Hergest Ridge

The renovation workers in our building started with the saw at 7:30 this morning. They’ve been here nearly everyday over the last month, and my nerves are shot. At least I’ve a clock to match the month-long construction atmosphere.

There’s a shirt you can find in Poland that says something along the lines of “Let’s drink faster, it’s getting dark.” I had thought it had something to do with having started drinking too early in the day. I’m told I was wrong.

The cheapest alcohol in Poland can be bought from illegal home production. Metas sell it in all sorts of second hand containers for a fraction of the price that stores sell alcohol for. Not only are these containers not sanitised properly, the alcohol is often separated at the wrong level and drinking it will cause blindness – fast. Months, or a couple years is all it takes. And so “let’s drink faster, it’s getting dark” has a new meaning, one that makes a bit more sense.

“What if I pick a Bieber song for my assignment?”
“Please don’t.”
“…but he’s Canadian.”
“You’re making things worse.”

PSA: The reader should note that not selecting this post for the m.Staff-carboN category was definitely a conscious and very deliberate omission.

If someone said to me imagine a music video that feels like summer – what would it look and feel like? This’d be my answer.

I posted this on Facebook earlier today and got a reply from Tracy saying a water-slide like this is a great idea, if she only could find a hill in the Manitoba prairies. I’d be game.

I’ve only met Tracy on a couple occasions over the ten years or so having a common friend and I think I’m a bit infatuated with her. It’s also quite possible I’m the last one to come to this likely obvious realisation.

Things likely to happen this evening: writing, drinking tea, coffee and rum, music. Smoking nargile, menthol cigarettes and more. Planning a trip, watching Legend of Korra. This is too perfect.

I took this photo on my way to school this morning, a bit before 10 o’clock. The general area teems with tourists, but this morning the path was completely deserted, the air smelled of rain, and every three was blooming. I’ll spare you the cliché about beauty or something similar.

Once every while I still get a chill remembering my walks to work at a company in Winnipeg. I’d drive the car to work but not the entire way. I wanted to walk the last part through a park, over the small bridge and a creek like river that was home to beavers swimming up and down the stream.

The walk was calming, the drive very stressful. On many occasions while driving, I wondered if I could take the car off-road, hit a tree, and end up in hospital instead of the wretched office…

I cleaned out the washing machine today. After I pulled out the last batch of clothing out of it, the clothing smelled as if a swamp monster had regurgitated it. Test wash in progress. :)

After spending 200Złt at the store, I still forgot a bulb for my desk lamp. I’m using candles again to light the place and the atmosphere feels a bit churchy. Either the candles need to go, or I’ve to find a date. (Seeing that the former is probably easier, I’ll probably just walk over to the store tomorrow and get a bulb. And if I did a bad job cleaning out the washing machine I’ll smell tomorrow like the thing in the picture above, which will definitely make getting a bulb easier.)

While eating breakfast I turned my phone into a remote control for the notebook. This could be considered quite neat, but instead is probably comical: my flat is 18 sq. meters (about 200 sq. feet,) and a long broom stick would have done just as well. I was going to take a picture of the flat, but I can’t step back anywhere far enough to get more than one wall into a picture.

This concludes my day with the conclusion that I’ve done nothing of great importance today.

(Image credits: Hannah Krueger & The Blog of No)

Mia: Don’t you hate that?
Vincent: Hate what?
Mia: Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it’s necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?
Vincent: I don’t know. That’s a good question.
Mia: That’s when you know you’ve found somebody really special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute – comfortably share silence.

– Pulp Fiction