September 10th, 2009 by Chris Eng

The Crisitunity (also known as the Great Almost-Flood of 2009) passed without incident. I know that not having closure on that unresolved aspect of my life was keeping you up at night, so I wanted to clear that up right off the bat. The mess that was distorting and cramping our living room is gone, the boxes have been sorted and moved back into storage and six new boxes are on the “For Sale” pile. Despite that, the bookshelves are all still overflowing to the endtables and there’s still a general lack of space in the house. But at least it’s a clean and generally organized lack of space. What else is going on? Here’s some Pluses and Minuses:

+ The Donald Westlake kick I’ve been on for the past few weeks is a massive, massive plus–specifically with his Parker books. Fans of hard-boiled crime fiction need to take specific note of this, in case it’s somehow passed them by.
- The greenpunk books I should be reading are mouldering on the shelves because I’ve been reading Donald Westlake and noir fiction.
+ Gonna go hide away in a cabin on the Island for my birthday in a couple of weeks.
- The general malaise and depression that seems to be afflicting me at the moment. Not sure of the reason. Not sure there needs to be one.
+ Will and Kyla’s fantastic wedding that I went to a week back, hanging out with a ton of awesome people (many of whom I probably haven’t seen in the better part of 15 years). The wedding featured a bicycle procession (with the bride and groom on a tandem bike) through the streets of Victoria to a park for a champagne toast and then to the reception. Freakin’ amazing.
- My friend Jeff getting on an accident on his bike on the way home from said wedding and shattering his clavicle. He’s okay, if a little sore and chagrined.
+ I’ve been spending less time obsessing over what’s happening online and tending to my downloads, allowing me to spend more time IRL…
- …mainly because my computer disagreed with the beer that got poured on it and now refuses to communicate with me. Or with anyone else. Or in any way whatsoever. So it looks like a new computer is on the horizon, but that’ll have to wait for a little bit. In the meantime, I’m on Carla’s machine. *sigh*

All right, I’m off to sell one of those boxes of books. A local store said they’d take them off my hands for $150. w00t!