There's an interview with Erica Jong in today's Globe and Mail, in which she expresses distress over the fact that many young women today still identify with Isadora Wing.

I would be very interested to know if any of these young women are, and intend to remain, childfree.

I told myself that my treat for getting through the week would be a nice sleep-in this morning. I went to bed last night, snuggled up with my covers and stuffed animals, and closed my eyes with the intention of not opening them until they opened themselves.

I woke up at 8:47 a.m. All by myself. I must be getting old.

I've been doing some thinking and figuring stuff out, and I think I've figured out a rough financial strategy for my life. I've discovered that I will be retiring at age 55, so this has led me to decide to start working out. What's the connection between those two clauses? As I look up my family tree, I realize that I am most likely going to live at least to 100, maybe even 110. So since I've got 40-50 years of being an old retired person, and I want to spend as little of this time as possible being frail and hobbled. So I'm going to start doing some light cardio, a bit of yoga to stretch my already feeble limbs and joints, and hopefully eventually some weight training. Right now I think just doing push-ups is enough weight training, but I'm hoping to acquire some light hand weights (10-25 lbs, nothing serious). In the back of my mind I'd like arms like Serena Williams, but this is never going to happen for someone as sedentary as me. (Although there is a weight machine in the basement, but I hate going down there because it's a basement, and also there are too many frat boys and creepy old men in this building and they have as much right to walk into the weight room as I do.) Anyway, once I get in some sort of shape I might move up to distance running or biking and real weights, but I think the point right now is to get myself in reasonable cardiovasular shape and build some flexibility and muscle tone, as a long-term investment.

But enough about me! I have a question about child-rearing! Are kids who are out of diapers and can walk (as opposed to toddle) supposed to be in strollers? I've seen a few 4-year-olds in strollers lately, and this seems weird to me. I don't know anything about kids, but it looks funny to have a kid in a stroller whose legs are skinny (as opposed to baby-chubby) and who can talk in sentences. I'm trying to think back, but I can't remember at what age we stopped being in strollers. Although I know I was 3 when I started Montessori school, so I couldn't have been in a stroller then. You don't pick up your kid from school and put them in a stroller! Or maybe I'm reading the age of these kids wrong - maybe they're 2 or 3, but they are definitely not toddlers.

Qqch me manque et je ne sais exactement quoi. I don't mean overall, I just mean right now. I have my comfort food and Harry Potter and merlot and a warm flood of sunlight coming in my window, that should be able to cheer me up, right? But it isn't working.

It's weird how Harry Potter usually cheers me up though. Those books are so comfortable. The story arc is nice and formulaic - he starts out at the Dursleys', generally pops over to see the Weasleys, goes to Hogwarts on the train, new Defence Against Dark Arts teacher, some Quidditch, a hint of bad guys, xmas, more bad guys, more Quidditch, a battle against Voldemort or some incarnation thereof, usually a trip to the hospital and a nice chat with Dumbledore, then back home on the train to start all over again. But the plots are always full of nice twists and turns despite the formulaic pattern. It does comfort me though. Some days I'll just read every Quidditch match in his Hogwarts career. Sometimes I'll read every chat with Dumbledore. Every time I go back through an old book, I find new clues of what might happen next. When I need to clear my head at work, I wonder if Ron and Hermione might end up together (it seems like the tee-up to that is too obvious, but a Sidekick Gets the Girl plot would be a refreshing change), and whether Harry will end up with Ginny or with Luna (who must have been introduced, and made female, for a reason). Or maybe Luna will end up with Neville. Or Ginny with Neville! Of course, we'll probably never find out since Hogwarts only goes up to grade 12. Unless there's a second series following Harry to Auror school. Wouldn't it be something if J.K. Rowling threw us a twist and ended the series with Voldemort killing Harry? Then Ron and Hermione could get married and become Aurors and work on overthrowing Voldemort, with Hermione being the l33t one and Ron being the bumbling sidekick.

Some people are such fuckwits I marvel that they haven't died of stupidity of been killed out of frustration.

I saw a homeless person with way too much luggage. She had two of those giant 80 lb. military backpacks, 3 or 4 duffel bags, and a couple of large laptop cases of all things. She was panhandling, asking for spare change. I wanted to say "I'll give you some change if you can lift all this stuff up at once."

I hate it when things have mandatory surcharges, and they don't include them in the price. It's just like sales tax - why don't they include sales tax on price tags instead of making you calculate 15% in your head (which sounds easy, but quick - what's 15% of $3.69?) and add it to the list price? The phone company says they charge $19.93 for a residential line, but there are mandatory Touch Tone and 911 fees on top of that, plus PST and GST. Wouldn't it be easier if they just gave you the final price? I know I tend to get really pissed off when in the back of my head I'm thinking "Okay, it's under $20" and it ends up being closer to $30. Same thing with a long-distance plan I was considering. ONLY $1 SERVICE CHARGE PER MONTH they trumpet, and then the fine print mentions that there's a $2.95 network fee. I'd much rather they be upfront and say that it's $4 including all fees and let me decide with that information!

