Time Stops for No Man

I'm back, I suppose, as much as I was ever gone. After a string of poorly-written blog entries about things that didn't matter (all of which I eventually deleted instead of posting them), I feel like I might as well write something, if only because I had a few kodak moments this week that stood out among the drudgery of cold, wet rain. Like, literally, it's been the type of weather in Toronto lately that makes you want to wrap yourself up in an Afghan in front of a fire place and read some sort of brooding epic, like Wuthering Heights. But I digress.

Kodak moments - beautiful things have been happening to me, things that are so small. Example: today, I thought it would be a good idea to take the kids on an outing to the passport office. Apparently, 1/2 of Toronto also had the same good idea, and we ended up sitting on the floor in the corner of an enormous waiting room filled with hundreds of bored-looking people, eating peanut butter sandwiches with no crusts, and debating how to spend the next 2 hours and 45 minutes we would have to wait before our number was called. I quickly calculated how many times I would have to sing the Spiderman Theme song to pass the time, and JUST as I was about to cut my wrist open with a plastic kiddie knife from ikea and die in the corner, unceremoniously covered in yogurt, tears and dog fluff (and with unwashed hair!) .... are you still with me here?.... a lady walked over and offered to trade numbers with us, effectively cutting our wait to 20 minutes. The woman was so kind, and I was probably not thankful enough, but I am eternally grateful to her for her gesture. I briefly considered posting one of those "thank you" notices in the Toronto Star, next to the obituaries and birth announcements, but decided against it -- honouring her here, instead. If you're out there, wonderful lady, thank you for potentially saving my life.

Sometimes the days feel like they have no real meaning, but when you clump them all together, in the rosy glow of hindsight, you realize that you're already 1/4 of the way through your self imposed "year off", and have somehow been surviving it, despite all of the complaining you do. I hate the feeling of wanting to complain. I mean, how bad is my life, really? I work. I sleep. I eat. Once in a while, when I'm lucky, I get to seduce my extremely seduceable boyfriend. I try to stay in touch with friends and family. I don't really have anyone here on Toronto that I'm close with, but at the same time, I don't really have any time to be close to anyone - I leave the house at 7 in the morning, and am home after 7pm, with just enough time to read a few pages of a good book, or write an email to my mom, before I get up and do it again. I'm alone, but not necessarily lonely, unless I really take the time to think about it. When I REALLY think about it, I'm so painfully lonely that my whole chest hurts and I want to take a bus back to Kingston and feel like I belong again. How I ended up this way, I'm not sure. Everyone important to me isn't in my area code. Maybe it's time to branch out.

My hockey team -- now there's a source of comfort. The game against Detroit is on in the background and I have all of the games marked in my little calendar so that I can keep up with them. Just a side note, I guess. I hate talking about depressing things. I'd rather focus on the Flames' winning streak, or on mine and Steve's 1 year anniversary, which is just a little more than a week away, or on my teacher's college applications, which are finally getting done. Despite the cold rain and my sometimes brooding attitude, there are little kodak moments everywhere. I just need to know where to look.

Today I'm grateful for:

- The lady, obviously, who gave us her ticket at the passport office, for no apparent reason (other than the lucky horseshoe that someone must have slipped in my pocket)

- the Calgary hockey game that is on TV, giving me a great excuse to stay in and veg

- Short cat-naps, caught wherever and whenever possible

-Getting a ride to the subway on a day where I just couldn't bring myself to walk (thanks, sweetheart)