I've decided to move on and get a new blog. This one here is called The Void Online and that just isn't me anymore.
You can view my new set of ramblings at The Village of Cream Puffs.
Nothing much is there yet but I do promise fewer references to my favourite childhood story in the near future.
I'll keep this site up for nostalgia's sake and link to it from my new blog.

It's been good.

For the first time since I've had the Internet*, I've gotten file-sharing software and began downloading music of my own accord.
It's not that I never had an interest in this, but that my sister always did this for me. Her taste in music is more more aggressive than mine (She thinks this means "better", but whenever she throws that in my face I think of Incubus and all those bands she was in love with a few years ago). She's always been better at finding new songs and artists to like, and I've just sort of gone "yeah, that's great" and tagged along.
So far, I would describe my library as "eclectic", which everyone knows is usually a euphemism for "poorly planned" or "weird" (ie. "My, your friends/wardrobe/decor/taste in music is eclectic.")
It's a strange mix of nostalgia (Baby Love--Diana Ross & the Supremes), songs that make me sigh (Walk Away--Ben Harper), dance routines (Banquet--Bloc Party; AK1200--Drowning; Family Affair--Mary J. Blige) and songs I like to sing in the shower (If I Had a Hammer--Peter, Paul and Mary).
I believe it's possible to be equally excited by the Rolling Stones, Sting covers by Eva Cassidy and pop tunes with heavy Timberland beats, but I do wonder what it does to the psyche.


*Friends from high school will remember I've only had access to the world wide web for about six years now. Remember the orange and black screen with WordPerfect and the dot-matrix printer? I sure do. I did actual homework on that thing years later than should have been mechanically possible.

For the first time since I've had the Internet*, I've gotten file-sharing software and began downloading music of my own accord.
It's not that I never had an interest in this, but that my sister always did this for me. Her taste in music is more more aggressive than mine (She thinks this means "better", but whenever she throws that in my face I think of Incubus and all those bands she was in love with a few years ago). She's always been better at finding new songs and artists to like, and I've just sort of gone "yeah, that's great" and tagged along.
So far, I would describe my library as "eclectic", which everyone knows is usually a euphemism for "poorly planned" or "weird" (ie. "My, your friends/wardrobe/decor/taste in music is eclectic.")
It's a strange mix of nostalgia (Baby Love--Diana Ross & the Supremes), songs that make me sigh (Walk Away--Ben Harper), dance routines (Banquet--Bloc Party; AK1200--Drowning; Family Affair--Mary J. Blige) and songs I like to sing in the shower (If I Had a Hammer--Peter, Paul and Mary).
I believe it's possible to be equally excited by the Rolling Stones, Sting covers by Eva Cassidy and pop tunes with heavy Timberland beats, but I do wonder what it does to the psyche.


*Friends from high school will remember I've only had access to the world wide web for about six years now. Remember the orange and black screen with WordPerfect and the dot-matrix printer? I sure do. I did actual homework on that thing years later than should have been mechanically possible)

Counting my laptop, my cell phone, my VCR and my clock radio, there are four digital clocks in my room. There is one clock in the bathroom and two in the kitchen. There is a clock on the DVD player in the living room and a watch on my left wrist.
All these clocks are set to slightly different times (with the exception of the stove clock, which is exactly one hour slow).
So now, instead of seeing 10:13 at most twice a day, I see it all over the place, for several minutes at a time.

Someone finally gets shot five minutes before I leave! Grrr...

In other news, I'm going to sit in the Queen's Park press gallery Thursday. No one else gets to do this, because it seems no one else bothered to ask.

I sat in on an editorial board meeting with Auditor General Sheila Fraser this morning. It was off the record, so I can't say anything more about it except:

1) She is very pleasant and straightforward. Very little PR-speak from her, as can be expected.
2) My head is spinning with story ideas that I have no idea how to begin.
3) I felt more than a little awkward sitting there. It was a very small meeting with very important people and... me. The summer intern from the radio room. I didn't dare ask any questions because I didn't want to seem like the young eager beaver intern that I am. I'm sure everyone was wondering who I was and what I was doing there.

Did you ever notice how stand-up comics repeat the same jokes?
I don't mean the same comic repeating his routine from gig to gig. That's only natural—why it's called a routine.
I'm talking about themes that are repeated incessantly from comic to comic.
I got off work at midnight yesterday but didn't want to go to bed as soon as I got home, as I knew I would be starting work at midnight the next time around. I popped some popcorn and switched on the television, settling on the Comedy Network to watch Punk'd (I know, I know, but what the hell else was there for me to do in a city where I know hardly anyone and the people I do know are on a more human sleep schedule?) and then a few different stand-up comic shows.
The television was still on, still showing stand-up comics when I woke up at 4 p.m. later today.
And they were still telling the same jokes, still going on about the same topics.

