Helpful household hint:

When throwing out dead flowers, put them in the bag stem-first. If you put them in the bag head-first, that will disturb the flowers, which are looking for any opportunity to shed their petals and pollen and stamens and whatnot all over the place.

The uglier an item of lingerie is by itself, the better it will look under clothing, I think.

My apartment smells like felt marker. Which is really weird because I don't own a felt marker.

Tangent: my poor flowers look like they're slowly suffocating. The stems are a healthy green right up to the point where they start looking down, then it becomes a sickly yellowish. It's like the good healthy stuff isn't reaching their heads, like a person in a room without enough oxygen. Poor flowers :(

But that wasn't what I meant to blog here at all. My thesis for this blog entry is that I enjoy being an adult, being an adult is very easy.

There's none of the drama that accompanies adolescence, or the oppression that accompanies childhood. I don't have to dress cool, I don't have to look sexy. My excuse is that I work in the office, but that still gives me the opportunity to look gloriously inadvertently sexy when the mood strikes. I can wear lipstick! Lipstick works on me, lip gloss does not, and I'm finally at a point in my life where lipstick isn't weird! I can retire early and curl up in bed with a novel because I have to work in the morning, or I can stay out late anyway. I can be knowledgeable of politics and grammatical minutiae and quantum physics (although I probably made at least two spelling mistakes in this sentence) and that's perfectly acceptable and only moderately eccentric, and I can still spend my free time gaming and instant messaging.

As a student I'd always feel slightly embarrassed about anything that I do or I like that isn't cool enough. Even though my peers stopped caring about cool years and years ago, this is leftover trauma from middle school. But now, whenever I feel the need to do something staid and frumpy, it's justified because I'm an adult and I work in an office. Yes, that is Bach I'm listening to, and yes, I would like a glass of wine rather than a series of shots. This is a space I've always been comfortable in, and finally I can get away with it.

The Man in my Basement by Walter Mosely. When I started reading, my impression was that I shouldn't like the book. The protagonist is unlikeable but it seemed like he wanted my sympathy, which usually ruins a book for me, and the portrayal of sexuality was not to my taste. Really, I do not need to know every single time the protagonist masturbates when it is not important to the plot or to establishing character. And yet, for reasons I don't understand, I enjoyed this novel. It's complex and psychological, dealing with guilt issues and race issues and probably other things I didn't get out of it during my first read-through. Many reviews have said that it leaves you thinking. It didn't leave me thinking, perhaps because it is a bit far removed from my reality, but I do see how it could leave one thinking. It's probably conducive to literary analysis, but I'm not into that sort of thing.

On the pragmatic side, the hardcover edition is also very small and compact, conducive to being carried in a purse. It's easy to read quickly without skimming, and compelling enough to make you want to keep going (although not so compelling that you stay up past your bedtime reading). The sexuality can border on graphic and gratuitous, but quantitatively it isn't excessive and I'd say it's stilli appropriate for reading in public.

Overall, I'm sure this is a very good book, and I did appreciate it, but I also think I'm not the appropriate audience to appreciate it fully.

Because of the way my feet are messed up, it is very difficult for me to stand on one foot when I don't have shoes on. When a normal person stands on one foot, they keep their balance by pressing the outer edge of their foot into the ground. However, when I stand and walk normally in bare feet, the outer edge of my foot does not touch the ground at all - only the balls of my feet, my toes, and my heels touch the ground. I can easily stand on one foot in tightly laced running shoes, because the laces sort of hold up the inside edge of my foot and force it to pronate normally, but I can't balance on one foot with no shoes on.

Shoes with straps will support my foot the same way shoes with laces do. It isn't enough to play sports in, but I just discovered that it's enough to let me stand on one foot. So it turns out I can easily balance on one foot in three inch heels as long as they have straps, but I still can't balance on one foot barefoot.

If all goes well, I will be studying Polish starting next September. What will be interesting is to see how my accent turns out. You see, when I was around the key age for acquiring phonemes, my grandmother babysat me every day while my mother was at work, and my grandmother would always speak to me in Polish. When my sister was born and my grandmother was no longer babysitting me (because my mother was home with the new baby) I lost all exposure to Polish and suddenly couldn't understand it any more. So I did acquire the phonemes at one point, and I don't know if a person loses phonemes after having acquired them (as opposed to the normal process of losing phonemes that one never hears).

