I'm falling in love, my walkman and me, with David Bowie.

Packed Wednesday.  I had a busy day at school, followed by some extracurricular stuff, and then a killer training session.  (My body is sore.)

I'd really wanted to see the David Bowie exhibition at the AGO, but because of busyness and procrastination, the last week rolled around, and I still hadn't gone.  I was holding out for a school night or some time that would be perhaps less busy, but my only chance left was a late night viewing tonight.  So I decided to get a ticket for 9:30 pm tonight.

It was a pretty awesome multimedia display.  I loved all of the stage costumes, and the props from Labyrinth, of course.  (I need to re-watch that.  It's a childhood favourite.)  However, since the place was so packed, I didn't get to see everything in the detail that I wanted.  Oh well, I should live and learn to NOT leave these things until the last minute.  I did the same thing with the Tim Burton exhibition at TIFF a few years ago and same thing.

Now I'm drinking tea and thinking I should make a playlist of my favourite Bowie songs.  I'm no Bowie expert, just a dabbler.  

This is not a Bowie song, but a song about Bowie that I've liked since high school.  As I was walking to the subway from the AGO, I had one of those moments where it seems surreal that I have lived in this city for so long, and so many places have fond memories or bittersweet memories for me.

We'll laugh until our ribs get tough.

Do you guys find that as you get older, and perhaps have accumulated more and more friends, and your days get more and more packed, you have such a hard time keeping up with all of your friendships?  I certainly do.  I feel like I have so many great friendships that I just am not able to give them the time they deserve.  But I try to improve on it.

This weekend, I had lots of good friend time. On Friday evening, I had my monthly "date" with my friend Elaine.  We try to book time together once a month, and it's quite effective.  (Although I think we missed out on our August and September dates.)  We joke that we are once-a-month friends, but I find in adulthood, seeing any friend once-a-month is a lot.  Other than my friends from work, and my pal Mathew, I doubt that I see any of my friends once per month.

Last night, I went to the wedding of my friends Rachelle and Jesse.  They are both friends from my university days, and they fall into the category of friends I definitely don't see often enough.  I think the last time I saw them both was at my birthday.  (Gah, so long ago.)   I was very happy to be included at their wedding though, and it gave me a great opportunity to get caught up with other friends from my university days.  In fact, we talked about how even though we don't see each other all that often, it's pretty great that we are still in touch when almost ten years has passed since university.

Getting to the wedding turned out to be a bit of a comedy, and gave me more time with my friends Jon and Ali.  I perhaps didn't leave my house with quite a bit enough time to get there safely.  I had gone for an excellent winter run in the afternoon.  It was sunny, and there was a bit of snow on the ground and not too much snow.  I ran 6 km in a respectable time.  After that, I needed some time to warm up, and then I took my time getting ready.  I was starving by the time I left my house, and stopped at Starbucks for a snack since I still thought I had plenty of time to get to the church.

St. Andrew Station was closed this weekend, so it meant that I had to take an alternate route to my destination.  I could switch trains twice and avoid waiting for a streetcar in the cold.  When I was on a train going south from St. George Station, there was a power outage that delayed the train.  After waiting a minute, I decided to bolt to the street to grab a cab.  I texted my friend Ali at the same time, and she and her husband were luckily in the area of the station, and swung around and got me.  (Good thing because there are always no cabs when you need them.)

We got there just in time, and it was a very lovely wedding.  As I said before, I had a great time catching up with my friends, and on the way home, my friend Jon said "Christy, we need to hang out more because I laugh a lot around you."  Awww, it's true.  I do sometimes laugh hardest around my longtime friends and I need to devote more time to those friendships.

The good news is that I'm making good on this goal already.  Today I read somewhere that Tori Amos is releasing a new album in the spring.  It's called "Unrepentant Geraldines" which I think is an excellent title, and of course I thought of my best Tori-friend Eric, and realized I hadn't seen him in a ridiculously long time.  I texted him, and we have a date next Sunday evening.  Then, I got a text from my friend Wendy (who I haven't seen since March) and she's in Toronto next Sunday too, so I'll see her in the afternoon.  And I made a phone date with my friend Alison, who lives in BC, for tomorrow.

Also, next weekend I'm going to see my friend Nancy who I haven't seen since before her baby was born.  I think the kid is over a year old now!  They live in Midland, and I'm heading up there to see Hawksley Workman on Friday.  So excited.

The great thing about all of these long-time friendships is that they still are in good health despite the fact that life doesn't let me see my friends as often as I used to.  I think that's how you know when friends are truly special.

Oh, winter crush all of the things that I once loved.

I am in love with the Daughter album "If You Leave".  It's beautiful and sad, and even though it makes me emo, and potentially weepy (if I've had enough to drink), I still love it.  Get it.  I know nothing about the band other than I love this album.

