the week in review

so, my first week of the whole "write for one hour every day" plan went pretty well. most days, i actually wound up writing for more than an hour. not consecutively -- i'd usually write for an hour and a bit in the morning, and then another hour and a bit in the mid-afternoon.

much of that writing consisted of one of two things, or a combination of both: a blog post and/or brainstorming.

the blog posts are self-explanatory, and you can see the fruits of that labour below. i started to feel like i was suddenly tapping into a wealth of bloggy potential with my friday post -- i finished it and kind of went, "huh. that actually turned out better than i thought it would!" i was quite pleased with the result... which, of course, then rendered me a bit inert because i didn't know how to write something better the next day (yesterday).

that's the thing about a solid blog post: sometimes the next one is also solid, and sometimes you realize you have nothing at all to say.

hence: nothing said yesterday.

even today, i'm resorting to the old recap chestnut, which makes this more like a diary entry than a blog post. and it can get annoyingly self-centered and boring. just like it's doing right now.

BUT... i figured i should write something. and i hoped that by starting to put words on my screen, better, more interesting words might appear.

it was VERY very hot in toronto this week. lawns and greenery are scorched and dry across the city, everyone with AC is hunkered down inside, everyone without AC is desperately seeking relief. i took my daily walks early in the morning and still got home drenched in sweat. gracie's been pretty lethargic, spending the better part of each day curled up in her cat-condo cubby.

i've been watching the final season and a half of "dark," an excellent german sci-fi/drama series that's sort of like a much much much smarter, more complex and WAY better cross between "the x-files" and "stranger things." the sprawling multi-generational cast is fantastic across the board, and the show DEMANDS that the viewer pay close attention at all times. this isn't a series for the casual viewer -- if you're not invested in what's going on and don't immerse youself in the dizzying amount of detail, you'll be lost and lose interest pretty quickly. the writing is strong and the storytelling smart. it's the kind of show i watch and think, "WOW. HOW did they come up with that?!?!"

as an aside: the series is also bringing back my own use/knowledge of german. as a child, my mom's mother -- who only spoke german to me -- took care of me during the day, so i was apparently quite fluent in german before i turned 4. i've lost most of it over the years, but watching the series has reminded me of words and phrases i recognize. so now, instead of calling "graaaaaaaaaacie, where aaaaaaaaare you?" when i want gracie to trot into a room, i say, "graaaaaaaacie, wo biiiiiiiiiiist du?"

oh, and back to the daily writing: as mentioned, i've also been brainstorming, which has been fun. i've been using the CD-song-title exercise and, in the process, have come up with almost 80 story ideas.

the ideas are the easy part. turning those ideas into something -- be a script, a short story, a poem, whatever -- is where i tend to falter. but, in the coming week, i might take one idea a day and just write it for an hour to see where it gets me.

things remembered

it was raining that day. and it was cold. it was december. i'd dressed up a little but not too much. i wanted to look nice but still feel comfortable. to feel like myself. or, myself with a slight upgrade. i chose to forgo my usual knapsack because i thought it would look unsophisticated, so i tucked my wet umbrella into a plastic bag -- and then into the over-the-shoulder bag i'd brought -- when i arrived. i was there first. nervous. excited. uncertain.

i think she got there almost on time. maybe she was a few minutes late -- enough to make me think maybe she wouldn't be coming. but she did come. i don't remember what we said when we exchanged hellos but, weirdly, i vividly remember checking our coats. the empty check-in area, handing our stuff to the young attendant. it all plays back in my mind like a music video: no dialogue, just fleeting images and feelings. my coat had a decorative lining, and i think she commented on it. or maybe i did. i know we talked about it before heading in. but, again, i don't remember what either of us actually said.

the museum was sprawling and empty. it was a weekday. i don't remember where we went first, but i think we took the stairs. i know we wandered from room to room, floor to floor, occasionally checking the map to see where we were and what might be around the next corner. the lighting was perfect: soft and dim, rendering everything kind of dreamy.

or maybe that's just how my mind chooses to remember it.

we talked. i know we must have talked. we certainly didn't spend all that time together in silence. but i have no memory of anything we talked about.

she looked at art. i looked at her.

part of me couldn't really believe we were there together. alone. just the two of us. i wanted so badly for her to fall for me in the same way i'd fallen for her.

she was beautiful. tall. whip smart. goofy. self-conscious. i felt awkward and fumbly around her. i hoped she hadn't noticed.

her birthday was coming up, and i'd brought a card. a friend had tipped me off to an out-of-the-way viewing gallery, so i made sure we somehow wound our way there.

we sat down on a small wooden bench, tucked into the cozy little space where we could hide in the shadows for a bit. i took out the card and handed it to her.

inside, i'd taped a 1981 penny, and had written "a penny from the year you were born, as an investment in your thoughts for the year to come." i thought it was clever and sweet. i wanted the gesture to have emotion and meaning behind it, but not so much that it might frighten her off.

i think she liked it. i don't remember how she reacted, actually, but i remember feeling distinctly disheartened that it wasn't the reaction for which i'd hoped.

there was no magical first kiss on the small wooden bench in that dimly lit museum viewing gallery.

we carried on.

the only things that stand out in my mind as far as the hours that followed are: the disappointing food we ate at the pub across the street afterwards, and saying goodbye on the subway platform just before rush hour started.

i waited with her for her train to arrive. she gave me a hug. i don't remember what either of us said.

we were going in opposite directions.

*  *  *  *  *

it's funny, i hadn't thought of that day in years.

then, last week, i was going through several large cardboard tubes filled with movie posters that i'd collected in my teens and 20s. i pulled out the contents of each tube and looked at every poster, deciding which ones to keep (precious few) and which ones to toss (so many -- why on earth did i ever buy some of these?!).

inside one of the tubes was a much smaller cardboard tube, clearly holding something much smaller than a movie poster. i had no clue what it could be. i pulled out the roll of paper inside and instantly remembered.

it was, indeed, a movie poster -- a scaled-down reproduction of a 1954 movie poster from france, for her favourite film of all time starring her favourite actress of all time. as i sat there looking at this piece of my past, i remembered how i'd sought it out by visiting multiple memorabilia stores in the city. i'd bought it all those years ago thinking that it would make a beyond-perfect birthday or christmas gift for her. i remember thinking how amazed she'd be that i found something so unique and so very her, and how excited i was to give it to her.

but, obviously, i never did.

as i rolled it back up, tucking it and all those memories back into the small cardboard tube, i wondered if she kept that card i gave her at the museum that rainy day in december, and if she still had that penny that was taped inside.

gracie and the giant poo

in a picturesque, leafy residential corner of toronto, in a cheerful condominium apartment filled with colour, lives a petite grey cat named gracie. she is five years old. and she is extremely cute. gracie, whose fur is floofy and very very soft, lives in the apartment with her mummy, who makes sure gracie gets food and water and treats and toys and brushies and LOTS of cuddles. they love each other very much.

gracie lives a very good life. she likes to take long, lazy naps that last for hours and hours. sometimes, she sleeps so deeply and her breathing becomes so shallow that she appears motionless, so her mummy checks to make sure gracie is still alive. one of gracie's favourite games is to *not* move, react or respond when her mummy is doing this, which causes her mummy to momentarily panic. then gracie opens her eyes and laughs and laughs. silly mummy!

gracie enjoys curling herself into small, cozy spaces to sleep, and it doesn't matter if it's summer or winter, hot or cold, sunny or snowy. sometimes, gracie tucks herself into an old cardboard box that used to have a lamp inside. sometimes, she chooses to nap in a plush hidey-hole with little illustrated birdies on the outside. sometimes, it's a carpeted cubby in her new pink tower. and, sometimes, gracie just stretches out her small, lean body as far as it will go, wherever she happens to be: the bed, the floor, behind the couch, on her orange cushion, in the furry green nap chair, wherever.

gracie loves to talk. and talk and talk and talk. every morning when mummy wakes up, gracie greets her with lots and lots of meows and chirps and purrs, telling her mummy all about her nighttime misadventures, the bugs she might have eaten, the raccoons she watched from the window as they scurried across the street, the dreams she had while she waited for a new day to start.

