Vygotsky and Orange Juice

I love it when theory and alcohol intertwine :-).

I had a client session today where I introduced Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development in a lateral context and the group was so playful that they started coining drink names riffing on "Vygotsky." That felt good, that my process and facilitation led them there -- I needed that reassurance, since last night I hit the "Overwrought" setting on my life. Found myself talking on the phone to B (initially simply about borrowing the car) and sobbing on the phone while frantically trying to figure out how to flip the lever to open the gas cap to refuel my car. I literally sat in the car next to the pump at the icky little gas station at the foot of Bathurst (the closest one that purveys diesel) for 15 minutes, crying, cellphone clutched between ear and shoulder, repeatedly getting out of the car to pry at the gas cap and to search, futiley, again, for the lever that had simply disappeared. When I hung up I finally realized that the car doesn't *have* a lever, that the fuel lock opens when you shut off the car , and that the gas cap is on the *passenger* side, and that the little thingy on the driver's side is decoration. (Note that have had car since JULY). Thanks, Mercedes, for clever design and thanks completely-broken-down-capacity-for-weathering-things.

Bad inverted Zone of Proximal Development (Zone of Convergent Deconstruction?) where moving + nearing anniversary of separation from B + pms + just plain fatigued + Energy Sucking Client + no time with Excellent Therapist for weeks because of moving + no time for exercise because of moving created a perfect storm of Lucille Ball-like WAAAAAH. I'm better now, still rolling on my tongue that notion of feeling like an essential protein is missing from my blood with the end of the shared life with B... realizing that the missing protein creates a metaphoric possibility of injecting new proteins.

It'll all be more than fine, and today, I love my loft again. Though I really have to get rid of Energy Sucking Client.

Hostages

The other undercurrent to the weekend was the homecoming of James Loney. This whole arc had a two-degrees-removed tie for me, because Beth is a friend of James and his partner Dan. She called me on -- Friday? -- to tell me that Dan had called her at 6:00 a.m. to tell her James was free. Apparently Dan found out because James called him and said "it's James." That would be a pretty stunning experience.

Was very glad to see that James came out immediately on landing and acknowledged Dan as his partner; Dan has been completely absent from the media coverage all along (for various reasons, some to do with James' safety and some to do with parents and others not fully accepting his role). I'm glad for them, and for Beth, who was very anxious.

Cycles

It was an extremely unpackful weekend -- I spent pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday handling every single thing I own, paperclip by paperclip. The place is looking really good -- I got the clothes sorted and put away (and a total of 3 big plastic bags to donate), the kitchen is done (including the fancy wine glasses that were still at B's), my office is 90% there (still some files to sort through). The books are still in boxes, and most of the files are, because Barbara still has to paint, but that should be done this week. (And why do I still own a lot of classical LPs? What does one DO with those?? And anyone want a copy of the Parachute Club's first album?)

I really need a rug -- now that the box detritus is mostly cleared, my living room furniture is sort of floating in space. I need something to define the area and I need to figure out the best away to arrange the jetson-y chairs and sofa.

It feels good, though I still feel muffled by the boxes and having been inside the whole weekend. I realize I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to get outside more, having no balcony -- the courtyard is lovely, but it requires planning.

One other thing I'm noticing is that I'm not sleeping very well yet -- noises (like unexpectly loud voices when people arrive home at night outside my door) and something about the openness of the space means that my bed isn't feeling all that cocoony yet. Once the painting is done and the windows that will mark off my bedroom area, I think things will be better. I also may need to resort to earplugs or a white noise machine or something. It's generally *very* quiet, but then when the noises happen, they're jarring.

There were a few fun things about the weekend... Friday night, my friend Lee made a dinner party for the people she knows who are wonky academics "and don't have anyone to talk to about it." (The partners of the phd-ers made "Street smart/book smart" jokes). I had to get to the wilds of Etobicoke, which felt like an adventure. It was fun. I hadn't seen G's sister in years, nor met her partner, who just finished her doctorate in Education from OISE -- I liked her, a lot, and it was nice to reconnect with Allison. Also good to meet Lee's other toiling-doc friend T, and to talk about her partner's life as an electrical transformer maintainer, and her venturing out on the top of the CN Tower "because the guys there let her." She's the only person who had concrete suggestions about why my cordless phone goes SQUEEE.

