I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.

As all good Albertans know, Highway #2 -- a straight connection between Edmonton and Calgary -- is not as simple as its cartography would imply. One problem, of course, is that the number, velocity, and sheer tonnage of its drivers make it the vehicular equivalent of a meteor shower. The other problem is that it goes through Red Deer: a city with a weather system which seems to be aware of the existence of happiness elsewhere in the province, and then seeks to correct that imbalance.

The drive back from Edmonton, then, was a test of willpower: to keep concentration on the packed snow covering the highway, and the faint traces of dirt and asphalt marking the route home, while gusts of snow kept even the horizon, and even the other side of the highway invisible. And this was during daylight hours, no less.

It was slow going -- sometimes even 50 km/h seemed reckless, but I kept going at those speeds, not wanting the truck in front of me to pull ahead and vanish into the storm, leaving me without a beacon. And so I followed, learning to contend with the constant eddies of his tailwind. But then, the winds died down, and a beautiful dry stretch of road opened up. Glad to see my patience rewarded, I moved into the passing lane. And that's when I hit the Drift.

I'm sure almost everybody knows that feeling when they lose control of their car: it seems like you can see things a split second before they happen. The front tires stopped listening to the steering wheel, the snow pushed up against the undercarriage, and the vehicle inexorably moved into the dividing ditch. We plowed through the deep white banks like a breaching whale, rapidly losing speed. Not so rapidly, though, that the signpost immediately ahead of us wasn't a threat.

I managed to pull Atanarjuat back up onto the shoulder, but only the right-hand side. At that point, the rear kept on swinging out onto the highway, and in the corner of my eye, I saw three cars behind me slam on their brakes. I tapped the gas, and went back into the ditch again, this time at a much straighter angle, and we went right through, riding the ditch like a half-pipe, swinging out on the shoulder of the adjacent highway, riding the ditch like a half-pipe. We swung up onto the other shoulder, all wheels back on semi-solid ground. True, we were facing a highway of oncoming traffic, but as luck would have it, we were just a few metres away from a connecting berm, usually only used by road crews and police. I moved to that safe midpoint, and brought Atanarjuat to a stop.

My two passengers and I finally exhaled. One of them (who had recently been in a car accident with a semi) stayed frozen in place, her hand still inside the A&W bag, holding on to the Teen Burger she'd been reaching for when I first lost control. She ended up throwing the entire burger away, still wrapped in foil. The other one immediately gave me a high five.

After that, it was an extra-extra-careful drive the rest of the way to Calgary, whereupon I treated myself to the most rewarding dessert the Husky Diner had to offer.

And was it worth all that, just for an apple crumble? Well, no, of course not. But -- it was definitely worth it for the Elvis lessons I received that weekend.



I learned a few new moves, and a few new songs. And most importantly, I learned that what you sing from your heart, people listen with theirs.

Maybe a corollary to that, one of many, is that when you drive with your heart, it's your car that listens. And if that's the case, then maybe we all have an Inner Elvis -- we just need to find our audience.

Writing:my brain :: potato chips:my backseat.

Wow. Three nights to go until NaNoWriMo, and I don't know what I'm writing yet.

I mean, I know the story: twelve chapters, each one about a person from a different province or territory, and they all visit Nunavut for their own reasons.

I've done the research: not as much as I'd like, obviously, but enough to be sure that this is what I want to write about.

I've developed the characters: some are named after video games, some are named after cities, some are named after my dreams, and one of them is named Tim.

But I still don't know what my novel is about. I haven't had that rush of insight that says, "Yes! This is what I want to say to the world, and the world needs to hear it!"

Mind you, this is nothing new. This happens every year, and that rush always comes at a different time. One year, it didn't come until the twenty-third of November. Another year, it came that July. There's a change that this year, it came in Pond Inlet. You might say that that's a place, not a time. Honestly, I'm not sure if either of those descriptions apply to my experience there. If I can put it in words, I guess I'll have my insight.

But I won't find that insight, if I don't try to put it into words. And that, as always, is what NaNoWriMo is all about.

And, in other news, a bell pepper rolled out of my grocery bag onto the floor of my car at a red light this evening. It took me ten minutes of searching to find it, and I came out with an extra bag of potato chips. (All Dressed, in case you're wondering.)