Tonight was parent-teacher interviews.  At 5:30, the official start time, people were just slowly filing in, and there wasn't anyone at my seat.  A colleague next door to me said "hey I think you'll like this YouTube video" and tried to load it on his phone.  Then a parent walked up to my desk, so I said "show me later".  I didn't get a break until about 8:00 pm after that.  It was an evening of much talking, but I enjoyed it.

After this night is over, I always feel like it's the official start of the Christmas season.  I should put up my tree this weekend.

This weekend I have a wedding to go to.  I'm looking forward to it.  Two of my friends from university are marrying each other and it's adorable.  I know it'll be super fun.

It's raining out.  I daresay I'm ready for snow.

Tonight I talked a couple of my friends to go for post-interview drinks at the Granite, which I consider my local pub.  (How self serving.)  We drove by the giant light up holiday tiger in Koreatown (will get a picture) and I felt excited for the season.

Although now I'm home, I'm listening to this awesome oh-so-emo album and thinking about how many things that I love about my life, but how there are things that I'm wistful/nostalgic/regretful of.

Oh well, that's life.

At least I have lots of people to laugh with.

This song.

I'm up far too late with this discovery.  My friend Matt in Winnipeg told me a few weeks ago to check out this album, but when he tweeted a lyric from this song today it sucked me in.

Dark.  Lovely.   Awesome.

You always did prefer the drizzle to the rain.

Lots of stuff to catch up on here, I guess.  I survived getting my report cards done.  The Mayor of this city keeps getting more and more ridiculous.  Life continues being really busy.

Friday was a PD Day.  It was our staff day of reflection, and for the second year in a row, we went out into the community to do volunteer work.  My friends and I signed up together to volunteer at a mission for the homeless and socially isolated.

Before our day of service, we decided to meet up for breakfast.  I found a cute vegetarian diner a few steps away from where we volunteered.  It had a wall lined with Pez dispensers which was awesome.  It was great catching up over coffee and chocolate chip pancakes before we went off.

At the shelter, we split into two groups: half of us sorted canned goods for the food bank, and the other of us sorted clothing for the clothing bank.  I was in the clothing group, and I spent my day going through boxes of donations looking for warm things for the winter: coats, hoodies, and things that would be good to layer.

The work that I did affected me.  As you all know, I love clothing and fashion, and I love going out and finding new things, and looking fashionable makes me feel really great about myself.  As I sorted through unwanted items that I knew would be used by people in need, I felt really sad knowing that not everyone gets to make choices about fashion the way I do.  I know it's really superficial, but to not even have the power to make yourself look good must be frustrating.  Or I guess it really made me realize that something that I take for granted, isn't available to everyone. 

We were all in the back room sorting, while the clothing bank's employee (who was a real character) brought new finds out onto the racks in the area where people could look for clothes.  I overhead him trying to find a new winter coat for a woman, but there wasn't much at that point.  Later in the day, I came across a brand new coat (with tags) in her size and I hope it somehow got to her later. 

We got a lot of work done.  The storage room at the clothing bank was a disaster when we got there, and we got it completely cleaned up and unpacked lots of extra boxes too.  It felt good to get work done for another organization, and again, I'm left feeling really thankful that I was lucky enough to get an education, and find a good-paying job that I love and that affords me all of the material goods that I want in life.

I hung out with my friend Mathew in the evening.  We set out to do some Christmas shopping, and ended up buying mostly stuff for ourselves.  (Isn't that how it always happens?)  I don't usually have much luck at Winners, but I ended up finding a really nice designer wool coat for less than half price.  It looks really good on me.  I was going to try and get another year out of my current coat, but I knew I'd found a great coat.  Bring on the cold weather!

On Saturday, I went on a cross border trip with friends from work.  I didn't buy very much at all, mainly just junk from Target.  I went for fun times, and fun times were had.

Today I slept in and then headed off for one of my happy Kensington Market Sunday afternoons.  I went down there to get my hair cut, and also did some real Christmas shopping at the Blue Banana Market.  Yes, I actually got all gifts, and nothing for me.  Then, I treated myself to a grilled cheese sandwich at The Grilled Cheese.  Yum.

Now I'm getting some stuff done, and then I'll curl up with a book.  I could totally use another day of weekend, that's for sure.

It's the least wonderful time of the year.

Report cards are due on Thursday. 

I feel like this year, I'm more behind on paperwork (my least favourite part of work) than ever.  My extracurricular projects have been time-consuming (yet oh-so-rewarding), and life outside of school has been busy with more trips to Stratford than usual.  On top of all of this, I do not have a student teacher this semester, after having one for about five semesters in a row, and I really do miss using that opportunity to get caught up on work.

So you might not hear much from me until Thursday.