The other nifty thing was that I used freecycle for the first time. There's quite a little entry process -- you have to reassure them that you are properly green, not looking to make money or spam people or be all "Gimme Free Stuff" about it. But then I posted a bunch of stuff and almost immediately, people started emailing. In the end, a 30 something "starving artist student" boy showed up on his bike in the pouring rain for the antique silverplate cream and sugar set, an earnest young man who'd been given a mac showed up for the old blue USB keyboard and mouse, and a cook-happy woman claimed the powerbars, a paella pan (which I brought back from Spain in 1998 and have never used) and some other dishes. I have two more boxes of dishes waiting for a woman named "moose" and my grandmother's faux fur coat awaits the careful care of a woman named Rachel. I love the freeflowing looseness of this, and the different people who show up. Fits the neighbourhood completely.

Apart from being a little too chatty in the corridor at night, my neighbours are very friendly and I'm getting all sorts of accolades for the SmartCar. One woman wants to know if I can share my parking spot with her vespa; another man gave me an earnest "we need more people like you" chat, other people are just generally chatty and apparently very happy to be here. The place is feeling like a permeable community, and like there are people who fit me. This is a good good thing.

There are some strange coincidences happening, though -- this woman I've been chatting with online? Her therapist lives right next door to me. (A lovely woman). How bizarre is that? We have a date on Friday. Fingers crossed that the connections will keep bearing out.

Three good things

about yesterday...

1) I finished a draft of the strategy my bank client has been yammering for.
2) Ann Walker sent me flowers. I haven't even seen her for over a year, but we've been emailing about maybe having lunch, and I did send her a happy birthday email the other day. The flower guy had called to say "I have a delivery, will you be home?" and I couldn't imagine who might have sent them. She was not even on the radar. Very unexpected and lovely.
3) D and I went to La Palette for dinner. We started out saying "let's go for pho," and then wandered a bit and ended up at the bistro that has spectacular beer and lots of game (including horse). We had wine, bison dumplings for an app, and I had steak frites with asparagus. D had sole wrapped in banana leaf with a chickpea stew. Then we had a trio of tiny creme brulees. It was lovely and I feel more human today.

Off to more crammed client stuff, with my weekend stretching out joyfully empty before me, after tonight's dinner party at L's. She's invited the "lonely phds" she knows and their partners. And me, a lonely half-ph who can't even remember what I'm doing. It should be good regrounding. I'm supposed to bring dessert. I *know* I'll forget.

Things I can do in my neighbourhood

...without really having to put a coat on.

1. Get coffee. Lots of terrific, fair trade, well made coffee. Coffee that had me bright eyed and bushy tailed at midnight last night.

2. Buy 100 g of jellybeans for $0.69.

3. Get a delicious lunch of any of the following: chicken and yam burrito; vegan asian noodle soup; herbivorous salads and tempeh sandwiches; pick-your-own-components high end rice/organic stir fry; baked goods of all denominations; empanadas; humitas. That's just what I've tried so far.

4. Buy gorgeous flowers and plants from two friendly women right beneath me.

5. Buy vintage clothes of every possible imagining.

6. Buy Radical Uprising books and political paraphrenalia.

7. Support any number of highly diverse panhandlers.

8. Cruise boys or girls.

9. Organize community events.

10. Acquire smoking paraphrenalia and companions.

11. Buy goat meat (refrigerated!)

12. Buy fresh fish.

13. Buy chinese herbs.

14. Buy indian herbal remedies.

And...fruits, veggies, army salvage, crackers, dishes, art supplies, old furniture... etc. All in my block.

It's really quite remarkable.

Dad

In addition to being the-day-after-my-move, today is also the 14th anniversary of my dad's death.

I'm too sleepy and frazzled to wax poetic, but I miss him and wish I'd had him around as a grown up.

This is one of my favourite pics of him, in the tent of the VW camper van that trundled us across Europe. This was probably in Scandanavia somewhere in 1973.

Night Dad.

Interference

One of the trials of having a home office when one moves is that there's no geek on call to do the "and then a miracle occurs" nonsense.

1. No phone jack on the wall where my office stuff is, resulting in the rat's nest pictured.

2. Colour printer/scanner thingy stopped printing some time ago, so I took it to Repair Guy; "we don't fix printers," says geeky guy, aka Enemy of the Environment. "New printers are way cheaper than fixing them." Unable to bear the thought of toting this thing around and hanging onto it for Environment Day, I shoved the printer rudely at him and asked him to throw it away for me.

