the older i become, the more beautifully wrought narratives break my heart. be it film (wong kar wai) or fiction (david mitchell), these creations pain me, for the infinite courage and energy that is demanded to shape these stories in face of the daily drudgery of life.

Labels: art, books, film, life

- not from the consumption of kidneys masquerading as brains though. ah hana, i was feasting at a restaurant on bay street, and being a rather innocent new carnivore, i had naïve thoughts regarding the misnomer "sweetbreads". i pictured tiny toasted breads drizzled with a bit of honey and olive oil, perhaps some fresh black olives to boot, accompanied by flat pasta and pesto. instead i got brain-looking clumps and sweet tomato sauce.

please don't look at me askance, if i'd known the real origin of sweetbreads i would never have ordered the dish - in my new carniverous state, i am finding lines of politics i lacked completely as a self-appointed vegetarian (at the age of seven) who detested the texture of meat. i hate eating anything from baby animals. i will leave it at that, as i can feel my laptop misting over with tears already.

in other news

possible sappho hiatus
the beloved toni has come down with The Flu and a Complication: Ear Infection. as such sappho has assumed the role of nurse, a role filled equanimously by the aforementioned toni for many months prior as sappho's immune system tried to prove it did not exist. as such poor toni is taking Almost but not Quite Lethal Amounts of Tylenol™ and Antibiotics (10 Days). i am worried about his fever and hoping it will break in the next day or so. but i might not be able to update, for i am a Nurse and a Fundraiser at the same time, with a grant due this friday.

good things do come from complications
due to being under the weather, toni is watching lots of bbc television shows rented from bay st. video and by the end of the night - when his headache gets worse - i read to him. which means, to my delight, i am finally sharing diana gabaldon's stories with him. we are in chapter 4 of outlander, and i must say i am thoroughly enjoying reading this tale aloud. and toni, of course, is loving the story.

layout
dear tulip, thanks for the feedback. turned out i didn't have to do anything to the code itself - i published a post using the IE browser, and lo! the format and font worked. bizarre, but very gratifying. it looks pretty, no?

love,
sappho

Labels: books, food, sick

the personal history of sappho, that is - as the first time in my 23 years that i have eaten kidneys.

it was a mistake - i didn't know what i was eating at the time. although i guess it doesn't really make things better to have thought i was eating brains.

Labels: food, too funny

photo from cbc online

pedro almodóvar's latest film, volver, opens on november 24 in toronto & vancouver. if you get a chance to see this, go - penelope cruz is supposed to be phenomenal in this film.

Labels: film

i went to the eye doctor today. i've never met him before - i have a slew of new doctors to see, now that i've found a GP in toronto. the opthamologist i saw today was incredibly personable - such a relief! so many doctors are sticks in the mud. i'm glad they're doing interviews for incoming med students. it's so important to have a good skill set in dealing sensitively with patients.

anyway my eyes are dilated - i look in the mirror and they are pools of black, with tiny tiny rims of greeny-amber around them. it's so bright outside today - not only is my depth perception altered slightly because i have to wear glasses today (normally i wear contacts) - but the light is making everything look overexposed. overexposed the way you can slightly overexpose film, and create a white halo around things. colours are a bit more intense too. definitely trippy :)

in other news

colours
since i can't see, and have to bend forward so far towards the screen without glasses on in order to decipher the shapes i am typing, i am going to paint in oils today. stinky, lovely, swirly, crazy painting. it's been a long time coming. i haven't painted in a while. this is going to be an adventure in bravery.

leetle caribbean frog
my uncle, who lives in st. lucia, brought me some little hand-painted figures from the island. he said they reminded him of me. one is a seahorse - it was the first one i unwrapped, and as soon as i saw it i began to cry. the last gift i brought my grandmother before she died was a beautiful glass seahorse she could hang in her room to enjoy. my uncle also gave me a seaturtle, and a little frog. they all keep me company as i work at my desk. here is my leetle frog.



love,
sappho

Labels: grief, love, perception

happiness is all sorts of things.

you have to create the things though.

the things aren't always tangible.

i try to keep that in mind.

