It was raining furiously this afternoon, and we even had hail. Incredible. Today I discovered the "digital macro" setting on my camera, which actually allows me to focus on things close-up! How have I managed to have this camera for over a year and to be so frustrated by the lack of this feature (or so I thought) and not found it?! I am a silly girl sometimes.



That last photo is of a mezuzah, a Jewish scroll on the our front doorway. My landlord is a rabbi, and he does his best to protect us, perhaps from the Angel of Death? I am not entirely clear on how this works. I am also not sure whether it is supposed to work for goyim like myself, but here's hoping.

Have I mentioned that I have a job that requires me to eavesdrop on lesbians? I do. This is why you should all go into linguistics, for it affords such interesting opportunites as this! Linguistics is sexier than you ever imagined!

So, it's starting to hit me. I'm done school, and I haven't got a clue as to what to do next. I've been reworking my resumé, looking at York's online career advice, and thinking about what I like to do and what I'm good at and what I hate to do and what stresses me out in a work environment. I know that it will work out and I'll find something and maybe I'll like it and that will be good, or I won't like it and I can leave and find something else. I know I have good marks and good references and good work experience, and that I'm not stuck. So, I shouldn't worry, but of course I am. Good old fear of the unknown, eh?

I'm also trying to find a place to live in September. Since my sublet runs out at the end of August, I get to compete with all the university students for living quarters. I want to stay in this neighbourhood (Chinatown/Kensington Market) and I would REALLY like to have laundry on-site. I am so sick of hoarding quarters and getting ripped off. Seriously, the laundromat down the road charges $2.25 for a washer and 25 cents for five minutes in the dryer. It ends up costing me about ten bucks to do two loads of laundry, unless I want to hang everything up in my room for a couple of days. It's obscene. And the rent here is high compared to most of Canada. I'll be happy to find a room for $500 inclusive — really happy. My first apartment, which had the drawback of being located in Brock Vegas, but was large and had two bedrooms and a big living room, was only $562 inclusive. I only paid half of that, and did not realise how sweet that was.

I'm thinking of moving in August in order to beat the rush of students, but that means I'll have to pay double-rent for that month. And this whole job stress thing just adds to my housing stress, because how can I convince people to let me move in if I don't have a job? Plus I get to start paying back my student loans in November, and the numbers they're throwing at me are TERRIFYING.

But I want to stay in this neighbourhood, because I love it. There are trees everywhere, and the cheapest and best groceries I've ever seen, and lots of interesting events I can walk to, and Chris lives ten minutes away (on foot!), and other friends live right in the neighbourhood, and people have these elaborate gardens in their front yards, and I don't even need to use public transit anymore because I'm so close to everything. And there is a Chinese bakery (conveniently named Chinese Bakery!) that sells three buns for a dollar, and a falafel place on Baldwin that sells great falafel for two bucks, and a Vietnamese place on Spadina with subs for a buck fifty, and Cheese Magic which has tasty cheese and saucy clerks, and My Market Bakery where you can get a bag of day old bagels and breads that are so good and only a DOLLAR and let's not even TALK about the desserts in there because they look so good that I have to avert my eyes every time!, and Chinese markets that sell sweet potatoes for 39 cents a pound, and how could I ever go back to grocery store living? Clearly, I could not, so I must find an apartment in this area, an apartment with laundry on-site and fun roommates and low rent, so I'm hoping that Jesus still likes me and will arrange that for me. Or, if that fails, maybe the Fates, or even Thor. Oh, and a job too. And a puppy. I think that's it.

WE EAT HAM AND JAM AND SPAM A LOT: Monty Python's Camelot scene + Star Trek = amusement

Linda playing Boggle at Room 101 Games last Sunday, Misha Glouberman in the background (in the suit, with the mic):


A couple of shots from a quick visit to the Toronto Don Valley Brickworks on Friday morning:


And from our visit to Montreal this weekend for Saint Jean Baptiste Day:






We saw tam-tam drummers in the park, climbed Mont Royal despite having been told by the police that it wasn't allowed (?!), ate excellent food, hung out with my fabulous sister Melissa, explored old Montreal, and I even got to stop and pet my parents' dog on the way home. I would write more, but I am super-tired.

If Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics studied Linguistics at U of T, and Joey Comeau of A Softer World studied Linguistics in Halifax, does that mean that it's my destiny to write internet comics and strange fiction and maybe even random internet applications? Is it simply my destiny to find ways to get strangers on the Internet to pay me to be entertaining? Is that what my syntax and phonology classes were about all along? Why wasn't there any indication of this in the Intro class?

Things Which Christopher Blames, Since Nothing Is Ever His Fault (EVER):
1. Society
2. The breakdown of the family*
3. Me

Games I Played At Room 101 Games Last Night:
1. Jenga
2. Boggle
3. Apples to Apples*

Popcorn Toppings Du Jour:
1. Melted butter
2. Salt
3. Freshly ground pepper*

Themes of Unbelievably Vivid Dreams Last Night:
1. Calling off an impromptu and poorly thought out wedding
2. Being stuck in an elevator 60 floors below ground with a girl who has suddenly taken a turn for evil
3. Seeing my sister in a mall and having her not recognise me, only to realise that I have stepped into an alternate dimension where I am not myself, and I am not quite sure who I am
4. Discovering a downtown Indian grocery store selling roti and naan*

*most enjoyable

The Toronto Necropolis is one of Toronto's oldest cemeteries, established in 1850. Chris and I went there yesterday to photograph.





