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adrift in Toronto

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

We went for a walk, this afternoon. It rained. Apparently, it's been raining for weeks in Toronto. Anyway, we went into a paper store, and I noticed yet another baby Zen garden. They seem to be the rage here, in Canada; they've been everywhere in Vancouver and Toronto. There were two young girls poking at it when I saw the thing. One girl was pointing it out, but the other just said, "So what, it's just sand."

The girl who'd been looking at it said, "Yeah," and they turned away from it. But their interest became rekindled when I picked up the tiny rake that sells with the thing. Noticing that they were now watching rapt, I explained (badly), "It's a Japanese garden. The way you arrange the sand is supposed to reflect what you're thinking and feeling."

I put down the rake, and both girls said, "Cool!" and converged on it.

Then I floated into the back of the store, where Ken was playing with a fancy pen at the counter. It had a grip that squished around your fingers in a mildly disturbing way. The girl was explaining that it was a space pen, that its ink was pressurized, and it could operate upside-down. I picked up the little display unit, and held it upside down. It worked upside down! I was enormously impressed.

I asked how much it cost. $90. I became significantly less interested. But the girl said, "I've explained that pen to 500 people, and you're the first to try it upside down." (That's about the same company I keep in voting for the Green party!)

I went back to tell my mum about the ludicrously expensive pen, and she told me about the two little girls that had just been telling her about the Japenese garden. I was very pleased with myself.

Ken bought a cheaper model in the line of space pens. A real bargain at $31.