gracie always announces herself when she enters a room. sometimes, she lets out a big, bold, loud, "HEY! it's ME!" meeeeeowr. sometimes, she just makes a sad little "meow," as though she feels lonely or scared or wants a hug. gracie also talks whenever she jumps onto something, or jumps off of it. she meows when she's getting cuddles she likes and when she's had enough. she also likes to play "marco polo" with her mummy, and will call to her in a faint little meow until her mummy answers with, "yes?". and gracie ALWAYS wants to add her two cents whenever her mummy is on the phone. with anyone. talking about anything. that's why mummy's friends and family members and colleagues and financial advisors and telemarketers and the receptionists at the dentist's office and so many others have all heard what gracie sounds like. gracie likes to be heard.

gracie is smart and funny. she knows exactly how to get her mummy's attention and how to make her mummy give her lots of cuddles. gracie loves rolling over on her back and twisting back and forth like an inchworm. mummy knows this is gracie's way of signalling, "let's have cuddles now, please!" gracie also loves watching TV with her mummy -- usually, while sitting on mummy's lap or while curled up next to her mummy on the couch. if gracie could, she'd have cuddles all day, every day.

gracie has a collection of toys that she loves. there's mousie, bigger mousie, fishie, sushi 1 and sushi 2, sparkles, and -- along with assorted balls and catnip logs -- her two love-to-hate-them arch-nemeses: the big rats. these two rats are about half of gracie's size and she just *loves* grabbing them in a choke hold with her front paws and then kicking and kicking and kicking them with her back paws like an angry rabbit. gracie will chomp on the rats' heads because she can taste the catnip that's inside. gracie loves these rats even though she very clearly wants to rip them open.

gracie is a delicate flower with an even more delicate constitution. there always seems to be something not quite right with her. maybe it's genetic, maybe it's allergies, maybe it's nerves. her mummy doesn't know. sometimes, gracie gets something her in right eye, which makes it all teary and causes her to walk around like a cyclops, with one eye shut. gracie has a little mole over that eye, and sometimes her forehead gets itchy, so she scratches and scratches until she breaks the skin right near that mole. then, gracie looks like she got into a street brawl. poor gracie!

gracie's back muscles sometimes twitch, which is common in cats, but that makes her lick and lick and lick her back with her rough, barbed tongue, and she accidentally gives herself a haircut. gracie is already a fastidious groomer, who constantly makes sure every inch of herself is super-clean at all times, but these unexpected haircuts go a teensy bit too far.

gracie also gets "snoofly" on occasion, which is like being "sniffly" except that she repeatedly blows air *out* of her nostrils instead of sucking it in. gracie can be snoofly for days, and sometimes weeks... and then her snoofliness just disappears. when gracie is snoofly, her mummy calls her "snoofalupagus." no one knows for sure what makes gracie snoofly, but her mummy is pretty sure it's caused by stress. or dust. or pollen. or all of those things. or none of them.

gracie, like many cats, is very particular about her food. and even more particular about where her food bowls are placed. gracie will eat kibbles in the bowl in the kitchen but will NEVER ever eat her wet food there. in the mornings, she will eat her wet food in the foyer, next to the shoes. she usually eats about half the serving, and will then pick at the remaining half for a few hours thereafter... but only after her bowl has been moved to the middle square on a patterned rug about four feet from the shoes.

in the evenings, gracie prefers to eat her suppertime wet food in the living room. her mummy has yet to figure out the "right" spot in which to place the food bowl because gracie changes her mind daily. if her mummy puts the food down in the wrong spot, gracie will turn up her nose and immediately walk away, as though her mummy has served up a steaming bowl of rotting garbage. mummy moves the bowl... but it's still not right, so gracie refuses to eat. eventually, and in a different place each night, mummy finally gets it exactly right and gracie immediately dives into her dinner. her mummy figures this is yet another of the games gracie plays to entertain herself at mummy's (exasperated) expense. poor mummy!

every now and again, and much to her mummy's consternation, gracie decides she doesn't want to eat food at all. none of it. unless her mummy serves it to her by hand. and, even then, she'll only eat a little. these spells can go on for a day or a few days, and her mummy always panics. but, eventually and for no discernible reason, gracie's appetite goes back to normal and her mummy heaves a sigh of relief that a vet visit isn't necessary.

gracie is quite brave for a cat. at least, as far as noise is concerned. unlike her cousin larry, who often runs and hides when loud noises happen, gracie isn't frightened by big trucks driving past or thunderstorms or deafening renovations in a nearby unit. in fact, gracie doesn't really seem to notice these things at all.

sometimes, if there's a particularly unexpected or sudden noise she's never heard before -- like mummy accidentally dropping a fork into the sink -- gracie will jump and run away... but she comes back very quickly to investigate the source of this previously unknown sound. the only thing that really scares gracie is the vacuum cleaner, which gracie has nicknamed "the terror machine." gracie does not like it when mummy takes the vacuum cleaner out of the closet, but is learning to be less afraid of it. in the beginning, gracie would flee to a safe corner far away from the terror machine whenever it made an appearance anywhere in the apartment. now, she remains asleep (but alert) on mummy's bed until the vacuum is within a few feet, and only then will gracie trot away to another room while mummy finishes cleaning.

but what about the title of this blog post, you ask? i've saved it for last. you see, while she has an endless array of charming quirks, one of gracie's most unusual -- and remarkable -- traits can be found in her litter box.

because even though she is diminutive in size and occasionally eats like a bird, little gracie can produce some impressively giant poos.

her mummy is always shocked and amused when she finds one of these monster-sized poos in the litter box in the mornings. gracie always does one pee and one poo overnight, and then a second pee sometime during the day. every single day. despite all her idiosyncrasies, gracie is regular! so, her mummy always cleans the box first thing, and that's when these enormous-for-gracie poos -- which are almost as big as a mid-sized dog might produce -- makes her mummy wonder how good (and relieved) gracie must feel after producing and expelling such a dramatic deposit.

gracie's mummy figures these giant poos are likely a result of gracie's hairball-formula food and treats, which have added fibre to help cats get excess hair out of their digestive tracts more easily. plus, gracie is a good drinker, who has two big drinks of water each day, which help the treats and food do their job even more effectively. as you've learned, gracie grooms herself thoroughly, and her medium-length hair means she's probably eating a lot of what she licks. so, she needs these special treats and food, and these special treats and food are a bit like feline metamucil. if you, as a human, have never taken metamucil, this comparison will mean nothing to you. if you have taken metamucil, you know what it does to your poop. that's what hairball treats and food, and lots of water, do for cats.

so it was that today, our gracie delivered yet another giant poo. and, as her mummy scooped it out into a little neon-green bag procured from dollar tree, she smiled. at the poo and her personality-filled, persnickety, perfectly petite small friend.

a curious epiphany

a couple of posts ago, i described the intense anxiety that's been hitting me upon waking of late. and the stressors/stresses that crawl through my brain when i go to bed at night. the worries about the future, the panic about the present... and the sometimes-all-consuming dread about the unknown that lies ahead for pretty much every aspect of my life.

i'm not sure when or why it happened, but i had a weirdly insightful revelation yesterday that helped (a bit, anyway) bring the root of all that anxiety into focus a little: in recent months, when i've thought about the future, it's been through the lens of being in the present.

and not in a good way.

that is, when my thoughts have drifted to, say, my life two years from now or five years from now or whatever, i've been imagining myself being in exactly the same situation i'm in now... but with EXTRA stressors added to the mix. and, not surprisingly, that's amplified the panic.

apparently, my brain -- or my imagination or whatever governs these twilight-hours mental musings -- doesn't think any of the circumstances of my life will be any different in the future. it believes that two years from now or five years from now or whatever, i'll still be exactly as i am now, the same person dealing with the same issues in the same ways. unemployed and uncertain about when or where my next job will manifest itself. living in this condo and being on its board with the asshat condo-board president. dealing with a COVID-riddled world. and so on.

