Waiting for Clean Surf

Not today, but surely tomorrow... and so it has been like this day after day... and this, compounded with my switching back to my short board (9'1"), has taken the fun out of surfing. It just so happens that I have two weeks off work (and closed the B&B for the holidays)... so I've been waiting, and have stopped "going out anyway because there's no such thing as a bad surf"... yeah, actually, there is... in fact, they're all I've had lately.

I also haven't been writing... or, rather, I've been writing only as much as I've been deleting. In a phone conversation this evening, I mistakenly claimed to have deleted more than I have written... I realized immediately that this is not possible, that I could only delete, at most, exactly as much as I've written. I've written and deleted so much lately... there has been a lot of self-censoring... depressing is too often confused with depressed... and even if Schopenhauer was right, no one really cares to hear it... especially not over Christmas... so tap tap tap tap tap and then baaaaaackspace; repeat.

For some good news, I'm going bungee jumping sometime soon... while not having fun in the surf, I decided that bungee jumping would be an excellent idea, especially as it promises excitement while requiring no skills at all, and only a little effort. The bungee jumping place is in Nanaimo... and I've just got to make sure they're re-opening tomorrow. And then I thought that if I make it all the way to Nanaimo, I might as well go to Vancouver for a visit... so... I'm thinking about it... but not all that stoked... I've got all sorts of visitors lined up for Tofino (even better than seeing them in the city... we're all less distracted)... and there's really nothing that I really want to do in the city... nothing I really want to buy, either. My dad then commented that since I've stopped reading, I don't even need to go to bookstores anymore. I hadn't thought of it, but it's absolutely accurate. I used to really want to go to MacLeods (really really really) and Sophia's and the UBC Bookstore... maybe even Oscar's... and even Chapters if I feel like paying too much for a coffee... but not anymore. I don't buy books online now, either. Ever since I was informed that Schopenhauer is "market controlled" and can't be shipped to Canada... I gave up.

Quitting reading is saving me so much money! Not only do I no longer need to pay for books, I don't even need to spend money to travel to bookstores. It's like quitting smoking! "Reading books never caused any cancer," said the person with whom I was speaking on the phone... indeed not... it causes much worse... and most of it probably listed in the DSM-IV. If I ever do decide to pick up reading again, I've got a small stash ready to go, there was a period (now over) during which I kept buying books because I hadn't noticed that I had stopped reading. So there's a stash if I want to read again. Otherwise, I'll spend the next little while clearing out my brain... it might recover as beautifully as an ex-smoker's lungs. Here's hoping.

And... in other news (I'm not sure how I feel about this)... Têtes à claques is now available in English. It's true... I went there just now to see what's new... I hadn't been there for a few months... and there it was... every video I could think of-- redone in English. The fact that they were for the longest time only available in French (and super colloquial Quebec French, at that) was sort of a consolation to me... it validated my learning French... not wholly, I'm not saying that... but it became one of the reasons that I was glad I speak French... it made it all worthwhile. For all my years of work, I was rewarded with the privilege of understanding and appreciating Têtes à claques. What is left to me now but capturing a few extra nuances in French movies, and overpronouncing some names of wines and cheeses? (which, btw, is totally uncool in Tofino, it's like no one even hears the bit that doesn't sound like English) Even Meilleur du chef (source of excellent illustrated recipes) is available in English. Why, in this new world (I heard a rumour than your Ipod will now translate for you??), would anyone bother to learn another language?

Give me something beautiful to make it worthwhile. Send roots rain.

Crappy surf today... does anyone want to go bungee jumping?

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Relax, it's almost over...

I could have titled this post "Merry Christmas"... or... "White Christmas"... but I decided against the former because "Merry" is such a strange word and so rarely used... it brings to mind "The Merry Widow"... which in turn brings to mind the word "Lustige"... and then of course, it looks and sounds so much like the English word "Lusty" that I just had to look it up... and... well wouldn't you know it, dictionary.com provides us with this for etymology:
bef. 900; ME luste, OE lust; c. D, G lust pleasure, desire; akin to ON lyst desire; see list ⁴
Didn't even need to take the OED out of the case for that one. Can you imagine people going around saying "Lusty Christmas"?

And as for "White Christmas"... I decided not to use that phrase because I just can't shake the double entendre in my head. White Christmas? Why yes it is... quite white indeed... and not because of the snow, either... but that's enough about that.

My Christmas plans are very conservative... all I need to do is get out of bed by noon, check the surf report, and go out for a surf if it promises to be good. I have been observing other people's Christmas plans unfolding, and am quite happy to not have to participate in anything of the sort.


Relax, it's almost over.

Gingerbread House

I started making a gingerbread house last Thursday... made a batch of gingerbread dough before going to the Koer's party... then I worked on it all week... and by the time I finished, it looked like this:
And the back looked like this:

Here's a close-up of the front:

And here is a close-up of the fence and trees:

The house (and landscaping) was completed this afternoon. The house was immediately delivered as a Christmas gift. I am in the process of uploading some "work in progress" photos... that will be out on another blog entry...

O Tannenbaume

Here are the beginnings of a royal icing arboretum.
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I wasn't going to mention the silver cars, but...

There's a song by Robert Charlebois called Je reviendrai à Montréal... which I had always found incomprehensible... Montreal winters didn't seem to me to be something one could miss... but the song is all about needing to feel the cold, to really be at one with it, to marry it, even (and that was always the part I found disturbing... the line "me marier avec l'hiver")... this past weekend though, for the first time, I sort of understood it a little.

It started snowing on Saturday while I was out in the surf and continued to snow into the night. On Sunday, everything was covered in snow. The wind was blowing the snow off trees and roofs. Snowflakes shimmered in the air. I remember looking out the window at the Quebec winter and its prohibitive -30 coldness and being told that it isn't too cold to go out for a walk as long as one dresses for it. Cold winters can be fun... for a few days anyway. I looked at Tofino covered in forgetful snow.. and wanted to be outside... to feel the cold... so I dressed for the cold and walked into town... (as it turns out, it only looked cold... it wasn't really)... I got to the park on Third Street (it has a name, and I knew it once) and stood there, looking at Lone Cone Mountain. I then had this urge to climb Lone Cone, in the cold, with the snow. Climbing a mountain covered in snow for some reason seemed like a good idea... maybe because I haven't yet christened these new hiking boots with a winter hike yet... or maybe I'm just thinking of a good day some years ago when I walked up a South Shore land pimple on an insanely cold Quebec winter day.

I didn't climb Lone Cone (logistic issues... it's on the other side of the water)... but I walked a little more. During my short Sunday morning walk, I ran into five people I knew... most of them were in their cars... one was standing beside his. Two rolled down their windows to talk to me. The odd thing was... all the cars were silver. There was a silver Honda Element, a silver Dodge Ram 2500, a silver Volkswagon Eurovan, a silver Dodge Ram 1500, and a silver X-Terra. I wasn't going to mention the silver cars in this note... but Anthony called me and we had a chat... when I told him about the five silver cars... he remarked that Val doesn't like silver cars. That's almost as odd as my running into only silver car drivers during my walk... so I'm now telling you all about it (fascinating, eh?).

