I just received an invoice from U of T demanding that I pay tuition fees for 2008-09. Something's messed up here.

Yesterday Andrea and I went to the hospital to visit her grandfather and went out for dinner with some of her family. I picked up a boatload of movies (Juno, The Savages, Panic Room, Spider-man 2, Southland Tales, The Squid and the Whale) and the ninth season of X-Files.

When we were driving back from Ingersoll a plane was flying in to land at the London airport immediately to our right. I've never seen a plane fly that low from a car before.

I finally procured the key to the new place (though not the front door key, which is key). Andrea and I were able to check it out. It's been cleaned out and painted a very light peach beige. It looks great. I stayed for about 15 minutes just standing in the rooms, trying to figure out what colour I'm going to paint them and where I'm going to put the furniture I'll have to purchase. When I get back from London next week I'm going to spend the week painting. I might see if I can order the bed before I take off for Peterborough, too.

London. Right. The next stop on the summer tour. We're leaving at 2 PM on a ten-hour bus ride. I'll have to make sure I pack some reading material, and my journal so that I can get some writing done. We'll be spending the five days visiting with Andrea's family, partying a little bit and going for a swim.

I read for two hours yesterday and got some writing done. The latest exercise involved going to a crowded place, describing the people and inventing a story for one of them. I saw this guy waiting for the bus after I dropped the car off who was perfect. He was 45'ish, wearing a green Christmas sweatshirt and a pink knapsack, lighting a cigarette right under a No Smoking sign. I've got about a thousand words out of him so far.

Yesterday Andrea and I had a grand day up at Gatineau Park. We had lunch at the Chelsea Pub before driving out to Pink Lake and walking the trail. There weren't a whole lot of people out, so it was nice and private and pretty. Andrea recalled this story she'd read about how a cougar was discovered in the park, so we kept making jokes about the cougar suddenly (and rather unlikely) appearing. We went to the beach for a swim but the rain started up. After resting for a bit in the car we came back into town and I dropped her off.

I've been trying to rig up my iMac for speech recognition. I can verbally ask it the time, day, stuff like that. Last night I added a script that allows me to get a song to play just by delivering voice commands. It doesn't work perfectly, but it's still pretty nice, and gets me one step closer to what I really wish computers could do.

This morning I took the car back and then went by the rental office to drop off first month's rent and grab the keys to the new place. They didn't have the keys, and told me to come back this afternoon. I ran some errands and got a haircut. I decided to come home to read for a bit before I went out again.

I'm tired, but I'll bet Andrea is feeling even more so. Trolley's wedding is in the can and it was pretty spectacular as far as weddings go. Horse drawn carriages, beautiful farmland, and food. Ye gods, the food. I like to eat at weddings. I don't know why, really... it's probably the fact that the stuff is free and quality and I'm in a celebratory mood. Add to that the fact that I wasn't drinking because I had to drive and I ended up eating too much as a result. This wedding had food coming constantly. If it wasn't being served it was scattered all over the end of the tent structure where the reception was located. Yum.

The ceremony was among the more beautiful I'd seen. I dig weddings. One more coming up in September. Andrea had a great time. We're supposed to go to Gatineau Park today but I dropped her off at Christine's last night, so I don't know what kind of shape she's in this morning. I parked the car across the street from the building and spilled the complimentary jelly beans we stole from the table just before I walked in the door. Hopefully no one slips Three Stooges style. They'll probably blame some kid for the mess anyway. What fully grown man would spill purple and green jelly beans on the sidewalk?

Andrea and I picked up the car at the airport, had breakfast at Denny's (I PREFACED all of that reception food with a Denny's breakfast. Jesus.) and then stopped at Home Depot to pick up a tree as a wedding gift. The ceremony ended up being three hours later than we guessed so we bummed around Andrea's apartment until it was time to go. I love driving. It can be a nerve-wracking experience when you haven't done it for awhile, but before long taking the twists and turns to navigate around a city grows on you.

It's going to be a long day. I'd better keep this short.

