By Lucy

I woke before my alarm on Thursday, always a good sign.

Pack the last couple of things, wash my last few dishes. Pull my improvised ice pack out of the freezer and throw it in the insulated bag with my perishables.

Deepak messages me before it’s even 6. He’s in a hurry. I hate being rushed.

I don’t know why this makes me nervous. I’ve done the drive to Dryden lots. Winnipeg less so, but at a certain point the kilometers are just a number, or at least they are for us vagabonds.

I pull up to his apartment building. Paul advised me to insist on meeting at some central location, but I was willing to be this guy would be on the ball and he was. There was an east Asian man standing outside with some luggage.

Parked the car and got out. “Are you Deepak?”

“No, he just went inside for a moment. I’m his friend.” The guy comes over and shakes my hand.

“You can put the luggage in the back seat.” No point in arguing with the stuff in the trunk.

Deepak comes out with a garbage bag and hucks it into a dumpster. He comes over and we all say hi. I start to give him my spiel about the car, but he’s all like “let’s go let’s go!”.

Woah, bud.

He’s fidgety and quiet at first. It’s sunny around Thunder Bay, but once we leave the city behind we entered cloud cover that didn’t stop ’til we hit Manitoba. It was good driving weather, not raining but you don’t have the sun beating down on you either.

Lupins are blooming all over the place!

He unthawed sometime around Upsala. I guess he’s tried hiring rides like this before and had a bad time of it, but he really liked my driving. He had bought some snacks for me and tried to insist I drink a Red Bull to stay sharp. He’s from Winnipeg but his brother convinced him to work at a restaurant in Thunder Bay for the summer. He never commented on the car being too warm or too cold, or the music, and he wasn’t on his phone a lot either. Just a strange dude.

The doc called and said my creatinine was fine. Thanks for the heart attack, doc.

Somewhere around Ignace, we saw either a spirit wolf or a very blonde wolf-dog that had slipped its leash.

Stopped at Tim Hortons in Dryden. I wouldn’t mind stopping in to see Jeremy, but I wasn’t hauling my hitchhiker out there. He bought me lunch and I got a coffee. I was slightly fatigued, I suppose. He was annoyed at me for insisting on eating in the restaurant and fidgeted impatiently while I stretched and paced before getting back in the car.

The section between Dryden and Kenora is the most scenic part of the drive. Around every bend is another small lake, perfect framed by evergreens and lupins.

Shortly before Kenora, Deepak requested a bathroom stop, because he had shotgunned 2 Redbulls and apparently didn’t use the bathroom while we were at Tim Hortons. Lucky for him, there was a portapotty at a historical plaque for “Last Spike at Feist Lake”.

You can always tell when you hit Manitoba, because the boreal forest abruptly gives way to prairie.

What’s wild is that most of the drive is through Ontario. You can cross Manitoba in under 5 hours if the traffic is right and you boogie right past Winnipeg.

Of course, we weren’t driving past Winnipeg. We were going right into the heart of it.

As we passed Beausejour, I threw my phone at Deepak and asked him to text Duff, who didn’t reply until we got into Winnipeg.

Christ! Winnipeg traffic is the worst that I have ever seen, complete anarchy. I have vague memories of my dad complaining about Winnipeg traffic and he was correct. No one turns on their signals, people park in live lanes of traffic (driving in the left lane is the safest choice) and running red lights is an identity. Also, I noticed me and Duff were the only bikers wearing leather jackets – everyone else was in a t-shirt, or a sweater at best.

Deepak guided me to his apartment and then I was lost in downtown Winnipeg with no destination. Heidi’s friend wouldn’t be home ’til 5:30 to let me in. I could just drive there and wait, but it’s hot, and also it seems like a waste of time.

“I’m not in the mood for company.”

What’s gotten into him? “I drove 8 hours here to spend time with you and you’re just gonna tell me to get lost?”

“You were heading to Saskatchewan.”

…

…

…

… What?

Oh, no.

Duff’s in love with me.

“Garry won’t even talk to me anymore, you butt!”

“Oh. Ok, I could come down and spend some time with you.”

I started driving towards where I was staying, but Duff texted me and told me to go to some place called Baraka. I discovered Winnipeg has these little one lane roads that they are allowed to drive in both directions on, requiring you to do a little dance if someone is coming in the other direction, but eventually I made it to Baraka. I parked on a side street with trees and paced for 20 minutes because my legs were cramping something fierce.

Then Duff showed up on his KTM, the bike that can’t decide if it’s a street bike or a dirt bike.

