Bloor Line, content to stand in the doorway.

Caucasian woman, 70s, with glasses, wearing black "parachute" pants, black jacket with faux fur collar, and black and white bandana tied around her silver-white hair.

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro (McClelland & Stewart)

Halfway:

She paid for the passenger ticket now, from a roll of bills in a cloth bag in her purse. Like an old lady. She counted her change, too. But not the way an old lady would count it--she held it in her hand and flicked her eyes over it, but you could tell she didn't miss a penny. Then she turned away rudely, without a good-bye.

She fans the book in one hand, the other reaching into her pocket. She retrieves a tissue and dabs her nose, mouth open, shallow breaths, no scent, no taste. She sniffs and adjusts her weight, assuming the stance of a teenaged girl, face falling soft, skin creased into crepe paper folds.

East Indian male, 50s, with moustache, wearing glasses, a blue and tan jacket, and blue sneakers.

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, Gao Xingjian (Author), Mabel Lee (Translator) (HarperCollins)

Page 104:

People are mountain climbing. Everyone is trying to outdo the other and it seems to be a race up the mountain. Thre are men and women, some wearing shorts, some carrying backpacks. There are also old and young people, some have walking sticks and some have small children, and pairs of boys and girls who are holding hands, so it doesn't seem like a race.

Breakfast was hot water with fresh lemon, a co-worker's recommendation to help with bloating, the result of too many office parties and client dinners. As he dragged the juice for pits, combing them free with a fork, he blushed at the thought of this young friendship, the woman a generation younger, and he relieved that he didn't find her attractive. He couldn't speak with his wife about such things as a sensitive stomach.

Saturday night, IFOA, celebrating Anansi's 40th!

Caucasian woman, 40s, with long blonde hair tucked behind her ears, wearing black, head to toe. She tugs at the bottom of her shirt while, behind her, relaxed after her own reading, A.L. Kennedy listens.

Long Story Short, Elyse Friedman (House of Anansi Press)

Page 159:

He glanced at the menu about the counter. "I'm too cheap to pay more than a buck for a cup of coffee. Besides, I'm already buzzing. Just had two cups with another prospective partner at the doughnut shop around the corner."

"Oh." She frowned. "How did it go?"

The woman beside me laughs throughout the reading, her fingers resting in the palm of her other hand as if waiting for just the right moment to clap in appreciation. She, too, has been on blind dates, ready to leave within the first five minutes then rocking in the back seat of a cab that directs her away from the stillness of her own bed.

Spadina streetcar, awake since 5am, bright and shiny.

Caucasian male, early 40s, purposefully fit in fitted tee in unseasonably warm weather, his biceps effortlessly strained against the pole, freckled and tanned by a late autumn, high noon bike ride along the DVP.

LISTEN: Twilight Of The Superheroes, Deborah Eisenberg (Picador)

Page 26:

For months afterward, Madison kept everyone awake late into the night repudiating all his former beliefs, his beautiful blue eyes whirling around and his hair standing on end as if he'd stuck his head into a socket.

It's always a bit of a stretch, to get out this early. But the pavement is so smooth; he blasts by roller bladers, Tai Chi back walkers, and Riverdale dog owners. Yes, today, he could just keep riding. Miles upon miles upon kilometres, whatever he's supposed to be clocking. It's all the same. Just one more rotation away from the funeral of his dead lover.

Word On The Street, Booth 175

East Indian woman, mid 20s, wearing beaded tank top and loose jeans, sifting through sale titles, considering each book with great care as if assigning each one to a future weekend.

Open, Lisa Moore (House of Anansi Press)

Page 26:

At the kitchen table at home in St. John's. The tablecloth is gone; the table is red, bright red enamel paint, and there is the creamer, full of milk. The kitchen is pumpkin, forest green cupboards. The kitchen screams. My hands are on the table in front of me. I want to throw the creamer. Milk fluttering over your head, a long ribbon of surrender. It is a huge effort not to give in and throw it. Then my fist slams.

It's a strange feeling, riding the subway each morning, the book bags, the sleepy eyes, the lingering odour of cheap pitchers of beer, all tell-tale signs of students back to school. A strange feeling now that she's done, off to work, and the words that stream across the pages of the book settled in her purse will only revisit the world through word-of-mouth, not for grade.

