Diesel Sweeties on the recent Conservative victory. Also, "we make the Dutch look like hobbits!"

Aerial photographs of Mexico City. Wow. SO many people. Check out the low-income housing, it barely looks real!

First, an aside: I'm tempted to try to make this absolutely charming crocheted cat, despite the fact that the pattern is in Japanese. Mere language barriers cannot stop me! Also, this skirt.

I've been thinking about grace and forgiveness lately, particularly since I've been doing some forgiving this week, and have received an email that enabled me to forgive myself for some stuff. It's been a good process. I've also been thinking about the Christians in my life and reflecting on my lack of faith and where that's brought me.

I don't think it's brought me very far afield in some respects. What I see in many of my Christian friends is that they spend a lot of time thinking about how to be good people. They take that question seriously, and put effort into finding a good answer for it and then living that answer. While I don't share the same motivation for the question, I do feel that it is a very good one, and one that I continue to ask.

Actually, it's that question that led me to leave the faith. I found things in the way Christianity describes God that just didn't fit with goodness, and I didn't want to worship anything that was less than good, or (horrifyingly) evil. So I didn't.

To go back to what I was saying a few posts ago about discourses, I've also been thinking about how those bad things about the Christian God are not the whole story either. Maybe genocide is a bad thing to command, but loving your neighbour and not casting the first stone* are good things to encourage.

I've started to look at the stories differently. I've started to use my liberal arts education to look critically, and that doesn't mean just finding ways to destroy it. It means that we should be able to look at something and sort out the valuable parts and the flawed parts and take it for what it is. Looking at something critically enables us to take an ideology or theory and find the good ideas amidst the bad, and vice versa. I'm recognising that when some people say they want to be "Christlike," they are referring to the Christ in their story, the story about the perfect man, the graceful one who touched a leper* and befriended an adulteress*. Others are referring to the angry man in the temple*, full of indignation and judgement, yelling at Pharisees*, and shaking the dust from his feet* as he left a town. Their methods of being "Christlike" vary with their personal discourses about that man. Some of them, I greatly respect, though they are not my stories.

So, I'm looking and I'm finding the good again, amist that which makes me cringe. I'm looking at church movements like emergent* and liking how they use the good parts. I'm seeing people like Brennan Manning and Real Live Preacher and Annie Dillard and Joseph Girzone and thinking that such writers must be valued, disagreement with certain tenets of faith or not.

I'm talking to people who have just started with the faith, or who are reasserting it, and I am feeling no compulsion to change their minds. I am just curious about what they are finding, and happy when it helps them. I'm seeing people struggle with their faith, and remembering how bad that felt, and hoping they find their way through it. Strange days for this atheist.

*So many of my friends don't get these references. That's hard to remember sometimes. Heck, even my Christian roommate doesn't get all of them, especially if they're mixed with evangelical subculture. She's too new. Oh, and Anglican. And we thought that it was just "secular" people who didn't understand Christianese! Ha!

Forget figuring out what to do with my life, let's concentrate on the next eight months. I have enough money saved right now that I don't need to work in the summer. Now, it seems incredibly irresponsible to pursue this course of action, BUT:

I have wanted to take time off for a long time. Strangely, I do have the money for it.

I may be able to work limited hours at one of my jobs, and on a short contract basis at my other one, which would leave me free (or mostly free) for most of the summer.

My best friend is getting married in August, in BC, and I'm going to go there to help and celebrate for at least a week, and this way I wouldn't have to book time off.

I could sleep and read a bunch for a month or so to come off of the stress from school, and then spend a few months volunteering and researching and figuring out what I really want to do. Apply for some jobs without the pressure of needing to find one right away. Think about whether or not I want to go to college.

I could go home for a while and hang out with my Mom. I could go to Montreal and hang out with Melissa. I could explore all the little shops along Queen West West, without ever having to rush. I could read all the books that I've bought and haven't had time for in the last few years. Crime and Punishment? I will stop neglecting you. I could work on my crochet pattern and start actually marketing it and selling pieces. I could learn what PHP is useful for. I could get a decent grasp of UNIX and learn to open the Terminal without fear. I could learn to sketch. And knit. I could dye a lot of yarn and start selling it on my new website. I could find out whether or not it's legal to do that without a business license.

