I know that I haven't written anything in here in well over a year and most of you probably stopped reading me ages ago. I kept thinking about reviving this thing without really wanting to make the effort of sitting down and writing something, but then J.D. Salinger died this week and since this blog gets its name from a line in Franny and Zooey I thought it seemed appropriate.

I've loved Salinger since I was in high school, even if he was kind of a hot mess. His eccentric beliefs, bizarre behaviour and complete disdain for women are all well-documented in his daughter Margaret's fascinating if poorly edited memoirs. On top of all that, he seemed to have an intense dislike (and distrust) for anybody who admired his work. In spite of these things, his books are among my favourites.

His stories were funny, sad, smart, and complex without being pretentious. When he wrote about the Glass family, I felt as though I'd known them for years, and could easily picture every last, tiny detail about their lives. His books were safe, comfortable worlds that I could easily slip in and out of, the way a favourite story should be, and every time I read them I find something new to love. And nobody, but nobody wielded italics the way he did.

I think that part of my sadness over Salinger's death comes from the fact that he was one of the last great mid-century writers left alive. When I think of him, I think of Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. There's something about the mixture of post-war hope, fear and claustrophobia that I love - as if they knew how quickly the world was changing, but at the same time it couldn't change fast enough for them. Salinger's death seems like the end of a writing era that I loved, and I worry that I'll never love any new books as much as I love ones that were written 50 years ago.

RIP Mr. Salinger. In spite of everything, I thought you were pretty great.

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

Tee hee.

 Not much to report here except that it's SUNNY and it's going up to 20 on Thursday and I love spring in Toronto! I'm so excited to see flowers and leaves on the trees again! I am also excited to be able to stop wearing pants soon, ie. I am going to wear skirts and dresses every single day. I love sundress time!

Also, I have to go to work later, but I got to sleep in today, and that always helps. 

Also, I really, really, really want a bike, with a big wicker basket on the front. I'm searching craigslist every day - I'll let you know how this goes!

Hopefully my good mood lasts the day!

Facebook - is it worth my time?

Or should I continue to be pathetically proud that I'm the last person on earth without either a Facebook account or a cell phone?

It's been a while since I wrote something other than a random short post or a long complain-y post, so I thought that I would do a proper update.

The end of March was the one year anniversary of my arrival in Toronto and, now that winter's finally over, I'm liking the city a lot more. I've made a few friends, and found a few old high school friends, so things are pretty good on that front. Work generally keeps me really busy but on the whole I'm enjoying it, so I can't really make any complaints. It's nice to be at head office twice a week - it definitely helped with the monotony I was feeling.

April 8th is the anniversary of the day that Kurt Cobain's body was found, apparently - it's also the anniversary of when Matt and I first hooked up at a cast party three years ago. Matt had to be in Kitchener-Waterloo at the end of last week for work, and I had Thursday and Friday off, so we decided to do the anniversary celebrating thing then. It was really fun - we went out for dinner, we went for a walk, and then we went back to the hotel and had hot-anniversary-hotel sex. Then we watched movies on his laptop and passed out.

The hotel we stayed at had this bed-and-breakfast deal where if you paid an extra ten dollars for your room, you got to have breakfast in their café. The breakfast was SO. GOOD. We were only supposed to get a coffee, a juice and an entrée each, but our waitress was this cozy Cape Breton woman and she let us have whatever we wanted. I had this giant fruit and yogurt parfait thing and also toast. I want more. I think about this fruit parfait thing on like a daily basis, but I'm not sure that I could re-create it properly. It's sad for me, it really is.

I magically had Sunday off, too, so we went for a long walk in Bloor West Village and ate ice cream and then walked in High Park and held hands and giggled like teenagers. Have I mentioned that I love Matt? Because I do. That was really kind of the point of this post. I'm not really very good at expressing positive emotions, especially talking about how I love people, so I wanted to make a point of saying how much I love this dude and how happy I am that we're still together three years later and he still makes me really happy. Even if he did make an awesome stirfry last night while I was at work and the house smelled SO GOOD when I got home and he hadn't saved me any leftovers. Even while I was busy being hungry and annoyed about my lack of stirfry, I still loved him. So I guess it's meant to be.

THE END

 I went with my friend to see Basia Bulat play at Lee's Palace last night. SO. GOOD.  Any band that has an autoharp, a viola, an accordian and a banjo on stage gets my endorsement.

I'm totally smitten.