Stuck in the doors at Bloor.

Asian woman, late 20s, long black hair twisted into a lazy ponytail, wearing a grey overcoat and scarf, teetering on implausibly high-heeled black suede boots. I look at these boots and all I can see are organized elementary school outings to the local skating rink, my ankles bent outwards, turning in on myself as I hopelessly attempt, of all things, crossovers around the bend. Her bookmark is a worn, almost soggy, postcard of Jupiter.

Walk in the Light & Twenty-Three Tales, Leo Tolstoy (Orbis Books)

Page 235:

Only there is one special custom in his kingdom; whoever has horny hands comes to table, but whoever has not, must eat what others leave.

Late Wednesday evening in the church basement the three young teenagers took a thirty-minute break from their weekly rehearsal, setting aside their foam puppets, the smell of adherent still toxic in the kitchen next door. Sunday School Puppet Harvey's moustache had fallen off; another's hair, strings of brown yarn, had thinned requiring a touch up, other strings of yarn not quite the same colour. The group's coordinator had gone up to the chapel while they rummaged through the storage room for sports gear. Out came the gym mats and impromptu Judo lessons. "Come at me from behind. Just come at me!" Plastic hockey sticks and orange rubber balls lined the walls, a basketball rolling to the end zone. "It's the key, not the end...Just give me the ball!" Retreating to the closet to look for the Nerf football she pulled the pastor's son, a good deal younger, close. She watched the mole on his neck bob, ba-dump, ba-dump. Her hair was short and greasy. She wore purple velvet knickers, a starched white blouse with a frilly collar and oversized beige leggings bunched up in the buckles of her patent leather sandals. The tetracycline had done wonders, only the occasional welt brewing under the skin on her chin. His hair parted firmly down the middle. He wore black corduroys and a white baseball tee with burgundy sleeves. She put her hand on his crotch. He yipped. "I've been practicing our number for your birthday party. I wore the Ace Frehley make up last night. The paint makes my teeth look yellow." She pulled his hips to hers and told him to open his mouth. He obliged, willingly, holding his breath. Music blared over the sound system:

Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory.
Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory.
Rise. And. Shine. And. CLAP. Give God the glory, glory.
Children of the Lord.

Onward puppy, ho!

This past week, I finished up the final draft of "Fading" which will appear in the spring issue of Maisonneuve Magazine. I found working with the fiction editor, Matthew Fox, a real pleasure. An editor helps me stand back from the work, to see it as a product, something to be consumed. I feel fortunate that I am able to let go of my writing with general ease. I quite happily give up my material--blemishes, inconsistencies and impossibilities--in the hope that the resulting feedback will give me more entry points to my own experience with the text. In the case of "Fading", Matthew helped rearrange the material so that the plot moved along in a way that works best for the magazine format. He asked all the right questions, in all the right places, making me see the words for what they are, first and foremost--an attempt to convey thought, then feeling. The ultimate result, however, is that it helped me move past a nagging question I've been struggling with, one that had been keeping me from proceeding at a faster clip. This is exceptionally good news, because I was beginning to wonder where this puppy was heading. That, and the feedback of a few seriously in touch readers, has left me rejeuvenated that there is, in fact, room in this world for another story.

University Line, thinking about resting his eyes.

Black male, late 30s, with goatee and sideburns, wearing a zipped up black fleece jacket and yellow scarf. A Pottery Barn bag stuffed with bath towels sits beside him. His head nods slightly. He catches himself, chuckling with the woman next to him. "Long day?" she asks. "Long life," he replies.

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures: Stories, Vincent Lam (Anchor Canada)

Page 174:

I drew lidocaine into the syringe. The anaesthetic swirled into the graduated barrel. I flicked with my finger, clearing the bubbles toward the needle, and expelled the air like a sneeze with a quick motion of the plunger.

"I don't want it to hurt," he said.

"It's gonna hurt."