A list:

1) Every time a comic mentions Newfoundland, he also mentions "the screech".
2) Corporal punishment is embraced by stand-up comics, who were "whooped" by their parents when they were young.
3) The last gig they played was in a town where the best thing to do is to commit suicide.
4) White people can't dance.
5) The difference between male and female orgasms.

The only joke that made me laugh out loud was from some guy from out of town performing at Just for Laughs:

"I was walking around Old Montreal last night when a homeless guy came up to me and said: 'Scusez-moi, est-ce-que je peux avoir un peu d'argent s.v.p.?' I replied 'Je ne comprends pas...' Then he came back with a French accent. 'Oh, sorry! May I please have some change?' Montreal really is a sophisticated city, isn't it? Even your winos are bilingual! I felt like giving him my suit. 'Here you go, professor!"

But then again, it doesn't seem so funny the second time around.

That's pretty much how I would sum up my first shift in the radio room at the Toronto Star.
Very little happened on the scanners, so I spent hours upon hours listening for gunshots but hearing only firecrackers.
I wrote a little traffic incident digest for the OPP holiday safety blitz, but the majority of the time I just asked my fellow radio roomer whether people trapped in an elevator was important enough to merit a follow-up call to the cops. It isn't. In Kitchener-Waterloo, perhaps, but not in the big T-dot.
Then, about half an hour before my shift was supposed to end, a presser came through about a convicted rapist being arrested again hours after he was released from serving a full six-year sentence without parole. My assignment editor said hell YES that was important, so I ended up staying an hour late to frantically write the story.

I have to get faster at this, or pray for the news to happen in a timely manner.

From the Quick Story Generator on Seventh Sanctum™—Carving Your Writer's Block since 1999


The theme of this story: allegorical character study. The main character: insane military professional. The start of the story: premonition. The end of the story: joke.

The theme of this story: dramatic mystery. The main character: heroic secretary. The major event of the story: spiritual experience.

The theme of this story: epic conspiracy. The main character: intelligent murderer. The start of the story: spying. The end of the story: advice.

The theme of this story: psychological revenge. The main characters: boastful official and ugly inventor. The major event of the story: growth.

The theme of this story: romantic mystery. The main character: domineering dancer. The start of the story: confession. The end of the story: dream.

The theme of this story: serious crime. The main characters: burnt-out paladin and obedient politician. The start of the story: political conflict. The end of the story: sport.

The theme of this story: serious tragety. The main character: intuitive traveler. The major event of the story: unveiling.

The theme of this story: tragic character study. The main characters: miserable hero and inhibited scientist. The start of the story: research. The end of the story: treason.

The theme of this story: tragic mystery. The main characters: plain bandit and scatterbrained fighter pilot. The start of the story: deception. The end of the story: surrender.

The theme of this story: tragic relationship. The main characters: philosophical acrobat and fear-ridden treasure-hunter.

The start of the story: repentance. The end of the story: failure.

The theme of this story: dramatic action. The main character: old military professional. The start of the story: confession. The end of the story: travel.

The theme of this story: dramatic conspiracy. The main characters: sickly laborer and innocent farmer. The major event of the story: spying.

The theme of this story: metaphorical conflict. The main character: friendly murderer. The start of the story: miscommunication. The end of the story: spying.

The theme of this story: noir action. The main character: hysterical murderer. The major event of the story: sport.

The theme of this story: satirical comedy. The main characters: committed bounty hunter and unbalanced queen. The start of the story: repentance. The end of the story: surgery.

The theme of this story: satirical horror. The main characters: newlywed singer and unathletic comic. The major event of the story: quest.

The theme of this story: serious crime. The main characters: strong cyborg and obscure novelist. The start of the story: hunting. The end of the story: copromise.

The theme of this story: surreal mystery. The main character: inhibited computer programmer. The major event of the story: growth.

The theme of this story: wacky comedy. The main characters: laid-back philosopher and unbalanced priestess. The major event of the story: argument.

The theme of this story: weird conspiracy. The main character: mean-spirited assasin. The major event of the story: service.

The theme of this story: dramatic tragety. The main character: materialistic actor. The start of the story: promition. The end of the story: getting lost.

