oh my god

this is the 401 of coffeeshop line-ups: being in it is like being caught in rush-hour-toronto highway traffic, where "rush hour" is all the time. and, just like the 401, line-ups like this can test the limits of your patience and tolerance. but, on the highway, at least you're enclosed within your four-wheeled, metal capsule. so, while bumper-to-bumpering your way to work can be truly frustrating (*cue the road rage*), you're pretty comfy: the temperature's just the way you like it, you're blasting the Whitney (oh, yes you are!), you're thinking your thoughts -- even, on occasion, shouting them out (Buddy! what the [----] are you doing?!?) -- and the rainhailsleetsnow can't touch ya. ah, the freedom of the (not-so-) open road!

in this campus line-up, by contrast, there's very little separating you from your travel companions (aka your fellow hot-beverage addicts). which, of course, can be part of the charm: three cheers for friendly, spontaneous face-to-face interaction! on the other hand, the twenty-minute shuffle towards your heroin(e)-of-choice offers little in the way of protection against the elements. conversational elements, that is. (and not just the kind Lulu sprays when on her cell.) exposure to them can be about as comfortable as witnessing that long, racy sex scene in a movie you're watching with your parents. (*shiver*) today, for instance, i'm shuffling directly behind a bigenerational male duo: one thoughtful and passive sixty-year-old mentor type; one intense and dynamic nineteen-year-old Davy Jones lookalike. with two-hundred percent of the arrogance and condescension of any Jimmy Swaggart, Davy does ninety percent of the yammering...

you know, people need to look not to the wisdom of man but to the power of god.

[...]

i was speaking with this woman who said she was going to be angry for the rest of her life because she'd been confined to a wheelchair, and i told her: NO! no, you don't have to be angry your whole life. Jesus never complained! he never asked: "why, God? why did you put a mountain in my way?" he just said: "move, Mountain." [Mentor nods pensively.]

[...]

i ran into this homeless man and asked him how he was doing. he said his back was sore. and i said: "here...let me take a look." [stretches arms out in front of him, showing his healing powers.] it was amazing!

Mentor: you obviously have a gift. 
Davy: i really do.

as we (finally) reach our destination, the barista says: were you making a joke? 

as it turns out, he's talking to his co-worker about something unrelated. but it feels like poetic justice to me.

and now back to translating...

spaced out

there's a grey-speckled lululemon hoodie in front of me. and, inside it: a girl. she's preparing a "bacteria" powerpoint presentation. including a collection of gruesome images that flash before my eyes both times she asks me to mind her computer so she can have a worry-free pee. when not peeing, she enjoys using my teenytinytable as an armrest, as she contemplates (out loud) how to best explain "botulism." she also fancies backing her chair up, over and over again, into said teenytinytable. (boom!)

yes: Lulu is that person. the one who stands just a little too close to you in line at the coffee shop so that, as she's talking on her phone, her saliva flies onto your chin. (doh!) the one who, unbeknownst to her, manages to permanently block you on the sidewalk despite all your efforts to get by. (why, i'll...!) the one who transforms your trip to the grocery store from a sunshiny, everything's-coming-up-roses adventure in gastronomy (right?) into some kind of obstacle course that she has (again, utterly inadvertently) set up by leaving her cart in the middle of the aisle and then -- while trying to locate the peanut butter that's on sale -- stands wide-eyed in the centre of another part of that aisle, taking no notice whatsoever of the people lining up to get to the jam/honey/nutella or of the resulting twenty-cart pile-up. (*loudspeaker* pile-up in aisle three!)

meeeanwhile, not far from Lulu is a guy who's dressed head to toe in tweed (which doesn't actually matter -- except, how often do you see that on a thirty-year-old? and, besides, how else will you understand the name i'm about to give him?) and taking spatial awareness to a whole other level. within the span of thirty minutes, Tweed has changed teenytinytables three times. and it's unclear why. he's not just looking for a place to plug in his computer, and he doesn't appear to be too hot or too cold. but something's getting to him. it seems there can be only two possible explanations: either he's suffering from AASA (acutely acute spatial awareness) and is responding to the (apparently) negative energy of those around him (Lulu being one of them), or...it's something or other about bacteria.

and now back to translating...