The scary part is, I wasn't planning for my car to get any cleaner before December...

My apologies to the car pool.

Make a wish.

I almost made it to work this morning without having to pull over. Instead, there I was, 6:55 in the morning, standing knee-deep in the rain-soaked grass by the Trans-Canada Highway.



Really, though, what else was I supposed to do?



That's right: my faithful vehicle, Atanarjuat, has cleared 200,000km under my guidance in under five years. Jutah never hit that mark. Neither did Becuphalus, nor Soul Train, nor my parent's Buick. I've got further and farther for longer and later with this car than any other I've ever known. This is going to be the car that gets mentioned in my biography after I'm dead.

And I'll be proud to be associated with this fine chunk of Korean steel. Congratulations, Atanarjuat. Take a victory lap, then go get an oil change.

You'll need it.

Bicentennial Man.

It's almost a week until May, which means that yes, I finally got off my duff and tussled with the taxes. Normally, the process goes like this:

1. Open up the desk drawer with important stuff in it
2. Take the paper on top
3a. If it's tax-related, put it to the pile on the right
3b. If not, put it in the pile to the left
4. Continue until I have all my tax stuff
5. Do taxes
6. Put left pile back in drawer
7. Put right pile back in drawer

Well, this year, it's a new condo with a fresh start and all that, so I dumped the entire "important stuff" drawer on the kitchen table, gave the desk away, and started sorting.

And in case you're not impressed, I found pay stubs from my days bagging groceries at O.K. Economy in that drawer. I don't think "O.K. Economy" even exists anymore... (and really, if you were looking for quality foodstuffs, would you look in a place named for "unremarkably acceptable savings"? I always wondered about that.)

All right. Now you're impressed, and you're wondering what little marvels I uncovered in the "important stuff" drawer. Some highlights:

- my Social Insurance card
- my high school transcript
- a rap song I tried to write
- the address of Mike Brown in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He once taught me a closely guarded secret: the second verse to "I's the b'y that builds the boat." He also stood outside an elevator that had trapped two of my schoolmates, and shouted awful puns at them for thirty minutes while the hotel staff tried to open the doors.
- a 2006 government cheque for $86 that I never cashed. (I cashed it.)

and, most significantly:

- Atanarjuat's bill of sale.

You know, for some reason, I thought I'd agreed to a six-year payment plan. Actually, it was sixty months, meaning that as of July 4, 2008... that car is in my name and my name alone. Wow. I never thought that the day would come so soon. In fact... it's coming a bit too soon. You see, its odometer is currently at 194,000 km. Now, the way I see it -- if it's going to be my car, why not make it a car no one else would want? So, I started doing the math.

6,000 km to go. 100 km per day commuting to work, multiplied by number of workdays until July 4, divided by the number of people in the carpool. That's 2,000. Ten weekends until July 4. That's 400 km per weekend, then, and I'll be able to roll two hundred thousand kilometers in five years.

Specifically, I'm aiming for 200,027 km, since it had 27 km on the dial when I bought it in 2003.

So, Calgary this weekend (600km). Edmonton in May (1200km). June in Saskatoon (950km), because that rhymes. That still leaves about 1300km of road trip for the finale. So, either I go to Swift Current and back three times in a row, or I find some far-off destination to serve as a finish line.

And then, I shall weep the salty tears of a man who has nothing left to conquer.

"Sensory Deprivation" may have been optimistic.

When I stepped outside this morning, the first thing I thought was, "I wonder if all that blathering about the joy of the journey will conceal the fact that I'm going stargazing on a completely overcast evening?" The clouds were thick and opaque, tinted orange with the sodium glow of the city's lights. Certainly not ideal conditions, but since I was up already, I got into Atanarjuat, my faithful Hyundai Accent, and took off.

The first part of the drive was what I'd hoped; alone in the dark, only my thoughts and a coffee to keep me company, and the added bonus of being well-rested enough to look out for nocturnal antelope. I imagined how much cooler our government would be if we had a "Ministry of the Future" that actually looked beyond winning the next election, which led me back to meteors, and what it would be like, tumbling through space, free of orientation, simply enjoying the view as velocity carried you towards your destination, with only the stars around you. Once or twice I pulled to the side of the road to get out and check the sky, but the glow of the city still dominated the horizon, and the Lethbridge Express howled as it pulled at my unzipped ski jacket. I retreated back to the still warmth of Atanarjuat, and kept on driving.

