july 19, 2002.

My fresh set of tattoo scabs has started flaking off already. This can hardly be good.

I'm sitting on the porch with Tymothi:J, watching him recycle newspapers and casually destroy the gigantic horned something that was roosting in last Wednesday's Sports section. He got second-degree burns this morning from hot coffee (Tym, that is, not the gigantic horned something) and I suspect that the beetle died in lieu of Tym's real target: an 8-hour emergency room wait for topical cream. Dateline, the porch. An unknown beetle has died for the sins of socialized medicine. Film at 11.

We got our house squared away yesterday. On Wednesday we went to see the first two places with Mom in tow. The first flat was an extremely funky brand new loft in the city. A little too east, a little too funky (it included a funky unsafe alley opening!). The guy in charge wanted our social security numbers; we beat a quick retreat. Bye bye, funky loft.

(Oh no! A crawling ant on my leg has also met an untimely death at the hands (well, feet) of Tym! When will the little one's stop sufffering?

Tym is trying to fuck with me now. He keeps going into the front door to my left, walking through the house on some inscrutable errand and reappearing to my right. Because of this, you'll note that in the above paragraph, suffering has 3 f's (especially when you're dealing with Tym.))

After a brief sweaty sojourn in High Park, we went to our next appointment. It's the top floor of a house: two bedrooms, new carpet, freshly painted. My mom loved it, although she quickly adopted an almost-comic-opera posture of dislike towards the place. But despite her histrionics, everything just seemed right. We thought about the ugly apartment buildings of the West Mall and about the extra 40 minutes this location would tack onto my daily commute.

In the end we said, 'fuck it.' It's better to rent a far-away place you like than a close place you don't. I think we'll be really happy there.

"Man has always loved his dragons. But what happens when the dragons say 'no more'?"

Last night we met Exodus, Burke, Dirk & Stacy for a drink and a meal and a movie. The movie - Reign of Fire - was either the best piece of shit or the worst masterpiece I've ever seen. It was Charlton Heston bad, if you take my meaning. (I think Pamie really put her finger on it when she said that Christian Bale doesn't know that he's in a bad movie. This alone makes it Hestonesque.) Stacy & I were writhing in pleasure as each new boy-centred plot development revealed itself (soot! fire! castle! dragon! guns! star wars! tanks! impersonal insemination! helicopters! clean pretty girl! horses!). Once out of the theatre, the Boy was moved to deliver an impassioned 15-minute oratory on the faults of the flick, as if the real issue of dragon invasion was being ignored in Hollywood.

Subsequently we retired to the Tequila Bookworm for waffles, milkshakes, juice, beer and Chez Geek. Yeah, we got our geek on. And? We were supposed to go dancing, but somehow never got out of our gaming groove. I think that I actually would've liked the gaming better, as I could actually hear people talking and I wasn't distracted by the siren pull of the 'favourite song, must dance' moment.

"Oh, the Angel's Nest is closed! Looks like they're at the mercy of Faust & Associates. Ha!"

"They should've seen that one coming."

"Yeah, Faust collects where Angels fear to tread. [pause] Hey. That was really fucking funny."