“Best donairs in the city. See, I could take you to another Prairie Donair, but you’ve already tried one and they’re all the same.” He started pointing out other things they had on display excitedly, like a child showing me his favourite candy store.

Holy cow, the whiplash from “I don’t want to talk to anyone” to “I’m so excited you’re here!”. My neck hurts.

He bought us two donairs and we talked while we ate in the dining area. Garry was already a distant past.

I let him ramble on, marveling at the dramatic flip in his temperament. Was this an act for my benefit? Or did he really feel this intensely better now that I was no longer seeing Garry?

My relationship with Duff is strange, no least because I usually only see him for 3 weeks a year, but 24/7 for those three weeks. He has a reputation for being erratic, although I don’t find him as erratic as most people do – perhaps because I understand him.

Actually, he was at that first shutdown in Dryden 2 years ago, but we didn’t meet then. He was working with Adrienne and Mark and they’d come back to the hotel every night and bitch about how crazy he was and I remember feeling sort of glad I wasn’t working with him.

Then we ended up working together at Thunder Bay and I was scared of him for the first couple of days because of everything Adrienne has said, but eventually I got him. We wordlessly understood the other to be in pain – physical, his sciatica and my cancer, and mental – and we just started covering for each other without any kind of agreement. We’re such a good team we usually build without saying anything- people in Regina commented that I seemed to be reading his mind.

This story I’ve told before. We – me, Duff and the Vagabond – went out to Thunder City one day after work, and when me and the Vagabond went home he exploded at me.

“Duff’s trying to steal my girl!” And that was the joke, him admitting he thought of me as his girl, but that conversation continued.

“Duff doesn’t like me like that.” I said dismissively.

“You can see the love in his eyes.”

Can you? I never figured it out. We kept in contact and he called me in early June last year for the job in Regina, but he was never flirty or jealous.

“You like the red hair?”

“It’s not really red, it’s more orange.”

“That’s not the point! No redhead actually has red hair, it’s always orange!”

He smiles. “I do like it.”

I toss it over my shoulder. “My friend commented this is the longest he’s ever seen it. This is the longest it’s been since I was 14.”

“It is much nicer longer.”

“Hah!” I scoff. “Men always say that. Something to pull on.”

His mouth twists like he’s trying not to laugh.

“Now what?” He asked, as we finished eating.

“We could just go to where I’m staying. I’m tired of negotiating Winnipeg traffic.” I said. It’s true, between the 8 hour drive and now this traffic nonsense, my hands were twitching and sore.

“Sure.” He smiled. “If only you brought your gear and then we could go for a ride.”

“Of course I brought my gear!”

“Oh, you did?” He seems legitimately surprised. “Ok, let’s park your car and go for a ride!”

He lead me deeper into downtown Winnipeg and we found where I was staying and parked my car in the street. Changed into my gear.

I was scared of getting on the KTM, to be honest. If there was anyone I was gonna go over the high-side with, it would be Duff. Both the Vagabond and Garry might be wild, but they didn’t have many stories about wiping out on their bikes and they didn’t drink and drive (anymore). Duff does both. There was also no backrest on the KTM, although the seat was comfier than the one on Garry’s bike.

Of course, it was almost 4 at this point. We went down the road to a bar and had a drink – drinking is not optional around Duff – and played a round of pool, during which he defeated me easily.

See, this is why I don’t get other people calling him an idiot. He’s erratic, but he’s actually really smart. He gets in his own way, is the problem.

“Can you hold on tighter when we’re on the bike? I’m afraid you’re going to fall off!” He said.

“I won’t fall off.” Also, I’m afraid to snuggle up close to him.

whiskey makes the heart beat faster
but it sure doesn’t help the
mind and isn’t it funny how you can ache just
from the deadly drone of
existence?

• Charles Bukowski

He went outside for a smoke. Time to talk?

“So, how long have you been in love with me for?” I asked, crossing my arms and looking him in the eyes.

He took a long pull on his cigarette. “I’m not.”

“The thing with Garry?”

“That wasn’t – ” He was cut off by his phone ringing. He walked away from me as he talked on the phone and I got the feeling he was drawing out the conversation to avoid picking up this one again.

Ah, I give up. I’ve laid out my cards, anyway… maybe give him some time to think.

Back to my place to unpack my stuff.

Unity’s apartment is a goth fever dream and I loved it. The cats I could take or leave, as well as the tiny, ancient dog who was deaf, blind and noseblind and couldn’t tell where anything was until she had walked into it, at which point she shrieked and peed a little on the floor.

