There has been a serenity in the last handful of days, but I'd never put a label on it or call it contentment.
Neither would I seek to repeat it, or find some routine and steal away its fervour with a leash.
But I'm loving it, loving the attention, strange matchboxes wrapped in tiny bows with the tiniest joints in them left as birthday gifts on my desk...
They way Marie-Jo marched up the stairs to see me, just to tell me that she'd loved the article I'd written.
I'd gotten nervous because I'd handed it in so long ago and had heard nary a word...
...but apparently there is a hint of quality in it, enough to impress the editor.
Rockin'.
And Friday I drove my princess the long miles down to a tiny town in eastern Quebec somewhere for a high-school play, well, the play took place in a high school gymnasium but the actors were grown men with terrible english accents - the best of which was a charming co-worker of mine who pops up in strange places.
(He's a friend of Speedy Petey [not the one I work with] and he recognized me at work because apparently he'd seen me at the Tragically Hip concert some months ago. Now THAT was flattering...)
And the drive was an adventure complete with car troubles and biting cold and dinner in chinatown to start us off with the tang of shrimp and pork and watercress soup on our tongues.
And the play was grand and Dave was surprisingly talented... To the point where I can no longer remember what he really dresses/acts/speaks like.
But he makes a great british blue-collar bitch.
And the drive back was remisniscent of gazing at snow-capped cottages on the way to ski hills.
Coupled with the Warren Miller movie last night, and an austere Eric and I in my horribly ladylike black coat cheering on my Johnny as he charmed the audience with his MCing...
Leaning back, stoned out of my gourd in the last row of our own balcony at Place Des Arts our hearts stopped as the music stopped and all you could hear was the wind whistling as one of the bravest men on earth threw himself from the cliff face he'd been clinging to, and backflipped luxuriously into the cloud layer...
When the thumping hearbeat of the soundtrack cut back in, I was on the verge of vicariously creaming myself.
Oooh, now I wanna be a base-jumper, skis strapped on and parachute ever so carefully folded.
Maybe I will be.
But in the meantime, I ran into a few of the ski team boys there (not to mention a handful of people from High School who, well, I dunno... Should be looking better) and they may be taking me skiing on my actual birthday.
In any case, I have a stack of passes for Tremblant if anyone is willing to brave the drive and the early conditions.
And when I stepped into Marc's house and remembered how he'd called me babe in EQ that morning, and the way he carefully inspected my bubblegum hair and pronounced it Good.
And the way Bruno asked me "how come only Marc and Narc get to be your cronies, what am I -- relegated to being Marc's crony?!"
Reminding me of an attempt at hurt by someone I hadn't expected it from or understood, and how they hadn't left me.
I miss them...
And they make me glow inside.
And today, I woke at 5am to drive my parents to a faraway airport, and the drive back with the sunrise at my back was brilliant, and having a chat with my sister who's suddenly become beautiful, and who suddenly doesn't hate me anymore...
Afternoon is streaming through my blinds and I am feeling loved, flakey as it is, but things have fallen together and the cold stings but oh how it stings.