Be careful what you wish for...

Today I learned a valuable life lesson: Be careful what you wish for. There are many ways to learn this lesson. But here's mine... about 25 years late.

I sent out a tweet. I've sent out 4152 of them in the last few years, but this one reached an author (one of my favourite Australian authors) who was, at the time, partaking in a 24 hour novel (himself and 8 other Australian authors). Genius I thought, I will send this:

Well, I guess I got a little carried away on the genius bit. I, in fact, did not heed the warnings of one Nick Earls:

The man does not lie. I wasn't careful. 22 hours into their 24 hour write-a-thon, I took a peek at my namesake. Miss Steffi was doing what? Panic set in. The previous warnings were brought to light. I'm pretty sure there was a few minutes where I couldn't breathe. SELF, WHAT DID YOU DO? (the answer: you didn't listen to Nick Earls). So, after several tweets and some breathing into a paper bag (ok, that did not happen), he remedied the situation. I was back to myself and Steffi was going by another name. Thank you! 

I took away a few things from the past few hours:

1. Listen to the warnings presented by Nick Earls

2. Perhaps find out the story before lending your name to a novel (more importantly, attempt to avoid this whilst having a name that no one else in the world has)

3. Enjoy the story even more now that you are no longer paranoid a potential boss will stumble upon it. 

4. I will likely never have another character named after me, so it's a good thing I saved the chapter Nick wrote with my name in it.

5. I'm pretty grateful to have been a character, even for a very short amount of time. Thanks for the opportunity, Nick! Maybe next time Stef will get paired with Eric Bana... A girl can dream.

Silly Stef (not me--the other one, of course!)

The city I call home

This week has been a strange one.  Full moon strange. First there's a shooting at the Eaton Center. A shooting... at the mall. Then on Sunday, someone is stabbed outside my apartment building at 9pm. I love this city, but what gives Toronto?

An afternoon on Queen St. W.

After countless weekends that have been absolutely non-stop (and weeks that, somehow, are even more filled) I decided to have a relaxing weekend in. Friday night was spent eating frozen yogurt and watching Being Elmo with MC and the plan for Saturday was organizing and grocery shopping.

Saturday rolled around and with the exception of doing the dishes that have been piling up over the course of the week and grocery shopping for the first time in 2 (3?) weeks, zero organizing was completed. But an awesome adventure with Finn did happen and it looked a little like this...

First stop was Trinity Bellwoods. It would be difficult for this to be any closer to my place. It's hard to tell based on this picture alone, but the rest of the park was jammed. Today was the first really (really) nice days in ages.

On the walk I spotted this in a bus stop. I love artists. 

Tres Chic, an Australian designer, started making these in small quantities and it totally took off. The designs are now situated on a shop in West Queen West. I will be making these with '90s jeans I find a VV. I knew my textile class would come in handy. Who's up for some tye dye?

I then spotting my favourite Australian (umm.. world, are you saying something to me?) magazine at Drake's General Store. Super excited to have found this!

Dolls. WWF dolls.

And in the parking lot across from The Drake was my future car.

And finally (I wish I had a picture of the other one) we landed up at the second back alley vintage "pop up" shop. This one had a table with guak and chips and $3 beer. Legal? Unlikely. Amazing? Completely.

After all of that, it was time to make our way back to my part of the neighbourhood. What an afternoon.

Adventure Time! 

Weekend Playlist

This weekend was one of those 'no plan' weekends that completely exploded with things to do. Friday night I landed up at the neighbours for drinks and then late night at The Ossington-- hip hop beats flowing out of the speakers, into my ear drums and causing me to dance, albeit not that well. I do love a good hip hop song and this DJ had the jams down.

Saturday brought several Canadian Music Week shows. I wasn't planning on seeing any but landed up with a friends band at Wrong Bar for Nightbox (a band I've wanted to see for ages) and then to The Horseshoe for Poor Young Things and The Reason. 4am last call. I now understand why last call is just before 2am.

The musical selections for this weekend include, but are not limited to:

Predictable 

WE CAN'T... NOT ON REX MANNING DAY!

I forgot how much I loved this.

I'm ready for the summertime

It's family day in this great province and with the unseasonably lovely weather, the long weekend seemed even better. MC and I decided to wander around the city exploring. We headed near the water and came across this 'beach'. It's no ocean beach, in fact it's not even a lake beach but it was spectacular. 

I long for the summer. I can already picture beach chairs and coolers in the court yard. Is it June yet?

I also caught up with an old University friend that sent me this song. His DJing puts him in tune with some sweet songs and this is currently one of my favs:

Trip to Venice Beach soon, please. 

February, 2012 (Oh, What a Night)

Friday night started in a cab jetting from Trinity Bellwoods to Roncesvalle with AK to take a few photographs for her latest venture. I spent the beginning of the evening enjoying several delicious cocktails at The Westerly—the first, a half tart, half sweet blood orange concoction (the owners suggestion) and the second, a glass of Pim’s Cup (which will forever remind me of JB) and soaking in the New York- like vibe. A few photographs and about 3 hours later, it was back to reality and a walk to the Queen St. streetcar.

I’ve been venturing past my 7 block radius much more as of late. It’s easy to stick in this area. There's lots of shops, great food and work is right there (I can almost see it from where I am sitting). So, after an invitation to the other side of the world (ok, it was to Bier Markt on the Esplanade) it was back to the street car at 10pm. We arrived to find that none of the friends that were supposed to be there actually went. Let the random night commence: new friends, old friends, dance parties and beer (or is it bier?). 3:11am street car home.

Saturday was a pretty lazy day (4am bedtime has never really worked out that well for me.) Saturday night made up for what I didn't do during the day. MC, AK and I headed to Yours Truly for dinner without reservations hoping to snag a few seats at the communal table. We ended up at BQM (an Ossington staple) for burgers instead. We rushed to The Mod Club for 8pm to see our friend CB in the band The Set play. A great show, a very small amount of dancing (the kids these days don’t dance at pop-rock-punk shows anymore, I guess) and one drink later we headed to Crawford on College. Greatest DJ, ever.

I strolled home at midnight, thinking it would be an early night but after a text from AM (who is rarely in the city) I managed to pull my tired self out of my bed and walk over to Bovine Sex Club (note: this is not a typical dancing club nor a place to have sex… that I was witness to anyway) for a drink with AM and his buddy. I have walked by this place everyday since moving to my new place and thought it looked like a shady bar with weird stuff hanging off the outside (it is). We then walked to The Horseshoe, another Queen W. “staple” that looks super shady and that I have never been to. After lots of stories and a random encounter with a band member that recognized AM from Hollywood (sorry, who are you?) we made a last minute trip to the newest Hero Burger (open 24 hours!) and a walked home at 3:30am. Another (great) late night.

This finally brings us to Sunday (this weekend has been splendidly long and hence the Oh What A Night title choice) which included some story editing at Starbucks and another streetcar/ subway combo to make it up to Younge and Eglinton for a Second City comedy class comedy show. It was very funny and I’m completely impressed that they all did so well. I fear mine would like a little like Dee from It's Always Sunny. 

I think I spent all of my money going back and forth on some form of TTC transportation this weekend. Perhaps I should have splurged for a transit pass this month? Tomorrow is Family Day(!) in Ontario and I will be celebrating Monday by sleeping in, eating the banana bread that is currently in the oven, finishing A Good Year, starting The Hunger Games and going on a mini-walking adventure around the (what I imagine will be) closed city. Every weekend I love this city more and more.

Adventure time!