May 22–28, 2002 — A few little secrets

But first, a few important little details:

1. I will be leaving for Ottawa tomorrow morning. I will be back in Toronto on Saturday. Andrew and Johnston have been instructed to hold all my calls pending my return.
2. antigreg t-shirts have arrived, and they look all nifty in their silkscreened white-on-black goodness. I will be selling them for not much more than they cost me to have made, and hopefully people will buy them. Details on how to order will be typed up and ready to go by next week. Prices will probably be around $10 US, $15 CDN, shipping included. But again, check back next week...
3. Tonight is garbage night, and I thought there was a raccoon outside tearing apart garbage bags and rattling through recycling bins. I took my garbage outside and found an old man with a cart digging through the garbage looking for beer bottles. With rotating garbage days, he could probably make a full-time job for himself...

Right then. Updates and whatnot. I used to be a lot better at this, I think.

I started to get sick early last week, after the Cuff the Duke show on Saturday night. I thought I was well on my way to feeling better by Wednesday, but I was proven wrong on Thursday.

Not that sickness really got in the way of any big plans — the day was mostly limited to seeing the new Star Wars movie again (an action I won’t really trying to justify) and feeling stressed out about the Cuff the Duke and antigreg t-shirts that I was due to pick up the next day before leaving to visit Kerry in Guelph.

The next day quickly came and I was very worried about a lot of things. Kerry and I were on more uncertain terms than we’d ever been, and I didn’t know how my visit would go. On top of that, I had around $1600 worth of t-shirts and hoodies to worry about, wondering if I might’ve fucked up the designs or given improper instructions. I was nervous and jittery and ready to just go back to bed.

The t-shirts were done at around 5:30 pm. I watched the fellow screening them do the last twenty or so, envious of his wonderful print-making equipment. He told me that he could tell when an ink had been heated enough because different colours of inks smell differently when they cure. I was duly impressed.

It was a bit problematic that the shirts were done at 5:30 pm, though, because the bus I was supposed to take to Guelph left at that exact moment. And I still had to take the Cuff the Duke shirts back to Jeff’s house before I could reverse course and head for the bus station.

When all was said and done, my arms were in a bit of pain after their most intense workout in at least a year or two, and I made it to Guelph two hours late, unable to do much more than blow my nose and stare out the window on the bus ride there.

Finally in Guelph, Kerry came to meet me. I was exhausted, falling asleep in Taco Bell while Kerry ordered dinner for herself. I was tired enough to sleep until noon the next day.

Unfortunately, Kerry’s roommates would have none of that, and, when everything was said and done, I was awake at 7:00 am reading, only having slept two hours. There was just too much noise to deal with while trying to sleep in a bed that I wasn’t used to.

So I didn’t feel much healthier on Saturday.

Kerry and I went to a spring festival of some sort on Saturday afternoon. (Spring in name only, unfortunately — it was cold and rainy and mostly miserable outside.) We left after the rain started and went back to Kerry’s house to read. Then, after an hour or so of reading, we finally broke the silence that was frustrating both of us and had a real conversation for the first time in awhile. We talked about things that we needed to talk about, and I felt a lot less worried afterward. I think Kerry did, too.

Later that night, we watched hockey on TV for a bit and then went to sleep. I slept a lot better on my second attempt.

I woke up the next morning still a bit tired and still a lot sick, though it didn’t really hit me until I was back in Toronto. I went to work. It felt like the longest shift I’ve ever worked; I was feeling very faint, and I kept forgetting what I was doing. I wanted to be in my bed, asleep. Nothing else.

By the time I made it home, I had a headache worse than the one that had me giving in to medication last week. I felt like I was going to throw up, but I forced myself to stay in bed. I fell asleep surprisingly quickly, almost convinced that my body didn’t hate me. (It apparently didn’t want me to get the wrong impression, though, and I woke up with a stabbing headache in the morning, still feeling a bit faint. And still sick.)

Two days of work later, I’m getting ready to leave for Ottawa. It’s my sister’s birthday tomorrow, and I think I have a somewhat decent gift for her. It’ll be nice to see my parents again, too.

And on that note, I have a lot of packing that I should be going...