I never thought I’d live to see this day. But I have, in fact, finished Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. A book that I started A YEAR AGO. I mean, it’s not like I was reading it non-stop - I read a few other books during the past year and during the time that I was teaching, I spent all my reading time with textbooks, not novels - but still. And it’s not like I didn’t enjoy reading it - I really, really did. But it was so very, very long¹. And the print was very, very small. And many of the words were very, very big. And thus, it seemed like the book that would never end, explaining why my blog is #1 when you search Google for “Unending Jest.”

Infinite Jest is a very hard book to explain. Wikipedia lists it as being in the genre of hysterical realism, and the Howling Fantods² describes it thusly:

… the story of this addictive entertainment, and in particular how it affects a Boston halfway house for recovering addicts and a nearby tennis academy, whose students have many budding addictions of their own. as the novel unfolds, various individuals, organisations [sic], and governments vie to obtain the master copy of Infinite Jest for their own ends, and the denizens of the tennis school and halfway house are caught up in increasingly desperate efforts to control the movie -as is a cast including burglars, transvestite muggers, scam artists, medical professionals, pro football stars, bookies, drug addicts both active and recovering, film students, political assassins, and one of the most edearingly [sic] messed-up families ever captured in a novel.

If pressed to describe it, I’d say it’s a novel, set in a dystopic future, about addiction, tennis, entertainment, and Quebec separatism. Also, the book is not written in chronological order and, to further complicate things, years are subsidized by, and named after, products rather than being numbered³, and you don’t find out until page 223 what order the years come in. Also, there are a ridiculous number of endnotes⁵, meaning that on top of the sections being all out of order, you are also jumping back and forth to and from the endnote section of the book, which comprises 97 of the 1079 pages in the book.

Given all that, this seems like the type of book I’m going to have to read again⁴. And I think that is part of the point of this book. Many of the characters are dealing with addictions of some sort and the main plot revolves around this movie, called Infinite Jest, that is so addictive that anyone who sees it becomes instantly and irrevocably addicted to it, ceasing to want to do anything but watch the movie over and over again, to the point of death⁶. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to say to say that the book is literally addictive, I’d say that one is compelled to continue reading it. And to want to read it again⁷ as (a) there are still many questions left unanswered when you finish the book, and (b) things early in the book will probably make a lot more sense the second time through, once you know the whole story.

All in all, I totally recommend the book, but be forewarned that it will require a significant investment of time, effort and looking up words in the dictionary. And now I leave you with the words of DFW himself, in an interview about IJ:

The sadness that the book is about, and that I was going through, was a real American type of sadness. I was white, upper-middle-class, obscenely well-educated, had had way more career success than I could have legitimately hoped for and was sort of adrift. A lot of my friends were the same way. Some of them were deeply into drugs, others were unbelievable workaholics. Some were going to singles bars every night. You could see it played out in 20 different ways, but it’s the same thing. [...]

Some of my friends got into AA. I didn’t start out wanting to write a lot of AA stuff, but I knew I wanted to do drug addicts and I knew I wanted to have a halfway house. I went to a couple of meetings with these guys and thought that it was tremendously powerful. That part of the book is supposed to be living enough to be realistic, but it’s also supposed to stand for a response to lostness and what you do when the things you thought were going to make you OK, don’t. The bottoming out with drugs and the AA response to that was the starkest thing that I could find to talk about that.

I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and values. Probably the AA model isn’t the only way to do it, but it seems to me to be one of the more vigorous. [Source: DFW Interview, on Salon.com]

¹1079 pages, to be exact.
²Which appears to be a DFW^a fansite, although they don’t have an “About” page to give me their backstory.
^aDavid Foster Wallace.
³So, instead of it being 2008 right now, it would be the “Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland.”
⁴Although not for a while, as I really need to read some of these other books first!
⁵In fact, the friend who recommended this book to me assumed I was a big DFW fan because I use so many footnotes on my blog. As it turns out, I’d never read any DFW before and just use a lot of footnotes out of my own pure genius.
⁶One of the defining characteristics of addiction is the compulsion to continue to use your substance despite catastrophic consequences. I think ceasing to eat or drink and being willing to cut off your own fingers to get to watch the movie again qualifies.
⁷and probably again.

And I already miss her to pieces!

