The lady in front of my has a baby in a stroller. I don't know how old the baby is - I'd guess under six months - but she's in a sit-up stroller as opposed to a pram. The baby is clutching a stuffed animal under her arm.

The stuffed animals falls to the ground. I look at the baby to see what her reaction might be. She looks on the verge of tears and her mother is otherwise distracted, so I pick up the toy and offer it to the baby like I would to an adult. She looks at me wide-eyed, but makes no move to take it from my hand. I figure okay, she can't do that yet. So I hold it out to her in such a way that the toy's arm is in her hand, and all she has to do is grip in the way that even newborn babies do. She still doesn't react. I don't know what she's thinking - is she tired of the toy? Is she afraid of me? Is she playing mind games? So I kind of sat the toy next to her in the stroller, propping it up against her. The mother finishes what she's doing and thanks me for picking up the toy, but before she even finishes it's on the floor again. Silly babies.

So Cancer Ward is a very important book, it was important that I read it and I learned a lot from it. But it was not fun to read. It brought up a lot of unpleasant facts and ideas, and the way sexuality was portrayed made me uncomfortable (can't quite articulate why yet).

Plus it brought up the whole issue of mortality. It made me think about what I would do if I were dying, and I was faced with the distressing fact that I have no idea. I mean, I know I'd get married and put my affairs in order, but what would I do with my time? I've had the last month off with no obligations, and I've been reading, gaming, cooking, etc. If I were dying I'd probably have more sit-down restaurant meals and more wine, but I still don't know what I'd do with my time. Most of my normal past-times just seem like ways of eating away your time. I don't particularly like to travel, and though I'd love to see Paris and Venice I'd only want to spend a couple of days in each place. Would I read? Very selectively. Would I watch TV? The thing preventing me from doing so now is the price of a decent cable service, but while money is no object when you're dying, watching TV tends to be a bit of a timewaster (although I'd certainly find a way to see the last episode of MASH). Would I work out? Why bother? Would I game? A nice way to relax sure, but it also eats up time. I really can't think of what I'd do!

I'm so sore and grumpy today. I wore my old flat sandals shopping yesterday, and they gave me blisters for some reason, even though I've been wearing them for years. Then on the way home I got on a bus that was supposed to go to Yonge, but it only went as far as Bathurst, so I had to walk home from Bathurst. (What's the point of a bus that goes from Dufferin to Bathurst?) On the positive side, I did get a couple of tops, a really cute skirt (yes, cute.), and a couple of library books, so I think for today I'll just plunge into a nice fat library book and nurse my aches and pains. I wish I had a heating pad, but I don't feel like walking all the way to Shoppers (two whole blocks!) to buy one. Especially since I don't know what they cost or if my Shoppers even has one.

Would you like to see me graduate?

Step 1: Go here to find the date and time of my ceremony. (If you can't figure out which ceremony I'm in from the information presented on this page, this message isn't directed at you anyway.)

Step 2: At the date and time of my ceremony, go here and watch it streamed live.

Americans will probably want to read this analysis of current fiscal policy

�����Por qu� no puedo dormir???? (Is this the right way to do �ber-exclamation-marks in Spanish?)

I had a drink with dinner and had a cup of SleepTime tea (Tranquilith�! Best translation pun ever!) before bed. I did my dishes and threw out my garbage and read my comics and signed off just after 1:00. I put on my comfy sweats and sat in bed and worked through a couple more chapters of Cancer Ward until sleep seemed more appealing than reading. I sorted the pillows out (taking our favourite pillow for myself since James isn't here tonight) and arranged my stuffed animals and curled up on my side of the bed and tried to think happy thoughts. I thought of snuggling and merlot and quidditch and impending financial security and that time I had a really big painful zit and I squeezed it and it popped in a most satisfying manner without leaving any evidence behind. In my head I wrote letters to the editor and love letters and my MA thesis. I planned my outgoing voicemail message for my office and pondered what outfit to wear on the first day of training when I don't know if we're dressing for the office or for the classroom and tried to calculate how much longer until the peels finally grow out of all my nails.

Still can't sleep.

Now I'm sitting up in the dark drinking milk and blogging even though I should be reading Cancer Ward because I have to return the book this week, and then I've got 2 other books due on June 3 that I can't renew.

This is not good. I had planned to wake up at 9 so I could go to Yorkdale and browse all the stores for office clothing that appeals to me and be home (or at least on the bus heading home) before the high schools let out and the mall and buses are flooded with high school kids. But I doubt that's going to happen, and so it's another day of waking at noon and feeling like a failure.

Finally, thanks to a dear friend's fascination with beauty pageants of all things, I've found an acceptable French word for "boyfriend": "un ami de coeur." Much better than "petit ami" or "chum", no?

I think I had/have Asperger's Syndrome. The symptoms listed there are an exact description of me as a child. I still have problems with eye contact, body language, repetitive movements, coordination, and rituals.

I wonder if, early in human history, when humans first harnessed the power of fire, there was some sect who disapproved of the use of fire and ran around wringing their hands saying "Humans aren't meant to have fire! You're playing god here!"

