dear friends and relations,

wishing you all a peaceful year of love, health, and laughter

С новым годом, с новым счастьем

more dreams of flying... of you being missing and, later, kidnapped... and one long, terrifying death by poison

apparently our cat loves buckwheat...

must be those russian roots

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair

reviewing corrections to a short story anthology: atwood. munro. macleod. richler. gallant.

one sharp breath after another, and my quickening pulse, and the memories, and the ache

ain't no sunshine...

10 cm today and the city has not shut down; it's simply running about four hours behind...

oddly, i enjoyed the series of encores played by itzhak perlman more than the program itself.

aside from this: we were puzzled by the behaviour around us. aren't seniors always saying that young people today have no manners? were we the ones incessantly rummaging through our handbags, shuffling through our programs, or opening plastic packages of candy/chocolate/god-knows-what-else during the performance?

نور العين 

it occurred to me that i understand this because one word is very similar in hebrew and the other is identical in persian

...two exciting publications listed in the fall 2014 edition of the University of Toronto, Department of English Newsletter for alumni

Dante's House, by a former professor of mine
The Writing Moment, published by OUP Canada

In the clearing stands a boxer,
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
And cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame,
"I am leaving, I am leaving."
But the fighter still remains

Я думал: вот чуть-чуть - и будем мы на "ты"

i'm not a fan of syntactic indicators of formality/respect (e.g., vous/tu). i think they reinforce idiotic hierarchies, encourage distance, etc

...they have a lovely literary use, though, as signifiers of breakthroughs and familiarity

deepest thoughts with the family of michael brown...
this is simply appalling

i don't know what it is about the monotony of this report but it always makes my mind wander to the most embarrassing, the most unpleasant moments of my life

i guess it only takes one such thought for more to appear in similar circumstances...

some believe that yesterday's snowfall marked the first unofficial day of winter for toronto. but it's not the snow. it's that all-canadian indicator of the frozen wasteland this city is about to become: wind chill. and i say city because winter has already come to the prairies.. to the east coast.

today, it's −8C--feels like −18C. 

welcome to the next four months--at least.

the tale of two... three... four kitties!

we had a warm, wonderful time--despite the sudden shock of winter--with great food and great company. there is much to say. but when kitties appear out of nowhere, as they did, they obviously, obviously become the highlight of any trip. and thus began the tale of four kitties:

we were walking down a snowy path, which suddenly turned to ice.

just as we thought to turn around, one grey beauty serendipitously sauntered out from the bushes, glanced over our way, and immediately collapsed for a belly rub. ginger cautiously followed, while a third, the colour of snow, watched from behind a tree. there was a fourth, which went unnoticed, for a time. all were stunning. but it was grey who charmed us into the ground with his playfulness and his back flips.

as we rose to go--a horse. silent, surreal, and curious, he walked a few steps alongside us, on the other side of the fence. we decided not to turn around, but as we approached the main street, we did, and saw grey galloping towards us, meowing, unwilling to let go--as we were. ginger was a few feet behind, watchful and wary. like a real big sister, she ran over and playfully took him home, away from the strangers, away from the road...

shit shit shit. that did not go well. i'm out of practise. i'm uncertain.

what an idiot i must have seemed.

pardon my language. shit.

have i developed a tick? my eye is twitching again

(and this time there's no caffeine to blame it on...)

deaths in jerusalem, hebron.
panic. discomfort. always, always the guilt.

the joke in our family is that the rasitsan girls transform into furnaces overnight on account of their inexplicable need for security in the form of heavy blankets

last night, even this rasitsan girl couldn't tell whether she had a fever or not...

i heard someone say, once, that poetry is closer to a writer's heart than prose
perhaps this is so because fewer words are used to dress one's thoughts