I got the little loft they had upstairs to myself, with a cheap futon, but hey a room to myself! And with the soft furnishings and carpet, a fairly quiet one at that. Walking distance to downtown and everything.

The biggest problem with the room ended up being the heat. There was no AC. The cats’ litter box was in the loft, and there were windows, but they had no screens and apparently the cats would throw themselves to their deaths if they were in the room with the window open, so I couldn’t just shut the door and leave the windows open to air out.

Time to bust out my backpack. I was worried the little straps would be ripped off by the air resistance, but it survived a trip on the bike. Plus, the little wings flap in the breeze!

Went back down and hopped on the bike again. We drove around for a couple of hours as he showed me the sights, and then all the scaffolding he had built around the city.

See, that’s one of the things the boys love about me. They can go home and tell their girlfriends about work as their eyes glaze over and they eventually say “babe, I don’t care”, but I get it. I enjoy hearing Duff tell me about all his work projects.

We went to his buddy’s place, but she wasn’t home yet. He wanted to go out and grab a pack of smokes, but I didn’t feel like getting back on the KTM so I waited in the backyard.

He finally came back with no smokes, but he did bring 2 cans of beer and a mickey of Forty Creek. I obediently took a sip from the bottle. I probably shouldn’t be drinking before being a passenger on the bike, but rational thinking wasn’t really what I had signed up for this weekend.

Sam and Aly showed up soon after, along with another guy who wasn’t around long enough for me to learn his name, and their two dogs. They’d been out swimming in a river. I played catch with the dogs while Duff and Sam talked, and Aly went inside to shower.

She came back out, “The rips for you and your friend are all set up by the microwave.”

Me and Duff glanced at each other. “Oh, no, Lucy doesn’t do that.”

We sat around talking for hours as day turned in to evening. Turns out Aly is a breast cancer survivor. Duff told her while they were in the kitchen doing bumps and she came out and asked me if I wanted to talk about it.

Why does he do this to me? There are more interesting things about me. I think he thinks it’s a verbal shortcut to how tough I am.

He also mentioned my trip to New Zealand, and we went inside the garage and looked at the car Sam was working on. I knelt on the ground to look at the rockers and he knew what I was doing right away.

“What’s your plan for tomorrow?”

“I dunno, walk around downtown a bit.”

“There are places downtown that aren’t safe to walk around.” Duff says with alarm.

“Thanks, Cap’n Obvious, I live in Tbay!” Although admittedly I have to be a little more careful here, because I couldn’t rely on any biker protection.

It was a short ride back to where I was staying. He comments that I’ve been snuggling up closer and closer to him on the bike in a way that does not sound at all sexual, oh no.

Once safely inside, I had a few crackers and what was left of my donair – it had been too big to eat in one sitting – and some of my Crown cuz I wasn’t a fan of Forty Creek.

I slept fitfully. It cooled off fairly quickly, but the pillows were too full for my style of sleep and eventually I threw them off the futon and used a sweater as a flatter pillow. The cats jumped on me a couple of times.

I couldn’t find a lot of things in the kitchen when I went to cook breakfast. I found some plates, but they looked like “we have guests over” plates and not regular use plates. I later found all the forks and spoons in the sink, which explains where they were. I managed to cook myself breakfast despite the cats trying to get into everything and the dog pooping on the floor twice. I realized I forgot to set my iced tea to steep overnight and boiled it instead, before putting it in the fridge to cool down. I also discovered I had forgotten my towel at home and grabbed one from what seemed to be a linen cupboard to shower, because Heidi’s friend hadn’t come home the night before and her roommate wasn’t super approachable.

Now what? I knew Duff had work today, so I was on my own until he was free.

I managed to convince myself to head out and walked downtown to the Manitoba museum, which was very nice. Although I was immediately beset by several busfulls of screaming children. Which is always an interesting juxtaposition to my own childhood, when I was the lone child, quietly walking behind the group and reading all the plaques.

Manitoba is an interesting place because for much of its existence (geologically speaking) it was actually underwater as the western interior seaway, between the Appalachian mountains and what is now the Rockies. So many of the fossils found in this area are of sea creatures and ammonites. And even when it was above sea level, it was a warm mangrove-like swamp, which is where the abundant coal seams come from.

It’s also interesting because it’s at an intersection between prairie, sub-Artic and Arctic biomes, so there’s a lot of neat interactions and you can be in a completely different biome with a half-hour drive. In particular, I want to visit Turtle Mountain, which seems to have the most fossils!

