Beer with Brian

            On Tuesday I left home at 12:30 and headed east on Queen. I noticed that my chain was on the second gear wheel of my new rim, so I tried to move it back up with the left gear shifter, but the chain came off, so I had to stop and put it on manually. The wheel or the pedaling was not going smoothly though. Something felt like it was catching somewhere although not enough to slow me down. It just felt odd.

            The going was a little more difficult because of the snow, but there wasn’t a lot of it. I signalled left to an SUV two car lengths behind me that I was going to move into the centre lane to go around a car, but it kept on coming, so my wheel got caught in the streetcar track and I had to put my feet down to lift the bike out.

            I was just locking my bike in front of the Black Bull when Brian walked up. We shook hands and he asked me how long I’ve had that bike. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it’s been almost twenty years.

            I had never seen the Black Bull so sparsely occupied. It couldn’t have been the hour, because when Brian and I have met there before it’s usually been at around 13:00. Granted though that we usually meet during patio season and the Black Bull has a very popular patio. Maybe the inside bar is not as big of a draw.

            Brian told me that the music project he’s been working on with his synthesizer and computer is almost done, so he’ll be uploading it soon.

            We talked about OCADU and all our colleagues that have died over the years that we’ve been working there, mostly of old age, a few from sudden health issues and the most recent was two years ago when one of our fellow models went missing and was found weeks later to have committed suicide in the Rosedale Valley ravine.

            I told him about my upcoming June 3^rd, 2017 gig at Linda Stitt’s Words and Music Salon at Vino Rosso at 995 Bay Street, at 13:30. As always, I invited him to collaborate musically on the event. Usually he just turns me down but urges me to not stop asking him. This time he told me he’d consider it.

            We each bought ourselves two drafts but Brian treated me to an order of fries, which was nice. The waitress was a bit aggressive though, swooping in when our glasses were not much more than half empty to ask if we wanted another ad doing so several times. Maybe if the place had been busier she wouldn’t have bugged us so much.

            We talked about Leonard Cohen’s death and his music. I had all of his albums up to The Future, but had to re-find stuff on CD. There were a lot of gaps, so since he died I’ve been downloading. I don’t think much of the music on his Ten New Songs album, though the lyrics are as great as ever. Brian said that he’d heard people say that the songs sounded too much like Sharon Robinson’s music. I said that my impression is that she tried to write music that she thought sounded like Leonard Cohen’s music and so what resulted was a kind of generic Leonard Cohenesque sort of sound, sort of like Hugh Laurie’s Americanesque accent on House.

            Our get together lasted only a couple of hours, but hopefully we’ll hang out again soon. At least we’ll probably see each other sometimes at work.

            After I left Brian, I went book hunting. I rode up Dufferin to St Clair and then east to Ayerego Books. There was just the sweet old owner and his thirty something assistant in the store. They were very helpful but they didn’t have what I was looking for. I rode west to Old Weston Road, where I got off and crossed the street because I thought that was the street that turns into Keele. I had to get back on my bike and ride further west to Weston Road and then south on Keele. That street is always jammed and it’s especially scary to be jammed up under the railroad bridge. I turned right on Dundas and stopped at Pandemonium. The guy behind the counter showed me the poetry section and then went back to listening to Joe Jackson. Their poetry section is actually pretty good, so it was just chance that none of the books that I wanted were on the shelves. One of my professor’s books was on display but I couldn’t afford it.

The Junction is the only area where I’ve seen a Dollarama surrounded by upscale stores. I continued west to Dencan Books. There was no one in the room when I walked in but he came up from below. I really needed to pee but he said they didn’t have a washroom. Of course that meant they didn’t have a public washroom. There was a Tim Hortons a block away but the bookstore would be closing in fifteen minutes, so I held it and thankfully they have a very small poetry section.

I rode east a couple of blocks to Starbucks and relieved myself. There are moments when urinating feels like a life changing experience and that was one of them, though of course it only felt that way.