I *love* coming home after a trip to a clean apartment. I don’t have trouble, for the most part, with living among mess. Piles of paper, unfolded laundry, scattered books, random shoes and other piles of paper feel like natural surroundings to me¹. But when I come home from a trip to that exact same mess, it sucks the life from me. Coming home to a bed that’s been made, shoes stacked neatly on the shoe rack, clean dishes shining in the drying rack² and a carpet that not only can I see, but that has actually been vacuumed during the same calendar year, makes Beth a happy camper.

I also like coming home from trips out east because it means that I’m conditioned to wake up early, due to the time zone difference.  I was quite tired after my much-delayed flight, so I pretty much just brushed my teeth, washed my face and crawled into bed³ when I got home last night, and this morning I was up even before my alarm went off.

I also like this 1 day workweek I’m having this week. <grin>

¹It helps that I don’t spend a lot of time at my place - it’s more of a place to sleep than a place to hang out most of the time.
²I do realize that real clean freaks would consider dishes left in the drying rack to be anathema , but in my world - hey, at least they are clean.
³A nicely made bed, at that

Oh three hour delays at Toronto airport, how I hate you. And I’m way too cheap to pay the $9.95 it would cost to log onto the internets, so I’m writing this in BlogDesk to publish when I get home.

My flight was supposed to be at 4 p.m., so I left my sister’s place at 2, in case traffic was bad, which it wasn’t, so I’ve been here since 2:30. And around 3:30 they announced that our “aircraft is unserviceable” and that they were trying to locate us a new one. Which they finally did - a plane scheduled to arrive around 5:30, which we can board around 6 to leave at 6:40. I suppose it’s better that we found out the plane was unserviceable now, rather than finding it out when we fall out of the sky. But it’s still not fun. I’ve been filling my time with reading a book¹, chatting on the phone, sending text messages, eating french fries², chain drinking diet colas, and lamenting the things that I realized I forgot at my sister’s place³.

And did I mention that my niece is the cutest thing EVER? More cute things that she said included:

• While reading The Cat in the Hat (which, for the uninitiated, is a story about two little kids who are at home while their Mother is out and a Cat in a Hat (”Ooh, he’s a troublemaker!” my niece says”) shows up with tricks and games that make a great big mess in the house), at the part just before the Mother gets home: “It’s not safe for children to be left home alone!”
• “I see a SMART CAR!” - every single time we saw a Smart car.
• After I told her I had to leave today, because I have to go back home, she asked, “Why?” So I said that I had to go back to work. And she says, “Oh. Can you come back after work?”
• “Mommy, why are you yelling at that man?” after my sister told the jackass at the butterfly conservatory in no uncertain terms that he was ignorant because he kept touching - and thus, killing - the butterflies, completely disregarding the “do not touch the butterflies” signs.
• “Let’s show up the road!” (instead of “let’s get this show on the road.”)

Probably the best was what she said yesterday at lunch. My sister has this technique where, if my niece is misbehaving, she tells her “If you don’t start doing what you are told/stop being rude/whatever the misbehaviour is, we will take away your gum/toy/trip to the park/whatever thing she really wants for one week.” And that works pretty well, because she learns that there are consequences to her actions and that she has a choice: behave properly, or lose out on something you like. So we are at a restaurant for lunch yesterday and the waiter gives Madeline a lollipop. But we are on our way home for naptime, so my sister says that she can have the lollipop after her nap, not before. And M is like, “But I can ride my bike holding on with one hand and lick my lollipop with the other hand” (clearly not appreciating that the issue here is the sugar before naptime). So Nancy says “no” to that and Madeline gets very serious and says, “Mommy, you are NOT listening to my good idea. If you don’t listen to my good idea, I will take NO naps for one week.” Oooh, that kid is a troublemaker! And very, very clever!

¹Infinite Jest, which I’m still reading but getting very, very close to finishing. For reals.
²Because every restaurant in this airport appears to have the yucky kind of veggie burger. And I already bought a veggie sandwich from Tim Horton’s to eat on the plane, so I didn’t want to have two of those in one day.
³A pair of socks, a wallet my mom gave me, the diet Pepsi I meant to bring to drink in the cab on the way to the airport, and, most distressingly, my phone charger^4
4I can charge it up using my USB synching cable, but it’s mch slower than the real charger

2008 has been a big year for me in Canadian travels - I visited my first territory! This leaves me with just 2 territories and 3 provinces left to visit to complete my quest to travel all over Canada:

Blue stars = provinces and territories to which I have been.
Red x = provinces and territories to which I have not yet been.

