Gandhi

            On Friday morning I dreamed of a beautiful song that I was trying to learn but it disappeared when I woke up. 

            On this fourth day of my cold or whatever it is I had the virus seemed to have chosen my throat for its Alamo. During song practice, I was even more hoarse than the day before and singing so out of key that it made me fumble some of the chords I was playing because I couldn't match them to my voice. Only on the second day was I extremely weak. I've been pretty functional during this cold. 

            I uploaded “Amour année zéro” (Love In The Year Zero) by Serge Gainsbourg to Christian's Translations and started positioning the lines and chords to where I've already worked them out to be. I should have it published on the blog tomorrow. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I read some more of Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand. Bakha has been kicked out of the house by his father for neglecting his latrine cleaning duties. He is sadly contemplating his situation when he is accosted by the British leader of the local Salvation Army, trying to convert him. 

            I started reading Modernism and Imperialism by Fredric Jameson. Imperialism used to define the interactions between dominant nations. 

            I weighed 85 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride. The hardest thing about a winter bike ride is getting dressed for it. After squeezing into all those layers I'm so tired and hot that the precarious ride through frozen slush is a relief and a rest. Although the sun had caused some small degree of sweating of the snowbanks the conditions hadn't changed much since yesterday. Everything was still frozen. The snowbanks along Brock Avenue looked like gigantic dirty grey and white sponges ripped from the sea by a hurricane and scattering the shore. Or like mountains of frozen honeycombs of foam. One structure looked like an accidental icy Inuktitut made by the plough. I mostly avoided the Bloor bike lane and just rode along Bloor to Ossington. It was icy on the roads as well and I almost slipped sideways on Ossington. Queen Street was a little better than yesterday but the streetcar tracks are elevated on a concrete mount a few millimeters above the rest of the street and on a frozen day like today if one's bike tires hit that edge wrong one can slip sideways. 

            I weighed 84.8 kilos at 17:00. 

            I read more of Untouchable. Bakha becomes caught up in a stream of people rushing to see Gandhi. Bakha is interested because he's heard that Gandhi wants to elevate the Untouchables. Gandhi gives a speech saying that the untouchables should no longer be shunned, but also that the Untouchables should refuse to eat garbage and Bakha is deeply inspired by the Mahatma's speech. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a slice of roast pork while watching an episode of The Addams Family. 

            In this story, the family is depressed because there has been a long run of blue skies and sunshine. Morticia won't let the children go outside. Fester entertains the kids with dynamite and Mama lets them watch her wrestle the alligator. Morticia and Gomez think Mama and Fester are indulging the children too much. Meanwhile, Morticia and Gomez are planning a trip to the Gulf coast into the eye of the storm of Hurricane Zsa Zsa, but first, they need to hire a governess to take care of the kids. They hire Miss Thud but she can't come until the next day. Mama and Fester are offended that Morticia and Gomez don't trust them to care for the children and so they divide the house by a white line and keep on one side. Miss Thud seems perfect because she is dark and intense and thinks their house is cheerful Mama and Fester leave the house in protest. Morticia and Gomez go to the Last Chance Hotel in the centre of the storm where the proprietor says they are the first customers he's had in two years and the last customers he had two years ago were them. But when they unpack their bag they find it has been mixed up with that of Thud. In her bag, they find vitamins and Mother Goose tales and so they realize they were wrong about her. They rush home only to find that Mama and Fester are in charge and that they've fired Thud and saved the children from her malevolent influence.