So that was the end of my second hand book searches. I think I’ll have to look for the rest of the books at first hand stores. I assume the U of T Bookstore has all of the ones I need, but I might try Chapters.

I stopped at No Frills at Dundas and Lansdowne where I bought bananas, cinnamon-raisin bread, skim milk, zero fat yogourt and a pork tenderloin. The cashier was perky and friendly.

I ate a bowl and a half of a soup I’d made from chicken broth, onions, ground turkey, potatoes, carrots and yams. I watched an episode of Johnny Ringo and then fell asleep on the couch for over an hour. I went to bed almost an hour early.

            

Little Ronnie Howard

            On Monday morning, after the ploughs had pushed most of our first little snowstorm off of Queen Street, there was one big round boulder of snow in between the two sets of streetcar tracks. It had been nudged off the road by the next pass of the plough by the time I’d finished yoga. The streets look so beautiful just after a snowstorm but disgustingly dirty and brown after they’ve been “cleaned” by the city, with the long banks on each side looking like a tainted mottled mess of filthy, dead and cold cancer tumors and the streets themselves suddenly darker with puddles in their gutters that are a hell of grey slush and I pity the inmates that walk through them.

            I’m feeling fat these days. I probably eat less and exercise more than ever but I guess my metabolism is slowing down, so I’ll have to make some adjustments in my diet again.

            I had the most relaxed day that I’ve had in months. I’m caught up with my journal for the first time since June, so I was able to work on a poem; I read some of Michael Ondaatje’s “The Complete Works of Billy the Kid”; I started to organize my library and to make a document that lists my books in order; I changed a couple of guitar strings and now my guitar sounds brilliant (I wonder if it will ever sink in that I should do that more often) and I worked on the cover that will never be done for my book that’s been done for years.

            I watched an episode of Johnny Ringo that guest starred little Ronnie Howard at the age of five. That was his first year on television and he’s been in the business every since. He must have really had good parents because he doesn’t seem like it fucked him up very much.

Johnny Ringo

            On Sunday I spent most of the day getting caught up on my journal, while the first big snowfall of the season hit Toronto. I was glad I had no place to go because I did not relish riding my bike on those streets. I don’t really have to go anywhere till Tuesday when I’m meeting my friend Brian at the Black Bull for what tends to be an annual beer. Hopefully the roads will have cleared up by then.

            I watched two episodes of the 50s western show, Johnny Ringo, starring Don Durant and produced by Aaron Spelling. There was nothing special about the series, though it wasn’t any worse than Gunsmoke. The show borrowed the name and area of operation of a real life outlaw and sometimes lawman (though probably mercenary is a better word) of the old west but turned him into a squeaky clean hero. The show was cancelled at the request of the sponsor, Johnson’s Wax, not because it wasn’t doing well but because there were thirty westerns on TV at the time and they thought that to sponsor a comedy would set them apart. Don Durant wrote the theme song and probably sang it as well, but that was nothing special either. Durant went on to make millions in real estate.

            

A Visit from the Hamstones of Hamilrock

At Bike Pirates on Saturday afternoon there were plenty of stands free, unlike in the summer when coming there at fifteen minutes after opening time might mean a two-hour wait. The volunteer advised me that my wobble was probably being caused by a loose axel, so he set me on doing that, but I had to remove the axel first and clean it up. While yanking the rim counterclockwise with the axel in the vice to get it off, my hand slipped and skinned my knuckle twice in the same place on the spokes to the point were it was bleeding slightly but the blood wasn’t flowing out. He noticed that one of the dustcovers for a nut on my axel was warn and so he advised me to find a replacement for it in a big bin. I dumped the bin out on a table, but couldn’t find a match. Dennis came along and told me that I needed to separate the dust cover from the nut so he took a mallet to it. I looked through the bin again and ended up accidentally tossing my original nut into the pile. My volunteer returned from going out for a while and said Dennis shouldn’t have separated the two items. I was totally confused as to what I should do. I went to ask for advice from my volunteer, who was helping out someone else near the vice where my rim was standing. I looked at my rim and noticed that a couple of spokes were loose and one was broken. I realized suddenly that was the reason my wheel had been wobbling and that I had just wasted more than three hours fiddling around with the axel when what I’d really needed in the first place was a new rim. I told this to my volunteer but he wasn’t fazed at all that he’d made a diagnostic error. He just immediately went downstairs to look for a rim for me. The one he gave me had a quick release, which worried me a bit, since I didn’t want to have it stolen, but he said I could just chain my wheel with the rest of the bike when I lock it. I bought some new back brake pads because the old ones were too worn and from this point on it didn’t take too long to get everything fixed up.

