So I have come to Toronto. Primarily to go to the Freshbooks Building a Web App Workshop. Woot. But then also, Meredith is here. So I flew out a couple days early. And then also, Nick Rose was performing on the Friday, so clearly I needed to make it here on Friday early enough to go to that.

I’m pretty tired right now. Acshully.

I got up at 5:30 on Friday morning in order to make my flight. Which seemed like it shouldn’t be a big deal because I get up at 5:30 every morning to go to work these days. But for some reason, when your rise’n’shine time is 5:30, each successive rising is less shining, not more. Also, I had been to belly dance classes all Thursday night, coming home at 9:30 and then staying up until 11:30 to finish packing.

I thought I would sleep on the plane. But naturally I did not. My first leg was to Calgary (which seems so counterproductive, flying West just to fly back east) and that was too short a leg for naps. And my second leg, from Calgary to Toronto was 3.5 hours, which would have been long enough for naps for certainly. But my back hurt and I couldn’t find a comfortable position that didn’t make all my entire lower back feel cramped and impacted and siezed up. So I squirmed into one position or another for the last two and a half hours of the flight.

I had a little boy of about 9 or 10 sitting next to me on the plane and I thought “well this is going to suck.” But he was, overall, pretty well-behaved.

His dad sat in the aisle seat and noted immediately that his television screen wasn’t working. It would flickr on periodically, but did not function. The kid said, “well you can use mine. I’m going to just read my book.”

Only then it turned out that while the kids’s tv’s screen worked, the channel controls on his armrest did not work. So for the first half hour of the flight, the dad would periodically reach over his son, to the armrest that was between me and the kid and viciously punch at the channel buttons, trying to make them do something. And he alternated that behaviour with adjusting the tilt of the little television screen trying to get whatever loose wire to connect, so pushing it, and violently tapping it, disturbing the man in the seat ahead of him who was reclining in the pose of someone who wants to sleep.

Finally, he summoned a flight attendant who consulted the head flight attendant and said, “there isn’t a lot we can do. Just make a note for maintenance when we land.” But she divulged that there was a box under the seats that controlled the televisions and sometimes a little tap will get things working again.

So then the dad and the son sat doing little testing kicking at the seats in front of us every thirty seconds until she came back and pointed out where the box actually was (only under the middle seat), so then the boy spent some time kicking that box (attached to the seats) in earnest. And I thought, “I don’t have the worst seat on the plane. Those dudes ahead of us do.”

But then halfway through the flight, the boy took a notion to try kicking the box underneath OUR seat, just in case that was the correct one. And I found that very jarring to my back.

Anyhow, I was very happy to reach Toronto. And Meredith met me at the airport and guided me through three stages of public transit (a bus, a subway then finally a streetcar) to get us back to her apartment. Her apartment is very little and adorable and just exactly the kind of space that I used to imagine getting for myself when I would move away from home and have a place of my own.

I never did that. Instead I moved directly in with Del. And we lived together for about a year and then we got married. And then a year and a half later, we had Ethan. And I would occasionally say how I had a vision of this sweet little bohemian apartment I was going to keep for myself with plants and shelves of books and creative clutter and regular neighbourhood walks and eating farmers’ market foods and I was very sad that I hadn’t had that before settling down. So, I said, I will get my own place as soon as the kids move out.

Del didn’t think this was a very good idea nor did he think it was a nice thing to say to your spouse.

A couple years ago I explained to Ian about how I never got my cute little bohemian apartment and I was going to do that when we were older and richer. And he said, “that’s cool. As long as I don’t come over to find you employ a shirtless gardener with flowing hair.”

But then a couple weeks ago, I was lying in bed and thinking about the future. And I realized that all the things Ian and I have talked about doing in the future have come to replace my longing for this little alone-space that I wanted desperately to have some day. Instead of picturing this solitary space with room for all my creative clutter I picture this lovely old character house filled with all our projects where we can come together on projects and then move apart for our own projects. Where things won’t always be where I left them, but sometimes they will be better than I left them, so it’s all right.

Anyhow, that was a sweet segue to talk about how my so-happy relationship has cured me of my years of longing for some bachelor living. But what I was really getting at with all that history was just to explain how easily Meredith’s apartment feels like home. It is exactly the kind of little space I would keep and I quite love it.

I also quite love her neighbourhood.

And I think I have walked six hours today.

Which might explain why I was so hungry for calories that I ate an entire package of fudge in addition to my supper quesadilla.