illustration by Julie Verhoeven

My whole world is filled with boxes and paint and how-the-hell-do-I-even-pack-that?! Yesterday I stood frozen in front of my bookshelf for three minutes, trying to decide if I want to keep my 1994 raver goggles. Which, of course, let me to wonder where on earth I put my gas mask (naturally). Before I knew it, an hour had passed and I'd accomplished absolutely nothing.

We spend our free evenings at the new place, trying to get it some kind of ready for the first deluge of boxes and furniture. (Nothing worse than painting around piles of stuff.) The first half of the evening finds me enthusiastic and filled with ideas. By the time we leave I am reminded of the amount of work the place demands; I remember how I've been in my apartment for eight years and have everything just how I like it. It leaves me anxious and sad. And then, in the morning I pack and plan and the whole cycle starts again.

Last night we finished painting the kitchen (at least the basics). The colour is dark - too dark, I thought at first, like making lunch in the renaissance - but by the time we left I loved it. 

Probably.

I have resigned myself to not knowing how I feel until at least the middle of February.

g.

I don't know why it continues to be so hard to post here. I'm not going to think about it. There's no question of shutting this blog down. Xanga is somehow my ace in the hole. Knowing I have a space here is comforting, even if no one knows or reads a word. Is that weird?

The fun news is that I have started a tumblr to document the new apartment, and the tiny adventure of C and I starting our life together. I'm pretty jazzed about all this - I guess I just want to keep track, you know? I can't promise it will be fascinating, but there will be pictures and, hopefully, regular updates. I suspect at least bits of it will be amusing.

That'll be something new.
x.g. 

We really only saw our new apartment once - for about 15 minutes - before we put in the application. In the weeks after they accepted our bid and we paid our deposit, I began to doubt myself. The things I'd liked about the place became hard to visualize - so did the things I didn't. I worried that, in my desperation to find a place, I'd been hasty or overly optimistic. I'd pushed C to take the first acceptable flat and now we'd both have to live with my impulsiveness.

Yesterday was the first time I'd seen the space without the previous tenants' things. I could walk around freely and really look at the details. The ceilings were at least two feet higher than I remember. We'd estimated 10', but I think they're easily 12. Soaring. The big front window with its stained glass transem was warped with age. There was a little hole, patched with tape. It was more decrepit, more elegant; Mrs Havisham, halfway in and still tragically beautiful. Its white mouldings stretched out across the wall; facing it, the big French doors. Above, another antique ceiling medallion like the one in the den, delicately painted fruit over a simple chandelier.

In three of the four rooms, wood floors gleamed under years of wear. The windows in the office and kitched had, when we'd first seen them, been covered with awful, generic blinds. Now, bare, they were twice the size I'd thought. Standing on the sill, my eyes were just level with the top edge of the pane. The mudroom would be more than big enough for C's workbench and tools along with extra space for storage and bikes. Even the bedroom carpet - my only real reservation - was an inoffensive pale grey and not at all the sickly blue I'd been obsessing about.

Last night, when I walked up to the new house I was excited and nervous, steeling myself to make the best of the worst. When I walked in the door, I was home.

g.

I hate the time between giving notice and starting to pack. It feels like forever.

We get our new keys at the end of the month, but I don't have to give up this place until the end of February. I'm going to move my "easy" stuff first (books, furniture, records - all the stuff that sits out in the open). I'll use the month of overlap to clean out my storage closets. It's horrifying, but I'm excited to do it. After eight years of tenancy I'll have an awful lot of crap and getting rid of it will feel fantastic.

My sister has promised to come and help me. She was here when I moved into this place, helped me seal the baseboards and get myself organized. My brother was here, too. I remember schlepping all my stuff up three flights of narrow stairs and, afterwards, going to the Tennessee for a steak.

When I first moved to Parkdale more than one person was sort of horrified. Filled with rooming houses, group homes, a rehab, cheap apartments and an alley of low-rent highrises, it was a slum all through the 80s and 90s. Its main street, the west-est stretch of Queen St, was filled with rundown storefronts featuring ethnic specialties and uncomfortably sexy discount underwear. People like my ex-boyfriend and I (students, artists) just naturally drifted this way. You could get a place for next to nothing (comparatively) if you were willing to put up with a little weirdness.

But I liked the weirdness. The streets were (and really still are) full of eccentrics, panhandlers and drunks, but they were never aggressive and I never felt afraid. I liked the Asian grocery and the Tennessee Bar and Grill with its trash-tavern aesthetic. (Where else could you get a third-term-pregnant waitress to serve you a beer and a steak for $8? Not a good steak, but still.) To me, my new neighbours were the reason I could afford to have my very own corner in this expensive city. Unimaginative, monied people would raise my rent and gentrify my street; Parkdale residents would keep them away, at least for a while.  

When my ex and I split, he couldn't wait to get out of here. He thought it was depressing. I almost moved away, too, but at the last minute I found this apartment just three doors away. One of my best days in Toronto was realizing I could stay in the bizarre and lovely neighbourhood I loved.

The Tennessee closed years ago. The sign is still propped up in an alleyway by a public parking lot. The place is a trendy restaurant now; they have live music on weekends and offer a family-friendly Sunday brunch. The old couple that ran my favourite hardware (it smelled of wood chips, soil and old pennies, and the wood floor squeaked when you walked) retired. Now it's a douchebag hotspot that presents horse meat entrées as the height of edgy. (Bitch, please. The old Italian butchers on the Corso have sold horse meat since the beginning of time.)