When I sold my Pathfinder, I think I sold my courage with it. I use to drive anywhere in any weather condition... now with my RWD Aerostar (which, because it locks up an 11' board, is still the best car ever) I'm afraid to go anywhere in bad weather. And it's snowing right this moment... and I'm already worrying about my commute to work in the morning... it might take me 4 minutes instead of 2... or 12 minutes, even, if I choose to walk because I'm too scared to drive.

Cold

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Another weekend already?

Well... guess where I am.

Third "Weekend at Home" note. Fourth weekend at home. I had given serious thoughts to going to Vancouver this weekend, especially since young Sean (as opposed to old Shawn) offered to give me a ride. My dad is looking after George and could pick me up from Nanaimo either tomorrow or Monday. I could have with minimal effort be in Vancouver this weekend. The expected extreme weather, however, made me not want to commit my dad to driving my car to Nanaimo to pick me up. I would drive (and have driven) in all sorts of crazy weather and bad conditions... I enjoy taking my life into my own hands... and every near-death experience seems to confirm that I'm not quite ready to die yet... but I wouldn't make someone else do it. Besides which, I think I might be avoiding Vancouver a little right now.

But no matter. There is plenty to do in Tofino. I can surf today and tomorrow... the only limitation being that I can't freeze myself to death because I've got a dive scheduled for Monday... which also means I have to make sure I have a dry wetsuit two days from now. Because of my dislike for communal wear and my not having bought the required apparel, I am diving in a surf suit... which is less than half as thick as a dive wetsuit... which is still so cold that anyone who does any diving around here does so in a drysuit. So in short, I'm into suffering.

And I guess when I'm not freezing my fingers off in the water this weekend, I could make a gingerbread house (just found out that instead of actually making complicated calculations, 1.618 is about as close as I need to get)... or I could translate the parable of the Stachelschweine... or one of the many Sonnets to Orpheus. You probabaly already knew about Project Gutenberg, but there's also Projekt Gutenberg (which as far as I can tell is on the Times website) which has more than any student needs. And when I discovered that OUP will ship to Canada (not from the useless Canadian site though)... I lost another reason to go past the junction.

It's time for the cold.

A Post for Anthony

Anthony called me today. His calls are always fun, especially since he offers each time to reinterpret the going-ons in my life objectively... and nothing fascinates me more than reinterpretations of the going-ons in my life. Of course, short of him hunting down and interrogating the participants, all he's really doing is reinterpreting my interpretations (which, I am proud to say, are generally creative and varied). Anyway... he told me he has just read my blog, and asked whether all blogs are as "self-absorbed."

I suspect that some blogs are not quite so self-absorbed... probably those who aim to serve a public audience; this, however, is not my aim (sure, anyone can read it... but why would they?).

I'm not much of a blog reader (too self-absorbed), but I did enjoy the blog "Stuff White People Like"... I stopped reading it because realizing that I like many of the things they say white people like was just too depressing (their "white people" would be more accurately described as "Kitsilano people" as it has less to do with race than it does class-- in particular, the "class" of those leading superficial, vacuous lives). The blog would be more specifically (and quite appropriately) titled "Stuff Kitsilano People Like "... which is why it's depressing for one to identify with it. Though, at the same time that it's depressing, sometimes it's laugh-out-loud funny. I just went there and looked at some of the latest posts; items 97, 100, and 101 were very funny.

But this ding-in-itself post isn't going to be about me or stuff white people like... it'll be about Anthony.

Anthony likes to fish and smoke cigars, often engaging in both activities at the same time. He sometimes sustains injuries while fishing and while smoking cigars. At least one of these injuries were reported as being the result of recklessly combining the two activities.

A few readers here have questioned the existence of Val. While Anthony constantly refers to her in conversation, he failed for years to produce her at social gatherings, leading many of us to wonder whether or not she is fictional (he is rather creative and sufficiently mindful that he would be able to pull off something like this, and he's also odd enough to derive significant enjoyment from accomplishing such a ruse) . Val's existence was first confirmed several years ago by Dominika, who saw them at the Airport as they were leaving for a trip to Hawaii. Dominika duly reported this encounter, but as we are incredulous people by trade, we were not immediately convinced, and wondered whether or not she had been co-opted (through bribery?).

I am happy to report that Val is real-- real, and fun. She and Anthony have twice visited Tofino, and are expected to visit again. Please contact me directly if you would like to schedule a polygraph session.

Coffee break here

Yes, a much better view than at the Tim Hortons on Dunsmuir.

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Another Weekend at Home... Diving... Headlong into the Pit of Schopenhauerian Enlightenment

Spending a weekend at home isn't so strange, is it? But I suppose I'd gotten so used going somewhere on the weekend that remaining at home still seems remarkable to me. Of course, when I say "at home," I don't mean in my house-- I mean Tofino. "Going somewhere" usually involves loading up my car with stuff (skis, boards, packs, food, water, &c) and driving somewhere far away to do something... there would be highway on ramps and off ramps and junctions and exits, and planned and unplanned stops along the way. Here, I could pretty much walk to do everything that I do. The reason I don't walk is because of the stuff I have to carry, not the distance.

Yesterday was a good surf day... not too big, not too small, and one could get rides of a reasonable length... unfortunately, I had forgotten how to surf. It happens sometimes. I had simply forgotten. I tried to remind and convince myself that I can surf by thinking of all the excellent, memorable rides I've had this year. It didn't work. I couldn't figure it out. Perhaps it was because I was supposed to go diving yesterday, but it was postponed until today. Maybe I had been looking forward to being underwater so much that I couldn't quite get the hang of being on the surface. Whatever it was, I'm sure it'll be temporary. I've experienced this before.

I am going down to the dock in a few hours to go for a dive. I'm really looking forward to it... but am still so paranoid about surfer's ears that I'm a little worried about the ride back... cold, wet, in an open boat. Maybe I should get earmuffs. I don't want to have to get my ears drilled.

Despite the vow I made at this year's Martini Migration to never attend another social event in Tofino, I went to a Christmas party on Friday. I survived, and am now a pricked porcupine instead of a cold porcupine. I think I may have to invest in a heater.

And... speaking of porcupines... so much for my resolution to not buy P&P until I finish FRPSR and WWR. I saw that P&P vol. 1 was on sale for about half price at Oxford University Press USA... so I ordered them both. I also want a copy of P&P in German... because it would be super fun to try to read it in German. There's no way I could do WWR in German, but P&P I could probably work on. The first time I heard "Hélène," I didn't understand a word of it, and now I can read Desnos... I've got to start somewhere... and Schopenhauer is probably an age appropriate idol... I should get posters of Schopenhauer and hang them all over the place. Rilke could also do... but he's too much of an artist.

Miracle

He actually sat by himself and looked at the camera. Was this my hallucination?
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Onshore Today

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North after work

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Weekend at home...

Ferry rates have gone down significantly... so much so that I might be expected to want to travel more often to the mainland.... but I really don't want to go anywhere anymore. I just don't want to leave. I had been thinking of going to Hawaii for some warm surf this winter... but I've now decided against it. It seems like such an ordeal, having to pack and go through airport security (and customs and immigration... blargh... can't stand customs and immigration... and mostly on the way back).

