Cold

I have safely arrived in Ottawa. It is cold here. Very cold. Optimistically, it is now -2F. If you prefer to take into account wind chill, it is is -20F. I show none of my old Canadian pride for minimal clothing. Today was warm sweater, warm ski jacket, hats and gloves. Cold.

On the flight over, I finally got a chance to pick up a book that had been sitting on my bookshelf for a year. There is a long waiting list in my life for books. Some books wait for months for me to finally get around to reading them. Others immediately jump the line. I guess some books are just cooler.

This book ("A Werewolk Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories" by Victor Pelevin) had been sitting on my shelf for quite a while. As I learned on the flight, it was kind of sad to be sitting there for so long. The book is awesome. A collection of short stories written with a bizarre and clever sense of humour. A very Slavic feel to it.

The second story is the one that really caught my attention. A story of an older woman of indeterminate age. A cleaner in a public bathroom. She has an interesting run in with the perils of solipsism. Here's a snippet:

"It all began on that afternoon when Vera thought for the first time, not of the meaning of existence, as she usually did, but of its mystery.... The thought was quite unexpected and unbearable, and most remarkable of all, quite unconnected with anything in her surroundings. It simply manifested itself in a head into which nobody had invited it, leading to the conclusion that the long years of spiritual endeavor spent in the search of meaning had been wasted -- because meaning was itself concealed within mystery. Vera nonetheless somehow managed to calm herself down and go on washing the floor." -- pg.37, "Vera Pavlovna's Ninth Dream"

This evening, I got a chance to share dinner with my nephew, Ryan (pictured). He has a little Fisher Price camera that takes real photos (with a blaringly bright flash). Cute? Oh, yes. For some reason, he likes taking pictures of the ceiling. I claim that it is a study in the boundary between being and nothingness.