I had a blonde-moment yesterday when i realized that i had confused the dates of both my Friday night and Saturday plans. Luckily, both moved one day later, so there was no conflict. However, i found myself with nothing to do on a Friday night - and that is not okay.

I decided to head over to my father’s football game (he’s head coach of the Midget St. Laurent Spartans) and when no one was willing to step out of the stands to do the yard markers, i volunteered. I figured the likelihood of anyone else qualified as a referee stepping up to the plate (haha, i love mixing sport metaphors) was unlikely. I ended up having a great time kibbitzing with Charles, from Sherbrooke, whose son is the other team’s star-running back and George, the linesman referee. The game was pretty good - the score was very close and the weather was lovely even though there weren’t any really huge hits that made my heart pound with excitement.

Of course, watching a football game is rather nostalgic for me - particularly when the players are pubescent teenagers not adults or true children. Well, it would be really nostalgic to watch the little guys play, but i think it would probably end up taking me to a much happier place because i did LOVE coaching the atom teams for three years back in the day.

So, now this post transitions into my emotional development… i bet you didn’t see that coming. I’ve been dreaming about him a lot lately and going to a football game and realizing that the other yardsticker knew both his mother and his younger brother sort of made me gulp. I miss him. I miss talking to him and watching TV with him. I’m moved beyond pining for him as my boyfriend (or i’ve managed to get it under control would be more appropriate), but i miss him in my life as a companion. It’s been over a year since i last saw him. Two-and-a-half years since it was over. I can crush, date, flirt and pretend - but i’m still mourning.

So, Friday Night Lights had a bitter aftertaste last night as i drove home alone.

There are parties and then there are dinner parties. My love of food and the bottomless pit that is my stomach are both legendary - and Bryan’s going-away party was definitely designed to ensure my maximal enjoyment. LOL. I am such a glutton.

Highlights of the evening included homemade hamburgers, two types of salad (one with homemade croutons), lime curd tarts with glazed Quebec blueberries, lemon squares and some HORRIBLE sing-along around the camp fire once Bryan got too drunk to realize how off-key he was. Oh, the joys of going-away parties. I also enjoyed discussions about the coming Apocalypse with Zach, the responsibility of consumers with Bryan and company and kittens with Tassie. It was a good evening. Too bad i didn’t make it into the hot tub.

Because i over-indulged in both chips and cigarettes late in the evening, i decided that an extra cardio work-out was necessary yesterday. After Zach’s in-depth analysis of the benefits of high interval training, i put on my steel-reinforced knee brace and got on the treadmill. Walk 2 minutes, run a minute - repeat for 30 minutes and cool down for 2 minutes. I was tired, but not TOO much so and felt much better about myself. Then me Mum and i embarked on a grocery shopping extravaganza which resulted in vegetarian chili for dinner (the Joy of Cooking serves me well again) and haddock as the planned menu for tonight. I am still enthralled with SparkPeople - a review of the online site upcoming shortly.

The only downside of this week-end was my missing The Tempest which i had been looking forward to. However, after being stranded in the Chabanel District into the early evening as my father left work with my car keys, i was not up to dealing with the traffic to get to Verdun - and if Saturday night at 3am was any indication - i was right. IS THERE ANY ROAD IN THIS ENTIRE CITY THAT IS NOT UNDER CONSTRUCTION?

My parents are forever telling both myself and anyone willing to listen how “difficult” i am to get along with. There is some truth to this. I have not been at home a week and i am already tired of doing dishes for three people, cooking for more than one person, running around to get the groceries to cook and not being able to go to sleep when i want because SOMEONE is taking forever to feed the cats in the kitchen which is right off my bedroom. Have i ever mentioned that the parental homestead is not particularly spacious?

I’ve been going to the gym with my mother this week. She goes religiously on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I have agreed to go with her (in exchange for her paying for my enrollment, which i very much appreciate) on Mondays and Wednesdays. Our work-outs take almost exactly the same amount of time. In fact, she walks into the stretching room where i am doing sit-ups, push-ups and leg raises at my last exercise and times my “plank.” I am not as in shape as i was in January, that’s for sure. However, it does feel good to at least be doing SOMETHING again. Since my bike got stolen AGAIN in June i had been pretty coach-potatoey. I hate that my morning commute is in an SUV now and not on foot. Our gym is a little sketchy. There are only two cross-trainers. There are apparently never more than five women in the place at a time. No one uses the bottles of alcohol to sanitize a machine after using it (except for me, of course, who developed good hygiene habits through the frequenting of what is now four other gym facilities).

