This morning I slept in. I was going to be up and on the road by 7 am. all rejuvenated from my weekend with Louise. Here is what the weekend held: kale chips! a fair with rides and mini donuts! a drive to the west coast of the island, with the wild ocean coming in right there and the wind like the prairies but with brine. Talking about patience and learning and dying and life. Cooking thai curry sauce and rice and prawns. the Farmer’s Market and butter tarts and salad greens. Playing crib (I won all but one game). ferry rides to and fro. love the ferry.
Yesterday J and I went up Grouse Mountain. A walk in the woods, but more vertical. we got to the top and were ecstatic, having walked up and up and up. Sweat. heaving breath. muscles warm loose tight. ah. breath. this thing we do, breathing, that we take so for granted. the smells up there were intoxicating. we got to the top in better time than last week. lead with your heart, shoulders back and down, engage everything, keep it all in, and go. feel your body. feel the love. Lots of people on the trail we all share this adventure. it’s not a pretty trail, it’s a workout, but it’s outside and it’s challenging and we’re all in this together. I pass people and wait for J, then the people pass me. leapfrog all the way. J’s good natured about me going up, coming down, meeting her, going up, waiting, coming down meeting her, going up…i’m like a border collie. “c’mon, are we playing now? do you have treats? what’s that smell? c’mon, let’s go!”
We get to the top. I can see my school from here! look, there’s where your house is, there’s mine–oh look at the sunshine through the clouds.
anyhow, i slept in. but i didn’t turn on my computer before i left. I just listened to the radio. and I heard that the BC government is taking people who are defrauding welfare to small claims court. petty fuckers, the BC government. What are they thinking? welfare fraud? the fraud is that people are expected to survive on the paltry insulting crumbs tossed to them by the state. My fucking tax dollars. it’s a waste of them to take people to court. put that money, the money for the lawyers and the judge and the paperwork, toward a guaranteed annual income, already.
When i got on my bike i was mad. I made good time to school. in the rain. my rain jacket is at J’s, where i hung it, trying to be tidy and efficient. That’s what happens when i put stuff away. I never see it again. drat.
I met a woman who is thinking of applying to our department for her PhD. I told her I was writing a story. the title came to me as I was riding to school. The title is “How to Write an Obituary”. When i described the story as i so far think of it to her, we both cried. and she shared some stories, too. And we parted friends.
i’ll tell the story in a couple of weeks at a festival here. We’ll see how it goes. Now i’m writing about prostitution and harm reduction and how to withstand the encroachment on grassroots movements by Institutions of Power. How can we hold back the Health Authority and the Social Services and the Ministries of Health and Housing and Employment and Assistance? They are staffed and maintained by people, but the people are apparently run by the policies, not the other way around.
Anyhow. Stories. Rantin’ n’ Tangents. that’s what I’m doing. then in an hour I’m gonna go to the gym. Peace. that’s how it goes around here.
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