The theme of this story: light-hearted comedy. The main character: doomed philosopher. The start of the story: advice. The end of the story: repentance.

The theme of this story: noir conspiracy. The main characters: religious pretender and persuasive mutant. The major event of the story: repentance.

The theme of this story: psychological action. The main character: pragmatic librarian. The start of the story: treason. The end of the story: crime.

The theme of this story: romantic adventure. The main characters: experienced teacher and corrupt comic. The major event of the story: conspiracy.

The theme of this story: serious crime. The main character: suave impostor. The major event of the story: destruction.

The theme of this story: surreal character study. The main character: wealthy priestess. The start of the story: wedding. The end of the story: accident.

The theme of this story: surreal relationship. The main characters: serene impostor and pious healer. The major event of the story: conspiracy.

The theme of this story: wacky slice-of-life. The main characters: friendly martial artist and inhibited schoolboy. The major event of the story: delusion.

The theme of this story: wacky slice-of-life. The main characters: suave singer and obsessive accountant. The major event of the story: infiltration.

I was making tomato soup as a late lunch about half an hour ago, when someone made me jump by knocking on my kitchen window. It was a cop, who asked me if I'd heard anything unusual today. I said no and that I was home all day. He told me my upstairs neighbour's apartment had been broken into.
I really thought this area was a little safety bubble of Toronto, where I could live free of all the big city's ills. I thought I could report on crime and trauma all day long and then come home to a peaceful existence where none of that happened.
That bubble has burst, and I am slowly becoming more and more terrifed.
Had I not been re-reading Lunch with Jan Wong: Sweet and sour celebrity interviews from her Globe and Mail column simply because I was too lazy to do anything else, I might have stepped out and had my own apartment ransacked. My laptop would have been stolen for the second time in less than a year (although this time it has been insured--a wise move, this event has confirmed).
I cannot let myself think about that for even a moment, because if I do, I also think about how they very well could have decided to rob me anyway while I was home, which could have ended very badly.

For those of you who know of my problem with the time 10:13 pm, you will find meaning in the following MSN conversation between my little brother and I. For those of you who don't, I don't really care to explain at this particular moment in time.

here goes:

Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
hey Jo u wanna kno wat code 10-13 is for my first responders
~Joanna says:
stolen bicycle.
Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
DEATH
~Joanna says:
what?
Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
DEATH
~Joanna says:
no! it's stolen bicycle in cop code.
Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
10-13
Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
FIRST RESPONDER CODE
~Joanna says:
well.
~Joanna says:
that's not nice. that's weird they are so different. for SPVM it's bicycle stolen, i remember from crime reporting class. i'll need to figure out what it is in toronto.
Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
how coincidential is it u've been seeing it all ur life, searched for its answer ...and ur bro grows up to be a first responder and it means straight up DEATH....
~Joanna says:
in the USA it means officer down. i thought that was already pretty scary.
~Joanna says:
but i was BORN at 1013, so it also means life.
Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
.....that ends with geoffrahs
~Joanna says:
meh?
Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
UR LIFE, GEOFFRAHS DEATH
~Joanna says:
oh well that's ok i spose. i thought you meant my death at the hands for geoffrah.
Montreal Is All About The Cup says:
nono

He then went on to tell me my boyfriend has been seeing other girls since I left. My little brother is such a sweetheart, so loving.

I stayed up until 3 a.m. last night because I have a television (with cable) in my new bedroom. I wanted to fall asleep. I really did. I also really wanted to watch two hour-long episodes of Jaime Oliver's School Lunch Project on TLC. I should not have taken that Tylenol "extreme" pumped full of caffeine, but I had a really bad headache and there were no other options available.
I slept until noon today and now feel much better. Vacation is a wonderful thing.
(Until you realize you have spent far too much of it watching TV because you live in a new city where you have not yet made enough friends to fill up all your free time with).
I am ready to begin my exciting new job.

Moving away from home would be a lot more difficult if I didn't now live in the most ridiculously amazing neighbourhood I have ever seen. There are swans swimming about 5 minutes away from my house.

Chris and I gasped when we arrived Sunday night to find out that my street looks like it belongs somewhere in Upper Westmount. That's right, on the mountain. I had heard that High Park in particular and Toronto in general had many old houses that were now split up into apartments, but I didn't realize they would be mansions. I look out my window and can't quite believe I actually live here.

The apartment itself is also beautiful. My room has a large, triptych bay window and is decorated like a page from an Ikea catalogue. It seems the girl I am subletting from really like their space-saving ideas and quite frankly, so do I. The bathroom sink actually has a big counter around it (no more tiny NDG sink!) and the kitchen is huge with non-linoleum tiling. There are two living rooms, the front one with a fireplace and brick hearth. There is a washer/dryer in the building. My roommates seem really friendly and I already feel at home here.