for whatever reason, my thoughts of the future haven't been framed in things like "oh, i'll have sold my first screenplay by then and the money will be rolling in!" or "i'll be working on an amazing project and feel creatively fulfilled!" or "i'll have remodelled my bathrooms and bought a new sofa!" or "the asshat president will long be gone!" or anything outside of the way everything exists right now.

so, i've been taking the stressful and uncertain place i'm at right now and just... imagining more stress and uncertainty added to it. NO WONDER I WAKE UP PANICKED.

sidenote: "catastrophizing" the future is a trademark of people with generalized anxiety. imagining the worst-case scenarios and then fixating on them as though the future is preordained to be terrible. i know this and yet didn't actually recognize i was doing it.

all that said, and despite this epiphany, i'm not actually sure how to thwart those thoughts completely. i know it will involve focusing on the present (in a healthier, more mindful way), taking steps to remedy some of the controllable-by-me problems of the here and now -- such as getting back into my writing routine so that i can finish, and then sell, some work! -- and probably developing some kind of improved coping mechanisms for the stuff that's out of my control. cue: the serenity prayer.

and i'm hoping that the act of writing it all down here will somehow cement this realization into my memory so that tonight or tomorrow morning or the next morning after that -- when my heart starts to pound and my chest starts to sweat and i feel way too awake for the time of day -- i can calm myself down more quickly and easily, get up (or get to sleep) determined to keep chasing those small goals, and start focusing on a future that feels more manageable and less terrifying.

morning walks

for many, many years -- probably almost 30 of them, in fact -- i've enjoyed going for big walks first thing in the morning. early in the morning. it's of course easier to do in the summer, when the sun is up by 5:30am and i can be out the door by 7. pre-gracie, i would often head out just after 6:00 (sometimes earlier), but that's no longer possible because she and i have a morning routine of cuddles --> treat --> playtime --> brushies --> litter-box cleaning --> breakfast (hers), which starts around 6 and takes about an hour.

anyway...

i love my morning walks because the world is still somewhat quiet. even more so on weekends. sidewalks aren't usually busy and neighbourhood roads are likewise fairly empty. it's just me out there with the squirrels and the birds and my thoughts (erm, the latter of which is not always a good thing). getting up early and heading out when everyone else is still sleeping also gives me a feeling of accomplishment -- if i do nothing else significant in a given day, at least i successfully completed my walk.

i love my morning walks because they make me feel like i'm prioritizing my health. last year, i interviewed a social-media influencer/content creator whose zest for life and creativity was infectious. he said that the first thing he does every day -- before breakfast -- is go outside for a bit to walk around barefoot, then he writes. he told me that he'd read a study somewhere that said you should spend the first hour of every day prioritizing what's important to you. for some, it's exercise. for him, it's creativity. (for me, apparently, it's become cat toys and temptations hairball treats, but fitness and creativity are close behind in hour two.) i like to make sure i've kept my heart rate up for a goodly amount of time, so the walks are usually about an hour long, sometimes up to 75 minutes, but almost never less than 45. in summer, i also like to make sure i get home good and sweaty -- i feel like i'm driving toxins and negativity out of my pores that way, and there's nothing quite as refreshing as a shower after a taxing walk/workout. plus, aerobic exercise is a good way to keep hormones balanced, and breakfast always tastes so much better when i'm pleasantly pooped and clean.

i love my morning walks because, as i've mentioned before on this blog, they give me an opportunity to explore my neighbourhood. i try to vary my routes up and down different side streets, but i have two main "paths" that i generally follow (with occasional diversions along previously unwalked-by-me blocks) because i know exactly how long they'll take, and i don't want to cheat myself out of sufficient walking time. i walk up and down hills of varying inclines, along some streets that are deserted and others that are under construction. i try to choose streets with big shady trees and interesting houses, and i try to avoid the main roads, which are getting increasingly congested now that pandemic restrictions are easing, and more and more people are returning to work.

i love my morning walks because, over the past few months, i've come to "know" a number of fellow walkers, runners and cyclists who are evidently on the same schedule. though we don't actually stop to chat -- at best, we exchange passing "good morning!"s or nods -- i always get this weird sense of reassurance and familiarity when i see them.

there's the chubby, smiling, bespectacled old guy on the bike, who always gives me a friendly wave, nod AND cheerful "morning!" when he rides past me (usually about five minutes into my walk). once, i encountered him as he was leaving his house, which was quite a ways away from where our paths normally cross. he seemed surprised and said, "wow, you take a long route!", to which i replied (without stopping my stride), "yeah, and i still have more than half an hour to go!"

there's the lesbian couple, or maybe they're roommates -- at least, i assume they're a lesbian couple or maybe roommates because they're always together and look nothing alike -- always running with their two dogs. i usually see them about two minutes after the guy above, and they always smile and say hi.

there's a tall guy i've nicknamed "larry the loper" because of his long, deliberate strides and relaxed gait, which i can recognize from blocks away. he's young-ish but (i think) prematurely grey, and his big mop of hair and abundant beard makes me think he'll look very different once he goes back to his barber. we typically pass each other around the halfway mark of my morning walks, usually on the same stretch of road and almost always going in opposite directions. larry isn't overly friendly, but makes sure to give me a nod and a wave as he lopes past. fun fact: i never see larry when i go for weekend walks.

there are assorted older couples walking their dogs, some of whom are super-friendly while others remain silent when i greet them in passing. there are the boot-camp devotees en route to the grassy area in the middle of the track at the local high school, where they'll do burpees and squats and planks before retiring to one of the myriad starbucks locations in the area.

there's the 50something woman who's sometimes jogging, sometimes walking, but who always gives me a big enthusiastic smile and hello as though we're old friends. and there are the random women on their smartphones, strolling along sidewalks while having surprisingly loud (for 7am) conversations with whomever is on the other end of the line. they never acknowledge me, or anyone else, as they go. and i wonder: 1. who are they talking to that early in the day?, 2. WHY must it be at such an obnoxious volume?, and 3. why is it always women i see doing this in the mornings?

i love my morning walks because they get me out of my condo and into the world, even if only for an hour. during the pandemic, this has been especially important. without the morning walks (or, in the colder months, the midday walks), i'd be a complete shut-in. i do miss my big epic walks downtown or to the hot docs theatre or elsewhere in the city -- especially those that involve a photo expedition (see photo above from early march 2020) -- but unfortunately i won't be resuming those until i feel safer on the public transit i would need to get me home. or until i feel like i've developed the stamina to walk for 90 minutes in one direction and then turn around to walk another 90 minutes home. for now, i'll be staying local with the loper and the like.

one hour

in my ongoing -- and not yet entirely successful -- bid to get myself back into a daily routine of writing, i've decided to devote one hour a day to it. just one hour. it's a small, simple and (one hopes) fairly easily achievable goal. and, at the end of a year, i'll be able to say: "i spent 365 hours writing this past year!"

of course, i'm hoping that one hour a day will grow into maybe an hour and a half, or possibly two... or who knows how many hours if i were to get myself into The Zone and really be on a creative roll.

but, for now, one hour.

and that hour can be spent writing a blog post, a po-eme, a rambling stream-of-consciousness word salad... or working on a screenplay outline, brainstorming ideas or just playing around with some kind of writing exercise to get the juices flowing. [side note: one of my favourite exercises is to pick up one of my assorted music CDs and write a TV-guide-esque logline for each of the song titles, pretending they're movie titles or TV series titles or what have you. i've actually come up with some good story ideas that way! ahem... bringing those ideas to fruition -- and completion -- has been another, less fruitful, story, however.]

this whole "small goals" plan comes courtesy of a movie i watched last week. "brittany runs a marathon" is a sweet and charming little indie film currently streaming on amazon prime. it's loosely based on a true story, and centres on a directionless, overweight young woman named -- wait for it -- brittany (gillian bell), who decides to start running as a means of getting healthier. it seems like an insurmountable goal for our heroine.

