The Master by Colm Toibin

It's a fictional biography of Henry James, which sounds promising, but the
book itself doesn't do much. It extrapolates from what's known about
James's life to tell anecdotes about his day-to-day thoughts and life, but
it doesn't really seem to have much point. Which I guess is perfectly
valid - why should our lives have to have a point? - but it was a bit
disappointing. Perfectly readable, but it could have been better.

I got to interact with a baby today, which is unusual for me since I don't
know any babies socially. One thing I noticed is that the baby would often
stare at people who were doing the most innocuous things, like eating or
chatting or walking around. While I was in a large group and there was
always at least one, often more, people interacting directly with the baby,
he would often stop and stare at other, unrelated goings-on.

I have a theory about this. I think the baby is used to people looking at
him and making faces and saying "Hiiiiiii!" in that high-pitched voice
everyone uses to talk to babies. I think he stares at other things to see
what the grown-ups do when there's no baby around. This must be how kids
learn how life works, otherwise all everyone would know how to do is stare
people in the face and say "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

I know that when you have several utensils at your place setting, you work
from the outside in. But when there are some utensils above your plate,
lying parallel to the edge of the table, are those ones intended to be used
first or last? I knew all this once and I've totally forgotten!

Lately I have been having this recurring dream where I am a
transcriptionist. It's strange, because this dream feels exactly like a
warning or informational dream, like it's trying to tell me something, and I
can't figure out what it's trying to tell me. Nothing much happens, I just
am a transcriptionist - that's my job. Usually it's obvious to me what a
dream is trying to tell me, but this one I can't tell.

A week or so ago I discussed the problems that arise from having spent most of my life in the company of people who reacted to me in an irrational manner.

I have a follow-up half-formed theory. Let's suppose that the irrational reactions of people around me were simply a function of their having been children at the time. I'm sure we all remember how confusing it is to be a child and how you sometimes don't understand how things work. Let's suppose this is the main cause of their irrational reactions.

If this is true, we can posit that other people, in fact most other people, also had this situation of being surrounded by irrational reactions. Obviously different people react differently to a given situation so not everyone responded by becoming skittish like me, but it would have an effect of some kind on everyone's life.

Therefore, this is why people tend not to mature fully until they are around 30ish. That's the age when you will have spent the majority of your life in the presence of rational reactions, so the part of your mind that reacts like a kid in a schoolyard can finally go dormant.

My favourite red wine is now Sangiovese, and my favourite white wine is Pinot Grigio. That's unfortunate, because I seem to have developed a distinct taste for pretentious-sounding Italian wines. It would be so much more socially acceptable if my favourites were like Merlot and Chardonnay (which I certainly don't mind, but aren't my favourites).

A while back, I googled "Jeans that don't gap in the back" and turned up something called Lee One True Fit. Apparently they are specially designed so they don't gap in the back. Further research showed that they are available at The Bay. So today I went down to The Bay to try them on. They SO gap in the back! I could wear a fanny pack INSIDE those jeans! Now I'm sad and my zen is gone :(

Civic officials won’t be forced to marry gays

A copy of my email to my MP re: this article:

I was surprised to see such a bizarre headline in the Toronto Star. While I can see the point of not forcing religious institutions to marry anyone they feel doesn't conform with their religious beliefs, I would like to know how exactly the government plans to go about implementing something similar for civic officials without trampling over the rights of citizens in the process. What will be done to ensure that an officiant is available whenever a same-sex couple wants to get married? Would this measure mean that civic officials are free to refuse to marry anyone whose marriage they find distasteful, no matter what the reason? The article says these things haven't been decided yet, but surely the federal government must have something in mind before boldly proclaiming something that seems so unfeasible!

My ROTK Extended Edition arrived today! I wasn't expecting it until at least the 16th! The shipping confirmation was emailed at 9:43am, and the package was at my door when I got home!

The only problem is that no one I know has gotten theirs yet, so I can't watch it until someone confirms the bad chapters for me...

I just saw the weirdest shadow outside my window. It looked like someone walking past the window. But that's impossible - I'm on the 14th floor.