Roncevalles Village is a five-minute walk East. It has a Mile End feel to it, with all sorts of funky shops and restaurants. I walked a good length of it today and did some shopping errands to keep my mind off Chris' departure for Montreal (skirts and a top at Goodwill; loose honeybush tea, organic/fair trade coffee and cane sugar at "Alternative Grounds" cafe; two pillows at the Zellars way up by Bloor W.) Yesterday, we had dinner at the "Butler's Pantry", which included a yummy tomato and chickpea soup for me. The library is just around the corner and has a huge selection of Polish CDs and books, if I ever feel inclined to check them out. There is a large Polish population in Roncevalles/High Park, so many store names have "owski" in them.

About 30 seconds West is the main entrance to High Park (which I now consider my backyard), which was designed by the same person who drew up the plans for Central Park in NYC and Mount Royal in Montreal. We had a picnic near the duck pond and then took a walk further down, where we encountered a swan showing off while diving for fish. A swan! Apparently, another section of the park is home to bison, llamas and other animals.

The shore of Lake Ontario is about a 10-minute walk South. There is a boardwalk running longer than we had time to walk, and many sandy beaches and picnic areas. A sign said the bacteria level is too high for swimming in the lake, but there is a giant public pool with an entrance that looks like a Roman basilica I could always join.

I would be overjoyed with any of the following: great room, great apartment, nice roommates, close to Roncevalles, close to High Park, close to the lakeshore. But I have all 6 of these things.

I can't believe I found this place on Craigslist.

The weepy tone that dominated my last entry is gone (at least for now).

Today, I received a large package in the mail from the Toronto Star. Inside, I found a welcome letter detailing what I will be doing during orientation week, policy manual, a newsroom survival guide, maps of the GTA and TTC system, a who's who of the editorial department, a history of the paper and its famed Atkinson Principles and--most importantly--the "Box Bible".

The "Box" is the nickname for the Toronto Star radio room, which is where I will be spending on average 32 hours a week for the next four months of my life. There, I will monitor police/fire/ambulance scanners and national/international wires, listen to radio news, watch CPAC, read newspapers, interview people, file stories for the Web and print and generally see how far I can push myself before my hair falls out and I start drinking (heavily) on the job.

The "Box Bible" is what will guide me through all this until I get used to the routine (if that ever happens). I have never felt so thankful towards an employer as when I opened the package up and started reading this. It gives me names and contact info of police/fire/ambulance, what I should be listening for on the scanner (including all those fun police codes), what basic questions I should ask during interviews, when I should call an editor in the middle of the night (eg. thousands of deaths from a natural disaster overseas merit a wake-up call. Hundreds can wait until morning) to set in motion the chain of events that will end with someone screaming "stop the presses!"

I became extremely excited before I even began to read it. My boyfriend was working on his laptop, finishing up a take-home exam on the opposite side of the bed as I was sorting through the contents of my package. I kept shaking my hands up and down like a manic and incompetent bird. A home movie of my first birthday that my friends were subjected to at my surprise going-away party Saturday evening only proves I have been shaking my hands in such a way my whole life.

I also kept interrupting his work to read him interesting bits of information, a bad habit I have still failed to shake. I fear it will only worsen when we move in together, so I might suggest he buy a lock for his studio door so I don't make him stop painting every time I come across an interesting passage in a book or Jon Stewart says something that cracks me up.

All this to say that my tristesse from a few days ago has disappeared for the time being. I have returned to where I was when I first heard I got this job, which means I am having trouble sitting down because I keep jumping up to do spontaneous pirouettes around my apartment. As a result, writing this has taken far longer than it should have.

Topic #2:

My parents threw me a surprise going-away party Saturday night. I was very shocked and overwhelmed by this and cannot stop thinking about how nice my parents were to plan that for me and how great it was that so many of my favourite people were able to attend. I am slightly embarrassed that I burst into tears on at least two occasions that night, but since I loved everyone who was there, I didn't really care all that much. Besides, I wasn't the only one crying. Poor Chioma!

Topic #3:

I passed my French requirement for journalism, so I am now 100% sure I will graduate in June. I don't know why I was so nervous going in, as my conversational French is really quite alright. The actual "exam" was a bit of a joke. The academic advisor asked me to begin by talking about my experience with French. I told him I was in French immersion from grades 4 to 11, took French classes in CEGEP, have been speaking French at work since I was 17 and taught French to kids in Vancouver last summer. He then told me that our conversation was just a formality and after he had already signed my "requirements fulfilled" slip, we spent the rest of the five minutes talking about my new job in Toronto.

