..., Buddha Dogs and a box full of tarts. Went on a quick food trip with Hube down to Union (Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar) then around to Roncesvalles (Queen of Tarts, Buddha Dog) today.
JK, while the price point is somewhat reasonable (if you don't partake in the drinky-drinky), they serve portions so frustratingly tiny that I can't picture going there for anything other than a snack. The food, though, was terrific. Buddha Dog, meanwhile, is just so far out of the way for mere hot-dogs-with-sauces that I don't see myself going back anytime soon.
The thing with being numb or emotionally withdrawn is that even the feeling of nothingness is a unique, definable experience. It's a state of apathy and nonchalance where every stimulus is deflected and you coast by on auto-pilot until the fog passes. I know that feeling intimately, and this is different.
I noticed this last week when walking to Wanda's (paraphrasing Boro, tortured artists find solace in their work, and some of us find comfort in our munchies) and broke into an enthusiastic run halfway there because I was overcome by the anticipation of pies and butter tarts. This is more like an emotional vacancy where any available feeling expands to fill the void, coming across so unreasonably intensely that even if I recognize its ridiculousness, I feel powerless to do anything but let them wash over me. Every day at work is a tide of joy, despair, hopelessness, excitement, boredom and yearning.
I like to think that I've always been fairly self-aware and when I return home exhausted at the end of the day, I know it's not a physical exhaustion that puts me directly to sleep. The one thing that normalizes these emotions is seeing my dog wait for me by the window as I pull into the driveway and greet me as I walk through the door. To have her clumsily step over me and curl against my leg then hearing her snoring contentedly, or watch as she closes her eyes, stops and catches a first whiff of a scent out in the ravine before she frantically attempts to chase it down are the moments that keep me...
...I suddenly don't know how to finish that sentence.
It's the seasons that keep me on and on and on.
It's the reasons that keep me strong. They keep me hanging on and on and on. When the mood gets me so far, then you go.
A colleague approaches. - Is that your girlfriend outside? - She isn't my...., no....I think she'd be upset if she overheard that. - Ah...is she your sister? - No! She works downstairs, she just poked her head in to say hello. - I see, I see. She's very nice.
There's a gentleman at work who suffers from primary progressive multiple sclerosis. I first met him several years ago when I started at S&WCHSC. He was still getting around perfectly well, performing deliveries on multiple floors. Now his mobility is limited enough that he relies on his delivery cart as a walker and they've limited his deliveries to only the main floor. He tires quickly throughout the day and there are three or four areas where he can be reliably found to rest his feet for a little while.
...and Pineapple. I haven't had the nerve to open and tap into its nuclear greenness yet (especially after the disastrous exploding Root Beer yesterday) but I'll make a note when I do.
Note: tastes like Sprite, less fizzy. And looks even greener in a white styrofoam cup.
A conversation with an Italian neighbourhood stranger, moments after nearly being hit by a car going 80 clicks round the bend:
- Why is everyone in such a hurry now? I don't think they even saw your dog. - Yeah, they were going pretty fast. There's a "Limit 40km/h" sign right there too! - I don't know what this neighbourhood's coming to. Have you been here long? I've lived here 25 years. - Wow....well, nearly 20 years myself. Things have changed around here though - take that school for instance. - How do you mean? - Well, it's a Russian Montessori now. - A what? - A Russian Monte....private school, what have you. - Goddamn Russian mafia moved in? - Haha...well, nobody likes them. Their kids throw cigarette butts and garbage everywhere, they tell us to stay off their playground, we really don't get along. - I see those goddamn smokers all the time, I think they're even smoking...what do you call it. Grass. Dope. - Really? - Certainly. Russian mafias, they're the worst of all. So much worse than Italian mafia or Chinese mafia. - Actually, we prefer to call ours "Triads."
"The places, you take me. It seems like it's always better..."
I had a conversation with the coworker about how after listening to the recent Boyz II Men album of Motown hits, he realized he much prefers older music and how true songsmiths don't exist any longer (although he was careful to state his love for contemporary artists like Amy Winehouse and John Legend) since radio pop nowadays can't evoke the same kinds of feelings that songs did back when he was a child, the kinds of songs that can reveal new emotions to you that you had never experienced, and so forth. I countered that this isn't surprising if one were to only listen to watered-down Top 40 hits, but that the simplicity of music publishing means that not only do we have access to a lot more music now than ever before (even if this also results in a larger amount of garbage). We have specific genres and cross-over mashups that cater to every single niche one can imagine, even including artists like Stephin Merritt who are probably better known as lyricists than a vocal or live performer. Coincidentally, I told him, he had even brought this up in the week of SXSW, one of the single largest music festivals in the world, and just happens to showcase international music talent that all have their own large followings but we've most likely never heard of, even in passing, unless it was from a friend's personal recommendation or from some indie rag. The point being, radio won't find you the music you enjoy, particularly if you take music as seriously as he does - it'll only feed you what they believe the masses want to hear.