So the possibility exists that I might speak basic, struggling, tentative Polish with a flawless accent!

Usually, at 10:30pm on the second day of my weekend, I'm either lying in bed stressing that I'm not at all tired enough to fall asleep, or wide awake at the computer feeling guilty about not being in bed.

Today, I'm pouring myself a nice glass of wine and settling in to read and game for a couple of hours, after which I will watch some stupid television on Deja View, and go to bed when I get the urge to do so.

Usually, the day after the second day of my weekend, I'm waking up way too early so I can do yoga in an attempt to energize myself a bit so I can get through the day. Then I'm sleepwalking through work and coming home grumpy.

Tomorrow, I will sleep in until about 11, have a leisurely breakfast, watch some MASH, relax at home, enjoy newspapers and novels, perhaps go for a short walk if it's nice out, then stay up late to watch the Sunday Night Sex Show since I don't have to get up early Monday either.

I love Easter!

The wine: Ernest and Julio Gallo Turning Leaf Cabernet Sauvignon

My thoughts: "Hmm, this is kind of berry-ish and vanilla-ish, with a bit of spicy aftertaste."

The label says: "This complex and rich medium-bodied wine was aged in oack and is balanced with berry, raspberry and vanilla flavours, with spicy hints on the finish."

I think I'm getting better at this!

By the way, this is a non-tannic cab. sauv., so just on that basis it's a good thing.

My shoe dilemma:

The shoes are black closed-toe high-heeled sandals. They are intended to be work with skirts or dresses in situations where I don't want to show my toes. Their wearability with pants is not priority, although, as always, flexibility is preferable. They aren't for daily wear, they're for sitting in my closet and being worn a couple of times a year.

Pair 1: Leather (ie. preferable shoe material), more casual (could not wear it with a formal dress, but could wear it with jeans if I were inclined to do so), heels more difficult to walk in, but heel shape more attractive. $40

Pair 2: Fabric/artificial material (ie. less preferable shoe material), being fabric might make it look a bit funny against black pants (mixing too much black fabric), makes my feet a bit sweaty, dressier (ie. could not wear it with jeans, would look quite nice with a formal dress), easier to walk in, less attractive heel shape. $30.

Both are reasonably comfortable, but still need some definite breaking in. I can't walk fast in either. Both have aspects that make them likely to go out of style: Pair 1 has white stitching, peekabo detailing on the toes, and a slight platform under the toes. Pair 2 has a fabric flower on the toes (reasonable enough to wear now, but might look silly in the future) and one of those heels that looks skinny in profile and chunky from the back. In all other aspects they are virtually identical.

And yes, I hate myself for being the kind of person who has shoe dilemmas.

Stuff that irks me:

- Not one TV channel is showing Jesus Christ Superstar this weekend. It's Easter weekend!

- People who don't think unless absolutely necessary.

- Chick on the GO bus who repeatedly used the word fuck (as a verb) in her cellphone conversation without lowering her voice or attempting to circumlocute, and then lowered her voice to a conspiratal whisper to utter the word drunk.

Also, a ponderance: as we all know, some people from places where same-sex marriage is not legal come here to get married. We can reasonably assume that their home governments currently do not recognize these marriages. But will their home government recognize these marriages when same-sex marriage is legalized there, or will they have to get re-married?

One of my many deep, dark secrets is that I sing in the elevator when I'm alone therein. Today on the way home I was alone in the elevator, and I got the idea of singing Belleville Rendezvous. I did so, stopping singing at the 10th floor as I always do so my neighbours on my floor won't know that I'm the girl who sings in the elevator. When I got off on my floor, one of my neighbours gets off the next elevator over and gives me this look. Then I realize: the people in the other elevators can probably hear me, not just the people on the floors! GAH!

Ce que j'ai fait:

- I bought some shoes. Two very similar pairs actually, but I'm going to return the pair I like least. Black, closed-toe sandal things with higher-than-I-usually-wear heels. I can't walk fast in at least one pair, I'm about to try the other. Poor downstairs, I'm going to be walking around in heels on my hardwood floor all weekend.

- Spontaneously bought some tulips. Red ones and yellow ones. Now they're all looking pretty in my blue vase.

- Bought a lotto super 7 ticket. I bought two sets of numbers and they gave me six, for reasons that I do not understand. I'm going to give it to my grandmother for her birthday, (we don't really do big presents) because she always wins something, and the jackpot is $20 million.

