girl, narrated

Since I've Been Gone...

2007-10-11T23:36:00.000-04:00

Oh, yes, I used to have a blog...

I started my "new job" over a year ago now.
Funny that it still feels new, but I've finally settled in enough to start doing creative things again...

Lately I've been doing the photoblogging thing and have become quite addicted to shutterchance.

I've enrolled in a fiction workshop and have snatches of narrative strolling through my head again.

It's a good feeling.

2007-01-01T16:07:00.000-05:00

Taking some time to decide what to do with this space...

Fish and Chicklets

2006-08-22T10:15:00.000-04:00

It seems that vegetarianism is going out of style these days, and I'm not the only former vegan turning to fish - Losing My Veginity.

Also new and interesting on The Tyee, the Chick Lit debate.

Rainy Sundays

2006-08-21T10:42:00.000-04:00

After braving the rain to get more eggs and fresh bread from the bakery, we had scrambled eggs with green onions, spinach, and chèvre, and fresh bread with my grandmother's homemade raspberry jam (which is, sadly, almost gone).

Hot Saturdays

2006-08-20T18:57:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was another hot Saturday in Montreal. After a long day of running around we were too hungry (and it was too hot) to make anything complicated and opted for simple quality. But it turned out quite tasty. Toni made an appetizer out of a baguette, chèvre chaud, pesto, and cherry tomatoes. I made spinach seminola pasta with spinach, broccoli, artichoke hearts, and black olives in tomato sauce.

Thursday Night Scallops

2006-08-19T00:33:00.000-04:00

Another first in the Lesley kitchen: scallops. My dear friend Caro came over for the occasion, and I combined a few recipes to make pan-fried scallops (I used olive oil instead of butter and added a bit of ginger) topped with tangerine vanilla seafood sauce on brown rice (cooked with garlic, ginger, and tamari for flavour), and sauteed green beans (also with ginger and garlic).

Simplicity

2006-08-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

Simple but tasty breakfast: plain organic yoghurt, a dash of my grandmother's homemade raspberry jam, and sliced yellow plums topped with slivered almonds.

One Pan Frittata Dinner

2006-08-16T19:25:00.000-04:00

I was a vegan until about a year ago and have only recently incorporated eggs into my diet. I never thought I liked eggs, but at some point during the past year I tried a few egg dishes at brunch (huevos rancheros, omelettes, or even plain old scrambled eggs) and discovered how good they could be. So for my first egg-based dish, I decided to modify this one-pan frittata recipe.

Since my kitchen isn't fully stocked and I only have one non-stick pan, the one pan thing worked well from me. Also, I remembered at the last minute that I don't have a measuring cup yet, so measurements are very approximate. Here's my version:

Serves About 4

Approx 1C Grelot/Small Potatoes (Closest to new potatoes I could find)
Approx 2C Veggies (Red, orange, yellow, and green peppers, broccoli, and green and white onion)
4 Brown Eggs, beaten
Goat cheddar cheese
Pinch of chili powder
Salt, Pepper, Herbes de Provence

I found I needed to cook it for longer than that recipe called for, and probably should have fried the vegetables longer (and with more oil) before adding the eggs and goat cheese. But still, it was tasty, especially with a side salad.

Spinach Pasta with Shrimp Veggie Stir-Fry in Tomato Sauce

2006-08-14T13:30:00.000-04:00

It's been a summer of a bit too much eating out, and now that I'm finally relatively settled in a new apartment, I figure it's high time I got back into cooking. I thought that adding a food component to my existing blog might help to motivate me, so here you have it! I'm starting out simple, so forgive me if this seems rather basic.

1. Get water boiling and cook spinach pasta noodles while making stir-fry.

2. Sautée onions, garlic, mushrooms, and green onions in a little olive oil. Throw in some herbs like basil and oregano.

3. Add green, red, yellow, and orange peppers.

4. Heat up the tomato sauce on minimum.

5. Add a bit of water, broccoli, and shrimp to the stir-fry.

6. Drain noodles when they're cooked and run under hot water.

7. When the stir-fry is ready, add more herbs, salt, and fresh ground pepper.

8. Arrange noodles, sauce, and stir-fry on plate, adding a little parmasan cheese for garnish: presto!

P.S. I seem to be having a problem with my Flickr photos. Usually I upload in the large format and get much better quality, but these seem to have been automatically uploaded into a lower quality and resolution format and I can't figure out why. Anyone know how to resolve this?

It's Not Easy Being Green

2006-08-14T12:09:00.000-04:00

Sadly, things aren't looking so green in Montreal. Not only has Quebec "missed the boat" on converting to organic farming, but one of the community gardens was recently found to have abnormally high levels of lead and arsenic.

The $2.13 Million Dollar Comma

2006-08-07T14:06:00.000-04:00

It's summertime, and as usual I've been spending much less time in front of the computer than during other seasons. I think this article, however, merits my return to the blogsphere. People may grimace at dinner parties when I say that I enjoy grammar and copy editing, but hey, it's important!

