Do try not to tell your wives you'll be home at a certain hour and want to eat in, and then call twenty minutes after the appointed time from the office saying you're about to leave.

The stir-fry's going to be a little floppy. 

However, if this is the worst thing you ever do, your wives will be grateful.  They will not remember that they are grateful, though, until well after dinner.  :)

It's my last day as Head Beeyotch in Charge (of editorial) at Top 10 Sources.  So of course I am slammed with stuff to do.  But I had a really fun night last night and want to blog about it, so if I have time later I will...

(The title of this lame entry is from a play called Museum, by Tina Howe, which I was in my sophomore year of high school.  In the play, it's the last day of the museum exhibit, and two characters go on and on about it's the "laaaaaaaaaaast day" of the show.  I still think of it every time it's the last day of anything.)

I spent most of my life in Boston before coming to Toronto.  Sure, I lived in Cincinnati for 8 months and Maine when I was tiny and a few other places for a few months at a time.  But really, Boston is it.

Now I live in Canada.

People here ask me all the time what I find different about living in this country.  I've noticed a few things - different products on store shelves, people almost never drive in the right lane of any street, milk is in bags.  Milk is in bags!  But the one that weirds me out the most is this:

People talk to me in elevators.

In Boston, unless you are on the elevator with someone you know, you stare at the door, or stare at your feet, or look at whatever you happen to have in your hands.  You do not talk.   You do not make eye contact.

Here, people chat you up. 

"Nice day, huh?"

"Been shopping?"  Um, no, I'm carrying groceries that I found on the sidewalk.

I don't really know what to do with this.  It happens most often in our building, where sure, maybe people want to be nice to their neighbors.  But it happens other places too.  I always answer because I don't want to be rude, but really, I don't feel like chatting in the elevator.  I'm in there in order to get someplace.

Another thing I noticed is that people touch each other a lot more here.  I get hugged, kissed, and once in awhile even groped by friends (you know who you are, don't deny it!).  I'm used to a hug.  But people in Boston just aren't very kissy with their general friend population.

I mean, it's nice to have affection, even though I get plenty from the hubby.

But is Boston really that austere, or is Toronto just that effusive?

A cousin I met pretty recently was watching me play with my youngest nephew.  I lifted him in the air and my sweater rose up in back.  She said, "Oh my God, you're so white!"

Well, yes.

It's true that my skin, particularly that which is not freckled, is paler than even most white people's.

But living in the side of my family made up almost entirely of Filipinos (we have another white girl - an aunt - and some Koreans and Vietnamese and blends of these with Filipino) is interesting for me, because growing up in the other side of the family - my biological one - in my super boring home town, I was a lot less white.

I'm very accustomed to, as a Jew, being the ethnic person in the room, or at least one of the "most ethnic".

And now I'm the white girl.  I don't understand the language, I still encounter new foods on a regular basis, and man, am I pale.

It's not a bad thing.  And I am a bit of a curiosity sometimes.  A nice lady who's not related to us asked me if Jews honor the Blessed Mother.  What was I supposed to say?  No, sorry, we can't get on board with that whole virgin birth thing?  I said, "Well, yes, of course, just in our own way."

As in, no, we can't get on board with that whole virgin birth thing.

But mostly I'm whitey American.  It is extremely interesting.  It's a whole new way of looking at the world - to this half of my family, I look like The Man.  To my elementary school, I was the girl who was going to hell because she didn't believe in Jesus.

Wait, tell me again what changed?

Hee!

For the last few months I've been working as Editor-in-Chief at Top 10 Sources.

It's been cool; everyone keeps saying how the Web 2.0 thing is so much like the dot-com boom, and well, yes, in a lot of ways we've been partying like it's 1999.  And it's a good group of people, fun project, etc.

But I live 500 miles from the office.

Any of you who know me well understand that I could never really thrive if forced to work by myself all day.  Sometimes at Berkman I would shut my office door, for phone calls or crunch time, but most of the time I was glad to have people stop in and talk to me, and many times a day I would go seek out conversation and idea-bouncing.  Human contact is very important to me.  I've had some of the world's loveliest co-workers.

I want some more.

When I joined Top 10 Sources, I was Josephine Site Editor and built Top 10s.  Then there was a period of quick growth and I took on the Editor-in-Chief role, committing to that through the end of March.  Here it is the end of March, and I'm stepping down.

I'm staying with the company part-time as long as my schedule allows, in whatever way I can.  I believe in the people and the project.  But at this time I am looking for work here in Toronto, so I can build more of a life here, and find a place where my presence is needed every weekday other than my apartment. 

So now I shall job-search as I train the woman who is stepping into my role at TTS.  I have a wide range of experience and talents and I'm sure I will find some company or department which needs a person who makes things go.  And I'll make things go. 

So here's to Top 10 Sources, and here's to having a wonderful life here in Toronto.  I think everyone's going to be just fine.

I know, I know, I just started blogging again!  And it's been horribly boring!  And here I go, taking a break.  Well, I'm not taking a break, I'm just warning you that I have a crazy week ahead (more on that later or tomorrow) and I don't know what my brain will spit out.

Right now it is mad that someone mistakenly called Joey's cell phone before 8am, but it'll get over that.

Come, brain, let us away!  To work we must go.