3. Laser printer, which was functioning just fine at my other place, had a moving mishap and the printer tray fell out, hurt my knee, scattered paper hither and yon. Now paper won't feed at all.

4. Cordless phones, which should be boon given phone jack situation, are suddenly beset with poltergeist like SCRRRRRRRRRRRREEEETTTching that *I* can hear and which obscure what person on other end is saying, but which they can't hear. No apparent pattern to this re where in flat this happens or not.

5. Wires everywhere. Have I mentioned the snakes of wires *everywhere*?

6. Electrician boy did not do a good job with the niceties of what things look like, I realize after his departure. Chandelier hung with orange morrets right in the middle of the chain. Switches placed on walls with big unsightly gaps instead of tidily grouped all together. There's already limited wallspace for art; this does not help.

7. Dishwasher so loud cannot turn it on while attempting to have conversation of any kind inside loft.

Gah. I think I'm dehydrated.

moonbeans and burritos

I sat on my new purple sofa today, reading and doing work, looking out at the skyline, and felt balanced and light and good. Had my first shower in my new place and -- thankfully -- the water was hot and plentiful. It's still pretty echoey in there, and I'm looking forward to having things actually IN place. But, it's good.

I'm really digging the cafes, particularly Moonbean. Met a woman from online there today and had a nice connecting conversation. I like the sense of the milling throngs around me -- that sensation that I can go there and read and work and talk to people who are all like this luscious banquet of anarchistic energy.

Moonbean is resolutely scrabbled together -- endless options for loose teas, fair trade beans of all species (flavoured and real), unambitious but yummy baked goods and sandwiches, juice. Tables of rough hewn, uneven wood, all crammed together. Yesterday when I was having coffee and a bagel there with Siobhan before tackling the epic ikea stuff, there were two people adjacent to us. One, a youngish, queerish guy -- whom I've seen around a fair bit -- was much pierced, very "of my own creation" jeans with random fabric patches, tshirt, big buckled belt. He and the woman he was with were deep in conversation when we were all startled by "where did you GET that??" from behind him. We all turned -- S and I couldn't help it -- and these two women (straightish, 40ish) were kneeling down behind him, poking at and chortling over his jacket. It was an image of Shrub with "Terrorist" across the bottom. Hip guy was taken aback, said, shortly, "I made it," and, much obvlious vocalizing later, after blocking pedestrian traffic, the two women left. "What do you think she would have done if I'd just gone up and started rifling through HER jacket?" he said indignantly. "I could have shoved my hands into her pockets."

I need to go there and work. Soon.

Picked up burritos for dinner (more beans) and came home to get some work done. I think the loft will feel like home when my bed is there -- for now it feels like some kind of cross between a research project and a promise.

Switching on

Two days with Electrician Boy, threading wires through new pipes so when I hit the switches in my bedroom lights actually turn on, and there are no more cords dangling from hideous outdoor fixtures down to the outlets near the floor. I bought Electrician Boy his first lattes ever, tried to thread my days through steady progress, slow myself from the spinning out I felt Friday morning when I just couldn't accommodate a client conversation, a drive across town to let EB in, an incapacitated man stepping right in front of my moving car even after he met my eyes.

As I layer my space into something that shapes the me-who-I-shall be, I start to collect moments of joy. My time out to breathe at lunch yesterday at Rice Bar, healthy organic inexpensive food, cafe society communal tables, good mint tea, forcible slowing down. An amazingly delicious and joyful tapas meal at a place with a giant bull cutout on Augusta, treated by Megan last night. Loving my new furniture despite the chips in the table caused by Bruce and his hillbilly rattly delivery truck. An afternoon with Siobhan who patiently collaborated with me on two complicated ikea assemblings, and now I have a place for shoes and tights. A trip to home hardware for bigger anchors. Lots of slowing myself down and forcing myself to listen to people like the HH man who gave me useful information.

I love the sense of Agora in the space downstairs, and I love that my private sphere is such an oasis. I am feeling some of the same sense of being "Awake" that I feel in Santa Barbara with school. This is good.

Through the hole in the floor

My place is *shiny* and there are even a few socks in the newly tightened drawers. I spent the day scrubbing with my cleaner Catherine and assembling furniture and moving things around and testing out my new washer and installing a new toilet seat and figuring out how the garbage room works etc. The place is really becoming something that feels like home.

