Holding Hands

            On Friday morning I finished my initial translation of the first verse of  “Le régiment des mal-aimés” (The Regiment of the Unloved) by Boris Vian: 

Watch them march by as they parade 

The army of those that don’t get laid 

Beaks in the sea that don’t get wet 

Romeos without a Juliette 

Buckshot in their wings won’t let them fly 

These lovers fallen from the Seventh Sky 

Please step aside the crowd must part 

For the army of the broken heart 

            I finished posting my translation of “L’hymne à l’amour - Moi l’ nœud” (The Hymn to Love – I’m the Node) by Serge Gainsbourg and memorized the first verse of his song “Ballade Comestible” (Edible Ballad).

            I weighed 87.1 kilos before breakfast. 

            I tried to work on my essay, but I got very sleepy and decided to take an early siesta at 11:45. Since I’m not used to going to sleep that early, I woke up feeling confused about the time. 

            I weighed 86.8 kilos before lunch. I had avocados and tomatoes with a glass of Garden Cocktail.

            I took an early bike ride at 14:30. The only snow left on Brock Avenue was where accumulated piles of it had been made by people shoveling their walkways over the winter. All that was left of those were dirty little hills in the middle of some of the lawns. I saw two people at a café table who, from their posture and arm positions looked like they were holding hands of cards and contemplating their next plays, but they were really each holding and looking at smartphones. It was fourteen degrees out and so I didn’t need gloves. People walking around were in a good mood and many were in their shirt sleeves. I didn’t feel overheated with two layers of shirts on, topped by my hoody and my leather jacket. 

            Even though I made sure I urinated before leaving, I started feeling a slight urge to pee even a few blocks after I left home. Once I’d reached Yonge and Bloor and was riding down Yonge, I was torn between stopping at the Rex Hotel on Queen when I got there or holding my bladder to maintain my pride that I could still control it. But I’d been eating a lot of raw fruits and vegetables, which contain water, and I’d also been drinking a lot of tea and juice and water. I decided that I had an abnormal amount of fluid in my bladder and that there was no shame in stopping to pee. So, I stopped at The Rex after all and felt much more comfortable for the rest of the ride home. 

            I weighed 86.3 kilos at 16:00. 

            After posting my blog and reading a few pages of a boring article about Geomodernisms, I felt sleepy again. I went to bed at 19:00, thinking I’d only sleep an hour or less. I woke up after almost half an hour and felt awake enough to get up at 19:30, but I conked out again and didn’t wake up until 20:15. 

            I made a salad with avocados, tomatoes, cucumber, a black jalapeno, and lemon juice. I had dinner while watching an episode of Astro Boy. 

            This story begins with a man walking unchecked into the bedroom of President Zabad of Concord and spraying him with a strange gas. He announces that he is Agent 3Z and that he will soon rule the world. Next, President Pudge of Udopia arrives in the United States with his young son Rion. Pudge is meeting with the US president to negotiate the forming of the United States of the World. They go to a ballet performed in the Fourth Dimension. The dancers appear and disappear, or half appear and sometimes change shape. After the show Pudge learns that his friend Zabad has been attacked. Rion worries it’s the 3Z organization that is behind it. 3Z is against the forming of the USW. Rion chances on some men plotting against his father and he follows them. But he is caught and about to be shot when Astro Boy happens to be nearby and intervenes. Astro Boy tosses Rion in the river to get him out of the line of fire because it’s gas that has been set off. Astro Boy dives into the water and saves Rion. He takes him back to Dr. Elefun and Mr. Pompus. Astro had also taken the thug’s pistol away from him. While Elefun is testing it, Pompus is hit by the gas and begins to behave like an ape and later a child. Elefun concludes that it’s the Primitive Gas used by Agent 3Z. Rion and his father return home but later Rion calls for Astro Boy and tells him that he’s seen his father with Pegleg, one of 3Z’s agents. Astro Boy gives Rion a transmitter to call him if he needs help. Rion confronts his father, but he says he can’t tell him anything. Rion and Pudge are abducted, and Rion uses the transmitter. Astro Boy follows the signal and finds it’s coming from a submarine. He follows it to a headquarters in a cave at the bottom of the ocean. Rion is taken to meet 3Z, who wears a mask but smokes the same cigars as Pudge. Astro Boy arrives and finds that 3Z draws his Primitive gas from subterranean wells. But 3Z’s men have Rion and threaten to harm him if Astro doesn’t climb to an electromagnet, which causes him to collapse. They throw him in the ocean, and he sinks but later recovers. Meanwhile, Pegleg is trying to force Pudge to help them take over his country. When he refuses, he is shot. Astro Boy returns to the base and captures 3Z’s agents. Pudge is in the hospital and 3Z forces his way into the ward at gunpoint, insisting on being taken to Pudge. But when he gets to his room, instead of trying to kill Pudge he is distraught over seeing him injured. Astro Boy arrives and 3Z fires at him, but Astro Boy shoots his jets and blows 3Z’s mask off to reveal that he is the identical twin brother of Pudge. As usual with the villains in these stories, 3Z suddenly realizes he was wrong and becomes good.