42point1

yep. that's about it.

Ever have one of those moments where you really really really really want to do something, and the deadline is looming, and you just know that any idea you've come up with so far just isn't going to cut it, and no matter how hard you think, no matter how hard you twist the ideas to try to bend them into some new and interesting kind of shape, no matter What. You. Do.

...you just know it isn't going to happen, and the thing you're doing right now? Right this very minute?  Cleaning the toilet bowl?

Pretty much sums up your life. 

And you ask yourself, all Peggy-Lee-Like, "Is that all there is?"

And you don't want to hear the answer, because you know that it's, "Yep.  That's all there is.  For you, anyway.  Laundry.  Vacuuming.  Yet another dinner to make.  And cleaning the toilet bowl."

you choose

The New York Times suggested Sarah Vowell's latest book, The Wordy Shipmates, was "impressive and annoying". 

I wouldn't have said I was impressed, but I certainly enjoyed reading it, enough to want to read other books written by Sarah Vowell.

And I'd certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a lively examination of the Puritains who set off to settle the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630.

jai ho! (= "may there be victory")

And boy, do I hope that "Slumdog MIllionnaire" wins every one of the ten Oscars it's nominated for.  And while I normally don't watch them, this year I will, and I'll even tape them. 

Composer AR Rahman is up for three awards, including Best Original Song for "O Saya" and this one, "Jai Ho", sung by my favorite Bollywood playback singer, Sukhwinder Singh (and how cool was it to watch this song in the credits and realize who it was!)

janam din mubaarak ho

Which is one of the actual greetings sent to me this past weekend -- amongst a flurry of audio messages, facebook messages, twitter messages, all wishing me "janam din mubaarak ho".

I'll leave it to you to deduce the meaning.

Friday, Rob took a vacation day and took me into Toronto to see "Slumdog Millionaire".  It is a harrowing, uplifting film, and worth every single minute, right down to the final credits.  This is contrary to what a number of folks leaving the cinema were saying (they seemed to think all that messy realism was Not Very Nice). 

I know this is going to sound terribly age-ist, and probably a good way to tempt the Universe to give me a tight slap, as they say in the Hindi movies, but we went to a show that seemed to be attended by...er... a lot of..er... retirees....er...and it makes me want to say, if I get old like that, shoot me.  Just shoot me.

Then Rob took me to Mokuba ribbons, where I scored some really great grosgrain ribbon to line the opening of a sweater I need to finish.  Half price!  Whoo hoo! 

The only downer of the day was the trip to the bead store to pick up the three tubes of desperately needed gold beads I need for a couple of projects I'm working on, one of which I want to submit to a magazine.  Mind, it was the end of the day, I'd been for nerve blocks in the morning, we'd been running around, and suddenly I was tired and frustrated and wanted to have a bit of a cry right then and there.  I mean, birthday!  Hello!  Everything should go perfectly today!

It's okay now.  I'm prepared to unknit one sample to harvest enough beads for the project I want to submit, and then reknit it again later.  They said they'll contact me when they order in beads to give me an idea when I can expect them.  They are a terrific store, so I know they will.

Then off to Yorkdale to have a Vanilla Bean Latte at the Second Cup (who knows why, but this particular location makes the best ones ever), to buy some shampoo at Aveda (and discover they give you ten bucks off on your birthday!)

Sunday Rob took me to see Akshay Kumar's new film "Chandni Chowk 2 China", where we were joined by Valerie, who made the trek from downtown.  Dinner downtown with friends was cancelled because the weather was a bit iffy yesterday, but it was a good weekend nonetheless.

Oh, and the photo?  I'm sorry I don't have a better picture, but we'd just got home Friday night and it was late and I didn't want to unwrap it because then I would start to eat it, so I left it wrapped for the next day.

But that's a galette des rois.  A real, proper, galette, lovely flakey pastry filled with the most amazing frangipane.  It came from Montreal.

Seriously. Sylvain (who is the coolest and nicest guy ever), remembered that I love galettes, and mentioned once that I used to get one for my birthday when we lived in France.  So he went to his local patisserie, got one, built a freaking box for it to protect it, and sent it to me.

And now, if you'll excuse me, because there's just a wee bit of that galette left, and I think I'm going to go sneek a piece!

dillo in sei parole (= "say it in six words")

So, I was sitting here listening to an episode of the Deejay Chiama Italia podcast from the other day, entitled "dillo in sei parole" -- "Say it in six words".  Deejay Linus had written an entry about this on his blog, in a post entitled "Say it all in six words".

I did a Google search on that phrase, "say it all in six words", and it turns out it's the concept behind a book entitled "Not Quite What I Was Planning" which is, apparently, a book of six word autobiographies of everyone from Hemingway ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn") to Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales ("Yes, you can edit this autobiography").