I had time to wander out for more fair trade coffee and a famous kensington empanada today. The restaurant crammed with polite but firm lunch time gobblers, $3.50 for an excellent chicken jumbo empanada, run by chileans and staffed by a wide array of immigrants. Standing at the counter waiting for my lunch to heat up, I noticed movement under my feet and could see through the vent into the basement, east african men churning out the empanadas, south american women running them upstairs. Melissa always says I am too persnickity about cleanliness to travel to a developing country; I think the cooking arrangements in the market will cure me of that.

I still feel like I haven't let myself feel *of* the neighbourhood at all -- I keep emerging, blinking, into the bustle of the street, feeling streaked with dust, hair lank, my baggy cambodian-made Levi's (the ones bought in a Walmart in Taos New Mexico) a reproach to the casual of-my-very-soul clothes everyone on the street sports. I went into the flower store downstairs, chatted with the gals who run it and bought a money tree, laughed about how I have an ex who taught me how to water plants through misting the leaves, never water-logging the soil, how everyone in our lives brings us something.

Am heading back now with D to do some furniture assembling. I feel like I'm well on my way to being able to settle in.

Trudging through the meatballs

... spent the day driving around and spending money, and am very ready to do something OTHER than this...but my place is starting to take shape. I took my camera with me to get "mid-painting" pic but I can't find the camera now -- I think it's in the box with the electric three hole punch my mother thought would make a good xmas gift a couple of years ago (bizarrely, it did) and the iron. Hope it's not being leaked on. I'm coming apart at the edges. Or at least my sense of order is.

It was march break at ikea today. I'm grateful that ikea with kids in tow doesn't constitute a "pleasant way to break up the day" for me. I cut quite a swathe, though, with my 5 bookcases, shoe rack, bedside table, cd tower and raw wooden shelf thing for my storage locker. (Took three trips through the cash -- I know my pushing-in-a-straight-line weight limits). Hope the wooden shelf thing is still there tomorrow, since I didn't have time to root through my Cdn tire bags and find the lock I bought for the locker. So many little tasks to do, like draping the cage locker in a tarp so no one can see inside and be overwhelmed with the urge to smash in and steal my old hiking boots.

I borrowed B's car, and managed to do the mammoth ikea trip *and* the chrome shelves for the office, so I won't need it again for a bit. This is good because my floor is now piled high with flat boxes and things that need assembling before I can actually move anything in.

I met a few more neighbours. They're all quirky and friendly. There's a dog across the hall named Cecil Beaton, but he goes by Cecil. (I know his name but not his person's). This is all good.

Later: I've had this hive-y rash since sunday, and it finally occurred to me that it might not be an allergic reaction. Described it to my friend Beth's doc bf, who confirms that's it's probably shingles. Ugh. I've had this before, and this is a mild version, but it underlines the low level buzz of anxiety. I'm longing for the deep, sustained, luxurious sleep I used to have at the cottage.

Comment dit-on "toast"?

I bought the most fun toaster ever today.

I'm out of control with the shopping, but I saw it in the window at Ashley's the other day and marched on in there on my way to my meeting today. Asked them to fetch me one and have it ready at 5:00 p.m. And they did. This could get addictive.

This after joshing with bank client that our naming the marketing segment dilemma could be easily met by the labels "owning class" and "workers." I'm glad they were amused.

Still frazzled but happy to have a mug of mint tea on my chest and my bed tucked around me. Off to ikea tomorrow for endless bookcases.

Playin' Free in Oregon

It looks like my trip to Portland/the Oregon coast in May is a go... I'm renting a flat for two weeks in Portland from some school colleagues, and then I want to spend some time staring at the ocean. I have a couple of school friends in Portland and I've had a hankering for the Oregon coast since I saw some pics from Kris and Roman's bike trip there years ago. I plan to sit and read and eat good food and write things and have free, open dreaming time. I wasn't sure if I was going to go and suddenly I thought, fuck it, I always travel for work or school and it's always rushed -- and I'm feeling run off my head right now. This will give me good breathing time, I should just do it.

It's something to lash some gravity to in all this juggling.

Off to my bank client...