So, i decided to give my mother her birthday present a month early. Yesterday she received all ten Star Trek movies in a boxed set and we are going to watch one a week for the next two and a half months. This is the gift that just keeps on giving - and my mother is quite the trekkie. Watching the first movie last night was, uh, painful? Over five minutes of footage just of the “new and improved” Enterprise. An excruciatingly obvious plot. i missed Jean-Luc. I haven’t seen the last three Star Trek movies and am looking forward to them, but i think i am going to pay for this…

One night last week i couldn’t sleep. As i lay there, i decided to make a concerted effort to “relive” as much of my life as i could by reviewing the memories both of key events and people whom at one time or another were important to me. My friends and family have often seemed astonished at my ability to recall minute details about people and places that for them appear to be lost in a hazy past - i do believe i have been called an elephant - and i attribute much of my strong grasp on my past experience on these concerted efforts on my part to relive and recount, if only to myself, the memories i have managed to store. Like language, i think memories are either used or lost and although ten years down the road i might actually have forgotten the event in question, i CAN remember retelling it to myself in a moment of downtime some three years later. But enough about those aspects of my personality that according to my therapist demonstrate how i became a historian.

A friend i had become much closer to in the past seven weeks left the city on Monday and i find myself missing the prospect of spending time in his company. Reflecting on why this is while walking to the grocery store today, i found myself making a list of the foods and activities i find myself associating with those dearest to me. Fondue, poutine, southern comfort with cranberry juice, driving down country roads aimlessly, flea markets, hot tubs and afternoon naps will always make me think of Steve. Crackers, cross-country skiing, Donkey Kong, sangria, the food network and Silverchair will always make me think of Veronica. Lisa is perogies, cucumber salad and doing dishes. Guitars and Belle Province breakfasts are Eric. Guacamole, sushi and Central Park are Zach. Ilya is conjured by any reference to 2005, fireworks and world travel to exotic locations. Mojitos, brie and drives to the train station are my infamous Auntie Lorraine. My Grammy is a pair of golden bird scissors, buttons, jewelery, pollywogs and gardening. The list continues… and i realize that there is very little overlap between individuals. I think this might account, in some way, for why i am always looking for completely novel things to try with new people - i am trying to establish new associations which won’t challenge my old ones. I enjoy living life this way: encountering mundane phenomenon that i intensely associate with those i treasure - even if these associations are artificially intensified by my neurotic need to remember.

Slurpees, cookies, cigarettes and Latin translations are now more meaningful stimuli in my everyday life. I am happy for this, even if the prospect of their now being memories rather than future experiences saddens me just a bit.

I am a huge fan of Surf the Channel. It feeds my procrastination (soon to be ended as i will no longer have anything to procrastinate about) and prevents my scholastic bubble from strangling any access to the “real world.” In other words, i have something to talk about with people not interested in Latin or literature thanks to this particular site.

My favourite website recently launched an x-rated version of itself - to which i will refrain from linking as i already imagine this post is about to be bombarded with spam comments from its very title. Because i am curious, i have spent some time browsing the videos - and am perplexed by what appears to me to be an unusual frequency of incest videos - particularly of the mother-son variety.

Now, porn is not my thing, but i consider myself open-minded. I sort-of understand at least the power-dynamic being alluded to in the father-daughter incest scenarios (and i will admit they make me squeamish), however, i am genuinely PERPLEXED by this mother-son phenomenon. Middle-aged women are not reknowned for being attractive, and though i understand the appeal of the MILF fantasy - you’re own mother?

And this returns me to my social psychology courses. I have discussed this with quite a few people now, and while most seem to be as perplexed, i was confronted with a reality i like to forget. A female friend of mine made the claim that “there are women who enjoy being raped.” i cannot stress enough the difference between a rape-fantasy (i.e. role-playing in a consensual sexual relationship) and actual rape. If i remember the statistics correctly, when polled something like 80% of men and 50% of women believed there are women who would enjoy being raped - although not a single woman actually said she would enjoy being raped while many admitted to having a rape-fantasy. What kind of delusional evaluation of our own sexual drives and desires are these forms of pornography encouraging? Will we come to convince ourselves that every mother wants to engage in sexual relations with her son? I hope not…

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As you find yourself putting off writing a final draft of your dissertation by doing an unnecessarily detailed edit in red ink, you are excited by the idea that your use of the term “world view” merits a footnote on Habermas… and you’re going to have to look up that citation.

Watching the episode “Data’s Day” of Star Trek: The Next Generation, i came to a realization about my problems socializing with others. In this episode, Data documents his attempts at understanding human emotions in response to a researcher’s query.

