Young Bjork (=love)

I somehow ended up watching all of these videos of young Bjork tonight.

They were just entrancing (this one is just audio).

She's so cool. (Way to state the obvious.)

It gets better

I am totally in love with Dan Savage's new project, It Gets Better.

A month in pictures

And some words.

Toronto is going well. It's so nice to be working. I saw my first TIFF screening. I was so high on the experience that I can't tell whether or not I really liked the film. I went to MOCCA (yay for free art). I'm too cheap to get on the subway so I walk pretty much everywhere. On days I remember my camera this means I get some fun pictures.

In chronological order here are photos of the last month in my life. 

One of the weird little spots by the waterfront I was talking about:

And a golden building:

I went back to the odd "beach". This time I sat down with Sally.

We watched a guy and a girl flying a kite. I tried to surreptitiously take their photo and ended up with an accidentally blurred photograph à la my dad (although he does it on purpose).

Sally was craving salad so I yelped "salad in Toronto" and we ended up in Kensington at Hibiscus, a vegetarian and gluten free café. We shared a delicious salad bowl and a crepe with pear, brie and walnuts. It was really good.

Walking down the street one day I admired this woman's hat. It reminds me of Darth Vader.

Today I walked over to Roncesvalles with Alex. We picked up Pączki (polish donuts) from Granowska's Bakery and delicious Americanos (Americani?) from Lit Espresso Bar.

I got one filled with plum jam and one filled with sweet cheese. I've been trying really hard (and usually succeeding) to eat stuff that's fairly low on the glycemic index, but man I love good donuts every so often.

Then we walked home along the water.

I'm glad there's water here.

I'm also glad it's fall. I love the days it rains, although I need better shoes.

Overnight Steel Cut Oats

I am currently obsessed with this recipe. I make it a little bit differently (the original recipe sounds delicious, but I don't actually have most of the ingredients). Note that the recipe is for about 3 or 4 servings. So, I take a quarter to a third cup of steel cut oats and a tablespoon or so of shredded unsweetened coconut, then put it in a bowl just submerged in water and a bit of milk. I sometimes add raisins or dried currents. Then I put it in the fridge. In the morning I add sunflower seeds, ground flax, and chopped almonds, with a bit of sugar or honey and a bit more milk. If I'm not in a hurry I heat it up on the stove first. I eat this pretty much every day at the moment, and it is so fast and filling and delicious.

Is this us?

I've been a little bit busy, settling into my new job (Working is fun. Unemployment is overrated. I'm such a nerd.) and new city. I promise to try to have more than the sound of wind whistling through here up soon.

Via Cat and Girl.

When people say nice things about you

My most recent (wonderful) boss recently had to fill out a reference form when I was interviewing for a job. He wrote: 

Ange is best suited for an occupation which enables her to encounter and engage with an incredible amount of information, which she can then share in creative and helpful ways with others which help them to discover something new about themselves and the world in which they live. 

The job I was interviewing for would not have been the job that he was describing, and his words made me feel completely comfortable with the choice I made that it was decidedly not the job for me. I loved that he could see this in me. Thanks to him I now I have a very clearly expressed objective: that job. I'm looking forward to it.

Marion Cotillard

I stumbled upon this video of Marion Cotillard while perusing The Debonaire today. Marion Cotillard and I look similar in a way that makes it feel sort of surreal to watch this. Not like, Oh mon dieu, I look exactly like this mega-gorgeous film star, but like we could be cousins, or sisters or something. She smiles with her mouth closed and gets sort of squinty in the same way I do. So, in what seems to be a form of narcissism, I completely adore her.

I especially love the way she mixes up "ed" and "ing" endings, so she calls herself "confusing" rather than "confused." It makes me wonder what kind of mistakes I make in French, without even noticing. I hope that when (not if) I next go to France and make new French friends they find my linguistic missteps at least a little bit charming.

And a little clip of her in French (on filmmaking):

It's funny how people's voices change depending on the language they're speaking. Et j'adore ça aussi.

Not lost

I'm not lost exactly, I'm just not entirely sure where I'm going. The thing that's keeping me from feeling lost, I think, is knowing that so many others are where I am, or have been.

