july 10, 2002.

henry walked out of the hospital and stopped outside a bar just down the block
where an empty barstool waited for a man down on his luck
ten years of sobriety turned into, 'what the fuck?
it wasn't fair of her to die and leave me all alone to screw things up...'

- carmaig de forest, "i'll change"

I was reading People at the grocery store yesterday when a little voice at my elbow piped up.

"Are you _____'s sister?" It's a little boy, sweetly straightforward.

"No," I said, my voice automatically reverting to an 'adult talking to a kid' voice. (I hate that voice.) "I'm Nic _____'s sister."

"Oh," he said, and walked away. I heard him at the next register reporting this fact to his mother. Now I wonder what story I crossed into inadvertently.

Last night Miri came over, deeply tanned from 6 weeks in the rainforests of Guatemala and full of interesting scorpion stories. We ate strawberries & chocolate and listened to some new music fetched from Stanfest. I'm really glad that she's back - I'd almost forgotten what it's like to enjoy people in Wolfvegas.

The good news is that we might be travelling to Toronto together in August. She'd be doing us more of a favour than vice versa; the rough plan for the convoy includes three cars, two trucks and five people. If she comes she can keep us company in shifts.

Tonight we're going over to Mr. & Miss Avalanche's apartment to hang out. A social life? So frigging weird.