I went to take a test drive in the back alley, but I saw that my back tire was rubbing against the left side of the frame. I showed it to a volunteer who’d just arrived and who has this manner about him that some bike experts have that says, “If you don’t already know how to do the basics of bike repair you are an idiot!” He just said, “You didn’t put the wheel on right.” So he fixed it. I said, “So I should have …” He said, “You should have put the wheel on right.”

The pads were five dollars and the rim, being second hand, was “pay what you want”, so I gave the shop $20.00. It was kind of frustrating to waste three hours trying to repair part of something the main part of which was non-reparable based on a volunteer’s advice, but the heaven and hell of Bike Pirates is that one gets help that eventually helps one get one’s bike fixed despite frequently receiving wrong advice before it’s fixed. 

When I got home I noticed an email from Nick Cushing Hamstone that had been sent an hour before, telling me that he was leaving Hamrock right then for Toronto along with his brother, Bruce March Hamstone. I had my phone on vibrate and I’d expected to hear it when he called, but a few minutes later there was a loud knock on my apartment door. It was Nick, who my next-door neighbour had let into the building. Before Nick sat down he got a call from Bruce, who he’d dropped off at Tim Hortons to get a tea and who was then downstairs, so I went down to let him in (I’ve been wondering for years why Tim Hortons is not Tim Horton’s. It turns out that it keeps them from having to change their signs in Quebec, where the French language does not use a possessive apostrophe for names). Before sitting down, Bruce offered to go out to buy Nick and I a couple of Christmas beers, so he went out and came back with two cans each of Creemore Lager for us.

We chatted for an hour or so and then Nick decided he needed to go out to Fullworth’s to get curry sauce to take back to Hamilrock. Bruce and I talked for the at least half an hour that Nick had gone one minute up the street. He came back with a bag of spicy items for his Hamilrock kitchen, such as curry sauce, masala, pickled chilies and a bag of salt and vinegar fries to share, made of corn meal and potato granules, baked and shaped like French fries. We chatted for at least another hour, and then Nick had to drive Bruce to the Frequency Zed studio to pick up the band’s equipment for their gig that night at Tiger Bar on College.

It’s always nice to have a visit from the Hamstone brothers from Hamilrock. 

Frozen Line-up for Frozen Turkeys

            Before even turning my bike into the driveway behind the Parkdale Food Bank on Saturday I was hit by a wall of sound. The guy with the little green flying saucer shaped portable sound system hanging from his belt was blasting ACDC. He had a self-satisfied look on his face, I assume because the volume of the music enabled him to touch everyone there. It’s not like I object to ACDC being played, but cranked up that high where people are trapped, waiting for something is way too imposing, and though it’s not as bad as second hand smoke, the guy was also smoking.

            I found out that I was behind a shy young, bespectacled woman in a black toque who was behind him. I moved deeper into the driveway to avoid the smoke and the noise, but the smoke this time was blowing away from the music too. The same group of Caribbean women were sitting by the door, along with the group of smokers that enjoy talking with them.

            It’s funny (or sad) when smokers ask people, “Is my smoking bother you?” and then think it’s alright if the person answers, “No.” If you liked to put a little rat poison in your coffee every time you made it because strychnine serves as an extra stimulant along with the caffeine, would you put it in a guest’s coffee if they said it was okay?