Someone has put a lot of love into these life-sized displays and I loved it!

I was a little confused that I seemed to be the only tourist. Is it not tourist season?

As I walked, I found myself being repeatedly disturbed by a thought. I wanted Duff here with me. I was having a hard time enjoying the museum when I knew I could be out with Duff.

Am I in love Duff?

I wouldn’t say I am. I don’t find him attractive. I certainly don’t want to start anything right now.

And yet… there it was.

I ducked out at one point to go to the Planetarium and watch “Legends of the Night Sky”. I learned that Keewatin is the indigenous name for Polaris, the “Go home” star because it never moves across the night sky. The legend of the Fisher and the bag of summer. I knew the indigenous name for the Big Dipper is the Great Bear but I didn’t realize that story was linked to why robins have a red belly (Robin shot Great Bear and his blood splashed across her breast).

There were some sections of the museum that didn’t interest me – the usual “the British arrived” bit – and around 2 I headed out.

I’ve also noticed the name Garry is big in the area. Garry street is a big street downtown, and there was some historical Fort Garry in the area so one of the sections of Winnipeg is called Lower Fort Garry. What gives? It seems like a hint.

Now what? Everything in Winnipeg closes at 4, so there wasn’t enough time to go do more sightseeing. I walked back to Unity’s place, stopping to grab a bubble tea, and reheated some leftovers I brought with me (which the cat got in to).

I fell asleep and woke up around 5, as Duff got off work. He didn’t want to come back in to Winnipeg and I can’t say I blame him. It’s about an hour drive for him each way, which is why I wanted to stay at his place!

He started sounding depressed and hopeless again.

Well… I can stay here and do my own thing in this oven, or I could hop in the car and go to him.

So I did.

I was expecting Duff’s place to be some old farm house with a porch, with a barn tilting over in the back 40 and a tractor out front. It was not. It was a 100 foot lot (the house area itself, not the entire property), neatly mowed, with apple trees across the front yard. The house was modern looking, with plain grey siding and no porch. A truck I didn’t recognize was out front, along with his camper.

I texted him “knock knock.”

He opened the garage door and stuck his head out. “I’m in the middle of burning pizza, what’s up?”

“I dunno, thought I’d come out and be social. So you’re not driving in to town all the time.”

“Well, you can’t come in because of bed bugs.”

“I’ve got a folding chair in the trunk.”

He frowned for a minute. “Ok, I’ll bring out some pizza.”

We didn’t end up using the folding chair. We sat on the concrete steps, eating pizza and watching the breeze play across the apple trees.

How did it come to this? 2 years ago I went to Dryden for 1’500 dollars and now I was hanging out with some drunk in Winnipeg for something to do. I’ve lived it and I’m still having a hard time charting it in my mind.

We talked for about an hour. He shows me around the outside of the house; the shed where the mower lives, the old fifth wheel, a tent garage out back he calls his “Volkswagen farm” because it’s full of VW Golfs.

“I guess you can check out the house from the doorstep.” He said, but I went inside the living room after him. I’ll take my luck with the bedbugs.

Wow! It’s so nice, wall to wall wood paneling, and those windows! Completely incongruous with the plain siding on the exterior.

He sighed. “Since you’re inside, I guess I’ll give you the tour.”

He showed me around the inside of the house. The basement is all done up for playing live music, with multiple guitars hung up on the wall, some of them signed.

We ended up in the garage.

“I have no liquor, I meant today to be a break day.”

“That’s fine.” I said. “What do you have to do around here? You’re always complaining that it needs fixing, but everything looks fine.”

He points to the white board behind him. I note in the corner someone has written Manifestation is key. You have to want to succeed!. “All of this.”

I scan the bullet point list. Most of these are for his leisure mobiles, not much of it really seems urgent or even necessary. And even if it’s just for fixing them up to sell them, surely it would be easier to sell them for scrap just to cross things off the list? He’s just lost in his own mind, that’s what it is.

He pursed his lips, clearly thinking hard about something. “You should go, I’m not in the mood for company.”

I get up to leave, but he starts talking about something else. Three times he does this before he actually shows me the door. Fighting with himself about what he wants.

When I got back to Unity’s place we got in a texting argument. I wrote out my bit on a single text so he couldn’t counter it or walk away. I expected him to ignore me until morning, but he started arguing with me right away. Although we were really arguing past each other; I just wanted him to see how his feelings were affecting the way he was treating me.