Come to think of it, they should do the same thing with income taxes. You hear what your salary is, and your paycheque comes back with 2/3 of what you were expecting. Of course everyone expects this now, but I'd imagine everyone would be a lot less bitter about paying taxes if they just told you what your salary after tax would be and had the employer pay your income tax directly to the government without it passing through your expectations first.

I'm not sure about the word "hero" for Jessica Lynch. I mean sure, she went through shit and she deserves recognition for that, but she doesn't come across as a hero so much as someone who was pushed around by fate. She had the misfortune to be born into a situation where joining the military was the best available career option. She had the further misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and get captured. She had the good fortune to be a tiny little blond girl, which might have saved her life. (Despite the fact that this is disgusting stereotyping, I think being a tiny little blond girl might have made her look to the Iraqis more like a kid who just stumbled into a bad situation, and less like The Enemy. I doubt GI Joe would have gotten such good care). She didn't really do anything that makes her any more of a hero than anyone else who has been a POW, she just happened to be the most photogenic of the lot. (Some may say the most tragic, but I reserve that adjective for the guy who may never get to see his unborn child).

Even if she isn't a hero, she still deserves something. I think being able to live her life how she wants to and have opportunities so she can support herself without having to cash in on her 15 minutes of fame like some pathetic reality show contestant or former child actor would be appropriate. But the opportunities available to Ms. Lynch must also be available to her fellow former POWs and vets. If, for example, Jessica Lynch gets a full university scholarship because she's Jessica Lynch and no one else who had been through the same hell gets a full scholarship, that would be little better than her having to support herself with talk show appearances and Playboy pictorials.

Purely hypothetical question:

Suppose you lived with a roommate. Suppose your roommate said "I hate doing dishes, and I hate having dirty dishes around. I'll pay 60% of the rent if you do all the dishes, and make sure dishes are done at least once a day." Would you go for it? Would you do their 3 least favourite chores in exchange for them paying 60% of the rent? What if it were 75%? Would you do all the chores if they paid all the rent?

I was so grumpy this morning, because I felt a bit sick and my bank had put us through shit yesterday. I was all set to write a nice blog entry about how terribly grumpy I felt, but then my mood lifted. I've been trying to think about why my mood lifted, and I think it's because my last project of the day was a copy-paste text. It wasn't all copy-paste, but it cited a lot of laws, so those could be copy-pasted from legislation. Copy-pasting cheers me up for some reason. It makes me happy to see final copy materialize with minimal effort on my part, and I can let my mind wander while I do it. I think I would be a lot more efficient if I always had two projects on the go: one normal, and one copy-paste. Then when I'm in a bad mood I can systematically copy-paste, and when that gets boring or my mood gets more productive I can do some normal work.

I overheard some people talking about their jobs on the subway, and their jobs sounded like Generic Office. Like comic strip characters who "work in an office" but we don't know what their exact jobs are. I didn't think any real world jobs could be described that way, but either there are jobs that can be described that way, or I stumbled upon two performance artists

GRAWR! The cable guy isn't here yet! I wanted to do a bit of shopping today - nothing major, just pick up a couple of things at the dollar store and a couple of tops at Fairweater's, it's just a block away and shouldn't take more than 1/2 hour. But I can't because the cable guy hasn't come yet and the mall closes at 5 on Sundays!

I want to call and say "Hello? Where's my cable guy?" but I can't do that because the buzzer is hooked up to my phone and if he comes while I'm on the phone I won't know and I won't be able to buzz him in.

I'm going to the bathroom to take a great big dump. That will probably guarantee that he comes while I'm on the toilet.

Q: How does a person find a job?

A: Send resumes and cover letters to companies you'd be interested in working for and companies that are advertising positions available, have an interview or a series of interviews, then get hired.

You know what? I don't think this is true. I mean, I have gotten a couple of jobs that way, but my current job (which is my first grownup job) didn't involve any resumes or interviews at all. (I did an internship which I got through my school, they were impressed, I did more internships, they continued to be impressed, they offered me a position way far away, I turned it down, they offered me a local position, I accepted). When I was looking for work, (through the usual resume and interview method), I found that very few people could give me good advice about interviews. "I don't really know, I haven't had very many interviews that led to something." "I didn't interview, I was hired based on my portfolio." "I was hired by the university straight out of university, and I already knew everyone in the department." "I just expressed interest in the position and I was hired based on my reputation." "I found the job through my professional organization, so it wasn't really the same dynamic as resumes and interviews."

Most of the grownups in my life with grownup jobs didn't get those jobs through resumes and interviews, but no one could say exactly how one gets a job. I can tell you how I got my job, but I feel that it's a bit of a fluke in that copying my approach wouldn't necessarily lead you to a job, and most of the people whom I have asked for job advice would say the same thing.

The problem with this is it's totally useless to the job seeker. I've seen this information in job seeking advice sources, usually disguised as something about networking, but it's not something a person can make happen.

In your opinion, what is the difference between a tape measure and a measuring tape?

I need a project. I'm all settled, I've got my job, I've got everything I intended to get for my apartment, I'm all ready to start living my life.

