Evernote is kind of like my Neil Peart journal, it seems. I don’t jot things down in a physical journal anymore. I create notes in Evernote. So here are notes from the bus:
So here I am, on the 25 bus, looking at the moon. Clear day today. Sunny. Probably the first, perhaps second, sunny day in Vancouver since I got here.
The time change adjustment was easier this time. Don’t know if it’s because I only spent 3 days out East instead if five, or that I was already mentally prepared for it. There were some tears on the plane ride back. Some days it’s still hard. Some days I wonder what the heck I’ve done. Some days.
Then I look around, and just go with the flow. The mountains. Ah, the mountains. They’re like my natural bookstore.
Speaking of which, there’s a bookstore called Chapters, which is a fantastic bookstore. It’s like a library with lots of natural light. They don’t care if you hang out, read, browse, write, whatever. Good taste in music too and they sell other stuff, like candles and what I can only describe as desk or library accessories. Some cool stuff.
There are some pretty cool local bookstores as well. Wandered into an arts one the other day. Graphic design. Photography. Architecture.
That would be a dog in a backpack on the person next to me. On the train. #random
Vancouver is like Chicago and New York in that respect. Lot of dog people. Don’t know if there’s a correlation between size of dog and apartment size though.
So tonight I got invited to go ice skating. Ice skating. Suppose I should count MT blessings it’s not hockey. I think hockey is like football in America. A right of passage. Maybe. Vancouver is a one sport town so that might be a factor as well.
Who knows?
I kind if like this “poetry in transit” thing. Wonder if it’s a campaign for something.
So Chapters, it turns out, is part of a larger company called Indigo Books & Music, Inc. And Chapters is quite the bookstore. Kind of like the best parts of a mom & pop store with the backing of a larger corporation. The selection was incredible. It took me a little more than an hour to browse the whole store. I can usually browse a bookstore in about 20 minutes. And within 20 minutes, I can pick a section that seems interesting to me and find something. In about an hour I can be out the door with two or three books under my arm. Or such is how book shopping was done in the States. If I couldn’t find it at the bookstore, it was on Amazon. And most of the time I knew if something would be at the bookstore, or if I should skip the trip and just buy it off Amazon.
Bookstores have always been a soothing, relaxing place for me. There’s just something about them that calms me down. Only walked out with three books: REAMDE, Worm and Moonwalking with Einstein. Easily keep me occupied the next couple of months.
Hrm…perhaps it’s time to find a book club…
And the “poetry in transit” turns out to be an actual thing. A partnership between TransLink, the public transit system, and the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia (ABPBC), which is “a provincial association of BC owned and controlled book publishing companies. The ABPBC works to support the long-term health and success of the Canadian-owned book industry in British Columbia.”
How about that. A provincial association to support books! What are the odds? In the Chicago, they cut back library hours in order to plug a hole in the budget.
Poetry in Transit goes back to 1996, and while the website doesn’t list the poems themselves, they are easy to see on the Skystrain. It took me a minute to figure out if it was something random or an ad campaign for something. Not exactly either, but it is some good writing. Will try to snap a pic next time I see one.