Category Archives: True Stories

Anecdotes from my past and present.

Toronto, Day 199

By | |
Comments Off on Toronto, Day 199

imageI spent this past weekend at SF Contario, a small and very writing-centered convention (as opposed to game-y or costume-y) at a hotel just on the edge of the Ryerson Campus. There was much hanging out with writers, and shop talk, and delightful analysis of the fiction we all love. And, of course, the conversation wandered into other kinds of stories: TV shows and films ranging from Battlestar Galactica to Veronica Mars to the little-known Eastwick with Paul Gross.

I also learned that GoH Seanan McGuire‘s favorite book is Stephen King’s IT, and we got to talk about why, and chew through some of the issues I raised with the book in my recent(ish) reread of the novel, “Grownups are the Enemy” for Tor.com.

Kelly and I also headed into Cabbagetown for what was really the first time, in search of an Italian restaurant we’d heard was the real deal. And Oh Emm Gee. If you’re ever in town and want to go to F’Amelia, I am so there. Two words: beet risotto. K, I think, got pictures. I was far too busy stuffing my face.

Toronto, Day 175

By | |
2 Comments

My day counting app also informs me that it has been 696 days since Kelly and I left for Italy. Man, I want to go back! It has even been just shy of a year (321 days, to be precise) since our last real vacation, a family gathering in Reno.

It feels like a year since Christmas. It’s a bit cold today, and the forecast gives us a 1 in 3 chance of snow. But apparently Toronto is like Vancouver in that the closer you are to downtown and the water, the less likely it is to give forth with what K calls the space lice. Even so, Glenn Gould is setting his cap against the wind:

All Imported-371

A recent post by Snuffy about strategies for battling the blues (my phrase, not hers, and an oversimplification at that) heightened my awareness that there has been a lot of dull monastic virtue going on in the Dua household of late. We’re eating right and flossing and going to yoga. Early to bed, early to rise. With lots of work in between. I’ve gotten the copy-edits finished. I sent a story off yesterday. I’m about to embark on fifteen critiques for the current Novel I class.

This is the sort of lifestyle that leads to shit getting done but also sometimes, a general feelings of being unfabulous.

But tonight we’re going to partake, for good or ill, of Thor: The Dark World. Tomorrow there’s a Met in HD opera, Wednesday there’s the monthly ChiSeries reading, and next week we’re seeing Eddie Izzard.

Toronto, Day 171

By | |
Comments Off on Toronto, Day 171

I haven’t been posting much lately, and haven’t had the urge to post much, to be truthful. Some of that’s probably about Minnow’s having died; it’s the sort of thing that makes one turn inward, at least if that one is me. There’s also the fact that a few of the most dramatic things going on here are too personal to share, because of the other people involved. Or they’re work-related, and confidential as a result.

Having said that, it’s generally true that life is good and I am well. And I hope to just magically end up in a more communicative space soon, as time passes, things happen, and I get ’round to photodocumenting my every move once again.

In the meantime, here’s a picture from Nuit Blanche. Did I show you this already? I loved this installation, which was called Tanks, 2013:

Nuit Blanche Toronto 2013

A farewell to Minnow, 2001-2013 (Toronto, Day 160)

By | |
7 Comments

Many of you probably already know that Minnow hasn’t been all that well for the past year, so I hope this isn’t too much of a shock. She declined a bit last week, got worse this week, and just now at the vet’s we agreed her time had come.

Here she is springing about in Vancouver a couple years ago.

As Rumble is such a jealous little bully, and we are so determined to spoil him, we will be violating our two-cat policy, and won’t be seeking a new baby. He is, as of now, our only child.

Romeo and Juliet, buy a condo edition

By | |
Comments Off on Romeo and Juliet, buy a condo edition

There are a large number of condos-in-progress in our neighborhood, and each of them, pretty much, has a display suite with a sales office. There’s one I pass four to five times a week which has annoyed me simply by being closed whenever I might be inclined to go in.

We aren’t necessarily gonna buy, or buy here, but it’s intelligence-gathering.

Anyway, said place–King Blue–was open to the public for Nuit Blanche and had actors doing the Romeo and Juliet farewell scene in their demo suite. I have no idea who these actors are, but they had smoking chemistry.
My Photo Stream-968

They also had the Hamlet gravediggers in their main sales center, but R&J were just plain better.