Wait

No-no-no.

I looked down and thought that 207.5 (and the way I thought it was "two-oh-seven-and-a-half") was completely unacceptable. And when there was a hint of 208 I just felt like walking away in disgust and denying it ever happened.

199. One-ninety-nine. That's a worthy number. And I understand the whole mumbo-jumbo of pricing and how $399.99 just feels infinitely less that four hundred dollars. I completely get the whole consumer mentality/rationalization when it comes to Wayne Gretzky's hall of fame hockey sweater.

Nevertheless. 199. That's a number to look down on with pride.

But Halloween candy, so small and innocent and invitingly tiny, is always beckoning. So much smaller than normal chocolate and chips. And next thing y'know you've scarfed down 20 of the damn things. People without children don't have the same temptation.

Having said that, being Canadian helps. Thanksgiving is behind us. I pity people who have children and then Thanksgiving and then Christmas: snacks, turkey and then more turkey.

199. That'd be a nice number.

If I Were the Man You Wanted

There was absolutely no friggin' reason for me *not* to sleep-in this morning.

The past week has consisted of hockey Tuesday night, coaching soccer Wednesday and Thursday night, playing soccer for the first time in (grade thirteen = 19, grade eight therefore = 14, subtracted from 46 =) thirty-four years on Friday night in a 'Refs vs. Coaches' match.

All of that plus packing, packing and more friggin' packing. And, surprise-surprise, there is a whole lot o' books in this house! And not them new-fangled ipad electronic books; nope, it's the good ole-fashioned "Damn, is this box heavy" kind of books.

And Saturday was renting a guy with a truck so we could load and then unload a bunch of stuff (including, of course, *more books*) that were at my stepmother's place and take them up the new house.

So, sleeping-in this morning would have been lovely.

But it simply was not meant to be.

Instead I was awakened because my sleeping thoughts had drifted towards fate, chance, and the decisions we make.


Do we get to where we are because of some guiding hand? Do we get here by choosing Door Number Two when we could have (and perhaps *should have*) chosen Door Number Three Hundred and Fifty-Two? Is there a master plan or just a perpetual motion of lottery ticket draws with some tickets being winners, others being losers but another draw just a decision away.

If I had taken a writing course that had been offered to me when I was a teenager and made the trips from Kitchener to Toronto, would my life be vastly different from what it is now? And would that be better or worse or just different?

And had I taken that road, would I lose everything I have right now?

Or is this where I was supposed to be? Right now. In this moment. In this instant. This is exactly the right place.

Lyle Lovett wrote, "If I were the man you wanted, I would not be the man that I am."



"Home is where I want to be. But I guess I'm already there" sang David Byrne and the Talking Heads.

Alice gave Smoky her childhood and in exchange she lost the certainty that there was a guiding hand in her life and that she had been fated to meet the man she loved. And while that realization made everything more fragile, it also made everything much more precious because she now realized that there was no master plan and she had to enjoy every moment she had. (That's me paraphrasing John Crowley's book "Little, Big".)

And if Schrödinger had ever opened the damn lid, would the cat be alive, dead or would it have got tired of waiting and decided to find its own way out?

Yes, yes: the last four occurred to me as I was writing this. And trying to make some sense of it all.

But the rest woke me up.

I wanted to sleep-in. I probably *needed* to sleep in. Zed is still asleep. My lovely wife is still asleep. I'm doing my best to quietly tip-toe around the house and not wake them. The day is going to be more packing.


And packing is like having a root canal: it must get done, it's very painful, and after it's finished there's still more pain, but in time it fades and everything turns out okay.

But this is the thing, and maybe if I had thought of all this I could have eased myself back to sleep: I'm not a piece of fluff in the wind being blown from place to place. I have roots that are strong and are being transplanted by choice. I'm Popeye with his sweet potatoes because I yam what I yam. And it's all fragile and delicate and precious but not to be feared. There's no grand scheme, but things do have a tendency to work out. It is a royal pain in the ass not knowing when the good times are going to start.

But perhaps worse is not realizing that the good times might be Right Now.

Badges of Honour

While waiting with Zed to walk into school, I overhead one of the older boys. And it reminded me of how cool is it to get injured when you're a boy.

"Look at this scab," the boy said to one of the other kids in line. "It looks like a pepperoni pizza."

And he was right. The injury was the slightly larger than a quarter in size, and had two sharp red dots within the scab. It looked like an angry, hot out of the oven mini-pizza with two pepperoni slices on top.

"Go ahead! Touch the scab!! Touch the pizza scab!" he said to his friend. I'm not sure if his friend touched it; I would like to think he was brave enough that he did.

I don't think most girls would express the injury with such joy and enthusiasm. And I'm willing to bet that the boy wasn't quite so thrilled when he hurt himself.

Had it been one of our boys who had suffered the injury, we would have held him, consoled him and carefully patched him up.

But maybe, just maybe, if one of my boys went to school with just such an injury he would have proudly displayed his wound -- as if it was a major accomplishment and something to be proud of.

I never broke my arm as a kid or did anything that required a cast. And I sure as hell wouldn't want to break a bone now. But I remember that I always felt a tiny bit of envy whenever I saw other kids getting their cast signed. It was like we all had to acknowledge their pain and pay tribute to their bravery. As if by accidentally hurting themselves they proved to be smarter and more daring than anyone else.

It's the attainment of popularity and fame through injury. Pity can come from adults; from other kids, it's awe.

Howard Hughes was right

If I could live my life in a hotel, I'd be a happy man.

It would be the lifetime of clean sheets that would have me sign up. There is nothing quite as fine as crawling into bed with crisp, fresh, clean sheets.

And if I lived in the hotel, I would eventually get over the whole 'Strange Bed Syndrome' that usually makes for rough sleeping the first few nights.

Oh, and little chocolates on my pillow every evening. That would rock, too.