The wind was indeed cold and livid (or, as my friend MJ would say, frivid), but the roads were clear and dry for the full 60km to Elkwater Park. I couldn't see the valley, but I followed the curve of the road downhill, which is where I saw the patches of white covering the asphalt. "Gee," I thought, "I didn't expect snow on the road. I better slow down."

And, at that moment, I was pointed perpendicular to the road, still traveling downhill, tumbling through space, free of orientation, as my velocity carried me towards my destination, with only the stars around me.

How poetic.

Unlike a meteor, though, Atanarjuat's brakes had been replaced this summer. I stopped spinning and started slowing down, with nothing left to do but wait for impact with the guard rail... and then, there it was, embracing my car like a cheese grater embracing a bar of soap. Ker-rumpch.

I could still drive, so I eased into the town of Elkwater, where I could stop underneath a street light and inspect the damage. I'm happy to say it felt worse than it looked, and all that Atanarjuat suffered was some paint loss on the bumper. Ah, well... like they say, you can't spell "scar" without C-A-R. My spirits (if not my nerves) restored, I kissed my car in gratitude, and then I was back in the hunt. I parked in an open picnic area, far away from any lights, and got out for a clear look at the sky.

My earlier fears about the overcast sky were unfounded. Both city lights and stars are stronger than you think; one makes the clouds seem thicker than they are, and the other shines right through them. Thousands of stars surrounded me, and I no longer worried about not knowing any constellations; it seemed pointless to try and put a word to such a sight. Squinting in the general direction suggested by the astronomy websites, I finally saw something just above the horizon. A faint flickering, a wavering set of lights, all seeming to originate from the same direction. Truly a delicate moment, and I almost held my breath as I watched, not wanting to scare our visitors away...

When all of a sudden, a searing blaze shot through the sky high above me -- and nowhere near where I was looking. Oh. So *that's* a meteor, then. Then I saw another one, in a completely different area, but just as bright. I hunkered down behind an electrical box for some shelter, and looked straight up into the sky to let the meteor shower wash right over me.

After a while, the cold was starting to get to me, so I finally went back to the car and started the drive back. As I climbed out of the valley, one last meteor flared low across the horizon, square in the center of my windshield's view. Unlike the others, this one seemed to linger in the air a bit longer -- or else I was just trying to hold on to the moment. I returned the gesture, and said good-bye to the Quadrantids as I went back home to Medicine Hat.

Chamberpunk.

Happy Canada Day, everyone! And, what better way to celebrate our nation's anniversary than with a quick story tangentially related to our most overrated franchise?

The other day, I drove past the local Tim Horton's, where a group of people were smoking on the parking lot outside. My windows were rolled up, and my stereo was turned up to the tunes of a string quartet.

By the time the cello's bass rumblings made their way through my car's chassis, they were indistinguishable to bystanders from the "OOM-chah" distortion that invariably pulls behind you at a red light.

Then, I rolled down the window, so they could hear what I was actually listening to -- just before I pulled away.

For some reason, I felt like I did my good deed for the day.

All right, that's all for now. On to the fireworks!

So I says to Edna, I says...

Ah, Calgary. The Reginan in me holds a semi-grudging respect against you, and the Edmontonian in me holds you in a semi-respectful grudge. Still, there are worse places to end up after a three-hour drive.

It turns out that it wasn't the mountains I needed to see -- it was Chinatown. After eating sushi off my car's dashboard and downing mysterious canned beverages, my soul is at peace once again. Even better, I rolled over 150,000 km in Atanarjuat! Yay!

Unfortunately, those events were shadowed by the real highlight of my trip. It is not my intention to use this blog as a gossip column, but sometimes I have no choice... Yesterday, I learned that one of my friends is trying to replace all his cleaning products with a single brand of dish soap, which is easier on his skin. Fair enough, I thought, until he tried to use it on his toothbrush.

Dish soap. As toothpaste. Because it's softer on his skin.

And people wonder if I'm a fictional character.