10/11/12

kudos, Autumn! you've managed, once again, to finger-paint all of the park floors. and this year's work really is some of your best. so bright, charming and comforting that, were it possible, i'd hang your floorings up on the fridgedoor like a proud parent. and then, if i could get my hands on a rake (*fumbles in vain around unsuspecting neighbour's shed*), i'd rearrange the leaves into a monstrous pile for flinging myself (and any agreeable nearby children) onto. because, let's be honest, that thrill never gets old!

people, on the other hand, do. get old, i mean. and, as it happens, today marks the day when i'm exactly one year older than thirty-four. (some call it "thirty-five.") you know what that means, right? free birthday hot chocolate. point! however, having made the "self-entitled" (says Grandma Mary) decision to take today entirely off of work, i'm not following the usual routine. instead, i'm opting to temporarily take the coffee shop + hot choc (sluuurp!) abroad. first, to the streets. then, to the national art gallery café.

on the walk, i'm reconnecting with my inner flâneur. perusing the downtown streets. wiggling in and out of laneways to see the canal or major's hill park or the (ever-beastly) U.S. embassy from slightly different angles. observing the people passing by. and thinking to myself that isn't it poetic that the war memorial is situated directly between parliament (the nation's would-be brains...no comment) and the château laurier (a romantic niche), somehow symbolizing the recurring struggle between head and heart?

but, from the gallery, you can't see the memorial. in fact, through these immense windows, parliament and the château actually seem much closer to one another. and the gallery's so quiet -- more like a library (shhh...) but with wine! -- that i can easily hear my own head and heart speaking in unison: pure bliss. but not the calm, lethargic type. the thrilling kind. like the perfect (soft, messy, crunchy) dive onto the pile of leaves. and it's not just the fleeting delight of 10/11/12, with its morning run, apartment dancing to Whitney, homemade mushroom-parmesan-pasta lunch, Virginia Woolf reading, hocho, urban meanderings, art gallery blogging with glass of vino, solo dinner out at murray street, evening social in, and slew of warm well-wishes. it's the knowledge and feeling that you're exactly where you should be.

and now back to translating...

form and content

hear the two ladies sitting at that nearby table? they're twenty-eight or so and haven't seen each other in a while. so it's loud, rapid-speed shrieks and giggles and omigods galore. more notable, however, is the healthy dose of uptalk, vocal fry and the ever-prolific like. and by "healthy" i mean "mortifying." making statements sound like questions -- i'm neeervous about the interview? but, like, i'm not superworried? -- contributes nicely to narrowing the gap between women/gay men and the Triple-S (shallow-stupid-spoiled) stereotypes associated with the likes (get it?) of Miss America competitors, Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield, and Paris Hilton. (apparently, hetero-identified guys also use these speech tactics. guess i've just never heard it.)

here's the surprise twist, though: as the two women continue talking, i learn that one of them is a UC berkeley grad student and the other's clerking at the supreme court of canada. *rimshot* please see previous discussions about the unfairness of jumping to certain conclusions, but people in these positions don't tend to be dipsticks. and, indeed, the content of their conversation seems to indicate that they're very bright. so what's with the way they talk? i guess "legally blonde" has effectively jumped off the movie screen and into the real-life courtroom (among other workplaces). yikes! who would want to hire Clerky as their lawyer? as far as professional credibility goes, if she's gonna talk like that, she might as well show up to court wearing jogging pants. or -- what the hell -- a bustier (BOO-stee-yay)! after all, what could possibly go better with those gravelly vocal tones than well-presented cleavage?

















and now back to translating...

nothing, nada, zilch.

it's official: for the first time since i began this blog, there's absolutely nothing of interest going on in the coffee shop. 

how can this be? i'm in downtown toronto, and this location is crawling with a host of people. a very friendly, young mega-hippie. a congregation of bright (and only slightly perky) legal professionals. an unusual grouping of strangers sitting around a looooong table. workers, gabbers, hermits, sloths; they're all here, and in all colours, shapes and sizes. plus, tiff's on, and i'm right down the street from cbc. so i'm just poised for a celebrity sighting. Ryan Gosling, Jian Ghomeshi, Javier Bardem...where in heck are you guys?

but...nope. with the exception of the shockingly large umbrellas so many people are ludicrously wielding outside (they're like the volkswagen beetles of rain protective gear: you could squeeze twenty clowns under those things), there's nothing of note.

thankfully, however, i'm accompanied by aretha franklin and otis redding. even as we launch into this playlist for the fifth time, they make this café a very groovy place to be. and, as a bonus, there's the rain. the good kind. so, instead of giving you a headache or making you aware of the fact that you're beginning to suffer from arthritis (oh, lord! i'm getting old...), it makes you wanna be doing one of three things -- two of which are reading a good book in bed, and lounging in a coffee shop. but i digress...