The square outside the mall is swarming with canvasers of some sort. As I stride towards the nearest mall doors, one of them approaches me. Suddenly I feel a burst of pain shoot through my foot. Cursing the new shoes I'm breaking in, I grab my leg and quickly sit down on the abstract concrete structure I'm passing. As I adjust my shoe, I notice the canvaser who had been approaching me had stopped and chosen a new victim to give me a moment to recover my dignity. I finish fixing my shoe, and duck into the drugstore without being stopped.

Looks like I've found a new way to avoid canvasers.

They told us so much bullshit when we were teenagers.
"These are the best years of your life." WTF? Who made this up, and what kind of hellish life were they living? And why do grownups keep repeating this when everyone knows it isn't true?

"Schools and employers are looking for extracurricular activities on your resume, so you'd better have at least one athletic, at least one non-athletic, and at least one outside." Scholarship recruiters are certainly looking for this as a way to distinguish among the most excellent, but for the rest of the world it doesn't matter one iota. Do what is fun or interesting to you.

"You have to decide on your career path NOW! The decisions you make now will last the rest of your life!" Um, no! So you take the wrong courses? No problem, take a couple of intro courses as electives in post-secondary and then switch your major. You don't get into university? No problem, work a couple of years, take adult education courses at your local college, and apply for university once you've reached mature student age.

The truth that they never told us is that nothing that happens in high school matters. Instead of all this bullshit, they should tell you at the end of grade 5 "Kids, the next 5-10 years of your life are going to range from confusing and frustrating to utter hell. Some of your classmates are going to turn into people you don't recognize, you're going to find yourselves saddled with the body of an adult, the rights of a child, and people constantly trying to push adult responsibilities on you without adult privileges. So take it easy, do your best, have fun when you can, ask for help when you need it, and spend some time alone in a dark room crying when you need to. Then one day you'll turn 20, and nothing that happens between now and then will matter any more."

The verdict on Harry Potter: SO FUCKING GOOD!!!! Harry Potter is the Star Wards of children's books! I read each book straight through, I could not put them down, and now there's starting to be magic in my dreams. I can't believe some people think these are inappropriate for children! Why? Because there's magic in them? Um, look at any fairy tale...

Parents with kids who can read but don't like to should read a couple of chapters of the first Harry Potter to their kids, stop at the first cliffhanger, and leave the book in the kid's room. Within a week the kid will be begging for the next book. These books are on part with Pippi Longstocking, Narnia, and Roald Dahl. Even adults will enjoy them! They are a bit fluffy for adults, but while they are a touch formulaic the ending is always a surprise!

They do have instances of spiders in them, there's at least one instance in every book, although some have more. Ditto for snakes. I found it was manageable if I started skimming as soon as I recognized what was going on and picked up after the danger had passed, and I did find I could avoid visualing here (I couldn't in LOTR). If you are as phobic as me, skip the chapter entitled Aragog in Chamber of Secrets. Otherwise, enjoy!

There a sort of hole in the wall in the hallway by the elevators. It's not quite a hole - more of a cubbyhole about the size of a shoebox standing on end. A couple of cables that the maintenance people need to access run through the hole, but otherwise it's empty. Usually it has a little door on the front that is locked, but the door has been gone for quite a while.

I want to find a small garden gnome stand it in the hole, watching people come and go from the elevators. Just to see what happens.

In Ontario, minimum wage is $6.85 per hour. That works out to $12,500 per year. The poverty line in Ontario for a single adult is around $18,000 per year. Minimum wage has been constant since 1995, the same year that rents jumped 19%. For some families with children, welfare provides more financial stability than a minimum wage job.

Phone and urge Brad Clark, Ontario minister of labour, 416-326-7600, to raise the minimum wage to $10. After all, that just meets the poverty line.

And phone or e-mail Justice for Workers (416-531-2411, ext. 246 or justice_for_workers@yahoo.ca) if you want to help the Ontario Needs a Raise campaign to distribute leaflets around the city and the province on May 31 and June 5.

Since Baty's book sucks, I thought I'd post what I remember from some different streetproofing tips I got in 2nd year. These are meant to be used in addition to the standard common-sense tips you read everywhere. Some are kind of morbid because they deal with maximizing the chances of your being remembered by passers-by if you turn up missing on the news, but they are good food for thought. YMMV.

• Use your cell phone judiciously: Many streetproofing tips say not to talk on your cell because you look distracted. However, if you can remain alert to your surroundings, a fake phone call might deter would be attackers. Pretend to dial, wait long enough for 2 rings, then loudly announce "Hi honey, it's me, I'm at [your current location] so I should be home in a couple of minutes." Say you'll be home in a couple of minutes even if you aren't that close to home. Some would-be attackers might be deterred by the fact that someone knows exactly where you are and will notice your absence in under 10 minutes.


• Always be prepared to take a cab home: Think about the place in the city your normally frequent that is furthest from your home. How much would it cost to take a taxi home from there? Keep double that amount in cash somewhere in your home. If you find yourself stuck somewhere, even if you lose your wallet, you can just hop in a cab and get home safely.


