I have the good fortune of having many friends that like to cook and are fairly creative. Practicing Bikram so regularly makes the food I eat that much more important – it needs to be nourishing and substantial yet not incredibly heavy. This soup was made up on the spot but turned out to be quite satisfying as a winter evening meal.

For some reason colourful mixes of vegetables give me a great deal of happiness – we used sliced onions, diced tomatoes, garlic, a jalapeno pepper and ginger.

After we added some chicken drumsticks, we added garam masala, turmeric, and crushed red peppers. The turmeric gives it a beautiful yellow-ish tinge.

The bok choy and cilantro came after we had added water before we brought to a boil. I’ve never really cooked with bok choy in the past, but I have to say it’s growing on me.

The final touch were the green onions which we sprinkled on top after pouring generous portions into our bowls.

Every moment you are not doing something towards your future there is a twinge of guilt. Should you really be making social plans? Should you really be committing to anything other than your future? How long should you work before allowing yourself to take a break?

Of course once you find work you look back, disappointed that you didn’t take advantage of the time you had off to take care of irritating errands such as getting your passport, or renewing your driver’s license. You wish you had put the in-between hours to better use.

Sometimes we spend too much time waiting. Waiting for our lives to begin, waiting till we get the perfect job or outfit or significant other. We don’t take advantage of our each and every waking moment. Life is short and each second you waste thinking about what could be, is wasting what is right in front of you: the present and all that it has to offer.

One of my resolutions this year is to stop waiting. There is nothing wrong with looking forward to your future. But I want to avoid looking back with regret. When all those things you are excited for to come to be, there will just be other things you are waiting for. And you may well waste that time looking ahead or looking back rather than just being present and enjoying it.

Just a thought for the beginning of the post-family day workweek.

Words, both spoken and written have limits. There are things that can’t be expressed adequately through the simple use of language. There are emotions and concepts that exist in those spaces in between font and typeface, vocal cord and lips.

Yet as I learn more and more everyday words can be infinitely more powerful than silence or thoughts. Words have the capacity to imbed themselves in the subconscious or heart of another person, to pierce into their consciousness, their feeling of self.

Once spoken they cannot be retracted. Once written, they gain a certain amount of permanence, a certain amount of truth for the simple fact that they’re there – tangible and existing, alive and crackling with electricity.

They can destroy often more potently than they can recreate. They can burn more easily than they can heal. They are more effective as weapon than bandage. Words create rifts that can take years to heal.

So what is worse? Silence, biting back anger yet possibly holding back truth? Or honesty, even if it is momentary and fleeting in our minds yet could be permanent for someone else?

It’s like those extra ten pounds you gain over Christmas: easy to execute but hard to lose after the fact. In that same way those words will come back to haunt you time and again. So you must ask yourself before they leave your lips, much like that extra chocolate chip cookie – is it worth it?

This Parliament Street institution is a metaphor for the neighbourhood it borders; forgotten furniture, trinkets and jewelry, set against the backdrop of a man in a brightly colored t-shirt listening to top 40 R&B favorites; an eclectic mix of old meets new.

Cabbagetown embodies this duality today. Bordered by two cemeteries, it is a neighborhood where everything used to be something, and now is something else. Hugh Garner, author of the novel Cabbagetown, once called it, “the largest anglo-saxon slum in North America.”

Although not exclusively affluent today, “slum” is not how one would describe its quiet unassuming streets lined with elegant Victorian homes.

The easiest place to start is at Carleton and Parliament. Take the subway to College station. You can wait for the eastbound streetcar here, but as any Torontonian that has waited for the 506 will mutter under their breath, you may as well walk.

On the way you can stop at Daniel et Daniel (284 Carleton), famous for catering, but also offering display treats for purchase. Once on parliament, turn right, and then turn left on Spruce.

This is a portal into a different world. The cacophony of car horns and human traffic fades exquisitely to black. Instead, encounter red and yellow brick houses, wrapped in ivy that reaches thorny fingers into all crevices, draped in the sound of the chatter of school children homeward bound.

The neighbourhood’s name comes from the vegetable that Irish immigrants used to grow on their front lawns. Today many homes proudly bear the flag adorned with the little green vegetable.