So, I'm thinking about it. My hyper-responsible "you are poor! you must work!" voice in the back of my head is freaking out, but the rest of me is saying, "Ooh. That sounds nice."

P.S. See how much of a planner I am? It is JANUARY, people!

When I have kids, I will be unable to resist calling them "chicken". I don't know why, but it is stuck in my brain as an affectionate name for small things. I've found myself referring to the cat that way, and I know I will be powerless in the face of five-year-olds.

Tomorrow will be the first day this semester that I go to class without having done all of the reading. I have done 3/4ths of it, but she is crazy and assigns a buttload of reading AND an assignment, and when we protest and ask which of the readings we can leave out, she says "Oh... but they're all really important..." Somehow I think the assignment is even MORE important.

I had lunch with one of my profs today, and it was very very good. She told me that she dropped out of school after her first year of her PhD because she doubted whether or not she really wanted to be a prof, and after a year of working elsewhere, went back because she really missed academia. However, she said that she would advise everyone to take that distance and really make sure you want to do it. It was nice to hear, because if I ever do become a prof, it won't be because I jumped into grad school right away. I don't know what I'm doing next year, but it's not that. I need a break, and she says that's okay. Given that she's someone I respect, admire, and have fun with, that means a lot. It's nice to hear someone say that even though I would be good at it, if I'm not really sure about it, it's better to take some time and have that crisis now rather than in the middle of a PhD.

The cat has decided that I am Good People. She's slept on my bed the last two nights (and days!), and has done a lot of rolling around and purring.

I've seen two people from back home this week. Ran into Darren (son of my childhood pastor) coming out of the subway a few days ago, and I saw (but didn't talk to) a kid who I think used to go to the Sally Ann when I was there... I'm still having trouble placing him. It's a little odd running into people from so long ago. I always have that bit of wondering in the back of my mind, How much do you know? Do you know I'm not Christian anymore? Will you be offended, confused, or accepting? Have you moved away from it too? It's funny to see people from home here not just because of that, but also because this is the CITY. I saw a guy from high school in a bank in Chinatown around New Year's, and it's just so odd, because in my mind, he is from Greenbush, a little town that might have a stop sign, and yet, here he is!

It seems like such a different world here. Every day, on my travels through the subway, I see people walking by and I think, black, Asian, brown, white, not sure, geez, this place is like a bank commercial! except that it's not a commercial, this is just life here. I feel like an immigrant myself, an immigrant from rural Ontario where there aren't many minorities to speak of, not in terms of colour or language or religion or political views. Sometimes I forget that I didn't always have all of this, that it would have been impossible for the polling station to be in a synagogue in my hometown because we don't HAVE synagogues. That my parents had never tried Indian food until they came up last month, and that there won't be public transit when I go home to visit. That there aren't kumquats available. That "Chinese" food is the only real ethnic fare offered, and it's not even the good stuff.

It took a while to adjust to life in Toronto, but I like it so much. People ask me if I'm going to move when I'm done school, but how could I?

I have purchased a domain name for my very own self. I'm working on getting hosting and everything sorted out right now, and redesigning my site, which is much more exciting than homework. This address will still be functional for a few months, but after that, I'll have graduated and York will delete my account. So, probably a good time to skedaddle.

How to Cook Rice Perfectly - This really works. I am no longer reliant on Kathy's rice cooker!

Guns, crime, and income disparity - Good article from the Toronto Star about rising gun violence and the reasons for it.

For anyone worried about violent crime in Toronto, it's worth looking at a United Way report called Poverty by Postal Code. One of the scariest statistics in the 2004 study reveals the gap between the people in Toronto with money and the people without. It's the widest gap in Canada. Put simply, for every $1 the poorest families in Toronto have to spend, the richest families have $27.

Pulling funding for assisting poor people and putting that money into the prison system is not the answer. "Banning" guns is not the answer. Curbing the inevitable result of capitalism - income disparity - would be a hell of a lot better, but I'm not expecting to hear that from any of our politicians.

