what I’ve been reading

I’ve been falling behind on keeping track in this space of what I’m reading, so I thought I’d do a little update. I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction lately: Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed (I want to meet this woman, and have her guide me through my life); Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katharine Boo; Cinderella Ate my Daughter (which made me less stressed about any hypothetical future female children I have wearing pink or otherwise going through a princess phase); and Is Everyone Hanging out without me? by Mindy Kaling (which was chuckle-inducing).

I tried to read but couldn’t finish a hipster baby name book that I forget the name of (I have always loved reading about names but this one was mostly random “hipster”-associated words like “Gravel” (I’m not sure exactly what point they were trying to make there) or “Pabst” and was generally cringe-inducing to read).

Also, a book called Struck by Lightning about probability that was really interesting and made me wish I had paid attention in statistics class (or that I had read this book during stats class).

 

how to pay your debt

First, you need to rack up some debt. Between you and your husband, get four post-secondary degrees using loans to complement your savings. Be aware that, despite working all through high-school and saving what at the time seemed like a large amount of money, that those savings will be wiped out in a single semester’s tuition payment. Feel remorse that you didn’t just buy more clothes in high school.

Get your loans and don’t follow a budget until the last year of school. When you have “extra money” left over at the end of a semester, spend it on travel. This is totally justified because travel is an important kind of learning, and essential to your very little being. Drink too much cheap red wine and Maker’s Mark at an unfriendly hostel in Paris. Drink too many tropical flavoured drinks mixed by a gregarious Australian in a bar in the south of Portugal. Get sunburnt and cultured and when you come home, realize that you live in a young country.

Okay, now you have debt. When you graduate, panic. Feel slightly crushed when you think about your debt – actually crushed, as though all those zeroes are sitting on your chest and you can’t take a full breath. Try to ignore it while you work in retail and eat lots of lentils and look for a job worthy of your gold-leaf-stamped diplomas, getting slightly bent in a cardboard box in your closet.

Get really lucky and get jobs – real ones – both of you – the very month your savings would have run out. Take a deep breath, and devise a plan to pay off those zeroes as fast as possible. Continue to eat lots of lentils. Walk everywhere; scoff at real estate.

Relent and buy a new mattress because you start to wake up every night feeling impaled on a futon bar.

Get a raise, get a better job, get a dog. Revise the spreadsheet with a shrug. Decide where you will scrimp – transportation, shoes – and where you will splurge – food, travel.

Compare every potential purchase to the feeling of not having student debt. Some will win, some will lose.

Four years after you graduate (two years more than you had hoped; nine years earlier than your minimum payments would have dictated) make the final payment and decide that the lessons were worth it all.

Thanks a lot, Walt Whitman

I’ve never been able to completely shake my sense of embarrassment about the whole concept of keeping an online record of events, which embarrassment I blame entirely on ill-advised livejournal overusage that my friends and I committed back in high school (and thank goodness that those were the days of using nonsensical pseudonyms on the internet so that you were harder to find; also hopefully those servers have rusted from the amount of angst contained therein).

It’s a pretty low-grade embarrassment, and not enough obviously to keep me from writing here, although I do admit to maintaining the fairly delusional idea that nobody who knows me in real life would ever stumble across this little space, despite numerous confirmations of the contrary (as in, including friends that I have made through this space, friends who have told me they read this, etc). But it has prevented me from doing any kind of self-promotion or sharing, and indeed I generally maintain an active denial of the existence of this blog, resolutely ignoring Eric’s raised right eyebrow when I do so. Which is fine, because obviously I’m not trying to Live the Dream of Full-Time Blogospherist and thus don’t rely on hits or clicks or viral-ness (and good thing, because those statistics are so low that I’d not be quitting my day job, which job I love and have no desire to quit anyways), but does make me feel fairly ridiculous. Like I’m wearing a journal entry on a t-shirt but refusing to acknowledge it. A psychic Emperor’s New Clothes.

All this to say that, when exhorted by multiple people to start a blog to document our (extremely rapidly) upcoming posting, I found myself incapable of doing the sensible thing, which would be to say that I already have one and email them the address, and instead started another blog, which the additional maintenance of will probably be a nuisance and to/from which I will probably cross-post with this occasionally, but to which I have also given access to Eric as an author and most importantly, doesn’t have a three-year backlog of my often-not-as-well-written-as-they-could-be, quickly-tapped-out-in-a-huff, unedited rants, pithy exclamations of having read a book, and lazy instagram photos.

So, if you’re mostly here for the (up until now thin on the ground but about to become a central theme) exciting foreign service type stuff, you might want to check out the new space, which I will probably start updating more when we leave. If you stick around here, you’ll still be able to enjoy my schedule-less ramblings (your choice of verb may vary). Or if you’re a truly wild soul, you can just add both to your reader (which, if you are still stumbling around clutching your chest about Google Reader’s impending demise, I highly recommend The Old Reader, which is delightfully almost identical although lacking in the starred section, which I sorely miss).

