This Is How It Goes (You'll Get Angry At Yourself)

Well, I made it. In four days, I drove from Vancouver to Toronto, leaving on Monday morning and arriving on Thursday night, last week. It was a suprisingly uneventful trip. Highlights included nearly running out of gas in Montana, having to pee in an icky outhouse, noticing the way the roads immediately turn red in Wyoming, and having a mulleted trucker give me a dollar for a toll just outside of Chicago. Mostly it was just drive drive drive, think think think, sing sing sing, cry cry cry. What can you do?

Being in Toronto is hard. I keep reminding myself that there are a million reasons to love being here - being able to go out at night without a jacket, not having to work, etc. – but none of that is really changing the fact that I ultimately wish I could have stayed in Vancouver. Free money. That’s what I have to keep in mind. Free money.

The first thing that happened after I arrived “home” is that a friend of mine died. Don’t be shocked. It was a long time coming. She had ALS. Still. It was sad. She was young, nice, fun. Had kids. And the catholic ceremony of it all was hard. First there were viewings (of the body) then the actual mass and funeral, then the burial. And all of the stuff in between. It went on for days. And it was sad. Really, truly, sad. And I wasn’t even a close friend. Maybe that was the saddest part of it – how sad it was for the people who were really close. That’s exactly the sort of thing that gets to me. Sigh.

All that said, if it had happened while I was still out West, I’d been planning to fly back for all that stuff, so in a way, I guess the timing worked out well. I’m still sort of depressed about the whole thing, though.

Today, the first post-funeral day, I dove into apartment hunting. Saw a bunch of shit holes, one nice place that was way too expensive and one decent place that was way too small. Developed a migrane. Went home. Lay in bed with my laptop watching episodes of House on divx.com. I’d never watched before. It’s okay. Not bad in the way I expected. Sort of bad in other ways, but not irritatingly so.

Someone recently suggested to me that House is a medical version of Sherlock Holmes and having finally seen a few episodes, I think they're so right. Whatever. I’m just glad there’s something for me to watch online. The ‘rents, as expected, are being totally psychotic. I won’t go into detail now, but trust me, it’s funny. It’s funny in a bizarre, illogical, there’s-no-way-your-parents-are-like-this sort of way, but funny nonetheless. I really need to find that apartment.

Anyhoo. I’m tired. I know I should write more, but I can’t. Bah! I had such high hopes. I was going to tell you all about staying in grotty motels in nowheresville Montana, and this funny Mitch Hedberg CD my friend Sarah gave me before I left, but now that I’m sitting here blogging, I just don’t feel like it. I feel like watching House on my compter and falling asleep. I suck. I know.

It’s so odd, but I haven’t really done anything social or unrelated to the death/funeral since I’ve arrived. Can you believe that? So, invite me out, would ya? (Yeah, I’m serious. I took some pride-be-gone just this morning. I’m not ashamed to fish for invitations. Bring ‘em on.)

Phewf! as Kathryn might say. It’s been a long trip.
Jen