|
|
august 5, 2001.I think that I'll finally be able to post an entry tonight, along with the backlog that's accumulated since Dirk came a-calling. (ed. note: nope!) One of my problems is that there's simply been too much to do and not enough time to describe the things that were doing. What's kind of funny is that I realized the other day that we weren't living some sort of crazed, hyper-existence; we were just living at the speed of Toronto once more. Compared to our usual nothing-ever-happens life, this week has seemed to hurtle out of control. On Thursday we fufilled our rotating dinner party obligations with a reasonably well-attended barbeque. I got a little pissed off near the beginning when Iris etc. sat apart from the h'or douvres and everyone else for no apparent reason, talking & giggling away. Their conversation was also very typical & very typically boring. Dirk described it as a manifestation of first-year insecurity, in which you tell stories about drinking excesses because you have no other story to tell. (Once again, Dirk has excellently summarized a situation that I was too involved in to fully appreciate objectively.) But Miri & J came late and stayed later, so we passed the evening in a lazy curlicue of martinis & conversation. Dirk has a theory that one becomes friends during Stupid Time, which is the polar opposite of driven, focussed, Quality Time. This may explain why I feel far more bonded to Miri & J than I do to some members of my dinner group, who tend to eat & leave.
Friday was stupidly hot. Dirk & I went out to lunch on a local patio and nearly melted into the deck in the time it took for our orders to arrive & be consumed. Sometime during this long hot lunch, I decided to take off for the afternoon and leave my sweaty silent office behind (this decision allowing me to take my sweaty behind to my silent house). Once home, Dirk & I ate chips & watched The Magic School Bus. No, I'm not fucking kidding. We did this every day from Tuesday to Friday: split a big bag of chips and watch an educational cartoon. I'm bloating like a beach ball and all that's missing from this semi-pathetic scene is a big blunt. On Friday night we saw The Planet of the Apes, which was really really fun and not much else. I had to remind myself repeatedly that it was just pulp scifi, otherwise I got too caught up in consistency problems (chronometers that measure some 'absolute' time??) I wasn't the only one; as we left the theatre, Dirk & the Boy tried their best to hammer out their own winning strategy to defeat the Planet of the Apes, which I felt was a huge waste of time. Still, I was pleased with the wonderful ape acting that filled the movie with hundreds of little jokes and moments. And I'm glad that Tim Burton didn't shy away from the chemistry between the astronaut and the monkey girl. Helena Bonham Carter rocks. She is the absolute poster girl for charm and intelligence, proving that smart elegant ape girls trump stupid busty human girls any day of the week. Yee!
The Nightshade loop was the most enjoyable part of our journey. It's a 2 km hike through woods, Fundy shore and past the Nightshade waterfall -- and it's just gorgeous. We made it to the beach just in time to see the tide roll in, bringing with it a huge and somewhat frightening fog bank that threatened to swallow our path. The waterfall is tall and pleasantly tinkly; we scrambled down a steep hill to the bottom and just stared at the water hitting the rocks for a good long while. The climb up was really scary for me; I'm a total wuss and my imagination had conjured up many exciting scenarios in which I fell backwards and cracked my skull on the Nightshade stones. Every dead branch scraping my legs hurt like hell, but when I reached the top I found that I only had a few lasting scrapes. The Boy helped me immeasurably, calling out safe spots on the trail in front of me and hauling me up by main force when necessary.
We also tried to visit Brigit in Kejimkujik Park, but we were defeated by our very late arrival and the fact that we had no idea where to go in that enormous park. I was quite sad about missing Brigit, as I'd had ridiculous expectations about our visit: we'd be friends again, she'd explain why she suddenly stopped liking me in 3rd year, she'd fix my past by explaining the reasons behind each friendship rupture I've ever had in my entire life, she'd fix my present so that I didn't feel bitter and hurt and betrayed anymore, she'd fix my future by ensuring that no one I loved would ever stop loving me again. I suppose that those are pretty high expectations for a 2-hour visit. What can I say...I'm an unreasonable girl. Anyway, it didn't happen. We drove around in the dark and on the way home I had another big fight with the Boy about his driving. I think we've come to some sort of strategic agreement about cruise control, which should reduce the amount of conflict in the future. I hope. Not feeling safe with your mate is the worst feeling in the world, bar none.
Today was a rather grim day. We were all a bit tense and serious on the way to the airport, and as soon as we saw Dirk off at the gate I was swamped with a huge wave of depression. Having him here was so much fun. It was so relaxing and invigorating and yes, occasionally irritating and draining, but overall so much fun that I don't know how I'm going to get through the next week without my sandwich bunny showing up heinously late to sit with me on sandstone steps and talk about stuff. I want to go home. I want to go home.
This week my brother moved to Winnipeg. He has a place to rent this month, but not after that, so my parents went up with him to help him move into the first apartment and to find a second place for him to live in when the first lease runs out. And although my brother remains the confrontational, self-centred bratling he always was, my parents bought him a house. It's a little toy house that's smaller than our apartment. It's in the French Quarter of Winnipeg. It was the price of a car. O god, my parents bought my brother a house. They will rent it to him for $250/month, which covers the mortgage at least, and means that it won't really make that much of a financial impact in their life, other than the new Manitoba lawyers & tax forms and all that crap. And overall I'm really happy that they did it, because it sounds like a totally madcap & generous thing to do for their son, but I have Sister of the Prodigal Son Syndrome: he gives my parents the barest minimum of respect and gratitude, and he still gets his way smoothed. Oh well. I got a $20,000 wedding; he got a $30,000 house. And he has to pay rent. It all balances out.
this time 3 years ago: my grandmother's ghost story |
|
|
On Saturday we set out for Annapolis Royal, Dirk Nightshade's "ancestral lands." Our plan was to hit several historical sites associated with the ancient Nightshade family after they emigrated to Nova Scotia as United Empire Loyalists. I found the experience very odd; as the scion of recently immigrated families, I'm used to being unique and relatively rootless. Dirk's life is the exact opposite of that - he is the heir to a rich genealogical history that can still be traced and retold. Visiting Annapolis Royal and Granville Ferry was like falling into an alternate Nightshade-themed dimension. Suddenly Dirk's name was everywhere you looked: there is a Nightshade street, a trail, a waterfall, and several old graves in a local churchyard. We visited each, climbing, standing and watching each item as the case allowed.
