April 13–18, 2002 — Calling in my debts

I woke up this morning and went straight to the computer to check my email, still fairly sleepy. An ant started crawling onto my foot. I panicked and kicked at nothing in particular until the ant had been flung to the other side of the room. Then he came back, so I picked him up on a Kleenex and threw him outside.

The warm weather has finally come and my house is being invaded by ants. I knew there would be a catch.

But, skipping back to Saturday, it was still a bit cold out. I was scheduled to close at work on Saturday and to open on Sunday, which was odd because I pretty much never work on Saturday and I definitely never open on Sunday. But these things happen, I guess.

After my shift on Saturday, I went to pick up the Cuff the Duke stickers. They look very nice, but I didn’t make it home until late, and then I talked to Kerry on the phone for awhile.

I went to sleep with my alarm set to go off five hours later; I would have time to shower, and I’d make it to the smoothie bar with time to spare before opening.

Except that my alarm didn’t go off, and I woke up at 10:15 am. My shift was supposed to start at 10:00 am, and the person I was working with didn’t have a key.

I called Nathan in a panic, hoping he could at least go over and let Laura into the building. But he wasn’t home.

So I ran (literally) to the subway station and made it to work a bit before 11:00 am.

The door was already open, and I expected talk of strikes on my employment record to greet me as I walked in. It seemed pretty likely that my boss had arrived a bit earlier than she’d planned (she had mentioned the night before that she would be arriving at 11:00 am) and let Laura in.

Then I walked into the store and fond that Nathan was already there. He woke up at 9:55 am and ran to work, not realizing that he wasn’t working that day. (Nathan opens almost every Sunday.)

Crisis averted, Nathan wrote an entry in the staff communication book about Juice Bro. intuition being an emotion stronger than love and went home.

Unfortunately, though, my body wasn’t quite used to all the running I’d forced it to partake in earlier in the morning, and the humidity wasn’t helping. After work, I spent most of the day in bed with the worst headache I’ve had in a long, long time.

Then the weather turned to summer out of nowhere. On Tuesday it was almost thirty degrees outside; in the smoothie bar, it was well over thirty degrees (although we don’t know the exact temperature because the thermostat only goes as high as thirty-two). There is no air-conditioning or ventilation except for the open door at the front, and no back door to open.

It was also the busiest day the store has ever had and then some. I was exhausted by the time I left, but I still decided to walk over to Jeff and Amy’s house afterward. It was a nice night to be outside.

On the way, I ran into a bunch of people from residence last year: Christina, Jeff, Jen, and Kim. I walked with them for a few blocks feeling awkward; we eventually ended up in front of a residence building, their destination. They invited me in, but it was getting late and I was still a long way from Jeff and Amy’s house. They seemed to be relieved about the end of the school year, and I got the feeling all over again that I should be putting my time to better use. But I still can’t convince myself to register anywhere for next year.

Johnston spent last weekend in Ottawa, and his parents drove him back to Toronto on Monday. I arranged for my parents to drop my bike off at his house so it could tag along on Johnston’s trip back to Toronto, and it was waiting for me when I returned from work on Monday.

I was so happy to see it. I’ve only been able to take it on one trip so far, just to get a feel for it again. It’s been awhile.

I found a map of bicycle routes in Toronto and I’m going to figure out the safest route to High Park and spend a few hours biking around next time I have a weekday off with no other plans for the day. I want to feel healthy again, and I think this’ll be a step in the right direction.

My parents also sent along a package for me that included my income tax return for two years ago. (I never filed, not having paid any taxes and not owing any money; the government’s tax people eventually called my home in Richmond and told my parents that I ought to file, so my dad did my taxes for me. Then the government sent me a cheque for $63.19. Ah, to be a minor again...) I cashed the cheque yesterday and bought JG Ballard’s Complete Short Stories. Almost 100 stories over almost 1200 pages is a pretty good deal at $54.95, but I had a hard time justifying it to myself until the cheque for $63.19 appeared out of nowhere.

Fifty-four dollars seems like a lot of money to me again. Maybe that’s a good thing — I’ll finally learn fiscal responsibility. Or maybe I’ll just end up a miser in the end...

I haven’t seen Kerry in a long time, almost four weeks now, and I miss her quite a bit. She’s finishing her exams today and moving back to Oshawa on the weekend. Then she has an interview for a summer co-op position on Monday, and we won’t have a chance to get together until after the interview. And only if the interview goes a certain way. So everything’s still very much up in the air.

Hopefully something will work out.

Still lots going on: too many ideas and too little initiative to take them to completion. The punkottawa site is almost done, and I’m working together a good résumé for the temp offices. On Tuesday I’ll be ending an eleven-day stretch at the smoothie bar during which I’ve only had two non-consecutive days off, so by next week I’ll probably have more time for email and antigreg and all the other things that I’ve been neglecting. Or such is the dream, anyway.

But, for now, I have to leave for work.