So I'll be here all winter. Surfing, diving, reading Schopenhauer, playing guitar, baking brioches, translating poetry, playing Dance Dance Revolution, and maybe, if I get around to it, work on updating my website which should have been updated last month. Maybe put in a new floor in one of the rooms? Maybe repaint a few walls (or paint for the first time, even... I've had this "new" wall for over a year now... it's only got primer on it... but no one seems to have noticed that it's a different colour than all the other walls)...

I started implementing my new plan this past weekend.

I went for a surf on Saturday. It was rainy and windy but turned out to be an awesome day. I hadn't surfed in so long that I wasn't even sure I'd make it out past the break... it was looking pretty big... and I had my little board (which yes, we all agree, is huge, but it's _my_ little board, so there). Anyway, I got out without difficulty... twice! (definitely too tired by the third try though... and too too too tired to go again on Sunday... hadn't surfed in a month and ouch... I felt it in my arms)

I wanted to tell you all about how amazing a surf day it was, but the thing is... I'm just not that good a writer. I don't even know whether it's possible to write that well, that is, to be able to convey any of what surfing is about with words. In _Wild Geese Flying Backwards_ (or whatever the title was), Tom Robbins had a piece on kissing. And what stuck with me about that particular piece of writing was how disappointing it was. I had been looking forward to hearing what Robbins had to say about kissing, he who can make me care about a can of beans and a dirty sock... I remember understanding from the piece that Tom Robbins likes kissing... but it wasn't so much a piece about kissing as it was a piece that says "kissing is awesome" over and over again... but I guess kissing is one of those things that you can't really write about, even if you are Tom Robbins. Surfing is like that... you can't really describe what it's about... you can't really get into why it's so wonderful... you can't explain why you want to spend huge chunks of your life doing it. Surfing is as inexplicably great as kissing. (no, I don't think they're comparable... but, I think we might be mostly able to agree that a good surf is better than a bad kiss, and a good kiss is better than a bad surf... but maybe not)

Sunday was all about reading and playing guitar... tried to re-teach myself songs that I had forgotten (and now cannot really believe I was ever able to play, even poorly, never mind passably). I had my gigantic dictionaries out with my Rilke and Desnos and Eliot and Pound and Seidel... and, I decided that if I make my way through the tough books (recently got an out of print _On The Fourthfold Root..._ from MacLeods), I would reward myself with the rather expensive two volume _Parerga & Paralipomena_. I will not allow myself to read (or buy!) P&P until I'm done FRPSR and WWR 1&2. Will not. Will not! WILL NOT!

Monday was for diving. We went over what looked like a crab killing field... everywhere were broken crab bits (carapace of crab). As I was thinking about all the death and destruction in the sea, we came upon a starfish, draped over an overturned dungeness crab twice its size, obviously in the process of killing and eating it. I was reminded:

"The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other."

Ouch. Okay. No more P&P until I finish FFR and WWR. Not even the free bits of P&P on the internet.

Apparently I haven't been using nearly enough data transfer for my Blackberry plan...

Walking the dog after work. South.

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Heartbreak

It seems true that a little heartbreak every now and then does one some measure of good, making one feel more alive &c... but tearing one's heart out and dashing it repeatedly against the same brick wall to the point where one ends up feeling sorry for the wall for having to suffer the repeated impact of a flung bloody internal organ doesn't appear to be at all constructive. Why do it? Especially since after not too long, you are forced to recognize that the sucker is unbreakable anyway (the heart, not the wall)...
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I hope to get the colours right, professor Fenollosa.

I started teaching myself a language recently. It wasn't my first choice, the teaching myself part... but there are no universities or colleges (or highschools, even) in Tofino... so all available courses would have been by correspondence or online, most of which are the "learn to speak whatever in however short a time! you'll be conversing with confidence and ease! woohoo!" type. I wasn't interested in speaking another language-- I speak enough of them-- I want to KNOW it. So I found a super reputable institution (known as _the_ authority on the language, sanctioned by the government, &c) and paid 525 euros for a correspondence course. After the first day, I had to (HAD to) refund it because it was TOTAL GARBAGE... worse than the "Teach Yourself" series available off the shelf at Chapters for $25.

SO as soon as I could, I went to the UBC bookstore (a six hour trip, each way) and bought the first year textbook package for the course that I could not take. I also picked up a couple of intermediate grammar books. Since I'm cocky and full of myself, I started with the intermediate grammar books instead of the introductory textbook package. I finished the first half of one book, and felt that I had made great progress with the language. I had learnt so much! Tense, aspect, mood, voice, conjugation, word order, separable verbs, inseparable verbs... all off it! Yay!

Then I realized that I knew nothing about nouns.

Ooops.

Well, such things are bound to happen when learning in a vacuum.

The knowability of the Ding... picking up where facebook notes left off...

Or rather, where I left off.

Facebook notes were fun. Facebook was not. It did, however, get me over the I-have-nothing-to-say-so-I-should-say-nothing thing. I've learnt that people love wasting time... and that I really was just providing a much sought after time-wasting tool. Being quite done with facebook... I now welcome you to my new blog: Ding-In-Itself... may this make your post-afternoon-coffee-break period of unproductivity a little less intolerable.

Since I've spent the entire afternoon congratulating myself for coming up with so clever a name as "Ding-In-Itself"... I'm going to make this the subject of my first post. (Yes, I totally admit it... since I thought of "Ding-In-Itself" this afternoon, I have been insufferably self-satisfied.)
I actually have very little to say about "Ding-In-Itself" aside from... ain't it clever? Wooohoo! I came up with that... ain't it clever?!?!

Okay. That's all I have for you today... silliness and self-congratulation. Mostly self-congratulation.

Imported Facebook Note

Just about close enough to get eaten...

So I went to Long Beach for an after-work surf today... and caught a super awesome left that went on forever. Then I sat and waited a long while for the next one... and then, I noticed two whale watching boats... they were close enough for me to see whose boats they were... I could probably count exactly how many people were on Wasco (which is super easy to recognize because it's this huge aluminum thing with a huge orange section)... but I couldn't see what they were looking at. I looked at them for a while and kept doing my thing. For a while it looked like they were looking at me, but while I could sometimes be mistaken for a bearded man, I would be really offended if someone mistook me for a whale, even if I happen to be really far away.

When I got back to the parking lot, a friend came up to me and told me that he saw me catch the super awesome left that went on forever... it was a really cool ride even if no one had seen it... but it's just that much cooler that someone did... and better yet, it's someone who knows me and could recognize me in the surf, and who once gave me a surf lesson. Then he said "So... you saw the whale!" And I said "What whale?"... "The orcas that were right in front of you!"... "What orcas? In front of me? When?"... "You didn't see them???"... "Uh... no."... "They were *right* in front of you, breaching and everything!"... "Right in front of me how?"... "You were there, the orcas were there... they were right in front of you and coming right up out of the water!"... "Really?"... "yeah!"... "Oh..." (well, what could you say to that?)

I have yet to see an orca... and I have had so many guests this year telling me they saw orcas...

