Hunter S. Cat

Hunter S. Cat was a good man. When I went through puberty I outgrew my bed in about 3 months, spurting from a stalky 4' to a gangly and awkward 6'. Hunter's favourite hobby was to wait and prey at the end of my bed and when he saw my hairy overgrown toes dangling over the edge, probably resembling a family of mice, he would make his attack. I guess I'm just happy he got to spend the last couple years of his life outside of the dank smokey apartment in Ottawa, hunting real mice in my Dad's driveway in Perth.

When my Dad, sister, and myself moved from Kilborn in Ottawa to the nearby apartment on Palm St., Hunter was in the midst of some lonely journey into the inner-sanctums of the cat-mind and the cat-wilderness. We were forced to leave him behind but a couple months later my sister went back to Kilborn and put up posters looking for Hunter, I was pessimistic about it all. The next day the new tenants of our old-house called us to ask us to come pick up Hunter, who had shown up tattered and weary, bleeding from the leg. From that point on he assumed some sort of bizarre human-like charisma similiar to a loving, kind old man who knows just where he belongs.

God dammit Hunter, couldn't you have just waited a couple more weeks...fuck's sake.

I leave on Wednesday the 17th, the trip is gonna suck the big one. Got a 7 hour layover in Toronto, yay. How many Greyhound station floors have I slept on? I often wonder if I'll ever buy a car or if I'm just destined to live like this forever.

Mag and I are splitsville, my weak will fell...these things are meant to be I guess...20 year olds don't belong in long-distance relationships.

I have zero passion for cooking right now, good thing it's my destiny to be a cook or I'd probably pack in my bags at this point.

I have an unappeasable hunger to be in San Francisco after seeing it's glory last February. I can't stop thinking about it.

I Wish I Was Homeward Bound

The other day I learned that the quinoa-seed is a complete protein source, I find that amazing, I don't know why. No more than 2 months ago I was taught that the only way to obtain a complete protein source from a single ingredient was from meat but oh no, false...quinoa! I just bought some. Cooked it with ginger and then poured onion and acorn-squash drippings with honey all over it. Thanks for the loan Mom, bet you're glad I'm blowing it all on exotic ingredients for my selfish-self, and not Christmas gifts..

I also just bought this cool book called Local Bread. I have a feeling that my involvement in baking may at some point surpass my involvement in traditional cooking. Everyone should bake bread, the human-race would be at a better place if everyone took the time to bake their own bread. I sincerely mean that. It's probably the most therapeutic and remedial thing I've ever done.

Anyways enough nonsense, the eve of my loves return is nigh. There are six more sleeps until Mag gets on her very first ever plane and flies half way across the globe. I don't even know what to say about that. It's pretty surreal...it kind of feels like sleeping for the first time. To be at a final rest after a life of unending labour...except it's not final, we have to repeat the whole process come January. She actually has a bit of an adventure ahead of her after getting off the plane. She's gotta drive, ferry and walk her way to meet me on campus after I get off class on Wednesday.. It's bittersweet but less bittersweet than it was the day we met...meeting and knowing that a rainy day in August when she'd leave would eventually come...and now knowing that finally, a sunny day in April will soon bring us together again. December is gonna be heaven though, I truly can't wait to go home. It's sick but the thing I'm looking forward to 2nd most to cuddling with Mag and watching movies at home here, is cuddling with Mag and watching movies at home in Ottawa after raiding my Mom's chip-pantry.

I miss a lot of things. I really miss Ben's house. What a phenomenal place that was, I took it for granted, I could have learned a lot more there and participated in some pretty amazing things but at least I got some good friends out of it. Compared to my living-situation now...well the comparison doesn't need to be made for anyone who ever visited Ben's home. I miss Mike and Robbie and Gordon and Trevor so much. I don't think I've laughed half as hard once while here than I laughed on a regular old day hanging out with Mike in Ottawa. I really miss scooting around downtown Ottawa with Nick. There was one day when I was working at the Ottawa Marriott where Nick and Matt Morrow came down and met me after work around 11pm and we just shredded all around these abandoned buildings and streets on a dark Monday night...those times were the best. Or the back of Marty's van with Nick, Rob and Ty...oh lord. God, I even miss OC Transpo. Anyone who has tried to use public-transpo to get around on a Sunday in Nanaimo will NEVER bitch about OC Transpo again.

