Sunday, July 29, 2012

Sunday: end of week or beginning of next?

So where did I leave things?

It's Sunday night and I'm sliding into my evening. The last week of July - yikes, we'll soon be into August, meaning the summer will be half complete. Oh well, not a big deal considering autumn is truly my favourite time of year. And I've already got a few things lined up September, namely (wait for it...) a trip to Paris! So I guess that's the big news since I last wrote. It all happened very quickly.

I was chatting with my friend A., who was telling me about a planned trip he was taking this summer, and it got me thinking how wonderful it would be to have something exciting like that lined up. For some reason traveling to Paris popped into my head. It made sense in so many ways. One, I haven't been to the city of lights for 15 years. (And it was just the one time, for a few days at the end of July, before I headed to the south of France for a wedding.) Two, it's a city where it wouldn't be odd to be traveling by myself (as much as I'd love to travel with someone - this will be my first solo trip in about five years - it definitely looks like I'll be going alone). And three... well, it's Paris! I have a little over two weeks of vacation in September, and I think it's important for me to get out of town for at least some of it. So, I'll be off to Paris for a week come Sept. 11. (And yes, that's the date I'm traveling. It took me a while to figure out why that date was sticking in my head...)

So my travel preparations are beginning. The first order of business was finding an apartment to crash at for the week. It took me a few days, but I found a great little flat in the 11th Arrondissement. It's going to cost me right around 600Euros, which I figure is reasonable (for being in a good area and in a clean, cozy studio apartment - it even has a dishwasher). It comes equipped with a computer as well, so perhaps you'll find me blogging while I'm there. It's important to make others envious of this trip...  Second priority, of course, is research, which I'm doing by watching films set in Paris (natch). I cheated a bit first by watching Truffaut's Small Change (set in a small French town), but returned on Friday by re-watching the wonderful Before Sunset (seems the flat I'm staying at is but a few streets away from the cafe where Jesse and Celine first stop in the film). Last night it was the fantastic 1950s crime drama Rififi, and tonight I'm going to watch Flight of the Red Balloon, directed by that well-known Frenchman Hsiao-hsien Hou. (Of course that's a joke - I'm curious if he actually speaks French at all! - but I love his films.) I saw the film when it was at TIFF back in 2007, and I think it demands another viewing.

I should mention that I've also recently become addicted to the musician Fiona Apple. Fiona, why did it take me so long to find you?!

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The mid-week

Apologies for my whiny post from the weekend. I think I must have woke up on the proverbial wrong side of the bed. (Does adding "proverbial" absolve me from using cliches, I wonder?) I actually ended up having a nice weekend overall. First, some jazz at the Pilot:


And then later that evening, hanging out on my back deck with friend/colleague M. (One day I'm going to riff about my friendship with her, and how bizarre it is to be relatively good friends with her after lusting for her when I didn't even know her. That's a whole other story I don't feel in the mood to explore.) Sunday was a nice chill day spent reading on the couch, napping, and generally just loafing about. It was fun to watch the sheets of rain descend on my back deck as well.

After killing myself both Monday and Tuesday working on a newsletter which I edit (the things we do to put on our resume to help secure tenure!), I've mostly had a relaxing Wed. evening. First a run (this is me icing my tender left calf):



Then a nice pasta dinner:


Complemented rather nicely by a big bold red wine from Argentina. (The heat has passed, so it's safe to bring out the reds again.) I've spent much of the evening buying music off iTunes. When I bought my new computer about a month ago, I received a $100 gift certificate for the iTunes store (it was some promotion having to do with education; I was able to take advantage of the education discount), so I've slowly been making some new purchases. Tonight it was the new Punch Brothers, then took a flyer on a Canadian (but now NYC dwelling) jazz musician named Kris Davis, and then the new Brad Mehldau Trio recording. I also discovered Fiona Apple tonight, after taking out one of her CDs from the TPL. How have I missed her for all these years?! She's great!

So what's the point of this crazily boring post? I guess to say that I'm doing well. And to show off my dinner.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Question(s) of the day

As I was lying groggily in my bed this morning around 6:15 - it seems I no longer have the ability to sleep in, even on weekends, no matter what time I hit the sheets at night - trying to figure out how to spend my day of leisure (should I go see some aft. jazz at the Pilot? look for a new pair of shorts to replace the ones that got all torn up from my bike mishap with the streetcar tracks on Wed. night? buy some new running shoes to see if that's the cause of this lingering left calf problem? head down to MEC to look for a knapsack and/or bike pannier? work on a newsletter that I'm woefully behind on? lounge around the apartment and/or do some tidying up? As you can see, the options are many), I got to thinking: am I actually enjoying my life right now? More specifically, am I making the most of my weekends, indulging my passions and pleasures when I have more time to spare?

While I tend to crave these weekends where I have no commitments, it's got me wondering exactly why I don't have any commitments. The short answer, of course, is that I'm no longer in a committed relationship, with its weekend expectations of "hanging out" with one's significant other - that's freed up much of my non-work time. Most of my close friends have young families which understandably eat up their weekends. (They're very good at making the time to hang out during the work week though, which is great.) There are some others I can "tap" to make plans with, but I tend to be reluctant to hang with people I don't consider close friends - that's just the way I operate, I'm afraid. I'm also bereft of dating companionship as well - one of these days I'll bore you with the mechanics and machinations of the online dating world, which is often frustrating and futile - which is actually not a major source of frustration (at least right now).

