still no letter's been delivered still the winter days unfold

We decided, last night, to go on a date. We haven't done a whole lot of that lately, and what little going out we've done has been more to fulfill obligations to friends rather than for our own enjoyment. But last night we decided to go out alone together. First we went to the video store in hopes we'd find a movie that looked appealing, but we ended up leaving without one because there was nothing there that interested either of us. Then we went for dinner to a Chinese restaurant that R&K introduced us to awhile ago, the only good one we've found in this city. (All You Can Eat Buffets are never a good sign.)

This morning Shawn is driving his mother halfway across the province to see her father. Shawn's grandfather is dying. On his side of the family, everyone had their children much younger and so Shawn has had the opportunity to know his grandparents for longer than I knew mine. This is the first time he will have lost one. Shawn's grandfather is a kind man. He makes wooden crafts in his workshed; coin banks shaped like owls, handmade Chinese checkers boards, letter holders... He goes outside with buckets of dried bread to feed the birds. They know him and they land on his hat and shoulders. Shawn's grandparents, to me, feel like what Canada is supposed to be about, or was about a hundred years ago. And yet they haven't changed. I hope he feels his life has been full. I think it has.

While Shawn is gone, I am going to work on my corporate scripts. It strikes me as hilarious sometimes that I am using a degree in Fine Arts not to write scripts about human drama, but to write scripts about construction workers getting in trouble for not wearing their hardhats. It seems too ridiculous to be true. I think it's called selling out. I used to think people just sold out for money, but that's not the only reason they do it. Sometimes they just do it because they're bored to death and need to feel like they're doing something, anything, even if it's not particularly important or significant in the big picture of the world. And so you end up selling your skills to some big corporation because it's the only thing you can do right now that isn't a complete waste of time. I try to remember that some of the other things I do are a bit more meaningful, even if they're not the bulk of my time or income at the moment.

I got my background checks back from the police and from social services and they were clear. This allows me to return to work in the public system. I knew I had never been accused of endangering a child, but I was a little concerned that the police check might indicate a record. That's because I was arrested once, when I was nineteen, back in my idealistic hippie days, for trespassing - ie: protesting. It wasn't on the record, so I guess it must have been expunged after a certain period of time without any further trouble. Phew. (Being arrested, by the way, is really no fun. It's humiliating.) Now I have to send these documents in to the Board of Education to prove to them that I am safe to work with their children. (Interesting that I've been allowed to work with their children for several weeks without these documents on the promise that I would have them soon. What if I had a huge history of endangering children?)

Time to get dressed and "greet the day with a glad cry" (ahh) as my Dad always used to say. Shawn's mother will be here momentarily and I prefer to greet her with clothes on. Besides, there's coffee downstairs, and it's calling me.

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