Bloorp.

In which Emily Claire takes great pleasure in sharing stories and other oddities

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Gotta love that fresh Ontario cron.

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Bienvenue!

Snapped in my Paris hotel room, because getting my name wrong is always worthy of a photo.

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Behold, the only book I should have read over the holidays (but didn’t).

Found in my Grandma’s building party room.

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I’ve got some habits even I can’t explain

“When people hurt you very badly, do you have to forgive them?”

“No. But sometimes it hurts you more than it hurts them to hold a grudge.”

“What’s it all for, then? If people can act however they want and get forgiven, then what is the point of trying to be good in the first place?”

“I think it’s about what kind of life you want to live. You will have plenty of opportunities to be angry in your life. You have less chance to love people, though, really love them. So you just... you want to be careful how many of those opportunities you squander. I think young people think they’ll just keep coming... but they don’t.”

—The Affair, series finale

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“Maybe he was inventing a new shape with his mind...”

Toby: Look at the four of us, we’re like a pentagram! No, wait, that doesn’t make any sense. What do you call a four-sided... a... we’re a... quadrigram? Is that a thing? Quadrigram?

Other Em: You mean a SQUARE?

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Outside of sighing the same kind of sighs

“You make me want to be a better man.” — As Good As It Gets, 1997

“She has made me afraid to be in a relationship with the wrong person.” — My friend Paige

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But memories will fade and pretty dreams will rise up

A lot sure does happen in a year, doesn’t it?

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Or a dream that will fade and fall apart

“There's a line between love and fascination

That's hard to find on a moment such as this

And they all have the very same sensation

When you're lost in the magic of a kiss

Your lips are much too close to mine

Beware my foolish heart

But should our eager lips combine

Then let the fire start...”

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What chemical forces flow

“Who cares to define what chemistry this is?

Who cares, with your lips on mine, how ignorant bliss is?

So long as you kiss me, and the world around us shatters,

How little it matters, how little we know.”

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Here comes the jackpot question in advance

Shortly after midnight struck on New Year’s Eve, while friends were hilariously singing Smash Mouth’s “All Star” around me, I had a moment. Even though I knew this moment was going to happen, it still punched me in the gut when it did.

I finally said goodbye to what was truly a wild year in all senses of the word—the highs were high, and the lows were lower than I ever thought they could go.

December 31st is so cliché, isn’t it? We all make these shallow resolutions that we never keep, mostly just to make ourselves feel like we have a purpose going into a new year.

But here’s my little secret: I already know this year will be better than the one I just had, because it has to be. I’ve already proven to myself, with unwavering support from friends and family, that I can do this. I have already been doing this and I won’t let anyone stop me.

As a friend so cleverly said to me, everything’s coming up Emilhouse. 2019 will be my year, and I will do everything in my power to make it one to remember in all the most wonderful ways.

How’s that for purpose?

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Til all our sweet music is gone

There’s a scene in season 1 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel in which Midge stares wistfully through the window of a diner, remembering the breakfast she shared with her bland husband the morning after their wedding.

And as the scene transitions to show us that it is but a bittersweet memory and she’s alone, we hear Blossom Dearie’s tender version of “Dance Only With Me” fade in, enveloping your heart and then softly breaking it into a million little pieces.

Dearie has the kind of voice that transports you back to a time that may not even have existed for you, but makes you feel that surely it must have been a reality in a past life.

She did it to me when I first heard her sweet rendition of “Manhattan” during which I swear my mind conjured a nonexistent memory of strolling around New York with a fucking vanilla cone under the summer sun alongside some dumb, wonderful guy who is as into me as I am into him and how silly of me to be smiling so much over something that never happened?

But listening to “Dance Only With Me,” I feel it, you know? I feel that suspension of reality for two minutes and 58 seconds through that dreamy solo piano intro, the soft, patient swish of the drum brushes sweeping you into the song as it plays and, when it ends, suddenly you’ve returned to wherever you were when the song began.

If only music like this had the power to transport me elsewhere permanently. Maybe someday, when the time is right, it can even take me to a place where one of those silly nonexistent memories comes to life.

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Olden times and ancient rhymes

I put my first tree together last weekend, and by that I mean a tree that is truly mine alone and no one else’s. It’s trimmed with ornaments I’ve collected over the years, some of which I haven’t seen or touched in years, and surrounding the tree are adorably sightless gnomes I’ve acquired from past trips to my favourite country in the world.

The soft blinking lights, the abundance of chubby snowman ornaments, the classic holiday sounds of Vince Guaraldi all fill me with the quiet joy I need to guide me through what remains of a 2018 that is truly beyond description.

Making my home cozy with the warmth of the season has granted me some much needed peace. When I look over at this sweet little tree filled with my favourite things, it reminds me—that even when the most wonderful time of the year seems as if it will never come, time really does go by... and it always comes.

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What a bright time, it’s the right time

It’s 4:45 PM on a Friday in early November and someone in our open-concept office who sits 20 feet away decided that it was the perfect moment to start blasting “Jingle Bell Rock.”

A huge grin spread across my face, while the rest of our team started groaning.

“It’s too early for this,” they grumbled under their breath.

