Sometimes I question my work. I love my job, but it’s a grey Irish-mist kind of day that reminds me of Istanbul in late January or Jerusalem in March — and so memories of relatively carefree times clash with my present. This morning I spent 2 hours in a departmental meeting trying to help a major government client figure out how to write a report on plans and priorities without including any details or plans. Then there’s another client who works in the department that governs HR and employee relations. He procrastinated for so long in the production of his annual report that he yelled at our secretary yesterday. Gee,…

You know how I feel about Christmas lights in February. Jo-Anne, it doesn’t matter if you call them “winter lights!” It may seem like a good idea at the time, but don’t try standing up while sliding down a hill on a crazy carpet. Avoid wasabi during business lunches. And lentil purée if you have yoga that evening. My houseplants are dying. Working out of the house takes its grim toll. To get rid of aphids, take a shallow bowl and add a squirt of dish soap to some warm water. Not hot. Stick your fingers in like Madge and froth it up. Cover the little buggers with the bubbles…

I got up early this morning, tense about a presentation to CBC today. I have to speak to CBC’s “international role — how it is the voice of Canada abroad.” So I started thinking about the time I was in Syria, travelling alone near the border of Iraq. I was in a smoke shop, reading and taking deep puffs of nargileh (it’s the thing to do – that and play backgammon — and I don’t know how). A man invited me to his house. He seemed nice. We rode on his motorbike into the night. I was scared shitless, thinking I’d made a big mistake. But it all worked out.…

Elizabeth! Regular Walden reader! I’m so proud of you for being quoted on the front page of the Globe and Mail today. But really, stop wasting your time on the Conservatives. It’s so easy, being Green.

From the archives… Beat the winter blahs.

I hate “gay pride.” And especially that stupid parade. Celebrating your homosexuality seems to me like wanting to whoop it up because you have big feet. So you’re born like that. Who cares? Yet I understand that gays parade to confront long-entrenched views, many of which I too was raised to believe. PEI in the 1970s-80s was a very homophobic place; my dad thought people who carried umbrella’s were fags. And if you had an earring – well! Hell fire!! My Dad’s cousin was the first PEI AIDS case, in 1987. I remember certain family members boycotting his funeral because he was “a shame on the family.” So I hate…