Well, this is it, I suppose. Pretty much just have to shut down and pack up the computer. It didn't take too long to pack. I'm not leaving with too much more than what I came here with.

Note to self: don't go out drinking the night before moving again, no matter how good of an idea it seems. And if I do, stay away from red wine. It was good seeing Matt one last time anyway. We had dinner at Mackenzie's, a sports bar near his place. I had the chicken fingers.

I walked home up Keele Street. It was pouring rain and I played a game of duck and cover between the bus stop shelters. I must have looked suspicious. After awhile I stopped minding the rain and just walked. Near my place a couple were having an argument, the woman screaming at the man as he walked away.

I've really missed my girlfriend.

I'm starting a new journal tomorrow once I'm back in Ottawa. I'll post the address here.

I slept in late today. Yesterday I hit campus for awhile and browsed some electronic literature websites, and I think I'm going to shift the focus of my avant-garde paper a bit to discuss how the "reader" of a text is transformed into a "user," or a reader-author hybrid. I discovered some really strange art websites, of which there really is no shortage.

I couldn't stay at the library, so I went to Tim Hortons and then walked home from Keele Station. I love those walks. They give my thoughts room to roam around. I thought a lot about what lies in store in Ottawa. I'm trying to remind myself that nothing lies ahead of me but possibility, but I have to put first things first. Four more papers and one more presentation. Then I can start figuring out where life is going to take me next.

I found a live stream of Wrestlemania, so I was able to catch about three hours of it, only having to put up with a slight delay in audio and announcers who sounded like Darth Vader. Ric Flair had his last match and I was happy to see it live. I stayed up late looking at photos and thinking. Today I have to read a couple of essays and write a response paper.

Tomorrow is the first day of April. The beginning of the end!

There are moments, walking drunkenly through fresh drifts of snow, when I acutely feel the past eating me alive.

I boarded the bus for class this morning but traffic on Keele Street was completely gridlocked. We sat for nearly an hour and had only moved a couple of blocks. I know there was construction work going on, and that must have been coupled with an accident or fire (a fire truck did speed by, sirens blaring). At one point the driver of a Go bus behind us approached the driver of our bus about his mirror, prompting our driver to put the bus in park and GET OUT to check it out. That's when I decided to hike it home.

I took a nap during which FedEx showed up with what I'm assuming is my Eurail pass. What are the chances they'll come back tomorrow before 11 AM? I have a feeling I'll be asking Jay for a lift to their offices. The remainder of my university bursary appeared in the mail a bit later.

I did return to campus later on for African-Canadian Lit. We watched a film called Rude, which had an involving story and was great in that Canadian production kind of way. Afterwards I tried doing some research on Death in Venice at Robarts, but I couldn't concentrate, so I headed home after about 45 minutes. I used to be able to get a lot of work done at the library at Carleton, but I find Robarts a kind of tricky place to study. The desks are always too open to traffic, and the cleaning staff often decides to buffer the floor with this loud machine right in the middle of the day. I need to find a better study hole.

I walked home from Keele station, poked a bit at some more stuff on Thomas Mann and watched a few episodes of Scrubs (I really dig Zach Braff). Tomorrow I'm meeting with the Death in Venice group for a bit. Before that I'm attending a seminar on making Canadian journals available for online research. More on that after I find out exactly what it entails.

Today was much better. It started out with Touch of Evil and proceeded into another lunch at the Red Room with Tony and Eileen. About three quarters of the restaurant was furnished with couches and upholstery. Tony and Eileen both seem like nice people and they're entertaining to listen to. Eileen really reminds me of Esther.

After that I studied up for African-Canadian literature. Nick Walsh (which I just noticed is eerily close to Nitz Walsh) was one of the presenters on Djanet Sears' Harlem Duet. Nick has got to have his eyes on being a professor, as he's one of those people that really goes all out for presentations and discussion. Turns out the guy's brother is the guitarist for Jen Militia.

