Coming Up

I've been a bit down this weekend. Haven't felt much like blogging.

However, I am having the back-skull tingle of a new story. It's a bit of a problem because I don't really know how to go about writing stories any more. It's been over a decade since the last time I wrote fiction. And I was bad at it. My stories made no sense. So I stopped.

Anyway, this latest thing started with a guy who teaches at a school near here, got rolling with an email that one of my mom's friends sent her, and every once in a while, someone will say something that sets that tingle a-tingling. It's weird, a very physical sensation. As soon as I can, I pull out my little moleskin notebook (one of the three notebooks I have on me at nearly all times) and jot it down. We'll see if the jots ever turn into anything.

Went for dinner with Adam and Jennifer on Saturday night and had a great time. Then met up with Liz and Matt for drinks at the Aloha. Liz is working at a museum in Kingston, and just finished cataloguing this crazy cabinet full of glass disks used to generate, well, I forget. It has to do with x-rays, I think. But it's not actually x-rays. You'll have to forgive me: the first time she told me about it, I was drunk so I forget the details; the second time, it was loud so I didn't hear all the details. I must pin her down in a quiet place with no alcohol and get the details again.

Also coming up: haircut! birthday dinner for steve! yoga! bellabombs fuckingmachines mufflercrunch! yeah!

And on the 25th, I start my bass lessons. Very exciting. Speaking of which, one of the things I did this weekend, after I discovered that January is a Blessed Three-Pay Month, was go buy a very tiny and pretty cheap practice amp, so I only have to lug the behemoth down Misse's steep and slippery stairs one more time.

I have a propensity for falling down stairs. So much so that my parents actually put grippy tape on the stairs to their basement in their Stouffville house. I kept ending up in a heap at the bottom. It happened all the time in the Ballantrae house, too, but the stairs were already carpeted. With white carpet, which my dad had a bug up his arse about. There's no way he would have put grippy tape on that carpet for anything. We did have plastic runners on the carpet for a while, but they got all yellowed and gross. I kind of missed the plastic runners when they were gone; I always did like to lift them up and press my fingers into the little spikes.

Anyway.

The last spectacular fall was here in Ottawa, on the stairs of the Big House on Preston St. I had nothing in my hands, there was nothing on the stairs but carpet. And out went my feet from under me. No good reason.

Falling down the stairs fucking hurts. And it's not even the falling. If I didn't instinctually grab for the wall and railing, I'd probably just end up in a slightly bruised heap six or seven stairs down from where I started. But instincts are hard to beat, and so I grab for the wall, grab for the railing, and the inertia of my body pulls against the muscle and tendon holding on, and two days later it feels like someone laid me out flat and tried to tenderize me. I always end up walking around for a week like a wizened old man, wincing when anyone touches me anywhere.

The last time I fell down the stairs even a little was when I was living with my ex in the Small House on Preston St.

There may be bats here, but no more falling.