Three Reasons Why Doris Lessing is my Hero

1. Her first reaction to having won a Nobel Prize?
“Oh Christ.”

2. Her realist and curt view of the world and how it does not shift due to sentimentality, when asked about her late son.

Time Magazine: You’ve outlived one of your children. How did he pass away?

Doris He was a coffee farmer [in Africa]. There was a very bad drought. He was a man who cared very much about the trees, rivers, animals, birds. The drought dried the rivers up and killed the trees. He was absolutely torn up by this drought and had a heart attack. I maintain that if he had stuck it out he would be alive now. The rains came the day after he died.

3. She published her first novel at 30 and kept em coming. At least 40 works and despite her claims to the contrary, she might have a few more stories in her.

Link: Doris Lessing in Time Magazine

June 1st: A New Apartment

Imagine this, Friday 3pm, in the midst of packing some very fluffy towels into a bag, my back instantly lurches into a whole new world of pain. I know what you’re thinking, What were they? Lead towels? But now, simple bath towels but apparently they were the straw that broke the donkeys’ back. The donkey being me, my back being…my back. This resulted in me marathoning Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 1 and almost all of Season 2.

Imagine this, Saturday 9am. My boyfriend is packing, I’m directing and attempting to lift various objects and getting yelled at for it because of the state of my back. This would become a trend throughout the day. Sneaky me managed to carry a few things up and down the stairs but really, for the 9 hour move, I pointed a lot, lifted teeny things into boxes and dragged a broom across floors.

Imagine this, 48 hours later. My back still hurts and I’m resting as much as possible because I have almost a 40 hour week (finally!) and I don’t want to miss any more shifts because of foolishness. I did manage to take a VERY LONG walk today, I didn’t walk far but it was very long because I kept stopping every 15 minutes because my back would spasm. But I’m very much in like with my new neighbourhood. From the park I took a stop at to read the paper (soften my back muscles) and drink my coffee, to the dad, his kids and dog who were playing baseball at the park (the dog was the left fielder..and the catcher..and the shortstop) to the random ‘Hello’ from a friend who lives down the street.

And also the trees, but that will be for another day.

I do miss the cat already, though…

Image: Pahvilaatikot ovat parhaita! by hhelto

I love you, tooth for tooth and eye for eye.

I’m tired of being the supporting character in other peoples’ life stories. I’m no longer satisfied being the friend in the audience, the face at the bar, the reliable one who will be there to support you but not blink an eye when you ignore important developments in my life. No, I’ll never be a rockstar, I’m not a real writer, I’m probably not going to save lives or improve the youth of tomorrow. I’m just going to be, but no longer for your benefit.

I’m in a weird headspace, it feels like I know lots but also that I don’t know anything. Apparently employers seem to believe this also. I really wonder if lack of experience is holding me back from positions I know I’m better than or if it’s my age. My cocky and self-assured nature is slipping back and what lies beneath is not nearly that stable or comfortable.

I miss chaos although I’m surrounded by it every day.Next week will be my eighth move in five years. When people ask why, I answer that it’s usually for reasons beyond my control but I’m mostly lying. I’m used to being unsettled and temporary, stability has never come easy to me and despite how much I yearn for it, I’m also terrified. What if it’s not what I expect?

My escapist fantasies are increasing more and more lately, Vancouver, South Korea, Halifax, anywhere really. But what happens when I pick up and move by myself to an unfamiliar city and actually find that I’m more alone than ever? How do other people do it? My own friends don’t want to see me in Toronto, how will I make an impression on new people that I am important and special?

If anybody was ever in need of a vacation, it would be me.

Laundry life lesson mishap

I’m going to tell you a story. For just under the past 2 weeks I was working at the Hot Docs Film Festival, which was a very rewarding and exciting an experience which also took up most of my life, leaving me with loads of errands and stuff to do when I got a good day off.

This mystical day off is tomorrow, so tonight when I got home around 10 I intended to do 1 or 2 loads of laundry while I cleaned my room/wrote my blogTO post and did some job hunting.

WELL, the laundry machine decided in the beginning of my first load, on a cold-cold setting while still soapy, to die. So it’s 10:30pm and I have a full load of soaked clothes in a full washer waiting for me to wring them out, rinse them out in the bathtub, wring them AGAIN and dry them. To cut it short, this took just over an hour and 15 minutes, NOT including the 15 minute breaks I had to take because my hands were so cold I wanted to cry.

SO, it’s about 12:30 when I achieve this and put things in the laundry. I feel like I’ve done a workout, so I go to make some food. NOW ITS 1AM.

Have you ever had that feeling that trying to make any to-do list or to make plans is just for naught when it all blows up in your face? Going with the flow may be something I should look deeper into.

Photo by Oldking

And this little piggy went Wii Wii Wii Wii all the way home.

Sometimes I feel that owning a Nintendo Wii, instead of one of the bigger of the seventh generation consoles like the XBOX360 or the PS3, leaves me on the outskirts of gamer culture due to the constant association of the Nintendo Wii with the casual gamer. But at the same time, how can I argue that this isn’t quite true?

Maybe I just feel rejected because I haven’t become very attached to any of the Wii games that I’ve been introduced to so far. Super Paper Mario was abandoned halfway through, Wii Sports became dull and repetitive when my friends stopped coming over to play, Twilight Princess failed to engage me and Marvel Ultimate Alliance entertained me for a few hours and I haven’t picked it up since. I rented Mario Party the other week and realized how superior the DS version of the game was. It was even easier just to get people to play the Gamecube version of Mario Party or an N64 version than the Wii, which offers less variety in the classic board type.

I’m hoping that my eventual purchase of Smash Bros Melee would revive my Wii-love with hours spent perfecting kills with a variety of characters, but I feel apathetic at the same time. My friends don’t want to come over and play the Wii like I thought they would, the ones who do would rather play their own, or something inane like Army of Two on 360 instead. It’s lonely being a Wii owner these days. If the Nintendo online multiplayer for Brawl was better, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so alone, but like all their online ventures it is half-attempted and not their priority.

(I do own a DS and find that the innovation and gameplay on DS games are still very hard to beat, I love my handheld. I do NOT love that the flash cart I’ve had for almost a year recently died and deleted a 50 hour Pokemon Pearl game, dozens of hours of Chibi Robo, my Animal Crossing village, almost a year of Brain Age 2, TWO separate saves of Professor Layton and Trauma Centre saves, however. My DS is dead to me for at least another two weeks as I get over this dark time.)

Photo credit: Bettisue