“TURN IT UP!” I called out gleefully, as the song transitioned to “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”

“Shut up, Emily,” they hissed.

So much for the holiday spirit.

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“Don’t let anyone ever make you feel like you don’t deserve what you want.”

— From 10 Things I Hate About You, of all movies.

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Won’t you stay old-fashioned with me?

I’ve started writing again. I mean, obviously I’ve been writing because posts have been appearing here because I have been writing them. But I have rediscovered the thing where you put pen to paper and suddenly, with almost no hesitation, there are eight pages in front of me with words I didn’t know I had.

And unlike the words I write here, even though I’m fairly certain I’m writing into a void (which is what I want), what I write on paper is really and truly for my eyes only.

It’s different, writing the analogue way, and I didn’t (couldn’t?) remember this until I started doing it again. Words flow in a natural, easy way that they don’t (can’t?) when I write them here.

Is this what I get for being a 90-year-old trapped in a 30-something body? Sitting here, writing the way you did in the olden days while listening to Chopin and Ravel and Liszt and oh god there’s the answer.

The thing is, this is the way it’s always been—and likely always will be. I don’t know how it’s possible to surprise oneself with something I already knew, but this is me we’re talking about.

No one said it had to make any sense. It just has to be.

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Like the velvet moon

Do you know what your favourite love songs are? After a week of asking around, I’ve discovered that most people don’t.

Okay, so that’s not exactly a scientific conclusion. But I was honestly surprised when I saw how hard it was for people to answer that question, especially when Valentine’s Day was looming.

It’s no secret that I dislike Valentine’s Day. I roll my eyes at the unabashed, lovey-dovey sappiness that February 14 embraces—that said, love songs are among my all-time favourites. They’re the kinds of songs that, if written today and sung by some boring pop artist, would probably be popular and praised by the current generation. But because they’ve been around for nearly 100 years, they are almost immediately dismissed as dull and out-of-touch and can’t possibly be considered romantic.

For me, those legendary songwriters and legendary singers have evoked more sincerity and emotion in a single verse than any modern artist I’ve heard in the last ten years. That’s obviously not to say that there aren’t new and talented artists out there, but I have yet to hear someone who exercises enough restraint and maturity to let the song take on a life of its own.

And what exactly does that mean? Listen with me.

The best songs are the simplest ones that effortlessly paint a vivid scene. Long instrumental intros like the ones in young Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey collaborations were commonplace for the time, and they were especially fitting for this dreamy tune.

Can you even begin to describe that very first moment you shared with someone special—that breathless feeling of anticipation, that invisible connection, or maybe even love at first sight (if you believe in that sort of thing)? Many attempts have been made to capture that, and “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” has come the closest for me. Young Sinatra helps, too, on account of being Sinatra.

In the secret romantic corner of my mind, I imagine that “Like a Lover” is the poem that the two dancers from “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” must have read to court each other, or whatever the kids are calling it these days.

There’s a playful sweetness to Emilie-Claire Barlow’s arrangement of this Brazilian-Portuguese song that makes my heart skip a beat, and Guido Basso’s flugelhorn solo echoes the joyous swells of the first blush of love.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Burt Bacharach and an even softer spot for The Carpenters. Karen Carpenter’s crystal clear, angelic voice always blows me away, and I love the fact that she was also a badass drummer (watch her completely slay “Strike Up The Band”). “Close To You” isn’t my favourite Bacharach or Carpenters song, but it’s my favourite Carpenters love song.

You can fault a tune as ubiquitous as this one for its cornball emotions, but you can’t deny its infectious, sunny outlook on love. Just picture that iconic first line of the song literally happening—you know which line—and try not to crack a smile. How many love songs can you say make you do that?

Three words: Chet Fucking Baker. CHET FUCKING BAKER.

Ignore for a moment, if you will, the fact that posting this song today is the ultimate cliché and that it’s been recorded by hundreds of artists. Listening to Baker’s sultry, expressive vocals is like hearing “My Funny Valentine” for the first time, every time, and I fall in love with him it all over again.

*Originally posted February 14, 2015 - reposted to include Spotify links :)

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I go at a maddening pace

How do you go back to the way things were? The simple answer is that you can’t, and the more complicated answer is also “you can’t,” with the addendum of “but why look back when things have the potential to be better, even if that’s impossible to see right now?”

I gave my best friend a big, long hug tonight, likely for the last time for a long time—at least a long time for me, as she prepares to embark on a brand new adventure.

When I think about the sheer amount of change that not just me, but also that my closest friends have experienced in the last year alone, it very nearly leaves me paralyzed with disbelief. How is it possible that we are all going through so much across all aspects of our lives, and at the same time, no less? Is this the path that has been permanently carved out for us?

That’s a rhetorical question, of course, because there is no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going.

There’s no going back, either, but that‘s not a bad thing—even if some bad things have led us to where we currently are.

We’re already charging ahead on our own paths to make life awesome in new ways, and I admire the strength of these women in my life. They continue to show the world that they are unstoppable forces.

If that’s not inspiring, then I don’t know what is. This has been one hell of a year for us and there are still a few months left before 2018 is over.

We’re ready. I have been ready. Let’s see what else you got.