Grammar Geek

2006-05-25T12:33:00.000-04:00

I'm re-reading William Zinsser's On Writing Well. It's full of good reminders, such as:

"Prune out the small words that qualify how you feel and how you think and what you saw: 'a bit,' 'a little,' 'sort of,' 'kind of,' 'rather,' 'quite,' 'very,' 'too,' 'pretty much,' 'in a sense' and dozens more. They dilute your style and your persuasiveness.

Don't say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.

Don't say you weren't too happy because the hotel was pretty expensive. Say you weren't happy because the hotel was expensive. Don't tell us you were quite fortunate. How fortunate is that? Don't describe an event as rather spectacular or very awesome. Words like "spectacular" and "awesome" don't submit to measurement. 'Very' is a useful word to achieve emphasis, but far more often it's clutter. There's no need to call someone very methodical. Either he is methodical or he isn't.

The larger point is one of authority. Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold" (p. 71-72).

And sometimes Zinsser is just plain amusing. About the exclamation mark, he writes:

"Don't use it unless you must to achieve a certain effect. It has a gushy aura, the breathless excitement of a debutante commenting on an event that was exciting only to her: 'Daddy says I must have had too much champagne!' 'But honestly, I could have danced all night!'" (p. 72).

Last week I attended an EAC copyediting seminar that brought out my inner grammar geek and made me want to read more about writing, editing, and grammar. My favourite writing guide during my undergrad was Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. During my stint as a Teaching Assistant and tutor, I found Diana Hacker's A Canadian Writer's Reference indispensable. Does anyone have further recommendations?

What's happening to women's rights in NB?

2006-05-25T09:54:00.000-04:00

New Brunswick is the only province in Canada that does not pay for abortions performed in clinics. This violates the Canada Health Act, and the former Liberal government even threatened to withhold health funding to the province. (I'm not sure if the current government would make the same threat.) The Fredericton hospital recently announced that it will stop performing abortions on July 1st, which means that women needing an abortion will either have to travel outside of the province or pay out of their own pockets to go to a private clinic. Not great options...

Here's the original CBC article and an update from today with Health Minister Brad Green stating that he is looking into the issue. Michelle also posted a very eloquent blog entry on the subject.

The Plight of Sessionals

2006-05-24T13:40:00.000-04:00

Piecework Professors: An interesting article over at the Tyee on some important issues facing Canadian universities. I was pretty shocked to learn more and more about the realities of sessional work and academic careers while completing my MA, and I'm glad people are starting to speak up about these issues outside the academy.

Da Vinci Code

2006-05-24T12:31:00.000-04:00

I saw the Da Vinci Code last night. Negative reviews had me expecting a god-awful film, but instead I found it simply mediocre.

Audrey Tautou's role as Sophie Neveu is definitely not one that will be complimentary to her career, in my opinion. (She's much better suited to whimsical scenes like those from Amélie or the storybook princess scene from Les Poupées Russes.) But it was almost worth seeing the film just to watch her instigate a car chase by wildly charging her Smart car up a Paris street in reverse.

As for Tom Hanks, I had too hard a time disassociating him from roles in sleepy romantic comedies like You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle to find him very convincing as Robert Langdon. He's a little too fuzzy around the edges as an actor for my tastes.

Those Gilmore Girls

2006-05-17T09:52:00.000-04:00

Writing about the Gilmore Girls on PopMatters.

A Sample of Montreal Nightlife

2006-05-15T10:07:00.000-04:00

The A GoGo Lounge on St Laurent.

Lie With Me

2006-05-06T07:38:00.000-04:00

Review of Lie With Me up on PopMatters.

In Flux

2006-04-28T19:59:00.000-04:00

It's been and will be a crazy several days - clearing & cleaning out an apartment, watching friends' defenses, saying many goodbyes, a conference, and finally a flight. Ah, transitions. Be back soon with the Montreal version.

On being in your 20s

2006-04-22T13:55:00.000-04:00

I wish I could get all my favourite people to move to the same damn city!

Oh, also, I am now a Master of the Arts! The defense went well. Onward ho!

Almost D Day

2006-04-19T12:16:00.000-04:00

Keep your fingers crossed for me, k?

FROM: (Grad Director)
TO: (Graduate Students)
Master's Essay Oral

Lesley Trites will present her 598 Master’s Essay ("Queering the
Corporate Body: Identity and Postfeminisms in Larissa Lai's Salt Fish
Girl") on the following date and time:

Thursday, April 20
12:00 noon

The presence and support of an audience is always appreciated, and
questions from the floor are allowed/encouraged. Attending an oral
examination also provides good experience in preparation for your own.
So please do come.

Weekend Surfing Roundup

2006-04-18T12:29:00.000-04:00

There's a connection between sex and Spring cleaning, the CBC has announced the picks for Canada Reads 2006, Douglas Coupland has a new book that sounds like fun if a little, uh, overly selfreferential (I'm skeptical but will probably read it anyway), and Jan Wong becomes a maid for a month, à la Barbara Ehrenreich.

The Beat that My Heart Skipped

2006-04-14T15:26:00.000-04:00

I have an article on The Beat that My Heart Skipped up on PopMatters.

