For the first time, I’m blogging while looking out a window onto the perfectly uneventful yet scenic street below our apartment. I think, and K of the two blogs will likely concede, that many people have some degree of OCD. I read, or heard, or saw on TV someone explaining how these slight differences in our brains that make up the varying degree of mental health are the same differences that make us unique, give us personalities.

I’ve got some regular signs that, when mixed with my natural laziness make up the essence of D. For example, when I am sitting at a table for a meal, the cutlery has to be exactly lined up, with the fork on the left, and the knife and, if present, spoon on the right. Even when I eat at the ESD, I move my fork to the left of me. Despite this quirk, I’ve spent many years working in restaurants setting tables en mass, and never once have I set cutlery in perfect parallel dimensions while being paid to do so. My desk at work is a mess of papers because I’m a pack rat, but the pens, notebooks, and piles of paper are all perfectly square to their surroundings.

But the point of all of this is to explain why I’m looking out a window. I need to rearrange my static surroundings about three times a year, and I have moved my desk, removed the hutch on top, and placed it facing the window. When I was a kid, I rearranged the four items of furniture in my room every three months. My sister and I even took the unprecedented step of switching rooms once. In my first university dorm, when I had a roommate who was either sleeping (until 2:00pm) or staying out with his friends (until 4:00am), I had the overwhelming urge to rearrange, but I only had half a room to work with, but I did it anyway. I also figured that since he was never around, had no books or computer in the room, and hadn’t taken his clothes completely out of his suitcase, he wouldn’t mind if I took an extra foot or two of area. And now, with the one room in the house that contains my junk, and our jackets – yes, my “office” is a coat room, I devoted my day to the celebration of that quirk. By the way, since May, when we moved in, this is the third configuration of said room.

Now, I have no idea if this will work, but I invite my sparse but no doubt quirk-rich readers to post their favorite personal compulsion. Yay internet!

D?

Posted by D. at Sunday, November 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

I’m going to talk about something no politician in their right mind would ever dare to, which saddens me. It makes my heart well up for Canada because we live in a time where no political leader has the courage to say anything other than to pander to one side or the other in ways which may forward their immediate agenda without thought to the greater picture. Whether this can be chalked up to the pitfalls of minority politics, or simply an erosion of bravery since the days of Trudeau, I don’t pretend to know.

The problem, as I see it, with the argument that Quebec is unique hinges on the assumption that they are unique when compared with something uniform. As we all know, Canada is anything but coherent, and that incoherence both troubles us and unites us. Essentially then, the argument is that Quebec is unique in a country whose differences bring us together.

Where would we be without Newfoundland and the Maritimes? We wouldn’t have a sense of humour, that’s for sure. And without Alberta, we would all be a lot worse off in economic terms and in cowboy hats per capita. Without Ontario’s banking and administration, we would be less organized. BC’s street and drug culture keeps us mellow. Without the prairies and their agriculture, we would be more dependent on imports. And without the combined beauty of the Rockies, the East and West Coasts, the Great Lakes, the Canadian Shield, and the mysterious Northern region, we would be a little less proud of our country.

This is not to say that La Belle Province is any less important to Canada, but they are not any more important either. Their industry and research sectors are alive and kicking and they have a unique stake in the history of the founding of Canada. They’ve managed to build a great music, art, and movie culture and star system with a relatively small population, which is an amazing feat considering how poor English Canada’s popular culture is faring.

I have many Quebecois friends and even some family, but I have always failed to see what makes them entitled to have their own nation, whether it be a unique nation currently in Canada, or a nation unique to current Canada, or a newly developed chip on the otherwise unified shoulder of the many disparate nations within Canada.

In the end, we’re all Canadians, we’re all equally different, and for the sake of our country, can’t we all just get along…

D.

Posted by D. at Friday, November 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Coffee and I have always had a bit of a rocky relationship marred by unfortunate observations and bolstered by clear-headed delight. The question remains unsolved in the depths of my poor brain: when I love coffee, is it only because I am being seduced by the addictive components, and conversely, when I disavow any affiliation, is it only because of an unclear, still sleepy brain?

I had a roommate once who would drink three large Timmy’s Triple-Triples before lunch, two bad campus coffees during the day, and a homemade pot before bed. It got to the point that he couldn’t function without it. One morning, he almost slept through a 9:00am exam. I woke him up in the nick of time by busting into his room and shouting at him. He got up like a bolt, took one step, and proceeded to fall forehead first onto his desk because his brain refused to communicate with his legs without first benefiting from a caffeine jolt. He made it to the exam and wrote it without the benefit of coffee, while dealing with a concussion. I think he failed the class. Another friend once calculated the amount they spend of coffee a year, which under a student budget fuelled by loans, parents, and bad part-time jobs, can be a scary realization.

But the good times, they are good. Working in my alpine paradise atop the Alps of Helvetica, the pace of boozing, ‘boarding, and working necessitated a coffee every now and again. Starting the breakfast shift on my own at 6:00am allowed me free reign of the four-star hotel’s kitchen, which I would use to make the ultimate coffee. Take one soup bowl, inject two espresso shots, and fill with frothed milk and two packets of brown sugar. That was enough to erase whatever horrible tequila and croissant hangover I might have had.