Oh, and while we're talking about politicians, let's highlight some concerns about the Green Party, which is not at all like other Green Parties you may be familiar with:
- Greens are Conservative, not a left-wing alternative
- Greens Aren't Green
- Ask Metafilter - Why shouldn't I vote Green?

Ah, the things I couldn't link to before. Being single has its benefits.

My riding is a fight between NDP Olivia Chow and LIB Tony Ianno. I'm torn, because yay Olivia, but boo taking away a Liberal seat and possibly giving more power to the Tories!

The post below this one was written on the 11th, but didn't actually show up until today. Blogger and I have been having a wee spat. I'm not sure how it started working today, because I haven't done my daily ritual of trying to publish and getting the same error, so let's see if this works.

So, I'm in a school where linguistics has a crush on sociology, and we get to think about discourses a lot. I've gotten to the point where I'll throw the term "discourses" around pretty frequently, without realising that any of my friends and family who haven't gone through similar courses as I have don't really know what I mean by the term, so here's a bit of personal reflection:

We tell ourselves stories about our lives, stories that affirm the way that we're doing things. When I was dating Chris, I had a story. It said that I am Heather Ann and I am like this [good], and this is Chris, and he is like that [good], and we are dating because of good Event1, Event2, Event3, and it is a good thing because he does Action1, Action2, Action3, and he has good Attribute1, Attribute2, Attribute3, and he makes me feel good Emotion1, Emotion2, Emotion3. When we had a good day, it confirmed my story, and when we had a bad day, I told myself that story instead of freaking out and leaving. When people asked me about him, this was the story I told. When questions were asked that might contradict the story, I got mad because they didn't fit the story, and the story was crucial. You've got to stick to the story!

Now that we've broken up, I have a new story, one that says that I am Heather Ann and I am like this [good], and that was Chris, and he was like that [bad], and we broke up and I'm better off for it because of bad Event1, Event2, Event3, and because he had bad Attribute1, Attribute2, Attribute3, and he made me feel bad Emotion1, Emotion2, Emotion3, and I'm going to get past this and have good Experience1, Experience2, Experience3. When I have a bad day, I tell myself this story. When I have a good day, it confirms the part that says that I'm better off. When people ask me how I'm doing, this is the story I tell. Now this is the crucial story.

Neither of these stories are True, at least, not in the way that "Toronto is in Canada" is True. Nor are they False, in the way that "Sanda is a man" is False. They are stories that select facts and opinions and bring them together to prove a point. In this case, those points are:

1. I am a good person.
2. I am doing the right thing.
3. I am (or will be) happy.

They are discourses, ways of thinking and talking about things, in this case, a relationship in my life. The whole truth is that there are good and bad things about me, and good and bad things about Chris, and we both did good and bad things, and it's true that this sucks and also that I'll be fine. But that's not a very cohesive story, and it isn't very useful for my purposes, so I sort out the things that are useful to me and build a discourse.

We all do this, with everything. My story about Jesus has changed a lot, and continues to change. Likewise with my story about my parents, about gay people, about cars, about cities, about sex. These are discourses and they reflect our values and our needs, and they shift with us.

So, I'm probably going to think harsh things about Chris for a while (off my blog, though), because this story works for me right now. I know it's not the whole truth, but it's the part that happens to help at the moment. I was harsh about Jesus and the church for a while, too, and I'm starting not to need that story as much. Sometimes people are harsh about gay people, not because anything in their story is true or because it's balanced, but because the story has another point, and the people telling the story need that point to be true. The same goes for stories about homeless people, or young black men in Toronto. That doesn't make it right, but it might help us understand the reasons behind it and how to change it.

This is Charlie, for those of you who have visited the house and wondered if we're lying about having a cat. Yes, she hides. Yes, she hisses when she wants attention. Yes, she meows for hours and runs away if you walk towards her. She's gonna take some time to be convinced that I'm not going to hurt her. This photo was taken during one of the rare moments when she'll venture into my room and not run away if I notice. I've had her rolling around on the floor purring a few times, but the whole process of convincing her I'm not evil seems to start over every day. At least she doesn't freak out if I touch her belly, unlike some kitties we know (and love!).