Sometimes I find it difficult to talk in that class because Professor Clarke speaks from the heart and I feel like my relatively useless observations about Bakhtin's notion of polyphonic textual nature as it relates to Sears' play aren't going to register in quite the same way. I'm also white. Now, granted, 95% of the class is white. But I don't want to feel as though I'm talking in politically correct platitudes just to contribute to a discussion. It wouldn't be fair to the material. Professor Clarke talks at great length about the texts we study, and that's to be expected, but it's hard to deliver a complimentary idea that's more classically theoretical in approach when we're dealing with such emotional subject matter. That said, I'm learning a lot in the class, and the books have all been great reads.

I chatted a bit with Brooke afterwards, about where we're from and such. She mentioned a couple of places she's been to in Ottawa (including this one Russian bar...). It gave me a chance to gush about the city. She's from London, and I told her I'd heard stories...

I made the walk from Keele station again. After I got home I lounged for a bit befoe popping in Death in Venice, which I watched for an hour or so before putting on Orson Welles' broadcast of The War of the Worlds. I laid on the couch and listened to it for the first time, 69 years to the day it was first broadcast, and let its imagery play around inside my head. For those of you who don't know much about the story of the broadcast, it's a really interesting one: read more about it here.

Tomorrow I'm meeting with my Opera group before heading over to Matt's to do up Halloween. Have a happy one.

Today I was waiting for the bus when a car whirled around the corner and pulled over. A lady in the passenger seat asked me if I knew where St. Clair Avenue was. I thought I had an idea, so I started to point, but then I second guessed myself and told her, "No, sorry," in an effort to back away from the responsibility of getting her ass lost. She gave me a look and gesture as if to say, "Then why the hell were you about to tell me?" before the car drove away. Of course, five seconds after she took off I realized that my gut geographical instinct was correct. But that's what happens when I'm put on the spot.

The people I've encountered in Toronto are by action a lot meaner and nastier than folks in Ottawa, though I may be generalizing from a bad mood. I really felt as though I was going through the motions today, not wanting to interact with the world. Nevertheless I got through class and headed home. My Opera class ends at 5 PM, which is right in the middle of rush hour, so the trip home is always intense, especially when you don't want to deal with it at a level of great seething passion.

I was waiting for the bus at Keele Station and I was one of the first on the platform. 15 minutes passed without a bus showing up, and by that time the platform was overflowing with commuters. I spent about five minutes wondering about the mechanics of walking home before I decided to go ahead and try it under the reasoning that it would be good exercise in my typically exerciseless existence. I left the crowd in my dust and hiked up Keele Street.

Honestly, the walk did me a lot of good, mind and body wise. I'm going to make the effort more often. It only took about 40 minutes from station to front door and it gave me the opportunity to grasp a better idea of the area west of my apartment (the bus travels east before heading south. Keele is cut up into two chunks and it's taken me a while to wrap my head around it). After arriving home I ate some dinner, studied a bit, finished off X-Files Season 2 and vegged online.

I'm not blue. It's just a clever title.

Tonight I moved into my cousin's condo on Keele Street in Toronto. As soon as we pulled up to the building I knew it was one of those places I'd seen in a dream. The floors in the hallway are patterned after 50-year-old candy canes, alternating red and dark grey stripes leading toward the elevator. In the lobby are urn fountains trickling lightly into a shallow pool beside airport lounge furniture around an Ikea coffee table. It actually all looks quite lovely.

My room is painted light gold with a single white stripe running its perimeter near the ceiling. There is a large window facing the kitchen that I've drawn blinds over, and I'll probably never open them again. The room came equipped with an empty dresser and a couple of shelves to support my alarm clock, toiletries and the pumpkin-headed smurf that Jen and Eric gave me as a goodbye present, recalling the Halloween I wore a pumpkin on my head for my Jack Pumpkinhead costume. Everything I brought seems to fit into the space provided, and that's a load off my mind.

My cousin has no television, but he has converted a computer and shelving unit into a functioning DVD player, Wii module and entertainment centre. I can bowl and punch the leather couch behind me in frustration with each gutterball.

I feel lonely. Not blue - just lonely, and tired from the move. I have to master the transit system, which I've learned will normally involve Keele to the green and yellow subway lines. There is a Value Village and a DMV close by, both of which I've needed to visit urgently lately. Very strange conveniences. Can't wait to see what this place looks like in daylight.