On the other hand, it's not like I got out whale watching...

Or that I'd notice one breach right in front of me as I sit on a surfboard...

Imported Facebook Note

It is with great regret that I hereby acknowledge...

I was going to sit down and attempt to write something interesting... but then I happened to notice that one of the cork pieces fell off my flute... so I googled "flute repair" to figure out what to do about it... after a few clicks and reading complex and detailed suggestions from people who obviously take their flutes very seriously, I decided to forget about what I'm supposed to do and just super glue it back on... I did... and now it's back on there... looks fine to me. I know nothing about flutes. I bought this one from s. last year, and pick it up every now and then and play a few songs horribly. I'll never really learn to do it right, I suspect.

Anyway... Giwthamo called and said he was going to bring by this fish he caught me... I had expected that it would be more or less whole and dead looking, smeared with piscine blood and guts, jaw distended in fishy rigor mortis... but as it turns out, it was not so much "a" fish as it was pieces of perfectly filleted salmon... ready for the grill. I checked the fish for notes... there were none. (and no, I didn't actually think there would be notes in the fish)

I have 14 more work days in law enforcement... and then never again, at any level!

A couple of weeks ago, I received a letter addressed to "Dear Intelligence Analyst Ng"... haha. I'll never hear that again... it was the acknowledgement of my resignation.

Time to walk the dog... but before I do... here's an interesting little random bit... we have a new RCMP sergeant in town... his name is Sgt. Preston. I am not kidding.

Imported Facebook Note

Midnight Baking

I just ate a carrot sunflower muffin. This one wasn't from Tuff Beans, though... I baked it earlier this evening (c. 10PM). And now in the oven is one dozen orange apricot pecan crumble top muffin. I looked at three different recipes and decided that I didn't like any of them individually, so I put them all together. I think Jorge is right. I am complètement déchaînée. It's one thing to bake at midnight, it's another to bake two different dozens of muffins for breakfast... and to do so by combining five recipes...

And who is going to eat all of this? There are only five guests for tomorrow's breakfast... and there are still three kinds of cookies and what's left of two different loaves on the kitchen counter. Two dozen muffins? For five people? Why?

I wouldn't admit to any actual connection... but I did run into Giwthamo this morning... and he was eating a muffin. Perhaps I really am that easily unhinged? Actually... I didn't just run into him while he was eating a muffin... I ran into him immediately after he had purchased the muffin... and so during our conversation, actually watched him consume the entire muffin... from a tentative beginning to the crumbly end. Perhaps seeing the muffin being consumed triggered some sort of instinctual response... and this insane baking is akin to something like a domestic rain dance?

Or maybe it was Leon Rooke's "Muffin" that did it... (if you can manage to track down a copy, I highly recommend it... it's about Muffins and Heidegger... what could possibly be better?)... but I haven't read it in over a month... and the last time I read it, I didn't go bake muffins...

The Orange Apricot Pecan Crumble Top Muffins are now ready... guess it's time to set the table and go to bed and think about just what is going on here...

Imported Facebook Note

Breakfast, Narcissism, and the History Channel

Good morning! Seeing as breakfast is being served and I'm not eating, I thought I'd write another breakfast note. My level of activity on Facebook has dropped significantly recently. The primary reason is that I don't really have any time to waste... the other is that, when I do get around to logging on, all I appear to be capable of doing is clicking through those pictures of me surfing. I log in, I see the picture of me surfing, I click on it. I click on the other picture of me surfing. I stare at the picture. I click to see the other picture. I stare at the other picture. I repeat this several times. Then I walk away, a little drunk with the recollection of every good ride I've ever caught but have not seen.

It is now night time... and I have a cranberry lemon loaf baking in the oven. It's going to be part of tomorrow's breakfast. You see, I have this German couple staying for nine days... so I figured serving the same breakfast nine days in a row would be a little tiresome for them... so one day I made banana bread... and they expressed such appreciation that the next day I made a lemon poppyseed loaf... and again, they expressed such appreciation that I then made an apple pecan bread for the following day... and now, it has become a sort of a habit to bake in the middle of the night.... actually... I really enjoy baking. Before I started baking things for breakfast... I made (within a period of three days) chocolate pecan cookies, madeleines, ginger cookies (with chunks of candied ginger), and palmitos. I don't actually want to eat stuff that I bake (with the exception of during the first three minutes that the baked goods are cool enough to be consumed) so this whole B&B thing (complete with a Jorge with a sweet tooth) is kind of perfect. Of course, it's possible for one to think that it's odd to stay up late and bake in the middle of the night when one really doesn't have to... (Jorge keeps telling me that I am "complètement déchaînée"... and not necessarily just about the baking either)

I was going to write a note on my Tofinoversary, which would have been July 28th... but I didn't get around to it because I was working till 2AM... so I guess this is close enough... August 1st was my first day working for the District of Tofino. It has been one full year since my career took an unexpected turn... and today I got a phone call from a friend asking me for a FOSS decision code for an ARC... and, oddly enough, I actually remembered it.

The other night, Jorge was watching the History Channel... apparently there was some sort of Hitler marathon... and he totally got into it... I sat down and started watching... and eventually Jorge went to bed and left me in front of the TV... I watched one Hitler documentary after another, and then a short film on Thorvald Eriksson, and then there was a documentary on mummy identification... and then out of nowhere, there was an episode of NCIS. I stayed up till three AM watching the History Channel. This what happens when you don't watch TV often... you forget how to stop watching TV. It was an interesting experience... all the history phDs they interviewed were good looking, under 40 women... what happened? I remember documentaries where every phD was super geriatric and slightly unhinged (insufficiently groomed, weird facial ticks, &c.)... television has changed.

I made Jorge promise never to leave the TV on and walk away again.

The lemon cranberry loaf has been taken out of the pan and is awesomeness incarnate (not that baked goods are carnate, necessarily)...

I suffering from ADD. There was a point to all this... but I've forgotten it now... I'm going to go set the table for breakfast and then go to bed...

Imported Facebook Note

Can't Handle Pynchon

Why learn German? Why? German? Why? Why German?

People have been asking me that a lot lately... why German? I didn't think learning German is that out of the ordinary... there are, as far as I know, a whole lot of people who learn German as a second language... look at the popularity of the Goethe Institute, for instance... the market is there.

About five years ago, I had mentioned that I wanted to learn German... Csaba (who speaks English, Hungarian, German, Danish, Spanish, and some Russian) told me that there is absolutely no reason to learn German, as every German with whom I could possibly want to speak with would speak English... and that if they didn't speak English, I probably won't want to speak with them (why did he learn Danish, I might have asked). I was too busy with learning Russian at the time anyway and so put off the German thing...

But I keep hitting the wall each time I try to read Rilke... I've read over ten different translations of the Duino Elegies... and re-read Gass's _Reading Rilke_... and I've come to the conclusion that I have to learn German... but no one seems to accept this as a good enough reason...