He stands in the shower facing the faucets. He’s long finished but wonders if there’s something new he can do so he doesn’t have to get out just yet. He looks at the coarse loofah, a gift, then his thighs. He resolves to drink more water. Running his finger along the tiles, he tries to remember the last time he cleaned the grout. He'd tried to get the landlord to redo the bathroom. It’s very, to use their word, “ethnic.” He doesn’t mind it; the avocado green tiles and pink paint remind him of any number of happy childhood memories, certainly the kitchen appliances in his mother’s home. But he likes a spruce-up, so he’s taken on the cosmetic upkeep of his basement rental. Maybe that’s what he’ll do this weekend, and the caulking too. He’ll need 24 hours to let it settle. If he sees his friends Friday night, and he caulks the bathtub beforehand, doing the math, yes, by Sunday morning it will be good and ready. He just has to avoid anyone he knows all day Saturday.

He notices one of the tiles has a slightly different pattern than the others. He studies the rest. This one is upside down. It irks him a little. The water starts to turn cold. He adjusts the taps and turns to assess the other walls. No rhyme or reason; the tiles are, to use his word, willy-nilly. Yes, this irks him. He looks over his head at the pink ceiling, paint chipping. He feels enclosed, reaching up to draw a streak through the condensation. What does this pink remind him of? He’s transported to his grandmother’s hospital bed. Her breath is shallow, her head tilted back, mouth slack. Hairs have grown in, her dentures are ill-fitting. She rests her hand on his and stares at the ceiling, occasionally confused by the sunlight that comes through the blinds. He can still pick up traces of her Chantilly. He’s swabbing her lips with a Q-Tip, the roof of her mouth pink as Pepto-Bismol.

He steadies himself against the tile, grabbing the loofah, holding it in the stream.

If I lived in an alley, this would be so up it.

Shelf Portrait is an exhibition that renders an act of generosity into a work of art. Robin Pacific’s entire archive of 1,670 books, collected over 30 years, will be given away– free – to all who attend the Shelf Portrait exhibition at the Red Head Gallery from Saturday January 6 through Saturday January 27, 2007. Books read 30 years ago, books read last week, books read and re-read, books never read – Art, Fiction, Poetry, Cultural Theory, Memoirs, Biographies, Autobiographies, Essays, Letters, Philosophy, Psychology, Travel, Gardening. Each book has been catalogued and inserted with a bookplate: "This book is a gift to you from Robin Pacific." In exchange for signing their name beside the title of the books on catalogues hung on the wall, visitors can take the books home with them immediately.

You can find out more about the event here.

Rosedale platform, under a mild night's sky

Caucasian woman, late 20s, with long brown hair tied back in a neat ponytail, wearing broad purple frames, a long red wool coat and a green and red flecked angora scarf. She cracks the spine a few times and begins, using the gift tag as her bookmark.

The Whole Story and Other Stories, Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton)

Page 1:

There was a man dwelt by a churchyard.
Well, no, okay, it wasn't always a man; in this particular case it was a woman. There was a woman dwelt by a churchyard.
Though, to be honest, nobody really uses that word nowadays. Everybody says cemetery. And nobody says dwelt any more. In other words:

When she gets to page 3 she'll find a confession of love scribbled into the spine. It won't be from the young man who gifted her the book, it was bought second-hand. Still, she'll think, People just don't use words like this anymore. She'll stand. She'll look down the platform, both ways. She'll look at the sky, blank. She'll draw her purse strap over her shoulder and think, Think, think, think. She'll head toward the stairs and stop, halted, on the first step. She'll bounce on the balls of her feet and look back at the platform.

She knows he's only home for the holidays.

But when they'd emerged from the pub a fog had rolled in so thick that he'd taken her arm and guided her away from the curb like it was cliff. They'd walked through the emptying streets, her arms circled around his, childhood friends falling into the other's step, their short breaths pulled into the dense blanket that enclosed them. We could scream all our secrets and no one would hear them, she’d said. I’ve only the one, he’d replied, giving her waist a gentle squeeze.

A blast of air from the incoming train will catch her ponytail in a swirl. She’ll glance up the stairs, adjust her purse strap again, and place her hand on the railing.

Bloor Line, rumbling home on the last train

Caucasian woman, early 50s, short cropped salt and pepper hair, wearing a navy blue wharf coat, collar upturned, faded jeans and hiking boots. A silver ring adorns her right pinky. She spends as much time considering me as she does the page before her.