Labels: love

this is an article about wong kar wai's new film, my blueberry nights. i am a little bit nervous about the film as it will be the first one mr. wong has created without christopher doyle, his cinematographer of 15 years. a fresh look, for sure - i will be curious to see it once it hits the shelves.

Labels: film, wong kar wai

yesterday toni, a, and i went to innis for a reel asian screening that the tjsff was co-presenting. a asked me on saturday to make a speech before the screening, so i prepared a short one and spoke yesterday. i am really terrible at making speeches - i get nervous in front of crowds* - but the more i do it the easier it gets. yesterday was great. i still shook a bit once i had sat down and went to put my speech away but i was cool as a cucumber up there. also i didn't move around like i normally do which was refreshing. maybe i really am growing up :)

in other news

the future: spastic planning
this morning i made a 3-year plan :O no, really, it is a framework of fairly certain goals we need to hit by specific months and the stuff we need to do in the months ahead to accomplish the goals. i am hoping some of the timelines are a bit big and will end up moving closer together. *touch wood*

daydreams
sometimes i find i've fallen into a daydream without realizing it and there is a house, with tiny pattering feet, and loving arms, and curiousity. i hope so much this happens. i am always scared that something within me will fail everything - and yet it's that fear, of the weak part of me giving in, that makes the stronger part of me ever so determined to keep going.

post-it note
*have any of you ever seen jerry seinfeld's spot on fear? he says the number 1 fear people cite is speaking in front of crowds. he then says, "it's the no. 1 fear - no. 2 is death. it's ahead of death!" that always makes me laugh. it also oddly helps me not be too scared when i have to talk in front of people. practice, practice, practice...

Labels: daydreams, future

we are making steaks in a red wine reduction. and couscous with cumin and peppers. with vegetables doused in a balsamic vinaigrette. and red wine to accompany.

ohhh i love food.

Labels: cooking, food, yumyumyum

we are going to visit glenn gould's grave site after checking out a place up by Sunnybrook. i tried to find his grave site ages ago - i think in the first year i moved to toronto. instead i ended up wandering around mount pleasant cemetery with my older sister and her boyfriend for a couple of hours. it was a beautiful day and the cemetery was gorgeous. i feel weird saying that about a cemetery but mount pleasant is a beautiful, beautiful site.

we're up really early today to accomplish all of this (as well as make our appointment at sunnybrook) and - well - we are fairly exhausted. i haven't been sleeping well because the moist weather makes it incredibly hard to breath. i can't relax enough when i'm in bed to fall asleep. so i've been up late most of this week. (it's been a rainy dreary week.)

ahhh the coffee is up. the santa claus parade is this weekend :) have a lovely saturday!

Labels: cemetery, gould, mmm coffee

i got it here. i hope you like!

something must be going on with my uterus. that's the only reason i can explain the sudden explosive proliferation of kittens, puppies, and baby penguins all over this blog. not to mention the tiredness, weird dreams, and constant having to pee*.

nah, i'm not pregnant. my body just *thinks* it is, and is thereby reducing my leetle brain to a teaspoonful of mush. (i am not by any means asserting that this is what pregnancy does to all brains. on the contrary, this is a symptom that occurs only in MY head. i've got ownership of ze mush, ok? look. look. mush™ <- © sappho in perpetuum, ok? ok.)

in other news

sappho is linguistic
i'm taking intermediate spanish classes! that means i get to be zonky and excited about stem-changing verbs, and i get to conjugate. last night toni and i were being really stupid silly and while i was going to brush my teeth after a series of disconnected crazy jokes toni walked by me and said, a la robin williams, "i wuv uuuuu". which made me giggle and then think, "this is such a random house!". which, from the stupid silly mood prevailing, made me collapse on the bed (after i shared my stupid silly joke with toni) in a fit of giggles. jokes for nerds! jokes for nerds! (thanks ze) (what the hell did the previous 4 sentences have to do with being linguistic? *tangent alert, tangent alert*.)

tiny toenails are endangered
yesterday i lost my right tiny toenail for the upteenth time. it never fails to fall off, nor does it fail to annoy me every time it decides to expire. i can't stand looking at my feet and knowing there's something missing. it's incomplete and imperfect. damn leetle toenail.

mmm...pomegranates
it is pomegranate season! my new favourite word spelled incorrectly in croatian is chipak! EVEN BETTER i can combine my two favourite croatian words to form one of the AWESOMEST PHRASES EVER TO HIT THE PLANET EARTH! get ready for it baby cuz this one is thunderous:

šipak na piajatu!

ohhhh that was so worth it.

en español: la granada está en el plato

em português: molly? molly?

katika kiswahili: tulip! tulip!