And but so the other night while at work, just as the Sean is going on about how there's no use for German in Tofino, we pull up behind a motorhome with German plates-- just German plates... the post 1994 EE style German plates... German plates in the front, German plates in the back... with no indication of any registration in the Americas. People were camping in this motorhome on Main Street... Sean knocks on the door, and this old couple who opened the door spoke only German! Aha! and what, praytell, did you say was useless? I directed them to a campground in international pidgin, and gave Sean a knowing look... German is uber useful in Tofino.

Now... how did a German motorhome with only German plates make it to the streets of Tofino? Surely, they did not import it for my benefit (though there really was no more dramatic way to prove a point than to plop down a German motorhome (complete with unilingual German occupants) right in the heart of downtown Tofino)... how did it get here with those German plates? How do people who speak neither English nor French manage to get *that* into Canada? Well, if I spoke German, I would have found out... but as it was, I'll probably never know.

So... the adventure has begun... I am learning German. The only odd part about it is that I can't seem to say anything in German without making a Dr. Strangelove face (baring teeth and all) and using a Dr. Strangelove voice...

As for everything else, I finally managed to get my brakes on the Aerostar fixed. The lights had been on for a while, but everything seemed to be working okay... and as it turns out, I wasn't exactly in mortal danger... but I should definitely have gotten it looked at earlier. The mechanic remembered me from June 2007... and asked me what I did with my Pathfinder. You see, a year ago, I drove to Tofino with a couple of friends visiting from Toronto, and somewhere on this side of Sutton Pass, the car started leaking water under the glove box everytime I made a left turn... I took it to the only garage in Tofino and this guy fixed it (unblocked the AC water egress hose whirlygig with a compressor) and didn't charge me anything for it, but allowed me (upon some insistence on my part) to buy him a tuna burger... at that point in time, I was a tourist here... in fact, it was during that trip (June 1-5) that I got an offer on my apartment in Burnaby for the full asking price... and a week and a few days later... I came out for a job interview and ended up buying the place I'm in now... and now a year and a month and five million changes later, he remembers me and my car as if very little time has passed... which, actually, is sort of true... which makes it sort of cool...

And... I've had excellent luck with the B&B guests for the last few days... there has always been at least a few people that I really like... it's taking the edge off my misanthropy.

Yes, I'm now on Dave Egger's _A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius_... I'm taking a pass (for now) on _Gravity's Rainbow_ ... it's just a bit much for me right now... maybe September will be better for it... The last time I felt this overwhelmed by a novel, it was Joyce's _Finnegan's Wake_... (I was just informed this evening that there's a David Eggers who was a pro surfer at some incredibly young age and rose and fell and is now in his thirties and no longer surfs... but the guy who told me also said that he lives with his father in Florida or something of the sort... which means it can't be the same Dave Eggers... (I just googled it... different dudes... born the same year, two months apart! Hah!))

I should sleep. (how's that for an abrupt ending?)

Imported Facebook Note

Wer, wenn ich schriee, hörte mich denn aus der Engel Ordnungen?

Facebook can eat up time... and I've had no time with which to feed this monster for a while now. And seething homicidal rage is also not conducive to expression, unless it be violent and physical.
But here-- I'm back. Decisions have been made, and plans are in place. The domino tiles will tumble. Things are looking up. After reading Jean-Paul Sartre's "Huis clos" on the ferry last month, I managed to get through two books *in* Tofino. These are the first two books I've read within the town limits-- "The Virgin Spy" by Krista Bridge, and "The Inheritance of Loss" by Kiran Desai. Up next is Thomas Pychon's "Gravity's Rainbow," then Dave Egger's "A Heartbreaking Work of Straggering Genius"... and at some point, maybe I'll get back to Vali Nasr's "The Shia Revival."

And maybe I'll even learn German... because aside from the fact that Rilke is super cool (Rilke's got cachet!)... I'm suddenly feeling an overwhelming urge to be able to know German... much like I felt about Russian five years ago... no plans to ever "use" it... I just have to know it... now! and well!

Of course, learning a language is going to be more difficult now that I don't have the encouraging moments of urgency I used to at the airport (what could be better than a perfectly indulgent native speaker who is so grateful for the help that he/she would be willing to accommodate my every linguistic handicap?)... there is no shortage of German speakers in Tofino... but unless I set out with ropes and things to capture one, there will be no help.

I have stopped searching for profundity. The new order is vacuity and insipidity. Misanthropy has been so provoked that passive distaste has turned into active rage... and I've decided that the best way to deal with it is to not... but rather surf more, eat lots of fish, read, and learn to read German.

Wirf aus den Armen die Leere zu den Räumen hinzu, die wir atmen; vielleicht daß die Vögel die erweiterte Luft fühlen mit innigerm Flug.

Imported Facebook Note

Experimentations with Alcoholism

When we first moved to Canada, we had a neighbour across the lane that was (I did not realize at the time) a dedicated alcoholic. She was friendly and generous, and almost always wore jeans and flannel shirts. She had a withdrawn teenage son who was only ever seen in ripped jeans and various band t-shirts. I believe she was a single mom. She mowed the lawn with one hand and held her can of budweiser in the other. At ten years old and having trouble pushing our lawn mower with all my weight, I was impressed by her strength.

Today, as soon as I got home from work, I decided to recreate that scene. It's performance art of a sort... all for my own benefit, of course. I downed a couple of Strongbows and mowed the lawn. It was not at all challenging, not even when it ran out of gas and I had to figure out how and where to get more gas without driving. I therefore concluded that I was not drunk enough. I downed a third strong bow and slashed away at carton boxes with an Olfa box cutter (made in Japan and available at your local co-op hardware) in preparation for the first day of curbside recycling in Tofino (yes, you'd figure a place like Tofino would be all about recycling... but tomorrow is in fact the first day). I slashed away mercilessly at the carton boxes with the blade fully extended and managed to get them all into the little blue bags. I didn't find that sufficiently challenging, and therefore concluded again that I was not drunk enough. And so I got started on the 4th Strongbow... and sorted out my recycling for refund, which has been accumulating for months. The third activity was less demanding... and had to be, mainly because the webs between the fingers of my left hand were all bloodied from what I assume must be papercuts. I'm done sorting now... and still neither challenged nor drunk. If it were not getting dark so quickly, I believe the thing to do would be to start on a 5th and grab a ladder and start cleaning my windows on the top floor.

Many of you will of course point out that Strongbow is in fact not strong at all, and that I really should be drinking something else if I wish to engage in a truly "jackass" style tableau... but the fact of the matter is that I have no Unibroue left... and am not sufficiently willing to drink the other left over drinks from the party on Friday... all my red wine is either undrinakable or far too expensive to get drunk on... so... I guess I fail. Alcoholism requires much dedication and foresight... neither of which I have in abundance, especially now that mould has begun consuming brain matter and filling the void with its progeny within my skull.

Yes, I am bored. No, alcohol is not the answer.

Okay then. I will now read Revelation in Russian... either that or watch Têtes à claques...

Imported Facebook Note

The best gesture of my brain is now less than just about anything

It's not a fluttering eyelid so much as it is a rapid blink of incomprehension. There's been a whole lot of incomprehension as of late... but I have just been informed by my closest and longest standing friends that my mental capacity has been reduced to 3% since moving to Tofino. They had originally given me 5%... but I lost another 2% when I used a double negative and an incorrect verb and that verb with incorrect tense, aspect, and mode. Another friend called me this morning, and put me at 4% of full capacity. The extra percent was for recognising that I am suffering.

