Lydia Schoch

The Pan American Games have just begun here in Toronto. Our city has been preparing for them for quite a while now.

All of the subway trains I’ve ridden in recently have either included posters about the games or friendly reminders to those of us who live in the city about how busy public transit is projected to be for the next several weeks. Some of the ads have asked us to work from home or travel during off-peak hours when possible.

So I started off July with the expectation that my city would be insanely busy until the middle of August. As in, I was planning to walk everywhere I could and to cut down on trips that would have required public transit during the busiest parts of the day. I was also planning to gently dissuade any friends or relatives who were hoping to visit this month because I assumed the hotels would be sold out and a lot of the tourist destinations would be even busier than they normally are in the summer.

My life is structured in a way that I can generally make these adjustments. A lot of other people’s lives aren’t.

What has surprised me the most about the Pan-Am games is that none of this has come true so far. The subway is not more crowded than normal. I’ve only seen a handful of people wearing lanyards that identify them in some way with this competition. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a perfectly ordinary July. If anything, it’s actually a little quieter in my city than I’d normally expect for this time of year. There definitely aren’t a noticeable number of tourists here which is bizarre.

If any of this changes, I’ll let you know over the next month. It’s going to be fascinating to see how it all pans out.

Readers, are you interested in the Pan-Am games? If any of you are planning to attend them, what have you thought so far?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poems, memorials, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

Can I Start Saying “Crap”? via pinkmenotmom. This was too funny.

Fifty Shades of Yellow. One of the weirdest things I’ve read online in years was this article. I can’t imagine being that obsessed with the life of someone you’ve never even met.

The Post-Ownership Society. We really need to fix this.

Highway Survivor via jdubqca. There’s no way I can discuss this poem without giving away spoilers. Go read it and then we can talk about the final stanza.

#DeadRaccoonTO honoured by Toronto with Sidewalk Vigil. Those of you who are on Twitter might have heard of this already. What I like about this article is that it finally tells us what happened to #DeadRacoonTO. Closure is nice!

What have you been reading?

As most of you already know, I’ve been recovering from an injury for a little over a week now. It’s the kind of injury that makes it painful to type, so once again this will be a short post.

When I saw my doctor, I felt just like the character in the XKCD comic above. (You should be able to click on it to enlarge the picture. If that doesn’t work, click here).  It’s so difficult to explain what’s going on with your  body when you can imagine far more painful and horrifying things that could happen to it. The 10-point pain scale probably works much better for patients who don’t have a runaway imagination. Ha!

What I ended up doing along with my pain scale rating was describing how the injury was affecting me. At one point it was so uncomfortable that I was having a hard time eating or sleeping.

The good news is that I’m doing much better! The pain is 95% gone, although there is still some stiffness that makes it uncomfortable to type for a long period of time. I’ve been doing a set of doctor-recommended exercises to get my full range of motion back.

I hope to be fully back to my old self in time for my next post here. Thank you all for all of your kind thoughts and messages this past week.

Last week I developed an injury that makes it painful for me to spend a great deal of time on my laptop. It’s healing, but I still need to rest it as much as possible.

Instead of a regular post, then, I’ll be sharing an optical illusion with you that I found on this blog.

Stare at the dot on the girl’s nose for 15 seconds. Be sure not to look at anything else during that time. Then look at the blank page on the right and tell me what you see.

(Don’t worry – it’s nothing scary!)

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Happy Fourth of July to my U.S. readers! Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

America Explained to Non-Americas. I don’t actually agree with any of these definitions, but they’re still funny.

An Atheist Parent, an Evangelical Grandmother, and a Six-Year-Old Girl via lovejoyfeminism. This is a really interesting approach to teaching kids about atheism and theism.

How to Find a Quiet Place to Relax in a Crowded Foreign City. This is brilliant.

Because I Haven’t Known What to Say via juliaparktracey. One word: regret. That’s the only hint you’re going to get about this one.

Locke: The Most Beautiful Dumpster Cat via HCWrightAuthor. Quick, someone invent a cure for allergies so I can go adopt a few pets from my local shelter! On a serious note, this is a great post.

From Who Owns the Dead?

Just 100 years ago, the sight of a dead body laid out in someone’s front parlor would not have been at all unusual. Indeed, the home was the province of the funeral for most of U.S. history.

What have you been reading?

I wasn’t originally planning to share anything on my blog today, but this was good.

I’ll tell you why there wasn’t a post scheduled for today in a few days. In the meantime, keep me in your thoughts.

Photo credit: Stéfan.

Every year at about this time I notice a dip in visits to this blog.

It alarmed me the first time it happened because I thought I’d done something to seriously annoy my audience. I soon realized, though, that it was normal and temporary.

The question is, what do you do when everything is quiet?

Do you start writing posts in Pig Latin to see if anyone notices?

Do you recycle old posts?

Do you post a lot of gifs?

Do you share things that scare you, safe in the knowledge that fewer people will read them than might a little while from now?

Do you seek out Dr. Slump comics?

Readers, how do you respond to things like this?

Here is this week’s list of blog posts, poems, and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

In Historic Decision, Court Strikes Down State Bans on Same-Sex Marriage. I’m sure you’ve all heard the news already, but I really liked how the Scotus Blog explained in plain English what this means for LGBT people living in the U.S.

Why Are People Changing Their Minds About Same-Sex Marriage? This research is fascinating. I’ve seen it play it over and over again with acquaintances, friends and family members.

Summer Solstice via everettpoetry. I know I’m sharing this almost a week after the actual summer solstice, but I love the imagery in it.

Is Lousy Sex Better Than No Sex? 70% of the reason why I’m sharing this with you is because the title is so eye-catching.

Rainbow Sky via JAHesch. Joe (the author) picked the perfect picture to accompany his poem. Every time I see it, it makes me grin.

Let’s Bring Back Mourning Clothes via snail_5. There’s definitely something to be said for this. It shouldn’t become obligatory, but it would be a good thing to have some kind of visual clue that someone is in mourning.

Two weeks ago I recommended a dinosaur expert’s critique of the new Jurassic Park movie. This week you should check out this video about what this franchise would have been like if the characters have visited different geologic eras.

What have you been reading?

This would make such a fantastic full-length movie. It would be like Toy Story for a more mature audience.

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by figurines like these. Logically I knew that they didn’t get up and walk around when no one was looking, of course, but it was still fun to imagine them having adventures after all of the human left the room.

Did you have similar thoughts growing up?

Photo credit: Khaydock.

The characters in my latest work-in-progress have been giving me a terrible time over the past two months or so.

Every change I try to make to their storyline falls flat. I’m not satisfied with how the plot is currently flowing, though, due to some abrupt jumps between scenes that really need to be smoothed out in my opinion.

Fellow creative people, how do you get unstuck? I’m willing to try anything at this point!