2002-08-17 - 1:55 p.m.
My friend who's supposed to take me to Waterloo is running late, and so I have some time to write this afternoon.
The theme of last night was alcohol. We came ashore yesterday afternoon, and got immediately disoriented by the fact that the ground was not shaking side to side. A quick decision was made that alcohol should be just the remedy we needed. So we had a couple of beers with our late lunch in Midland before taking the bus to Toronto.
Upon arrival to Toronto, I dropped off my stuff at my sister's and got in touch with Svan. He directed me to a bar on Queen West, and after some pizza, a shave, and watching a bit of "Star Trek: The Voyage Home" (aka "Save the Whales"), I was off.
I'm always amazed at how accurrately you can predict your travel time with the TTC. I would have arrived exactly on time if I was more lucky catching the Queen Streetcar (aka bus, these days). As I made it to Queen West, I immediately noticed the presence of alcohol everywhere. The people I passed all seemed at least slightly drunk, and every block there'd be several bars spilling out the smell of beer onto the street.
At the bar, I immediately felt welcome. My friend Moses, a half hour later, described pretty well why I feel so comfortable visiting Toronto -- it's so gratifying to be greeted by people who are clearly happy to see you. After a few drinks there, we crashed a going away party for a friend of Svan's. Before the night was out, we stopped off at a third bar, and by the time a few of us we were taking a cab to Svan & Shar's, I was thoroughly drunk.
We fell asleep probably around 3, but the worst came around 8 am. I woke up and was feeling decidedly hungover. The phantom oscillations of the ground that I've been feeling ever since I got off the boat have been magnified so that I felt like I was nearly falling over. I decided it was not yet time to get up.
Strangely enough, only an hour and a half later I was feeling much more recovered. I was really missing my routine of going for a cool swim in the morning, so I decided to replace it with a jog and a cold shower. That really chased my hangover away. Although my lack of sleep and the amounts of consumed alcohol still took their toll -- Shar and I were both remarking about feeling really slow during our one obligatory game of cribbage. And that was after a cup of coffee, even! Well, as they say, alcohol only kills the weak brain cells, right?
end and beginning - 2003-03-04
the dogs must be crazy - 2003-03-03
strange thoughts on a train - 2003-02-28
movie madness - 2003-02-26
sense of community - 2003-02-25