I will have to decide quite soon what to do about the job thing. Any input?

Shall I return to my Herman Miller (which was brand new as of April last year, and, I've been informed, has been sitting empty since July) or shall I continue to get slapped around like a two year old in a third world orphanage? Or maybe I should start a cleaning business on top of this B&B thing? It's far less demoralizing to clean other people's toilets... and pays more.

If the world is going to end soon, and we're on the last bit of the ride, it's probably more important to have clean toilets than to try to create a semblance of law and order... so I guess that's the way I'm leaning. Though I must say, the Herman Miller was a excellent chair... and the whole social responsibility thing does eat at my conscience... and but if you take that and apply the think global act local thing to it... it takes me right back to the third world orphanage.

The Oracle of Gary's kitchen said I'll have an important decision to make next month... and I guess I'm asking for opinions?

"S'il veut vous demander conseil, c'est qu'il a déjà choisi la réponse." J-P S. Mais qu'est-ce que j'ai déjà choisi?

Imported Facebook Note

First Breakfast Note of the Season

I wrote a number of notes last year while guests were having breakfast. That was mainly because that was about the only time I had during which to write anything at all, and I didn't have time to respond to any e-mails other than those for reservations. I've since had an entire winter of mental atrophy, yet the habit of writing notes stuck. Like most technological advances, it allows one to be lazy and lulls one into believing that one is indeed making or maintaining real connections to others.

Well, I've discovered that a lot of peole like Yeats... so that's something.

The point of this note is just to acknowledge that this is the beginning of yet another season of serving breakfasts and working 19 hour days. I shall be quite near death by the end of it. But in the words of cs., when if not now?

Imported Facebook Note

Dressed for Sunday Night at the Purple Onion

The Whale Festival is on in Tofino. I'm not entirely sure what the whale festival is about, aside from the fact that it coincides with school and statutory holidays, and takes places in a town that seems to have something to do with whales. Tonight, there is a Whale Festival event called "Martini Migration"... which has nothing at all to do with whales, but rather involves (so I've heard) an entire town pouring into the community centre (which resembles something like an elementary school gymnasium, minus the basketball hoops and with lower ceilings) and getting drunk on "martinis" made by various restaurants in the area, who are all competing, I suppose, for the title of "best martini."

I had heard that this event is extremely popular, and that tickets sell out within hours of their going on sale. Knowing this, I had no desire to be there. As it turns out, however, the tickets were not impossible to get, and a co-worker offered to sell me a ticket. I still wasn't all that enthusiastic about it... but seeing as I live in Tofino, I felt that I should make some sort of effort to partake in the social going ons of this town...

I was told that this is one of those rare events in which one gets to "dress up"... last time I was told this, it was the Mermaid Ball... to which people showed up in togas and gumboots, I kid you not... this calls into question the local definition of "dressing up"... and I sure as hell wasn't going to show up at another one of these events dressed for Sunday night at the Purple Onion.

I was assured that people actually dressed *up* for this... in real clothes... not togas and gumboots and pirate costumes (I don't get the pirate costume thing... they seem really popular here). I was also assured that this event was a good place to "hook up"... which, given the nebulousness of the unintentionally long-term yet evidently meaningless entanglements of the past year or two, seemed like an opportunity to, at the very least, move along.

I could go through and describe the ordeal in detail, but it is as depressing for me as it would be entertaining for you, and I'm not feeling particularly altruistic at the moment.

Well. That's that then. Now I'm quite committed to never going to another social function in Tofino. Expectations are to be re-adjusted. Equilibrium is to be achieved between working and surfing, and the ultimate goal of a quick and painless death shall be constantly brought back to the top of the list. I only wish that, by the time it is my turn to croak, I play the flute as well as Schopenhauer did on the day of his death at age 72.

Imported Facebook Note

George's South Island Adventure

George is an old dog. I don't know how old he is... but I'm sure he's quite old. He is, in fact, old and crazy... which is why I can't leave him with anyone... and which is why I took him on a surf-camping-trip.

s. and I packed up the newly acquired aerostar (which has been named "Steve"... because he's a Ford and therefore American... and Steve has always been, to me, the ultimate American name) and drove down to Jordan River. Steve is the best surf vehicle ever... it held two people, five surfboards (11', 9'1", 7'8, 6'6", 6'4"), two wetsuit bins, a dog, and all the camping gear and food required with room to spare... all of this *in* the car, nothing on top.

We were meeting s.'s friend Anatole, and Anatole's friend Miranda at Jordan River. It was to be a foursome of two non-couples.

I had never met Anatole, and s. had never met Miranda. On our way there, I mentioned that I know a Miranda who cycled across most of Russia by herself... alone... on a bike... with no support... the plan was to go from Vladivostok to Moscow... including a stretch of Siberia known as "the land with no roads"... she made it to the foothills of the Urals before her visa ran out, narrowly escaping death and fates worse than death on various occasions... and the Miranda I know is about to go off to cycle from Cairo to Capetown.

All s. knew about Anatole's friend is that her name was Miranda and that she took up surfing while hanging out with the surf press in Australia. The Miranda I know also took up surfing in Australia while in the process of "becoming a writer"... well, it's a small small world... because three years later, there we were, meeting at Jordan River through people we didn't know.

We logged almost 1000kms for this surf trip... and surfed only twice (s. and I, anyway... I think Anatole and Miranda got in a session before we arrived and after we left)... I didn't catch a single ride... but did managed to get bruised all over from the rocks. Paddling out was easy... but experiencing the pissing contests that were Sombrio and Jordan River just wasn't all that worthwhile. s. and I agreed that this surf trip was perfect, in that the camping part was fun and friendly, and, most importantly, in that it taught us to love Tofino all the more. We love our beach breaks. We love our closeouts. We love the impossible paddle-outs. We have a home break... and it's perfect. (well, I have one, anyway... s. is moving back to Vancouver, or at least that appears to be the plan right now)...

And, unexpectedly, George had an excellent time on this trip. He joined us in every single one of our misguided surf checks... and ended up hiking to what we had hoped were secret surf spots along the Juan de Fuca trail. He navigated terrain that I would never have expected him to... steep trails, large boulders, fast moving creeks... but s. and Anatole were George's personal cheerleaders, encouraging him at every questionable juncture to make the jump, or the climb, or whatever it took. George had a totally awesome time. George loves the aerostar, too... he slept outside one night, and the next night, in the aerostar with me and s... and there was enough room for all three of us to stretch out.

s. and I won't be going to South Island again anytime soon... but the trip was still sort of perfect. We confirmed that Schopenhauer was right... and I got a chance to catch up with Miranda.

Time for bed now. Got to go out to my favourite beach break tomorrow morning at 7AM and catch a whole lot of rides before it's time to go to work.

Imported Facebook Note

Eating Broccolini

I don't agree with the time. I don't feel that it's as late as it's supposed to be. It is past 11PM and I have just begun having dinner.