"They also say that God never closes a door without opening a window, to which I say, close the fucking window, God, it's the middle of winter, you Obsessive-Compulsive freak."
posted by Divine_Wino 09 January | 09:44

MetaChat makes me laugh. :)

Also: It is not a good idea to throw a mouse onto a fire, lest he seek revenge by running into your house and burning it down. You know, just in case you were wondering.

I'm feeling better this week. I finished the introduction to my paper, which means things are looking up, paper-writing-wise. The introduction is usually the hardest part. Once that's done, I just have to fill in the details. Uh, and find quotations.

Yesterday, I went to the Reference Library and photographed an entire chapter from a book. It's like photocopying, but free.

I've been thinking about religion lately, due to some discussions on my ex-Christian mailing list, and some talk on various blogs (miroslav, caleb, ChadDougTrevor..), and I'm starting to come to some new thoughts, such as:

I think that a lot of Christianity, at least the more gentle forms of evangelicalism that I am familiar with (emergent church, Brennan Manning, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Real Live Preacher, Rich Mullins, etc.), focuses a lot on How To Be Good. This is a good focus. It tends to go off the rails and become legalism or perfectionism, and then you get a tendency to be really hard on yourself and/or other people, and that's not cool, BUT: sometimes it's really good. Sometimes it turns into what I saw in Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel, which is a realisation that life is shit sometimes, and let's admit that it's hard and build a community and support one another. Of course, there's also stuff about God being graceful and there for you and whatnot, but I'm going to leave that aside.

I guess what I'm saying is that I still believe in doing church. I think I still try to do it in my own life, just without the whole Jesus thing. I'm not sure that I like the idea of accountability partners and all that jazz, but I like the idea of focusing on building and maintaining a loving community that will always have problems and pettiness, but we keep working on it. I don't know about the "lay down your life for your brother" idea, both for issues of gender-inclusivity and issues of personal boundaries (i.e. don't sacrifice your own mental health for another's), but I do like the idea of being available for one another.

Maybe the versions of Christianity that I like the most simply have friendship and community in common. Maybe that's what I "believe" in. I'm also realising that one of the only other places you can find this focus is in the gay community, and they can be really good at it. Maybe the theme of persecution and feeling like outsiders in one's culture has something to do with that, but it's a damn shame that the two groups don't interact more and learn from one another if they hold that in common.

Anyways, that's just some recent thoughts on where I'm at. I'm still atheist because the idea of God seems pretty silly and childish these days, but I'm less angry about the whole thing than I was before. I'm starting to look at parts of Christian culture and realise that I still love parts of it, and still hate the parts that I hated before, for similar reasons. I can never come back because I can't sign up for the dogma (or pretend to), but I can respect the values we hold in common. I don't think that those values come from Jesus, though. Hmm. That's a pretty vague thought that I should tidy up a bit more before expressing it here. I'll come back to this later.

Ooh, want to read something gross? MetaFilter weighs in with stories on cleaning out huge globs of ear wax. They're super-gross, and I can't look away (I've managed not to click on photos though!):
Remedies for opening up a congested ear canal?
A novel method for the removal of ear cerumen. (funny)
How do I unclog my ear?
Any tried and true methods for "opening up" an ear drum?
What's a surefire way to pop one's ear following a flight on an airplane (or anytime else)?

Don't say I didn't warn you!

It's 12:18pm on Monday. There are 172 retail outlets you can get booze
in Toronto right now.

Are you in Ontario? Do you feel the need for alcohol but don't know where to find it or if the place will be open? Problem solved, featuring Google Maps!

Toronto
Brockville
Ottawa (a link for Doug!)
Hamilton (and Sanda!)

Click the icons to see opening hours. Mallorytown isn't listed, but I think we've got their schedule down pat already. Via Metafilter Projects, by y10k.

For Musia's Grandchildren, by Irving Layton

I write this poem
for your grandchildren
for they will know of your loveliness
only from hearsay,
from yellowing photographs
spread out on table and sofa
for a laugh.

When arrogant
with the lovely grace you gave their flesh
they regard your dear frail body pityingly,
your time-dishonoured cheeks
pallid and sunken
and those hands
that I have kissed a thousand times
mottled by age
and stroking a grey ringlet into place,
I want them suddenly to see you as I saw you
- beautiful as the first bird at dawn.

