I don’t know what the Winnipeg-centric equivalents to that shared intergenerational but local experience would be. I guess if I was a person who’d had a tradition of beach-going I’d have more connection to this, but it’s still a bit different having to drive for an hour compared to riding you bike for 15 minutes down to a suitable beachy spot.

I had my first ever performance review last week and with that I’m now officially a permanent employee. I understand that’s supposed to be a good thing, but man, I think in my head the word permanent is only ever linked with disability and death. “Permanent employee” is a term that screams its own lying nature. Almost all those old hand library workers on the beach last night eventually stopped being employees, and the ones that haven’t yet will someday.

But the beach and a fire and enjoying the fact that our winter was negligible (though dark) were all fine things to experience temporarily on a Wednesday night.

Maybe I just miss being on vacation. I know from Australia that working five days a week wears me down. After easter I was joking with some of my coworkers about how I could get used to that 3-day work week/4-day weekend cycle. But it wasn’t a joke exactly. I totally wish my job was a (predictable) part time one. Especially here in Campbell River where I do not need to be working as much as I do to pay my rent (as opposed to Vancouver or Sydney).

I mean, I like making enough money I don’t have to put off buying groceries till my paycheque comes in. I don’t want to make less per hour, just work less. Socking money away in a bank account is something I’ll appreciate eventually (when Aileen and I hit the trans-siberian for example), but for now it’s not exactly providing a huge amount of pleasure for me the way lazy long weekends do.

But I have vacation time coming, and I’m taking it in San Francisco. The Jays are playing two games against the Giants the first week of June and I’ll be there. I bought tickets yesterday and had to fight very hard to not spend hundreds of dollars on each one.

I got one seat behind the plate-ish along the home-3rd base line (which is my favourite place to watch a ballgame from even if it is thirty rows further up from where I’d get them at a Goldeyes game), and the other by the Giants bullpen lined up along the 2nd-3rd basepath. I’m hoping Lawrie’s back with the big club and isn’t injured so I can watch him do his thing fairly closely. It’s too bad about Reyes’ ankle injury.

Sometimes I think about my time here in Campbell River being something like my time in Wanzhou. When I do that it feels more manageable. I mean, I couldn’t possibly go to San Francisco for a week or Vancouver for a weekend from Wanzhou. And I made it through those years all right. But I worked a lot less as a mediocre teacher.

Sigh.

That’s my infrequent update on what is happening in my non-reading life. (For my reading life, as always check Librarianaut)

Last week I went to Gold River, and before we started work we stopped for coffee. In the coffeeshop there was another table of four who were talking about someone they all knew who’d hit some ice and then the ditch just last week. It’s weird having a conversation in a small place where you know whatever you say will be clear to everyone around you and that they aren’t anonymous strangers but know who you are, or can find out. This was the day after Hugo Chavez died but I couldn’t draw my coworker into a discussion of South American politics, possibly for that reason. More likely because we didn’t have much interesting to say about Chavez. Though I did try to talk a bit about Chavez’s love of baseball.

I’m looking forward to the BCLA conference this year. I’m going to be on a couple of panels talking about things I find cool (breaking digital locks and indie comics), and interesting people are going to be talking ’bout cool shit on others. I’ve been going to Vancouver more recently, and I think it’s important for me to keep doing it. Just talking with friends and colleagues puts me in a much different (better) mindset for being here. Reading a lot just isn’t the same.

Sayward is about an hour north of Campbell River, and it is a tiny place. It was a foggy drive so I wasn’t able to see as much of the countryside as I would have liked, but there were mountains that appeared when the fog had gaps. And mossy forests that I saw one deer/elk trying to escape the highway into.

But the town itself doesn’t even have a grocery store. If people want more than general store milk and eggs they’ve got to drive an hour down to Campbell River. That seems crazy to me. It seemed crazy to a non-librarian friend of mine that the library branch was in a strip mall, but I had no strong feeling about that.