Reading this piece on being lost by Penelope Trunk made me feel like a member of a tribe, all of us bumping around in the world, opening doors, looking around corners and lifting up the edges of things to see what's underneath. Looking, and hopefully finding. 

My favourite bit from the post is about the importance of art: "When you are lost is when you need art most." This is so true for me. Finding and reading Where the God of Love Hangs Out last week immediately pulled me out of the weird mood I was in and connected me to the feeling of awe that comes with encountering really amazing art. It reminded of what's possible.

Other art I want to experience:
I Am Love
The second season of Nurse Jackie (yes, television can be art. Pretty much anything can be art)
An Ontario peach (in keeping with my stance that everything can be art, I most certainly believe that food can be art. I think that food can nurture those same places in us as do songs with perfect, husky harmonies and novels with characters so real they feel like they're alive inside us, places far more important than our bellies)
Everything at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Watching people everywhere 

And, oh yes, I'm creating. Sometimes blogging doesn't feel like it should count, but I'm counting it. I've also started doing morning pages again, in the hopes that I will let some of the stories that have been pushing their way forward actually come out.

Life beside the CN Tower (which I always want to call the Space Needle)

The CN Tower from my window, pixelated by the screen door.

And in the morning, in the fog.

I had some kind of flu-type thing over the weekend, and I just lay in bed sleeping, and when I was too tired to sleep I watched TV on my computer (I finally started watching Modern Family. That is a great show). I think that my body just gave up after I spent a few days freaking out about jobs and possible futures and where I should be and what I should be doing.

Rest, my body said. Stop it. Look what you're doing to yourself.

Yesterday I felt about 70% normal. This morning I was at about 85%. So off I went, into the world. The weather today is beautiful, clear and hot but not crazyhot like I've almost gotten used to. I explored my new neighbourhood a bit. I'm currently staying right down by the Toronto harbourfront, which is a sort of odd little area. I was sad that I didn't have my camera with me, because there were so many weird little nooks. Odd little green hills and spans of fake beach with little yellow beach umbrellas.

I should have sought out the water earlier. It's so nice to sit and watch an expanse of water sparkle, even if it's not the Atlantic or the Pacific.

After the water I walked up to the library. I joined the library last week, and I've already been up three times. Today, while browsing, I came across a new collection of stories by Amy Bloom, one of my favourite authors. So I decided to do one of those soul affirming things I somehow hadn't done in too long. I bought myself a steamed milk with hazelnut, found a comfy chair, and sat and read. I've read the first half, and the book (Where the God of Love Hangs Out) is as wonderful as anything she's written. I cried already. I hardly ever cry when I'm reading.

A trip to the water + a substantial sitdown with a good book = majorly rejuvenating.

I think a lot in word based mathematical equations lately.

Toronto has been up and down. Not literally, it's actually pretty flat (although the simcoe wave deck is another of those odd waterfront nooks I discovered today). But it's been very weird not having a job, not having money to explore, and still trying to make a connection. I felt absolutely called to come here, and just followed that blindly, figuring that when I got here I'd see why. Now I'm just kind of waiting to see what happens, feeling altogether out of my element. I know that I need to give it a bit of time to find my place, but that is a sort of scary place to be, especially when there are people around me, people that I know love me, who are nudging me to just grow up and join the real world already. I am, I swear - I'm just doing it my way.

I really am a part of that thing, that generation Y (ahem) thing that they talk about, where I know that my job is going to take up a huge part of my life, so rather than trying for work life balance, which sounds like a joke, I'm aiming for work life unity. A strong sense of community is probably the biggest thing I'm looking for. I was lucky enough to have that in my past two jobs, and am looking for it again. So for now I'm taking a job in a coffee shop (I actually got an awesome vibe based on the interview), while I try to build a career (and a life) combining my dedication to service and to community with my extremely wonderful creative and organizational skills. 

So yes. This is my generation Y post. Maybe I should write a graphic novel about the whole thing.

The high life in Toronto

The view from J's (and soon to be, at least briefly, my) balcony.