Told you so

Nothing good ever lasts.
Nothing bad ever does, either.

Light over Toronto

The worst part of winter is the darkness.

It's dark when I get up, dark when I leave for work, and it starts getting dark again about 4 in the afternoon. I usually need to turn on my desk lamp about 3:30, so I can see.

And I have a corner, with floor to ceiling windows.

But all that changed this morning.

This morning I noticed that it was getting a little lighter, as I made my way across the Bloor Viaduct.

The sky was bright. The sun refracted off the tip of the CN Tower.

Somewhere in my body I felt it. The darkness would not last forever. Spring would come.

Isn't it funny how just a little change in a positive direction -- the slightest tweak -- can so immediately improve the mood?

And isn't it funny how this lesson applies to all of life?

Bad News

I did something really bad this morning. I read the newspaper.

Wow, I'll never do that again. It was filled with some seriously bad news. My appetite for seriously bad news is waning. Bad news is the great immobilizer. As I was reading it, I could actually feel my breath grow more shallow. Fear crept up my backbone with its icy fingers.

Thank God my glass is half full...of coffee.

Sleepers

My wonderful cousin, whose comments appear on this Blog periodically under the name Wendy Walnut, spawned a delightful little walnut of her own. I met her for the first time over the holidays, since oceans and borders separate us.

Baby Walnut is all chubby, gooey Kiwi goodness. She's incredibly perfect. You'd be tempted to stick her entire foot in your mouth without any provocation.

One of my favourite presents that I gave this holiday season was a subversive little baby sleeper -- all black and long-sleeved -- upon which was written: This is what a feminist looks like.

I suspect Mommy will like it even more than Baby Walnut.

The alternative, which I hotly debated before making my choice, had the following written on it: 2,000 years of patriarchy and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

See, this is why I love shopping in Kensington Market.

Slushed

I got completely slushed on the way to work this morning.

Slush is that lethal combination of snow, dirt and road salt, usually sprayed out like a machine gun from the tires of a passing vehicle. Doubly treacherous if it's a city bus. There's usually no ducking for cover.

I figured after the slushing that I might as well walk to work, even if the snow was falling in huge, wet clumps.

The flakes were as big as your head. The sort of snow that makes you believe that God is just a big kid. No one else could design snow as perfectly beautiful.

It was perfect snow man snow, too. I managed to drag my arm along a stone fence to come up with several handfuls of the white stuff that I formed into perfect balls.

The only thing missing was someone to throw them at.

Reading room

More years ago than I care to mention, I dated someone who was in one of Northrop Frye's classes at the University of Toronto.

Frye, if you didn't already know it, was one of the most distinguished literary critics and literary theorist our country, and probably the world, has ever produced. He passed away back in 1991.

At the time, one of my friend's proudest moments was asking a question to which Frye replied, "Good question."

What I've always loved about Frye's literary criticism is that, unlike the deconstructionists of the period, you always had the sense that he loved nothing more than curling up with a good book. He'd just been smart enough and lucky enough to devise a job that would allow him to do that all day, every day, for the rest of his life.

I recall reading -- I think it was in "The Educated Imagination" -- about the fundamental role that literature plays in the development of a civil society. Frye argued that literature provided a kind of imaginative key to history -- so that you didn't have to actually experience a thing in order to understand it. Literature would provide that framework.

I though of Frye this morning while reading a particularly poignant passage from the novel I'm reading. It was about animal husbandry -- dog breeding to be precise. It was so beautifully wrought and so painstakingly crafted that I almost didn't realize that I was learning something.

That's what literature can do.

It can hit you between the eyes when you don't even realize you were looking.

In with the new

Today is my first day back at work after 13 days of holiday. I might need a nap.

In this economy, one needs to be careful about saying "I could get used to being off". But really, I could get used to being off.

That said, a return to routine is never a bad thing.

A few holiday memories to share:

Best movie: The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke is incredible and Marisa Tomei is fearless. Eat your treat before the fight scenes start...basically during the Trailer, if you can't stand the sight of blood.

Worst movie seen: 7 Pounds. Dumb, dumb, dumb. But if you make it to the end, you'll laugh your ass off at what happens to Woody Harrelson.

Best meal: Mussels at Leslie Jones on Queen Street. Little pillows of goodness and one of the best waiters I've had in a long time. Runner Up: Bagel Champignons at Le Petit Dejeuner.

Best Christmas present. A book compiled by my BFF, chronicling our trip to Thailand. It immediately became one of the few possessions I would grab if there was ever a fire.

Best present I bought myself. Season One and Two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Sarah Michelle Gellar still slays them, twelve years later.

Worst Karaoke Performance: Come on Eileen, sung with two friends at a local watering hole. What possessed us all to sing a song that no one knew particularly well, is one of life's big mysteries. My contribution was trying to get the other patrons to clap their hands above their heads, thereby forgetting what they were listening to.

Happy New Year. Hope your holidays were swell.