Swimming,cycling, scavenging - not in that order

So I am newly energised for this blog and intend (once again) to stick with the Friday update patterns. This week’s main event was the Summer Scavenger Hunt with the meetup group I joined. Basically we had 33 tasks/photos to get around the city. Some were very specific: “Get a picture of this sign”; some required chutzpah: “A team member hugging a donut shop employee”; others just paying attention: “Grafitti without words”.

It was quite an active week – I spent Saturday at Toronto Island cycling for about three hours. The island is beautiful and peaceful and I think I might just go every weekend. It’s kind of like heading to the country, but instead it’s just a ferry ride away, complete with beaches for swimming!  So between that, walking for four hours on Saturday, and playing volleyball on Monday I could barely move on Tuesday, but it was well worth it.

Were you just thinking “I wonder what Catie’s been reading, lately.”? I know, I heard you.

This week I read a couple books but the highlight was Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? And Other Concerns, by Mindy Kaling. She’s a writer and actor for the US version of The Office and she’s really funny. Same kind of category as Bossypants, by Tina Fey and How to Be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran (both also highly recommended, especially if you have two X chromosomes.)

And the other book I read this week was The Magician King, by Lev Grossman. If you read Narnia as a kid this series (first book is The Magicians) is highly recommended. It’s an almost satirical take on your standard fantasy tropes, which manages to be funny, realistic and still gripping and thrilling.

Work had a big re-launch this week, now our site is called HRM Online instead of HR Daily. There are reasons, but the reasons don’t really matter. What matters is that I had to work really hard and then I felt like I needed a break but I didn’t have a break… However, this weekend is a long weekend so I’ll be sleeping late and maybe catching the Pride Parade on Sunday.

And final exciting news: I’m going to New York in September, meeting a friend from NZ so am currently in the planning stages. Any tips or advice, let me know.

On shoes and ships and sealing wax...

TWO updates this week! To make up for the total lack the last two weeks. The other (posted yesterday) is essentially a breakdown of what annoys me about the plethora of “Oh no – so many single women!” articles I’ve read over the last year so if you’re not looking for a rant you can just read this one ;)

Things I have done in the last three weeks:

Read some great books

Highly recommended:

The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood

Ordinary Thunderstorms, William Boyd

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley

Not recommended:

The Black Obelisk, Erich Maria Remarque

Gone to concerts

Thanks to a friend who’s in the know about events around the city I’ve seen Lisa Hannigan (look her up on YouTube, she’s quite good) and The Flaming Lips in the last few weeks. I’m not the most up-to-date musically but live music is always good and Toronto gets some fantastic performers.

Seen some movies

The most fun was Blazing Saddles, last week’s classic movie at the local cinema, which I got a group together for. Fun had by all, and now I keep wanting to ask people “Where the white women at?”

Prometheus was the most recent/big name. I found it distinctly meh. There were amazing bits and stupid bits, but overall as a science fiction movie it lacked a lot of science. However, as a scary adventure movie in space it was well worth seeing!

Eaten a lot of frozen yoghurt

Three places in two hours: it was an epic yoghurt crawl that ended at a bar. That was a nice reverse on so many of my university nights that started with a bar crawl and ended eating junk food. I recommend Yoghurt Spoon on Yonge by Wellesley if you’re looking for frozen yoghurt, and aren’t more likely to just go to the place nearest you.

Books, music, movies, food – that about covers my life, right?

This weekend is a trip to Toronto Island and a scavenger hunt around downtown Toronto. Can’t wait!

All the single ladies...

Another day, another story about how many women will never marry, or are sabotaging their relationships by being too forward, or are going to be single mothers because men are fickle and flighty ... And the main thing that struck me was this: In a country with a fairly even gender split (As both Canada and the USA have) there should be the same number of single men as single women. And, of course, every child has a father (biologically at least). So where are all the stories about single, childless men?

Most of these articles don’t claim that all women are miserable and with they were married, in fact many dwell on the role personal choice plays in the trend, so why wouldn’t we write about when men are getting married, whether they’re getting married and why they might not be getting married in the same numbers as previous generations?

I actually struggled to find clear articles on this issue, and no well set out statistics (unlike about single women where there is a lot of information) but here are some trends I found online:

-In the UK single men aged 30 to 39 outnumber single women

-In Japan 61% of unmarried men don’t have a girlfriend, compared to the 49% of unmarried women who don’t have a boyfriend. (I am unclear on whether this actually just means “someone they’re seeing” and therefore includes LGBT people, or if straight people’s dating lives are all that matter to statisticians.)

-In the USA there are 88 unmarried men for every 100 unmarried women – so there is a difference, and probably a significant one, but it doesn’t seem so drastically different that we shouldn’t worry about those poor single men.

Double standards are ripe across the world, so no surprises there, unfortunately. I just don’t agree with this idea that single women are miserable and single men are happy. It’s one of those core myths that feeds into the notion that women trap men into long term relationships.

Feminist rant over, expect a life update tomorrow that will apparently have to cover three weeks of information because I’m a rubbish blogger ;)