Otnorot

 August 16, 2024

    I’m back in Toronto. I’m staying in Carter’s old room. Tyler and Jason are gone. They’ll be back at the end of August. 

    Will is staying in the basement room. His girlfriend is staying here pretty often as well. 

    I think I’ll be staying here for now. I had asked Jason how much they were charging for this room. I’m still not quite sure what they're planning, but Jason said they were hoping to bump it up to $680 when Carter leaves. That way he and Tyler could put their rents down to $360.

    I want to deal with this peacefully. Especially within myself. I don’t need to be stressed and tense. That solves nothing. I don’t want to carry that kind of energy around anymore. It actually makes things worse. I can feel completely calm and peaceful and still deal with the situation diplomatically. 

    That’s why I love good diplomates and debaters. They approach disagreements with so much cordiality. 

    I went up the Fox the other day. I saw Veronica and Sam. The place looked pretty much the same. The popcorn tasted the same. I was glad about that.

    They said that business is still good, and maybe even busier than before. Veronica also said that Kristal told her I’m coming back to work. That was a big relief, because I still haven’t heard back from Kristal. 

    I sent her an email asking for an update but she hasn’t replied. Veronica said she’s on a one-week vacation. 

    I also went up to York the other day. I took the subway. It was a pretty smooth ride. 

    There’s one section of track where the Subway suddenly goes really slow. I Googled that and it’s a real thing. It’s to do with tracks being in disrepair. Apparently they’re upgrading things. 

    The subway station is right on York campus. That was pretty cool. The station itself is amazing. It’s probably the most impressive one I’ve seen in Toronto. It’s very grand.

    I just wandered around the campus for about half an hour. I got super confused at one point. I saw a bunch of signage welcoming me to the FBI. I looked out the window and saw a massive American flag. I felt like I was hallucinating. 

    I realized that I was on some sort of film set. There was a production crew getting everything set up. I thought that was pretty funny. 

    I saw Nana a coupe days ago. She’s looking really healthy. She looks much better compared with when I left. 

    I got super drunk the first night I was here. It was super embarrassing. It started off fun, as usual. I was drinking in Kew Park and watching people play baseball. I went back to the house and drank for quite a while. Then I went to Castros. The vibe there kinda sucks now. It feels super cliquey. Something seems different. 

    I saw Taylor and her friends. I went to middle school with Taylor, although I never really talked to her. 

    I also saw David Brown. He was walking down the sidewalk with his new girlfriend. We chatted for a couple minutes. It was a nice encounter. He seemed really happy to see me. 

    Taylor and her friends invited me back to their place. They were in an apartment across the street. It was the last apartment that Nana and Papee lived in together.

    I don’t remember much. We were having fun and laughing a lot. It was a good time. 

    I just remember that at the end of the night I grabbed a blanket and lay down on the couch between two of the girls. I cringe so hard when I think about that now. I was just lying there. It just seems weird. It’s another thing that I’d never do if I was sober. 

    I left not long after that. It was super late. I went to the beach and smoked my joint. I wandered around on the beach listening to music. 

    The sun came up. There were lots of people walking on the boardwalk. I must’ve looked like a maniac. I was just pacing around by the water with my headphones on. 

    I finally went home. I literally slept the entire day. I got out of bed at 7 pm I think. I drank two cans of cider that I had in my bag. 

    I obviously want to stop drinking. I haven’t drank since then. I feel so embarrassed. I always do stupid shit. 

    Anyways, I’m excited to be back in Toronto. I feel different. I feel slightly uneasy, just because I’m not sure about thing at the house and about work. But it’ll all work out.

    I saw Françoise and she kept saying "Everything will work out! I’m positive that everything will work out!” 

A Very Fairy Day

  August 10, 2024

It rained all day long yesterday. Apparently it was a record for Montreal. They’ve never had that much rainfall in such a short amount of time. 

Lots of houses in the city were flooded. Mami’s friend emailed her to say that her basement was flooded. 

Today we went out with her walking group. There were only four of us. We took the subway to Old Montreal. 

We walked along the river. I was surprised by all the public space. I’d never walked there before. 

A bridge carried us over the water. There were people riding around in little paddle boats. There were people flying overhead in zip lines. It was super busy. It was like an amusement park.

There was also the big ferris wheel. It was built in 2017. I also saw a tent for Cirque Du Soleil. 

We were attending the Orientalys Festival. It was free. We walked around and looked at the booths. 

    We watched some dancing as well. I ordered a churro from a latino food stand. I ordered in Spanish. I was so proud of myself. 

We took the subway back after a of couple hours. Mami sat next to a Yorkie on the subway. It blew my mind. 

    I think she has some angels looking out for her. So many comforting things have happened since Buzz died. This one was insane. She was laughing and petting the dog. Everyone was smiling. It was really nice.

I’m heading back to Toronto tomorrow. I’m excited. Kristal still hasn’t gotten back to me. She sent me that one email last Friday. She said that she’d email me on Tuesday. I never heard back from her. 

Mami and I saw an amazing rainbow this evening. I think it was the brightest I’ve ever seen. 

    It didn’t look real. It was like a cartoon. It became a double rainbow as well. It really looked amazing. 

My heart leapt from my chest and led me down a brick path. We passed in front of the cobbler’s shop. He waved to me as I passed him.

The Lord of Clay was beating his son. I tried to intervene. The child died in my arms. The Lord was sentenced to twenty years of hard labour in the Gulag. 

I joined a Rhetorical Dance class. It was really interesting. We spent the first thirty minutes doing analogous stretches. That was good for me. It revealed kinks in my armour. We all have blind spots. 

I raised my hand and asked for help. “Can I get a hand over here?” 

