Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country.

I haven't been writing, and that just isn't right.

Ba-dum-ching?

I have been mom-ing and training and training some more. The race is 16 days away, and I am still in denial that it is actually going to happen and I didn't just dream that I signed up to run 13.1 miles through Ottawa and Gatineau wearing a numbered bib. Nevertheless, I run on. Confucius said, "It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop."

I've also been falling in love with everything. I found Midnight in Paris to be almost intolerably delightful, and I regret taking so long to finally see it! Corey Stoll made me swoon over Hemingway in spite of myself. Mostly I was intrigued by the film's exploration of the notion that every age is more enamoured of one that came before it rather than its own - the tendency to attribute an impossible romance to the past. (Random aside: I initially typed that as "pasta". Impossibly romantic pasta. You know, like Lady & the Tramp?) Plus, it was so pretty. Paris, Paris, Paris. Paris in the rain! Let's go, you guys.

Added to my "Movies You Must See Even Though They Will Make You Weepy and Ruined for Days" list are Third Star and Stuart: A Life Backwards. Benedict Cumberbatch - I can't even type his name without a dreamy sigh.

And speaking of dreamy, My Head is an Animal by Of Monsters and Men is like seashell hunting on a quiet beach and staying to dance under the stars. Bonfires and long train rides to the sea. Whatever, kids. It's damn good.

I LOVE Once Upon a Time. Initially I'd dismissed it, bitter over its sort of kind of but not at all resemblance to Fables when it isn't, in fact, the show that was supposed to be made based on the graphic novel series. This was silly and unfair of me, as it is actually really adorable. Everyone is perfectly cast, and I enjoy the writers' interpretations of the original fairy tales. For example, I think it's awesome that ( spoiler for those who haven't seen the show but may want to watch in the future ) Unsurprisingly, I have latched onto one of the show's seemingly doomed ships ( spoilerish ). Also unsurprisingly, I find the whole cast hot. In particular, I have always thought that Sebastian Stan is like staring at the sun beautiful. Serena/Carter Baizen forever. What.

Scott and I are finally catching up on House. We watched the second last episode from last season last night, and I still can't get House's attempt at DIY tumour-removal scenes out of my head. And here I thought I wasn't that squeamish about blood and such things.

The Cabin in the Woods is worth seeing. It is Joss at his piss-taking finest. Fran Kranz makes the whole thing, though, and I'm not just saying that because I love him madly.

I want to see The Avengers but have not yet. I'm looking forward to Snow White & the Huntsman, Moonrise Kingdom, and, of course, The Dark Knight Rises. This is a great year for movies. The Hobbit and The Great Gatsby are also on my 2012 To See list. I think they're due out around Christmas time? I've said it before in various places, but it bears repeating: Carey Mulligan will be a brilliant Daisy Buchanan.

Gardening weekend approaches. I want to grow blackberries this year, if such a thing is even possible. Already the rabbits have eaten the heads off my peonies, so I might pick up another one of those so I can actually see some blooms. Blasted rabbits.

Haven't been writing but dreaming up pointless bit characters, like a man who responds with "fencing" when asked what he does for a living, and everyone is disappointed to learn that he doesn't mean the kind with the swords. I don't even know.

Enough rambling. Have a lovely weekend.

You know when you stumble upon a song, hear it playing in some clothing store somewhere or something, and it isn't anything new, necessarily, but it is exactly what you need at that particular moment in your life? Yeah.

Although I realize that The Hunger Games' series is bound to be lumped in with other young adult series, including that trilogy that also happens to feature a love triangle, Twilight, I will argue until I'm breathless that what Suzanne Collins has created with this particular trilogy stands out from the pack. It's not just about a love triangle. Among other things, it is about the privileged few oppressing the less fortunate many, how easily and insidiously a populace is desensitized to violence when said violence is assigned an entertainment value, the power of fear and hope, and the notion that, though you can kill a person, you can't kill an idea. The Hunger Games and its two sequels are, in my opinion, very important books, and so it was critical to me that the filmmakers get the movies right. I believe, so far as this first installment goes, they have done that.

( hope is the only thing stronger than fear )

This weekend I ran seven miles or so and finished The Hobbit. Not at the same time, mind you.

And then I sat down to write this post about the book and other things, and an involuntary twitch of my left hand caused me to drop a hot cup of tea all over my keyboard and lap. I said "ouch" and then "fuck" three times consecutively, and spent the next few hours soaking my very red, somewhat blistered legs in cold water. Fortunately, my lap will survive. My laptop may not. Of all potential outcomes, this is, I suppose, the second most desirable.