Coffee spoons

Is it still Monday? My days are losing form and shape. Life this week would be a *lot* easier if I didn't have any client work on my plate -- I'm not quite sure how it happened that instead of sauntering into this new life slow-made fair-trade americano in hand, I'm feverishly organizing the online CMM seminar and pounding out client docs and juggling conversations for (counting on fingers) 3 clients, 6 different projects, plus several new biz possibilities. I guess it pays for the excessive spending I'm doing on luxuries like a little dolly for ferrying crap from my car to my loft, a tarp to hide the crap in my storage locker, a drying rack, a blow up bed for the guests I won't make sleep in the hidey hole, etc.

Money is draining out of my socks this week....

* $575.29 for the flight to Houston I booked last night for spring research at the end of April, $260US for the tuition for that week, $300US for the hotel.

* $461 at canadian tire for the aforementioned luxuries, the pile of which almost garroted me in the car

* $401 for paint at the Paint Store of Friendly, Competent dykes

* $15.75 to buy me and my ex yam and chicken burritos for dinner, after she limped up the ladder to unscrew my weird curtain hardware I couldn't reach

Barbara's made a lot of progress on the painting, and I'm delighted to discover that I *like* the colours I picked -- the red is striking and the green is not mucky as I feared it might be.

Other things I've discovered about my neighbourhood: I will never want for weed or street-piped reggae. The coffee is painstakingly made by improbably young women but extremely good. It's sort of shanghai meets haight-ashbury, and I'm wondering if I'll start to look more esoteric just by osmosis. My blundstones are looking stodgy.

I am plumb tuckered out, and have a ton more client stuff in the morning. And then Jeremy the electrician, who will, I hope, help me figure out why the previous owner had ceiling fixtures plugged into outlets near the floor.

Condo ownership involves other people, part I

So we wandered in and out of the building yesterday, dropping off paint, unloading Barbara's painting equipment, moving in a few other more fragile things that needed to be transported by car. Suzanne and I had a scruffy and deeply satisfying little breakfast in a cafe just below my window, complete with excellent coffee and earnest slow service. Then we did some shopping on Queen East and found me a teak coffee table (sold to me by a one-eyed Jack Russell named Fred), a place to indulge my bag fetish -- I needed it, really, my recycled bike tire and vintage vinyl one is falling apart! I dropped S off and went back and managed to cram the table into my tiny car and moved it in. Furniture that's arrived so far: tiny off-kilter ottoman; vintage teak coffee table that resembles an awful lot of the ones I ate chips and french onion dip off while watching The Love Boat in my teenage babysitting days; antique typesetting box I keep crap in near my desk.

Sum total of the above: all good. A few minor things about the flat -- the wiring is kinda wonky in a few places, which is fixable (am in search of an electrician through the usual "I know your friend Dmitri's Aunt Margot" channels), and Barbara found an awful lot of oily handprints on the wall in places that conjure up the kinds of ghostly narratives you probably don't want to imagine about the former owner of the place. But all good -- we managed to move the kitchen island a few inches inward, I think my office will work fine in the kitchen area, I cajoled the good, unused medicine cabinet that's been on the floor of my office here out of J&S to replace the crappy mirrored thing in there now.

And... Parking Space Drama. Sigh. How Urban Mundane does it get. My ownership deeds say spot #52 is mine, arrived there yesterday and an ancient yellow sports car was parked there, left what I thought was a politely worded note, guy in the car comes to find me (only B was there) and is all pissy that it's been his spot for 3 years, blah blah blah. SO don't want to have to deal with this. Will call property manager, selling real estate agent (who lives in the building), the guy. Whatever. I am assuming this will end up resolved (i.e., that there are spots that belong to each of us) but it is so not where I want to put my energy. Also, this makes the whole "zipping in with a car full of things to unload" all the more complicated, because there's no visitor parking. This plus my tiny car is conspiring to make me feel like I'm making this move on the subway one toothbrush at a time.

POSTSCRIPT: many phone calls later, I've discovered the arcane truth that my actual SPOT is #53, but the LEGAL term for it packaged with the locker is #52, so in fact I do have a spot, Mr. Yellow Car has the spot he thinks he has, and I'll be parking right next to him for-evah. Let's hope he'll take my sweet "sorry for the confusion, I've figured it out" message as an entree into buying me a latte or a papaya instead of glaring tersely at me for the next several months when we encounter each other...