one of her neighbours (the always terrific michaela watkins) is a super-fit, very-successful photographer and elite runner. when the two encounter each other, watkins' character is encouraging and supportive to the wildly uncertain brittany, and tells her that the way through difficult circumstances is to set small goals for yourself. stuff that you're pretty sure you can accomplish without overextending yourself or having to drastically change the way you live. by doing so, you help set yourself up for success, and your can gradually make your goals bigger and more challenging.

so, brittany's first goal is to run one block. and, based on the film's title, i'm pretty sure you can figure out just how big her subsequent goals become.

my first goal is to write for one hour. and i see from the clock that i still have about 40 minutes left, which is plenty for some further wordsmithery in some other form.

my-graines

once in a while, i get hit with a migraine. it happens maybe once a year or so, at most, and always starts with a blind spot appearing in my vision. that spot can be small, sometimes just a weird squiggly line of light in the centre of my field of vision that gets bigger and bigger until my peripheral vision on one side goes completely squiggly screwy.

other times, it's a bigger blind spot -- which i've tried to recreate in the image above -- that i immediately know is forming because i suddenly realize i can't read text properly.

regardless of how the migraine begins to manifest itself, i've come to learn that i have about a half hour of (painless) visual disturbances before the actual pounding headache begins. and, over time, i've learned that if i catch the migraine early and IMMEDIATELY take an extra-strength headache pill (containing acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine) + half a can of Coke, i can dramatically lessen the migraine's intensity. sometimes, that medication/cola combo has even stopped a migraine from developing further, leaving me with just a very faint, dull aching in my forehead and behind my eyes and not the searing head pain that leaves me in bed in a pitch-dark room for several hours until it abates.

i think i was maybe 14 or 15 (maybe a bit younger?) the first time i ever had a migraine. i'd been outside, and came in because my head started to pound. soon, it was so severe that i started to worry something was very wrong. my mom took me to the ER (it was that painful), where they did some neurological tests to make sure i wasn't having some kind of brain hemorrhage, and then diagnosed me with a really bad migraine. fun fact: that ER visit was also where i learned that i cannot stomach demerol -- they gave me one for the pain, and i threw it up shortly thereafter.

after the above incident, migraines mostly stayed away until my 20s. then, occasionally and without any explanation, they'd pop up from time to time. a friend of mine told me that she used to suffer from them a LOT, but that regular aerobic exercise helped keep them at bay. whenever she stopped exercising for a spell, the migraines would inevitably return. so, i started getting regular (vigorous) exercise, and it seemed to work.

over time, though, the exercise-prevention strategy started to falter. i'd still get the occasional migraine even if i'd been regularly getting my heart rate up. and those migraines, however few and far between, once again just started popping up randomly. (or, seemingly randomly, anyway, as far as i can tell -- i haven't yet been able to identify any common denominators that might have triggered them.)

so it was that yesterday, about four minutes into my almost-daily one-hour power walk, my vision started to go a bit squirrelly. at first, i chalked it up to probably having glanced at a bright, sunny spot of neighbourhood, and waited for my eyesight to return to normal. but it didn't. so, i tried to read a street sign -- newp. blind spot. i thought maybe vigorous exercise might, on its own, tamp the budding migraine down, so i continued to walk for about another five minutes... before realizing that the blind spot was getting larger and obscuring my vision enough that it probably wasn't a good idea for me to continue marching through the neighbourhood. power walk: aborted.

i got home, took the medication/cola combo and a big drink of water, sat down and closed my eyes to wait for the pounding. but, thankfully, it did not arrive. i spent the remainder of the day working on condo-board stuff... which is its own special kind of headache.

topsy-turvy

oh, hi. remember back at the start of 2020, when i thought i'd reactivate this blog and write more regularly? and how quickly that faded? yeah.

it's been a crazy, chaotic month or so, and to be honest: i just didn't feel like writing. anything. every now and again, i'd get a teeny glimmer of an idea for a blog post, but just felt meh about sitting down to actually get it out. i don't have anything insightful or profound to say on global matters, and writing about frivolous, inconsequential things just seemed... frivolous and inconsequential. so, i just wrote nothing and left the blog to stagnate.

it was also my birthday last week. i'm now less than a year from turning 50. (FIFTY! it's not possible. how can i be almost 50?!?! i feel like i just finished high school. this must be a mistake.)

as most of you know, like christmas, my birthday is always a time of reflection and rumination for me, but this year it felt much deeper and more complex.

my anxiety has been hyper-charged for the past month or so, leaving my brain to gnaw on worrisome thoughts as i fall asleep each night, and causing me to wake up feeling panicked around 5am each day. it's sucked my motivation to do anything creative all but dry -- even taking photos for the photo blog has been challenging. tossing my annual birthday musing into this stress cocktail just left me feeling spun in a suffocating vortex of regret (over the past) and worry (about the future).

on my actual birthday, i went to my parents' house for presents, cake and a socially distanced lunch. while there, i went up to my bedroom and started going through boxes of childhood stuff that i'd packed away years ago. and as i looked through decades-old memorabilia and birthday cards and mementos from family vacations, i was reminded of the person i was and the person i thought i would become. as a kid and a teen, i was so hugely passionate about movies and TV and screenwriting, and making a name for myself in the entertainment industry. practically every single thing i unearthed in those boxes was connected to that long-faded dream. long-faded plan, actually.

it was bittersweet. yes, i've led a good life and had assorted accomplishments and all that stuff, but i started to think about where my life might have ended up if i'd been less fearful, less nervous, less uncertain and more confident. what if i'd truly pursued my dream instead of deferring it for easier, less scary, less risky professional pursuits? i thought about how many projects i could have completed in my 20s, 30s and 40s, and wondered if there was even any point in starting any projects at this point in my life. (i mean, yes, of course there's a point and there's no reason to throw out ambition or hopes or dreams, even 30 years later -- but my head was in a negative space around my birthday.) the COVID-19 situation has added an extra layer of regret because i think, "dammit. what if that window of opportunity is now forever closed?"

anyway, you get the idea. there's been a lot of woulda-, coulda-, shoulda-ing this past week, and i'm still trying to wade out of that mire to get myself back on some kind of creative track.

in related news, all of the above has been in conjunction with a fair amount of (growing) anxiety over the future. what growing old will be like for me. will i be alone forever? i start worrying about my mom, too. when i'm 50, she'll be 80... and realizing that makes me fearful over how many years we might have left together. will she still be here in 11 years when i turn 60? what about when i turn 55? maybe (her mother lived to 90), maybe not. this is the math that frequently creeps into my consciousness as i'm trying to get to sleep. and will we ever get back to florida? who knows.

need more? here's more! i've also been worrying about my income, or lack thereof. yes, i have a year's salary saved (yay!) and just finished a six-week assignment that helped put some $$ back in the bank (also yay!), which means i don't have to stress too much right now. but i'm a planner and like to think far ahead. so i'm already looking towards 2021. and 2022. will i be able to find work? when? from whom? doing what? if i can't get a freelance-writing gig, what will i do?

and that all circles back to the childhood dreams of writing movies and TV shows. THAT can be a lucrative career, but it's suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper-hard to succeed. if i could write a great screenplay or teleplay -- or even book -- and get it sold, that's a year's salary right there! but it's a gigantic "if."

the inertia of the past several weeks has (thankfully) been punctuated by fleeting moments of "no, wait, i CAN do this! i CAN get something amazing written! i'm gonna start tomorrow! tomorrow's gonna be the day i get back on track and get writing!"

but many tomorrows have come and gone, and not a word was writ.

until today.

because i knew that i would keep coming up with excuses not to write, or not to get back on the creativity horse, unless i actually WROTE SOMETHING.

my goal for today was small and simple: write something for the blog. just sit down and write. so here i am.

and, hopefully, this will act as a micro-defibrillator for the part of my brain that oversees creativity and words and writing, getting those neurons and pathways fired up and running again... which, in turn, will hopefully spur more writing, which will beget more writing... and so on.

your TL;DR takeaway for this long, rambling, directionless word salad: i gotta get writing again, and this blog post is step one.