But I'm not ready to leave yet; the old Parkdale is still hanging on. That highrise alley is still intact, filled with new Canadian families. There are still at least three group homes I can identify, and a drop-in centre. You can still buy mint-green polyester-lace panties, bitter melon, and ceramic Buddhas and Indian gods in a one-block stretch. Things are a bit more chi chi, but only in little ineffectual bursts. I'm confident the locals will hold the line.

And the new place is only a few blocks away, so I'll get to keep an eye on everything.

g.  

illustration by Barnaby Ward

I think I'm sick. I woke up snuffling with tired eyes and a foggy head. Everything just feels wrongish - though not really bad enough to justify too much complaint. It's just annoying because, after a week of selfish (and unpaid) holiday, I can't afford to miss any work. Gah.

I'm going back to bed.
g. 

illustration by Sophie Leblanc

It's perfect. This is always one of my favourite mornings; everyone sleeps late, everything stays closed. It seems very possible - in this silent moment - that I am the only creature left in the whole city. Well, me and the ungraceful cat, who manages to affect a crashing sound about once every half hour. Meatball is mortality manifest.

Today C's family is having a little get-together in honour of our engagement. It will be the first real fuss since it happened (which is what you might expect with any announcement made so close to the holidays). I am torn - as I always am - between craving attention and the horror of actually being noticed. I'm sure it will be very nice, but I'm already exhausted.

It doesn't help that I'm feeling less-than-pretty. It's a shame. Aesthetic confidence makes excellent social armour.

But it's a new year, after all, and I should focus on that. We get the keys to our new apartment in one month; the weeks leading up to spring will be filled with painting and decorating. Though the place is only a few blocks away, there will be a new neighbourhood and new routines. The distraction will feel like a holiday and, at the end of it, a whole new chapter in my life will begin.

And while that also sounds sort of exhausting, I have to admit I'm pretty stoked.
g.

illustration by Raphael Vicenzi

I ought to be working one of the two pieces I've committed to writing - deadlines loom. Instead, I'm posting pictures on the internet... Because, you know, the internet needs more pictures.

I'm also listening to the radio. A city counsellor is demanding an apology for an editorial discussing the perception that some universities are "too Asian."  (This was, in fact, the original title of the article, though it was ultimately renamed after numerous complaints.) This debate has been raging (inasmuch as Canadians are capable of that) since the article was published in early November. I finally went to read the thing and, as always, I am completely mystified. As far as I can tell, the most offensive thing about this piece is the editing: 

"['Too Asian' is] a term being used in some U.S. academic circles to describe a phenomenon that’s become such a cause for concern to university admissions officers and high school guidance counsellors that several elite universities to the south have faced scandals in recent years over limiting Asian applicants and keeping the numbers of white students artificially high."

Seriously. That sentence is too long - and terrible. 

Granted, I'm not part of a visible minority - maybe I'm missing something. What I'm seeing is a story about how people who work harder for good grades do better than people who don't. Secondarily, it seems to suggest that rather than push their own kids to work harder and do better, Caucasian parents and administrators would rather skew admittance stats so said kids don't feel dumb (or look lazy).

Really, the ones who ought to be insulted are the kids whose parents underestimate their ability to compete on a level field. Viva la meritocracy, and all that. I mean, in the early days of affirmative action, wasn't that the argument those in power held highest?

I openly admit - though it may be I am a racially-entitled brute and, believe me, I am willing to be schooled on this - I don't see how any of it is insulting to Asians. Yet the above-mentioned counsellor thinks an apology is due. As he righteously points out, "feelings have been hurt." 

And in all of this, that is the part I find most insulting. Demand an apology because you have been willfully humiliated, injured, or maligned. If that's the case then, by all means, claim a good, hearty sorry - but for heaven's sakes, let's not start talking about feelings. The sheer fact of having them does not entitle you to exist in a world untouched by reason. And your willingness to inflict them on everyone around you? It's infantile. 

In fact, I think I demand an apology. I demand an apology from you, dear counsellor, for pretending it is in any way acceptable for a grown-up to drag their feelings into a public arena. I demand an apology for your suggesting that anyone else is responsible for some disruption in the drift of your emotional ether. And finally, I demand an apology for giving the media one more excuse to avoid tricky issues for fear they will make your poor, sensitive heart sniffle. If you don't like what they have to say, fight them with logic. Believe it or not, it's more compelling. At least it ought to be.

Hey - it's New Year's eve.
g.

illustration by coco for Balenciaga

I thought starting with a new blog would be simpler - that I'd be as excited to post as I was when I started my first one. Then, I couldn't get up early enough to get my thoughts down. I had to stop myself from posting twice or three times a day. 

But I was different then, too. 

I didn't know yet that my blog life and my real life would eventually align - I'd be hampered by the same need for control. I had started my blog as a way to escape my self-imposed constraints only to find myself as cautious as ever. Don't post anything you can't take back. We are who we are, I guess. But it does become exhausting to keep silent in two forums. Maybe that's why I love my tumblr so much. I can holler out my truths and desires and failures and they are still - mostly - my own.

So here I am again, determined to keep writing. I will tip-tap-type my way out of the relapse of obsessions that tie my tongue and learn how to deflect with a little grace.

g.

illustration by George Petty

For the last three days I've been getting up at 5 AM to try and finish whatever needs to get done. That way, the moment my Christmas officially begins (this evening) to the day if officially ends (January 2, 2011) I won't need to do a single solitary thing except exactly what pleases me. 

I am so tired I'm actually a bit nauseated, but oh! It's going to be worth it! My apartment is clean, my cookies are baked and every gift is wrapped-and-bowed within an inch of its life. Now I just have to clean and wrap me, and it'll be nothing but festive sloth till the end of the calendar year.

Merry Hanukkah-Christmas-or-Whatever-Holiday-Applies, every one!
x.g. 

illustration by Bobby Hillson, 1965