So on that note, I signed into last.fm today on a whim just to see how their social music networking and recommendation system performs. I asked Hube to sign up too, if only to see how his pattern of j-pop crossed with 70's Americana might influence the system. So far, I'm confused why it immediately grabbed my iTunes playlist from work, where the bulk of the songs are from my Alex Ross de-DRM'ing project over Christmas, but has neglected my playlist from home. Still, I guess "overall results" will eventually normalize in time with the random mess of songs that are constantly playing at home. Tonight, I'm just skimming through and listening to everything I haven't bothered with in months/years and catching up on new releases I've missed from bands I've enjoyed. As Penny put it, "if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit all your friends..."
There are things, the most important in the world at this very moment, that I will never tell you. Things that you simply are not meant to hear for a multitude of reasons and, 'lest I risk the chance of them slipping out on Awkward Moments Day, I'll set them free here instead so that they might find a place more suited than here.
Well, that picture's not as nice (or representative of the restaurant) as this one, so we'll show a picture of The Lincoln instead. Went to Cluck, Grunt & Low tonight, click on the picture for a link to the album.
The Bayview location is small but still much busier than I could have anticipated, though that's certainly due to a bump in popularity due to the recent publications (listed below). It's a good thing I eat dinner obscenely early and we got there before six, as we waited only minutes for a table while those immediately after us suffered a seating at the tiny bar, and those after them endured a 15-20 minute wait. Slow Food, Quickly, to be certain, but the sizable portions mean they're not necessarily eaten quickly.
"So is it safe to change diets and take this medication along with Sentinel?"
"Yes, certainly, why do you ask?"
"Tessa's monthly Sentinel schedule is every month on the 17th, which is coming right up."
"I see...which vet did you visit previously again?"
"Willowdale Animal Hospital."
"And I assume you've kept her on the Sentinel schedule monthly...may I ask why?"
"That's how they had prescribed it to us and never told us otherwise. Is that bad?"
"No, no, of course not, but let me tell you something just between me, you and the gatepost. The rotating set of vets at the Willowdale Animal Hospital are paid by commission, simply by how much money they pull in for the hospital. While I can't specify on the professionalism of the doctors there, one might certainly question if such a system has the best interest of your dog at heart. Now, Sentinel is prescribed monthly and treats pests that may have begun growing in the past month or so. Now, taking it as a preventative measure against heartworms, fleas and so forth is certainly a good idea, and you certainly wouldn't want a Samoyed to risk fleas at all, it should be pointed out that heartworms and fleas are nearly non-existent in Canada during the winter season. Do you see what I'm getting at?"
"I guess so...."
"Here, we use Revolution because it treats fleas at all points in the flea cycle (while Sentinel only treats during the initial phases) but we prescribe it only from June until the onset of frost. We do a heartworm check in May to make sure nothing was picked up during the winter season but I must say that the chances of that are slim to none.
I have to admit that I'm shocked, utterly flabbergasted. If they're prescribing Sentinel to you year-round, you could certainly question what their motive ultimately is."
----
I have wondered, previously, why it was so important for them to book a check-up before prescribing another round of Sentinel when it's a harmless pill prescribed by weight-class. I guess now I know.
A few quick thoughts on throwing up an MT site, I suppose, even though all I did was modify their Unity template.
The design interface is rather elegant once you see what it's trying to do, what with the dynamic links to installed widgets and all, but it does take some getting used to
Making changes at broadband speed is brutally slow, especially when you've got to close tags in the footer which you opened in the header. I can't think of any way to get around this, but the option of opening multiple sections or have the ability to collapse them within the same page would be terrific. Overwhelming, but terrific.
I still haven't figured out how to copy a style template, which would've been quite nice. Still, other than figuring out what the mt-specific tags are, there isn't that much magic going on behind the scenes. I think the people whining that they can't figure out which section is what are complaining a bit much.
I wonder how difficult it is writing a widget?
Some printable documentation would be nice. If there's a problem with wiki-style documentation, it's that trying to learn from a "Getting Started" guide takes you across twenty different pages and you've lost sight of the beginning once you get to the end.
Once everything's in place though, even the bare minimum, everything just works - archives, comments, permalinks, everything. Beautiful. Certainly beats the headache of wrestling with Textpattern any day (although their simpler interface makes image/file-handling rather easy).
Regarding the actual design though, I'm still running around the same circles with this and koopa. Give it a few more years, maybe then you'll see something new.