How to be a grown up

Can I hop on my soapbox for a second? Of course I can. Query: are you over the age of majority in your place of residence? If yes, then you are an adult.

I know, you’re not an adult adult, not in your head. Neither am I! It seems like only yesterday I was 16, making bad (mostly fashion-related) decisions and not watching my smart mouth, and now here I am – home and dog-owning, overseas-moving, married lady with at least 8 white hairs (white! I hope I get a cool streak). I totally feel like an impostor a lot of the time – in fact, so does everyone, and it even has a name.

But the thing is, even though you (by which I mean I) don’t feel like an adult, you are. You have adult responsibilities like voting and going to the dentist and hopefully doing work that’s meaningful to you, but if not, at least paying your bills and eating your veggies (at least eating your veggies!). You aren’t an extended adolescent. You won’t be handed a manual and a Volvo on your 30th birthday and told that now you should start acting like a grownup. Are you not acting like a grownup? Then you’re wasting your life.

not an adult

An important clarification – acting like a grownup is not boring or lame. It doesn’t mean spending weekends pressing your pants (do people iron anymore? I sure don’t) or doing taxes. It means taking ownership of your decisions and your actions, of grabbing onto your life and saying a resounding “fuck yes!” and starting to live it. Is your ideal life working as a barista and skateboarding? Awesome! Own it, and please pull me a delicious macchiato, you caffeine wizard you. But if it’s not, don’t while away your youth behind that steamy espresso machine, telling everyone waiting for a drink that you’re thinking about going back to school as pumpkin lattes turn to iced coffee.

Another nice thing about being a grownup is that you can have pancakes for dinner, or drink mimosas on Sunday morning, or move to France. The catch is that you have to make the pancakes, not drive home from brunch, and be solvent enough for plane tickets. Sometimes the mechanics of your grand scheme are, admittedly, concretely un-fun, but the payoff, be it flapjacks or crepes, always tastes that much sweeter when your plans come to fruition and you can say, “I did this.”

So scratch your lottery ticket, finish your beer, and accept that, while being a kid was fun, you don’t have a time machine, and adulthood beats the alternative.

see you in the car

Eric and I thought that we could avoid a big to-do by eloping, but our mothers were not to be so easily deterred. Last weekend, our families and friends gathered in a barn in Southern Ontario to celebrate slash say goodbye. It was a beautiful day, and our moms prepared a lavish spread of way too much delicious food (so good that I’m only a tiny bit mad that my mom put the kibosh on my idea of having it catered by a middle eastern restaurant – “your grandmother won’t eat that stuff.” Fair point, mom).

some of our uni friends who made the trip

My sole contribution was showing up with three trays of black-market baklava (I mean, I think it was on the up and up, but it did give me a delicious thrill to call a restaurant to inquire about baklava, and be told to call back in half an hour for a special price), and posing for some requisite cake-slicing-and-smearing-icing-on-Eric photos.

Sometimes I’m too predictable

It was a fabulous time, and totally cemented my opinion that eloping and partying afterwards was 100% the right decision for me (but as a selfish lover of attending weddings, I do not recommend it for any of my friends).

something creative

You guys, I’ve saved this until now because I’ve been too busy enjoying the feel of clay through my fingers (and in my hair) to write anything down, but I signed up for a pottery class at the studio across the street from my house (yes, right between the brewery and the art gallery, for those keeping track – I live in the best neighbourhood on earth).

I love my job, but I miss using my hands the way I did when I was a barista. It was such a particular pleasure to use my body, my senses, to make something worthy of consumption – feeling the grind, the pressure, the heat of the milk; knowing how to flick my wrist just so to coax a leaf out of espresso and milk. It feels good to put myself to use. My body isn’t the most coordinated one around, but I can sometimes manage to get it to do some neat things.

mugs, bowls, candy dish, and a wonky flower pot

Before it started, I assumed that we’d spend the first three to four weeks on technique, then spend another few weeks screwing up, and maybe get a mug out of the whole thing. But my very first class, I managed to get two little mugs off the wheel! My final week, I sat down to the wheel determined to make a human-sized mug, but it somehow happily turned out as a cookie jar (again, a mysteriously small one).

his lid is currently stuck on, but I’m hoping that will change

The class is over now, and I’m desperately hoping that I can find a place to sign up for more in Amman, because I think I could spend the rest of my Saturdays making lopsided mugs and weird candy dishes (seriously, the instructor said “oh no…” when she saw one of them. I did that on purpose!).

The Beach

As an antidote to my currently hectic schedule, I’ve been trying to keep my reading light and enjoyable (I’m appalled at people who look down their noses at trade fiction – Stephen King? The man is a mastermind! Although I constantly look down my nose at Twilight and anything with the word “shop” in the title, so look at me being hypocritical).

Anyways, I’ve always been a big re-reader. I’ve probably read most of my favourite books at least five times. But when we were doing our inventory, I came across a big stack that had been in a box with my childhood picture books and that I hadn’t seen in a while, so dragged those out of storage to read. Eric was a little confused as to why, two months before a trans-Atlantic move, I was unpacking boxes, but I was too busy revelling in my new stash.

