I feel a bit of urgency in enjoying all of this because I’m one of those new librarians who can leave the lower mainland to find work. I’ve been applying in places where the ocean will be a dim memory. Even if I manage to stay here, I’ll probably move to a different (cheaper-rent) area, since chances are I won’t be making much money, and the water won’t be right out the door any more.

Also as part of my quest for fish food today, I went down to the Oaksomething mall, where Vancouver has its first Lego store. It’s a fine place to buy sets, but I was disappointed by their loose piece and minifig selection. They had a bunch of good colours for bricks, but only in very limited sizes. I’m in the market for a load of tan 1x2s and 2x2s, but all they had was 2x4s. And the minifig heads didn’t count as part of the loose bricks. Selah. It did mean I made it out of there without buying anything. The mall didn’t have a pet supply store.

Now, I am not a handy man. I haven’t ever changed a tire on a car; I wouldn’t be able to build a fence (I mean I’d be able to build a terrible fence, or a fence from Lego, but a real life “keep the cows where they should be” fence? not gonna happen). But I have changed bike tires before.

Bicycles are the one area where I feel like I can handle the difficulties involved. They’re at a good scale of machinery, and each little bit you do doesn’t have to be replicated again and again. There are only two wheels. My bike only has one brake (and no gears). I can see what everything needs to do and understand the physics involved.

My big problem going into this tire change (the first on my favourite bike I’ve owned) was a lack of tools. I had an allen key multitool thing that had a makeshift wrench for dealing with my brakes (which I’ve used before) but I discovered when I went downstairs, new bike tube in hand, that I had no wrench to get my tire off the frame.

This is the problem of living with other people and being able to scavenge what I need off of them. My roommate does not have a wrench set (and since I don’t have even one wrench I don’t even get the satisfaction of saying “How can you not have wrenches?” like I’m sure many of my friends are thinking right now). I had to go out and find a wrench. When I got to Sears I realized I had no idea what size the nut on my wheel was. I’d just wanted a small adjustable crescent wrench, but those only came in gigantic sets. So I went off to find a bike shop.

At the first bike shop they had a very cool wrench that had a bottle opener on the other side, but $30 was just too much. Eventually I found a double headed wrench that I figured one of the heads would be about the right size…

Oh man. I’m sorry. this is terribly boring. My mom is back from France now, so I feel like I should keep people up to date with the minutiae of my days a bit better.

Anyway. I fixed my bike! And I like my little handful of tools in the picture above. That’s what I’ve got for you today. I’m presenting a paper at a children’s literature conference this weekend and blogged the North Shore Writers Festival last weekend. And I’m checking in on and feeding Jamie’s cat while he’s at Ebertfest. That all would have been much more exciting to write about.

Today was 420 day and there was a huge event on the steps of the art gallery. So much selling of weed and weed-food. With banners advertising prices and varieties and such. It was odd seeing it all so concentratedly open. There were biker-types and hippies and a bunch of high-school students wearing Portland NBA hats. After I realized stuff was happening, walking around downtown was fun. It was easy to spot people who were obviously going to the square, but it was more fun to watch people avoiding the 420ers.

I’d gotten some books from the library so I went down to the harbour to read comics in the sun. I hadn’t been to the square where the Olympic cauldron before, and though I’d seen the Digital Orca from a distance today was the first time I got up close. It was made by Douglas Coupland. Maybe if I’d paid better attention to the Olympics I’d have known that already, but there’s a handy plaque I read it from.

Tomorrow I’ll head up to the North Shore Writers Festival to blog it up. We had a meeting yesterday and it is not as intense as it might have been. It’ll be a longish day, but fun. There will be wine and cheese I was told to eat a lot of. I plan to comply.

For a research project I’m working on I got to interview a former National Librarian of Canada last week, and she was adamant that going to conferences without having a job to do is pointless. I think that makes sense. This Saturday I’m going to be doing some liveblogging for the North Shore Writers Festival, which should be fun. I’m going to be a convenor for the BC Library Conference in the middle of May and I’m volunteering at VanCAF. I mean, I had fun wandering around at Emerald City, but I do like having something to do.

Also, when Sean comes to town in June the Vancouver Canadians will be playing. It works out that we’ll be able to go to a baseball game in the afternoon and then the Bombers-Lions CFL season opener in the evening.

The home opener for the Jays season was spoiled by our exceedingly handsome closer, who was unable to not blow the save. Le sigh. At least Colby Rasmus made an excellent diving catch and hit a triple (which, even though it’s illogical, is a feat I respect way more than a home run, no offense to Mister Bautista), and I watched the game in good company.

One of the things I really enjoyed about our Easter dinner yesterday was one of my friends being a little drunk and really wanting to take us all to a goth night. Her pitch to me was “Goth girls are all hot and they love librarians so you should completely come.” While I agree that goth girls are hot, and that their librarian preferences are probably a bit higher than the general population, I didn’t go to that part of the evening. And it turns out that was just as well, because the bar they ended up at was doing a lesbian night as opposed to goth, which would have hurt my chances for love far more than my lack of ink and paleness.

Remember how I talked about the cherry blossoms being awesome here? This is my fucking bus stop/skytrain station:

Spring here is great. I don’t care if you’ve already hit 20 degrees for weeks on end in Winnipeg because the planet is boiling.

I enjoy the sheer number of cherry blossoms when I’m out walking. At the SkyTrain station closest to my apartment it’s this huge fragrant canopy of white (and a bit of pink) with people happily gawking and taking pictures in it all. Very neat.

At our Easter dinner at the Little House from the Prairies yesterday we were talking about the absence of seasons here and how we might romanticize the cold back in Alberta and Manitoba (I do not romanticize such horrors, just to be clear). We were also talking about living in a place where tour buses come to visit, which is kind of weird. But the not exactly closest (but close enough to be the first one I think of) park to my house is Stanley Park, all huge and treed and full of totem poles and aquaria and such.

I like living near water and being able to go to the park and watch seaplanes and people messing about with boats. Now that it’s actually getting warm enough to sit outside and read, you’ll probably see more pictures from me that could be taken by a busload of tourists. But it’s where I am. I think I like it.

The good thing is that remaining a student leaves me able to work in Graduate Research Assistant positions over the next few months. I’ll hopefully be doing a bunch of video production work for one of my profs, and right now I’m doing a whack of content management stuff for SLAIS’ new MA in Children’s Literature website (which isn’t up yet).

The wonderful bit about this kind of work is that I can do it on my own with a baseball game on. The Jays have new uniforms and hey, maybe this is the year they’ll play meaningful September ball. I enjoyed the hell out of their first victory of the season yesterday, but really, I just like watching games.

I was looking at my history of being here in Vancouver and I noticed that this month till the summer classes begin is my first time I’ve really spent in Vancouver without school going on. I ran off to China and Australia at the ends of my previous semesters, so I’m going to have to remember that there isn’t any meeting with people in my classes that will just happen because I’m sitting in a chair near somewhere they are going. If I’m going to see my friends I have to contact them. Which will be difficult but I’ll do my best. It’s a time for hope.