journal features

gramma gelinas

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2003.12.27

Today I spent much of the day packing up my apartment. I took a break around noon to go meet my girlfriend's family for lunch.

It was my first introduction to my girlfriend's grandmother. She struck me as having the readiest sense of humor among the Gelinas women I've met this far. And after the 100-year-old I met with two days before, quite easy going.

I was stood up by the woman who'd made an appointment to come see the apartment today. I called her, and she told me that not only was she unable to come see the place on the weekend, but that she'd lost my phone number and had been unable to contact me. She didn't sound like someone who'd make a good tenant, I surmised.

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