I'm writing, nestled in the small kernel of furniture and mess still left in my semi-vacant apartment, and feeling bittersweet. I'm thinking back to May of 2004, when I first moved in here. As I remember, I was again nestled in a small pod, with my computer, in my semi-vacant apartment...only then it was painted with broad strokes; the main furnishings were here, but the environment was strangely sterile and affectless. Now the opposite is true. The large items are mostly gone, and what remain are the bits of detritus and dirt that scheff off a life lived long enough in one place.

It has been a week of closings off. Cleaning off my desk, trying desprately to polish off my papers, to withdraw from Queen's, and to tie up loose ends with people that I had, in many cases only got to know just recently. (In this last regard, I was not as successful as I would have wished. In retrospect, I wish I had put more effort into getting to know people besides Karina. I'm glad that I had that relationship; I had never been in so deep before, and it gave me a lot--but also drained me. And there are a few people aroud here that I think had I gotten to know a bit better, we would have kept in touch.)

Kissing off my radio show was also hard. We had a really nice get-together on Thursday for departing CFRCers, and I have to say I was touched. Cool, kind people, for the most part, all v. cool, and being-for-themselves, Sartre-style. I still get one more crack at the show on Wednesday night. Should be emotional!

A lot has changed in the past two years, and not strictly for the better--but you must hope to say that about any span of time so broad if you want to truly claim you are alive.

I can't say that I honestly will miss Kingston. It has a sense of seeping seediness, of cracking and decay, and it is a mostly dour and indifferent town. But it was here that I changed greatly, and to some extent became a man. So there will always be some of my former self left here, like the skin a growing snake leaves on the shoals.