Bear Island Paddle Day

Ben and Ryan from OMTC brought a bunch of cool boats out to the Hwy 12 Bridge for a quick paddle around Bear Island on Beaver Lake. I put the first scratches on a brand new Perception Prodigy (prodigy of what, I'm not sure) and then swapped into Ben's 16-foot touring kayak. What a rocket! I'd own one if it wasn't geometrically impossible to get it into my second-storey apartment. After we got back to the boat ramp, we took turns in each other's playboats, which feel really freaky after spending an hour in a boat that is a full ten feet longer. Thanks OMTC, you guys rock!

Not all who wander are lost!

A picture of Ben taking a picture.

GO LERFS!

It's taken some adjustment, but so far my life post-Proust has been going fairly well. I just plow my field, plant whatever vegetable I'm going to grow that day, and harvest it when it's ready. Sure, there's cows to milk and eggs to collect, but that only takes a few minutes. The best thing is that the evenings are all mine! Of course, a person who reads Proust in 290 days is not going to be satisfied by drinking beer and watching hockey every night. That person is going to have to do some pondering, which is what I do. Fortunately, being a small-time farmer provides one with endless material for thought. Like how, if the Toronto Maple Leafs were instead called the Toronto Maple Leaves, then the mind of an aerial viewer seeing a "GO LEAVES!" sign made from hay bales would automatically assign the letter "A" rather than the letter "R" to the ambiguous third character because "leaves" is a familiar word. I usually start the evening pondering that, but, like always, my light and frivolous pondering soon turns to a melancholy brooding that lasts the night. I think of the work it took to make the sign and how unfortunate it is that I can't see it from the air. Most of all, I agonize over the fact that, even though I've been a Leaf's fan long enough that "LEAFS" is a real world to me, I still (in my mind's eye because I've never actually seen my sign) see "GO LERFS!" about half the time. My sleepless agonizing turns to genuine suffering when I realize that the full creative force of my mind cannot produce a single fucking idea how to fix it. About that time, the goddamned rooster crows and my insomniac ass is back in the field. But that is my life, post-Proust!

I Really Good Blog Idea for Someone

Well, is no one going to point out how extraordinary it is that the Maple Leafs won their season opener last Thursday? It wouldn't be hard to do. I mean, it's not like you'd have to spent so many hours on the opening paragraph that the necessary task of spreading this great and surprising news would keep you from reading Proust during the few minutes of peace you have every night. Here, I'll get you started:

TORONTO--Does anybody remember the California Seals? One of the six expansion teams added in 1967 double the size of the NHL, they lost to the defending Stanley Cup Champion Toronto Maple Leafs in their opening game. They would not lose to the Leafs again. Nor would any other team. For the next 43 years, fans would fill every seat in the Maple Leaf Gardens, and starting in 1999 every seat in the Air Canada Center, every single game, because they loved hockey and in particular, they loved Toronto hockey! They didn't mind seeing their beloved Maple Leafs lose game after game, season after season, because they understood that after their successful cup run in 1967, with their best players either retiring or being traded away, the team simply wasn't good enough to win. Instead, they came to eat overpriced hot dogs, drink overpriced beer, and watch the players they idolised struggle valiantly and fall. That's what they paid for, what they expected, and what they got night after night. Well, last night, against a tired and listless Montreal team, they watched the Toronto Maple Leafs struggle valiantly and win!

The rest is cake! Just continue developing the idea that the Leafs hadn't won a game since 1967. You could talk about how they hadn't scored three goals in one game since Alexander Mogilny scored the franchise's only hat trick in '02. Or how they hadn't held a team to two goals since King Clancie's legendary game in 1932, a game the Leafs lost 2-0. Maybe you could include some post-game interviews with Leaf's Captain Dion Phaneuf who would explain how he thought he'd gotten the last win of his career when Calgary traded him, or with Kaberle who would describe what it's like playing thirteen straight 82-game seasons without a single win and how astonishing it is to finally win one. "I can't wait to call my mom in the Czech Republic!" he might say.

It's a little late, I suppose, but it's still a good idea. Someone should take it and run with it!