'the adventures of a thirty-ish university graduate' or, alternately and perhaps much more aptly: 'as mad as a barking fox'

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

future's for discovering

kevin looks at me, the low light reflecting and highlighting the sheen which coats his forehead and upper lip and bursts in to laughter at the tears running down my face.

when my mom and stepfather got married, they chose, as their honeymoon, to hike a section of the bruce trail- from the national park down to a small community called dyer's bay. tom, in typical tom fashion, asked a man whom he had just recently met through the business to put him up for the night. robin- nepalese with a kind soul- immediately agreed and a strange business/friendship sprang up between the howell family and the pradhan's.

last year robin's brother suman immigrated here and has added his wealth of knowledge of different curries to the menu at the cafe robin started with his lovely wife.

last night he made us tandoori chicken- ridiculously spicy tandoori chicken that made me look like i was mourning the loss of u2 tickets or something serious even.

god i fucking love spicy food.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

red wine that punctures the skin

why is it that a clean kitchen is so entirely satisfying?

there's something about my mom's kitchen that makes it easy to clean. it's equally easy to mess up, spaghetti sauce splashed everywhere and a coat of crumbs across the floor. but when the sauce is wiped away and the crumbs are swept up and the table is polished and the island is cleared of everything except a bowl of tomatos and a bottle of red wine, well, there's simply nothing like it.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

god speed all the bakers at dawn

it creeps up on you, the big sky does.

i've never been out west. i imagine saskatchewan as a large, flat land resembling a golden pancake. or maybe a golden coloured georgian bay when it's like glass and the wind only causes minor ripples on the surface. but the sky- the sky i can't even begin to fathom.

the sky isn't so big here- the cedars and the limestone that i stand rooted in cut into the horizon, eating up the bigness and shrinking the space. maybe that's why, when the land changes and the rock changes and the sky stretchs, it seems strange and foreign and terribly beautiful all at once.

the sky even stays big in ottawa, when the buldings creep up- but not too high, on account of the peace tower- and the traffic crowds in and my house shakes as the number fourteen roars past.

i cannot decide which sky is home.

maybe both.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

waves of steel hurled metal at the sky

out of nowhere, i'm going to ottawa tomorrow.

i can feel the tendrils of the coming fall snaking their way around me, drawing me inexpicably forward. actually, it's entirely explicable- school waits and i'm going. in the meantime, there's so much that i want to do. these mid-august days, they're dragging but they're also moving at an incredible speed. so slow and yet so goddamned fast, i hardly know which way to turn some days.

tom made my bed for me yesterday and marmee seasoned my foot-in-diamter cast iron pan i procured from the depths of the fish shop.

there's something so final in that, something that i really can't explain.

i'm going to consume a vat of coffee, and then, maybe, i'll pack up the rest of my things and get ready to start the final farce of pretending to be an adult.

hydro bill, what? heh.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

i said 'wait a minute chester'

these mid-august days are beginning to blend into days of simple nothings wherein i feel as if i'm accomplishing nothing and moving forward like a swimmer in molasses.

is it wrong that i'm striving with every bone to the first week of september?

my mom is gearing up and slowing down at the same time. today we're going into her studio and we're going to throw out drawings she did when she was sixteen, because they've been subjected to water and are all mouldy.

she's putting on a brave face, but i can tell it's paining her.

i'm going to save what i can.

Monday, August 08, 2005

run to the hills

i should still be sleeping.

halfway between peterborough and ottawa the sun really begins to go down, and the sky is stained that wonderful coulour of purple pink that i swear only happens in northern-ish ontario. the rocks coming out of the ground have long ago turned to granite, fading from the limestone that i can feel without seeing and the trees, rushing past as i push over and beyond the speed limit, blur until i understand what tom thompson really saw when he painted them.

the moon begins to slowly climb the horizon trailed by her companion.

it makes me terribly sad in a bracing way, and altogether happy at the same time.

i can't help but wonder if this is it.

Friday, August 05, 2005

each one is a setting sun

last summer was the worst summer of my life.

i had hoped for better this summer, but yesterday, as snot ran down my nose and tears were everywhere and i absolutely raged at my mother about the ridiculousness of working with people who hate you for no realistic reason- only petty ones bases on simple nothings and grandiose fictions construed under false pretenses- i began to wonder if perhaps this summer might not leave me with the same feeling as last year- washed out, empty and surviving only because somewhere i knew that i could escape and leave and dive deep into something that was more me, and less small town, less home.

which really is a horrible way to live, to feel like home is the last place on earth you want to be.

last summer, there was no confrontation.

shit would happen and we would let it slide or cover up or say nothing and just pretend like it was all ok. looking back i have to ask myself if this was the adult thing to do- "oooh, we'll just pretend that nothing happened, old uncle george still has his leg"- something like that.

this summer though, we've taken a new approach- we address situations as they arise.

and after all the adressing that was done today, i can only thank all the gods in heaven that i have been blessed with a wider understanding of the universe, with the knowledge that every human deserves to be treated with repect regardless of where they came from, what race they are, and how they were raised, and that each person, in his or her own way, is valuable.

i only wish that every person was blessed in this manner, because, man, my co-workers are simple minds who feel that in some way, somehow, they are worth more and better than me in some weird, fucked up way.

but atleast i know that's what they think now. and i can live with it.

afterall, there's only four weeks until i get to escape to something more me, until i get to dive deep.

and i mean deep.