...everything else...

I wrote the last exam of my undergraduate studies today, and oh boy is it ever nice to be done. I didn't even feel melancholy (although now I am starting to).

I went shopping after, naturally, then came home and slept for 7 hours. I spent what little was left of the evening (roughtly three hours) playing Scramble obsessively, continuing to read War and Peace, and noticing that my little indoor herb garden has started to germinate. In a week or two I will (if all continues to go well) have fresh basil, parsley and heirloom tomatoes in my kitchen.

Tomorrow I can start figuring out what to do with my days.

...organize this...

I made a big mistake this morning - my usual morning plan involves waking, putting the coffee on, reading the news online, and then getting showered/dressed for the work day. Today, having run out of coffee yesterday, I decided to shower/dress first, then watch news quickly on my way out the door to grab coffee at Starbucks before rushing to make it to work at 8:30.

When I finally got around to watching the news just a little while ago, it was to find out that last night just after 11 the TTC workers rejected the tentative deal that had been worked out this week, and called a strike as of midnight. This left commuters with barely a half hour's notice that there would be no train service last night, and great difficulty finding contingency plans.

I have no contingency plan today - I am supposed to be at work in an hour and a half. I usually take the bus, and then the subway. I don't drive. A cab downtown from where I live in the suburbs would cost me 2/3 of what I would expect to get paid in a day. So, in about an hour, as soon as I think someone will have arrived at the store, I will be calling my boss to say I'm not coming in to work today. It is likely one of many such phone calls he will get today. So now I am showered, dressed, with nowhere to go, and a suprise day off, which will let me continue studying for my exam on Monday except that I have no coffee.

------------------------------------------------

Out of last night's press release from the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113: “We have assessed the situation and decided that we will not expose our members to the dangers of assaults from angry and irrational members of the public,” said Bob Kinnear, ATU Local 113 President.

Yes that makes a lot of sense - you want to protect your workers from public anger. This is why you called a strike to start 37 minutes after you left the vote - to stop the "irrational" public from being mad at you that you trapped them in the depths of the city, for some with no way to get home.

Kinnear's arrogance astounds me. To pull a stunt like this with no notice, no consideration for the people who rely on public transit in this massive city as their only means to get around. Who already have difficulty paying for the $109 monthly metropasses, or even the single $2.75 fare on a regular basis. I mean it, he has a lot of explaining to do and I hope someone takes him to task. David Miller that is you, and Adam Giambrone that is you.

I had a long debate with my mother about this on the weekend. She is a strong believer in unions and labour action, groups of happy, working, noble individuals banding together to fight "the man" and stand up for their rights. In theory, I am not against that. But in this day and age, the mechanisms are there for workers to be appropriately compensated within the confines of organization policy, industry convention or labour law. There is absolutely no nobility, no integrity, in what the transit unions did this past week and more.

Notice that I did not go so far as my mother and refer to "rights" - the TTC employees do not have a "right" to be paid as well as their counterparts in other cities. There is no logical connection between the two concepts save the arrogance of Toronto transit workers who play the Toronto card as if it means something, as if working in the "centre of the universe" itself entitles you to better conditions than everyone else.

Well I am entitled to some things too. So where the fuck is my union? Who is looking out for my rights? Where is the union for the low-wage retail employees who work on Bay Street but live in Thornhill? Who aren't salary and don't have "sick days" or other paid absences that could fill the void when these self-centred bullies decide to say "Ok. And, we're done". And proceed to shut down the entire city.

It's 7:15. I am going to go call my boss now, and then walk to the grocery store for coffee. And walk back. And keep checking the news to see if there is a chance this mess will be resolved by tomorrow, or if I need to pull some miraculous idea out of the air in order to get to my exam 9am Monday morning.

...the heart waits, and waits...

But how does Phil know?!:

Your heart knows you're not entirely happy with a certain situation or with your declared plan for dealing with it. Coming events will vindicate your viewpoint. Try not to worry about something already on the mend.

...the heart asks pleasure first...

I should be channeling Foucault tonight, instead I am channeling Michael Nyman, clumsily. So clumsily. And very slowly.

Maybe in a few weeks, maybe after the summer, I will sound like this.

...view book...

I am waiting in limbo - the TTC is supposed to announce by 4pm whether they will be striking tomorrow. If they do, a mass of re-organization must be undertaken before the morning. The first part of the store redesign happens tomorrow, but if there is a strike I won't be there. I won't have any way to get downtown. There was a good hour today when I tried to figure out if there was a possibility, and there isn't really. And since I need to get paid to live, and thus need to work, a strike will involve me calling my boss to arrange to work out of another location in the interim. I hate the thought of it, but York Region transit isn't considering a strike, and so can still be used by carless me.

I'm grateful that I even have the option of working out of another store. It's a testament to how important it is to work for an organization or individual that will be flexible in difficult circumstances. There are a lot of people who will not have an option like that tomorrow, and who may be effectively stranded. Individuals who make money above a certain point, and will either be able to work from home tomorrow or to drive to work, aren't likely to be paying attention to these developments with more than a passing interest. For the rest of us, those of us who rely on public transit everyday and pay through the nose for it, it is critical to stay on top of this story.