There's an excellent article about the book on the New Yorker website.

The comments on Deejay Linus's blog stick true to the original aim in some cases, giving a six-word life summary; some of them, though, veer into six words to live by.

Which gave me the idea for this post -- it occurs to me that this is an interesting exercise (which is probably why the folks at SMITH magazine came up with it (along with a lot of other interesting things to share in six words).

If I were to sum up a bit of advice this morning (it's very, very, very cold here today) it would probably be "A cup of tea works wonders".

And if I were to sum up my life right at this moment?

"Born in Canada, dreams of India."

How about you? 

stop it. just stop it now.

Okay, let's keep in mind that I'm still miserable with cold.  So I'll try to temper what I'm about to type, and you'll try to be indulgent (up to a point, I suppose.  There are limits, especially when I'm about to do my best Miss Crankypants imitation).

But all you people who think it's your social media duty to tell me how to use the tools?  Stop it.  Stop it right now.

Stop telling me how to blog.  If you don't like what I write, you don't have to read it.  Move along.

Stop telling me how to podcast.  There are no rights and wrongs in this.  I can do what I like, when I like, how I like.  You don't like?  Don't listen, ferpete'ssake.  Did someone put a gun to your head and force you to subscribe?  No, they didn't, and they're not forcing you to stay subscribed either.

Same thing with Twitter. Stop telling me how to use Twitter.  It's a tool.  I use it as it seems useful to me.  Don't tell me there's a Right Way to Use Twitter.  There isn't.  If you don't like what I'm doing there, don't follow me.

Stop playing Web Police 2.0.  If you don't like how someone uses the tool, move on, don't try to fix it.  It's not broken folks.  It's just being used by real people, to serve their real needs.  That's all.

The Palace of Illusions

I've just finished reading Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's book The Palace of Illusions (New York:  Doubleday, 2008), and enjoyed it immensely, so much so, in fact, that I kept thinking what a good movie it would make (and even envisioned several of my favorite actors in some of the roles.  If only I were younger, richer, and had the kinds of connections I needed to make movies myself.  Perhaps in another lifetime?)

The story is based on the Mahabharata, the great Indian epic tale, a narration of the Kurukshetra War that pitted the rival Pandava and Kaurava families against each other for the Hastinapura throne.  In a twist, though, Divakaruni chooses to have the story narrated by  Draupadi, the wife of the five Pandava princes.  As you might imagine, women don't tend to be in the forefront of epic literature of many types, even if they play key roles, so this is a refreshing twist to the story.

There is a better review than I can muster right now (yes, I'm sick again.  Down with some flu/cold thing that hit New Year's eve.  It's going to be a long winter, I think.) here.

dear canadians: please read this

I'm still under the weather (though I've finally turned a corner, thank the stars) and too tired to put together a coherent post about the current Canadian political situation.  Mostly I've been stressed about the rhetoric coming out of Stephen Harper and the Conservative party -- first of all, "socialist" is not a dirty word, and if it weren't for the "socialists", we wouldn't have some of the things that makes this country admired -- universal health care, anyone?

Second -- I may not agree with the Bloc Quebecois and their aims (though I do agree with them a lot on social/fiscal/environmental issues), but they are the legitimately, democratically elected representatives from the people of Quebec, and they have a right to participate in parliament and represent their constituents. 

Mostly, I'm distressed that the Prime Minister of this country doesn't seem to possess any understanding of how Canadian Parliamentary democracy works, and seems to think he's suddenly working in an American style republic.  It's not the case.  But for a far more eloquent post on this very subject, please head over to Mark Blevis' blog, and read his post entitled "A New Education on the Parliamentary System".  He's put the case more coherently and more thoughtfully than I can right now.

And as Valerie said on Twitter (actually, she tweeted several interesting thoughts, including some echoed in Mark's post):

"So when you listen to what the Harper says in the next few days, ask yourself what country's language he's speaking."

after dark

After Dark is the latest novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, whose works I rather enjoy, though I'd be hard-pressed to tell you why.  Maybe because somewhere, on some level, Murakami creates a universe in which I fully expect someone like, say, the Scarborough Dude (of the DicksnJanes podcast) to suddenly appear in my copy of the book.  It wouldn't surprise me at all to pick up the next Murakami novel and find that it had happened.

However, since I'm honestly so miserably sick that I can't think straight (and oddly, read most of the novel while waiting at the local walk-in clinic to see a doctor on Saturday), and dead tired, I'm going to forego reviewing the book myself and send you on to two links:

Ten things you need to know about Haruki Murakami (from The Times Online)

Walter Kirn's review of After Dark in The New York Times

rnbdj