Interesting new thing from Google. As you type into the search field, it autocompletes based on what common searches are. I typed in one or two rather obscure searches that I've done in the past, and they showed up! Scary!

Some choice phrases from my new bottle of body wash:

"Feel the wild freshness of Fa Body Wash and turn your daily shower into an exciting ritual."

"...provides your skin with a perceivable unique freshness experience."

"Feel it, live it - directly on your skin."

"Work into a rich refreshing lather."

"Fa Body Wash is pH-skin-neutral. Dermatologically proven skin compatibility."

I got promoted yesterday. So I decided as a reward to myself I get to stay home in comfy clothes all day today instead of going to the Eaton's Centre as originally planned. So I slept in, played Sims, and read Paul Quarrington's Galveston all the way through. Amazing book! Go read it! At first it's tempting to put it down because the characters are initially presented as rather unsympathetic, but as they are fleshed out further in depth the book becomes better and better and wow!

Because there is a certain degree of bizarreness and a certain degree of
insanity in what I do for a living, I am often tempted to do silly, childish
things at work. The vast majority of the time I resist this temptation - I
just giggle quietly to myself about the idea that occurred to me, then go on
working in a mature, responsible manner.

The problem is, I want credit for not doing the silly things that occur to
me. I want to go up to my co-workers and say "It occurred to me today to
replace the holiday ornaments on the intranet site with pictures of little
green aliens. It also occurred to me to cartwheel down that section full of
empty cubicles, rearrange the nameplates on the offices of the ladies who
are on maternity leave to see if they go to the wrong office when they get
back, move documents from cubicle to cubicle via paper airplane, and send an
office-wide email informing everyone 'IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!!1' But I didn't
do any of these things. Now give me a prize."

But of course I can't tell my co-workers that these ideas occurred to me or
they'll think I'm psycho.

Theory: anything in the world is intrinsically funny if you think about the
fact that someone invented it - someone thought it up at a time when no such
thing existed and proceeded to sell other people on the idea.

On the radio someone is commenting on the fact that videogames can be educational. This is new? We had educational videogames when I was a kid! Operation Neptune anyone?

Anyway, I'm blogging at this strange hour because I want to record two analogies I thought of in the shower.

1. Why I don't like being thought of as "someone who is on a diet", even though I have been watching my weight for the past few months: Dieting is a temporary unpleasant chore. I don't want it to define me. For example, suppose your kitchen floor is dirty, so you start scrubbing the floor. As you're doing this, the phone rings. You answer the phone, and your friend asks you what's up. You say "I'm just scrubbing the floor". From then on, you're thought of as a person who scrubs the floor. You're given a bucket and brushes for your birthday. When a fun activity is planned, they don't invite you because they thought you'd rather spend the time scrubbing the floor. Whenever they see you doing something else, they say "What are you doing? Why aren't you scrubbing the floor?"

2. Why I don't need a religion: Suppose that when you're a kid you have a dog. It belonged to your parents before you were born, and it's just a part of the household. It's rather surly and grumpy and keeps trying to frighten you. Your parents say it's just being friendly and playing, but it looks to you like it wants to hurt you. This isn't helped by the fact that your parents keep making you scoop the poop from the backyard even though you don't like this dog. Then you grow up and move out of your parents' house. You find that, living on your own, you're relieved to be free of that dog, and you don't feel that you're lacking anything not having a dog in your life. Would you assume that a) you just haven't found the right breed of dog for you yet, or b) you don't need a dog?

According to a recent study, using a laptop on your lap causes low sperm
count in men. Blogger is being slow so I'm posting by email so I can't
provide a link, but go to Google News and type in "laptop".

So if you're a man and you want to have kids, use your laptop on your desk.
And if you're a man and you don't want to have kids, use your laptop on your
lap.

I overheard a conversation on the subway today where someone mentioned
giving their super a year-end tip. Is this a requirement (like tipping
waiters, hotel housekeeping, taxi drivers etc.) or just a nicety?

The Narrows by Michael Connelly is your standard detective story. Basically
film noir for the 21st century. Not bad, but not particularly exceptional.