I took some photos of my hands today, Mag tells me she loves my hands...by most standards I guess this is considered pretty disgusting for someone who handles food for a living but they're clean...this is just what they look like. I like them to look this way, I pounce at most opportunities to handle root and bulb vegetables, to have hands like this is a trophy to me and I don't care how "unkempt" it looks. Years of griptape wear, beet juice, celeriac dirt, a dismembered fingernail, the remains of an old rust-wound infection. One day these hands will remind me that I mostly worked for what I received.

Now Accepting Donations

In British Columbia, and maybe some other provinces of advanced pleasure, Remembrance Day is some sort of day of leisure. When I found out that Tuesday is some twisted holiday I was confused, and then I was elated with potential, and then I was excited, but then I was anxious and I've never really enjoyed anxiety. The idea of being excited for something that's yet to come...I don't know, it's unsettling...like quicksand. Anyways, the big-wigs at the Culinary Institute of Vancouver Island decided that rather than cause the students extra stress by breaking up our work-week right in mid-stream, they'd just give us Monday off too. Does a salmon turn around mid-stream when the current gets too strong? Hell no. Did that make sense? Not in the slightest.

The weekend has been very rejuvenating, very rejuvenating. On Friday, after class, I packed my belongings into my luggage-satchel and headed South to beautiful downtown Victoria to meet my old friend Hasi Eldib. Hasi and I have been friends since grade 6, he is actually one of my first school-friends from Ottawa after moving there from Rockland. Hasi is high on life, he is one of those rare folks who just dig it. He's not in it for anything, he's just living it. I don't think he's trying to prove anything, he just wants to do his thing. He used to be a jerk, he's almost killed/paralyzed most of his oldest friends in wrestling stunts gone awry. Somewhere on the road he turned that homicidal energy into pure love extract. I think he just loves life. I met Hasi at the hotel he was staying at, we talked for awhile then went to the Swans Hotel for a pretty nice pub-style meal. The menu wasn't the best but it was well-prepared and piping-hot and to me that's more important than the ingredients used. We had some beer and talked a lot then went back to the hotel. Hasi left early, 4:30am, to catch a flight. I got up at 5am probably out of habit. I took this photo and then headed out and wandered the streets. Waking up before dawn has it's benefits my friends, try it some time.



I ended up buying some shoes. I'm totally broke but dammit, what skater can resist $50 shoes? That's a third of what I would have payed in Ottawa 5 years ago.

I took the Greyhound home around 'noon. I ate a bag of wine gums and chased them with a bag of M&M peanuts. When I got home I had the worst stomach-ache I've ever had in my entire life. I thought something had ruptured, no joke. Maybe the 5Alive reacted with the peanuts creating a strange-brew in my strange-belly.

Today I got groceries, Sunday buses here are pathetic. I walked home carrying close to my body-weight in cans of beans and various 4lb. squashes and tubers. I have a bad history cooking potatoes so I'm gonna get some practice in. I also made the dough for this wild rye-bread. It's got a ton of molasses in it, the kitchen smells like melted leather. It's got all kinds of seeds in it, fennel and anise and a few more. Letting it proof right now, can't wait to get that beauty baked off. I'm so stoked I might go preheat the oven right now! Sometimes I think my life is akin to a rollercoaster ride.



Mag might be coming here early, if she does the countdown is 24ish days. Wow, what a strange 3 months. Never thought I'd do something like that in my life.

Forecast for tomorrow is 100degrees of shredding the shred-stick. Gotta love not having winter and skateboarding in November.

Listen to Steve Miller...now!

Novella from Nanaimo No. 13

I'm sitting here looking at my own signature on an agreement for a new room I'm moving into in January. The S at the beginning of my last name is a J...gotta put that on my list of things to do, "#9 - Fix the J in my signature."

I went to Salt Spring Island this weekend. Took the ferry from Crofton to Vesuvius Bay, it's a 20 minute ride, $7 to walk on, free on the way back.



We went straight to a church function. My inner dialogue was rattling through questions. Do I take off my hat? Do I bow to the priest? When is the appropriate time to scream "HALLELUJAH!"? It took all of my self-control not to use the name "Jesus Christ" to express feelings of anger or frustration. Once inside I realized I was in a key situation to score loads of candy. It wasn't really a religious function, more of a Halloween function...ironically, Halloween is a Pagan holiday. From the church we went to downtown Ganges. Dad, if you're reading this...I saw Chris at the firehouse and I tried to ask him how he was getting home. He told me Val was picking him up but I couldn't get an answer on when. He didn't remember me but he still looked happy to see me, no surprises there. I should have called her but as usual, I was on someone else's schedule so it didn't happen. To readers other than my Dad, Val is the old man's first-wife. Her and her husband run an equal-living shared housing unit for autistic people out of their home, Chris is one of them. He's a large, very happy and expressive young man. He volunteers at the fire-station.