            The group by the door was discussing Mick Jagger’s most recent foray into fatherhood. The constantly smoking man with the big white moustache and the big belly, who kind of looked like Wilfred Brimley, had all the info. That Jagger’s oldest child is 46 and now he has a brand new one at the age of 73. The big Jamaican woman commented, “And he doesn’t look too bad!” Moustache said, “You know who else looks great for her age? Jane Fonda! 79 years old! And Dolly Parton looks good too!”

            It was a cold morning. A woman banged on the food bank door and shouted, “We’re freezing our asses off out here! When is the coffee going to be ready?” One of the volunteers came to the door to address the crowd. He said, “I know you guys like to congregate here before the doors open, but …” What? Yeah, it’s just a fun habit we have, because this driveway is such a pleasant gathering place for aficionados of first and second hand smoke. He went on to explain that he was busy preparing everybody’s turkey or ham vouchers and he wouldn’t get anything done with people walking in and out to get coffee. There were a few more things said until he announced that coffee would be ready in five minutes.

            After ten or fifteen minutes there was still no coffee. A guy went and banged on the door. A woman sitting by the door warned him that the volunteers would just get pissed off if he bugged them and then would take longer. He started to go to the front of the driveway, but she called to him, “Don’t bang on the door and then walk away!” So he went back to the door and then suddenly it opened, so he got to go in to get a coffee. This pissed off the woman that had yelled at him because the coffee line-up should follow the order of the number line-up.

            I was trying to read Michael Ondaatje’s “The Complete Works of Billy the Kid” but I only got through a few poems against the distractions and the cold.

            At around 10:30 I stepped into the line-up behind the woman in the black toque but she turned and said I could go ahead of her. I was puzzled and asked why. She just explained that she wasn’t in that much of a hurry and stepped behind me. Maybe I either smell bad from the front or look good from the back.

            There was a line-up running parallel to the one I was in, but I was assured by ACDC guy that the guy in front of that line knew that he was behind me.

            They were supposed to start letting people in to get numbers at 10:30 but they didn’t do so this time until 10:45. I shared with ACDC guy my idea about the food bank hooking a clipboard to the door so that people could put their places in line in writing. He suggested that it made too much sense to work, because then somebody would have to be in charge of the clipboard and also they’d have to get a clipboard out of the Smithsonian.

            I discussed with ACDC guy and the short, bearded guy in the motorcycle jacket who was in front of the other line, how the Parkdale Food Bank is the only one in Toronto that has this two-stage system of getting a number and later getting food. Apparently every other food bank just gives you food after you pass the desk and there’s none of this coming back to wait all over again.

            I guess it was because this was a turkey day that the line-up went to the end of the driveway and then turned to stretch up Cowan towards Queen.

            As I got closer to the door, the big volunteer with the prematurely white hair came out for a smoke. He was talking about there having been a lot of fraud among people getting turkeys on the previous year, with individuals sometimes getting four turkeys with four different names. He claimed that Parkdale is the only food bank in Toronto giving out turkeys for Christmas. I can’t find any proof that’s true and it seems implausible. He also claimed that since it’s volunteer run, if the volunteers were pissed off they could all just shut down and go home and nobody could do anything about it. I think the board of directors could probably do something about it. There are benefits to being a food bank volunteer that they would lose if they were let go. For one thing they don’t have to line up in the cold for their food.

            Even though it was freezing outside the doorkeeper was only letting in one client at a time in whenever someone walked out with a number. There is room for at last five people to stand inside in a small line-up in front of the reception desks. When I was the first person in line he actually commented to me, “Cold, eh?”

            It was already 11:00 when I got number 24. There was barely enough time to go home, but I had to pee anyway, so I walked my bike out of the driveway and around the back of the line-up to ride home for a few minutes.

            When I got back, the line-up for numbers was still just as long, but there were also people in the same line just waiting for a turkey.

            When I got in, some clients were complaining about someone with number 76 who’d managed to jump the line and get served ahead of everyone else.

