New Beginnings

So, here I am again. It's been a while.

To recap: I'm back in Vancouver; the Toronto experiment didn't work out as planned. Work is work, as it has been. Life is life. I've been writing again. I also got a Martin acoustic guitar and have been playing again. The last two are very exciting and I'm interested to see where they lead.

I'll see how this goes - if there's enough to keep up a blog. I've added a Twitter feed on the right side. Why? Because I like to be only five years out of date with technology. I'll see how Twitter goes too. There are certainly some interesting things that can be done with it.

Spring his here, the camelias are blooming on the patio, dark beer will soon give way to light, red wine will soon give way to white. Cheers.

It keeps getting worse

Well, it's about 5:00 am and, except for a few possible minutes of dozing, I haven't been to sleep yet. I got home from work around 5:30 pm to see a small puddle on the floor and a wet patch on the ceiling. It turns out someone on two floors above was doing renovations and decided to empty the washing machine onto the floor, so it's affecting at least three units.

A little bit of water I can deal with, but a while after I got home a chunk of ceiling fell down. Then a while later it started dripping. That was followed by increased dripping, more ceiling falling down and a second leak in the laundry room. At this time the drip shows no signs of slowing. Ebow and I are both overtired and cranky. I wish it would stop.

As of someone gently rapping

The last couple of weeks have busier at home than usual. The upcoming election has resulted in a number of political types coming to the door. Several times it's been volunteers for the local Liberal candidate, but one day it was my NDP candidate herself. I was wearing one of my nerdy t-shirts - it's got a Venn diagram with two circles; one says "Music I like", the other says "Music you like" and the area where they intersect is labelled "Music I used to like". The NDP candidate read it back to me, laughed uncertainly and clearly didn't understand it at all.

This week I was invited to a party in a neighbouring apartment on Saturday. All the neighbours were going to be invited. There would be food and a muscial portion to the night. Some people were going to play guitar and sing and anyone was welcome to sing as well if they liked. While not necessarily my thing, I thought it might not be a bad way to meet some of the people in the building. Then it was mentioned that there would be a "media presentation" that was based on, but not directly related to beliefs of the Baha'i faith. I spent time at Nuit Blanche instead. 

I'm going to stop answering my door.

Art all day, and all of the night

I spent some time at Nuit Blanche last night. It's an all-night art exhibition throughout Toronto. It started just before 7 pm and went until sunrise. I didn't stay out till morning, but I spent about five hours roaming the streets with thousands of other people - all of it within easy walking distance of my apartment, and that was only one of the three zones where it was taking place.

There was a wide variety of pieces. Some were video (a subtitled movie of driving through Toronto was shown on the wall of the power station I can see from my window), some were sculpture, some were performance. There was music and dance. A number of them were participatory - the Zombies in Condoland piece was in the park outside my building where people could dress like zombies and stagger around, another allowed people to draw pictures on a piece of paper and attach them to wireframes, and another encouraged people to send a postcard to someone they didn't know from a different area of the city.

One piece had two opposing screens and video of what appeared to be boiling milk would play while a voice spoke. Then it would go still and silent and the other would do the same. Possibly more interesting that the piece is that it was in the old Maple Leaf Gardens which is no longer used. So I got to stand at centre ice under the scoreboard where the Leafs played for 60 some years.

Are you ready for love?

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds played at the Koolhaus last night. The opening band was Black Mountain from Vancouver. They put on a great show. I'd heard and liked them already, and this just confirmed it. Solid half rock / half psychedelic with a little bit of Black Sabbath thrown in.

Nick Cave wasn't quite what I expected, I'll have to admit. He put on an awesome show, though. High energy all the way through. Considering his albums, I was surprised he didn't play keyboards more - only one song - and I didn't even know he played guitar. It was loud and rockin' the whole night. What was great was that he played a good mix of new and old. He even played a few requests from signs in the audience.

On a side note: I have to record two bits of awesome dialog. I overheard the two broke (as they said repeatedly) college girls standing in line behind me.

Girl One: These boots weren't made for standing around; they were made for lying down.

Girl Two: There's nothing quite like shaking hands with someone you've fucked to make it transaction.

I'm not even going to ask how they paid for the tickets.

Pumpkin time

I found a pumpkin ale at the LCBO from McAuslan, our favourite Quebec brewery. It's good, but not quite as good as the pumpkin ale you can get at Steamworks in Vancouver - that's like drinking a pumpkin pie. Mmmmmmmmmm... pumpkin pie...