Between Rolston and Sackville you will walk past Trinity Mews, the old Trinity College Medical School. If you turn south on Sumach you can see the former Ontario Medical College for Women (289 Sumach), which are now condominiums.

The former Toronto General Hospital site is here as well.
Turn and head back north on Sumach, to Riverdale Park West, where you can relax on a bench and watch families play with children and dogs. It borders Riverdale Farm, originally Toronto’s first zoo.

Due to cramped conditions, not ideal for a full-scale twentieth century zoo, the animals were shifted to the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo in the mid 1970s. The Riverdale Zoo became a farm, focused on animals such as horses and fowl.

Behind the zoo you will find the Necropolis Chapel and Cemetery. The chapel, designed by Henry Langley in 1872, is built in a Gothic Revival style. The Cemetery was opened to replace Potter’s Field, formerly at the corner of Yonge & Bloor. It houses many of Toronto’s most famous dead such as William Lyon Mackenzie, the first mayor of Toronto.

Cut back West on Winchester, till you reach 94 Winchester, home of Doug Hemming, former magician and teacher. He was most oddly known as a senior political member of the Natural Law Party, primarily known for their belief in human flight.

At Metcalfe you will find the former St. Enoch’s Presbyterian Church, now the Toronto Dance Theater. Go west till Parliament, turn right and walk up past Bloor to St. James Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Toronto.

Much like the Necropolis, it plays host to the remains of many famous deceased Torontonians, such as E.J. Lennox, the architect who designed the old City Hall and Casa Loma.

As you walk down Parliament there are a variety of places you could stop and refuel after your adventure down memory lane. Pear Tree is a dimly lit brick-walled restaurant that serves brunch till 4pm on weekends. They boast 9 different styles of Eggs Benedict with different twists, and prepare their hollandaise sauce fresh.

During the week, they also serve sandwiches, pasta and a variety of entrees. House on Parliament is known for pub fare and weekend brunches, notably the pulled-pork sandwich. This joint has a softer cozier feel than many of the chain pubs throughout the downtown core with rich red velvety curtains shielding the door and a lively patio in the summertime.

Not hungry? Try Jet Fuel, a cozy little coffee shop, marked by a blue and red rocket outside. There is no menu here; the barista jokes that you tell him what you want and he’ll either say yes or no.

With dramatically red walls and homey wooden furniture, it is ideal for unwinding, reading the paper or warming up on a cold day. If you’re not feeling that adventurous, fear not there is a Starbucks and a Tim Hortons within blocks of here.

Cabbagetown is an off-the-beaten-path alternative to the likes of the CN Tower and it’s snail-paced rotating restaurant. It is neither over-priced nor over-hyped. It is a different way to experience Toronto, and to engulf yourself in it’s not so distant past, what it used to be, what it is now. A casual stroll through Toronto’s heritage.

Unemployment and yoga have traditionally gone well for me together. I can practice at all times of the day, and it gets me out of the house and into a zone so zen that I’m better able to concentrate on what I have to do next.

Sunday was not one of those days. My body was exhausted from the four hours of practice I’d endured on Saturday. I was hot, it was crowded and I did not feel strong or nourished enough to get through.

Then the instructor said something that caught my attention. He asked if when we found we were giving up in postures, did we similarly find that we were giving up in life.

That stayed with me for the rest of class and all of the days since then. I’ve been thinking a great deal about accountability. Accountability in thought and in action. It comes back to a debate I have long held with my friend Jeetan – what dictates your life – is it fate or your own actions?

Needless to say I tried not to give up for the rest of class, pushing hard in my least favourite postures all the way through the end.

I’ve always felt things happen for a reason. Sometimes no matter how hard I’ve fought for something, the alternative turns out even better than what I’ve fought for. This can be said of my move to Toronto. It can be said of many other challenges I’ve faced in my life.

But I notice that sometimes people use the “everything happens for a reason” as an excuse – a reason not to take responsibility for their own life.  It’s always easier to be a victim than an agent.

When things happen to you, you can feel sorry for yourself. You can cut yourself slack, and indulge in things you wouldn’t ordinarily, to make up for what has happened.

When you are the person creating the change, you are less able to justify this to yourself, which makes it a little harder and more uncomfortable. But it pushes your boundaries and in the end you grow as a person.