            A new volunteer called number 28. I told him I had 24 so he served me.

            There always are so many odd items at the top of the first shelf. I just took a can of jalapenos. He gave me a couple of handfuls of those chocolate hockey pucks they seem to have an infinite supply of, then he asked, “Are you good?” I said that I’d rather have the granola bars to the left of the chocolates and so he gave me a few of the Nature Valley Sweet and Salty bars as well. I skipped the pasta, rice, sauce and canned beans, but further in there was real peanut butter so I took that and a can of tuna. My volunteer’s catch phrase before we left each set of shelves was, “Are you good?”

            He gave me a couple of small bottles of Oransoda, which is an imported Italian soft drink and so there is nothing written in English at all. It turns out that it’s now made by Campari, which makes mainly alcoholic beverages. Oransoda has been around since 1940. It’s type of beverage is aranciata, which is similar to Orangina.

            The cereal section had lots of Chex, but I saw far in the back a lonely, large but broken box of Cheerios, so I asked for that. Only the cardboard was broken so I took the bag that was inside.

            Across the aisle, Angie had a half-liter carton of 2% milk, a small frozen Pillsbury pizza and in a bin with turkeys and hams for those with vouchers were also a choice between packages of frozen bologna and ground turkey. I took the ground turkey. I guess that since the turkeys are only available until December 23^rd, I’d better bring my voucher in next Saturday. The food bank might not even be open on Saturday the 24^th.

            I asked the bread lady for the small loaf of whole grain that was on the upper shelf. She said I could take one more thing, so I took a bag of English muffins.

            I took a green pepper from the bin in front of the vegetable lady. She was about to give me two packages of stuffing but then asked if I had my turkey. Since I didn’t have a turkey she took the stuffing back. She dumped a whole bunch of carrots into my bag, a couple each of sweet potatoes and zucchini. Then she took two handfuls of potatoes and for some reason tossed them toward my bag, some of them missing and hitting the floor. She told me she’d pick them up and got a few more to place in my bag.

            As soon as I got home and placed the perishables away, I took off my motorcycle jacket so it wouldn’t get greasy and immediately took my bicycle up the street to Bike Pirates to repair the wobble in my back tire and to fix my back brakes. I expected to be there for at least three hours, so it was going to be a busy Saturday. 

Fake Charity

           Back at the end of October I bought two pairs of pants from Value Village. Within a few weeks the black Wranglers had small rips just below the groin area at the inside back of the thigh. A little later I noticed that the dress pants were getting visibly worn in that same area too. Either it’s a coincidence or there’s some kind of abrasion happening from my bicycle seat. The thing is though that none of my older pants are frayed in the same area. On Thursday when I was squatting to look at the lower shelves in bookstores, the rip in my Wranglers got bigger and bigger. By the time I got home they were garbage.  That dictated that my main project for Friday was to find another pair of pants.

            A little after noon I road up Lansdowne Avenue. The construction that had been going on for several months was finally over and so it was finally clear south of Dundas.

            There’s something really skuzzy about Value Village as a business because people donate clothes and other items with the idea that they are giving to a charity. Value Village, also known as Savers does give some of their money to charities but they make $2.55 for every dollar that they give. So though covering as a charity they get a 155% mark-up. Clothing that doesn’t get sold in Canada gets shipped overseas, usually to Africa. This sounds good until you find out that second hand clothing from North America undercuts local clothing manufacturers, thereby putting people in developing countries out of work. Apparently 60% of the clothing worn in Africa is second hand from North America.

            The store’s selection of men’s’ pants seemed to have thinned down since I’d been there last. I picked out six pairs and tried them on but none of them fit, so I headed to the other side of Lansdowne. The store where I got my motorcycle jacket didn’t have any black jeans big enough for me, so I went further east to the Salvation Army thrift store. I took four pairs of dress pants to the change room and the very first pair I tried on fit perfectly, the others didn’t. The guy behind the counter was asking each customer if they wanted to donate to their Christmas drive. When he asked me I answered, “No. I shop here because I’m poor.” The Jamaican woman behind me started laughing, and the cashier said, “That’s the first time anybody’s answered that way, but it’s true!” When I turned to leave, the Jamaican woman exclaimed while patting me on the shoulder several times, “I love that! I love that! Merry Christmas!”

