my tragic right hip

It’s so hot in Toronto these days. When we went out for Chinese food this evening it was actually 37 degrees Celsius. That’s a bit crazy. We discovered that of all the things in the house that are wrong (the ants, the smell, the rotten garage roof, the bowing walls in the basement, the bad pipes, the faulty electricity, and I could go on but won’t because the list makes me too sad), there is one thing that’s actually right: the air conditioning actually works. Hallelujah. I feel quite guilty about using it though, so I’m going to re-start my donations to the David Suzuki Foundation and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Foundation next paycheque.

My stomach hasn’t necessarily been coming out of me these past couple of days because the doctor lowered the medication to see if my system could tolerate it better. I’ve stopped throwing up in the morning, and have managed to have a bit more energy than usual, but am still having to curtail my extra-curricular activities. I hate that. Having the disease is one thing, having it totally interfere with my life is completely another.

My head is drowning in blogs. For the past few days all I’ve been doing is reading page after page of posts. A couple of interesting things have come up over the past few days, though.

1) Far, far too many people are thinking about Oprah and her summer reading pick of three William Faulkner novels. The posts range from the sublime to the ridiculous. More on my personal relationship with Faulkner later.

2) I’ve been reading all about the “war” between Curtis Sittenfeld and Melissa Bank. Well, more like Sittenfeld’s comments about Bank’s new novel in the New York Times last week has erupted in a crazy-ass blog debate on the merits of chick lit and those who write it. This afternoon, Buzz, Balls & Hype alerted me to the fact that Jennifer Weiner has now entered the fray.

Technorati reports that there are a whopping 255 posts in the last little while in the “blogosphere” referring to Sittenfeld, the majority of which are either agreeing or disagreeing with her review and the subsequent fallout. Entertainment Weekly‘s review, written, again, by Weiner, gives the book an unmitigated “A.” Now, remember, this is the same magazine that gave the truly audaciously bad Lords of Dogtown (see: my review) an “A” as well.

Yet Weiner is a self-proclaimed chick lit supporter, one whose books realistically and necessarily fit into the genre. It’s no mistake that EW picked Weiner to write the review—a pop culture magazine needs a pop culture reviewer to read the book. There’s no shame in that, there’s no shame in ensuring that you’re writing for an audience, a very particular audience that will be receptive to your point of view. And maybe that’s where the NY Times went wrong, or right, depending upon how you look at it. Weiner’s comments on Sittenfeld’s review are on the mark, that maybe the negativity that so many people are reading into her words stem more from how Prep has been treated a) by its publisher (the white cover w/ the pretty pink belt, the free belt giveaways, the marketing of the book as chick lit) and b) by the legions of people who steadfastedly claim that it’s not chick lit as they defend it open on their laps while on vacation in the Florida Keys.

Maybe having someone whose fighting against the chick lit label review a book so steadfastedly within the genre written by one of the originators of the trend wasn’t the best way to go. And instead of making the fight personal, oohhh look at Sittenfeld attacking Bank, oohhh look at Bank rising above it all, maybe examine the debate from a different point of view and wonder why the NY Times asked her to write it in the first place. Who doesn’t love a bit of controversy?

I read A Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing and didn’t really like it at all, felt it didn’t contain a cohesive and/or coherent narrative, and I really didn’t like the main character. But I’m willing to give The Wonder Spot a try, but I’ll wait until it’s in paperback. But let the blogs go on battling—it’s making my day interesting…

I had a bad dream the other night that the Rock and Roll Boyfriend and I were trapped on a reality television show about home improvement. Perhaps because I’ve been watching way, way too much Holmes on Holmes. But, whatever. I don’t really watch capital “R”, capital “T”, Reality Television, with the exception of a bad American Idol audition or two and the last half of the last season of The Amazing Race (congratulations Lynn and Alex!).

But now after seeing commercials for Dancing With The Stars, I am now convinced that television can sink no lower. No, let me rephrase, C-listers, D-listers, and those even further down, can sink no further—this show feels like the ballroom equivalent of the ridiculous Lorenzo Lamas hot show that was on a couple of years ago. I mean, how much humiliation is honestly worth a) a mediocre paycheque and b) tepid and highly tenuous claims to fame?

Why aren’t people fighting poverty and the AIDS crisis in Africa? I know, it’s a moot point. But I still need to go for the jugular sometimes.

Heh.

Sat in traffic for an hour. Inched along and got hot. Felt annoyed because the cars didn’t move even though they all had places to go. Then the traffic cleared up and I was late.

The Boomtown Rats were right. Have I said that before? I’m sure I have.

