June 26–July 12, 2002 — An uncertain memory

The people who normally pick up garbage in Toronto have been on strike for a few weeks now. The streets are a bit less inviting than usual, but life mostly goes on. For awhile it was far too hot, and some streets were terrible to walk down because of the bags of garbage simmering in forty-degree heat.

Even the indoors have been a bit unbearable at times. I finally acquired a fan last Saturday, but I can’t sleep with the noise. On top of this, we don’t have air conditioning, and the windows in my room face the setting sun, so my room gets very warm at night.

If nothing else, I can at least be happy that the street I live on hasn’t been the site of any illegal dumping yet. A park a few blocks from Jeff and Amy’s house is filled with garbage; it’s an emergency dumping site, and a terrible thing to look at.

World Youth Day is not far away, and Toronto is only going to get to be a worse place to live. I don’t think I’ll want to leave the house very much over the next few weeks.

And while we’re on the topic of not leaving the house very much, I guess this is as good a time as any to mention that I more or less quit my job last week. At least that’s my understanding of the situation, having gone in to work today and found that my name is no longer on the schedule.

It happened on one of my last shifts when my boss asked, “You’re not going to quit on me, are you Greg?” and I just froze. It was a definite deer-caught-in-headlights moment; I had been thinking of trying to find a new job for awhile, especially since the pain in my arms has been getting worse, but I hadn’t planned on saying anything until I had a better idea of where I might get a new job. Having been caught, though, I said that I was going to start applying for other jobs after taking a week off.

My week off has turned into two weeks and I don’t think I’m going to start applying for jobs until Monday. My tax return arrived when my parents visited on the weekend, though, and I’m expecting a bit more money soon, so I should be fine for awhile yet. It’s just a bit scary not to have a steady source of income anymore.

Part of me just really feels the need to start over. In a lot of ways. For some reason working at the smoothie bar felt connected to my relationship with Kerry, and I didn’t feel like I could start fresh while still working there.

Or maybe I have psychological problems.

It’s funny, though. A lot of strange things have happened over the last two weeks — strange to me, anyway — and a lot of them would never have happened if I weren’t acting a bit unlike myself while trying to adjust to being alone again.

That said, Alex has stayed over at my house a couple of nights now. Once because she missed her train and once less unintentionally. At first we were both a bit concerned that we’d let things go too far, and we agreed not to let anything happen again. Then we went to a movie together a few days later and ended up holding hands and kissing each other goodnight, agreeing that maybe we still had a thing or two to figure out.

Now we’re cautiously giving what could probably be called a relationship a chance to work itself out. Neither of us wants this to just be casual and meaningless, or to pretend that we’d be alright with the other person being involved with someone else, so even though we’re still working out some of the details, we at least know that things will remain exclusive.

The longer this goes on, though, the less worried I am. At first I thought that it might just be something rebound-related and destined to be a source of regret for both Alex and me, or that I might be using Alex because I miss being with Kerry. But I’ve less and less reason to think that that’s the case, and even though we’ve been a bit indecisive about a lot of things, I try to tell myself that it must mean something that we’ve made it this far.

There’s just a certain inevitability to it all, though — we both know that this is going to end eventually, that it’s just a matter of who gets hurt and how much we end up regretting our decisions. But in the end it comes down to whether or not we can convince ourselves that it’s still worth trying in spite of this, and we’ve managed that, if nothing else.

But yes. Not everything has been quitting jobs and shaky starts to new relationships over the last couple of weeks. I’ve been to several shows, mostly for free, and my parents visited and took me grocery shopping.

In news shocking to those who know me, I’ve been trying some new foods lately, too, and I’ve decided that I can say vegetarian bacon cooked on the stove is one of the best foods ever without the slightest hint of hyperbole. I’d been microwaving the stuff since I first discovered it, but since my parents were paying, I picked up some organic canola oil to lightly oil the pan with as described in the instructions on the package of pseudo-bacon. Who knew that following instructions could yield such positive results?

I’ve been cooking eggs on the stove for the first time, too. I used to microwave them along with the vegetarian bacon, but I’ve been shocked to find how much better they taste cooked on the stove. I cook them as a cheese omelette of sorts and then put the omelette-like result on a toasted bagel along with more cheese and vegetarian bacon.

It’s a whole new world.

Speaking of new things, I decided to try shaving with a non-electric razor for the first time in awhile (again because my parents were paying). I’m still not hugely impressed by the results, but I’m willing to give it at least a couple of weeks before I decide that maybe I should just try sharpening the blades on my electric razor and going back to that.

I still haven’t cut myself, though, and that’s something to be proud of.

I’m going to start selling antigreg shirts next week. For sure this time. Some people have already been sending in orders, and I’m already running low on extra-small and extra-large shirts. So if you want one of those, start saving your pocket change now and check back on Monday or Tuesday for instructions on how to order.

There will probably be new buttons soon, too. And new stickers eventually, though not for free anymore. Because I’m a bad person.

I leave for Goderich, Amy’s hometown, in a few hours. It’s her mother’s birthday party and everyone’s invited. A few days without computers can’t help but do me a bit of good, I figure, and the sprawling metropolis of Goderich is as tempting as sprawling metropolises comes.

Hopefully next week will see me getting back on track. I need a new job and the motivation to finish a lot of half-finished things. For now, though, I really need to go and update my résumé...