Recent Posts

• April 02, 2023

  Agh! My Groin!

  I’ve done something to my groin. It snuck up on me, at the beginning of March I can remember running - in the bitterest cold - thinking, the inside top of my left leg sure does hurt a little bit. I presumed it would be a thing that would just go away by itself. Even when two weeks later I spent the morning of my birthday shuffling around the indoor track, congratulating myself on lapping pensioners, children and one person clearly in phsyiotherapy. Sucks to be you, I’m in peak health.

• March 02, 2023

  Ulysses

  I first tried to read Ulysses when I was 18. I made it to - what I now realise is the infamous - Chapter 3 (Proteus, following the semi-official Odyssey structure). This is the chapter where Stephen Dedalus walks along Sandymount Strand and thinks about things, and also sees a dog I think. It is dense and difficult to follow, and while at that age I most definitely did not have better things to do, I called it quits and bailed out.

• January 01, 2023

  2023 Defaults

  Last year I went on about priorities. Top of the list was reading (not the news), and this started out pretty well. As the year progressed, I did drift back to tabbing back and forth to the Guardian (and adding in the Globe and Mail, until I know any better Canadian news sources), but I ended up reading 23 books, which is not bad. A little under one a fortnight, which balances between the extremely quick (Brave New Works, 2 days) and the much longer (Journey to the West volumes 3 and 4, The Woman in White)

• December 31, 2022

  2022 in the Mirror

  First, let’s do a monthly overview of what I can remember happening in 2022. It was a long year.

• September 23, 2022

  One Month

  So it’s been a month. My lovely colleagues gave me a Toronto CityPass on my way out the door, so we spent the first week doing stuff. Up the CN Tower, into the Royal Ontario Museum (mostly the dinosaur section), around the Science Centre, through the Aquarium (some good sharks). Since then, it’s mostly been work and admin. The wallet that I don’t carry around is filling up; my PR card arrived after nearly six months, I have a health insurance card, a library card, and if I’m lucky tomorrow I will have a (piece of paper indicating that I will soon be in possession of) a driver’s license. This of course means that I then have to drive, which still makes me nervous. Cars are loud and fast, and I keep having dreams where I roll one down a hill, or a child is driving and she rolls one down a hill. I haven’t driven since pre-COVID, and while I was doing it that was mostly fine even if it did occasionally spike the heart rate. At least we’re in the suburban dead zone where there’s a whole maze of streets to trundle around and get used to things, where I won’t see another vehicle or human being. Just gaudy houses, lots and lots of flowers, and house numbers written out in words.