Big plans for tonight: unwind playing Sorry on games.com, steam some vegetables and eat them with the rest of the lemon dill sauce, test out my shoes, do a hardcore vacuum (in heels, just like June Cleaver), fill out my U of T application, do some Harmony, read a bit, play Sims, and watch MASH. Yummy.

Suppose a person performs a selfish act - purely selfish, not one thought for its effects on others - but as an unintended consequence this act has a positive effect on others. Is it still considered selfish act?

Does it make a difference if the act had foreseeable positive consequences (like calling the fire department solely to get your own ass saved from a burning building, but as an unintended consequence other people got rescued too?) or if the act had forseeable negative consequences but serendipitiously had positive consequences instead (like rudely pushing someone because they were in your way, and you happen to push them out of the path of a falling safe*)?

*As an aside, I wonder if a safe has actually fallen ever in human history, or if that's just a cartoon construct?

Two quickie book reviews, and a dream:

1. River of the Brokenhearted by David Adams Richard.

The Bad: Far too many characters are difficult to keep track of, so you have to draw a chart or page back "Cassie, who's Cassie again?" (Someone should draw a family tree of this novel and post it on the internet!), confusing narration where the narrator is a descendent of the characters, so you sometimes have him saying "My father" and sometimes "Miles", difficult to keep track the timeline. Also, very dark and hopeless.

The Good: Quite a saga, plot continues at a good pace throughout, it's a world you can fall into and be happy in for a while, fascinating characters, understated narration, somehow made me a wee bit happy despite being dark and hopeless.

2. Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay

The Bad: Run-on sentences, meandering plot with pointless detours (an ape? why?), feels like it's a semi-autobiographical novel in which the author thought all these things were Very Important, but didn't manage to convey to me why they were important. Also, it's about 50 years old and written in a non-specific present, so to my 21st century sensibilities it feels like a historical novel with none of the historical details that make a historical novel fun.

The Good: Very witty (although it would probably be wittier if I knew the distinction between various branches of the Church of England).

3. A dream: I dreamed I was given a bottle of wine that was closed with a sword. You opened the bottle by pulling out the sword (and it was like pulling the sword from the stone, so it was a special procedure). Then I had this spare sword lying around, so I decided to use it as a doorknob, but that didn't work too well. Also, the wine was green, like Mountain Dew. The cool thing is, today I went to the LCBO, and I saw a bottle of wine the same shape as the one in my dream, and the bottle was green so it made the white wine inside look like Mountain Dew. No sword though.

1. You know how the sound of the subway going over the tracks changes just as the train approaches a station? I wonder if they do that on purpose so people know to bookmark their books and gather up their bags?

2. What's up with the people who go to the very very very edge of the platform and lean waaaaaay over to look down the tunnel and see if the train is coming? The train is coming! They're never more than five minutes apart! The train is always coming!

3. Foodland Ontario should come up with a system that emails you whenever a new fruit or vegetable is in season. "BING! It is now peach season!"

Suppose a person managed to eat food that contained only the nutrients their body needed. There was nothing in the food that the body did not need, and there was no excess of any given nutrient. Would they still have bowel movements?

This is possibly the coolest dream I've ever had!

IRL, the latest topic in my Harmony book is the Pivot Chord. I was having a lot of trouble understanding this topic and felt that I was at an impasse. Well, last night I had a dream where I was talking to my childhood piano teacher, and I asked her about the Pivot Chord, and she gave me some hints as to how to identify them! In the dream she gave me hard and fast rules, and when I look at my Harmony book I can see what she told me isn't hard and fast rules, but it was still helpful!

I bought some good Rimmel eyeliner instead of the Cover Girl crap I was using before, and now that I have eyeliner that will draw a good, well-defined line, I can't seem to make it make my eyes look bigger. I know all the theory behind drawing a line that will make one's eyes look bigger, I know exactly what I should be doing, I have even done it before, but lately I just can't make my hand make the pencil do what I want it to. My previous eyeliner didn't draw as well-defined a line and it wasn't completely opaque, it just made the area behind my lashes look vaguely darker (but I kept using it because cosmetics are expensive and I hate buying stuff and not using it), so throughout the last couple of years I seem to have lost all my eyelining skills, because the line I drew wouldn't actually matter.