Tim Herbert

            It's been four days since I've seen a bedbug. Hopefully that trend will continue indefinitely. 

            On Thursday morning the mobility of my right arm during yoga was about the same as the day before. But the progress it's had over the last few days hasn't reversed and I assume it's not going to plateau for long. 

            I memorized the fourth and fifth verses of "La p’tite Agathe" by Serge Gainsbourg. There's only one verse left to learn and then I'll work out the chords. 

            I weighed 90.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            Around midday I cleaned the rim of my muffin pan and most of the bottom. All that's left are the bottoms of the cups. Even though school is starting and I have reading to do I want to finish up the stove storage drawer phase of my kitchen cleaning project. I've just got a few items to clean and the drawer itself. I can't put all the stuff I've cleaned back inside the dirty drawer and I can't leave it all piled up on the kitchen table until December so I've got to finish it. It probably won't take much longer to get that done and then in December I can start cleaning the shelves above the kitchen counter. 

            I weighed 90.2 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride with the plan of stopping at the supermarket on the way home. But I realized while riding through Koreatown on my way to Yonge and Bloor that I'd left my mask on the kitchen counter with the intention of going over it with a lint roller. I didn't want to take a full bike ride and then have to go all the way home to get my mask before going back to Freshco, so I rode down Palmerston and went home to get the mask. The trip back home and back to the supermarket and then home again would pretty much make up for not riding to Yonge.

            At Freshco I bought two half pints of raspberries, a basket of nectarines, a basket of plums, four bags of green grapes, some five year old cheese, two jars of apple sauce, three bags of milk, three containers of Greek yogourt, a jar of honey, a can of coffee and a bag of kettle chips.

            I weighed 90.3 at 18:00 with my cargo pants on and 89.9 after changing to my sweat pants. 

            My neighbour Benji told me there's early voting at the library tomorrow so I might go. I researched the political candidates running in Parkdale but there are no interesting progressive alternatives to the main parties. The Marxist-Leninist guy looks boring and the Marijuana Party doesn't even list any policies on their website. I've voted Green since Elizabeth May became their leader but now that party seems to be going through some weird shit under its new leader. I might end up voting for a Trudeau for the first time since I voted for Pierre the last time he ran. Parkdale has voted Liberal for most of its history so chances are that's who'll win in my neighbourhood.

            I finished reading the Declaration of Independence and then read it again. It's pretty fucked up, especially the 27th declaration, which references King George III having "excited domestic insurrections" and "endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages." The domestic insurrections are slave revolts and the second part refers to the Royal Proclamation which declared that any land west of the Appalation Mountains belongs to the Indigenous people. The settlers that went against the Proclamation faced resistance from the native owners of the land. And so the declaration spins this as the king victimizing settlers by telling Indigenous people it's their land. 

           There's another complaint about George "abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government and enlarging its boundaries." This refers to The Quebec Act, which officially decreed that Catholicism would be tolerated in Quebec as long as the Catholic subjects served the king. It also planned to expand Quebec south to the Ohio River. The Protestants of the Thirteen Colonies were hardcore anti Catholic and terrified of Catholics settling next door to make them slaves of the pope as well. 

            I had french fries with gravy and a chicken breast while watching an episode of Gomer Pyle. This story was pretty funny. Gomer has been spending his Sundays as the only young man in Clarise's rug hooking class in which the other students and Clarise are elderly women. Afterwards Gomer goes to walk on the beach where he is spotted by a photographer and the artistic director of a magazine who are looking for a yokel as their subject. Always friendly and willing to be a good neighbour, Gomer agrees to pose for some photos on the beach. Gomer is posing alone but is told that through trick photography other things such as a beachball will be added later. But what is added later are several frolicking young women in bikinis. When Gomer is shown by Duke the issue of Fun Girl magazine in which he appears he is deeply offended for having been deceived. He calls the magazine and talks to the editor who tells him what beach the two men are working on. Gomer goes to confront the men that took the pictures. Meanwhile Sergeant Carter sees the pictures in the magazine and thinks that Gomer has a very sexy secret life. Carter follows Gomer to the beach. Gomer approaches the two men he'd met earlier but when they see him coming they send a group of bikini clad models to surround and flirt with him. Carter is watching and becomes very jealous. Later Carter tells Gomer he wants to get closer to him and participate in his Sunday activities. Gomer takes him to Clarise's rug hooking class. The next day Carter is very angry and thinks Gomer deliberately deceived him as revenge for the way Carter has treated him. But Gomer shows up and presents Carter with a rug that he made just for him the whole time he was in Clarise's class. Corporal Boyle tells Carter he must feel very small and then sees that Carter is the size of a small child sitting in an enormous chair. It's the first time reality has been symbolically played with on this show. 

            The editor was played by Tim Herbert, who was the son of Vaudeville comedian and musician Herbert Timberg. He appeared on Broadway in "Follow the Girls" and on TV as the writer of the song "Bopkis" on an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. He appeared as Killer Moth on the unaired pilot of Batman that was meant to introduce Batgirl.