It's just a little pin prick

I had an appointment at the travel clinic today. It's six months until my leave starts, and the vaccine for Hepatitis A and B is a six month deal. One now, one in a month, and another at the six month mark. It's worth talking to a doctor who specializes in travel medicine. I had no idea that some countries will require proof of yellow fever vaccination within a year of the last outbreak. And Iguazu Falls in northern Argentina had an outbreak this year. If we get down there we'd have to see it and Peru won't allow you in without proof of vaccination. It's also good to learn that Buenos Aires has good doctors.

If you can guess the secret word...

I went to Word on the Street yesterday. It's a publishing and book festival held in a number of cities across the country. I've been to the ones in Calgary and Vancouver, but this has been the largest. It was inspiring to see the number publishers and magazines there are to be published in. It was also a little depressing to see all the unknown authors - some of them at the stalls, some waiting at the booth to sign their books - and no one around. The stalls for retail places were the most popular. People swarming around on the chance of getting a deal on a book. But looking at the small press books and realizing how much competition there is making me rethink some things.

Never that simple

Fuck me. It turns out she's still selling this place after all. But she's going to make it a condition of sale that I'm here until April and she'll pay the rent. It can not go on like this. It just can't.

One thing settled... maybe

Bitter got texted today that our house swapper sold her other place, so I don't have to move. There were no extra details, but presumably she's no longer selling this place. One might think that would be enough news for one day, except...

She quit her job. She's also going back to Russia for a wedding at the end of the month, so will be looking for work when she gets back to Vancouver. I can only hope she can pay her bills.

My new toy... er... tool

I'm typing this entry on my new Acer Aspire One. It's a new computer in a class that they call a netbook. Which is just fancy talk for an ultra-small laptop. This one has a screen size just under 9" and is very light. I got the Linux version which also has a sold state hard drive - so no moving parts. The downside is that the HDD is only 8GB and half of that is taken up with software. I don't intend to use this as my main computer, so that should be fine. I spent a good part of the afternoon sitting on the patio at a new restaurant a couple of minutes away writing, which is what I wanted. It's small enough to fit in the little backpack I have and a couple of hours of battery life. I would have published this post from the patio, but they didn't have free WiFi, so I'm doing it from home while it recharges. It seems to recharge quickly and boots in under 30 seconds too.

Things I miss about Vancouver part 1

I've been here long enough and written enough good things about Toronto that I can mention some things I miss without sounding whiny and homesick. Other than Bitter, of course, who I miss a lot, I miss:

• my friends
  
• my condo
• my BBQ - man, I've grown to rely on that thing
  
• walking around the West End
• the mountains - good lord, where are the fucking mountains?
• the ocean
• cooking - cooking requires the proper tools and should be done with music, wine and a companion

Instability becomes stable after long enough

Apparently it's been a while since my last post. The housing situation is still up in the air. This place is still for sale. The price dropped, so since Saturday there have been a bunch of people through here. Eventually someone will make a deal on it. I investigated the possibility of another house swap, but that person was just as flaky as what we've got. Craigslist is fine for selling your old end tables, but don't use it for anything important. Bitter is still in Vancouver, bouncing from place to place. She seems to be doing alright, but not having a home base is hard after a while.

Getting out of the house

There was a showing at my apartment today for some prospective buyers. What I didn't do was leave roach motels out in obvious places with fake roaches inside. What I did do was take my laptop over to the Elephant & Castle to do some writing. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that they have a new fall menu featuring food and drink pairings with Unibroue, one of my favourite breweries. Not a bad way to spend the time - writing, eating and drinking La Fin du Monde and Maudite. The other good thing is that it's across the street from the apartment, so I think a return trip will be in order. Perhaps more than one. Next time, however, I will make sure the laptop is fully charg-

Labour Day long weekend

Labour Day was beautiful, sunny and hot in Toronto. Saturday night I went to M&G's place to help break in the new barbeque. Sunday, a little worse for wear, I intended to go with someone from work over to Toronto Island. Being such a gorgeous weekend, everyone else wanted to go too. The line for the ferry was enormous. I'm sure anyone from Toronto would have told us that, but how were we supposed to know? Instead, we walked along the waterfront and eventually found a guy selling tickets for a boat tour. My co-worker bargained him down from an unreasonable $12 to a much better $10 for a 45-minute trip across the harbour to the island and back. Toronto Island looks like a pretty nice place. There are quite a number of houses out there, but much of it is like a huge park. According to the guide, a busy day in the summer can see upward of 100,000 to 150,000 people. That's a lot of ferries.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