And then today this happened, and all was right with the world, and by "right", I of course mean completely bonkers.

Um, but anyway, I found The Hobbit delightful, and am ashamed to say I'd never read it before and still have yet to actually sit down and read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it is on my list. Bilbo is such an endearing character, and I couldn't help thinking how perfect Martin Freeman is for the role. I love all the scenes with Gollum and Smaug - what guts for such a little hobbit! I love that Benedict Cumberbatch is voicing Smaug, too, for silly Sherlock fangirl reasons and also because I imagine he does a splendid arrogant dragon voice. (Only somewhat related, but apparently there is in existence audio of BC reading "Ode to a Nightingale" that I can't bring myself to listen to because I expect that doing so carries with it an increased risk of pregnancy.)

Ouch, my legs are sore, but look, Martin Freeman in suspenders, and oh, The Hunger Games comes out on Friday. I am attending an opening night showing wearing a Team Peeta t-shirt (I didn't think of the Team Katniss feminist perspective until I had already put in the order!) and a mockingjay pin. Geeks ahoy, indeed, but at least I shall be among friends.

Um. Hm. You... you told me once that you weren't a hero. Um. There were times that I didn't even think you were human. But let me tell you this, you were the best man, the most human.... human being that I have ever known, and no one will ever convince me that you told me a lie. And so, there. I was so alone, and I owe you so much. Please, there's just one more thing. One more thing. One more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't. Be. Dead. Would you do that, just for me? Just stop, just stop this.

Once upon a time, a twelve year old version of me returned from a field trip to see a Toronto production of The Phantom of the Opera, completely destroyed by the beauty of it all and what I perceived to be the terrible mistreatment of the Phantom and his unhappy ending. An attempt to have a conversation with my mother about the show and my related feelings went something like this:

"It was so sad, Mom! He just wanted someone to love him!"
"That's nice. Go to bed."

The Internet is like a support group for people who feel too much.

( more to the point, perhaps )

John: Oh, can we please not do this again this time?
Sherlock: What?
John: You being all mysterious with your cheekbones, and turning your coat collar up so you look cool.
Sherlock: I don't do that...
John: Yeah, you do.

I feel like I need to talk about my thoughts on this show more in depth, but I haven't the time at the moment. For now, you may be assured simply that OH MY GOD I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

I have just watched the first episode of Sherlock and am wrecked to discover what I have been missing all this time.

"Not now! I'm in shock. Look, I've got a blanket!"

Other things I have been loving recently include but are not limited to the following:

• The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey. It's a modern inspired-by Jane Eyre sort of tale with an appropriately feisty as all get-out heroine in the title character. Charlotte Brontë would be proud.
• the fact that Cymbeline will be showing at Stratford this festival season (Can't help but wonder what Shakespeare would think of all the giggles "What ho, Pisanio!" elicits given the more modern connotations of that particular word.)

(I awoke this morning with this in my head and a title sort of taken from an Incubus song that I don't even like all that much. 'Sup, Thursday.)

Harold wore his particular set of abilities like a pair of glasses. He felt neither compelled to mention them to anyone, nor to use them for anything other than practical purposes like avoiding about to be overturned crates of tangerines or predicting an onion shortage at the street meat vendor on Main and DeBloom. Thus, it was only his stomach that brought him to the less frequented Fred’s Franks on the corner of Fourth and National rather than any preternaturally-inspired pursuit of kismet. There had been no psychic premonition of Margo in her mottled grey Banana Republic pencil skirt, Margo with her cropped golden brown waves like Zelda Fitzgerald, only her actual presence and its coincidental proximity to the wafting aroma of fried onions and sausage. It wasn't until he bent to catch a drop of ketchup with a napkin before it landed on her lap that he registered her as a significant event in his experience of space and time.

"I'm in love with you," he said quietly.
"Augustus," I said.
"I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know that the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you." (p. 153. John Green, The Fault in Our Stars)

I read these lines in my copy of the book this morning, and they have broken me for at least the day.

I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. I spend my entire day talking to children. And I find it fundamentally strange that you’re not a dessert person. It freaks me out. I’m sorry that I don’t talk like Murphy Brown. And I hate your pantsuit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something just to make it slightly cuter, but that doesn’t mean I’m not smart and tough and strong.

Oh, and one more thing: I'm about to go pay this $800 fine, and my cheques have baby farm animals on them, bitch.

There is a whole discussion that could and needs to be ignited by Jess' rant on this week's episode of New Girl. In defense of girly girls, in protest of girls hating on other girls, and so on and so on and so on. Go.