Michael Winter

can say now, having just thinned my turnips, that there is no discernible difference between "turnip greens" and "rapeseed" and will stop correcting people when they say they are eating turnip greens when in fact they are eating rapeseed -- my apologies for being tiresome.

I cut my fingernail badly in a kitchen mishap, and it's fascinating to see the nail grow back -- I have no idea what's happening down there in the nail bed, some autonomous force is in charge

current feeling

it's hard to believe those pallets of garden soil and stacks of windshield wiper fluid that are piled up outside the exit to the grocery store aren't freebies you throw in your cart on your way to the car

On my way to donate blood I noticed they are knocking down the Banting Institute, built in 1930. I once took a cutting from a vine that grew at a window, a window I imagined Frederick Banting once peered through.

"If you envy my life, work harder!"

we didn't host King Charles, but we did have two teenaged British rugby billets, and they left us with this loot, God save the sultana:

when someone dies earlier than expected it's a shock, but there comes a time when you have to admit that it'd be surprising if they were still alive at this age -- you release them from the tragedy of early death, but you still miss the years you could have had with them if they had remained alive

Last chance to see work by Andrew Scott, Michael Winter, Andrew Rucklidge, and Stirling Scott (this amazing deer) -- BIG PAWS NEVER SEEN group show at the West End Phoenix space, 3 Bartlett Ave, Toronto.

Drop by today, Saturday, 3 May, 2-4 pm! We'll all be there.

counted nine guys around me with moustaches, started feeling old

I might make sausage rolls.

I'm part of a group show of visual art this Thursday, May 1st (that's tomorrow) at the West End Phoenix HQ, 3 Bartlett Avenue, Toronto. There'll be lots of recent watercolours and collages and some paintings too, come say hello! 6-9 pm.

I do enjoy spending an afternoon in a Margaux Williamson interior #MoCA

kid lost his bike lock so now he's using mine, and my bike is so decrepit I can't rationalize buying a new lock (so expensive), so I've taken to tying the bike up with a length of rope -- so far it's been good practise for my knots.

remembering that time I tried on a second-hand coat in the Value Village and found, in a side pocket, an almost-full mickey of whisky, and realizing this was intentionally stashed there, someone was coming back for it.

kid begged me to buy him a loaf of white sliced bread, so I did -- first loaf like that I've had in many a year, but I just toasted up two slices and spread mayonnaise and cut up a tomato and sprinkled pepper & salt and wow that is a nice sandwich.

Every time I read a book of the collected letters between two writers, the book always ends the same way -- one of the writers dies and the letters stop.

I gave blood today and the nurse who pricked my finger said, "You're well-hydrated," and no one has ever said that to me before.

sometimes, to understand the mysterious inner life of my son, I go into his bedroom while he's at school and note what new things he's placed on a shelf or put on his desk.

as someone who spent every Victoria Day weekend of his east-coast 20s waking up hungover in a tent and unzipping the fly to a foot of overnight snow, I'm not surprised by a small flick in early April #Toronto

confronted with good-cop bad-cop but they are in the same person.

that "David" is kinda sweet. Does anyone know if Gordie Howe signed things Gordon, or Bobby Hull preferred Robert?

when you live in the city and hear the honk of migrating geese, it's like an advertisement for the rural: "hey, don't forget lakes and woods and moose and beaver dams, they're all out there..."

many seeds are not true to type :)

am germinating seedlings on my window sill and noticed the cords on the window blind have been touching the potting soil all winter and just this morning the pale leaves of a dicotyledon opened up and out sprouted a tiny set of louvres

eastern redbud!

a person, possible Susie, saw me reading this sign and beckoned me down a narrow laneway between 2 houses but I didn't know what chayotes were and now I feel like I may have missed out on some culinary wonder

If I lose something, I’ve stopped trying to find it. When I have searched and found a lost thing, I usually lose it again very quickly. Some things, I've come to realize, just want to be lost.

this is a David Milne painting of Toronto during a visit in 1947 called "Scaffolding". Could have been painted yesterday.

there's a lot going on on Geary