Sigh, Canada

You know what's nice is episodes of Corner Gas online and CKUA over the internet. With the two hour time difference, I actually make it to work in time to hear the morning news. Holy crap Alberta news is boring. I mean, New York news is no less provincial, except that it's shootings and things. Very few, considering the number of people and the fact that shit is always going on. Speaking of which, New Yorkers are so nice it's almost nerdy. Like on the subway last night this woman - I couldn't figure her out: 40s or 50s, nice dress, ugly shoes, purse, gaudy (fake?) gold jewelry, busted-looking feet, but overall middle-class-looking (old hooker?) - anyway, she was bobbing and weaving on the train, and didn't notice when a seat opened up, so this huge rapper guy took his headphones off and pointed it out to her in this geniunely empathic way, unlike me who thought "Get this drunken weirdo the eff away from me".

There's no pitch-and-putt in Central Park

I remember working this hard. Well, not so much that, but working this hard and feeling shitty about it. That was last summer, when I was teaching formal logic every morning at 9 am. I hated waking up to the alarm, I hated finding new things to wear, I hated that I never had the discipline to leave the house early enough to walk, I hated the fact that the hour and ten minute lecture on a subject I felt insecure about at the time was only the very beginning of a long work day devoted to it - grading and website maintenance and constructing assignments and responding to emails and most of all, writing more lectures. Also kind of a shitty, stressful time in my life anyway.

And what made it bearable was a geniune partner in crime - one who worked even harder than I did at a much more stressful job. Almost every day at 4:30 we'd meet in the river valley, drink a few beers, smoke a joint, and take our hacks on the par 3.


Sigh.

P.S. I hope I don't get you fired.

OMG, did I make this when I was high and then forget?

It's stock photos of NY set to Rush!

5-4

Okay, but other than the snowmobiling and the beer and the freezing weather and the hockey game, those stereotypes are totally not accurate. Eh.

Can't do this in New York

Wheeee! Gah!

So each of the three times I've made the trip from Calgary to New York, I have had the same US border guard. In fact, today I walked past one available guy and went straight up to my regular. Why? Because he doesn't care that I am incapable of dotting my bureaucratic i's and crossing my t's. He takes one look at my photocopies-instead-of-originals, at my nearly-expired passport, and sweeps my documents back across the counter to me with "You're all set, kid."

Then, each time I have arrived in New York, I have taken a different mode of "GTR". First, a flat rate $45 cab ride, then a $19 shared van service, and today the plain old subway. I recommend the latter. I don't even have to transfer to get to Fulton. Also, as I was waiting for the train (an interminable 25 minutes - that should never happen), a heavily-accented thirty-something brown guy asked me to confirm that this line goes to the World Trade Center. Hee.

Now I am coming down with my third cold in the space of ten days. Cold number two was my favourite: my glands got so swollen they bruised the outside of my neck, and I had to go to the doctor to get antibiotics. Tomorrow I have to turn in a grant application (as yet unwritten), not to mention reckon with the monstrous pile of work that accumulated while I was drinking in Edmonton and Calgary.

But seriously, what a great freaking time. A little brawl in the Garneau Pub, a cosy apartment on the North side, icicle fights behind the Black Dog, bummed cigs, free tequila, home-cooked meals, and most of all, weepy declarations of how it just ain't the same without me and Grace around.

Oh yeah, tomorrow the forecast here says "partly cloudy and 18 C".

This is wicked awesome, if I do say so myself

Travel plans

Do you like it? It’s my first knock-off. Now when I am forced to travel in a business suit, I won’t have to carry along my green army surplus bag.

Speaking of which, I am coming to Calgary and Edmonton November 17 to 26. A good time will be had by all.

Also, I have posted a few more photos under “Where we live” if you want to check back (accessible through the September archives).

New York to Tarare, come in Tarare. Kate, what the hell has become of your blog?