oh why oh why would I want to be anywhere else?

Well, I'm up in the morning, it's true. I've approached it from the wrong side, however, so it's not precisely a success. I stayed up all night reading The Blind Assassin; I have that scraped feeling that comes from not sleeping, and the queasiness that comes from putting black coffee on top of that. I had to get up early this morning for an appointment anyway. At four am I decided that I would read just one more section, and then call it a night. Now it's nearly eight thirty, and not only am I done the book, I've eaten breakfast. I don't know that the coffee made a substantial dent in my vertigo, but next on my list is a shower, so maybe I'll be able to face my adoring public after all.

I really enjoyed the novel, but there's something about Atwood that always makes me slightly desperate. Her heroines are unnervingly human; they make mistakes, have regrets, are cowardly--and their ends are plausible, rather than happy. But they do have passion, which (or so I feel from the ripe old age of 24) I had when I was younger, and am now missing.

It's weird to read a novel that's so intimate with Toronto. Before I moved here I had only the vaguest understanding of the geography of the city; coming in from the 'Saugs, you get off the subway (after picking the stop closest to where you were headed by uncomprehendingly scrutinizing a map full of street names that meant very little), and become passingly familiar with a few blocks in the immediate radius. These unfocused blotches were only knitted together after I spent my first few weeks here roaming the city on foot. Now I rattle off directions and intersections with slight condescension--I guess I'm becoming a Torontonian.