Turn Tables.

This is a picture I took of my brother Ben on Christmas Eve, 2009.

My Good Bad Habit

I write people nice letters when I'm drunk. Or, more often, I conceptualize nice letters to write to people, and then, as the evening continues, forget where my feelings of altruism came from. The other evening, at the bar, I was thinking about the loveliness of Greg and Stephanie's blog, and the loveliness of those people, and I made it into a letter in my head. Often, sometimes, too, for some reason I'm not sure of, I think of people in the service industry who are good at their jobs. I remember Fiona who gave us popcorn, an extra large coke, honest opinions about the films, and shared with us her good nature. Months after actually being at the theater, after a pint or two, I remember Fiona and I think, I should write the Galaxy a letter, it's not too late.

Can you speak German?

The woman who sat down next to me had a mug and a bottle of Creemore. Maybe it was twelve o’clock, whenever it was, we said good morning to each other. We talked about the weather. Like a European day, she said. She was a nostalgic German, teary-eyed about the approaching anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. She asked me had I been to Europe and I said I had not. She doesn’t not like Canada, it’s just, “well”, there’s something...
I asked her why she came here and she said it was maybe because of her husband, she guesses, and for a “good life”, and things here used to be different anyway. Now that she has raised her kids here, she said, I don’t know. It’s a lot to lose, she said, your language, your culture. Just T.V. here, and everybody shut up with their flickering light boxes. Laws and bylaws. One thing goes wrong once and there’s a new law to “protect” us. She was finished with her drink. And so “healthy” here, she said. She invited a neighbour for coffee and she said she doesn’t drink coffee. Not even coffee, just tea. And nobody has a beer Sunday after church, god forbid. Her legs were draped over the arm of her seat and 2 flies were next to each other on the crease of her pants. More was said. More praise was given to the fine weather before she left me to get along with my work. The ladybug fell from my hair onto my lap.

Observatory

Because it's so nice out I make a habit of taking a bigger walk everyday instead of my usual little walks that are simply borne out of necessity.

I walk home from school and on the way today, at today's peak temperature, when my feet were protesting against my black boots and when my leather backback, on nylon coat, on denim vest, on cotton shirt were thoroughly irritated by the sun's delicious attention, that's when I saw two people carrying milk. A man all in black, with dyed black hair, black pants, a black t-shirt and sweater, was carrying a large carton of milk up the hill on Gordon St.- 3% at that. Then a woman with a bag of two bags of milk was at the crosswalk. Sweating milk in pink and white containers. A walk uphill both ways. Finally unsalted ground. I plan my dinner:

Cold coffee.
Homemade Lynn Burgers.
Sweet Potatoes.
Dipped Strawberries and Stout.

Decorating Inspiration

The/Ben's Factory

I’ve half lifted those pallets whole heartedly, and weakly dragged them across the floor. Those are the bins I pushed around, the clock whose battery I changed, the workbench I assembled (though backwards, at first). That’s the forklift that brought me to the ceiling to lift heavy pieces of metal into the rafters for “safe keeping”. That's the man that drove it. That might be the wood I counted over, and over again. Those are the nails (on the floor, you can’t see them) that I pulled out of boards. I’ve sprayed down the dust from those lights. I’ve fired at least one of those nail guns, opened the fresh box of many, and retired more than that to Anson’s desk. That’s the way the broom hangs and where the ladder goes. I’ve shrink wrapped and tagged pallets just like those ones, broken ones just like those ones, fixed ones just like those ones.


I have probably circled that factory floor over a thousand times.