March 24-25, 2001 — When that glow surrounds you

I promised myself that this would be the week that I return to writing at least five journals every seven days. And since there would be no way in hell that I'd manage to stick to that if I started things off with a three-day journal, I've decided to waste away part of my afternoon writing about my weekend. And what a weekend.

To be perfectly honest, I barely remember Saturday at all. I spent Saturday night riding around on the subway for a couple of hours, which made me feel a bit better. It seems like those trains have become my only escape from this keyboard.

Prior to this weekend, the determining factor regarding how long I could stay on the subway was always either hunger or a need to go to the washroom. I'm proud to say that Saturday night marked the elimination of the latter concern with the discovery of subway station washrooms. And there's nothing safer than going to the washroom in a subway station at 1:00AM, let me tell you. (Rest assured that there's a story to back this statement up.)

Having taken the train up to Downsview station, I decide that I really need to go to the washroom. (Let this be a lesson to all of you: drinking several liters of water after dinner might not always be the most brilliant idea.) Inside the washroom, I find a man with a rather impressive mullet examining a head wound in the mirror. Making fun of mullets has become a bit of a cliché, so we'll concentrate on the head wound. Besides, that was his request, too, so it all fits in with the story.

While I was going to the washroom, this fellow stopped examining his forehead in the mirror and stumbled over to me. I'll admit that I was a bit concerned for my safety and immediately made note of anything on my person that I might be able to use to exacerbate the wound on his forehead if it came down to it. I couldn't really make out what he was saying, but I think it involved the word "clocked" and an outline of what had caused the original injury. Fearing a bit less for my safety, I realized that it was quite possible that Brad Pitt's dialect instructor for "Snatch" was standing before me. I elected not to ask for an autograph, and diagnosed his injury as "not bleeding too badly." He seemed satisfied with this and left.

Needless to say, I'm going to make a point of using the subway washrooms at 1:00AM more often.

On Sunday, the only thing I'd promised myself that I'd do was get a haircut. I always dread getting my hair cut, but I somehow managed to drag myself to the barber. I still feel a little bit violated a day later, and I've pledged to buy a hair trimmer so that I can learn to do it myself. By the end of this haircut, the hairdresser and I had reached a point where we were content to be openly hostile towards one another. But I still tipped her. I'm spineless that way.

Over the course of the day, I tried to figure out who from Middle House would be appearing at the house meeting that night who would actually be amused by the speech I'd planned on giving. I realized that almost all the people who would appreciate my promise to take the rum out of rum-and-coke and to put the virgin back into screwdriver would not be in attendance. So my only reason for going would be to give the people I'm living with the finger in speech form. I elected against it. It didn't help that someone had taken down Johnston's signs -- people in this house have no sense of humour.

Speaking of Johnston, Jeff's been playing computer euchre and cursing at the image of Thom Yorke meant to represent his partner. It's like Johnston never left...

But back to last night. After avoiding the house meeting in Jeff's room, Erika and I sent emails back and forth for awhile. Our ability to make each other cry is as strong as ever, and waiting to see how this will turn out is going to take far too long.

I think I subconsciously wanted this to be a bad journal entry so that I wouldn't feel reluctant to add a new one tonight and to have very few people read this one. As you may have noticed, my subconscious won out and I'm embarrassed to even post this. Not that that will stop me...