I think I'm just a mite peeved at myself that I've become somewhat apathetic about pursuing those things that do make me content with my lot in life. And I need to figure out where this apathy is coming from. I'll admit to feeling extremely melancholic of late - but is this a classic "chicken or the egg" situation, where my melancholy is the result of my apathy or the cause of it? I miss the lovely A. tremendously as well, so that too must be having a negative impact on my overall mood and my feelings of self worth.

Anyway I'm really just thinking aloud here. I didn't mean this to sound like a sucky, whiny post!

I think I will go to the Pilot for the jazz. That tends to put a hop in my step. Sometimes literally.

Monday, July 2, 2012

As the evening approaches...

Geez, I'm so out of practice on blogging, I forgot to title my last post! In my defence, I'm not accustomed to the new layout of blogger, so I didn't even notice I hadn't included a title. I'll try to be careful in the future...

So I had a nice ride out to the Leslie Spit. I'm almost ashamed to admit this, but I've been living in Toronto now for half my life, and that's actually the first time I've ever visited the Spit. But it fits in nicely with what I hope will be the theme of the summer: venturing to different parts of the city that have gone largely unexplored by myself (there are way too many to name, but places like the Scarborough Bluffs come to mind, along with various city neighbourhoods like the Junction, etc.), along with events that I've long meant to do but never seem to get around to (like the many outdoor films this city offers during the warm months of summer).

The Spit was interesting, and it certainly was a nice ride out there. The waterfront trail was busy, but thankfully not too crazily packed with cyclists and rollerbladers. (One negative observation: they really need to do something about that stretch of Queen's Quay near and around Harbourfront. What a disaster that is for everybody alike: pedestrians, transit users, drivers and especially cyclists.) Along the way I stopped first at the Sherbourne Common, which I've meaning to visit since it opened last year. I'll admit, I wasn't totally blown away by it, but that might have more to do with the time of day, when it was under the mid-day sun. My guess is that the park is more picturesque when the sun isn't so high in the sky - but that's a total guess. I've included a couple of photos (as I packed my camera for my journey).


(Hmm, sorry, they seem to be sticking together.)

And then it was on to the Spit, after riding past Cherry Beach (another landmark I had never visited, although I had been close a number of times since I've been to that awful The Docks venue to see a copule of concerts). I actually wasn't sure what to expect, but I brought a book and my journal (and a sandwich) with me in case there was a natural place to sit and relax for a while. Well, there wasn't, but that's ok since it was still a great place to cycle around. I ventured to the very tip (where the lighthouse is), and stopped a couple of times along the way to take a few photos. I've included two below.



(Ok, I'm getting the hang of adding photos...)

For those that have never visited the Spit, it's definitely worth a cycle out. I doubt I'll spend too much time there - I like a little more trees and shade to sit under - but I'm glad I finally made it there.

Sadly, when I got home, I seemed to lapse into this incredibly profound, and somewhat debilitating, case of the blues. (I don't like using the word "depression," but it did feel like that.) I think the varioud events of the past week or so finally caught up with me and told hold of my emotions in a very negative way. I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I lay on the bed until I fell asleep. That seemed to work. I'm still feeling a little "raw" emotionally, but not near as bad as earlier. I'm going to settle into my evening with a G&T out on the back deck and the Franzen novel Freedom, which I picked up a few weeks back.

A two post day. Impressive! (Pity I probably don't have any readers to impress.)
Is it possible to return to blogging after taking such an extended break? Well I suppose I can really do whatever the hell I want! Thus, here I am, back writing again after basically ignoring the blogging world for the past year. My motivation(s)? None, really, except for realizing early this morning (during yet-another restless evening of slumber; I'm suffering through a rare bout of insomnia) that I've sort-of got away from the things that I enjoy doing. Writing is certainly one of them. Photography is another. I haven't been doing much fiction reading either this past year. I can easily put the blame on my work schedule, particularly the extra-curricular activities (namely one big one: writing an academic paper to be delivered at the Humanities Congress) that I had committed to, but in all honesty it was largely just apathy and disinterest that kept me away from indulging in my interests. Now that I'm going through a bit of a "down" period - emotionally, for one, but also where I have less work commitments (although I do have to finish up a newsletter for the society I'm a council member of - I've been quite lax on putting that together) - I figure this is a good time to see if I can get my writing mojo back. Of course will I recover any readers?!

What will I write about? Whatever comes to mind, I suppose. Hopefully about reviving some of those above-mentioned interests! (I'm planning on riding my bike out to the Leslie Spit in a couple of hours with my camera in tow, although I'm not that much of a nature photographer...) Maybe I'll write about my dating, although after my last experience which ended on Friday I might be a little gun-shy about putting myself out there again. I'm just in a state where I need to occupy my mind and maybe even challenge myself a little bit. I need to beat back the boredom too.

So please come and read me!