*uhhhh, actually, i think i haven't mentioned my constant need to pee before. UNTIL NOW!

Labels: the pomegranate is on the plate

today is a day where i am half-asleep when i'm awake and i should just curl up in my jammies, not shower, and read a good book. and drink sleepy tea. zrrrrr. can't. wake. up. problem: i don't have a good book to read in the house. (apparently the other good books i could read require too much brain power from me today). <- sucks.

instead i've just been reading the news.

sucks.

yay.

zrrrrr.

snortgucklekdjfwe. zonk.

Labels: zleepy

i love this guy. he has made me laugh so hard i cried.

Labels: brilliant, too funny

i had a nightmare last night. i kept waking up and knowing i was having a nightmare; then when i fell back asleep the nightmare continued. when i think about the nightmare now i am awake, it was really weird. but it was awful too. i dreamt i was at home, in londontown, and it was really late (i had stayed up watching tv (not a normal pastime in my house, i assure you, which made the dream weirder). i was taking out my contacts, in a bathroom on the first floor that was located where we have our library in real life. i looked out the back windows into our driveway (before taking out my contacts) and saw a man in a jeep, who was turned around, wearing sunglasses (very weird, it was past midnight) looking straight at me but he didn't see me. then somebody cut the power. all the lights went out - in the grounds behind our house, in the house itself - it was pretty much pitch black. i knew something was very wrong - they were going to invade the house and hurt us (we were protecting something valuable, a valuable piece of knowledge that my dad knew). so i ran up the stairs two at a time, and woke up my dad, asked where my mother was, and my younger brother. he said they were upstairs on the computer. so i told him we needed to go in the hideout because people were coming. we ran upstairs with our cat and apparently there was a secret, soundproof, bomb-proof room on the third floor* off the computer room. and the computer room had lots of bookshelves (not true in waking life), one of which was a secret doorway to this room that was equipped for us to hide in for several days. we were stuck in there forever. it got more and more complicated - the people invading the house could detect cell phone signals, to tell where we were, so we couldn't use our cell phones to call for help (my brother had his mobile phone with him in my dream), but we had a computer on a separate wireless network that we communicated through. and a swat team had to come because the people invading the house had a bomb.

at the point where a swat team member told us (via the computer) that they had subdued the invaders and we could come out, i woke up. i've been off ever since (i usually am when i wake up from the middle of a dream). very exhausted and my brain hurts. i was amazed how traumatized i felt when i woke up. it was the weirdest dream i've had in a while.

c'est bizarre.

*i was thinking later, once i woke up and had had a shower, that it was really pointless to have a shelter on the third floor. i mean, if the house collapsed, we'd be goners. for future reference: if i ever have a bomb shelter in my house, or whatever you want to call the secret room, it will be in the basement. however, the fact that i just shared this does not give you license to invade my house and steal the valuable knowledge that only i, in the entire world, know.

Labels: aliens control my brain

to count all items i plan to purchase at the dollar store in order to helpfully tell the girl at the till, and while gesturing towards the baskets i intend to purchase and their contents, get my fingers stuck in the rungs of the basket to such an extent that i cannot get them out until the kindly girl at the till and i wrestle with the basket for a good 2 minutes.

my fingers are, of course, none the worse for wear after being strangled by a plastic white basket. i, on the other hand, am slightly traumatized.