Yoga helped me learn this. There are good classes and bad classes. I learned to take the good with the bad, the positive with the negative and do what I could with what I had.

I learned that I wouldn’t always be at 110% on any given day doing any given thing, but that I could do the very best I could and that is okay. But to choose to give it as much as I had rather than to give up and walk away.

If I make mistakes or I don’t have a great class so be it. If I can fold myself in half backwards on Tuesday and barely lean my neck back Wednesday that’s also okay. One of my teachers once wrote that the worst yoga class is the one you don’t go to. The same could be said of life. If you don’t participate, you’re only lowering your potential outcome.

Today was Day 35 of my yoga challenge. I had a very weak class and could barely hold my balance during any of the beginning postures. I started to wonder why I did this challenge and why I bothered showing up at all. I was giving up.

About an hour and fifteen minutes into the class, as I reached my feet in full camel posture (something I’ve only been able to do since last week) and felt that exhilaration run through my body I remembered why I love this yoga and why it is, that I show up both to yoga and in life.

The recent recession created much unemployment and layoffs but it was also responsible for giving a lot of people the courage to quit their secure 9-5 positions to do what they loved – myself included. Either way we’re all in the same boat – unemployed and out of our element.

Once you’re in a scary new place, where everything is unpredictable, it’s easy to get discouraged or demoralized. It can be soul-destroying to spend your days on job hunting websites, tailoring resumes and crafting paragraphs to convince a potential hiring manager why you’re perfect for a position. Particularly when you’re not exactly sure what it is they’re looking for.

I quit my job for my love of writing and editing. It has been a long month and a half of leads that are few and far between. Late last week I completed a test for a position I applied for, which involved two short write ups for the site I’d be working for. Although I am still uncertain of the prospects of that application, the blurbs made my day.

I’d forgotten why I was doing this whole thing in the first place. I’d forgotten about the thing I loved most. And it struck me how important the other pieces of your life are – these things that you love – in supporting you when you go through a job search period.

These are some of the things I do to fill the voids in my time, while I look for work. I practice yoga daily. I prepare myself food that is good and healthy for me to keep my state of mind balanced. I barely go out to eat anymore (unemployment doesn’t do great things for my social life). In short, when I’m not applying to jobs, I’m doing as much as I can of things I love.

When I’m writing or in the yoga room, I forget my anxieties and my fears of self-worth. Thoughts what might be wrong with my candidacy and what I might be lacking blur, becoming hazy before they finally melt away. What replaces it is positivity and

I use this time as an opportunity to rid myself of the things I dislike in my life – what better time to clean house either physically or metaphorically? Things you dislike can weigh you down and hold you back from excelling the way you were meant to.

I think it’s important to keep yourself in that positive healthy state of mind when you’re job-hunting. It’s truly a piece of the larger puzzle. So when I get bored, or I run out of steam, I remind myself to take a break, do something good for myself.

Also – the more you are out of your comfort zone – the more you learn and grow. You expand your horizons and do things that you never thought you’d do before. Although it’s cheesy to say it’s an opportunity – it truly is. What better way to motivate yourself to change your circumstances than to be forced to do so?

So although it’s not fun, and the positives of doing things that you love, cleaning house and expanding your horizons don’t do much to dilute the empty days, it can help provide a little bit of balance, and a little bit of positivity which may be just what you need to get you through that interview. I find, that it helps to remember that sometimes.

My resolution is to blog more often, write more often, practice more yoga and do other things to better my life to balance out my job hunt. That way, when the write opportunity comes along, as it always does, all the other pieces will be in place.

He said it doesn’t matter if you hate all-inclusive resorts, if you are the only one sulking at the pool among hundreds of people that are having the time of their lives, then you have to take those peoples experiences into account. You can’t just condemn the resort because it’s not your thing.

This is simple enough in concept but harder in practice. As a part of my gig at Mooney On Theatre I have been reviewing Fringe shows. I went to a show last night called Slingers -the musical.

Truth be told, I loved the show. I was jetlagged and lacking sleep, and did not want to think. I also have a soft spot for musicals as cheesy as they are. When I was searching for photos online today I came across the EYE WEEKLY and NOW reviews who condemned the piece as worthless (one star or N in each case).

