It’s only the drivers who yield to pedestrians who deserve a quickened step across the lane. I take my time, sometimes even walk slower, for the drivers who have no regard for the pedestrians.
Only patient people deserve patience in return.
“Is Petersburg really as you draw it?”
“I draw it as I see it”
—Onegin
When I woke up, it was just another day, and my room resumed its silence as I turned off my alarm in the darkness. When I got outside, it was just another morning, although the recent drop in temperature has frosted the grass and turned the pavement white.
When I got on the bus, the sky started with a plain, early-morning glow that seemed to stretch out in a tunnel towards my destination. As I traveled further east, the sky turned pink and red, and a perfectly vertical beam of cloudless light shot out from below the horizon, letting me know that the sun was waking up.
I watched the sun rise as the bus took me to work, watched the sky turn from grey to red to yellow to white. I saw the heavy morning fog snake through the trees of a forested green golf course, and saw it recede, as if the earth had chosen to display itself by lifting her downy veil.
There are days when I want to get off at every stop and take pictures of the graduating atmosphere. When the ride is a journey only experienced by bus.
If wine were a liquor, it would taste like sake. The statement doesn’t really make sense until one actually tries a cup of the warm liquid, and I have to admit, I didn’t believe Louise when she first said it.
Pat, Aaron, Trolley, and I, along with the respective girls/girlfriends, Jen, Karen, Andrea, and Loo, went to the Japanese Village for some celebratory teppanyaki. Pat found a new full-time development job, Trolley went from contract to full-time, and Aaron got an eight-month quality assurance contract, all within the same month. Everyone managed to make it out on the same night, which is not an easy task among the eight in attendance.
The last time we met together like this was when I first got my job at the beginning of spring, when we went to a little restaurant in Chinatown to celebrate, sort of like the meeting of the heads of the four territories in Infernal Affairs 2. It was important that my three closest friends in the city could make it last time, and this time, it just so happened that each one of them got new jobs.
Every main meal comes in six to seven courses with mushroom soup, salad (consumed using chopsticks), shrimp appetizers, mixed vegetables, rice, and sprouts. I got the filet mignon, which is unlike anything I’ve ever tasted; tender enough to stick through with a chopstick, but firm enough not to fall off. It’s so good, that I may sacrifice the excitement of trying something new the next time I go, for the savoury taste of their best cut beef.
Something that I desperately want to do again, but difficult enough to accomplish with everyone there, to make me appreciate the time when it comes.
This morning I woke up and my analogue watch told me it was the 31st. I didn’t believe it.
I could have sworn that I put my October bus pass in the little compartment of my bag where I keep my change, lens cloth, lip balm, stash, and prophylactics, but instead, I left it on the shelf in my room. This is the same bus pass that I bought seven days prior so that I wouldn’t have to wait in inordinately long lines, and wouldn’t forget on the first of the month and shell out $2.60 in change.
So I ended up paying the driver anyway, noting the 10¢ increase since the last time I paid with change. Groggy, I make it to the stop just in time to catch my next bus, something that never happens, but I let it go by anyway in favour of buying a caramel corretto from Second Cup.
For the last two weeks I’ve been trying to ween myself off coffee. It’s satisfying to have something warm and sweet (and caffeinated) to sip with a bagel in the morning. I’ve recently gone to the lighter orange pekoe (from two bags to one bag), and I’ve avoided buying coffee if I don’t feel the need for one.
But today is Friday.
