i am the trespassenger and i ride and i ride, and yes, roll the window down this cool night air is curious.

I’ve been here a month and some. It seems about that long.

So. Have I made loads of awesome new friends? Not really.

Have I found the sickest clubs with the phattest beats? No.

Did I dance in a park with a bunch of hippies, step over hypodermics, dodge the homeless, fight the post office, stare too long at trees and moss and ferns and waves and aerial wires and steep grades and skyscrape-condo city bright lights and not quite make it home a couple nights and accidentally buy as a birthday present regalia for the dead?

Well, yeah.

I’ve been having a lot of fun, and it has been a lot of weeeird. External collision with internal incision, a whole lotta growth with identity deconstruction—a process begun long before Vancouver but now, without familiarity to ground me, with a mind and method of its own.

Not that I’m out of mine, or make-believe I don’t make my decisions, following inertia’s lead to wide and winding so I don’t own responsibility for consequences thrown at me for being silly stupid curious rapt indifferent smirking deep. Not at all.

But there has been a distinct out of < blank > experience. Crossed the border right out of mine. Choosing no choice with a gratingful smile.

I got here and I cried a lot. Then I stopped.

These are vague things, I realize. These are good things, you must understand.

Threw on Underworld’s dubnobasswithmyheadman and man oh man oh man, hypnosis was instantaneous, burning some incense in the noon feeling good.

I like my library science program a lot. We talk about authority control and naming and censorship and social informatics, blogging and tagging and wikis and the dubyou dubyou dubyou. I made a PowerPoint about ZOMBIKEN! How long will I beat the dead zombie horse you ask? Until saying “dead zombie horse” ceases to give me joy. My department is filled with way cool, way smart people from a wide array of walks and disciplines—and I fit right in.

It’s comforting (and by comforting I mean awesome) to know I made the right decision not only with coming to UBC but to the future-rattling realization that I want to be a librarian when I grow up, at least for the part that’s coming up. School is a tremendous amount of work and I’ve yet to settle into a lockstep academic study routine, but I’ve yet to feel overwhelmed much less doubt that I belong here.

…And, slowly, Vancouver is becoming the new familiarity. Walking in my neighborhood, it is my neighborhood. Where do I live? I live on my street, and when I take the bus I own it. The needles on the sidewalk are my responsibility. The homeless I dodge reflect on me.

Last night I went for a run, just like the olden days through Fargo and Minneapolis dark with headphones and a quick step. Vancouver is perpetual sweater weather cool and now increasingly with fallen leaves I smash up in the gutter full tilt.

I don’t ride my bike here as much as I’d like—to school is too far too early too uphill with too heavy too expensive cargo on my back. Forgoing this, I haven’t exercised much otherwise, and I am starting to tell. Anxious and softening while tight where I shouldn’t be. Running last night, my body forgives and tries to force promises, my head and spit filling with blood.

Trees are crazy.

Moss grows on trees and ferns grow on trees

and trees grow on trees

and the upbeat just sad.

Last week I dreamed of two childhood friends lighting a field on fire one flick-dropped match stealth step at a time.

It’s the most vivid thing I’ve seen since I’ve been here.