I agreed with everything they said in those reviews. The show was under-developed, and did not really go anywhere. But I still enjoyed it, as did the people around me. If I were the only person that had a great time last night, that would have been one thing. But the entire theatre laughed and stood up at the end. Yup the one-star show received a standing ovation. In addition more than a few readers very strongly disagreed with the reviews.

I agree that perhaps it could have been stronger in many ways. But is it wrong to enjoy something just because it’s funny or entertaining or must it adhere to certain standards to be worth anything? I’m not really too sure.

Those critics at the alt-weekly magazines know theatre inside out; they are experts. So why is there such a wide chasm between what they think and what less experienced people such as myself, or anyone sitting in that audience yesterday think?

What, in the end, makes a piece good or bad – in any art form?

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Procrastination. I write the word out slowly and carefully in a beautiful cursive script. I trace it again on top pondering over each letter. I go over it again. And again. When I’m finished I underline the word. Then I draw a box around it. Then I draw a box around the box. I shade in both boxes leaving the word itself intact. I try to stop there but my pen stays firmly connected to paper.

My pen keeps moving.

My pen keeps moving and has a life of it’s own, a spirit, a destiny. The ink spreads over the blank page like a disease, like cancer, reaching it’s bony fingers to every nook, every cranny, every tiny bit of white space till there is none left. It moves independent of my thoughts, independent of my hand, independent of that part of the brain moving the hand. It carries me with it. It cannot stop moving. It runs out of space on the page, but that burning hunger is still there, it moves onto the table underneath the page. It scratches the lacquered surface as it goes. The pen will not stop. It starts to move faster and faster replacing the light brown surface with one that is scraped blue. The pen must go on. The wall, the ceiling and the floor are next. The pen must not stop.

I try, oh believe me I do try to take back control, to reclaim my authority. I try not to give in as my body trails the pen across the floor of my hardwood living room, through the dining room and into the bedroom. My knees are scraped and every bare part of my body is stained blue as I keep going and going. The pen is the master now. I scramble to keep up, my body burning in pain from the friction of trying to slide and scramble across the floor. As it goes through the bedroom door the pain is becoming unbearable, I want to peel my whole body off, shed the load, shed the burden. At the foot of my bed it stops.

It is out of ink.

I stare at it and using my hand gently try and move the pen. It will not give in at first, clinging onto the last vestiges of the power it had over me. And then finally it surrenders.

I put it down flat on my palm, stroking the smooth outer covering gently then turning it round and round in my now blue palms. Sighing I try to stand. At first I’m not sure that I can, my knees don’t seem to have the strength. And then, using my dresser as support I rise gingerly. I walk across the blue hardwood floors, those blue chemicals permeating the skin on my heels and my toes the most. I reach the kitchen table where my page lies still, just where I left it. I can no longer read the word “Procrastination”. I move away from the page towards the trashcan nearby, and I toss the pen away.

March 27, 2004

However, today was different. Besides the obvious, that I am in Toronto and not in New Delhi India, the tremors were more powerful than I’d ever felt before, and seemed to last a lifetime. Also that tightening of my throat, that feeling of panic tends to be slightly more intense when you’re alone in your 20th floor condo than when you’re on the second floor of a family home.

I froze, sat down and opened my Twitter page. All was silent, it seemed like the world had paused to take in what had just happened. Then one by one reports starting coming in, it had a hash tag, and I learned that people in Ottawa, Montreal and the US had felt it too.

When I googled “earthquake” it took some time for anything to pop up. By the time The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail had preliminary reports up I pretty much knew the entire story.

By the time mainstream media started to break the story I had tired of it. My best friend had just told me she’s pregnant with her second child, I was starving and still had a ton of work to do.

The Twitter feed was starting to calm down, ease back into normalcy. People were over it. There is already a list of the top seven funniest tweets about #earthquake. My personal favorite was about a tsunami in the #FAKELAKE.

Now that I better understand this Twitter thing, it never fails to amaze me with it’s power as a medium. News travels so fast and effectively. Granted people could make anything up and put it out there, but it’s still impressive.

The point is, I think I’m finally starting to “get” it.