Everyone involved with the transit union should be ashamed of themselves. There is a shadow of paralysis hanging over this city, all because an army of constantly complaining workers, who, for the most part, are lazy anyway, are threatening to pull the plug on an essential service for which we are already (in taxes, and out of our pockets) paying an exorbitant amount. We are fifty years and more past the need for labour unions which, nowadays, do nothing but ensure complacency, lack of accountability, and a false sense of entitlement. If the service provided by the TTC were as reliable and well-maintained as York Region's VIVA, or the transit staff as professional, I might have supported their call for comparable wages, and the claim to strike action. As it is, I'm sick of the entire organization.

...you touched me for only the second time...

From Phil Booth, for today: There is something that you want and ultimately need to know. There is something else, though, of which you should remain in blissful ignorance. Progress will come, provided you focus carefully today but only on the topic that truly matters.

I'm crazy about someone, I think that matters. But does it *truly* matter? I don't suppose it does, at least insofar as there is very little I can do right now either about it, or to progress it. Blissful ignorance it is then.

What else matters, whose progress I can control? That I can focus my energy on today? A clothes-swap with the ladies, to launch summer right? A new pair of earrings? That certainly needs focus, I am learning to weld!

...faulty discourse...

From a speech at the White House introducing the Pope's visit: "In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish, we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves, but in a spirit of mutual support.''

How ironic that it should be George Bush to say this.

...if you lived here, you'd be home now...

I arrived in Halifax a couple of hours ago and I wish I could tell you more about what I see, but so far all I see is foggy and dark. It's late, and I'm tired, and I'm also not feeling particularly warm to learning my surroundings. I have airplane ear and sinus issues, am coughing and still trying to finish a paper which will be submitted late. The way things are looking, the last two papers of my undergraduate career will both be submitted late. That, and my own persistant insecurities, are making me irritable.

I look out at the water outside my hotel window and wonder what I'm doing here. I hate Toronto, yet I belong there. Everyone here is a stranger. The nicest strangers, but I still can't get comfortable. Halifax is both smaller and infinately larger, and not at all what I am used to.

The flight was short, less than two hours, but I feel misled. This is very far away.

...lost in translation...

I almost started this post in facebook status-speak: "[insert real name here] cannot believe how small the world just got" is what I wanted to say. Instead, I will say this: The world is smaller than we could ever think, it is astonishing. Astonishing!

Also, must everybody know my ex-boyfriend? Must they all know each other, and have six-degrees or less separations that connect his circle to mine? I'm kerflummuxed. Won't this ever end?

I wonder if he knows anybody in Halifax... it would be nice to date somebody and know that none of their friends has ever met my ex or any of his friends.

What a distracting day.

...overheard in starbucks (reprise)...

The two men across from me are having a business meeting of sorts. They are clearly corporate (so far, I am guessing some kind of firm management) but as they sat down the conversation began with a discussion of the first man's "presidential rolex". Covered in triple diamonds on the numbers and inlaid within the solid gold band, it's worth "a couple of cars", somewhere around "150 or so". Thousand, that is.

Now the actual meeting has started - Mr. Presidential is introducing the other gentleman to a personnel management software. I can't hear the name but it sounds fascinating. Apparently, it can categorize people in a company according to their normative personalities and behaviours, whether they are fact-finders, follow-through types, or quick-starters; whether they are resisters, initiaters, patterners or accomodaters. I love this, a software that embeds a psychological index. How Foucauldian - must write John.

Dammit - my ride is here, I have to leave the presentation. Note to self: spend more useless hours in Starbucks just listening to people.

...guilty of dust...

i) I think it's interesting that the top two referrers to my blog are google searches for pictures of cute kittens, and searches for the lyrics to "do you suppose i'd come running". These account for something like 4-5 visitors a day. To any of today's visitors: welcome!

ii) If Frank Bidart and I were ever to meet I would ask him to explain some things to me: mainly how to reconcile the two disparate thoughts in the poem I'm reading today like a horoscope, a harbinger of destiny. He wrote this the year I was born and that, I think, makes it even more significant.

iii) I have written more posts in the last 36 hours than I did during the entire month of March. I hope you have all picked up on (intuited?) the fact that I have three papers due in the next week, and am currently having difficulty writing any of them.

...rimbaud was in my dreams...

The mind wanders, you feel a kiss

On your lips, quivering like a living thing. . .


I think that until this is over I will let my eyes do the talking, and only speak in cryptic references to French poetry. This is the seventeen-year-old in me who can't articulate anything like an adult, but wants to say everything. Everything!

...angels in america...

Only in America would this happen.

...further...

This has now been taken up in my dreams, four times.

...the original title of this post was too corny to be kept...

I learn more everyday, things I can't reconcile with what I thought I knew. I want to tell you (not the collective "you", the blogging ether, but the individual "you" to whom this is not at all directed) about my new addiction, this new website, that I love and I think you would too.

She's right of course, I don't want to get in anybody's way. This is what I meant by "snowglobe", somewhere isolated where things could just play out if we wanted them to. The real world doesn't work that way though, and I can be disappointed about that while accepting the reality of it.

Tomorrow I will run the ravine behind my house with Robert Plant in my head. Tonight there are other things there.