• Make eye contact and small talk with safe people: Smile at your bus driver, say hi, ask for a transfer, and comment on the weather (if it doesn't hold up the line). Chat with the clerk while they ring up your purchases. Frequent businesses closest to your home, be nice to the employees, and they'll remember you and look out for you.


• Look like your picture: Think for a moment about the worst-case scenerio: you vanish, and your picture is all over the newspapers and TV. What picture of you would they likely use? What do you look like in this picture? How is your hair done? Are you wearing glasses? Are you wearing makeup? If you are in a higher-risk situation, like making your own way home late at night, try to look like that picture. If you normally wear glasses but take them off for photographs, take them off when you do your eye contact and small talk with people you meet. If you are making any radical changes to your appearrance (a vastly different hair colour, for example) mention it to your next of kin so the police aren't questioning people about a brunette girl when you're now blonde.

So I've been reading A Girl's Gotta Do What a Girl's Gotta Do by Kathleen Baty, and I'm not too impressed. The vast majority of the book is stuff I already know, and some of it is utterly ridiculous. Remember that email that was circulating around the internet a couple of years ago that said women wearing overalls are most likely to be raped? Well, she put that little factoid in her book - that women wearing overalls are likely to be attacked because the attacker could quickly snip the straps of the overalls. Has she ever tried cutting 2 or more layers of denim? Not quick and easy. Besides, in what world do overalls fall right off if the straps are cut? Most women have hips, and hips tend to keep pants from falling off. Remember about 14 years ago when the fashion was to undo the straps of your overalls, pull down the bib, and loop the straps under your crotch? And were overalls falling off left and right then? No! That one false factoid destroyed the credibility of the whole book for me.

But overalls aside, a lot of this book reeks of paranoia without thought. For example, she says that when you are travelling, you should only carry a purse that can be worn diagonally across your body. Question: why is your normal purse and method of carrying your purse suddenly DANGEROUS when travelling? If my purse serves me well in the major city I currently live in, why would it not be suitable in any other major city? She also advises travellers to dress inconspicuously and avoid "flashy" clothing and jewellery. I'd imagine dressing in a "flashy" manner would attract unwanted attention at home too, so why would someone need to be told this? Or are there people who actually think "I would never wear this ridiculously short skirt at home because it attracts too much negative attention, but I'll be perfectly fine wearing it to walk alone through the streets of New York City." And if people do dress in an attention-getting manner at home, they'd doubtless be used to the kind of attention they're going to get, no?

She tells you to look out for suspicious or unusual happenings and individuals when leaving your building. So I walk out to my front doors, looking left I see Crazy Homeless Guy with that device around his head to keep it from falling off, looking right I see Creepy Old Man who always walks around in shorts and is very free with his gaseous emissions. You know what? This is normal. But I'd be more worried about being raped by some former frat boy in khakis.

Overall, this book is not for me. The fact that she talks about being on the subway as a New And Different Experience, and the fact that she has to explicitly tell the reader to fight back against a rapist makes me think that her target reader is more sheltered and cowed. If you aren't nervous walking home from the bus stop at 10 pm, don't bother with this book.

I bought 8L of pop, put it in my backpack, and carried it home. And it was HEAVY! But 8L is 8kg, and 8 kg can't be much more than 20 pounds, definitely less than 25 pounds. Twenty-five pounds isn't heavy! I certainly carried more than that around on a daily basis when I was in high school, and you don't just lose your lugging on your back muscles! So why did it feel so heavy?

I'm pondering whether it would be an effective political statement to list myself on my municipal assessment as Catholic by religion, but as a supporter of the public school board. Do they keep stats that would show the number of Catholics voting public? I do have the right to identify as Catholic since I was baptized, but I'd rather not do so unless it would be an effective political statement.

So I've been doing a bit of math. Ernie Eves wants to give tax refunds on mortgage interest, to a maximum of $500 per year.

Okay, this might concern me, since I'm looking at taking on ownership within the next 10 years. Let's see - I make paying off debts a high priority, I'll probably be in a 2 income situation when I start owning, so we'd probably get the mortgage paid off within 10 years. 10 * 500 = 5000. So I'd have an overall savings of $5000.

But, you know, these tories have also made my life quite a bit more expensive. For example, university tuition went way up on their watch. If they had continued to fund universities properly and regulate tuition, I would have saved at least $1000 a year, or $4000.

And I would be saving $1000-$3000 per year if they hadn't nuked all the rent controls. Even if I rented for just one year, that and the tuition already obliterate any savings on mortgage interest.

But wait - the tories also cut funding to public transit, pushing fares way up! The cost of a metropass has gone up $15 per month since I moved to Toronto, and there were 4 years of tory rule before that! And they haven't increased minimum wage to account for inflation, and I had 5 years where my pay was minimum wage or based on minimum wage! If they had increased minimum wage for inflation, a full-time minimum wage earner would be making $3500 more per year now than in 1995! (I, personally, would have earned about $5000 more over the last 5 years). Now if I had all this money back in my pocket, I could save up a down payment faster and/or come into ownership with a larger down payment, which would do far more to reduce my overall interest payments than a measly $500 per year.

The moral of the story? Use your calculator before you let the tories bribe you.