Now I need to figure out what I want to do with my life. I need to be working towards something, and something achievable, not just "save up enough money for a down payment on a condo and vertical blinds and cream-coloured furniture for said condo." Up until now, my goals and projects have always been laid out for me. Now I need to make up my own. I need a five year plan. But if I made up a five year plan, it would be just for the sake of making up a plan. I have nothing that I really want to accomplish within the next five years. Marriage would be nice, but isn't necessary within the next five years. The same with a condo. The same with getting an MA, earning two promotions, achieving fluency in Spanish and Polish, running a six minute mile and bench-pressing my body weight, and being published. All of that would be nice, but if I don't accomplish it within five or ten or twenty years my life won't be any worse. I guess this means I'm content. But I do always need something to be working towards.

They should have a financial incentive program for older drivers to stop driving. Say if you're over 80 and, of your own accord, you go to the MTO office and turn in your licence, you get a thousand dollars/free bus passes for life/vouchers for 20 taxi rides. If you alter your lifestyle to eliminate driving - say you sell your farmhouse way out in the country and move into a nice condo on a bus route - there could be a subsidy to cover the additional expenses incurred. I have no idea where the money might come from (perhaps a PPP between the gov't and insurance companies?), and of course doctors could still get people who are medically unfit to stop driving, but it might be helpful to have incentives to get people to stop BEFORE they're medically unfit.

I am very impressed by the wording of the latest draft bill - it is perfect, exactly as I would have worded it. I heard the MPs are going to have an free vote on this issue, so I'd encourage you to remind your MP that you would like this bill passed.

Why do people not realize that the problem with the Stones concert is that it's too damn big??? Half a million people is an utterly ridiculous number. One hundred thousand would have been plenty. Every single problem related to this concert, everything that will make it unpleasant or inconvenient or uncomfortable for the concert-goers can be traced back to the fact that some idiot had the idea of having a concert for half a million people!

They should add this concert to the I Survived Toronto shirt

I saw a nine-year-old boy on the subway today, and it totally reinforced my desire not to have kids. He wasn't doing anything bad, he was just standing there, but he looked so likely to do something gross like bring home a cockroach that I think if I wanted to have kids I would have seriously reconsidered right then and there. It's almost as bad as twelve-year-olds.

When I was ordering my TV service, the guy asked me "Are there any other grownups in the house?" He wanted to know this because he needed the names of people who are authorized to order pay-per-view. But I thought "Oh my god, he wants to talk to my parents because I'm not grownup enough!"

Attention unpleasant middle-aged men with mustaches on the subway: Shut up when the loudspeaker is announcing potential emergencies. Let people who are trying to stand up stand up. And you don't need a pager AND a cellphone, really you don't.

Attention terminologists: memory is not the same as disk space. Even if people frequently confuse them, that's no reason to standardize the incorrect usage!

Attention LCBO: don't advertise wines you don't have.

Attention Dominion: all I want is some lemon butter cookies, and some thai instant noodles while they're on sale. Is that too much to ask?

Attention Fairweather: why must all your good clothes be in the petites section? Would it be that hard to make them in regular sizes?

Attention Loblaw's: some of those taste Emmenthal and veggie sandwiches you used to have last year would be appreciated. Also, having someone behind the counter where that penne and asparagus salad is would be good too.

Attention guy on the escalator-ramp-thing: I'm sure you don't know this, but these escalator ramps are not very practical if you're wearing hard-soled women's shoes. If you stand still in such a way that I can't pass you, I have to stand still too. And when I stand still, the only thing keeping me from sliding backwards is the strength of my skinny little arms.

Attention Toronto Humane Society: yes, I like animals. No, I'm not going to give you money when you accost me while I'm waiting to cross the street. Especially not if you do it every day. I would, however, be happy to take any kind of puppy or cute furry animal that could live happily in a 500 square foot apartment with no one home for 9 hours out of the day. Seriously.

Attention over-suntanned guy outside of Starbucks every morning: if you have nothing to do except tan and sit outside of Starbucks, why bother to get up so early?

I need snacks to eat in the office. I have some terrible low-energy times and I'd like some munchies to get me through them, but I can't think of what would be suitable. It would have to be something that doesn't go bad and wouldn't mess up my hands. Ideally it should be something I could buy ahead of time and keep there instead of having to prepare it or acquire it when the urge strikes.

If I were in my own home when these low-energy times hit, I would likely eat some fruit, some cheese, perhaps an egg, a pastry of some sort, a peanut butter sandwich, or, if I was really grumpy, I'd cook up some pasta. Obviously none of this is suitable to the office.

If I think back to what I'd do in res, I'd have a pastry, some chips or peanuts, instant noodles perhaps. Instant noodles is possible, but it still requires some preparation, and eating it is more involved than reaching into a bag of something, grabbing one something, and popping it in my mouth. Popcorn is tempting, but unless I can find absolutely plain popcorn it soils my fingers.

I think what I'll do is put a can of Coke in my fridge right now to cool off, bring it to work with me, and drink it when I hit low energy. That may be helpful.