Felt sick all day. What else is new ragdoll, you ask? A fat lot of nothing. There was an ant in the house today. I got stuck in two traffic jams, one on the way to work this morning and another on the way to see the specialist for a disease check up. Almost had the runs at work, AT WORK! Am disappointed in myself that I haven’t been doing any writing. The new issue of Taddle Creek came and went and I didn’t hear anything about the two poems I sent. Bah!

Hey, at least I’m not dead yet. And Six Feet Under starts up again today. And the weather’s beautiful. And my garden is growing. It’s not all bad.

They are still alive. I am still attacking.

Ah, the Friday afternoon feeling crappy and lying on the couch wishing that it wasn’t so beautiful outside because you can’t move book that you can finish in less than two hours. Ah, Gemma Townley, taking a page from your sister, literally, and writing a predictable, unassuming book that will sell like wild cakes because people love chicklit, myself included. Ah, if it weren’t a way to pad my list, I’d leave books like this off completely. Ah, but if I were a bigger person who could actually concentrate while dealing with Wegener’s Granulomatosis. Ah, but if I weren’t so utterly and totally sick of watching television and bad movies. Ah, Little White Lies, you served your purpose. You got my mind off the disease for a short period of time and that’s all I can really ask of a book of your sort.

After three solid days of feeling like complete crap, I woke up on Saturday morning feeling much better. I had made plans with Zesty to make a trip to Humber Nurseries and buy plants for our front garden. We spent, ahem, loads and bought some really neat plants, Black-Eyed Susans, poppies, lavender, ferns, sweet little baby’s breath and some other stuff I can’t remember.

Now, keep in mind, I’ve never gardened before. Unlike Zesty, who should open up her own firm called Urban Girls Gardeners. She’s awesome. It’s like watching someone utterly and completely in their element, a whole new side of someone I’ve known now for the better part of twenty years. It was quite incredible.

Then I managed to go for a bike ride to see Manny, the osteopath, who ended up doing some wacky treatments where he wore a glove and stuck his fingers in my mouth. It was surreal to say the least. The man remains truly amazing for his ability to capture the essence of what’s wrong with my body: all of the places he treated are the ones affected by the disease.

By the time I got home, the RRBF was home so we went to our local pub and had dinner. We then walked around our old neighbourhood, visited the CD store, and he bought me a Wilco album (“Seventeenth”). We had just watched the documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart; it’s all about the recording of their record, “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” All in all, a great Saturday.

Too much to ask even, that when I woke up this morning, I had energy. We went out to eat breakfast, got home, cleaned the house, went to see Cinderella Man (predictably good) and have made dinner. It’s amazing to feel like a normal person. A gift after the week I had last week.

Back to work tomorrow. Fingers crossed my good luck, good mood and relatively good health holds up. It’s back to the doctor tomorrow.

Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road is one of those rare books that you read and automatically believe will become a classic of Canadian, if not world, literature.

Three Day Road tells the story of two Native Canadian men, Xavier Bird and Elijah Whiskeyjack, who leave Northern Ontario to join the army and fight in the First World War. Interspersed with Xavier’s story is the story of his aunt, Niska, who raised him.

It’s a haunting, intelligent and meticulously researched book that provides a very different perspective on the war. But it’s also a wonderfully genuine novel about the love of one woman for her nephew, for her way of life, and how the world changed the Native Canadian experience both by its modernization and by the evils of colonialism. Xavier’s life changes the minute he steps out of his canoe and into a world where bombs explode and morphine addiction becomes a way of life for many of the young soldiers.

It’s a book that deals with the heroic actions of the Canadians, of how it changed our national identity, but only in context to Xavier’s very real and very different perspective on life as a Canadian solider. As the tale circles around the relationship between the two men, Xavier, quiet, withdrawn, and Elijah, outgoing and with a talent for languages, they change in ways that Boyden carefully relates through how they deal with the war.

It’s a glorious novel, and one that I won’t be able to forget any time soon. One that resonates with you even though your stomach is churning and your own body refuses to rest.

My favourite phrase from Anne of Green Gables, “the depths of despair,” seems to sum up how I’ve been feeling the last few days. On Wednesday night, all seemed so hopeful as I’m blogging about Chicklit and other good things. Then at about 8 PM, everything fell apart, including my body.

I threw up everything in my stomach, and suffered awfully, ahem, in the other direction, and I started running a fever again. My body sort of collapsed on me just going through the regular motions of being a girl. And I’m still feeling weak, tired and mentally exhausted by it all.

At least I see the doctor on Monday and can find out what’s happening with the disease. I’m tired of being scared all the time.