Dinner tonight is a plate of microwave steamed broccolini, which is an odd looking, chewy, and rather tasteless imitation of broccoli. I found it in a bag on my kitchen counter, and, not feeling like cooking anything else, decided to have it for dinner.

And here is how broccolini came to exist in my kitchen:
Yesterday, I went and looked at the surf with a vegetarian friend and decided not to surf. We also decided that the a vegetarian Delissio(tm) rising crust frozen pizza would best be accompanied by some steamed broccoli, so we went to Beaches Groceries in search of same. We arrived in separate cars, went into this little tiny grocery shack one after another, and for reasons to which I hadn't given any thought, acted like we didn't know eachother (okay. lie. I probably did think about it... though not for very long). I bought eggs, milk, and strawberries, and left and drove home. He arrived several minutes later, sans broccoli. "This is broccolini. They didn't have broccoli. Pacheabel said it's even better than broccoli because it has a cute name." Pacheabel? Could there be more than one? "Yeah, she's Andrew Struther's daughter"

Pacheabel... I had read about her. The book was written by her father, and published in 2004. In the book, she was a tiny little girl... not much older than my niece, I would imagine (she's 7). I could add on a few years for the time it takes to write and publish a book... but seeing her as a real life adult caused a little cognitive dissonance... time is moving too quickly.

Milton was 24 when he wrote "How soon hath time"... then boom! next thing you know, he's old and blind and considering how his light is spent... and now... he's been dead for more than 300 years.

Tic. Tic. Tic. Tic. Tic. Tic. Tic. Tic. Tic....

Imported Facebook Note

Gluttony is a sin?

I've had more coffee since Thursday than I usually have in a month. I've also eaten enough food to feed a small Ethiopian family for a week. I think I may have personally been responsible for a world shortage of teff flour.

It is roll up the rim to win time and I have (despite the outrageous coffee consumption) yet to win anything.

I have noted that despite all the light pollution in the city, you can still see Orion in the sky. I have noted that men look better in suits, but that men in suits are not better looking.

I dreamt that Angelica Houston became my boss and was unbearable, and made me fly back into the open arms of my old job, which my real-life replacement unceremoniously abandoned this Thursday.

I am ready to go home.

Imported Facebook Note

Yeatsian Revival

It was oscar night. I wouldn't have known it... except that I got a phone call early in the morning inviting me to an "oscar party"... the conversation went something like this:

-Hey, what are you doing tonight?
-Uh. Nothing?
-It's oscar night tonight.
-What's that? (thinking, for some reason, that it has something to do with food)
-Tonight's the oscars.
-What? (still thinking about food)
-The academy awards. You know, oscars. Movies.
-OH!
-I guess you don't really follow that.
-Uh... no...

And then I was told that in this town... many people make a big deal of the oscars... they put together stacks of televisions, dress up, serve oscar themed food (so I was right about the food, afterall), and generally party it up.

I did not partake of the festivities... mainly because I've been living in a movie-less cave for the last little while. I haven't even seen a trailer or a movie poster for any of the nominees. I can't even name one actor/actress/director who has been nominated. Actually, the last time I saw any part of the oscars, it was that year with Roberto Benigni winning best foreign film for La vita e bella (a wiki search tells me that that was 10 years ago!)... and the next oscar moment was in 2004, in the kitchen at work at Dorval during an evening shift, where everyone in the room was ecstatic that Les invasion barbare had won... unfortunately, among all the proud and ecstatic French Canadians, none had seen the movie...

I do know that a movie called "No Country for Old Men" has been nominated for best picture this year... reason why I know is that there's been a lot of mention of this movie lately... and it happens to be one of my favourite lines. I haven't any idea what the movie is about... all I know is that it is not, as was my first guess, a bio-pic of William Butler Yeats... whatever it is, though, it's probably quite good... I googled "oscars" and discovered that it had won several awards. I guess I'll have to wait until it comes out on video... and then rent it from The Groovy Movie Store.

In celebration of the win... here is Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium":

THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Okay... that's it. I'm going to bed... going to go for an early surf in the morning before work. The surf forecast said it was going to be smaller today... so I went to Cox Bay instead of North Chesterman. I still have salt water coming out of my nose... and I've been out of the water since 11AM. I need to surf better... and soon, too... and I need to stop freaking myself out by paddling to the lip of some gigantic wave pretending that there's even a chance I could make any sort of a drop. Why do I do that? It doesn't give me anything but a sinus rinse.

Imported Facebook Note

THIS is no country for old men

It's official, Tofino is now REALLY on the map. I was having a conversation with someone inside an office, and noticed that there were a group of young Asian men and women wearing brightly coloured T-shirts and rubber gloves prancing about on the main street (which, incidentally, is not called "main street" here... our "Main Street" is not nearly as "main" as "Campbell Street")... they had stacks of pamphlets printed on flourescent paper... one dude's t-shirt said "God Loves You"... yes yes... Korean Evangelists are now in Tofino. I went and picked up one of the pamphlets left on the cop car's windshield... and sure enough... it was from the Vancouver Korean Presbyterian Church. Being so far away, I'm not sure how they plan to save my soul... but if there's going to be singing and general good cheer, then by god, count me in as long as they provide the OCD rubber gloves!

Imported Facebook Note

Psychotropic Mould Advisory

There is (and possibly has always been) a psychotropic mould present in Tofino. Prolonged exposure (4 months or longer) may cause the following:
-loss of short term memory
-loss of sense of time
-loss of ambition
-inability to process spatial information
-inability to reason
-inability to focus or concentrate
-impairment of mental flexibility and spontaneity
-loss of social decorum
-inertia
-irritability
-forgetfulness
-paranoia
-loud talking
-inappropriate laughter
-poor judgement
-agression
-mood swings
-seclusive behaviour
-perseveration or general frontal lobe dysfunction
These symptoms can be alleviated or mitigated by regularly performing sinus rinses, thereby reducing the build-up of the psychotropic mould in the sinus cavities, most notably in the sinus frontalis, which is adjacent to the frontal lobe and therefore likely to affect its function if contaminated by the psychotropic mould spores. Sinus rinses are available in commercial preparations and kits or can be improvised by mixing an appropriate amount of sodium bicarbonate with water for nasal irrigation. An effective and natural rinsing of the sinuses can be achieved by surfing. In short, surf more to avoid going insane.

Imported Facebook Note

A note in the day time

The surf was small today... so I took out my gigantic board this morning... only to discover (after three weeks of surfing almost everyday exclusively on the little board) that the gigantic board is really gigantic... at 25-3/4 inches, it's really, really wide. It was a struggle and I felt like a total loser (except those mitts really do help with the paddling). After about an hour and a half, I decided to decide that it wasn't a good day for surfing and came home...