The instructor hopped towards me. She was a stunning blonde. Her body was exotic and her breasts sagged to the floor. I was in heaven.

“How can I help?” She moaned, in an Australian dialect.

“Am I doing this right?” I proceeded to stretch. 

“You’re ass is tense like rock,” she whispered. “Let me help you.” 

She grabbed my left ass and pulled it towards her. I began to slip and slide. Then she did a fast and masterful jab on my right ass. It hurt like hell, but I knew that it was necessary. 

“How’s that? Can you feel yourself relaxing?”

My eyebrows shot heavenwards. “I’m loose as a liar’s conscience. Thank you!”

The teacher winked with great sexuality. She slipped a small paper into my pocket. Could it be her address? I went back to stretching with a renewed optimism.

Goodnight Buzz

 August 9, 2024

    I’m still in Montreal. Tomorrow is my last full day. I think we’re going out to some dance festival. I’ll be back in Toronto on Sunday.

    There was a big storm here today. It was the remnant of tropical storm Debbie. It rained all day. 

    I think it might’ve stopped now. The news was showing all of the flooding happening here in the city.

    I’ve been inside all day. I really need to go for a walk. I’ll probably do that after this. 

    Buzz died two days ago. It was really sad. It’s so strange that he’s gone. I don’t have any memories of this house without him. 

    He was one week away from being 17! The vet said that he’d never met a Yorkshire Terrier as old as Buzz.

    I’ll start on the 7th. We woke up somewhat early that day. We were going out with Mami’s walking group. The plan was to check out an old military fort outside of Montreal. 

    We took the bus to the subway station. We met all of her friends. There was a slight problem, because one of the cars was small and could only fit four people. We had three cars and fifteen people had shown up. So one of the woman went back home.

    So we started driving. Mami and the driver got lost. It was somewhat frustrating for me. Mami’s phone was in the trunk. All they needed to do was pull over and grab the phone. We could’ve used Google Maps and figured things out in seconds. 

    I sometimes get frustrated with old people and technology. I feel like they’re making things harder than they need to be. I just breathe and let them do what they want. 

    The drive was nice because I talked to the lady sitting next to me. She told me about all of the places she’d travelled to. We finally found the place. 

    A staff member of the museum walked with our group and told us all sorts of interesting things. She was speaking in French so I didn’t understand unfortunately. It was alright because the group members would occasionally translate for me. 

    The fort had first been built by the French in the 1600’s. It was originally built with wood. It had burned down a couple of times. 

    Then it was built with stone, because the British were expected to arrive shortly. I think the British took control of the fort soon after. 

    In the late 1800’s it was abandoned and fell into disrepair. A local man put in a lot of effort to save the structure. He got money from the government to preserve it. In the 1970’s there was a proper restoration effort. They restored and strengthened the walls. 

    Now it’s a museum and you can walk through all the rooms. It’s right next to the water. It was really cool.

    We had lunch on the grass. Then we walked around for a bit longer. Eventually we got back in the car and headed home. This time Mami used google maps. It only took us 35 minutes to get home. It was very fast. 

    Mami had a vet appointment for Buzz that afternoon. He hadn’t been doing very well. He seemed fine when I arrived. He was running around and jumping on the sofa. He was asking for snacks just like normal.

    He changed at some point. He suddenly seemed like a different dog. He seemed to become senile. He started to pace all over the place. He would walk in one direction, then turn around and walk the other way. He would do that endlessly. 

    And he couldn’t see properly, so he kept walking into things. The worst part was that he was having trouble standing. He would suddenly shake and then collapse to the floor. It was pretty sad. 

    Each day he seemed to get worse. So Mami took him to the vet. She was taking a while. She had been gone for nearly an hour and a half. The vet was only a five minute walk from the house. 

    I checked my phone and saw that she’d messaged me an hour earlier. She had asked if I was home. I replied, but she arrived back to the house about ten minutes later. I knew something was off, because she came in quite silently. I didn’t hear any leash.

    She came into the living room, her eyes misty and her voice shaking and said ‘that’s it’. She started to cry. She said that Buzz had been put to sleep. 

    The vet said it was only going to get worse. It was best to do it now. I think was the right decision. 

    Mami was and still is obviously pretty upset. They’ve been together for seventeen years. He was on Salt Spring when I was only nine! 

    I’m really glad that I was here. I’m glad that Mami wasn’t alone for this.

    Yesterday was the first full day without Buzz. We went to the latino part of town that mom had recommended. We also checked out a big market. Mami bought some plants and maple syrup. 

    We went for dinner at a really good Vietnamese restaurant. We came home just as the storm began.

        Dreams

I was with a friend. I think we were in a restaurant. We were commenting on a family sitting close to us. I think my friend said that they were E.T.’s. I was trying to get a better look at their faces. 

Suddenly the man and woman both looked up. They were staring right at us. They seemed very kind. 

    There was definitely something different about their faces. We knew that they weren’t quite human. They had a child with them.

 They took us outside. They were showing us something on a TV screen. For other people the TV screen displayed a feed of nearby security cameras. For us it appeared as something different. 

    I can’t remember what it was. It didn’t matter. I was just happy to be with the E.T.’s.

 I was with dad. He was asking me if I had heard about a war that had broken out in Tel Aviv. He wanted to show me the wreckage. First he showed me drone footage on his phone. The city was on fire. 

Then dad wanted to walk with me through the wreckage. He wanted to get closer and closer to the fighting. The sounds of bombs and gunfire grew louder. 

Eventually I decided I didn’t want to keep going. I told dad that I was leaving. I felt that he was disappointed, like he had wanted to be close to the violence. I turned around and walked in the opposite direction of the war.