Melange

It's been a weird little blend of days. Since I got back from Windsor, I've been trying to hunker down and get some real reading/writing done, and I'm making progress, but my committee meeting next week is looming at me. I have a magnet of a cartoon on my fridge that says "Clive was about to come face to face with the ball he had dropped long ago." I haven't exactly dropped the ball -- am doing a lot of reading and thinking about this project -- but not much of it has coalesced or made it to paper. Still a lot of uncertainty, the kind that Frank and Barnett help me walk through, but Lita tends to squish a bit. So I need to get on top of that.

In the middle of this stewing of ideas, my little online world had some upheaval. A grating cohabitation of worldviews finally came to a head (I think it can best be described as a some flailing badly-hidden judgement from a bunch of small minded christians and the final burst of impatience from a bunch of hooerish pagans -- the usual clash of civilizations). After a Battle Royale, a bunch of us just left and set up a new place. I like to think of it as a Quiet Revolution, abruptly creating a new world where we are no longer bound by the strictures of the Church and they sell unconsecrated hosts in the local depanneur. More drama than I wanted to deal with, but it feels much better to have an online hangout where the complexities of my life aren't met with tight-lipped head-shaking.

I'm trying to create some mindful, quieter space in all of this. I had a good longish run on Monday, hot and elemental, and a stroll-y walk to and home from the dentist yesterday. The view across Riverdale park from Broadview really is one of the best moments in the city. It was good to immerse myself in it, glide through the balmy air and the baseball playing and the people sitting on their porches in Cabbagetown and the honking shouting Italians and the yacking cellphoners on the streetcar. Ran this morning and detoured to my old street so I could see what A has done to the house -- I knew she was doing some work, and it looks good. It's yellow, now, with some really nice landscaping.

Many things in my life are crystalizing -- getting crisper on my conceptual framework for school, a couple of work possibilities, the shape that's starting to emerge for who I can be with F. The lake is in the way, and a few other distractions, but it feels like a life, a space, I can, want to, live into. Quite giddy-making, really.

And this morning, I toasted my bagel in my Grandma's toaster. This toaster doesn't pop, it glides the bread up. I like that sensation.