Yesterday I picked up the last of my paycheques at the Chambers and bought a copy of the latest Wired magazine. When I got home I walked to the post office and mailed the Amazon return along with the RSVP to Connolley's wedding. I took a bath and read for a couple of hours. I started writing based on an exercise that demanded I wrote out of a past work experience, and I ended up with a nifty little story intro that I think I might have the chance of finishing. I'm at a little over 1,100 words. The prose was coming at me pretty quick and I was smiling as I was writing it. It's been a long time since I've experienced that, trying to capture a flow of ideas before they get away. I feel really good about it.

Last night while leafing through Wired I finalized the decision to invent an alias for myself. It's an idea I've been kicking around for a few years now. I've had all kinds of aliases since I started using the Internet, but this will be for my identity as a writer and artist apart from the rest of my life in which an association with that identity might harm me (for instance, at work). More on that later.

Andrea and I are renting a car and heading to Trolley's wedding today. Better get ready.

The Dark Knight was the third film I've seen in an IMAX theatre (outside of documentaries), the first two being The Matrix Revolutions and then 300 last year. From the opening aerial shot of Gotham that pans down lower into the buildings and streets, I lost my breath and didn't get it back for the rest of the movie. "Action-packed" doesn't come close to describing it - the film relentlessly navigates from one harrowing section to the next in an effort to turn your brain inside out over questions of morality, ethics, social propriety and the stability of the forces in the world that people trust. As for Heath Ledger, he gives an unearthly performance as the Joker; a more sadistic, disturbed character has never surfaced in a comic book film. His real-life death casts an incredibly haunting gravity over the entire film as it juts back and forth between poetry and tragedy. And although Ledger's performance is getting the greater focus, Aaron Eckhart's character arc is the best in the film - he is the textbook definition of a tragic character starting out successful and losing everything. The way they set up the Two-Face character is GENIUS and makes the comparison between Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal a complete waste of time. The movie is two and a half hours long but you don't want the characters to go away. It ends on the perfect note to introduce the next film, which can't come too soon.

It's a movie I've been looking forward to seeing for a very long time. I've kept up with the viral campaigns and trailers, greedy to see that next shot of the Joker. To see him brought to life on the screen the way Ledger did is to experience one of the great performances in movie history. Everything came together beautifully and unfortunately.

Yesterday I picked up some books I'd ordered from Amazon, but I'm returning one because I ordered the Spanish version of it by mistake. Also in the package: a couple of books on writing and reading, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, and Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. I started reading Joe's book, Gratitude, and got a bit of writing done. Right now I'm at Andrea's drinking coffee. We grabbed dinner at the Royal Oak last night and crashed at her place.

I just talked to my mother and she's scheduled a doctor's appointment for me on August 18th, so I'll actually be performing the move on the 19th if all goes according to plan. She thinks I have a pinched sciatic nerve. Every piece of advice I've received has been akin to this: rest it, exercise it, ice it, heat it, take painkillers.

The net connection I was pirating now has a password affixed to it, so that leaves one piddly little connection that barely works when it does work. Yet another reason why I want this move over and done with. I get the feeling that I'm going to need a vacation after all this vacation time. I already have no idea what day of the week it is, what I'm supposed to be doing, where I'm supposed to be going.

Check that: I'm going to see The Dark Knight tonight. That I'm sure of.

Yesterday was productive. I read for over two hours and finished Galveston, a book about storm chasers who have suffered tragedy in their lives and find each other in a podunk coastal town about to be wiped out by a force five hurricane. I'm going to move onto Joe's book next. I wrote for an hour and produced 1500 words. I'm finding it tiring but I have to keep at it. Yesterday I mapped out the floor plan of the first house I remember living in. It was harder than I thought because it became a process of stringing together memories out of geography. Then I wrote about memories I have of being in the rooms.

I cracked open Reason and started writing a new song. It sounds pretty good so far, and I feel as though I'm further into this one than my first attempt. I'd like to get the backbone written out and apply some bass and maybe some guitar and vocals over it when the time comes, but I really think it's going to have to wait until after the move.

I'm trying not to let the move interfere with my creativity. I'm tired of making excuses for not having any output. Yesterday was one day. I wrote 1500 words, finished a book and starting writing a song. Now it's today. Now I have to do something else.

Yesterday I walked to the grocery store and watched Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey while I ate dinner.