            I had hoped in my search to find two pairs that fit, so I’ll check out the other Salvation Army store in my neighbourhood sometime soon.

            

Last Sit in Mirvish Village

            The last couple of mornings I’ve woken up later than usual. On Wednesday it was 5:22 and on Thursday 5:17. I seem to recall though that the same thing happened last spring after my university term ended. It’s not like I felt exhausted but it’s possible that on a psychological level I’m loosening my grip in relief.

            On Thursday morning I had my last job of the year, which was my last gig ever with the ladies of Studio 1181, which was their last session with any model, at least in that incarnation of the group. I told them that I was honoured to be their last model and they said that I’d been their choice.

            When I’d worked the there on the previous Tuesday, Helen had asked me to email her some of my poems, which I did the next day. When she arrived at the studio, she commented about my poetry, “Very interesting! You’re as neurotic as any Jew!” I said, “Maybe that can be my epitaph: ‘He was as neurotic as any Jew.’” I told her that my Jewish friends would get a kick out of that one. She said, “I’m surprised that no one has told you that before!” I pointed out that all poets are neurotic. A member whose name I don’t know, but who looks like my late Aunt Alice, opined that all North Americans are neurotic. I agreed that certainly compared to Europeans they are. She added that Australians aren’t neurotic either.

            When I sat down to have coffee with them, I noticed that there was a sign on the table saying, “Do not move this table”, and it suddenly occurred to me that the studio is full of signs like that. I mentioned my observation and the one that looks like Aunt Alice told me that they have a member that was not currently at the table who loves to post signs. That reminded me of an ex girlfriend who used to post messages to herself all over her apartment, especially on her bathroom mirror. “Alice” asked, “Did it work?” I answered, “I don’t think so. She was very neurotic!” That reminded me further of Al Frankin’s character, Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live and his Daily Affirmations that, “I’m gonna do a great show today, because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” Jane said that she voted for Al Franken when he ran for the senate.

            When I’d finished posing I took some pictures of a few of the portraits by a couple of the members. When I told one of them that I might post the images on Facebook, she said it would be okay but not to post her name.

            Jane told me again, as she’d mentioned a few months ago that she would like to hire me privately some time to pose for a painting.

            Since I was downtown already and had some money in my pocket, I wanted to browse through all the downtown second-hand bookstores to see if I could find any of the books that I need for the second half of my Canadian Poetry course, starting in January. I already had in digital format Michael Ondaatje’s “The Complete Works of Billy the Kid” and Ann Carson’s “The Autobiography of Red”, but they wouldn’t work for in-class study because there’s no place to plug in my laptop in that particular classroom at University College.

            I went a little west on Bloor to Doug Miller Books, but it was a short visit. The guy told me that poetry people don’t sell their books because unlike fiction, one reads them again and again. I then went to BMV, between Brunswick and Spadina, where I did manage to pick up a slightly bent edition of Ondaatje’s Billy the Kid book. I think that’s the one book that was on the shelves of just about every bookstore I went to that day.

            Next I turned right and went a few blocks south on Spadina to overstuffed “Ten Editions” bookstore where the shelves go so high that there are ladders throughout the store so you can reach any books by authors whose last names start with the first five letters of the alphabet. The poetry in that store is in a back room with two aluminum ladders to fiddle with in narrow corridors with an uneven floor. I think that I found books by almost every single poet that we studied in the “70 Canadian Poets” anthology this fall. There were also lots of rare books of poems at reasonable prices that I might have picked up if I’d had the money.

            There was a couple there browsing that seemed to be in the business of buying books to resell. He seemed far more experienced than she in the business. She mentioned having found a book written by a famous Canadian political figure from the past but he told her that it’s surprisingly hard to sell even books written by early Canadian prime ministers. He said that books by US presidents are easy to sell.

