felis_ultharus

Travel

I just wanted to note that I'm back from BC. It was a very quiet trip -- I spent most of my days there hanging out with node357, which was nice. He composed some new music while I was there, and showed me Psychonauts, which really does deserve its reputation ^_^

I also saw a couple of friends I hadn't seen in about fifteen years -- all thanks to the miracle of Facebook. I never did get to Vancouver this time, though, so that'll have to wait for Yule.

The best pleasure though -- aside from seeing node357 -- was that of seeing the place itself. Montreal is toxic and grey and cemented compared to that greenery and clean air that is BC. I like Montreal because most of my friends are here, but except for the Old Port, and some of the older stone houses and parks, I have to admit I consider this a very ugly and polluted city. Too much concrete, and too few growing things.

Airports continue to get more and more surreal -- they've always bothered me because the waiting areas between flights are really non-places that drift detached from anything in a bland emptiness where things get sold. In other words, they're Postmodernism incarnate.

The Pearson airport in Toronto has a particularly weird waiting area. There's a stall there that sells jewellery trees for little girls, in the shapes of princesses whose heads and arms have been replaced by necklace-and-ring-holding tentacles. My first thought was Jenova from FFVII, or something out of Lovecraft.

Not much else to report -- I did not defeat any ninja armies this time around. I wanted a good start on the major edit of my novel, but only got about one-quarter in. It's almost a third finished now.

Meme

"If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal."

(I'm lucky in that this applies to probably most if not all of the people I've friended.)

I'm posting from an internet booth at the PET-port in Dorval. I just wanted everyone to know I got here in plenty of time for my flight.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in BC. I'm also looking forward to starting major edit on this version number 5. I have a very good feeling about this -- it's so much better than anything else I've done ^_^

A few things:

1. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it ^_^
   
   
2. I've been spending most of my time with Sean and Sam, which has been fun. Spent Yule with Sean, and Sam got me another set of Tarot cards ^_^
   
   
3. My mornings have been devoted to my novel. I'm going to fall short of 50,000 words in 12 days, but I'm now edging towards 11,000 words (since Tuesday) as of this morning. It's much more sophisticated than my previous version. I had to excise one of the supernatural elements, and devote myself to the development of the other. Tone and style have greatly improved, and I'm finding ways to get my point across without sounding preachy. I get my best work done on this coast, and so I want to do as much of it as possible here.
   
   
4. Bad books happen to good authors. I was enjoying Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors -- a collection of short stories -- but most of the stories in the second part of the book are cheap Lovecraft parodies that aren't even unintentionally funny. I think the retelling of Beowulf on the California coast will one day be remembered as the low point of Gaiman's career.
   
   
5. It's said that our skin cells are all shed and replaced every 27 days. The skin looks the same, but no one cell of it remains the same. I've been thinking of that as I walk Victoria's downtown core. I used to run into people I knew there every few steps. I've spent every afternoon downtown this week, and haven't met a single person I once knew. The city's the same and yet is a city of strangers. I suspect that everyone I knew has fled.
   
   
6. I spoke with a second gay clerk. So Victoria has two gay men. It's crawling to cosmopolitan-hood faster than a man with three broken limbs.