I'm at home (Toronto). Actually, I've been here on-and-off for some time, but my visits have been more like 10 day stopovers in between Cuba (September 1 to 24) and my road trip out East (October 12 to November 12). So that's why it seems like I've fallen off the map (being in Cuba's sorta like falling off the map, not to mention Moncton).
It's starting to get pretty cold here, but that's fine cuz I'm making some money snow-shoveling with Crazy Jon—more on him later—and raking-up leaves in Forest Hill. Apart from driving a pickup truck around with an illegal Mexican, a fallen woman whose rich Jewish dentist husband screwed her out of her million dollar house, and other occasionally-employed types, I just got a “real” job! By real, I mean that you show up regularly, at an agreed-upon time, for a set wage, and there’s no crazy guy throwing garbage cans at your head one minute and offering you a joint the next, and not receiving calls at 3 in the morning from a guy who starts the conversation off with: “so it’s going to snow…” That’s all well and good, but I need something a little more predictable, the snow is just the icing on the cake, as it were: when I get the call I'll be ready, but I can't count on it. So, I'm pretty stoked. The new legit job’s at a place called The Spanish Centre, conveniently located 3 streets north of my house, is full of Spanish chicks and involves no heavy lifting.
I had been getting pretty tired of half-filling out 3 page Starbucks applications, then tearing them up and storming-off to another 40 minute interview for an $8/hour sales associate job (apparently they wanted someone less educated and more committed to cotton/wool blends: fuck 'em!). In contrast, The Spanish Centre pays $12/hour, three evenings a week (Mon/Wed/Thurs) from 4:30pm to 10:00pm, and I still have time to bum around all week. I get to speak Spanish and take free Spanish and salsa lessons, and all I have to do is welcome people to the centre. Cool!
I start January 7th, so until then I'm free to update my blog and other stuff, like re-reading George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, probably the best, most morbid and wickedly funny fantasy series ever written. I bought the fourth book in the series while I was in the States in paperback for $7.00 (the only thing to do in Providence, Rhode Island is shop, plus it was raining). Other than that, I'm just hoping it snows a lot. I'm trying to write some articles about "my travels," see if I can get my head around Cuba, maybe throw in a piece on Crazy Jon, play a little hockey, been drinking a lot of Gin & Tonics, and Christmas is coming, so I should be fairly occupied in the coming weeks.
Amanda's here until December 11th, which means she's going to be in town for Ev and Will's annual Christmas Party. I've been attending Ev & Will’s Christmas Party since I was of age to make a decent Gin & Tonic, that is, about the age I learned to read and write, say, five years old. Amanda and I’ll be the youngest people there by about fifteen years, the average age being about 68, but that's ok: those old people really know how to party!
I went out the other night to the Old Mill with Ev and her friend Miriam, as a sort of an escort for their 72nd and 75th birthdays, respectively. We hit the dance floor no less than six times! I had a blast. Talk about a dry crowd, though (the rest of the strangers dining at the Old Mill, that is, not my two dates). All these white bre(a)d Kingsway wraiths shoveling steaks into their guts and bobbing their heads to the stagy big band. Makes you want to get up and just give a particularly smug and ignorant one of them a good slap, spit in their food, and pull down your pants, but I suppose there’s something to be said for their well-fed decorum and respectability; it keeps the riff raff out and maintains the illusion, if only for a few hours.
Afterwards, having said goodnight to Ev and Miriam, Will, who’s Ev's degenerate and incorrigible husband—as well as my longtime friend and financial advisor—and I stayed up until 6am solving the world's problems and sampling liqueurs. Well, Will drank the liqueurs; I had a coffee pot full of tea, as I was driving home. Strange that. Will’s always warning me about how alcohol, liqueurs especially, is "terrible dreadful stuff...to be avoided at all costs," before rubbing his hands together eagerly and pouring himself the first of many glasses. Before you know it he's polished-off the Panama Jack and is heading towards the Courvoissier with a sly grin on his face.
Coming soon:
Cuban travelogue
Maritime memoirs
Notes from the Security State (ie. my creeped-out impressions from 10 days in the U.S.)
Crazy Jon Special
O.
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