journal features

farewell, BC

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Vancouver, 2002.08.22

Today was the day I changed my address with all of the various outfits and institutions that know it. I also had the satisfaction of cancelling my crappy Telus mobile phone service. And the experience of cancelling my BC Hydro account, which was an entirely pleasant affair in which I was even promised a letter of reference because I was such a good client.

When I went to the post office, I was greeted with the usual confusion and contradictory instructions on forwarding my mail. In the end, I decided to sit back and enjoy the show as the two staffers sorted out how it worked what exactly I should do. I can only pray that the fellow who lived in my building before me didn't use that service, cos I'm still getting a small old-growth forest's worth of junk mail for him every week. One amusing touch was the request for ID just in case I was doing this to someone 'as a joke'.

That thought amused me. Maybe if you have $30, try going into the Shopper's Drug Mart near you and screwing with someone's mail.

rand()m quote

If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be crazier than I've been on this trip. I know very few things I'd take seriously any more. I'd certainly be less hygenic... I would take more chances, I would take more trips, I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers, and I would watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans. I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I'd have many more of them, in fact I'd try not to have anything else, just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of my day. If I had it to do all over again, I'd travel lighter, much lighter than I have. I would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and I'd stay that way later in the fall. And I would ride more merry-go-rounds, and catch more gold rings, and greet more people and pick more flowers and dance more often. If I had it to do all over again - but you see, I don't.

—Jorge Luis Borges