Since I seem to be in the habit of showing beautiful pictures of Canada for Canada Day, here’s this year’s: me at Joffre Lakes from last year’s camping trip.

I meant to mention this yesterday, but totally forgot what with the sleepiness and all: I didn’t forget to write about the next Prime Minister in my Sunday series on Prime Ministers. Rather, I chose to take the quasi-long weekend holiday off from the series. Sure, Canada Day is Tuesday (tomorrow), so it’s not a real holiday weekend, but I’m pretty sure no one actually went to work today because who wants to work on Monday when Tuesday is a holiday? And the next Prime Minister in my series is Brian Mulroney and I just couldn’t bear to write about him on Canada Day weekend.

In completely unrelated news, a squirrel fell out of a giant tree in my sister’s backyard today. They have this mullberry tree that is constantly dropping berries, so we are used to hearing (or getting hit by) falling berries when we are out there, but something massive (massive relative to the size of a mullberry anyway) fell with a giant thud. And for some reason, my initial reaction was “oh my god, a coconut just fell out of that tree!” Because apparently I think I’m in Hawaii. But the squirrel got up and scurried away; coconuts, not so much with the scurrying.

And, in even more unrelated news, Almost Dr. Dan came up from Guelph to join us for dinner and we went to this vegetarian Indian buffet and I ate so much that I think I’m going to barf. So. Freaking. Good.

So, in conclusion, the Prime Ministerial series will resume next Sunday with an entry on Brian Mulroney; I ate so much Indian food I want to barf; and hallelujah it’s raining squirrels!

Now, I like to run, but I’m not used to running *everywhere*. And when you hang out with a three-year-old, it’s all about the running. And the jumping. And spinning spinning spinning. And if the three-year-old is running, you best believe that you are running too. If the three-year-old is jumping, then so too shall you jump. And if the three-year-old wants to spin… well, you will be spinning until you fall down. Or maybe it’s just me and I’m a complete sucker and will do anything a three-year-old tells me. Including - if you can believe this - looking at a spider. A SPIDER! “Hey Aunt Beth, come look at this spider!” And I did!

But who can blame me? I mean, look at how cute this kid is:

And now I will go to bed. Because I’m sure I will have a full day of running, jumping, and spinning in circles ahead of me tomorrow.

I now forgive Stephen Colbert for what he did to the Hockey Night in Canada theme song.  Because this video was made as part of his “Project Make McCain Exciting“:

Conversation earlier tonight:

My sister:  I’m tired.

Me:            Me too.  But I need to blog something.

My sister:  What are you going to blog about?

Me:            I don’t know.

My sister:  You could blog about how awesome our backyard is.
               Or how about the delicious Thai dinner we had tonight.
               What are you going to blog about?
               You could blog about how you don’t like veggie food items that pretend to be meat.
               Hey, how about how peaceful our backyard is?

I can’t blog under this kind of pressure!

Oh wait, but I do have to tell you about my niece, who I may not have mentioned is the coolest kid ever.  Last night I went out for dinner with my friend Jen in the Po Cred and by the time I got back to my sister’s place, everyone was already asleep.  Including my niece, who was asleep in my bed.  Apparently she had declared “I’m sleeping in Aunt Beth’s bed tonight” and, because it’s too hot to wear pajamas, “I just want to sleep with my body on.” She cracks me up.

I woke up in the morning and she was staring right at me, about an inch from my face.  “Good morning Aunt Beth!  I slept in your bed!”  Too. Freaking. Cute!

Had a burning desire to write a blog post on the plane on my way to Toronto, but there were no electrical outlets in which to plug my laptop. And my laptop battery sucks. Hence, I give you this:

Props to my sister’s bf, Jeff, for (a) lending me his camera to take those pictures and (b) fixing my damn computer and it’s messed up DNS so that I could actually get on to the internets to post this.

Now I will get back to my regularly scheduled lounging in the backyard.