The argument ended without a resolution around midnight, so I stayed up even later drinking half my bottle of Crown and venting to Jeremy.

The thing that got me was, he said he doesn’t do relationships because he always hurts his partner, but he knows what the Vagabond did to me and he knows some of what Garry did and I can’t imagine that he would do any worse. But even if he did, it would be worth it to me, because Duff is devoted. He never fails to text me. He gets me work. He stands up for me.

My thoughts are in dark places. Like Bukowski, staying up late into the night in strange places, drinking and descending deeper into some dark place in my mind. Twisted passion that calls itself love. No one will ever love me; I’ll settle for someone who just won’t hurt me.

“I took the song, she never gave it. I meant to take her, too. I should have. I should have ripped her heart out before leaving her for that dwarf.”

Morning comes too early, bright and shiny. There’s no curtains on the windows in the loft and it gets the morning sun.

I’m stuck to the bed, still drunk enough that my head is spinning. I doze, too tired to escape, too awake to go back to sleep. At one point I manage to muster the strength to stagger across the road to a convenience store and grab a Gatorade.

By noon, I’ve decided just to head home. Lacking the ability to stay with Duff or Garry, I’m too broke to limp along and make it work, at least not without stressing, and it’s no fun being on a vacation if you’re stressed. I can go home and be broke there easily enough, rest and recover.

I try to think if I’d rather have stayed home and not gone out at all, but I can’t find it in me. This seemed necessary, something that will only be understood in hindsight.

I pack up – I later found out I forgot my cold brew bottle and my sugar bowl, that’s what happens when you pack hungover – and give Unity back the key. It must have rained in the night, the tree treed all over my rear window.

At the last minute, I text Duff and ask him if I should come say goodbye. He says yes.

I’m surprised when I arrive at his place. He’s got a big smile on. He hands me a glass of whisky and tells me he’s showing me how the riding mower works.

“Um, do you have a place for me to stay tonight?”

“Yeah!”

Ok. I guess I’ll stay here one night, then…?

We spend about half an hour with him teaching me the riding mower. I think to myself that he could probably get the yard mowed faster than he could teach me how to drive it, but at this point it is more emotional than logical. When we do go into the garage, there’s a fresh bottle of Jameson there, at least an eighth empty. He insists he bought it this morning and he was sober last night, and I’m not sure which is scarier. I politely sip at my whisky and he points it out.

“Thought you were an alcoholic, sis.”

“I am, but I still try to pace myself. It’s more that I drink to avoid my problems than the quantity. Plus, I’m still hungover from the night before.”

I show him how empty the bottle of Crown is and he laughs. “Wow, you really killed it. But haven’t you heard of ‘hair of the dog’?”

Yeah, but at some point you have to crawl out of the hole you dug yourself, and I don’t see a point in continuing to dig it deeper.

He decides to go on a run to see his dealer. We change into gear and hop on the KTM and fly down the gravel roads in the middle of nowhere, Winnipeg. I try not to do the math on how much of the bottle of Jameson is missing. He’d better not crash; Garry and the Vagabond might not be on speaking terms with me anymore, but either of them would still jump at the excuse to break Duff’s knees.

We do not crash. At one point he decides to cut across a culvert as I scream and dig my fingers into his jacket.

We let ourselves into the house. His dealer is in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich. He offers one to us as well, and yogurt and cherries. I haven’t had anything to eat today, so I eat in wide-eyed silence while I watch them take puffs from a pipe containing a mysterious white powder.

“Do you want a hoot?” The dealer asks me.

“Uh, no, she doesn’t.” Duff interrupts for me. It occurs to me that at some point, it might be easier just to do a bump or two before someone gets concerned that I’m a narc, although I am definitely not interested in cooking it in a pipe. “Oh yeah, Lucy here is a scaffolder.”

“Carpenter.” I correct him.

“Oh, yeah? I used to work at the mill in Terrace Bay.”

“Do you know Steve?”

“Yes, I do.” He tells us a few stories about Steve. Apparently his alcoholism is a “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” situation.

We’re there for about an hour, probably more. Time has lost all meaning to me. It doesn’t help that we’re near the Arctic circle and at the summer solstice, so the sun almost never seems to set or even descend. The dealer shows Duff some things he got from a fence who couldn’t afford his next hit. He also tells me some stories about aliens and nonsense, including a picture of him butt-naked standing by the side of a road with a literal tinfoil hat on. It all seems very surreal, but I suppose that’s what I signed up for.

Then we head off, but we’re still not headed back to his place. He stops by a farm where they pay him cash under the table and requests his pay.

