the real canadian superstore

i was having a BAD DAY until i got to commercial and broadway this morning, when i began to have a GOOD DAY. three reasons for that:
+ an ad for long distance phone plans in a bus shelter, which was a big map of north america, divided by states and provinces, on which each name was 'vancouver'. there was north vancouver and lake vancouver and new vancouver and many, many, vancouvers. every state, lake, province, and island was called VANCOUVER. it made me so happy!

+ humming leonard cohen, 'democracy'. from the brave, the bold, the battered heart of Chevrolet. Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

+ my coffee was already there for me when i got to the till at blenz, because i get a double espresso from them every day and they know me.

other points.
+ i made a new friend today! how lovely!

+ we will be moving may 1 into a townhouse in the coop. the interior work will likely be finished in april, so we will be able to move gradually, over the span of several weeks. how relaxing!

+ i won an election w/o any effort at all. i can only assume that i won on people's faith that i would do a good job, despite my lack of previous experience in the job. i'll be working for a semester with several people that i know to be really good, and others that i don't know well yet. work with good people. all else will follow.

+ i am sitting on two search committees for the university right now, and am learning an incredible amount about the way the world works. i am also feeling especially competent about my knowledge of the university's recent history. i know more about the department of student services than many people in very senior positions within the broader university. we have engaged an executive search firm: korn ferry. crazy! shortlisting is a strange process, and one in which i am torn between the hive mind and anxiety of influence. the skill to effectively shortlist candidates and defend selections is one i am glad to develop. also, watching some very professional people and others less-so going though the same process is invaluable in and of itself.

+ thinking about iPods and politics and the effects of absenting oneself from daily conversation. i wish i could avoid the chatter on buses to and from school. there is always awkwardly strained conversation as people who barely know each other and do not, in fact, want to talk, feel forced to chat after bumping into each other on the bus. witnessing awkward moments of this nature stresses me out. this is why i avoid stand-up comedy. i have had, for several months now, a very difficult time focusing on anything but these incredibly banal conversations when i am within earshot. i want a portable personal music player again, to block it all out!

i saved an article from the globe about '(i)pod-people', suggesting that our collective fixation with developing our own intensely personal playlists, rather than listening to, for example, radio stations has led to a vacuum of collective culture. this impacts politics, where, after not finding a candidate to exactly match our personal 'playlist' of criteria, we turn off of politics altogether. as we absent ourselves from mass cultural phenomena, do we also enter an age of personal politics? not individualism, but simply an aversion to any collective expression of politics that would dilute personal 'playlists'? gasp, the end of democracy! these are fun things to think about.

+ reading margaret atwood's 'dancing girls' again. i read it last in november 2001. i feel blind for several pages of each story, until i get through enough to remember how i visualized the story upon first reading. i visualize stories very intensely, but without details. it's all very impressionist. lots of focus on specific colours, temperatures, weather, furnishings. no focus on people, or facial features. blank, shapeless people moving in intensely structured envorinments. i assume i do this because the stories provide the characterization, and i have to fill in the rest. it beomes frustrating when i remember a specific visual, but cannot recall where it came from.