2AM Traffic

Back still hurts. Yesterday I caught a trio of classic Canadian shows on TV: Danger Bay, The Beachcombers and King of Kensington (which featured a cameo from John Candy). I had a long conversation with Ash and later Andrea about this and that - people, places, plans. I'd like to think that this incident is going to mark some kind of turning point for me. I'll certainly never look at walking straight the same way again.

I received some more information about helping out with the writers' workshop in Toronto. I'm scheduled to leave in a week. It's my strongest motivation to get better. I'm certainly glad this didn't happen while the Senate was still in session. There's no way I would have been able to make it into work.

Andrea is moving the big stuff into her new apartment tomorrow. I wish I could be more of a help. I haven't even been outside since the hospital trip a few days ago. Hopefully I can give it a shot when she comes over later today. I need to get some exercise if my back is going to be strong enough to support me. Painkillers is one thing, but I don't want to turn into jelly.

I've been reading Joan Didion's The White Album, a collection of essays that typically uses 1960's California as its muse. I don't always have a clear idea as to what she's referring but I do like her attraction to how things like highways and aqueducts and shopping malls actually work. She travels extensively, exploring the world of Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, quoting the first line of that text, one of the greatest of all time:

"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

The White Album opens with a line that may be as great:

"We tell ourselves stories in order to survive."

There is something of great importance here in which I am trying to instill belief.