I’m at the University Community Center finishing breakfast at 1:30pm and I’m grateful that my student wireless access hasn’t been cut off yet. This place is pretty busy. The conversations that waft over are irritating. 80 averages. Internships. Grad school. Miscellaneous courses. Boring. I still look like I belong, probably couldn’t pass for an undergrad anymore though, maybe an unshaven philosophy grad, definitely not computer science. Well I gave my two month lease termination notice on the way over here. Whether I like it or not, I won’t feel like a student for much longer, even if I do still roll out of bed at 11. … and I just had a boring student conversation myself. Graduation. Career searching. Job opportunities in California and Vancouver…

Merle and I are fighting worse than normal (which is intermittent spurts of spectacular badness). Stress and uncertainty erode patience. She still hasn’t landed a teaching position for the fall, although has an interview with a Cambridge school this week. I hate how my autonomy is threatened by unemployment. It’s impossible to objectively evaluate our relationship under these circumstances. Yeah we’ve been together for a long time. With the exception of the first few months it has always been a rollercoaster. But just like Brian Shelby says, there’s no sweet without the sour right? The physical distance between us has kept us together. (ooh how profound!). It would have exploded long ago had we not had the buffer. All it takes is some time together to build resolve to escape. Merle Merle Merle.

…After re-reading my last post, I’ve come to the conclusion that I mangled the story. Dad does a much finer job with it, more effectively digging deep to evoke sympathy, really emphasizing how I ruined their night of fireworks, and what it’s like to be at the mercy of a mechanic a thousand miles away. For extra drama, I also should have thrown in that in Thunder Bay, the NBC, CBS and ABC affiliates are all carried in from Detroit. So growing up we were always exposed to news at 11 teasers about the nightly multiple homicide, drug bust gone horribly wrong or some other random violent horror story.

2025 me: As usual, the images that used to be here, are lost, sorry.

Here’s a Canadian goose enjoying Canada Day week-end.

And some shoes hanging from a telephone wire. I’ll stop being lazy and return comments later.