The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith, Patricia Highsmith (Norton)

About 3/4 through:

When she awakened in the morning, the world looked somehow different--sharper edged and more exciting. It was not the slight nervousness that might have been caused by a hangover. In fact Lucienne felt very well after her usual breakfast of orange juice, English tea and toast, and she painted well for two hours. She realized that she was busy detesting Edmund Quasthoff. Ludicrous, but there it was. And how many of her friends were feeling the same way about Edmund today?

She awoke on her half of the twin bed. The dorm room swayed with every tilt of her head. The roommate had come in at some point. Ahh yes, she remembered now. The wretching. She pulled herself up against the wall and surveyed the scene, a Rolling Stone magazine tear of Sinead O'Connor rumpled behind her shoulder. Balls of clothes, some of them hers. The girl beside her was beautiful. Wavy dark hair, arms up over her head, a Kafka t-shirt barely covering her runner's body, drooling out the side of her retainer. An emptied 26er of lemon gin sat atop the bar fridge, a tray of Tops Friendly Market's powdered doughnuts beside it. She scratched her head, remembered that she'd need to change her tampon soon, and tried to focus on the call she'd made to her boyfriend.

Chester platform, Saturday evening

Caucasian woman, mid 20s, brown curly hair pulled back in a clip, wearing a vest, knitted sweater, long jean skirt, thick stockings and hiking boots. Surrounded by Big Carrot bags. Eating an almond raisin bar. (3 for $5.99)

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Melissa Bank (Penguin)

About 220 pages in:

In post-op, he will tell you he is honored that you threw up on him. He will stay with you in the hospital all day, every day, and as late as he can at night. After visiting hours, when the night nurse says he has to leave, he will hide there with you, closing the curtain partition and keeping his feet up on your bed.

You stand alone in your grandmother's room collecting bags of dead batteries, wads of Kleenex balls and loose safety pins from the back of her drawer. You move to the bed lying in the indent of her form, facing the window to see what she would have seen, listening to the chatter of the schoolyard outside. She'd taken your hand and rubbed it over her lower stomache. "Can you feel it? It's massive." She'd gotten so tiny. She'd confessed she'd taken her wedding dress out of storage and tried it on again, an 81 year old woman looking at a reflection of herself sixty years earlier. Then she'd wrapped it up, walked down the hall and thrust it down the garbage chute.

Insomniac Press Fall Launch Party, Dora Keogh

Featuring Andy Brown, author of The Mole Chronicles, Pam Mordecai, author of Pink Icing, and Nick Thran, author of Every Inadequate Name.

Dear Andy,
I've had three moles removed, more freezing needles than I'd care to remember, and a scar that stretches an inch past the return my mother got on her investment in a plastic surgeon. My little sluggy scar.

Dear Pam,
I loved the part where you got into it, found your breathing and the character, your arm cocked behind your Caribbean hips, fist clenched, an eight year old girl lunging across the street because you take the journey.

Dear Nick,
Your two suitcases to get to this city are familiar, not because I know you but because I know someone else with two suitcases who ended up here too, working the Joe job, making her way, making her mark.

Nick Thran reading from page 45:

That night she cut the pieces thick.
After they'd cooled, placed two
on a bone white china plate, and whispered
through that beautiful silence:
they are okay now

You're grateful and I'm happy for you. To be able to look up and not only see a pocket of people you know and trust, but pockets, plural. That has to feel good.

Spadina streetcar, 8:50 AM

Caucasian woman, mid 20s, short black hair with auburn streaks, angular glasses, striped tight sweater under brown army jacket, blue and pink striped scarf, finger placed gingerly as page marker, staring out window.

Gargoyles, Bill Gaston (Anansi)

About 77 pages in:

No one could say why Andy was there before the cement got poured, wedged between plywood forms a foot apart. The autopsy showed he wasn't drunk. The word suicide was never ventured, for an odd suicide it would've been, Andy jumping in even as he saw the truck coming.

What did you take in that made you stop reading? Back in the early 90s a young man from Ridley College checked into a seedy hotel on St. Paul Street, took some pills, and left his room, walking to the end of the hall. He turned around and broke into a sprint, back down the hall, into his room and through the window. Two minutes later I pushed my way through the crowd, unaware. His head was split open, his blood sticky on the bottom of my Converse sneaker.

Or perhaps you didn't like the way the gentleman beside you looked over your shoulder.