Labels: finger-eating-baskets, i would be the one

seeing the kitten tonight, now with a proper name - Beckett - and my older sister's two cats. Beckett's auntie is very proud. he is proper, adorable, brilliant, and angsty. life couldn't be better.

i wonder if the real Beckett could purr. (Blasphemy, sappho, blasphemy! i will be doomed to the circle of dante's hell where everyone is waiting for godot.)

i learned how to replace direct objects with pronouns in spanish class today. it was very exciting. except i must have forgotton to switch my brain on, because all day i've felt like i'm thinking three speeds slower than normal. i did accomplish a lot - clean dishes, dropped off toni's shirts at the cleaner's, did laundry, worked on tjsff stuff, making dinner now. yet i think i'm only using 1/4 of the brain power i normally do. i think i can tell this because i know i could go lie down on our bed and be out like a light in less than 1 nanosecond.

i keep reading the news to stay awake. democrats ahoy!

Labels: kittens, no brain, politics, ponderous

i had planned out a really nice, rewarding afternoon for myself today (i was a bit frazzled, shall we say, from a weekend running to london and back to say farewell to a cousin of mine who is going to south korea again for 3 years. we share many similar interests and have great conversations, and i am just going to miss him a hell of a lot. especially since he doesn't really have plans to come back. insert tears and horrible missing feeling here)

back to my afternoon. my nice, rewarding time to myself consisted of:

1. doing laundry (i know, i know. i just like the smell and softness of clean sheets and towels, it's comforting)
2. going to chapters
3. buying a book
4. sitting in a coffee shop reading said book, drinking really really really good espresso.
   

my younger sister called this morning because my older sister is in england for the week and needs her cats looked after. my younger sister (MYS? MYS.) ahem. MYS has been ill and she sounded kind of meh on the phone so i said i would look after the cats this week and she didn't have to stop by my older sister's place at all. MYS has essays due and stuff, and i don't, PLUS i remember what it feels like, so. sigh. anyway i was talking with her and she's been planning to get a cat for some time. "some time" apparently had turned into "today" and she said she didn't want anyone else but me to come with her to get it. so my rewarding afternoon was spent bonding with her Great Pyrenees in the lobby of the humane society. i really needed to bond with her Great Pyrenees, because he is really funny and smart and we hadn't had a chance to get to know each other very well until today.

i walked through the cat section of the humane society after MYS had checked it out and picked out a few kittens to consider (she initially wanted a grown cat because they aren't adopted as often, but because of The Great Pyrenees (TGP) she was told a younger cat would be much better.)

it was so hard walking through the aisles of cages, with the cats sleeping or just lying there with their eyes open, staring at nothing. the kittens were up at the front of the cage, and mewed as soon as they saw anybody, and they looked heartbroken when you walked away. i was in tears by the end of it. i wanted at least to make every single one of them a little home, all of their own, while they waited for someone who could take them, instead of those cold, hard cages with the little towels. i know they do an amazing job at the society, it's just there's only so much you can really do with that number of animals.

while i was waiting in the lobby with TGP a couple dropped off their grown cat, and another woman came in with three kittens that had been abandoned in her neighborhood. she said she'd posted "Lost" signs but no one had called yet.

they were so tiny. how can you abandon a kitten?

MYS got a 2 month old cat. he's absolutely beautiful, so brave, and affectionate. he is black all over except for under his chin, his belly, his front paws and hind legs, where he is white. he has long fur and the tiniest little ears and paws. his eyes are amber. he is the most roly-poly adventurous calm snuggly kitten you've met. TGP hates him but soon he will be reconciled. soon meant in all relative dog and cat time, of course. it will take a while.

i'm glad at least this one little guy has a good home. i'm going to figure out a way to help the rest. once i get a good plan together i will email some of you to see if you can help.

Labels: adoption, animals

yesterday, while visiting lucy pepper's site, i clicked on a link through to non-working monkey's site (also linked on the sidebar) and immediately fell in love. mostly because i have a soft spot for monkeys, because of this picture:

and this picture:
(both from bbc online)

what can i say? monkeys know how to chill, man. in any case, NWM has a Splendid Gallery of Monkey Pictures going. drawn monkeys, that is. so i took it upon myself to draw one, for fun, and i sent it in; and NWM was lovely enough to put it up.

hie yourselves over to non-working monkey's site and scroll through the archives for some groovy writing!

p.s. the monkeys in the first picture are watching a game of cricket :)

Labels: blogs, monkeys