i gotta get back to those three screenplay outlines i wrote at the start of 2020 and get at least one of them turned into an actual script before december 31st. i'm putting it out there (well, out here) in the hopes of making it happen by sharing it. willing it into existence. or, at least, willing myself into action. please feel free to harass me on occasion and ask how they're going -- being accountable to others always makes me much more productive and motivated than i would otherwise be if i were only accountable to myself.

to me, getting back on that writing horse, especially with all this virus-induced social distancing and excessive amounts of time to work on something meaningful, might help calm some of the anxiety. alleviate some of the regret. ease some of the worry.

i think i owe it to myself to make a better, more concerted effort. i certainly owe it to my younger self. and the self i'm gonna be next year at this time. when i'm 50. (FIFTY!)

the secret railroad

there used to be a rail line that ran through what is now a large industrial park near my neighbourhood. some research reveals that line was built in 1884, and a station built in 1894. the latter was in use until the 1970s and the line itself until the 1980s.

when i go for walks through this area, fragments of this rail line's history can still be found. an abandoned train car where no train cars should be, for starters. but also remnants of the actual tracks, which can still be found here and there.

so, back in early april, i took photos of some of the railway reminders i spotted while out on a walk. and here they are.

this track remnant crosses a street from one curb to the other, but nothing beyond either curb.

another curb-to-curb section of track, but this one continues (in pieces) towards the trucks in the distance.

this is my favourite fragment because it's small and is kind of hidden/obscured by the grass.
plus, it has a distinct end point, which makes me wonder if this was a piece of one of the "parking" track offshoots
where a train might sit overnight. who knows.

deeply personal anonymity

[disclaimer: please let the record show that this post was actually started a week or so ago, and subsequently thwarted when i spilled a glass of water all over my desk mid-post. some water found its way into my keyboard – i thought everything was fine and kept right on typing, but then hit the "delete" key to fix a typo and... it just kept deleting. i couldn't stop it. it feverishly ate half of what i'd written before i finally copied what was left of the rapidly disappearing text and THAT got the cursor to stop eating my words. anyway, onwards...]

the internet is a funny thing. last weekend, someone i don't know died. i mean, i knew him as much as anyone can know someone else when you're both engaged in a discussion on an anonymous online forum. and i actually cried when i found out about his death. but we didn't really "know" each other – he didn't know my name, or anything about me or anyone else, really.

in the nearly two years that he posted about his situation in a discussion thread on that forum, i felt like i (and other anonymous posters) got to know a side of him that he admitted he kept hidden from his family and friends. he was a pop artist -- successful enough that his work hangs in some prominent places across the U.S.

a former executive, he'd left the corporate world behind to follow his creative dreams in tennessee. he was 61 years old when he first started posting, had just been diagnosed with cancer and was thinking that maybe he should end it all rather than subject himself to treatment and surgery – the repercussions of which would dramatically affect his quality of life and not necessarily guarantee he'd be cured... or even survive.

this particular online forum, which i've been a part of for more than 20 years, is known for typically being a harsh, often snarky and sometimes downright mean space. but, occasionally, it boasts the brightest beams of compassion and light. this particular thread did. it brought out the best in the posters who commented – posts were filled with support, encouragement, care, humour (occasionally much-loved gallows humour) and kindness. brian shared his name and his website with the group, removing his anonymity. early on in the thread, he even offered small (free) paintings to any of us who wanted one, just as token of his thanks for our support. i am kicking myself for never taking him up on it – and not just because his paintings typically sell for several thousand dollars.

he'd been saying for a while that his doctors had told him his death would likely be quite sudden, and his prognosis had long been poor. over the past few months, he'd been having issues with pain management. but his spirits were usually pretty high, given his circumstance. he faced his surgery (which he did wind up having and which was ultimately unsuccessful), his treatments (debilitating and also unhelpful in the end), and his future with such grace and dignity. it was almost matter-of-fact: ah well, nothing's worked, so i guess i'll be on my way out, soon... but i'm going to keep painting while i'm here!

his last post to the group, roughly two weeks ago, was that he'd been admitted to the hospital with pneumonia and was in extreme pain. his last words to us fellow posters? "wish me luck, gang!"

some of us knew what he meant and wished him a peaceful journey. some thanked him for everything he'd brought into their lives. others said they hoped he'd bounce back soon.

he never posted again.

after that last post, i started keeping an eye on the obituaries in his area. since his family and friends were unaware of the discussion thread, i didn't think we'd find out if/when he passed away otherwise. although i hoped he'd be back posting in the thread ("hoo-boy that was a scare! i'm back!"), last week, i found his obit and posted it to the group.

many of us were sad but relieved he was no longer suffering. some of the posters were devastated (almost to an unsettling degree) to learn of his passing – and it drove home how connected we can become online, even to people we will never know or never meet. none of us knew brian personally, but we'd shared this collective experience for almost two years. and, for some, that connection was clearly quite profound.

for me, it was nice to be a part of his life, even anonymously, for a little while. that's one of his paintings above. not surprisingly, his bright, cheerful, whimsical style is right up my alley.

what's up?

since i have to wait for my dryer to stop before i can head out for a walk on this extremely cold and windy may morning, i thought i'd take some time to fill you in on what's been going on of late.

let's start from this morning and work our way backwards!

my tasty gryfe's bagels of a few weeks ago ran out on thursday, so i decided yesterday that i'd head out really early this morning (as in: out the door by 6:45am) to procure some more. but at about 6:43am, gracie decided to throw up all over my bed -- which, thankfully, i'd already made. (aside: gracie throws up whenever she eats kibbles and then drinks water too soon afterwards. that's what happened today.) i was getting ready to put on my shoes when i heard the distinct GLUG-GLUG-GLUG sound gracie makes right before she heaves, and knew it was coming from the bedroom. i ran in, but it was too late -- she'd hurled right on the bed.

and the very watery vomit (mixed with undigested kibble) instantly soaked through the cotton bedspread, duvet cover and into the duvet before i could stop it, meaning i had to scrap my leave-early plan to take care of the throw-up clean-up. removal of the soiled items and liberal soaking in oxy cleaner followed, and i managed to get out the door by 7:10am. still, my morning was thrown off.

most things in toronto are still closed, so the roads were still nicely empty as i drove to the bakery. i parked, went to the meter and dropped in a quarter... at which point the meter THEN started blinking "out of order." since it was so early, i reasoned that i likely wouldn't be ticketed and took my chances. i arrived at the bakery entrance, waited my turn and went in. i order the usual -- a dozen poppy-seed bagels -- and then, just as i was about to pay, added, "you know, i've never tried your sesame-seed bagels, so may i also have two of those?"

and the nice woman working the cash threw them in for free! SCORE! we had a nice chat about the business -- happily, gryfe's huge corporate/grocery orders have not changed, so they're doing fine (PHEW!) -- and the stresses of COVID-19, then i headed home. when i got back to joel: no ticket. yay!

and now, as i type this, i am enjoying a fluffy, chewy poppy-seed bagel (completely plain) with a coke, the best way to have these bagels when they're fresh! actually, i lie: the best way is to have one plain with a barq's root beer. THAT is heavenly.

now, going backwards...

• today is the day mom and i would have left for our annual trip to florida. and, had we done so, it would have been the coldest departure date ever -- the wind chill this morning was -6ºC (!) and it's been snowing (!!) off and on. no accumulation, thankfully, but still. i know mom's really sad that we're not in florida. tomorrow will be the first mother's day in 20+ years that she WON'T be there, won't be starting the day with a walk on the beach, won't be wandering countryside mall in the afternoon, won't be looking for dolphins in the intracoastal waterway. i, too, am bummed and desperately miss my morning swims in the empty pool. *sigh*

• for mother's day, i'm making mom homemade turtles and stovetop popcorn (both of which she loves). YB is picking up slices of mom's favourite torte from her favourite european bakery, and making her a couple of cloth face masks. we picked up a bottle of her favourite moisturizer (which she asks for each year) and will be dropping everything off tomorrow.