With a few weekend exceptions, I have been coffee free for almost about half a year now. I like to detox every so often, after all my body is a temple. But that streak has come to an end. I have a large thermos full of coffee on my desk which will stay hot all day. I think the benefits of this new method of coffee consumption negate any negatives. Firstly, the coffee itself, bought in a fancy coffee roasting house in the ‘Peg, and brewed in a French press, is awesome. Secondly, the eternal warmth of the thermos ensures that I can regulate the intake of caffeine throughout the day, thereby keeping a constant coffee buzz and not have to worry about crashing until the bus ride home.

So I give a big "huzzah!" to coffee as I prepare to take on the waking world with new chemical enthusiasm.

D.

Posted by D. at Wednesday, November 22, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

W: Oh, it’s like that big ball of black anti-matter that’s pushing everything out!

D: You mean like in that book?

J: Oh, that was a great book!

W: You want to know another great book?

And so the evening went. Ever since little baby Boh was more that just a glint in his dad’s eye, W and J, our old ‘stop-by-for-a-few’ friends have become slightly more scarce. Of course, the scarcity is entirely excusable, and expected. And, truth be told, I am amazed at how often they do make appearances. W, the prototype wired Mommy, is just as involved in the work-time email trains as she ever was. And J never hesitates to call on a whim and tell us about the beautiful sunset he’s watching from the grocery store parking lot. The last two parties I’ve been to, both at their pad, and both in the last three weeks, have been a blast.

When I first met W and J, we were on a ski weekend near Temblant. The most vivid memory of J that weekend was the incredible pasta he made for everyone in the chalet. I think he did all the dishes too, and drove a bunch of people up.

W’s first impression came when I was playing bartender. I was taking my time opening and pouring a beer for her –perfectly of course - while she sat and watched. I guess she was a bit thirsty, and proceeded to tell me to “hurry the hell up with that brew”. That was just about the only thing she said to me all weekend. Good times. Yet, I don’t remember either of them skiing very much.

Model parents they have become, and indeed always were. They are also model friends, and have been through a number of very different phases in their lives. And I’m sure they will remain so, after all; the more things change, the more they remain the same.

K: And I’ll bet she even got her dress made for free in Italy.

W: I’m sure she’s really picky about stuff like that.

D: And can afford to be.

W: Like that big body of anti matter pushing everything out…

D.

Posted by D. at Sunday, November 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Jagshemash.

The fall movie season is always a bit bland. Summer blockbusters have came and went (we remember you with fond disappointment, Superman and X3) and the big Christmas hit have yet to come (bring it on, Nativity Story and Rocky - shudder).

But along came a film so unexpectedly good - despite high expectations – and so unbelievably truthful – despite the fact that it is a mockumentray - that K and I could not even fathom the idea of not seeing it. Yes, it was time to revel in the genius of a Cambridge educated Jewish Brit, acting like a Kazakhstani reporter; it was time to see the Borat movie – the most anticipated movie of the fall, or at least the second most because I can’t wait to find out if Russel Crowe really quits his fancy Wall Street job for the physical and emotional fulfillment of running a winery in Southern France.

Of course, the cinema gods used every dirty trick in the book to trip us up on our journey to keep pace with the rigorous pop culture standards. First, in all of their evil geniuserie, they decided to open the film in only two locations, each at least three busses and forty-five minutes away. As tried and true down-town Ottawanians, we fear to venture anywhere that we can’t walk to, a condition exacerbated by the fact that we are sans car. But, as people over the age of twenty-five with clean driving records and major credit cards, we overcame the roadblock by renting one for the occasion. Take that!

Then, a lineup rivaling that of Return of the King on opening day forced us to sit two rows from the Imax sized screen among gaggles of noisy suburban teenie boppers, who were like, so totally excited to, like, see this- it’s supposed to be, like, ten times better than that new Sarah Michelle Gellar movie and she is, like, so cool.

So, there we sat, K and I, two rows from the front and three seats from the right side wall. All of the on-screen shoes looked like VW bugs and everyone’s head was floating like distant hot air balloons. But it really didn’t matter. Seeing a balding ‘humour coach’ getting his tweed sports jacket turned inside out by Borat, who doesn’t even get gist of the ‘NOT!” joke, you understand the cleaver genius of the film, and the you bother to look for it in the grossest of moments no matter where you are in the theater.

There wasn’t a moment that I wasn’t doubled over in my seat in laughter, but there were parts where I had to cover my eyes. It was a bit like watching a horror movie, except instead of peaking through your fingers to see if the masked serial killer was finished hacking up the college co-ed, you were checking to see if Borat was still wearing a poorly assembled banana hammock (I'll keep the photo small).

Anyway, I’ve said too much. Go and see the movie.

Now.

D.

Posted by D. at Tuesday, November 07, 2006 | Permalink | Comments