We weren't downtown long before we retired to Asher's Dad's house. It was a hand-built custom home as many on Salt Spring seem to be. The next morning Asher's Dad had us hauling wood for a couple hours, this is what we got done. Not bad if you ask me. What do I know about hauling wood though?



After that everyone showered and ate and we headed off to Salt Spring Island Cheese Company (http://www.saltspringcheese.com/). I spent $24 on cheese, a white truffle goat cheese, lemon goat cheese, and garlic goat cheese. I shared the truffle one with my French roommates since the truffles were imported from France. After the cheese company we went on a hike and saw some cool mushrooms, here is a blurry variety of mushroom.



After the hike I got on the ferry, dirty and spoiled and hungry. I thought I saw a whale but it was probably a large seal. I had to hitchhike home, it actually took less than 2 hours...not bad. When I got into Nanaimo I was dropped off at the bottom of town and on the hike upward I got caught in one of the craziest rainstorms. There was no lightning but it was one of those storms that makes you feel like you're standing fully dressed inside your shower. If I'd been outside for 10 seconds I would have been thoroughly soaked...but I was in the middle of it for a good 15 minutes. It was great. Hallelujah!

I was pretty stressed last week 'cause somehow I let a bunch of important priorities mold like putty in my mind. At the end of the week I dedicated 2 days to getting them done. In doing so I decided to move from my current room, I'll save lots of money next semester and have a better view too. I also did some arranging of my loan...arrangements, and discovered that I have an untapped bursary coming to me in January. Not too shabby. I should be getting a pirate-loot sized tax-return, so, well, I'll be eating a lot more imported white truffles.

I talked to my a la carte chef from last month on Friday. My time in his class ended a week ago but he had some very kind words for me. In addition to getting 102% on a math-test in his class, and a 91% overall, he correctly predicted that he thought I'd be well suited for bistro cooking. I told him about how I got fired from a hotel mostly because I hated working there. He said he thinks I have a good sense of taste. Anyways it was a really nice conversation. On Christmas break I plan on going to meet chefs at Benitz and Sweetgrass and a couple other popular Ottawa bistros to talk about apprenticeships. I have also decided to complete my education here, instead of switching schools for 2nd year like I originally planned. Just makes sense.

I have to go study poultry and seafood now. Did you know that frogs are classified as poultry in the culinaire world? Yup.

Listen to Bill Withers.

An Amuse Bouche

Last night I went to my friend Taylor's grandparent's house for Thanksgiving dinner, it was pretty special. We drove to this area called Lantzville where they lived. It was so picturesque. Picket-fences, stone lawns, horses in the yard. What's weird is that it was a 5 minute drive from the biggest most hideous mall in the city, and here were Taylor's British grandparents tucked away in the faux English countryside. His grandmum, Brenda, was telling me that almost all of the food, including the turkey and lamb, was homegrown. The herbs, the veg, the edible flowers in the salad, the salad itself! The turkey had been grown and slaughtered by their neighbours, the neighbours had thanked the turkey for giving it's life before they lopped it's head off. Same with the lamb. It was unreal. I spent a lot of time talking with Brenda, she moved to Canada during the IRA riots in the 70s. She was a nurse and saw some wild stuff, she described a scene involving some Irish protesters shacked up in an abandoned building giving birth to a baby, on their own, and Brenda arriving to see the baby still attached by the placenta or whatever. Brenda invited me to come back and work in her garden. Definitely gonna pursue that.

Here is a bread that I made for the dinner, as well as a jar of strawberry jam. I'm addicted to collecting these Classico jars. I boil the labels off. My roommate eats a lot of it, I have five jars, I think. I actually bought some sauce once just so I could have the jar. Is that wrong? Whatever, don't judge me!

We had this dinner at school on Thursday, it was called a Sensory Tasting and I guess the idea was to give the students an education in fine-dining, which fork to use first kinda thing. Every single student I've talked to told me things like "the dinner was alright" or if I asked if they were excited..."nah, I'd rather be in bed".