            I didn’t find any of the books I was looking for, but I couldn’t resist purchasing a copy of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “A Coney Island of the Mind”, which brings back fond memories of my late friend Mike, who introduced me to the book in Vancouver back in 1979. I used to stand on the street and shout out some of the “Oral Messages” in the book, like “I Am Waiting”, “Junkman’s Obbligato”, “Autobiography”, “Christ Climbed Down”, “The Long Street”, “Meet Miss Subways” and my favourite, “Dog”” “The dog trots freely in the street and sees reality and the things he sees are bigger than himself and the things he sees are his reality, drunks in doorways, moons on trees. The dog trots freely thru the street and the things he sees are smaller than himself, fish on newsprint, ants in holes, chickens in Chinatown windows, their heads a block away …”

The quirky little old woman that owns the store was oblivious to me as she unpacked a cardboard box of books and stuffed them onto a shelf. I finally asked, “Can I buy this book?” She answered, “That’s what they’re on the shelves for!” She didn’t even go back behind the counter; since I had the exact $6.50 that the book cost, she just took it and gave me the book.

It was getting pretty cold and windy as I rode back up to Bloor and went a few blocks east to Willow Books, on the main floor of where Rochdale College used to be. The bearded, balded and indifferent guy behind the counter directed me to the poetry. Again, here were plenty of books by the poets we covered this autumn, but nothing that I needed for the winter and spring. He had the sound system tuned to Radio Canada though, and there was a show on that was playing a lot of the Quebecois music from the 70s that I used to hear on the radio when I lived in Montreal.

I rode to Yonge and south to ABC Books, but there was not much there. Further south, at Eliots, there was a larger selection of Canadian poetry, and so I spent quite a bit of time looking, but didn’t find anything I needed.

I turned right on College and rode west to “She Said Boom”, which is a very clean and organized store with a good selection and the woman behind the counter was playing some rare Surf music, but they didn’t have what I wanted.

My last stop on College on the way home was Sellers and Newel in Little Italy. Again, they have a pretty good selection, though their prices are quite a bit higher than “Ten Editions”. I found Anne Carson’s “Autobiography of Red” for $8.00. So after going through eight bookstores, over four and a half hours, I only ended up only with hard copies of the two books that I already have on my computer.

I stopped at Freshco to buy a few things on my way home.  I bought grapes, cinnamon-raisin bread, some chicken drumsticks that were on sale, some frozen French fries and some yogourt. I had also picked up six rolls of Sponge Towels for $4.99, but when I got to the cash, I didn’t have them. I must have put them down when getting something else. After purchasing my items I went back into the store to find the towels but I think one of the shelf stockers must have found it and put it back, so I got another package. The woman in front of me at the express checkout confused the cashier when she split her groceries into three parts and paid for each part separately.

I walked to my bike past a guy that seemed to be having a problem unlocking his, while his girlfriend was standing patiently nearby. When I got to my bike I saw that while I’d been inside, someone had stolen the red flasher that Nick Cushing had given me for my birthday earlier this year. I looked over at the guy trying to unlock the bike and saw that he was hitting it with something, while his girlfriend urged him not to get excited. When he moved to another bike I started to get a strong suspicion as to what happened to my flasher. He walked away in frustration. I think that there’s a strong possibility that he wanted to get a bike to sell for a fix.

When I got home I took my groceries upstairs and then went immediately over to the Dollarama to see if they had bike flashers, but they didn’t. I dug up one of my old red flashers and then went out to buy two CR2032 batteries to power it. That cost me seven dollars and change. Then I wired and electrical-taped it to the back of my bike.

            That night we had our first snow that stuck to the ground. Later I heard a whumping noise and some people exclaim, Whoah!” I looked and saw that a guy riding a small motorbike had wiped out as he was passing the entrance to the Dollarama parking lot. The salt trucks never seem to come out until after the first snow and never before.