• this weekend would have also marked the conclusion of hot docs 2020. the festival announced this week that it would be running a scaled-down online-only event starting on may 28, but i've browsed the films they'll be screening and only a handful sound appealing. many of the docs i'd hoped to see won't be part of the online festival, and each film will cost $9 (+ tax) to view... so i think i'll be skipping the "festival" entirely this year. *sigh again* BUT, in some ways, it's handy that the festival isn't running, because...

• i've been working! for the first time in 2020! (and i wouldn't have been able to take on the assignment if i'd been eye-deep in documentaries.) one of my former editors emailed me a few weeks ago and asked if i'd be available to help with a fairly sizeable project... to which i replied, "erm, i'm not doing anything at all, so YES, i'm totally available!" the gig involves rewriting a bunch of content from his company's website and elsewhere, and it's all science-related. he'd warned me it wouldn't be very exciting, but i'm actually really enjoying it and learning a lot! his company matches post-grad university researchers with companies looking to do research, and they specialize in stuff like clean technology and artificial intelligence... so it's all been unexpectedly cool. it also means a good chunk of money and about four weeks' worth of work. of course, this same editor is the one who offered me a five-week gig back in 2011, which then stretched into eight years. so, who knows!

• happily, i've still been going for hour-long walks most days, and have been enjoying turning random corners in my neighbourhood and discovering brand new (to me) streets/routes. i've stumbled upon some really pretty areas, cool houses, fun sidewalk art. and the colder, windier weather of the past week has cut down on the number of other pedestrians and cyclists i encounter, which has been nice. it also helps that i've started going for my walks before breakfast (as i typically do in summer when it's too hot to go after about 8:30am), when barely anyone is out. it's incredibly peaceful, even when the weather is blustery.

• it's funny how uneasy i get now when i'm around anyone not wearing a mask or face covering, especially when grocery shopping. i'm not sure what's so hard for people to understand: if *everyone* covers their face, the spread of the virus can be dramatically slowed down. yesterday, i went to one grocery store that doesn't (yet) have a "no mask, no entry" policy, and was surprised how many people (staff and shoppers) were mask-less. it was disappointing. then i walked to another grocery store a few blocks away, where masks are mandatory, and felt so much more relaxed. i feel like mask policies will become a must across the board, retail-wise, and will be what eventually allows society to return to some degree of normalcy.

• there is a serious snow squall happening outside my window right now. on may 9th. in toronto.

time to take out the dryer load and throw in the next one...

sock it to me

first, a quick update: remember those bright-green winter-hiking boots that were the source of such sturm und drang for months? and how they eventually dropped in price, but ultimately didn't fit right?

well, the retailer from whom i'd purchased (and subsequently returned) those boots had a MASSSIVE sale over the weekend, and the price of the boots dropped to $30 (!!!!!!!!!!!). THIRTY DOLLARS. for boots that were originally $300. WHAT?! for $30, i'd put up with a slightly wonky fit, or maybe order a half-size up... but, sadly, by the time i found out about the sale and checked the store's website, only one gigantic-sized pair was left for sale. fin.

now,  moving on...

SOCKS!

as noted in a previous post, my time in self-isolation has left me missing the act of browsing in stores. meandering. perusing. window shopping. and, as the weeks have gone on, i've also come to yearn for random impulse buys. nothing extravagant or anything, just the odd item you toss in your shopping basket because you stumbled upon it and it looked cool or fun or useful or whatever.

so it was that, one day a few weeks ago, i clicked on a facebook ad for a sock company that had some kooky socks. i poked around their site but wasn't overly impressed. the socks were expensive. they weren't a canadian company. blah blah blah. onwards.

thing is, when you click on ANY facebook ad, the site's algorithms take note and your FB feed soon becomes populated with ads for OTHER companies offering the same (or related) products.

click on a petsmart ad? suddenly become inundated with ads for pet valu or petco or etsy shops selling coffee mugs with "i love my beagle" on them.

click on a winterlicious ad? find yourself drowning in ads for every restaurant in your city that's participating in winterlicious.

and so on.

unsurprisingly, therefore, it was only a matter of minutes before my facebook feed found itself targeted by sock-company ads. but, much to my surprise, one ad in particular resonated with me.

it was an ad for a company called soxy. they were having a "pay what you want" (!) sale on ALL their inventory as a way of keeping their employees working. the socks in the accompanying image were STUNNING in their bizarrely patterned beauty -- bright colours, cool patterns, everything right up my fun-sock-loving alley. (it's their products which are pictured above.)

so i clicked on THAT ad. their click-bait-sale ad worked.

and it led me to the company website: a magical land of gorgeous, unique, lust-worthy socks in a dizzying variety of colours and patterns. i'm a fan of all things geometric, and their selection was vast. i lost myself for a good hour just browsing all the options.

then i checked out the "pay what you want" sale. turns out, customers have four options: 45% off, 25% off, 10% off or full price -- and for any full-price sale, the company said it would donate a free pair to healthcare workers. not a bad deal, i thought. not to mention a clever way of ensuring their virtual doors stay open.

the socks themselves are not cheap. a single pair runs about $12, with bundles ranging from $35 (for three pairs) to $55 (for five pairs). still, $11 for a pair of socks is steeeeeeeeeeeep (for me, anyway). i typically buy my stripy or patterned socks at dollar tree. if i decide to splurge, it might be on a $2.50 pair at walmart. but $11? nope.

still, there was that 45%-off option. if i bought two $55 bundles and applied the discount code, my order would come to $60.50... so, just over $6 a pair.

plus, i'd qualify for free shipping (phew) AND i'd get a free bonus pair of my choosing (yay!) thrown in just for being a first-time customer. 11 pairs of socks for $60.50 would drop the per-pair price down to $5.50. not a steal, but not too bad considering the sheer beauty of the socks i'd chosen. plus, i reasoned that i could give my mom and YB each a pair to boost their spirits. and, heck, we're eye-deep in a pandemic -- we deserve some expensive fun socks!

but nowhere on the site did it indicate whether the company was canadian or american, nor whether the prices were in CDN or USD. with the exchange rate being abysmal, those are two key factors for any canadian shopping online these days.

eventually, after putting the bundles in my shopping cart, i discovered the prices were in USD... because those three letters suddenly appeared next to my items in the cart.

ah. okay, time to redo the math.

using the exchange rate at the time (+38%), plus the foreign-transaction fee a credit card company would then apply on top (1%), my USD$60.50 order would suddenly balloon to CDN$84.10. throw in the sales tax (i figured around 7%) and i'd be at about CDN$90.

CDN$90 for 11 pairs of socks means each pair would be just over $8.

suddenly, a lot less appealing.

also, receiving a $90-in-value order from a U.S. address would also mean i'd be hit with duties.

FFS. why even bother at this point?

i abandoned my sock plan and moved on with my life.

but those soxy ads kept popping up in my FB feed. those beautiful socks kept tempting me. taunting me. every day. multiple times a day. i told YB of this saga. she laughed and said, "if you want the socks, you should just buy them anyway. it's a pandemic. no one is going to judge you."

i hemmed. i hawed. much like those expensive green boots, could i really justify (to myself) paying roughly $10 a pair for SOCKS that i don't really need????

as a writer, i fell back on old habits: research. i did some digging and found out the company was started by two friends in... TORONTO! socre! maybe the socks would ship from canada, then, and i'd be spared the duty! i started to reconsider.

to be 100% sure of what to expect, and to avoid any sudden added expenses i might incur if i went ahead with an order, i decided to contact their customer-service department to inquire about the shipping origin. so, i sent them an email and waited. i got an auto-reply within a few minutes, advising that they'd received my email and someone would get back to me within two business days.

five business days passed and i didn't hear anything from anyone.

so i sent a follow-up email.

no response.

that was more than a week ago. i started to sour on the whole idea. who wants to buy from a company that doesn't respond to your inquiry -- AS a prospective customer ready to buy the stuff they're selling! -- after two attempts over two weeks?

in the interim, i started to read the comments on the ubiquitous FB ads that were still filling my feed. while the majority were complimentary ("i love these socks!"), there were some that could be filed squarely in the "disgruntled consumer" category. in fact, there were a few from people who said they ordered socks, the price was charged to their credit cards, but no socks had been received. in fact, no socks had been shipped even though those orders had been placed a couple of weeks ago.

zero response from the company to any of the comments. zero response from the company to posts from customers asking questions on their FB page.

and, as of this posting, still zero response from the company to my two emails.

as someone who's worked in content marketing for the past eight years, i can tell you that a company that ignores its customers on social media is making a critical error. if you have a social-media presence, you're supposed to use it... otherwise, your lack of response is viewable by everyone (like me) who checks out your posts. and you start to look a bit sketchy. or, at the very least, apathetic to your customers.

in the end (yes, we've finally reached it -- thanks for hangin' in!), i didn't buy the socks.

i didn't feel like supporting a company that, it turns out, isn't *really* a "small, family-run business" (as its FB ads declare), but a multi-million-dollar corporation. and one that, apparently, doesn't actually care whether i buy from them or not, anyway.

