Good Days (eh?)

This is really for me and is unlikely to interest any of you Gentle Readers.

But I'll keep it public anyway, since I'm that kind of bear.

Wednesday was good. Work was relatively slow, with charming dead-times between calls. Once home, I attempted to email Vern and Helen with the dates for the tickets I scored for Ronnie Burkett's Providence (which I can't wait to see.

Sympatico, bless its efficient, corporate heart, told me I had Helen's email address wrong. I tried a number of possible permutations, none of which worked.

Called Vern. Literally as he answered his phone, I found Helen's address. No matter. I would have called Vern anyway. As Wednesday is my Friday, I wanted to go out in any case, nevermind that I had not yet admitted that determination.

So. Drank some beers and had some talk with Vern. I bragged that I would have a letter in Thursday or Friday's Globe.

Wrong again, Young Geoffrey.

Thursday, was for me.

I smoked a bowl around 11:00 and hopped a streetcar for Queen and Peter - the Paramount. You know, I like that theatre. Sure, it's garish, and will no doubt look hideously dated a decade hence, but I like it. It has a feel of the starship Enterprise, all flashing lights and glass, but with a soft carpet like some giant suburban rec-room.

Saw The Return of the King.

You know, Peter Jackson's done a pretty good job. As a story, as a text, it doesn't hold a candle to the text, but it looks magnificent. Some of the shots from the upper reaches of Minis Tirith nearly gave me virtigo; Mordor was an appropriately blasted desert of stone and lava. As a companion to the book - a photo-album, if you will - it works very well. And I even managed a few tears at the end, nevermind the fact most of them were due to my memories of Tolkien's words, rather than Jackson's adaptation.

Today?

Well, today was productive.

I (finally) called Revenue Canada and put in an order for 5 of the last 10 years of tax-guides. Within 1 to 3 business weeks, I'll be filing my back taxes for the past decade.

I worked out - sits-ups, push-ups, hefted dumb-bells.

Caught up on my correspondence, and saved and printed the last month and a half of email.

Then hied myself off to Rhino's, where I admired (but, sadly, didn't actively flirt, with their most magnificent waitress). More importantly, I wrote over a thousand words in the dim, smoke-shrouded light.

By god! my friends, it isn't that hard!

Walking to my bike afterwards, a gutless wonder of a thug, apologized for almost running into me on the sidewalk. I shrugged it off but managed - okay: I MANAGED - to stay in his path.

"Make up your mind!" he said.

I turned, and realized he was a lot bigger than I am. But I persevered.

"Get off the sidewalk," I said.

"I'd like to see you riding on the street," quoth our young thug.

To which I was happy to reply, baring the front and rear lights already in my hand, "I'm just going to unlock mine now!"

He rode past me as I bent to unlock my bike, while I was torn between pride at showing him up, yet angry that I hadn't had the nerve (or was I too civilized?) to clock him one.

Incidentally, I have to put my cat on a diet. He's a big boy, but I think 14 pounds is a little over his fighting weight.

That is all.