Here are just some of the menu-items: salmon ballotine with scallop and lobster lentil salad, handmade caramelized onion tortellini in a duck consomme, hazelnut crusted sweetbreads (Google 'sweetbread' if you don't know what it is) with mushroom risotto, braised lamb shanks and grilled lamb-rack with couscous, and a chocolate orange brownie cake. Now, it was my first time trying most of these foods. I was damn excited going into this thing, the prospect of all these new flavours, ingredients, cooking methods, what would I like, what would I hate...I'd never had risotto before, one of the most palatable and popular dishes world-wide...and the best my classmates could muster up was that they'd rather be in bed. I have a really really difficult time with the idea of people pursuing something they barely have any interest in. I remember giving some of my friends a hard time for rushing into college right out of high school. I can't even talk about it, it makes me furious. I'm at a point where thinking about food can keep me up at night. Getting an idea and not being able to let it ago until the thought of it is perfect.

The dinner was great, I sat with the headchef. I kind of met her personally a few weeks ago, I was having a really rough-time with some students in my group and I was basically at the breaking point of living in res, listening to noises coming through five different walls as I watch the hours tick away before I have to wake up. I went to go talk to her about the possibility of me transferring my credits to Algonquin College for my second semester, and she actually talked me through it. She told me stories about being in Europe and how she missed her boyfriend. Anyways I sat with her and we started talking about mushrooms and Anthony Bourdain and Thomas Keller and meat-butchery and I got so excited my voice actually cracked mid-sentence talking about umamis.

There are two tickets waiting at the Vancouver airport for me and Mag. On December 17th I'll be back in Ottawa for two long, quiet weeks. I need to start making a list of who to visit, damn I miss my friends.

Vote tomorrow.

River Swimming as October Nears

Kyle Cousteau pouts in frustration as his adventures are halted by the raging Nanaimo River...a frothing rapid threatens to turn this journey into a wet one.

Instead of fighting the frigid waters we dove right in. We swam here (see below) and jumped off the rocks and had all sorts of splashy fun. I almost drowned trying to get back to shore, apparently I'm a pretty weak swimmer. It was bloody cold so we warmed up with man's best friend. I hit the wine. I found this fun looking bottle at some liquor depot, I think I'll keep it and put some hippy-rocks or moon-stones or something in it, something spiritual and deep looking. Like, really bohemian and hip, ya know?





I ate far too much sugar and had a difficult time sleeping, a real pounder was ravaging my mind. We heard some critters outside and everyone was up at around 2am trying to figure out what it was, likely a mouse. I probably fell asleep around 6am as my headache dissipated and my thoughts of Mag gave birth to dreams. I was awoken by the rooster-howl that is Asher, the man is a fiery display in the morning mist. I'm surprised he ever drinks coffee, you'd think he had an IV pumping it into his veins throughout the night considering his energy in the morning. Anyhow we all took a nice stroll back down to the Nanaimo river.

I'm home now, on my 3rd coffee, with a promising remainder of day...I think pizza, chips and a few movies are in order. Even Captain Cousteau had to recharge after his adventures at sea...or, tame river as the case may be.

A Fig, Peach and Orange Vanilla Napoleon with Lemon Cookie, Diplomat Cream, and Strawberry Compote

This was my plated dessert assignment for pastry-class. There was plenty that went wrong with this dessert before I got it right...two batches of curdled pastry-cream, one batch made with baking soda instead of cornstarch, one batch of cooked juice filling with not quite cooked cornstarch, one collapsed mold, one batch of truly vile lemon-cookies, 4 rancid figs, and one sticky knapsack due to a leaky container of strawberry-kiwi juice. I'm probably forgetting some stuff too, this assignment has kept me awake in a cold-sweat for the last week, now it's done and I'm damn happy with it.

I'll have a photo of the finished product next week once the chef gets it back to me. He liked the flavour and components (once I got them right, just barely in time) but unfortunately the composition didn't completely hold together, it was slightly collapsed by the time I presented it to him. I got my end of the month mark so far, the first week I got an 88%, last week I got a 50% for missing 2 days, 20% each day, meaning I had a 90% going into it, bummer. However he told me he didn't have any criticism for me and to keep doing what I was doing. So who cares about the mark anyways?

I'm going camping tomorrow, sort of don't want to. I want a relaxing weekend and instead I get to go get drunk with a bunch of loud, snotty 17/18 year olds in the woods. They're all my friends but sometimes an old-man needs a break from rocking the cradle. I'm getting very tired of giving certain people directions and duties but today I realized not everyone has work-experience and it's not easy for everyone to look around them and see things that need to be wiped down, scrubbed, or swept up. However I also find it incredibly arrogant of some people to be able to so obviously be pretending to look busy while staring at people who actually are busy and clearly not happy about it. How is it that I can give someone a duty to do and once it's done they'll recommence their idling and actually have the gall to stare at me on my knees, scrubbing greasy equipment? I don't like being put in the role of supervisor but I refuse to be taken advantage of, it's a very very awkward situation.