And speaking of grad school, when you are a grad student, you don’t really get vacation.  Sure, you might not run experiments over Christmas holidays and you get to go to the occasional conference, but you are still working.  Or, if you are goofing off, no one’s paying you to do so.  But along with my big girl job comes such things as benefits, like vacation days.  Here’s how I’m planning on spending some of those days off:

Well, I’m not actually taking vacay days for the August stuff (I don’t work Fridays, so I’m doing my lasers in my eyes on a Friday and am supposed to be fine to be back at work on the Monday.  But it still looks to be quite an eventful summer!

Comprehensive exams: com·pre·hen·sive ex·ams

n. an especially cruel form of torture to which Ph.D. students are subjected
—Synonyms 1. comps  2. hell

Props to Erika for passing her comps yesterday!

It’s late Monday night and I’m only just now getting around to blogging my weekend… where does the time go? As you know, Friday morning I did the Grind and you don’t know, Friday night I stayed home and did a whole lot of nothing. Honestly, I can’t remember what I did on Friday night. I intentionally stayed home with plans to clean my apartment because (a) I’m going on holiday on Wednesday and I hate coming home to a messy apartment, (b) I figure when you’ve been saying “I can’t even remember the last time I vacuumed” for so long that you don’t remember when you started saying it, that’s a sign it’s really been too long since you vacuumed and (c) sentient lifeforms had started to evolve in my shower. But my mad procrastination skillz took over and I didn’t actually do any cleaning. I know I must have done something, but I really can’t remember what. I’m sure it had something to do with the internets.

Saturday I went to the bank to deal with my big girl investments, which I get to have because I have a big girl job. And then I actually did, in fact, clean. I cleaned the counters in the bathroom & the kitchen. I folded laundry, which had heretofore been sitting in various laundry basket, unfolded since I did laundry 1, 2 or 3 weeks ago¹. I scrubbed the shower. I vacuumed ever inch of carpet. And I swept and mopped the kitchen floor. I new that you probably wouldn’t believe any of this, so I now provide you with some photographic evidence:

In celebration of my newly cleaned apartment, I went with Rachel & some of her friends to Republic. Republic is a fairly new club on Granville - if memory serves, it just opened up last summer - one that I hadn’t checked out until this weekend. And my assessment of Republic is this: not worth the $18 cover. That’s right, $18 cover. As in 1-8. The club itself was fine - the music was good, if a bit monotonous² - but the place was a bit small and there were probably 5 girls to ever guy in the place³. And here be the photographic evidence of the night (although I have no idea what Rachel and I are looking at):

Despite being up until the wee hours of the morning, I managed to get myself out of bed and out the door in time to meet Kalev for brunch. And then we decided to check out Greek Day, for which a chunk of West Broadway is closed down to celebrate all things Greek, including, um, cotton candy, bubbles, people on stilts and, um, light sabres?

So, ya, not much really going on for Greek Day. But all was not lost, as we went to see a matinee of Kung Fu Panda. Yay Panda!

Sunday night brought hockey in the form of a hard fought battle against the Rebels, which we lost 4-2. But really 4-3 because we scored this one goal that totally went in but the ref didn’t keep up with play, so didn’t see that it went in and bounced out. Not that we’re bitter or anything.

And then today was a busy day of work, trying to get a bunch of stuff done before I leave for holidays. Did I mention that I get to see my niece, the greatest child ever to grace the earth with her presence?⁴. And now there’s just one last work day before my trip where I (did I mention?) get to see my niece.  Things I’m looking forward to: actual summer weather, delicious Indian buffet, seeing as many friends as possible in a very short period of time, lunches in the park, going to a pool with a really big slide.  You know you are jealous.

¹Um, ya, I do laundry, take it out of the dryer and dump it into a laundry basket, never get around to folding it and just pick through the basketful of clean laundry to find clothes to wear. And then the next week I just dump the newly cleaned clothes on top of whatever as-of-yet unworn clothes were still in said basket. And repeat.
²Somehow they managed to make Sean Kingston, Michael Jackson, Brittany Spears and Bon Jovi all sound exactly the same
³So guys, if you are wondering where all the women are - apparently the answer is Republic on a Saturday night.
⁴Expect to see copious use of the “aunty blogging” tag here for the next week, btw.

Despite the fact that I was actually alive when he was Prime Minister, I don’t know much about John Turner. This is probably explained by the fact that he was the P.M. for 2.5 months when I was 7 years old.

See Gay Zombie.

Props to Kalev for passing this along!