[TL;DR -- i overthink everything. and i saw some really pretty socks online, thought about buying them, but didn't.]

found art: a photo essay

yesterday, during my daily walk through the neighbourhood, i took a slightly different route and stumbled upon an alleyway full of enormous, stunningly beautiful graffiti.

toronto has many well-known, oft-photographed "graffiti alleys" -- the most famous of which frequently plays host to rick mercer's rants (that particular rant is seven years old but still timely!) -- but i was unaware that this one existed. and so close to home, no less.

so, i pulled out my little point-and-shoot and tried to snag some images. it was hard to capture the full splendor properly because a lot of the art is on the south side of the alley, which means it's backlit almost all of the time. but here we go...

this first shot is of a series of garage doors, each in a different style. i'm not sure if one artist painted them all or if each one was created by a different person, but i found them all striking.
(there was no way to shoot them head-on due to space, so this was the best i could manage.)

another garage door. i'm not really sure what's happening between these two -- are they dancing? fighting? was she dancing and he's trying to stop her? -- but i liked how simple and stark
this piece was compared to all the others in the vicinity.

these flowers are actually huge. if you look closely, you can see the cables running from the top-right corner, which will give you a better sense of scale. they covered a two-storey wall.

see what i mean about backlighting? alas. the owl and the adjacent colourful swirls were
really cool, especially juxtaposed against the swimmer and her friends.

i loved how the metallic staircase cut through the swirls and the dragon, and how it was all framed by the second-floor-deck fence. the garbage and recycling cans
tucked in the bottom corner were a nice touch, too.

speaking of garbage and recycling bins... i liked how these ones were lined up under that gorgeous flower. (lucky tenants: each one gets his or her own bin!)

this one is my favourite because it's just kind of there, randomly, along a stretch of fence.
obviously painted by whoever painted all the other swirls in the other pieces.

and those shots are just a sampling. the alley only runs about a block but is filled with art. it was a lovely discovery.

pot-pourri

• social isolation is starting to make me irritable, i think. as time drags on, and i'm holed up at home week after week, more and more things are starting to annoy me. silly things. friends posting too often on facebook, or sharing incorrect information, or linking to iffy sites/businesses without first verifying they're legit. i scroll through my feed and find myself mentally judging people more harshly than i should.

• at the same time, i think i'm slowly growing desensitized to the trauma and sadness of the global situation. i'm no longer moved by videos of things like healthcare workers doing choreographed dances or clips of grandkids visiting their grandparents through panes of glass. i don't go outside to clap for frontline workers every night at 7:30 (to be honest, my entire neighbourhood is totally silent -- it seems no one is out there making noise at the designated hour). i no longer seek out news about the pandemic, and barely watch CNN anymore. it seems i've grown a bit numb to it all, especially the grief porn that flooded the airwaves for a while, wherein every news outlet was trying to out-sad the competition by finding the most tragic COVID cases to share with the public. oh, and for the record, i'm so over hearing "lean on me" and "amazing grace" sung by... anyone.

• yet, weirdly, i find myself moved by some of the commercials circulating out there. it seems advertising agencies have (for now, anyway) found their sweet spot in targeting me as a consumer. so, while i don't really tear up at the news, i do find myself getting misty because of, say, the Uber ad (asking people to stay home and *not* use Uber), or the IKEA tribute to "home," or the apple commercial highlighting creativity. i think it's partly due to the message and the smart use of the right music, but also me being impressed with how inventive advertisers can be when they can't actually shoot anything (with pro equipment) themselves at the moment, and have to rely on shared footage shot on mobile devices.

• gracie is stressed, i think. she, like me, is sensitive, and i think she's picking up on my discontent and the general uneasiness of the world at large. for the past couple of weeks, she's been on and off her food -- some days, she eats normally; other days, she picks at her food all day and doesn't consume a full serving of anything. i need to order a new flavour (salmon) of her wet food from petsmart to see if that'll hit the spot. i know she's just being fussy and that she DOES have an appetite -- if i sprinkle crushed treats on her wet food, she *will* begrudgingly eat it. but i test drove a single can of salmon several weeks back, just before everything shut down, and she loved it. and, of course, she will ALWAYS eat treats on their own. so, we'll see.

• on a more positive note, i'm working on a drawing to send to a creative friend, who's started hosting crafting-for-kids videos on youtube and who invited his viewers to submit drawings to accompany a fun poem he wrote. so, yesterday i sketched my image, and today i'll ink it and colour it in. i've already told him to expect a contribution from me, so we'll see if it makes it into the follow-up video.

• as the weather gets nicer, the sidewalks in my neighbourhood are getting busier, making my almost-daily walks more challenging in terms of avoiding others. i loooove long stretches of empty sidewalks, not sidewalks cluttered with parents wheeling strollers, kids on bikes, couples walking dogs and the like. so, on a whim, i decided to seek out solitude and explore the industrial wasteland nearby. it's filled with lots of factories and warehouses and construction sites, but is virtually devoid of humans. the other day, i ventured through and felt like i'd struck gold: NO ONE WAS AROUND. occasionally, a car or truck would rumble past on the road, but the sidewalks were virtually barren, save for the odd worker popping out to get a coffee. BINGO. it's not the most scenic route, but -- despite the industrial nature of the area -- is, strangely, much more serene than the residential streets i'd been frequenting. hopefully, the area remains a walker's secret for a little while longer.

shopping mauled

yesterday, i threw out my lower back.

while standing still.

i was at the kitchen sink, finishing the dishes, and was about to head out towards the living room. i started to take a step and BAM! my lower back totally seized up. i hadn't done anything extreme, hadn't moved or twisted or turned in any kind of weird way... it just happened.

and i know why: because, earlier in the day, i'd gone grocery shopping.

more specifically, i'd stood in line repeatedly and for extended periods of time while grocery shopping.

and, as often happens during film festivals (where standing in line for an hour or more is de rigueur), my lower back gave out from all that standing.