Lately I lie in bed at night and consider the benefits of finishing the year at Algonquin College after my 1st semester here, but I won't. Sometimes I consider the benefits of living in a handmade shanty on Salt Spring Island and setting a honky-tonk piano loose upon the placid of the island twilight, I won't though. I consider leaving what I have now to memory and heading to San Francisco, thumb to the road, and completing my education in the back of a 45degree sweat-swamp-stink kitchen, I won't do that either. I think I've finally left my senseless spontaneity behind, maybe I used to run from time but the only way to ever get anything done is to compromise with it.

I'm super into John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and Blood On The Tracks lately. Falling off his motorcycle was the best thing that ever happened to Bob Dylan.

August Down

I feel like I should write something here but I think it's Saturday morning and I'm just bored, maybe if I fetch my coffee it'll start to flow.

Ok, inspiration. All of the roommates are in-house and settled and borrowing my stuff. I don't mind though 'cause they're definitely making contributions too. So far I've bartered a vine-ripened tomato and my glass coffee-pot is missing some...glass. It still works but there may or may not be tiny shards floating in every cup I have. This is what you get when roommates do your dishes for you. The two newer roommates are french, France-french. Really friendly guys. They drink whiskey, not wine. And they make pasta out of ketchup and milk, not snails. They don't smoke either.

I went to Victoria last Monday. I had to get some shoes and I figured I'd have better luck at one of many Victoria skate-shops than the one in Nanaimo whose stock I already have memorized in alphabetical order. It was pretty cool travelling alone again, I've always had some of that in me, that loner thing, but I haven't really done it in awhile, and as amazing as it was going cross-country with Mag it was pretty nostalgic being on a Greyhound for 4 hours and wandering the streets and alleys of Victoria alone. Plus now that the campus is overwhelmed with students I'm feeling it's stretch-marks and getting a little overwhelmed myself. I don't love Victoria but last time I was there, a friend, Emily Ashford, brought me to an amazing decrepit old beach, dead stumps and drift wood everywhere. We went with her beautiful dog Rosie, who I just recently sadly learned is gone. She was a beautiful, friendly dog. One of the most well-mannered big sucks I've ever met. There's always Fan Tan Alley too. Walking into this buttcrack of the city is pretty surreal. This is probably the closest the world will ever come to having a time-machine.



Anyways I bought some shoes and the cashier was pretty hip when I said "do you offer a student discount?" and he replied "no but 'cause you're getting cool digs, yes". Being a slave to fashion sometimes pays off.

School's cool. On Thursday we went into the hot-kitchen for the first time. Up until then every thing we'd done was preceded by a demo, and everything we did was monitored and none of it was on a deadline, I was actually typically one of the last people to present my food. We would make stuff for sale to the caf but it wasn't being rushed out to the caf for lunch. On Thursday we were herded into the main-kitchen (as opposed to the lab-kitchen) and I was instructed to make 2 loaves of bread or 1 loaf and 1 batch of buns for the cafeteria, due to be out at 11:30am. Panic mode! I went at it and in 5 hours managed to bake off 36 sundried tomato and garlic buns. It took me a long time because I wanted to get a lot done and sort of overloaded myself, while I was making those I also prepped some cinnamon rolls and this dough made with mashed potatoes...but the potatoes weren't fully cooked and didn't mash in the Hobart blender properly, long story short it resulted in me picking out huge chunks of potato from a sticky bread-dough to reboil them. It wasn't my proudest moment, days like that really mash up my ego. Not in a healthy kind of levelling way, in a destructive paranoid kinda way, makes me ask myself too many stupid questions. FORTUNATELY on Friday I was stricken with godspeed and in one short day managed to perfectly execute my cinnamon-rolls and potato-loaf that had fermented over night, prep and cook off half of a HUGE batch of whole-wheat buns (talking a 10 pound dough here), and prep this amazing pecan and oat whole wheat dough. It's a whole-wheat base with oats, honey and big chunks of pecan in it. I felt better after that, I guess those unanswered broken ego questions can be put to rest after all...until the next earth-shattering failure. I was given compliments by the teacher both days which kind of went over my head but is still nice, and I got my marks from August...91%. Pretty irrelevant and useless but still a confidence-booster.