Dearest love, tell them
that I, a crazed poet all his days
who made woman
his ceaseless study and delight,
begged but one boon
in this world of mournful beasts
that are almost human:
to live praising your marvellous eyes
mischief could make glisten
like winter pools at night
or appetite put a fine finish on.

Irving Layton died the other day. One of Canada's finest poets, a former prof at my university, he had been living in a home in Montreal with Alzheimer's for the last few years.

This semester is going to be really heavy. I've been to two classes so far, and one is a seminar class and so requires more work on the readings than usual, and the other is crosslisted to the graduate Linguistics program. My one third year course is going to be "challenging," as my Independent Study prof tells me. I was going to start volunteering places this semester, but I think I'm not going to be able to swing it, what with working 10 hours a week and drowning in readings and assignments. At least I don't have any exams in at least 3 of my 5 classes. I'll find out on Tuesday if I have any at all. I expect to have one in Syntax, but perhaps not in Language and Mind. We can only hope! In any event, my classes prove to be very interesting. :)

I went to a counselling intake interview the other day and they basically told me that I'm dealing with things as expected and that I don't need counselling, especially since they have a waiting list of people with more pressing concerns. So... I'm normal? I've felt better lately, though. I'm eating normally again, haven't cried in a while, and I think I'm thinking more clearly about things. I've gotten fed up with some stuff, and I think that's a good point to come to. Time to make some changes, make some rules of my own, stop reacting and start doing my own thing.

Some goals:
- learn to draw (with The Natural Way to Draw and some nice new pencils)
- learn to cook Mexican food, and perhaps Indian as well
- meditation? We'll see if I have the discipline.
- play cards/board games with friends. It's about time I start doing this. I have enough friends who like it, and I never exploit that fact.

Linda and Jonathan dropped by for tea tonight because they were in the neighbourhood. I love living downtown for precisely this reason.

Despite the fact that the lucid-dream people will tell you it's impossible, I can read in my dreams. I know this because I dream about receiving long mean emails from people I care about, and wake up reassuring myself that they're not true, that those are only my fears and not the reality.

Melissa went home yesterday, sadly. She was here for about a week, and we spent a good amount of the time sitting in bars, drinking beer and playing cards. We played lamsey, rummy, and a game we shall refer to as cards. Cards is an Arabic game that is kind of similar to rummy, which Melissa learned while working as a waitress at a shisha bar in Montreal. She isn't fluent in French or Arabic, but she won the second hand when she started playing with the shisha dudes, so they liked her. I don't have many people in Toronto who will play cards with me, but Agnes (new housemate) says she will play cards with me anytime, so that's a bonus of living here. Maybe she'll be up for some Mancala playing too.

Agnes went on an organizing and cleaning spree yesterday, and our kitchen seems a lot bigger now. The girl I'm replacing here left a lot of stuff behind -- pictures on the wall, food on the shelves, tons of shampoo in the shower, et cetera -- so things have seemed a lot more crowded than they actually are. We just need to sort those things out and perhaps there will be room for my stuff!

School starts tomorrow and I'm not finished my paper. I have a cold, my throat is scratchy, and my nose is running, and my eyes feel too warm, and people keep telling me they didn't recognise my voice on the phone. This is my one day by myself between exams and the new semester, and I just want to spend the day in bed.

Tomorrow I go to Topics in Grammatical Change, pick up my OSAP, and book a counselling intake session at the Counselling and Development Centre. This month I have to apply to colleges and apply to graduate and have my grad photos taken. I'm not excited about graduating, it's actually rather frightening. I've been in university for five years now. The thought of trying to find work is somewhat daunting, especially with a degree that people aren't familiar with. (Say it with me: Yes, I'm in Linguistics. No, I don't know any other languages. Yes, that makes sense and doesn't mean I suck at it.)

P.S. To Doug: I started watching Lost yesterday, have seen the first three episodes. The characters are interesting, and the island is confusing. I'm glad the over-awed over-dramatic narrator guy ("Imagine your plane crashes. Imagine you survive.") from the first episode isn't a key feature anymore. I'll have to let you know what I think later. There was a thread on AskMetafilter about it a while back, but I'm going to watch some more and read it later, lest there be spoilers!