I am not

Over at Chez Trevoir there's a vicious rumour going around that Bugsy's dead. Can you believe that? That's a pernicious lie. Why, it's flapdoodle. Poppycock. And fucking bullshit as well. So I haven't posted for a few... months.

OK. There was a problem, with my brain. But now I shall overcome it, just to make Trev take away that damnable parenthetical indictment. See? Just look at all those big words. Inactive. Pheh. I'm back, baby.

I will return to the 'sphere with this startlingly earnest personal revelation. Because I ain't got no clever lies or mockeries to smear around today. I just got me.

I was watching TV, hurtling toward that glazed state of mind characterized by a low heartrate and spittle overflow. Mmm. Swiffer.

And then I saw it.

The harbour glinting in the sun. The narrow roads curving through the cedar-perfumed mist. It was Saltspring Island. My heart and lungs suddenly remembered they had a job to do; like a napping janitor busted by a late-night suit they started working feverishly. God, I could almost smell the hippies. It was fucking gorgeous.

They were fighting to save their mountain from clearcutting - an 89-year-old lady getting hauled away in a cruiser, kids chaining themselves to logging trucks, a musical roadblock made of marimbas. It was a truly joyful shit-disturbance.


It was on Saltspring Island that I learned to ride a motorcycle. My boss at the small engine repair shop fronted me the cash to buy the little Honda twinstar and taught me to ride it, up and down hills, popping the clutch on those gravelly roads. I'd swim in the lake on a hot day and then go riding to cool down. Oh, God. I'm sure I looked hilarious in that big white dorky helmet. One time I hauled a giant backpack full of beer cans to the store on it, for cash. We were always so broke.

It was there that I smoked up alone for the first time. I went for a walk in the forest and discovered a banana slug. I actually thought it was a big piece of dogshit until I saw its little eye-tentacles waving at me. Ha!

On Saltspring, Sam and I built our first nest. It was in a tiny, overpriced cedar cabin by St. Mary's lake during the off season. Our first night on the island, we caught a ride in the back of an old pickup. I remember an empty bottle of Jack Daniels rolling onto the ground as the truck tore up the hill, pissed and confident. I remember the stars going by fast as we bounced around against the cab. I said, "You know, in case I never actually told you, I do love you."

We lived. But I was glad I'd said it anyway.

These charming vignettes and about a thousand other memories of a life I thought I'd forgotten were looping through my head as I sat on my couch with my dog, crying.

Oh, now look what you've gone and made me do. I'm alright, it's just my contact bugging me. Enough about me, sheesh. How are you doing?