Also, I'm keeping in mind the people of the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan.  I feel a particular closeness to that country, even though I've never been there.  Over half of my school's student body is Filipino, as are two of my closest friends, and my sponsored child is from there.  She seems to be okay as per emails from the organization and my quick self-taught lesson in the geography of the Philippines.  However, one of my students lost some family members, and another student has been there for a couple of weeks due to a family emergency and I haven't heard anything yet.  The people of the Philippines are very much in my thoughts right now.

Student Council and the unofficial Philippines club are working on some fundraising activities.  It's great that the Government of Canada will match any civilian donations to relief efforts, so if you are able to donate, please do.

Red Cross

UNICEF  (Actually if you donate to UNICEF, it looks like your donation will be tripled... Matched by the government and Loblaw Companies.)

This lonely morning, this lonely morning.

Got the new Best Coast album on vinyl today.  It's catchy fun stuff.



I have nothing really to blog about today.  I mean there is the whole mayoral scandal.  Somehow, the Simpsons summed this up in a clever throw-away gag years ago.

So why write any more about the giant mess that is Toronto's mayoral crack scandal?  He needs to step down so much.  I would say this even if I agreed with his policies (which I obviously don't).

This Best Coast album is really short.  Only 7 songs.  I wish I could train Rilo to turn over records for me.

And that's all I have.

It's the only way I can tell you like letters in wartime do.

Weekends go by way too quickly even though this one had an extra hour.

On Friday night, I ended up staying at school until almost 6 pm.  I had gardening with the environmental club until 4 pm, then I ended up staying later helping my friend Fea and Student Council with a project.  This meant that I didn't really have time to go home before the Matt Good show at Massey Hall, so I did my best to fit all of my school things into just one big bag, and set off for the show wearing my Hunter rainboots, since that's what I'd warn that day since it was a bit rainy, and I had gardening after school.  Wellies aren't the most rock 'n roll, but oh well.

I got my ticket debacle solved (yay!) and then took myself out for some dinner and browsed around the Eaton Centre for a bit.  At the show, I decided to splurge on a Matt Good tshirt, because it's really cute and has gold arrows on it, and also a glass of red wine.  I got up to my seat in the top balcony just in time to catch the opening band, Gentlemen Husbands, who were pretty good.

As always, I forget how much I really do love Matt Good.  He put on a great set.  I loved hearing old MGB songs like Load Me Up, Apparitions, and Hello Timebomb.  I also loved hearing some of his earlier solo work like the song Weapon, and a reworked version of While We Were Hunting Rabbits.  I bought his new album Arrows of Desire (you understand the Tshirt now!) earlier in the fall, but didn't really connect much with it.  However, as often happens with me and music, once I see the songs live, I fall in love with them, and the album has been on heavy rotation all weekend.  It's quickly becoming one of my favourites of the year.

Saturday was a yucky rainy day.  I slept in and finally dragged myself out in search of a new cold weather running outfit.  I used to be a happy treadmill runner, but now I don't like it as much, and I want to be able run in single digit temperatures, and even when it gets below zero.  I knew that today was going to be around 2 degrees Celsius, so I really wanted a new outfit so I could get out today.  I ended up getting new running tights (my old ones are too big and fall down when I run), and an awesome running pullover from Lululemon.  The pullover is brilliant; it's got mesh panels to let you breathe, but it's made out of a soft warm material.  It also has "cuffins" which are like built-in mittens that you can take off if your hands get hot.  No need to mess with gloves/mittens!

After that, I ran by David's Tea to buy myself my very favourite tea of theirs: Santa's Secret.  It's totally too early for Christmas anything, but it's my favourite tea, and I'll probably go through 100 g of it in a months.  It's a creamy black with candy cane bits in it, so it tastes all sweet and peppermint-y.  Yum.

After my retail therapy, I met up with my friend Karen at a pub on the Danforth before we hit up The Danforth Music Hall for Joel Plaskett.  It was a solo acoustic show where he was joined by his dad for a few songs (awwww).  It was great, and he played a lot of rare songs that I hadn't heard in awhile from older albums such as La De Da and Ashtray Rock.  It was a lovely show.

Today I avoided the Ford brothers' radio show (but read all about it afterwards) by going for my cold weather run in my new running threads.  It was such a nice day for it!  Even though it was cold, it was sunny, and all the leaves are still changing on the trees, so my route through Mount Pleasant Cemetery and residential streets was picturesque.  I can't wait for more cold weather runs.

I spent the rest of my afternoon running errands and now I'm roasting some chicken and sweet potatoes for my lunch for the next two days.  It's going to be another insanely busy week with work and workouts, but that's OK.  I think I'm getting more and more used to life being so high speed.

What I want to do this evening is to have a glass of wine, a hot bath, and read a book for awhile because I don't think I've finished a book for a month which is CRAZY for me.  Good thing baseball season is over.