I didn't get the job with the school so today I'm going to apply at a hotel, a conference centre, and 2 restaurants for weekend shifts or whatever's available. Probably a bad idea but I need some aid in finding my way Eastward at Christmas, and also I find the busier I am, the less I spend...plus free meals are typically included with cook's jobs.

I'm gonna make some bread and a pie today too, and skateboard obviously. My ankles and feet are ravaged from skateboarding but yesterday I went swimming in the mystical waters of Colliery Dam Park and I feel like a new youth so I'll give the skatepark another shot after a brief day long retirement.

I should get dressed. The best thing about being a cook is that it's perfectly respectable and almost expected to apply for a job in ripped jeans, a purple t-shirt, and ratty skateboard shoes, with a dusty skateboard tucked under one arm and a pile of crumpled resumes tucked under the other.

3 Weeks Down, 44 Up

I'm keeping myself busy and school is fun, I have friends, more than I thought I would. That's good news. It's ridiculous but I can't seem to sink in here with my other half somewhere else. I have hobbies, good food, aspirations, a schedule, a job, money, beauty everywhere and I just can't settle, I'm always turning my head away from something and looking for another thing. I speak to Mag no less than every 4 or 5 hours.



I went camping last weekend with 4 friends from class. We drove to Chemainus after class and bought groceries, and more importantly, raspberry wine. We ate well and swam in the coldest freshwater I have ever swam in. It took me 20 minutes to get the courage to cross the river (due to the cold, not the current), I did, got out, warmed up and got my heartbeat back to normal, then dove off some rock back in and to the other side, then we left. There was bear poo, it looked like raspberry but didn't have the same aroma. We drank and laughed a lot, it felt healthy. I opted to sleep outside after remembering my discomfort on the last camping trip, it was pretty special sleeping in the grass. I felt great the next day.

We've made a lot of cool stuff in class these last 3 weeks. A whole world of stocks, thickeners and sauces; white, brown, bouillon, fricasse, blanquette, beurre manie, roux, cream, bechamel, tomato with prima vera, hollandaise, balsamic and white wine vinegarettes, caesar. I've deboned whole chickens, made french-fries, learned how to properly clean a mango (finally), eaten jicama, cut more shallots than I have in my entire life, and made fresh mayonaisse. It was all fun but the games are over, on Tuesday I go into main-kitchen rotation, I start in pastry, the most challenging station. If you make a mistake with a sauce, you change it, if you make a mistake with a cake, you throw it out. There are 8 people in my group and 3 of them are probably the most unprofessional, uncaring and immature people I've ever worked with, 1 of them I am nervous to work near...should be fun once we go to a la carte. Not that cooking shouldn't be fun but if you're having fun it's 'cause you wanna be there, not 'cause you're bored and your mind isn't on your work.

Here is a photo of me with a huge spider that was in my kitchen. Objects in photo are larger than they appear.



Trust me, it was huge, it just looks small 'cause I have a giant head.

It's a long weekend, I was thinking about hanging out at the airport and catching a last-minute cancellation but the trip home was far too epic for even my unfaltering limits of patience. Fly to Philly from Ottawa at 6am, Philly to Bellingham WA, Bellingham to Seattle, 3 hour Seattle ferry to Victoria, coach from Victoria to Nanaimo. Total travel time was 14 hours for what could be accomplished in a 3 hour flight. I'm just gonna skateboard instead, there are great parks here, I've skated every day for the last...while. I might also call my Dad's friend John Tanner and inquire into whether he and his family would be interested in visiting some local vineyards or cheesefarms.

I probably have a job, $19 an hour, 4 hours every Monday night, bistro linecook. It's just to aid in getting myself home at Christmas.

112 days until I kiss Mag at the airport.

Here is a poster I bought.



I'm going to skate.

Hello Goodbye

Today I got home from class and packed up all my belongings, 4 times, and made 4 separate trips to the nearby Vancouver Island University townhouse residences. I'm unpacked now, in a big empty 4 bedroom townhouse, listening to every single Beatles album in chronological order. I'm making a ground-beef ratatouille over couscous while I write this...the onions are sweating and it's raining outside. This is a mighty large empty house, none of my roommates have moved in yet, the first one will be here on August 26th. I feel very small after spending 2 weeks in a closet.