Continuity Equation

12:39 p.m., March 10, I officially became a homeowner. All by mine own self. I went to the loft with D and Barbara, who'll do my painting, around noon, with a car full of art. I got the official call that it was mine on my cell as we wandered around this huge empty space pacing out paint acreage, discovering weird little nooks and crannies, like the little space up above the bathroom that should be storage but is exactly the right size for a little double-bed nest, and is oddly outfitted with a straw mat and built in light switch and fixture. D and I were weirdly delighted by this, by the possibilities of this hidey-hole, what could be done with old gym mats and flashlights. Barbara was less intrigued.

There wasn't a lot of reason to be there then, exactly -- figure out where each paint colour would go, open the window to hear the loud deep wind chimes from the store across the street -- one of the sounds of the market -- carry in my artwork, prop my folk art piece of Trudeau in a patron saint position on the buffet. Assure myself the place really exists and its cork floors can bear my weight.

I'm not sure what I feel about this exactly. Settled, a bit. Expansive, a bit. Some qualms about the decisions like paint, furniture, etc. I feel like I need to refract my experience against someone else to understand what I'm feeling. It seems like good space, it feels like the right neighbourhood, it feels like good choices and a launching pad for the rest of my life. There's a dull thud baseline running through it all, though, of uncertainty, recognition of the system that needs to open up around me and trepidation about that unfamiliarity. There's something about noticing all of a sudden how many people are partnered, how frequently people mention their spouses -- the woman in the paint store, the artist I have been talking to about a new painting -- in the same casual, asserting-locale way that I used to. Those conversations feel a little like what happens when you get an end-of-meal candy with a bill in a restaurant and you discover after sucking on it lustily that it's anise or lotus flavoured, not mint or cinnamon. Not awful, just unexpected.

I'm going to pick up S and explore the place, have coffee, drop off the paint for Barbara, prowl the neighbourhood a little bit. Find something I can start to expect.

Seismic Shifts

I was shaken from sleep last night by a tremor that seemed to go on for at least a minute. It was about 2:30 and I'd been asleep for at least two hours when I felt my bed shaking, my body moved on the waves. We had just felt a mild quake a couple of weeks ago in Ottawa that we'd at first mistaken for snow removal equipment advancing heavily down the street, and this was a milder echo. I listened for the rattling we'd heard then, but my walls are empty of art right now -- everything is wrapped and packed for my impending move -- so there was nothing to reverberate against the rich red that's enveloped me for the past 8 months.

I was suddenly, acutely, awake, and picked up my book to read myself back to sleep. I felt surrounded by an odd thickness of energy,a resonant silence that seemed to hum in a sort of empty, inverted way. As I drifted back to sleep finally, I saw images of B, dangling in front of my closed eyes, sort of disembodied, hallucinatory, repeating themselves into meaninglessness, like the endless mirrors-within-the-mirrors you used to encounter in "fancy" ladies' rooms, or the way a word mutates when you repeat it so often that it loses all familiarity and sense-making. I felt like she was fading into the kind of grey that happens when buttons on a computer are not enabled, completely visible but not accessible and without force. I felt... satisfied, wonderingly curious -- it no longer seemed possible that she had been so present an emotional force for me even the day before. She didn't disappear, just untethered herself from the clutch of yearning that I've tried to unclench for the past year.

When I woke up this morning, I checked the news, talked to people -- no one else felt that tremor. And I felt buoyant, expansive, chipper, even. I marched down to Queen to get the streetcar in the rain, feeling a pleasant hum of possibilities, choosing the streetcar instead of the subway so I could see where I was going as I traveled west across the Don Valley, back to the unmuffled part of the city. I went to my lawyer's and signed a lot of papers, picked up the keys for my new loft, went to a gallery to see an exhibit about desire I'd hankered after.

Last summer, when I moved into my transitional space, I jogged down to the lake and the Spit, trying to literally run myself into a zone of expansiveness. I wanted the water, the sky, the air to beckon with openness, and I forced myself through the paces of feeling the sun on my face, breathing deep, going on dates, driving around in the cutest car in the world with the roof open, trying to enfold myself against the new flesh of T. In all of this, I felt wrapped in a thin azure film, tripping constantly on uneven ground of unmet yearning, open jaws of loss, wanting to grab onto the lines that no longer held any life.

Today, as I made the pilgrimage to pick up my keys, fit them to my shiny new fishy keyring, bought a woo woo candle to bring good energy to my new space, the film truly began to dissipate.