I’ve had a bit of a tense week because today was Family Literacy Day and it was the first event I’d done to sort of integrate with other community development projects in town. That one of the literacy coordinators was there to help made me that much more aware that I didn’t really take classes in early literacy type things at school. I feel fine doing storytimes and stuff, but really focusing on what kinds of words they’re learning gets a bit wonky for me. My sleep this week was interrupted with lots of inadequacy thoughts I remember from teaching in China. I definitely see myself as a librarian not an “educator” or “literacy expert” though I guess if I keep doing this kind of thing I’ll learn.

But it all worked out. We read some stories, I talked about community and we made “comics.” Nobody decried my event as being terrible and built a rail line to run me out of town on. Now I can relax secure in what I’m doing until my gaming for kids events start up.

On Saturday I’m heading into Vancouver, where one of my awesome librarian colleagues is visiting from Calgary. It means I miss our library’s post-holiday potluck party here, but it’s been almost 3 months since I was in the Lower Mainland. ‘Tis time.

Today I got my car towed to the dealership in Courtenay. They’ll look after it and call me about whatever needs doing to get the car running again. It’s out of my hands now till the bill has to be paid. And I have to get down to Courtenay to get my car back. Whatever.

It’s sunny and I bought Neil Gaiman’s new picturebook about a sneezing panda.

It’s “cold” here this week, meaning it’s gone all the way down to -3C. But today was the day I was heading over to Quadra, and when I do that, I take my car. The car was covered in frost because I hadn’t driven it for a couple of weeks so I had to scrape the windshield and everything, like it was winter. I had the car running while I did that. Once it was scraped I went back to my apartment to grab my books, music and coffee and headed to work.

The plan was to stop at the library, grab a few boxes of books and then get on the ferry. But when I got down the steep hill of our parking lot I had to wait to turn left onto the road. And then my car stalled. And then I tried to start it. And then it wouldn’t. So there I was, blocking our complex’s entrance with a car that wouldn’t move. It had worked well enough to get me down the hill but now I was on my own.

It’s a standard and not a very big car so I figured I’d just put it in neutral and roll it out of the driveway (pushing it back up the hill to my parking spot was obviously not going to happen). But a car is still much more than I can push while trying to steer it. I got it a couple of inches before hitting a bump the car was perfectly happy to rest against. At that point a guy who was coming into the parking lot helped me by pushing the car while I steered it to the side of the road.

Then I ran to work. I was there late by this point and our other librarian was busy with a question and our manager’s office was closed so I had nowhere to actually be except other people’s workstations. From one of those I looked up the number for BCAA roadside assistance and called.

My complete inability to know anything about a car or the things you need to know about cars then overwhelmed me. I didn’t know my BCAA number because I haven’t received my card in the mail yet and apparently you have to sign up for online access to your account separately, because that internet thing is just a passing fad, so I couldn’t find it in my email. The operator asked if I needed a boost or a tow. I didn’t know. The car ran and then it stopped. I don’t know what that requires.

They sent a tow truck to boost and then tow if necessary. They’d call five minutes before it got there. The tow truck called and asked where I’d need to be towed to. I had no fucking clue. It’s not like I know any mechanics here. I hoped it just needed a boost.

The tow truck arrived and my (factory) car alarm went off. I could not shut it down (it stopped by itself after 30 seconds). I could not find the hood release. I did not know where the battery was in a VW (it has a plastic cover – the tow truck guy found it). I did not know what my role was in being the boostee. If I tried starting too soon would I wreck something? Should I wait for some signal? The signal to try starting it turned out to be the tow truck guy getting exasperated with the moron he was helping.

The car started and he told me to make sure to let it run for 20 minutes. I agreed that was a good idea and sat in the car as he drove away. Two minutes later it died again. So I went back to work.

The other librarian went to Quadra even though it was two ferries later and made it so she couldn’t really get anything done there or here. I could have gone as a walk-on, but then I couldn’t have brought any boxes of books with me. Which is why I “need a car” for this job. I don’t “need a car” to get to work, just to haul work’s shit around for it.

