles away from my place when this worry hits me.  After starting out on a road trip, I've been known to call my next door neighbours about an hour into the journey, to ask them to check whether I've turned the taps off in my upstairs bathroom. They are patient with me, as I am with them when they call me out of the blue, delayed by some circumstance, and ask me to feed their cat. It is a symbiotic thing.

This isn't the kind of worrying that Cate and I were discussing this morning, though. Off the top of my head, here are some people I *could* be worrying about, if I chose to:

• my perspicacious friend who announces she is going to Uganda, land of ebola and rather unfriendly ambushes
• my ex who is cheerfully placing herself squarely in the path of oncoming hurricanes, for two weeks in October, staying in a house on stilts for chrissakes, because she is head over heels for someone in Texas
• another ex whose job it is to attend various war-torn parts of the world to tend to the psychological and structural needs of "displaced" children. I have promised to help her pluck shrapnel out of her butt someday, if needed.
• another ex who has just "upped sticks" (moved her entire life) from Texas to Omaha, with great bravery and skill, to take on the next challenge in her career
• the multi-faceted and ever intriguing ecologist who is happily stretching her limits somewhere out in the middle of the Indian Ocean – land of god knows what … 
• my dear friend who is boldly preparing for a life-altering surgical procedure
• a new friend who is extricating herself from a complex marital situation
• my multitude of friends who have, it seems over the last six months, jumped ship from various and sundry short- and long-term relationships and are now in various stages of re-grouping and re-emerging into the world

Do I actively worry about these people? Honestly … no. They are all adults, grown-ups, accomplished and clear-headed. They certainly don't *need* me to worry about them.

Do I circle through the rolodex in my mind and wonder how these people – and others – are doing? Yes, of course. Do I get a tiny knot in my stomach, from time to time, wondering if I'll get to hear about their journeys over beer someday, or will they fall off a mountain, or into the ocean, or into some legal morass and disappear from view? Yes, I admit that sometimes I do get that momentary knot.  I don't think this translates into full-blown "worry", though. Do I curl up in a fetal position of anxiety on their behalf? Gawd, no.

I think it is about connection. My clucking and fidgeting is my knee-jerk way of saying "I'm connected to you, dammit, now don't go and get yerself kilt".  That's all. It passes.

I worried quite a lot about my mother, especially in the last few years before she died. My fussing, fidgeting and nagging had very little impact, and her death was sudden and (almost) unavoidable. Worrying, or not worrying – either state had no impact whatsoever. As it happens, this event has been a supreme test of my belief system, of my views on death and consciousness and spirituality. I feel light-years away from defining or articulating what my belief system actually is, but what I do know for certain is that I still feel very connected to this woman who gave birth to me on so many levels. I don't really know how to explain this, but when I think of her I feel peaceful and grounded. Somehow, this outcome causes me to be much less worried about the people I'm connected to now. Much more able to "let go" than perhaps I once was. Perhaps, on some level, I feel that if the connection is really there, there isn't much that can happen to sever it. In some brave cases, I've even learned to trust at some gut level this immutable thing we call connection, for lack of more clear terminology. If it is there, it is just there. No amount of worrying, or absence thereof, will change that.

But you will grant me, please, my occasional knee jerk fussing. It is just what I do. It too shall pass. 🙂

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I spent a lot of time on the phone today for some reason. Here is an excerpt of one conversation:

Me: blah blah blah … web consult … blah blah blah … hockey … blah blah blah … food … blah blah blah … gym … blah blah blah … birthday party … blah blah blah …

Friend: Um … you haven't said much about teaching. What is it like to be back in the classroom?

Oh. Right.

It is about 800 times easier than it was before. This is primarily because my anxiety about it has almost entirely disappeared. I have no explanation for this.

Case in point: Yesterday, I walked into my 12:30 class having done zero prep. None. Well, in fact, there was no prep to be done because the point of the class was to create teams and set them to working on projects, and I hadn't yet met two of the 10 students, and thus no teams could be created until I got at least a rudimentary sense of these individuals. I walked in with the projects ready, and with my powerpoint slides from Week Two last time I taught this, which I hadn't looked at for over a year. I created quick working groups, assigned them some relevant questions to explore, while I met and chatted with the two late arrivals. I had the project teams created, slides updated and things really rolling within 20 minutes. Everything worked out fine. By the time class was over, we were ahead of schedule.

See, the thing is I don't seem to take stuff very seriously if I find it easy. I figure if I can do it, anyone can do it. I have to grapple with the task a little for it to have weight in my life. However, as I explained to my friend, a year ago, I would have had quite a bit of angst about the situation over which I have no control – the low enrollment and the missing mystery students. That part really has changed. No angst (yet).

Let's hope it stays that way.

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