A Crackle of Cops

           

            My internet connection for both the café across the street and the donut shop underneath me has been horrible lately. I’m wondering if my three year old wi-fi adaptor has just gotten too old to function. It is constantly exposed to pollution from the cars and trucks that sit at the traffic light in front of my window. It also catches the full blast of hot sunlight a lot. I wonder if I need to get a new one.

            Wednesday, August 12th was another hot day when it was supposed to rain but didn’t. I heard someone say on the radio that Ontario is now experiencing the worst drought in decades.

            I rode to Danforth and Linnsmore. I explored the alley behind Danforth between Linnsmore and Monarch Park. Two bike cops came the opposite way and they were talking about beverages. What a chatty creature the bike cop is. It is always gabbing with another one of their species. I’ve just come up with a word to name a gathering of policemen: a crackle of cops. I explored all the streets between Linnsmore and Monarch Park up to Wolverton Boulevard. I always think of the song “Wolverton Mountain” when I get to that street and then can’t help singing it.

            On the way back I went down Yonge Street. I stopped at the light at Victoria Street and a young woman with long, pink hair ran the light with her little bike. She was talking on the phone with her right hand while steering with the other. A stream of pedestrians were crossing Yonge Street but she found a hole in the line when one woman jumped back to avoid getting hit.

            When I got home I found some mail from U of T. I could tell from the envelope that it was from Admissions and Awards and so I already knew I was going to find it frustrating. They wouldn’t be approving my grant so soon, so it must have meant they wanted more information, even though I’d spent a whole day carefully printing up all the information they would need. I stood in front of my door and opened it. At that point I noticed how much I was sweating. The perspiration was raining off of my face and my shirt was wet like I’d been caught in a shower. I had never sweated so much, and it was strange because I didn’t used to hardly sweat at all. In my late 20s, when I worked as a furniture mover, on hot days I used to piss off my co-workers, because while beer sweat was flooding off their bodies, I didn’t drip at all. They’d say, “There’s something wrong with you! It’s not natural not to sweat!”

            The letter related to the fact that I was on the waiting list for one full course while enrolled in one and a half others. They said they couldn’t process my grant application until I was off the waiting list. I had enrolled in Canadian Poetry but preferred taking Canadian Fiction. My plan was to drop the poetry as soon as a spot in fiction was open, but Admissions and Awards gave me two weeks to resolve the issue and that once my courses were resolved I had to bring them a signed letter that said so. I went online and saw that I had moved to number six on the waiting list. If it doesn’t move down in the next week or so, I might have to settle for poetry just to make sure I get my grant.