Later I went and tried starting the car again, without a boost. It started but then died after 4 minutes of idling. That time I was paying attention to the dashboard and saw which lights went on just before it died. So I guess tomorrow I need to get it towed to Courtenay where the dealership will know what to do with it.

All of that was frustrating as fuck and has done nothing to make me happier about owning this stupid vehicle. It’s not as terrible a thing as the condo was (which I have to remind myself about – I am not as unhappy now as I was when I was trying to get out from under that awful decision) but I hate it. When something breaks on a bicycle I can see what the problem is, find a YouTube tutorial and (maybe) fix it. When something breaks on a car I can be fucking helpless.

Now, all of this would be frustrating but tolerable if I was somewhere I knew people. Where I could call a buddy up to give me a boost and a bit of advice. Where tomorrow I could go for breakfast with people and gripe a bit but then get on with things. Go play train games on Sunday afternoon or something. Instead I’ll do all this shit by myself and pay too much because that’s what knowing shit-all about this stupid machine costs.

I like seeing water and mountains from my apartment. I love that a cold snap here is -3C. I like my job well enough. But today I’d trade all those for people to play games with and who’d pick me up when it’s too cold to ride my bike.

As far as goals that made me happy and fulfilled and whatever, they were pretty much inadequate. One of my friends mentioned on Facebook last week that 2012 was a successful year for him, but now the goal is to make 2013 a happier one. That sounds like a good plan to me too.

I’ve spent the last month trying to figure out what I need to do now. Because going to work 5 days a week and then coming home and reading isn’t really cutting it. If I were in a place where I had friends then I’d be able to get by like that, because coming home and reading would be a prelude to playing games with people or going to parties or talking not in the sense of typing.

However, I’m not in a place with my friends. So it looks like this is going to be a year of trying to spend more time producing than consuming. I’m going to write more (if not blog more – sorry mom) and read less. I really liked making that stupid little Xwing video on Christmas morning. I’m going to make more stuff like that.

I’d been complaining about the amount of work it would be to do my Lego comic thing as stop-motion (even at a cut-rate 2-3fps), but fuck it. Goodreads says I read 333 books in 2012. I think I can afford to cut back a bit. Making shit may take time, but these days there’s no human with a demand on it. Someday I’ll be somewhere with friends and social things to do, but not right now. I’m okay with disappointing the never-ending stack of unread books by making something, and preferably something only I can make.

I like being in a country where Xmas isn’t celebrated (or is done with hitting people with inflatable bats for some reason) and having a few people you make something kind of holidayish with. Last year I got to hang out with Holly’s family and I really liked it. I like seeing what other people’s traditions are and fitting into them as best I can.

This year though, I didn’t do anything for Xmas. Scheduling at work is crazy because ’tis the season to take time off. I didn’t have many holiday days anyway, and my mom is going to India, so heading home was a bit less of a draw, since I’d have had to crash friends’ family things. So here I am. I bought myself a Lego set, as that is the traditional Xmas gift in my home, wherever it may be.

Xwingmas from J Unrau on Vimeo.

And now I’m going to watch the good Star Wars movies. Merry Xmas, happy new year and I’m glad the days’ll only get longer for the next few months.

There are salmon and other animals I guess, but the one I pass every night walking home from work looks just like the bust of a Giger xenomorph. It’s actually a bear or something (its back is what looks like the alien’s elongated forehead) but the way its lit in the dark leaves me unsettled every time I pass. If they ever start hanging a bunch of chains in the community centre’s entryway I’ll take a slightly longer route home.

I like taking the ferry and working over at our branch on the other side. There’s no separate information desk over there so I get to check books out to people. I like that part of the job. Tomorrow I’m going to a high-school to talk about the wonderful resources of the library, and that’s another part of the job I like. I guess I just like going places for work. That was my favourite part of the job in Australia too. Not being in the office but being out somewhere, for a reason.

It’s like I want to be a journalist or something. But if I were one of those I’d probably have to blog a bit more often.