Data has serious problems interpreting how people will react to behaviour… he cannot master irony. This led me to the realization that he would have the same sort of problem determining the confidentiality of a person’s conversation. As ultimate disclosure girl, i too have this problem. Maybe i am part android. LOL.

Another five pages of draft is due tomorrow. All i want to do is drink sangria and smoke cigarettes while chatting on a terrace. LOL.

As i am finishing up a stage in my life, the graduate student stage, i find myself asking “how the hell did i get here?” Now, i know how i got here, i’m just not sure that i want to be here. I love the people and the intellectual stimulation and i can’t imagine anything that would make me happier - but i feel dissatisfied. This is quickly becoming one of those “i miss him” posts.

i’ve been wondering lately what my life would be like if i had not moved to Toronto. I know i would not have met some great people and not re-established my friendship with Veronica that is one of my most prized possessions (and perhaps the one factor that makes me not say i outright regret moving to Toronto), but things would be very different if i had decided to take a year off last year instead of next year. I know this is a futile exercise, but one can’t help it.

So, the question is… if you could go back in time and change only one decision - what would it be? I don’t think i would change my decision to move to Toronto, but i am pretty sure the act i would undo might prevent me from moving here as an opportunity cost.

God i am whiny today. Anything to avoid dissertating. The deadline approaches. I need to get my act together. A paragraph is not a chapter.

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Although in my deliriously happy mood yesterday i felt saddened that i couldn’t share the joy, i definitely think living alone is bliss. I like being able to do my dishes in the morning when i first get up without anyone judging me for being able to sleep with the mess or complaining about the pre-caffeine noise. I like wearing shoes in the house - even when they are wet from outside because “hell, i’m the one who cleans the stupid floors twice a week anyways!” I like hanging lingerie on the back of every piece of furniture to dry. I like making popcorn on my stove at 2am. I especially like walking from my bedroom to the shower wearing only flipflops.
I love how every mess is mine - and hence never disgusting - and how every mess took me time to create and nothing ever APPEARS magically. I love screening all my calls and lying in bed just because i feel like it. I love ice cream for dinner with no one the wiser.

However, when you’ve gotten some good news about an old friend coming to the town you are stuck in for the summer, had an excellent meeting with your advisor that made you feel like everything was on track, and walked up the prettiest street in all of Toronto staring at the tulips and blue bells in bloom - you wish there were someone at home to gush to about it.

Alas, you cannot have your cake and eat it too - though it does encourage you to call up a new friend and go walking through parts of town as of yet unexplored and drink beer on the swings at a park you didn’t know existed twelve hours before. Thanks for a pleasant evening Martin!

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The paper, entitled “The Great Florentine Fire of 1304 and Collective Memory in Boccaccio’s De Casibus Virorum Illustrium” was successfully submitted via staircase three hours ago. Although it is too short and skimpy on the references, it is completed. This after a disaster i have been telling people about quickly on MSN but not fully explained - so i will detail my huge mishap once and for all.

I WAS researching, until last Thursday, mumming (the wearing of masks) in carnivals and other public festivities in 14th century Florence because i thought that Boccaccio’s inclusion of Nero’s wearing of masks when he would traipse out into the city with his imperial guard in tow in order to molest citizens on all fours was an indictment of working class behaviour.

I have read the work by Boccaccio five or six times. Unfortunately, i have also read the same account by Suetonius two or three. It is Suetonius, a Roman author, not Boccaccio who talks about Nero wearing masks to molest the populace. I only realized my mistake when i sat down to do my own translation from the Latin text last Wednesday night.

Since then, i have done an abrupt turn of face and had to familiarize myself with three new primary sources: Villani’s Nuova Cronica, Compagni’s Cronica and Bruni’s History of the Florentine People. My paper turned out to be about how the collective memory of the horrible fire in 1304 would have affected how Boccaccio’s readers interpreted his account of Nero setting Rome aflame in 64 CE because it wasn’t pretty enough for him.

And i pulled it off in a week. It isn’t fantastic… but as my prof just said to me: there are two types of papers: perfect papers and completed papers. There is no “uncompleted” paper. It isn’t a paper at all!

However, the good news about being up until 5:30 am is that you catch people on skype whose time-zone difference usually ensures you NEVER get to hear the sound of their voices. I was regaled with a story about the stereotypical Quebecois showing his balls to the entire world at a beach by Arieh in Israel. Then i was told all about my apparent plans for visiting Australia in January - there will be a van, a mattress and mushroom-picking. I don’t know whether to get my hopes up or not, but i do like the idea of crazy, ridiculous antics to celebrate the end of my second dozen years on the planet.