so, basically, everything here is just hunky-dory. *sigh* this only reminds me of how terribly dull "hunky-dory" can be. which is why the current social obsession with the "be happy" tagline makes me crazy. i don't want to strive for 24/7 happiness! never mind the fact that being told to be happy seems to shove aside whatever legitimate reasons there might be for feeling differently, there's also that whole relativity thing: if we were happy all the time, i'm pretty sure we'd be as good as dead. nope: i wanna feel all of it. confusion and sadness; anger and empathy and pride and humiliation; disappointment, discomfort and ecstasy; love and heartache and loss. and i want to think about as much as i can, without having my head explode. i want to watch the news (even the so-called bad stuff). i want heated debates. i want to question myself so that i have to change my mind sometimes.

and, obviously, i also want to be happy. so, actually, easing into this aretha/hippie/hocho groove is a cinch. and a pleasure! but it had better not last too long.

and now back to translating...

all the world's a stage

...and all the men and women merely players:

two days ago, an elderly woman, dressed head-to-toe in emerald-city green (egad!), bursts onto the scene barking at one of the customers for leaving her puppy outside (for two and a half minutes) to die a gruelling -- *cough* fictional -- death in the sweltering heat. after shouting fatty! at the dog owner (the entire coffee shop gasps), Esmeralda is dismissed from the premises by one of the baristas. (imagine a very angry vaudeville hook.) and the crowd goes wild!

taking centre stage yesterday: three new Gen Zeds -- one guy, two girls. he's a mute wallflower and blends in well with the current conversational wasteland. but the girls -- one PippiLongstocking-meets-SideshowBob; one SinéadO'Connor-circa-nothingcompares2u -- are in a perpetual state of wigging out. it's loud-speaker voices, oversharing, and exclamation marks absolutely everywhere. a sampling... Redhead Zed: my mom was engaged seven times before she got married! Skinhead Zed: i'm trying to be seductive, but it's not working! Deadhead Zed: ...  (shhh, i think he's sleeping. zzz...) eventually, heckling from the peanut gallery (aka the forty-year-old ordering his mocha somethingsomething): HEL-LO!? but the Zeds are oblivious. and, since the show must go on, the audience learns that Red's dad was forty-two and had braces when she was born, and that...

today, it's a one-man show, starring my favourite character, Professor FLQ, who's popped by for a "brief" (it's never brief) chat. today's monologue revolves around the flying squirrel, the 1972 munich massacre (how had i not known about this? *crawls out from under rock*), his ride-along with the ottawa police, his love of country music, his aversion to all things internet. then, he offers to set me up with a sixty-five-year-old man. excuse me? upon recovering from the initial shock, i threaten to defriend him altogether if he does this. and to leave him sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. he promptly changes the subject.

and now back to translating...

holy trinity

[from the archives of thursday july 19]

hocho lovers unite! today, i'm on location in trinity-bellwoods, toronto, and -- *drum roll* -- i've just stumbled upon the most divine hot chocolate. ever. you're gonna wanna checkthisout/ writethisdown/ committhistomemory: nadège. at queen and gore vale. (in case you forget: sounds like dean and door nail. or green and lore mail.) what you're probably thinking now is: hey, what does nadège mean in english, anyway? well, i'm glad you've asked. it's french for no matter where you currently find yourself, make the pilgrimage to see us immediately! (a good example of how, sometimes, a word in one language is tantamount to a whole sentence in another.)

upon arrival, my friend and i learn that it will take them some ten minutes to make the drinks. the staff seem concerned that we might not want to stick around that long. on the contrary! any hot chocolate that's had ten glorious minutes of TLC (uh-oh! cue an unrelated song...) is something well worth waiting for.

through the large window that separates the eating area from the kitchen, we can see the pastry chefs in full smock-and-toque (yes: toque) garb as they prep the pastries and -- more importantly -- the chocolatey beverages. twelve minutes later, two little white ceramic mugs on two little white ceramic plates, accompanied by two not-so-little pink homemade mallows, are placed before us. the mugs are full of thick dark velvet, and -- omigod! -- there's a halo hovering over the liquid. ok, no: that last part's a lie. but one sip says that this is heaven. amen!

and now back to translating...