Surgical masks seen at Vancouver International Airport = 0. Surgical masks seen at Pearson International Airport = more than 0, which is that number too many. My family doctor, who knows I'm a hypochondriac, reassured me yesterday as he doled out my pharmaceutical prescriptions before I bounce from the good health care plan to the lowly Writers Guild health care plan. "The media has overhyped this thing. It's just a fancy flu." Global warming, on the other hand, gets a welcome return as I'm out in Toronto at the moment in a sleeveless t-shirt. At 9 o'clock at night. In April. Writing this in a moment while on the move from pints with my new TV coworkers to pints with my film producer pal Paul. My pockets are filled with my per diem. And my mantra continues: what planet am I on?
The word I kept searching for yesterday while I was resigning was "bittersweet". With one boss, we made it all okay by planning where we'll be at in late October when I finish with the cop show. With the other boss, I thought I was going to cry because he seemed so shocked by the news. Today, emails are arriving from the other writers, the story editors, the broadcasters, all wishing me happiness on the new series. Everyone is so damn nice, and that makes the leaving that much more difficult. I wasn't ready to exit the house of animation as quickly as this, but by this time next week I'll be long gone. During my two years here, I never once woke up and thought "I can't do it today" like I used to at the feature film company. I never dreaded the arrival or counted down the hours, though I will admit to faking sick a couple of times but that seems entirely human. Though the show I'm on here is wrapping in two weeks anyway, it feels like I'm on the last helicopter out of 'Nam.
(Turning on a dime...) However, most of my favourite folks from the writing department here will be in Toronto next week for the Writers Guild awards, so we're already planning the booze-up on Tuesday night, and my Montreal oasis (Karim's couch) is gruffly calling my name. Strange days.
This week: the damn damp dreariness of home. Comfort food lunches, and 60s Volvo picture cars circling Gastown for some film shooting up the street. Research, research, wrapping up the world of animation, and yet more research into hereditary illnesses, rape across cultures, rubbie knockdowns, and police-assisted suicides. I have these moments when I turn to thank someone, anyone, and realize it all sounds like an overly-polished Oscar speech. But I truly am thankful (big ups, God).
Next week: the cold and clarity of Toronto. Detailing homicides over pad thai containers strewn across the conference table, an acute return to double americanos, crisp hotel linens, time zone stonerness, Paul, then Montreal. And I swear this year I'll resist the Toronto Coupe Bizarre haircut, because last year's tragedy came in the form of a mullet.
Today's Cainer: Mercury moves into a new sector of the sky soon. A different chapter in the story of your life is starting.
My mind has been preoccupied. Everything has fallen into a state of muddle in anticipation of certain news. And when the most recent dates candidate informed me that he's moving to Taiwan for six months in May to teach English, my normal response of being more attracted to him because he's leaving changed decidedly to dropping things altogether because he's leaving. Maybe I'm growing up? In any event, the certain news has arrived. I've been offered my dream job and so I'm taking a hiatus from animation to work in live-action. A cop show. I get to write for a cop show. This brings certain changes to my life: I'll have to get a car (a Crown Victoria maybe?). I'll have to reintroduce my lungs to the sweet, sweet asphyxiation of cigarette smoke because the other writers hail from Toronto. I'll have to get used to long hours and big paycheques and flavouring my sentences with terms like chippie and rabbit. I'll have to get used to being happy, and I think I can manage that.
On the other hand, the big chain drugstore at Granville and Georgia is completely sold out of Purel so I had to scrub down Silkwood-style when I got to work after having been on the bus. My side of the story has nothing to do with SARS -- I ride the Main Street bus from Granville into Gastown, and it always smells of unwashed scalp. But I find it interesting that the downtown folk are buying all the Purel they can lay their soiled hands on. Stock tip in aisle ten.