...but it was too beautiful a day to be inside... so I went out for a bike ride... aside from the frost-bite paranoia (it's not actually *that* cold... but there's still snow everywhere, and I only had bike shorts, not bike pants) it was almost like summer. It was an excellent ride, though after coming up what looks like only a little hill on my street but is in reality an overwhelmingly long, steep, mountainous incline, it was definitely time for hot chocolate. (that my neighbour across the street manages to do it seemingly effortlessly while hauling a baby (or two, who knows) in a bike trailer does not make me feel in anyway inadequate)

I wanted some papadams with my hot chocolate... and so was going to use up the rest of the expensive package ($2.49 at the 4th street market, $.99 at superstore... exact same stuff, by the way... that "Golden Boy" stuff in the plastic bag with that creepy looking pink rabbit and the kid... there's no complaining though... I'm sure $.99 would be considered a ridiculous rip off in India)... anyway... here's an important lesson I learnt: you cannot fry papadams in olive oil... for some reason, the oil seems to soak right through to the other side of the papadam, and the the pools of olive oil just don't go away... even if you scott-towel the heck out of them... (what are scott towels called now? I don't remember... ) and they also stay perfectly flat... which could be a good thing if it actually cooks, but it didn't.... and it tastes really odd... kind of like sausages (now you're going to want to try this, I know)...

Anyway... just thought I'd write a note in the day time as I'm enjoying my hot chocolate... now I'm going back out in the sun to harvest more vitamin D... going to go for a walk... maybe into town...

Imported Facebook Note

Gross Misreadings and Unsubtle Differences

I woke up this morning on the couch (I have four empty bedrooms in the house and I choose to sleep on the couch) and wanted to figure out what time it was without getting up. My watch was elsewhere as were all of three of my cell phones (the simple life isn't so simple). So I turned on the TV to see if I can find the time... of course, because I rarely ever watch TV, I didn't know any of the channels... I was already half awake by the time I chanced upon some sort of a news channel that said it's 10:30 central time... and, not thinking clearly, thought that it was 9:30 and I should get up.

I got up and later realized that Central Time is actually on the other side of Mountain Time... which meant that it was only 8:30. Okay. A little earlier than I thought, but that's okay. Looked out the window... there was about 20cm of snow out there... and I did not have a snow shovel. (I'd asked a cashier at the co-op some time ago whether I needed a snow shovel, she assured me that I did not, and would be fine with just a broom... she appeared to be a long time sufferer of mold-allergy/poisoning and so must have beeing living here forever... seemed pretty credible at that point in time anyway)... anyway... no shovel.

Seeing as it was only 8:30 on a Sunday morning... I made a pre-surf cup of coffee and a peanut butter sandwich and sat down with my Norton Anthology to look up something I had fogotten about a Hamlet soliloquy. Well, believe it or not, there is not a Hamlet soliloquy in the Norton Anthology of Poetry.... and as my books are housed in the garage and I didn't feel like going through the snow to get there... and as the internet cheapens information by making it disposable (you can always wiki it later!), I gave up on the soliloquy and started going through the sonnets... I'm not really into Shakespeare... but just as it's nice every now and then to watch a trashy hollywood film... sometimes, there's time for Shakespeare. Anyway... I read sonnet #30 and thought it was brilliant... and so different... so profound in its rejection of reminiscence (which is welcomingly un-schopenhauerian)... and so odd... there's no hokey little volta in there... huh. I read it again... and yes... I liked it. I thought it was incredibly strange that there's not a volta... and then... I noticed that there were two more lines to the sonnet on the next page. Grrr. It was supremely hokey. Made me feel kind of dirty, having liked any of it.

Got in my wetsuit to go for a surf... and went outside with a broom... found it wholly inadequate... I could get out... but then all the snow would still be there... so I drove down to the co-op hardware store... and bought the last snow shovel they have (the last one! yay me! thank god for mountain time!)... came back... cleared the driveway (not so much for me as for n. who lives downstairs... I'm sure she can get through the snow... but she has a smart car and it just wouldn't look right to make it try)... then went to the beach, at the parking lot of which I ran into someone I was meaning to see later on in the day anyway (though I suppose not in the state of undress in which I found him)... went out into the surf, and through every fault of my own, remained in the wrong place in the water for an unproductively long time... though one important realization is that in certain conditions, "oh-what-the-hell" won't catch any waves... it has to be "hell-yeah"...

An hour and a half later, when I could no longer even throw myself in front of whitewash with any amount of verve, I decided to leave. I walked towards the trail... it was snowing heavily and I looked into the sky and stuck my tongue out to catch the gigantic snowflakes just as Charlie Brown and Lucy and Linus Van Pelt would... then I realized that someone was looking at me... and then I realized that it was the new chief administrative officer for the district of tofino... I'm pretty sure my tongue was no longer hanging out of my mouth by the time I made eye contact... but there it was... spotted by the boss in a rare moment of child-like wonder and general goofiness.

Came back home... and within a minute of my arrival, got a call from my friend and downstairs tenant with an offer of homemade borscht. BORSCHT! It was the sort of borscht that could make you fall in love with its maker... and quite possibly the best après-surf meal. And as we were consuming bowl after bowl of borscht... she looked out the window and said... "what in the hell is that guy doing out there?"... it was my neighbour across the street (who once gave me a surf lesson (no, not *that* guy... he doesn't live across the street... though apparently they're buddies))... anyway... he was experimenting with a broom, a dust pan, and a hoe as snow removal tools... after about ten seconds, realized that what he had was wholly inadequate, and went to his next door neighbour to borrow a shovel... they didn't answertheir door, and as he was crossing the street towards my place, I opened the patio door and offered him my shovel. How lovely... a morning of friendly social interaction, none of it at all the least bit taxing or tinted with the slightest contrivance... small town. I keep forgetting it, but it's true.

After the borscht, we decided to drive down to Ukee for a walk on the Wild Pacific Trail... which turned out not to be so wild after all, at least not the stretch we picked today... the weather wasn't as beautiful in Ukee, but it was still several kilometers of breathing perfectly clean air by the rocky shores and crashing waves.

Got back in the late afternoon and was dead tired... went out again for groceries in the evening... bought a samosa from Beaches Groceries and wondered whether it was superior to the samosas at Breaker's Deli. I suspect that they might be the same samosa... $11:00 PM2.50 each... All India it ain't.

Owell... that's something that tofino doesn't have... samosas and pakoras and palak paneer and aloo paratha and channa masala and lamb korma and ras malai... but if we had that... life would be entirely too perfect here.

Imported Facebook Note

Blargh!

I wrote a note (well... I wrote most of a note)... it was a good one... with quotes from Thomas Paine and GM Hopkins and a mis-quote from Shakespear... it was about the weather, surfing, work, and how everything is going beautifully here in paradisical Tofino... there was a wonderful description of desolation and inspiration... a little vignette outlining a brief moment of romance... an amusing description of a perilous hair-cutting experience... theories on mass mold poisoning... and it's all gone... I'm not entirely sure what happened... but it involved hitting a strange key combination that made everything disappear.

I'm sure the note wasn't a quarter as brilliant as I now believe it to be... but I'm not composing anything in a web browser again... (unless it's gmail and has an auto-save function, of course)...

So who knows how long it will be before I get down to writing another note... ever since that tower came down and I lost internet for ten days... I just havent felt like sitting in front of a computer anymore...

In any case... happy new year everyone... (I explained in the lost note about the whole happy new year thing... so if it doens't make sense... it's my fault, but there's nothing I'm going to do about it now)... more later, maybe.