Brought to you by Jolt Cola, with
the buzzing and mild irritation of
caffeine induced paranoia.
In my adventures this weekend I've also been keeping a dutiful eye upon Molly and Chachi, the naughty yet precious ferrets belonging to my excellent friend Charlotte. On Friday she traveled onwards to a distant campground with her boyfriend, who has been up in Waterloo for summer courses, such as to take advantage of this gloriously hot long weekend (mind you, "gloriously hot" is a coupling of words I use with the highest possible amounts of irony and contempt... through some fluke of wiring, every baseboard heater in our house remains active, and my room has two of them, so last night was the most unbearably sweaty night I've ever spent, completely unable to sleep.) with a 1 1/2 man tent and a 1 1/2 man sleeping bag. Cozy. So, every day I'm over at her swanky apartment, playing with two of the cutest monsters in this great green earth. In spite of the fact that they're ferrets, which means they're a random and chaotic destructive force all unto their own, they're sweet and playful and brilliant. Broken and I took them for a walk yesterday evening, and we fell into the classic "walking small cute animals" role, where we were accosted by everyone in the park, anxious to find out what they were, and whether they were friendly or not, and so on. I'm definitely getting a firmer resolution of the reality of owning one, and it's making me think that I should wait until I'm really settled into the new place before I look into buying one to call my own. I want to be sure that everything is disaster-proofed (if it isn't slammed shut, locked, and welded, it's practically an invitation to them.. last night I turned my back on them for just a minute and they'd somehow managed to open the fridge, and were rustling through a bag of their food) and that I'm financially set to take care of creatures every day for the next seven odd years of their average lifespan.
It isn't that I wasn't aware of the responsibility involved, or that suddenly it seems to much for me... rather, I just need to be sure that I have lots and lots of time on my hands before I commit to such a bipolar, high-maintenance pet. Molly and Chachi are great because they have each other to play with, and thus get into about half the trouble of a ferret left all to its own, and need half the stimulation. They're still great fun to play with, but when you're absolutely exhausted after a long day, and you just can't throw the little green rubber ball across the apartment any more, they'll scamper off together and spend hours and hors wrestling. Still, I should have a nice big room to house one in, once I do decide to bring one of the little rascals into my life.
The catch is, I've got to go look after them right now, so I'll have to write more later. Don't worry -- Monday's a holiday... I'll have plenty of time to write.
Lilith told me that in September she's moving to Montreal (for you non-Canadians, Montreal is in the province of Quebec, just east of Ontario where I presently write you from. I could throw a burning paper airplane to Quebec from Ottawa and have it last just long enough to sail over the Ottawa river and set our sister city ablaze, because we're right at the border to Hull, which is a dirty dirty city which exists as essentially a gigantic dance club/bar strip where high school kids venture to drink because you only need to be eighteen in Quebec. In any case, Montreal is an old, beautiful city with a thriving English population and more universities than you can shake a stick at...) to begin her university studies. To my swelling pride she's been accepted into the dance program there, as one of only twenty people selected for the privilege. In the meantime she's working in a bar and hoarding up as much money as she can, having finished high school in January. I told her just a bit about my year... so very much has happened to me that I wouldn't know what to say first. I just told her that I was writing her a letter (eight pages and counting), which I'd mail as soon as I had the time to finish it. If nothing else, Lilith has always liked getting letters from me, and she just told me to finish it before I had a letter so big I couldn't afford the postage (because I'm including a copy of a magazine I was published in, the current tally is three dollars and seventy cents). It was pretty much at this point that another of her long-lost friends arrived (she said something to this affect... "It's 'people from my past' day!"), so she talked to her and I just stood around with Pixiegirl, my only companion, looking awkward.
Her parents arrived about a minute later and she, her brother and her dance class partner climbed inside the car. I was secretly hoping for a hug, I was (at least) only secretly disappointed. It meant a great deal just to see her again however it went, and though we had a pleasant little chat, it must be said that I feel kind of dismayed and unhappy about the experience -- in particular because it didn't last longer, and because I don't know when I'll see her again. I shall at least attempt to rekindle our friendship... we do talk on the phone from time to time, but I haven't honestly tried calling since Christmas. Once I've mailed this letter to her, I'll try to usurp some of her time. And heck, while I'm at it, I'll talk about that in her letter, as well. I'm not entirely certain how to finish her letter, which is why it goes on. I have practically a year's worth of bottled-up things to say to her, and a number of unresolved issues as well. If I start talking about the hurt feelings and abandonment I still feel it will give what's intended to be a happy and good letter a decidedly sour flavour, and I think it's probably better leaving the complaints department behind, even if (I'm sure) she still has similar issues and problems to work out with me of her own.
I really wanted to say something about the house here, but I'm still not ready to. I'm not even superstitious, but there's been a running trend of me getting terribly excited about really great apartments over the past year, and then having it all collapse like a house of adult playing cards (that is, knocked over and scooped up by a big, hairy, sweaty individual of dubious intentions) before my weepy eyes. I do think we have it though, but I'm not ready to celebrate until I have confirmation. You see, Pixiegirl and I have been the only people they bothered to call at all this past week, and this is because, I assume, we have income and no co-signers (Kincaid and Ben fit under that nebulous category of "students," having reasonably wealthy parents to sign for them), and our soures of revenue (my job and her welfare). In any case, Pixiegirl received a message on Thursday from Commvesco stating that she'd been accepted and they wanted to make an appointment with her to sign a lease. However, not a single other one of us has heard from them, be that a yea or nay. And because we all have money ($1300) deposited, they're required by law to give it back if our application is refused, so they'd need to get ahold of us again in any case. So what I'm assuming is that because on our forms we've all given the same address, and I made a note on each form that we were renting the house together, that they just figured getting ahold of one of us is the same as getting ahold of all of us. And because this was all done through phone tag, Pixiegirl never got a chance to get any questions answered, such as "what about my roommates -- the people who are supposed to rent this place with me?" Sadly, this is the Victoria Day long weekend (I didn't know this... I'm ignorant of the fast paced world around me, and it was only because I've done stuff like this before that both of my shared bosses said to me, "Rob, you are aware that Monday is a holiday don't you? Don't come to work!" because I have this crazy good work ethic. They must think I'm a loser with no life, but they keep hiring me and paying me huge sums of money ($10.85 an hour to click a mouse on a Pentium 200MMX with 128 megabytes of RAM, thank you very much) so I'm not sure if dispelling the illusion would help or not...) and but for the fact that it's a long weekend which isn't a bad thing, we won't know our fate until at least Tuesday, and time is running out.
We'll be in a great spot if it happens though. Caira won't be living far away at all, which means that you'll probably have much more regular Snivels, because while I love Caira dearly, I'm also afraid of her.
In any case, the second I know for sure , I'll update you on the house.
Once we get it.
In some ways my life is excessively like a sit-com. Which is to say, from some perspectives, it's kind of funny. Such perspectives not being mine. Ironically, I was so exuberant and confident and smug that I was actually heard to remark to Pixiegirl something almost exactly like "You know, I'm so happy that I don't think there's a single thing that could possibly get in the way of my great mood tonight!" which, were my life a television show, would be an utterance made just before I walked crunchily into a telephone pole. And even though my life isn't filmed before a live studio audience, there sure were a lot of people watching when I managed to perfectly set myself up with that one innocent, if cocky, little remark.
Because it was then I ran into Lilith.
Lilith. A person I haven't seen in a year, since our horrible breakup and the messy fights which caused it. Someone I used to love with my entire life, and who used to love me.
And when I get home, I'll tell you how it went.