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.