The circumstances surrounding how I met Mag were pretty amazing and romantic, it makes a decent story. I saw her for the first time walking through the Rideau Centre, we locked eyes and I watched her walk away and spent the next week wondering who she was. Somewhere in that week, Ben Walker encouraged me to check out the SPAO (http://www.spao.ca/) end of the year "Red Wall" event. I'm usually pretty lazy and uninterested in these things but I went with some friends. We walked up to the building and there was Mag sitting on the windowsill, we spent the evening exchanging bashful glances from opposite ends of the room. I proposed buying one of her pieces for $1000 and we both laughed then we both went our separate ways. I hated myself for a few days until a chance encounter with a regular/friend at Caffe Mio where I was working. This friend is the owner and a teacher of/at SPAO. I asked him about the 95lb. girl with the afro. He suggested I make myself welcome at the invitation only potluck at SPAO that Friday. I made a gazpacho, walked in, dropped it on the food-table and walked right up to her, she paniced and walked the other way. I pursued and the rest is pretty easy to figure out.

The circumstances surrounding how Mag left yesterday are kind of interesting too. We spent our last night together, I woke up at 6:30am for school, I came out of the bathroom after washing up and could barely look at her, I ate half of my bowl of cereal and gave up and lay down beside her. We held each other for half an hour and then I walked out the door, but I had to turn around because I'd walked out with no shoes on, that error probably had nothing to do with my lack of sleep. It wasn't a very satisfying goodbye, I wasn't happy with the thought that I'd see her again, I was just regretful that it was so rushed and painful. I went to class and it was horrible but I got off 40 minutes early. Mag's bus left at 2:20 and I was out of class at 1:20. I went to the changeroom and there was a massive horde of students trying to get to their lockers. I stood there for about 15 seconds waiting and then God entered my mind and said "it's a good idea to leave in your uniform (strictly forbidden) and go home NOW" so I stormed out, dressed to a T in my chef's jacket, checkered pants, black scarf, pillbox hat...the works. I began my ascent into a brisk sprint home and halted suddenly as God entered my mind once more and said "you best be checking the bus-stop first". I turned around and there it was, the sun reflecting off the seams of her big black afro. I felt much more satisfied with that goodbye.

Magical Mystery Tour is such a horrible album, what a shame. Like the C in gym-class on an otherwise straight A report-card.

Jones Omens

Sometimes when I go to the grocery-store I buy an ice-cold orange flavoured Jones Soda for Mag, she likes the fortunes. My last one said "today you saved a child's eyesight...thank you".

Yesterday, I skateboarded to the Quality Save or Safe Food or Food Quality or whatever to get some salad-fixings and I saw the neon-orange soda glowing at me from the fridges and I thought "I should surprise Mag with a soda", so I went to get one, "but which one?" I thought to myself. They all have different photos printed on the label and I usually take the photo as an indication of what sort of good fortune will be inside. Yesterday as I pondered over which soda to pick I saw one without a label and I thought "that's gotta be good luck". So I grabbed it and got my other groceries and headed for the check-out.

Because I'm an environmentally-friendly young buck I stuffed my groceries in my knapsack and headed out the front-door to ride my environmentally-friendly skateboard home. Because I'm a show-off I decided to ollie over a path of destruction in the parking lot. It was a little gravel patch where they were doing construction, ollie popped cleanly, solid landing, but unfortunately I landed with a rock under my front wheel and was tossed violently upon the ashphalt like a frog into a fire. The pavement felt like fire on my skin, my hide is pretty raw these days since I just recovered from a 2nd degree sunburn. But I brushed myself off and pulled up my socks and headed on my way.

Later in my travels, about 20 seconds later to be exact, I noticed a sticky residue on my hands, this sticky residue smelled delicious, like citrus and carbonation...and broken glass. I opened my water-proof bag to discover a pool of soda-pop, fruit and bread. The movie I had just rented was floating in this swamp as well. I salvaged what I could and threw my entire bag in the nearest garbage can.

Don't judge a soda by it's cover. That soda was 100% delicious bad luck.

Lebanese Omens

The following events are unaltered in chronological order and completely true.

In January/February of 2008 I took a trip to the Canadian West-coast with my uncle and Dad. We spent short amounts of time in many BC cities, one of them being Nanaimo, Vancouver Island. It was my first time there and while there I decided that it was where I wanted to live in the near future. I came home from the trip and applied to Malaspina College, now Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo.

In or around March of 2008 I bought a book at the dinky little used bookstore on Rideau St. beside the Bytowne Cinema, in Ottawa, Ontario. It's called The Wanderer, and it's written by Kahlil Gibran, a turn of the century Lebanese poet who preached simple messages of relativism and equality, things like you are who you are and ain't who you ain't. Ben, my old roommate got me onto him when I expressed some interest in Taoism. I didn't open The Wanderer until yesterday, August 9th, 2008, from the bed of my residence-room at Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, B.C. Between the coffee-stained frontcover and the first page was a homemade postcard.