I’ve always liked Alex Garland’s stuff, but I’ve read several sneering references to The Beach since I’d last read the book itself – stuff about how it was racist to have a book take place in Thailand with no Thai characters, how it was indicative of Gen X’s self-absorption and general awfulness – that I was a bit hesitant to pick it up, because what if my fond memories of reading it and being burningly jealous of my cousins’ trip to Thailand (no secret beaches visited) were ruined?

But I’m glad I did, because it was probably even better than I remembered, because it quickly became clear to me that the people who wrote those scathing criticisms (actually now that I think about it, at least one of them was in a book I hated) were total idiots and missed the point of the book, which was of course being critical of the relentless pursuit of something cool and exciting and an adventure, and also is a great exploration of groupthink and morality.

And also, I still hate beaches, but it made me really crave some pad see ew.

The Ottawa Guide part 2: drinking

I’m not a big party animal, which is probably why Ottawa and I get along so well. More club-minded people will be quick to tell you that the best place to go out on the weekend in Ottawa is Montreal, but I think there are some great little places to grab a drink and hang out with friends, and even a few places to shake your groove thing.

the acorn at Maverick’s

While it’s true that not a ton of bands pass through Ottawa while on tour, those that do often play at small venues that afford a great view. My favourite is Maverick’s – they’ve got the best acoustics and the least sticky floor.

Zaphod Beeblebrox is another popular choice – I’ll never forget seeing Ted Leo and the Pharmacists there a few years ago.

Mello’s has long been a breakfast institution in Ottawa, but last year some geniuses bought a share and opened a late-night restaurant-within-a-restaurant in the diner. They make amazing cocktails and an always-rotating menu of delicious snacks.

The Byward Market is, unfortunately, filled with lots of shitty pseudo-Irish pubs, but I do enjoy a pint at the Clocktower. They brew their own beer (including pumpkin in the fall) and have a lovely patio.

Elgin St is full of bars and pubs; my favourite is the Manx, a cosy basement full of board games and above-average food and brews.

I am of course cheating and mentioning several restaurants that also serve amazing drinks - Supply and Demand, the Elmdale Tavern, and Hintonburg Public House are some of my favourite local places to sip a microbrew or oyster-laden cocktail. But I’m also incredibly spoiled to have a micro-micro-brewery across the street – Beyond the Pale opened this winter and continually sell out of their delicious beer.

On my list of places to check out before we move are the Union 613 speakeasy (shh!) and the Moon Room on Preston, which serves tapas and cocktails until far past my bedtime.

Getting ready

The past few weeks have been a blur of full-time Arabic training, full-time management training with part-time Arabic training, inventory lists, luggage shopping, property manager emailing, and fevered list-making. There have also been blood tests, bike rides, hair cuts, board game parties, long runs, pottery classes, grocery shopping, and dog walks mixed in, and I read The Beautiful Ruins, which was pretty good. The snow has melted, my block shop scarf finally arrived, and we’re moving around the world in a few months.

This is a sort-of apology for not blogging, but I can’t bring myself to feel particularly bad – if this were a hundred years ago (or even ten), I’d be apologizing to a book with a lock on it. So whatever. Here’s a picture of my haircut.

Arabic is incredibly difficult – when I first found out I would be getting a few months of full-time (one now and one after my other full-time training in July), I felt pretty confident that I’d be more or less fluent. Now I feel like I’ll be lucky if I can order a meal or buy a camel hair rug (note to self: look up word for rug).

The problem is that, unlike French or Spanish, the words almost never sound like a word from another language I know, so there’s no deducing or guessing when it comes to the meaning. When we were in Mexico, I felt pretty confident blundering my way through with very limited Spanish, because I could understand about 80% of what people were saying. In Arabic, it’s all or nothing – I either know a word or stare blankly at my teacher, eyebrows hopelessly furrowed.

I’m still enjoying it, especially because there’s no pressure to reach a certain level by the time we go. But I’m also glad that I’m not spending more time in full-time language training, because did I mention it’s difficult?

Banana Doughnuts

I.

The sun wakes us early,

even before the alarm set so ambitiously last night

before the party.

As we layer on high-tech,

sweat-wicking running gear, I tell you about my dream – banana doughnuts for two.

II.

We gasp at the chill spring air and head our separate ways.

My mind wanders away as my feet plot a well-known course

River, turn, park, geese.

My body finally back to doing what I tell it with only a minimum of complaint.

III.

At the doughnut shop, out of breath,

serendipity

never-before-seen sunshine yellow

banana doughnuts.

“I’ll take two,” I tell the clerk, and “I dreamt about them” comes out

before I can filter my stream-of-consciousness tendencies.

“Wow,” she smiles, “you should tell your husband about more of your dreams.”

We laugh, but of course I already do.

IV.

I head home, slower (mustn’t jostle the doughnuts)

composing punny text messages all the way -

the holey prophesy has been cream-filled.