31 January 2011

Blog Block

Every time I go to write a blog post lately, my mind goes blank. I’ve got blog block. I have ideas in my head, but can’t really think of ways to flesh them out and make them mildly interesting and worthy of your precious procrastination time. But, I feel compelled to post, so I’m going to do that thing where I just post a bunch of unrelated ideas all at once.

U2 is playing Moncton this summer. I think I’m in shock. I don’t know if they’ve ever played a Canadian show east of Montreal. I will, of course, be trying to get tickets. I wonder if Bono decided to do this as penance for postponing all the North American dates by a year?  Also, the whole U2-played-Moncton thing is really going to hurt Halifax in the Battle for Best Maritime City.  

This is old, but the changes to the astrology calendar took my by surprise. I mean, the whole thing is arbitrary because it’s made up. But now it’s more scientifically arbitrary? And are we just supposed to pick our sign now? Under the new regime I could be a Pisces. Fish! Me! When I read that, I admit, I had a moment where I thought “maybe there’s something to all this crap, after all.” Or, not. I mean, Alej didn’t become a Cancer, so maybe it’s not as apt as I [momentarily] thought.  I quite like being an Aries. I wonder who would win in a battle? The God of War or the…God of Fish? Who/What was Pisces, anyway? Is it bad that I don’t know this? Or admirable? Although, it’s moot because the God of War will always win.

I finally bought skates. I’ve been meaning to since I moved back there 2 years ago. Hali has The Oval now. It was built for the Canada Games later this winter and is open to the public for free skating. It was initially meant to be temporary but has become crazy popular, so there’s talk of making it permanent. Deb and I went skating on it while she was here for a visit. I enjoyed it, have resolved to skate more, and went out and bought a pair of girl skates. As an aside, I think my inability to accept current skate terminology is a sign that I’m getting older and resistant to change. I know they’re called “hockey” and “figure” skates, but girls in my generation (or, at least, my community) didn’t start playing hockey until late in grade school, and even then it was rare. They will always be boys and girls skates in my head.

A while ago, at one of my book clubs, my SiL asked if anyone watched the TV show Modern Family, because she’d heard it was The New Arrested Development. I have never seen Modern Family but I think I can say without a doubt that it’s can’t be The New Arrested Development, because Community is. How did I miss this show last year? It’s so incomparably awesome. It ranges from clever-and-amusing at it’s worst to laugh-out-loud-until-you-cry-funny at it’s best. It’s totally worth getting the first season on DVD and having a marathon. You won’t be disappointed.

I’ve read a couple of disappointing books in a row. The first was Her Fearful Symmetry by Andrey Niffenegger. It had the potential to be a great, dark, gothic novel. Instead it was ponderous and hard to connect with. The other was How to be Good by Nick Hornby. It wasn’t as funny as I expect books by Hornby to be, and it was surprisingly bleak and it really made me never want to get married, ever. Since he paints marriage as an experience that slowly suffocates your soul until you’re too complacent to change your life and accept your sad, sad fate. It did have this funny exchange (it’s funny, because it’s true):

"I mean it," says David. "I no longer want to condemn people whose lives I know nothing about."
"But...that's the basis for all conversation!" says Andrew.


9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just pointing out that I am in your generation, and I have never worn figure skates in my life. Not even once. And I started learning to skate when I was 6 months old, with those double-bladed skates that strap onto your snow boots.

And at 6 months I couldn't even walk yet ... my dad was pretty hardcore about the kids-must-learn-to-play-hockey-ASAP thing. I started playing organized hockey (with boys, since there was no girl's league at the time) when I was 5. Go Dad!

-Oz

Ellie Fish said...

My oldest brother had to learn on figure skates, there wasn't any organized hockey when he was starting to skate.

Anonymous said...

Wait, so if your brother learned on figure skates, why did you still consider them "girl's skates"? That's the part that seems odd to me. I once threw a fit when my dad took me to a public skate and when I went up to the desk to rent a pair of skates, the guy offered me figure skates. EIght-year-old me was very affronted by the assumption that I didn't want hockey skates. Because I AM HOLDING A HOCKEY STICK, OF COURSE I WANT HOCKEY SKATES, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU, DESK DUDE, SRSLY.

Also, you must have been in a tiny, tiny community not to have any organized hockey options available.

-Oz

Ellie Fish said...

It is possible there was hockey at the next town over, and my parents thought it was too far to go. It’s also possible that there was hockey in our town but my parent’s couldn’t afford it and put my brother in figure skating until he was old enough to be bothered by it.

Your brother is younger than you, so maybe it’s a different dynamic. As the only sister to two much older brothers I spent a lot of time doing my best to emasculate them. I suspect me still calling figure skates “girls skates” is related (at least partially) to that. See also my phase of calling my brother Mike by his “French name”: Michelle.

Ellie Fish said...

I asked my mom about the figure skating thing, and this was her response:

"I think in those days hockey started at a certain age, and we wanted to get him skating in advance of that age. Unfortunately, we could not have foreseen the pink mouse costume he had to wear for the carnival!"

Last time I was at the arena, there was still a picture up of his figure skating class in their mouse costumes. Awesome.

Candra said...

I am happy to see that you finally posted something. Yet, those topics could have easily been separate blogs;) Silly Ellie, anything you write would be worthwhile and meaningful.

Hmmm, interesting, are you saying that we can now choose our Astro Sign?

Deb said...

Soooo...apparently the new signs are only applicable to those born in 2007 and later, or something like that. So, sorry...you will not be pisces raine. :-)

Ellie Fish said...

Wait - what? How come people born before 2006 are stuck with 12 zodiacs and people born in 2007 get 13? This just keeps getting more arbitrary! What happened between 31 Dec 2006 and 01 Jan 2007 that suddenly changed the zodiac? I want to be an Aries and a Pisces as I see fit! They can't dangle that in front of me and then pull it away!

Anonymous said...

Oh, I didn't realize you were just teasing your brother -- I thought the 'girl's skates' thing was your legitimate belief and I was confused. Hockey is definitely expensive, maybe the most expensive childhood sport I can think of. When I was six my parents told me I had to choose between hockey and the other sports I wanted to play in the winter. I chose hockey of course.

Although he's 3 years younger than me, I was (still am ...) a runt, so my brother and I were pretty much the same size until he was 13-ish. Our favourite game for a while was to get a good running start and collide as hard as possible at shoulder level (and then fly sprawling like bowling pins). We started doing this at school at recess, and soon half the schoolyard was full of children repeatedly bashing into each other.

Now that I recall this, I wonder if our parents thought we were both remarkably stupid?

-Oz

P.S. I'm glad to know that the new signs only apply to the very young, as I'm not sure I could deal with life as a Cancer.