On the reverse side of that postcard reads the following message. I left out Elizabeth's last name and address but I have attempted contacting her via Facebook.

Aug. 27, 1970.

Hello Lizah,
Hope you have fully recovered from the accident and are able to use your head once again. It's a good thing we were able to talk the staff at the hospital out of giving you a transplant.
There are so many beautiful things to see - ocean, mountains, pink + blue sunsets; to smell - cedar + millions of flowers; to taste - blackberries + other fruits; to hear - gulls; and to touch - rain...But I'm lonesome + want to go home but my Mom + Dad would be hurt so stay I will.
Give "Rose" a big Hug for me + say hello to friends please. See you soon + may be sooner than that.
Here there is a large X and a large O followed by a smaller X and O, there is an arrow pointing to the larger ones with the name Rose and then the smaller one's are labeled for Lizah, and it says "She needs bigger one's"
Love to you, Pinky
P.S. I read the water colour book quickly before I gave it to you. Have you ever thought of buying an extremely large tea pot, just thought I'd ask.

Miss Elizabeth ___________
___ Bradford St.
Britannia,
Ottawa, Ont.

Would you please tell Arlene that I found the bear pattern + I'll send it to her along with the other sweater pattern. Thanks.

The post-office stamp on the postcard reads:

Nanaimo
5PM
August 28
1970
B.C.

Moving Day

Post number one from the deck of the epequod.
Last Thursday I embarked on my epic voyage across the seas of Canada. We left Ottawa on the Greyhound and 3 nights later we were in Vancouver. One guy, Joe, was forcibly removed in a drunken rage. Another guy was left on the side of the highway after calling an old man a fag and our friend Viche a terrorist. Mag saw not only the Rockies for the first time, but also a moose.
When we got to Vancouver we got breakfast at Cafe Du Soleil with our friend Neal and his Van-crew, Mike and Heidi, they were lovely and so was my first cappuccino in 4 days. We wandered through Hastings and Powell and saw lots of prostitutes and discarded needles. We met 2 girls, Jade and her nameless friend who showed us how to bus to Katie's (http://fanglifegem.blogspot.com/) house. From there we checked out the amazing International Ultimate Frisbee Tournament, it was ultimate. We made vegetarian chili and promptly passed out in our first bed of 4 days. The next morning I skateboarded around most of the city, I ended up in the Granville Market and had a cappuccino and looked at the tourists, then went back to Katie's. Upon searching the e-net I found that Mag and I had 2 hours to get to Pacific Central to catch a coach which would take us to Tsawwassen to catch the ferry to Duke Point, Nanaimo. We got there with plenty of time to spare. We saw a few seals and some seagulls that were notably larger than Ontario seagulls. We had no way of getting from Duke Point into town so we hitchhiked which took a long time and was scary and discouraging. Finally an unnamed man from Fort Smith, NWT picked us up, he was going to Duncan to see his son play golf in the Indigenous Games. We asked him to drop us off at Port Plaza in Nanaimo because it looked familiar to me but I really had no clue how close it was to the college. As we were hauling our bags from his truck another nameless stranger hollered at us..."where you going from here?" He drove us right to the frontdoor of the residence administration. We've spent the last few days setting myself up and trying not to turn into a hateful married couple living in this shanty I now call home.



Yesterday we tried finding this swimming hole called Colliery Dam Park, we had to trek for a good half-hour down the side of the Nanaimo Parkway which was terrifying, I hate doing that but we saw this biketrail at the bottom of this incline at the side of the parkway so we hopped the rail and got on this trail and saw a sign for the park, so we followed the trail.



It lead us to the swimming hole which was a bit green, but refreshing. I swam a lot, Mag was a bit nervous but she definitely got her toes wet.



When we were leaving I asked a woman if there was a better way to get back to campus than the one we used to get there, she said to follow the parking lot out and go past the army-base so I'm like "cool", we did this and it turns out we were 10 minutes away from the park the whole time, and to think we almost died on the edge of the highway when we could have just walked down the block to this place.
So yeah, we'll be catching a Greyhound to Victoria in about an hour where we'll do some touristing and then 3 short days from now I start classes. My heart is in my throat but I'm excited. I wanna rock the Malaspina culinary arts world.