I think I have missed the window to get over to the gym, so I will try to catch up a bit on the blog instead. It is just too cold outside to get motivated to go back out. I may regret this later in the week, but I will certainly try to make it to the gym and to swimming. Last week didn't go over that well either, at least on the exercise front. At one point, I only had two things on the calendar, but by the end I was out and about doing something every evening, and then heading to Montreal over the weekend.
In fact, Thurs. I found out more or less at the last minute that Roz Chast (the New Yorker cartoonist) was doing a talk at the Toronto Reference Library. I have to say that if people hadn't been so disgusted with the lack of progress on getting the website up and running, far more people would have signed up for the tickets to the event, which were free! And it was also the first day of the big book sale. I wasn't sure I could make that, but I brought some cash anyway.
In the end, the TTC let me down yet again. I had planned to leave early to pick up my bike from the bike shop (having really struggled to get back from the Toronto Botanical Gardens the previous Sunday where I was seeing Tafelmusik*). But someone was on the tracks, and they had shut down Line 2 from Spadina to Broadview, so there was no way I could get to the East End in time. I ended up sticking around (and having a mediocre meal downtown) and then going to the book sale (where I picked up a small number of books and the Mingus (Candid) CD. Chast's talk was great. She was promoting a recent graphic novel on dreams. I got a copy and then waited in the very long line to get it signed. (It turns out she is left-handed. I decided not to tell her that once upon a time I learned touch-typing in my dreams -- true story!)
I was too annoyed with how the evening had went and my arms were sore from carrying around a bike panier, so I didn't go to the gym that evening either.
I suppose things could be worse. I could have been a current or former TPL employee. They finally have been more open about the nature of the attack. TPL decided not to pay any ransom, which is probably the correct call, but apparently a server with a lot of HR info was breached, so any former employee (as far back as 1989!) may have their SIN and personal info sent over to the darkweb. What a disaster. They are still worried about turning on the computers at all, so books that have been returned are just sitting in bins. The library is really close to unusable, as it is entirely hit or miss what is on the shelves at any particular branch, and you can't use the catalogue to locate books. I'm certainly in no rush to bring anything back.
Just recently, they announced this state of affairs would last through mid-Jan., though realistically it may not be Feb. before service is really restored. Oh vey. I'm certainly going to lean a lot more heavily on Robarts.
In terms of what I am actually doing, I had two books out from the Kelly Library at St. Mike's -- yet another Chagall book and McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City.** Oddly, the person checking the books out messed up and they weren't charged to my account, so I could have kept the books indefinitely. However, I got both back within the 2 week period. Then I checked out Kurkov's Grey Bees and the movie Transit by Christian Petzold based on the Seghers's novel. These ones I will have to get back in time, so Grey Bees is going straight to the top of the reading list, though I only have 90 pages left to go in Perec's Life, A User's Manual, so that will also be top of mind.
Anyway, I have 3 novels from TPL out at the moment: William Brewer's The Red Arrow, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz and The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan. I would probably only have picked up the Brewer, but with the library all messed-up and books effectively not truly due until January, I figured why not. (At least these books are fairly short.) If it is still on display at the Pape/Danforth Library on my next visit, I'll probably check out Shannon Chakraborty's The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi (which doesn't appear to be in the UT system), even though it will make major distortions in my reading list.
So things are far from great on the library front, but I certainly have more than enough to keep me occupied until things get back to normal.
* This was an unpleasant, nearly epic struggle where the lack of maps in Sunnybrook Park took me in the complete wrong direction and I ended up behind the Ontario Science Centre! In the end I was 15 minutes late for the concert and frustrated as hell. The shifter on the bike had been giving me trouble for a week, and it finally gave up the ghost on the ride back, where I also got turned around a couple of times. I probably won't go to anymore of these Tafelmusik in the Garden concerts, but if I do I will never attempt to bike it again!)
** I had been looking for my copy in deep storage downstairs and finally gave up. I read this for the first time quite late (45!) and don't have a lot of time for the drug-fueled escapades but overall it's a solid book. I reread it in order to watch the movie based on the book, which I hope to do fairly soon.
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