*sigh*

shopping of any kind used to be fun. grocery shopping. shoe shopping. clothes shopping. whatever.

once upon a time before the world went haywire, i loved going shopping. not to buy things -- because i'm not a shopper so much as i am a browser -- but just to wander. to look. to be out in the world. to see what was new. to people watch. to grab a snack. to spend time with my mom. heck, YB and i love shopping so much we'd actually drive to another country just to do it!

it was a source of stress relief.

now, it's just a source of stress.

gone (for now) are the days of on-a-whim walking to one of the four major grocery stores in my neighbourhood to pick up a few essentials. or one essential. or no essentials. or spending a saturday out on a mini road trip with YB, hitting up shops in newmarket or markham or mississauga or port hope, just for kicks.

shopping has morphed into an ominous, time-consuming, military-operation-esque undertaking.

now, i have to plan: what do i NEED to get? which store is least likely to be insanely busy? which one will have the shortest lines? which store is most likely to be well-stocked, so that i can get everything in one place and not have to repeat the whole lining-up process someplace else?

i have to write down every single i need to get, and then consult that list frequently while in store, because shopping has become so overwhelming and psychologically chaotic that, without the list, i'd completely forget EVERYTHING the minute i'm (finally) allowed through the store doors.

there are signs and tape and guidelines posted everywhere. "line up over here," "maintain a six-foot distance," "cashless payments only," "don't touch items and put them back," "now stand over here," "no, HERE"... and so on. hours are restricted. items are limited. shoppers are all wandering around anxiously -- some wearing masks and gloves, others not, everyone looking much more tense than they would have been, say, six months ago. occasionally, there's a sense of camaraderie when encountering someone else as you both wait to get in or check out -- "isn't this crazy? how long have you been waiting? oh, it's my turn! stay well!" -- but it feels like most people are now too nervous to engage with a stranger in the cereal aisle, even momentarily and from a safe distance.

huge swaths of store shelves are empty. did you need flour? tough luck. it's gone and it's been gone for weeks. want pasta? you have a 50/50 chance of it being in stock when you arrive. rice? nope! salt? maybe. eggs, milk, bread? so far,  no issues (knock on wood)... but if any of those things are on sale, you'd best get there early or risk going home empty-handed.

speaking of sales, i no longer have the desire to seek out the best deal. and, as a life-long frugal shopper, that's really tough for me. i LOVE a bargain. i love seeking out the lowest prices. in the past, i'd go to multiple stores to get specific items (on sale) at each: frozen fish at loblaws, sweet potatoes at sobey's, ice cream at longo's, shampoo at no frills... etc.

now, because i've grown to dread shopping, i choose the store that has the greatest number of sale items and just do all my shopping (for everything) there, higher prices on non-sale items be damned. i'm positive i'm spending more as a result (paying more than 99¢ for a package of pasta PAINS me), but after finishing at one store, the thought of having to repeat the process somewhere else is not at all appealing.

then there are the lines. lines to get in. lines at different counters. lines to pay. so much standing. yesterday, between two stores and four lines, i probably wound up standing in place for over an hour. (i should note that i did run into some neighbours in the parking lot of store #2, and wound up standing outside with them, chatting -- easily ten feet apart -- for an additional half hour.) i do not like standing in line. my lower back does not like me standing in line.

did i mention i don't enjoy grocery shopping right now?

and i'm not alone. no one, it seems, is enjoying grocery shopping anymore. after several weeks of staying at home and having YB or me do her shopping for her, and despite every medical and governmental official telling seniors to please stay at home for their own safety, my mother decided to suit up (mask and gloves) and do her own grocery shopping last weekend. we'd cautioned her that it was not like the shopping experience she knew -- things would be VERY different and decidedly unfun. she decided to go anyway.

so, she went. i encouraged her to please go during the dedicated "senior hours" so that she'd at least be spared the longest lines and most stressful shopping times. she agreed, did her shopping, got everything she wanted... and then said she wasn't going again until things were back to normal(ish). one trip was all it took to scare her straight. she did not enjoy it. at all.

who can blame her? it's not enjoyable. on the upside (?), it has served as a super-effective deterrent to me leaving home to shop.

this pandemic has sucked on multiple levels and for many reasons. but turning me into a giant stressball whenever i have to get milk or restock my juice supply has probably been one of the suckiest.

pardon me while i get the heating pad and some tylenol.

oh, fer... what fresh hell is this?

when i'm stressed, my body does weird things.

as previously discussed, my digestive system goes all wonky and behaves as though it's trying to kill me with pain. that's been a pretty reliable barometer of stress for me over the years. but then there are the seemingly random, bizarre, inexplicable side effects that have run the gamut.

during the height of my work-related stress a number of years ago, i had myriad ailments... all caused by stress. there were the oral mucoceles -- teeny-tiny little water-filled blisters (about the size of sesame seed) that would form on the roof of my mouth, way at the back, usually after i ate something salty (like chips) or zesty (like tomato sauce). with my tongue, i could feel them appear. there was no remedy or treatment save for patience: they'd arrive one at a time, then eventually vanish after a couple of days. then another would appear. and so on. i can't remember when it all began or when exactly it ended, but one day they just didn't show up anymore. and haven't since.

there was that area on my back -- middle of the left side, sort of around the kidney -- that would randomly go all pins-and-needles tingly, like when one of your extremities goes numb and then "wakes up." the tingliness would be fleeting, lasting less than a minute, and there was no rhyme or reason to when it would appear, though it seemed to pop up more often in the mornings. long story short: i had a bunch of tests, went to a neurologist and the best guess anyone had was that maybe i was momentarily irritating a nerve somehow.

those tingles also just went away one day. they still happen on occasion, but not very often.

then there was what my useless former family doctor (dr. textbook) misdiagnosed as ringworm (!). it was a rash on my left forearm, just below the elbow crease. it had started as one teeny red bump but eventually grew to be about two inches in diameter. i jokingly called it my "stress rash."

i nonetheless went to dr. textbook to get a proper diagnosis.

she took one look at it -- from across the room -- and told me i had ringworm.

what the WHAT?! how on earth did i ever contract ringworm????

i was panicked. if you don't know a lot about ringworm (as i didn't at the time), lemme tell you a few key facts: it's a fungus, it's very contagious and you basically have to wash everything you own in scalding hot water all of the time in order to kill it and prevent anyone else from catching it. you also have to apply fungicide to the affected area to kill what's already living on your skin.

so, dr. textbook prescribed a fungicide and off i went.

i applied it, washed all my clothes and bed linens in eight-thousand-degree water, and made sure to keep my arm malaria far away from anyone. i was nervous about sleeping over at YB's place, or even sitting in her living room in short sleeves, because i didn't want to infect her or larry (since cats can catch and spread ringworm, too).

for weeks, i was hyper-vigilant... and the rash kept growing. AND spreading! a similar rash appeared on my right forearm, then another patch near my right elbow. what the EFF?!?

i went back to dr. textbook, who seemed perplexed (shocker). she referred me to a dermatologist and said maybe it wasn't ringworm, after all. gee, YA THINK?!

while i waited for my appointment with the dermatologist, i consulted dr. google, who suggested (via multiple websites) that my rash might actually be eczema.

eczema requires moisture moisture moisture moisture. know what ringworm needs? to be DRIED OUT.

so, i started saturating all the rash spots with moisture -- specifically, coconut oil. and, very slowly, the rashes started to shrink and looked a lot less angry. by the time i saw the dermatologist, the rashes had improved dramatically. the dermatologist took one look at them and said, "that's not ringworm. it's eczema." (so, basically, i'd made them worse while following dr. textbook's guidance.) he said to keep doing what i'd been doing with the coconut oil, but to come back if the rashes were still there in a month.

they weren't.

and, knock on wood, they never recurred.

all this to say: when i'm under stress, my body often sends up attention-grabbing signal flares.

so it was that, earlier today after i'd finished lunch, i thought i had a piece of rice stuck under my tongue. i tried to maneuver it out *with* my tongue, to no avail, and then realized: what if it's not a piece of rice? i felt around with my finger -- there was a smooth round bump. i immediately went to the bathroom mirror, raised my tongue and there it was: a blister -- about the size of a small kernel of corn -- filled with blood.

fer cryin' out loud. where did THAT come from?!?! it wasn't there this morning, i don't remember "injuring" that spot in any way... argh.

i consulted dr. google, who informed me that blood blisters in the mouth aren't a big deal and will resolve on their own. and while reading the various reasons one might form -- among them, scraping your mouth with crunchy food, or undergoing chemotherapy -- there it was: stress.

and so i wait. ::: eyeroll :::

things i miss right now

• hugs... actually, human contact of any kind

• hanging out with YB and larry

• wandering through a shopping mall or a grocery store just to wander

• press screenings

• eating at a restaurant

• sunday lunch at my parents' house (and the dessert and the leftovers)

• planning for florida

• not feeling tense anytime i'm within ten feet of another human

• not immediately wanting to scream at other humans who are not at least ten feet apart from each other

• having my hair cut

• lobby or hallway chats with my neighbours

• turning on the TV and hearing about news that isn't virus-related

• work... routine... a schedule... normalcy.