Last stop is his buddy’s place, but instead of knocking on the door he just stops outside a window and revs menacingly until the guy comes out.

“Hey Jay, come by my place later?”

“Sure, man.” Jay says, his eyes not leaving me. “Who’s this?”

“Oh this is Lucy, she’s visiting from Thunder Bay.”

Finally we head home.

Running the mower was a stop and start process. It was easy enough one I got used to it, but the 6-axis-like controls were very twitchy and his yard is not flat. After about half an hour Jay showed up and the two of them disappeared into the garage to drink and chat while I puttered away on the mower.

Actually, I was pretty happy to be on the mower. Duff seemed to be in a better mood and no one’s ever let me use a riding mower before. It felt like trust.

Once the mowing was done, we sat in the garage drinking and chatting for a bit. Duff made me another sandwich.

“Could she stay at your place tonight?”

Jay frowned. “I mean, the spare bedroom is under construction. Where was she going to stay before?”

“I thought Evan’s place, cuz he’s out at camp with his family, but…”

“Yeah, who knows who’ll be dropping by his place.” Jay looks at me. “I just have the couch.”

I shrug. “That’s fine, I’m not picky.”

Eventually Jay decided to head out and we finished up the yardwork. He gives me the air gun to blow out the mower and then we set up the power washer so I can clean the tree off my car, and I wash down his truck, the KTM and the mower while I’m at it.

“Wow, we got a lot done today!” Duff said happily.

Did we? I mowed the yard and Duff weed-whacked around the edges. We did about 2 hours of work each, max. This is all in his head. He’s glad someone came here to rescue him.

I hop in my car and he gets in his and we go to Jay’s place.

Like everyone out here, it seems, Jay has a few spare cars rotting around the place. But he also has a ’74 Barracuda in his garage in the back that he’s working on. It’s road worthy, and Duff encourages us to go out for a spin without him, so we tear up the paved highway in the fading light. He even stops completely to do burnouts, waiting until we are enveloped in smoke before peeling off down the highway as fast as the ‘Cuda will go. I’m thrilled to bits and shrieking with laughter! Jay seems to be having fun showing off for the pretty girl.

I’m starting to yawn as well. I wouldn’t count anything I got the night before as sleep, I haven’t eaten or drank much, and I’ve had more alcohol.

I unpack just what I need to and change into pajamas. There was some idea that Duff and Jay would just hang out in the garage until I fell asleep so Jay wasn’t disturbing me, but Duff was also tired. He hopped in his car and headed out.

So, nothing much was solved or accomplished, but I was at least heartened that me and Duff could remain friends… for now.

Jay sat down in the living room to “keep me company” but I’m pretty sure he was hoping to get lucky. Which I thought was in extremely poor taste. Not even cuz I was a house guest but because he’s been friends with Duff since they were like 8 and he 100% knows that Duff fancies me. I made polite conversation with him for a bit and then excused myself to sleep.

The sun woke me in the morning again. I doubted Jay or Duff would be up for a bit, so I texted Duff that I was heading out again and let myself out. I stopped in Beasejour for breakfast and to gas up before hitting the road again.

Dark clouds followed me the rest of the way to Dryden. I stopped to gas up and then went to Jeremy’s place to say hi. Which was just as well, cuz a howling gale blew in after me! With some persuasion, he threw a pizza in the oven for me. Both Kathy and Scott seemed happy to see me and Kathy insisted, since his brother Michael was visiting as well, that we play board games. We played some low-tech version of Trouble with a wooden board, and using cards instead of dice. It was a lot of fun and I would have loved to stay longer, but the rain had let up, there wasn’t any free beds in the place and my perishables were slowly going bad in the car.

I got back to town around 9PM and just unpacked what I needed for the night cuz it was raining cats and dogs again.

“We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.”

Think I’ll be moving to weekly posts now. I don’t imagine there will be a lot of excitement in the next couple months and I want to focus on some of my other projects.

P.S. I’m also writing this while being supremely annoyed because I realized that Death Stranding 2 is PS5 exclusive and will be until after I leave for New Zealand, which means a hassle to try and play it! It’s especially annoying because it has been getting 10/10 reviews across the board and I really want to see Neil as Solid Snake!

My personal fan theories are that Tomorrow is Lou from the future and the Lucy character that Neil is talking to was Sam’s wife so we shall see if that holds true. Some people have argued that it is too obvious, but I think Kojima is smart and he’s got other twists planned, so he’s laid out some obvious ones to distract everyone.