The last two weeks have been crazy, busy and stressful. To catch up with things:

• Bitter is back in Vancouver at her previous company on what will probably be a 4-month contract
• our house swapper is selling the condo we're (I'm) currently in
• we went to Montreal for 5 days

There's probably more that I've forgotten. La belle ville was great; hot, sunny and gorgeous. We love Montreal and we spent time walking the streets, sitting on patios and drinking beer. We stayed for a couple of days with Bitter's friend and her husband (whose wedding was the reason we got to Montreal the last time). We also stayed in a lovely B&B or Gîte du passant for a couple of days.

The person we swapped condos with has two condos in Toronto. She needs the money and tried to sell the other one, but couldn't sell it for enough to keep from losing on the deal. She wants now to sell this one and have us move to the other one. It's farther from work and has no view, although the kitchen is nicer. It would be more inconvenient, but the only other real option seems to be to call it all off and go home.

Bitter is back at the company she left on a contract. It's a different position and she'll be managing a conversion project they need to do by the start of the next year. It's a good opportunity and it allows her to be back in Vancouver for a while - which she misses a lot. She's already gone to several of our favourite restaurants.

Walking the streets

Some further adventures on the streets of Toronto. Last weekend we checked out Cabbagetown in the rain. It's a very cute area east of where we live. There's a strip of shops and restaurants along Parliament, some gorgeous houses, a couple of nice parks and a graveyard. We spent most of the time following the suggested scenic route through the neighbourhood, but did stop for brunch. There was supposed to be a good food/kitchen store, but for some reason we couldn't find it.

Yesterday was beautiful and sunny and the Distillery District. Cabbagetown was very low key and neighbourhoody; the Distillery District was touristy and much like Granville Island. The old distillery buildings have been repurposed as shops, artisan studios, galleries and restaurants. The streets are all brick and there are no cars. It's a bit more expensive, but has some very cool art, and jewelry. Bitter got herself some new earrings, but reluctantly left the $220 ones behind. The rest of the day was spent on patios with beer. As it should be.

Toronto retards

We met up with some friends from the old county last week - good old Spruce Grove, Alberta. I also went to my first Blue Jays game since we moved here. I'm not really a baseball fan - the number of games I've seen since my dad used to fall asleep in front of the TV on Sunday afternoons (when golf wasn't on) is quite small. But it was a good time, and the Jays won, which apparently doesn't happen more than half the time.

Bitter was unable to go to join the girls for "We Will Rock You" the night before (while we guys were doing the guy thing by going to the game), but we met up with Archie, Veronica and Archie Jr. the next day. Bitter met them in the afternoon and I caught up with them after work. We were able to show our prowess at navigating in Toronto by leading them on a half-hour walk to end up exactly where we were when we started. We're so, so cool.

If Tim Burton had directed Moulin Rouge...

Saturday night we went down to the Rivoli on Queen West to see Amanda Palmer in concert. Probably the oddest concert we've been to, so far. A significant portion of the audience dressed up - sort of goth, sort of not. She is part of Dresden Dolls who we also hadn't heard of before. I read about her recently as she was involved in a project with Neil Gaiman for her upcoming album and then discovered she was playing here. So, having prepared ourselves by watching a few Youtube videos, we wandered down to check her out.

The opening band was Vermillion Lies which was like an Edward Gorey cartoon brought to life and set to music. Macabre, theatrical and very enjoyable. Two sisters (one of whom wore a coat and tails and had an inked-on moustache) who played a variety of instruments, many of which were regular household objects - toolbox, typewriter, washboard, kazoo, marionette, bells.

Amanda Palmer wasn't quite as bizarre as some of her videos would indicate (she pretty much stayed at her keyboard the whole night), but she is a very dynamic performer. Her style is best described as punk cabaret. She's got some good songs, and her encore was a version of Radiohead's Creep done on the ukulele as she wandered through the crowd.

Who rocks the most?

While out in the country on the long weekend we passed through Rockwood several times. That's an awesome name for a town. Rockwood! It also happens to be very cute.

The next town over is called Eremosa, so the area between them is called Rockmosa. That has to be the best town name ever! Rockmosa!! [makes rock 'n roll devil hand sign]