Identity-making & Digital Communities

2006-04-14T13:37:00.000-04:00

Today I came across a scholar, Danah Boyd, who's doing some interesting work on identity-making in digital communities. I was especially interested in the way the metaphor of the body reoccurs in her work:

Identity Production in a Networked Culture: Why Youth Heart MySpace:
"The dynamics of identity production play out visibly on MySpace. Profiles are digital bodies, public displays of identity where people can explore impression management. Because the digital world requires people to write themselves into being, profiles provide an opportunity to craft the intended expression through language, imagery and media. Explicit reactions to their online presence offers valuable feedback. The goal is to look cool and receive peer validation. Of course, because imagery can be staged, it is often difficult to tell if photos are a representation of behaviors or a re-presentation of them."

Broken Metaphors: Blogging as Liminal Practice (PDF)
"In essense, these blogs are digital bodies, complete with fashion markers intended to convey cultural subcultural signals that only have meaning to those with shared values."
"Of course, just as with any virtual corporeality, the act of having to type oneself into being results in gaps that that trouble any clean reading of digital bodies."

Another interesting one: G/localization: When Global Information and Local Interaction Collide.
I find this idea of "familiar strangers" - that "two people who take the same bus every day for years may never interact, but if they were to run into each other in a different environment across town, they would say hello and talk about the bus" - and the way this translates online very compelling.

How do you create a viable digital community?

Spring Soundtrack

2006-04-12T13:34:00.000-04:00

It's a busy time of year, but somehow I've still managed to get out to hear some good music lately.

The New Pornographers and Belle & Sebastian played the Paramount theatre in Seattle on March 26. Neko Case's voice is so distinctive that, for me, without her the New Pornographers sounded like just another indie rock band. But I got over my disappointment at not seeing Neko and realized they're still a good band - A.C. Newman has admirably stepped up to the plate as frontman, and Twin Cinema is a fun record.

There's something about Belle & Sebastian that brings out the adoring fangirl in me. Maybe it's because my appreciation of their music has survived otherwise drastic in taste over the years. They put in a great show, always ready to interact with their audience. I love bands who have this ability to convince every audience that this particular show is special (or, ya know, maybe it's just the shows I go to). "I feel like we fit in this place like a hand in a glove or something," said Stuart Murdoch.

Stuart was as charming as the last time I'd seen them play (on my birthday in Toronto a few years ago), but this time I was increasingly impressed (ok, it's possible that "enamored" might be a better word) with Stevie Jackson, the suit-wearing, robot-dancing, melodica (or impromtu spaceship)-touting other frontman.

When they played “Jonathan David,” a really sweet song about a love triangle, they brought up a cute girl in a vintage dress from the audience to act out the song. She played the part well, dancing with both Stuart and Stevie and mimicking a beating heart with her hands. I grinned like an idiot, as I did when they played "Boy with the Arab Strap," one of my favourite songs. Thanks to the persistence of a couple of friends (because I would never have pulled off this kind of thing on my own), we ended up meeting the band after the show. I tried to avoid turning into a puddle of gushing fangirl, but did tell Stevie that I enjoyed his dancing.

Frog Eyes and the Pink Mountaintops played at Sugar in Victoria last Friday night, April 7th. A favourite of the local indie scene, Frog Eyes is a ubiquitous opening band in Victoria. Though they definitely had me tapping my toes and wiggling my shoulders, there's something aggressive about the lead vocals that I find a little off-putting.

I think Sugar uses especially potent gin or something, because it tasted a little funny, and by the time I'd had a double G&T and the Mountaintops got on stage, I couldn't not enjoy them. I especially love their song "Tourist in my Town," written about (where else?) Victoria. It's pretty fitting that I saw these two bands near the end of my tenure in Victoria, actually, because they played the first show I saw in Victoria in September 2004.

Last night Sarah Harmer played the Alix Goolden Hall, a gorgeous church and concert venue. There's something to be said for a show where you can sit down -- it was very calming, and cozy. Ms. Harper looked quite fetching in her pretty skirt and black heels (which she removed by the end of the show, dancing in her bare feet). I'm a sucker for large string instruments (in this case, the upright bass) and was quite impressed with the clarinetist. I used to be a clarinetist, so I really appreciate it when the clarinet is incorporated into any type of alternative music. Basically, I like it when bands deviate from the standard guitar, bass and drum combo.

Sarah Harmer had a nice chemistry with the audience that made for a great show. She played an good range of songs and several covers, including an especially gorgeous one by the Weakerthans, one by Luther Wright, one by Dolly Parton (she received a fax from Dolly on Valentine's Day about this song), and something bluesy from the 40s. I liked the stories that introduced many of the songs -- before the Luther Wright cover she talked about how, one of the first time she played in Victoria, Luther Wright got so into it he accidentally caught her just above her left eyebrow with his guitar. She still has the scar. Then there her introduction to "Escarpment Blues," lamenting that some company wants to turn parts of the Niagara escarpment, including the wetlands in her parents' backyard in Burlington, into a giant rock pile.