I'll never understand why I am so horrible at French when I am speaking to Francophone friends my age, but so comfortable in every other capacity. I would expect the opposite to be true.

Topic #4:

Hungry but broke. I will go get a slice of cheese pizza.

I just told someone I was moving to Toronto on April 30 and it suddenly hit me. I am moving in 11 days. Less than two weeks. Soon to be less than one.
I sorted through some clothes and brought a bagful of donations to the Salvation Army up the street and around the corner. I considered this my first conscious act of packing. I need boxes before I can move on to the second.
And how the hell am I going to sort through years of work hidden in my desk drawers? I know I can't keep all of it, but I am scared to death of throwing out the wrong things.
I am much more terrified about leaving, of course, but I rarely admit it. "The Toronto Star," I tell people with pride when they ask me where I will be working this summer. But inside I wonder if I can really survive a summer without the boyfriend I've grown accustomed to seeing every day. I wonder what it will feel like in September when I don't return to Montreal to see my family and friends, fall back into routine or start another semester at Concordia.
I'm going to stop writing now, because I really hate to think about it.

People I went to high school with who have died since June 2004:

Nashira Golding: asthma attack (Class of '02)
Holly Dunn: heart disease (Class of '01)
Mark Saunders: car accident (Class of '00)
Matt Bucci: car accident (Class of '02)
Kelly-Anne Drummond: murder (pending trial this week) (Class of '96)
Erica Reiber: suicide (Class of '03)

Yesterday morning, Umana ('02) died at the hospital following being struck by a train this weekend in the Eastern Townships (details unclear). Natasha ('02) was in the car, and is still in the hospital.

If Natasha doesn't make it, that will be four kids from my sister's year, John Rennie High School's class of 2002. Why should there be so many funerals between prom and a five-year reunion? You expect to be missing a few 25 years later, but 4? 8? Most of these people still lived on the West Island with their families and were still part of the greater community.

It felt silly to ask "Who's next?" after the first two or three, but now it feels obvious.

Please stop. We're tired.

Things I have learned since I last posted:

1) Craigslist is extremely effective. One of the reasons I got almost no work done last week was the hours I spent answering the phone and reading through e-mail queries about my apartment. The McGill off-campus housing bank is also very effective, but has no way of deleting your ad once your apartment is taken.

2) Despite his not fixing our toilet for several months, my landlord likes having us as tenants so much that his reaction to our leaving made me want to give him a hug. I suppose our lease assignment letter should have been a little less all-business and a little more "Dear John..."

3) If you want your best friend to finally stop wavering about taking over your lease, invite 12 other people over to see it in one night and threaten to give it to one of them if she doesn't say yes 10 minutes ago.

4) There is a woman so lonely that she spends a good part of every day calling a TV station's tip or comment line to sing, rant about Ben Mulroney or the sports reporter she hates and suggest story ideas about pigeons. Oh, and there is a woman out there who likes the news so much she masturbates over the phone to it so complete strangers have to be disgusted by humanity first thing in the morning.

5) Someone likes reading this blog so much that when I saw her for the first time in months Thursday night she yelled at me to post before she said hello. Here ya go, Heather!

More to come after I take some time off to breathe.

Hi everyone,

Since I'm moving to Toronto, my sister and I are looking for a couple of roommates to take over our comfy apartment in NDG for May 1.


The info (as seen on Craigslist, McGill.ca and Con U housing bank):

$560 4 ½ Apartment in NDG available MAY 1

Sunny and spacious 4 ½ apartment on main floor of duplex in NDG.
Two closed bedrooms, large eat-in kitchen, backyard (BBQ anyone?), large balcony, big living room, nice full bathroom.
Large basement storage area.
Hardwood floors, lots of windows, quiet tree-lined avenue.

10 minute walk to Vendome Metro station.
Bus: 90, 104 (near 105, nightbus 356, 24)
Near groceries, pharmacy, banks, laundromat, post office, restaurants and pubs.

$550/month for May & June (Sublet)
$560/month from July 1 (Lease transfer)

I'm also looking to unload some furniture, so you'll be able to buy a desk, maybe a bookshelf and some other stuff off me for cheap.

Post a comment here or e-mail me at online@thevoidmagazine.org.

And if this doesn't interest you, please pass it on!