BONUS! Mural I noticed on the way home:


Tonight is Games You Play Sitting Down! Also, this Thursday is the second Pillow Fight League fight, and this coming weekend, nous irons à Montréal pour la Fête Nationale!

I graduated, yay! Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but I've been utterly exhausted. I went home, had a bridal shower for Janice, brought the whole family up to Toronto for a few days, graduated, had a party, brought Jan to the airport, had lunch with my Uncle John, and now I just want to sleep and sleep and sleep. :) It was so great to see everyone, and Convocation went off without a hitch. I was a bit worried about that because I worked on the previous four convocations at York, and they changed a ton of stuff this year, but it went really smoothly! Sorry I didn't get to visit anyone in Brockville, but I am coming back next month sometime, so we'll try to hook something up then!

Charlie has returned, bringing me to a grand total of TWO unexpected returns of loved ones this month! So far, June is getting a big thumbs up from me! She is being brave and letting us pet her, and she even came into the KITCHEN, a place into which she rarely dares to go!

I'm trying to read Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart and I'm having a hell of a time with it. It's for a book club that I joined recently, and I just can't get into the damn thing. It's all, ooh, I will describe the landscape and it will be a metaphor for how the character is feeling, and then just in case you don't get it, I will reiterate that the character is feeling these things and that it is a metaphor! Allow me to demonstrate:

She glanced at the map, then looked through the window into the yard, which was partially illuminated by the kitchen lamp. It was the middle of a cold April and only recently had the thaw begun in earnest. At this moment everything beyond the kitchen windows appeared to be weeping; droplets were clinging to her clothes-line and shining on branches, and icicles that had disengaged themselves from the eaves were embedded like spears in the remaining heavy snow near the foundations of this house in which she had lived all her life. This is the anniversary of sorrow, she thought — everything moist, transitory, draining away, everything disappearing.

Did you get that? Did you? Everything seems to be WEEPING, but that is not enough of a hint as to what is going on. No, we must inform you ALSO that the character thinks that this is a season of SORROW and TRANSITION. Just in case we hadn't already gone on and on and on about it for CHAPTERS, just looking out the window earnestly, observing the SAD weather. And- AND! this is SPRINGTIME! Imagine what depths of emotion the character will reach in AUTUMN when everything is DYING!

Ahem. Of course, this attitude is getting me nowhere with respect to trying to finish the book, which must be done by next Thursday or I am a Bad Book Club Member. Please Ms. Urquhart, some plot would be appreciated! And less about the weather, even though, yes, it is a very useful metaphor and we recognise that you are fond of it!

At the Toronto Small Press Book Fair, I met Ryan North, who is responsible for the goodness of Dinosaur Comics, and Christopher confused him! I bought the new book and Ryan North offered to "deface" it for me (ha!), and asked my name and I said, "Heather Ann" and Chris said "With a dash and an E" because he likes to BOTHER me by calling me "Heather Dash Ann With An E" because he knows it is WRONG, and we proceeded to have an argument about the spelling of my name, before a bewildered Ryan North. However, he proceeded to spell my name correctly and drew a picture of T-Rex saying, "My name has a dash," and that was funny and I thanked him and gave him money. THANK YOU RYAN NORTH, YOU ARE AN ENTERTAINING BOY, SORRY WE WERE CONFUSING!

Elisabeth Kaldeway is my third cousin and she lives in the Netherlands and her website has some amazing art on it and you should check it out even though you do not speak Dutch. She is AWESOME just like ALL OF THE KALDEWAYS, especially since some of her art involves crochet hooks!

On Friday, I go home, Saturday we're having a bridal shower for Janice, Sunday we come back to Toronto, Monday is my commencement, and on Tuesday, Janice flies back to BC and my family goes back home. I think I should sleep in this week just in preparation.

Have I mentioned that I'm dating Christopher again? No? Have I managed to suppress a big stupid grin all day? Or to stop thinking about kissing him? No? Or emailing him to tease him? Or- (All together now: Yeah, yeah, we get it.)

My lovely roommate Samantha has a table at the Toronto Small Press Book Fair on Saturday, and you should check it out. She has some lovely hand-bound journals and her journal from her trip to Malawi last year, and Jim will be there selling his comics. Also, there will be poets there with chapbooks, and many other things that I have heard only rumours about so far.

Trampoline Hall is this Monday! This month's lectures are on Bike Theft in Toronto, Colourblindness, and Songs That Get Stuck In Your Head. I got advance tickets this time, and this month the tickets are each a different page of the book The Man Who Ate Toronto. Previous tickets have included strips cut from a picture of a banana, and days cut out of a calendar. All tickets include a sticker with the date and time of Trampoline Hall, and they are all unique and entirely unpredictable.

Also, this Saturday is the first meeting of the Toronto Tequila Book Club. Our first reading is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a book which I thoroughly enjoyed. It is worthy of being discussed over tequila, oh yes.