January 11 2016
I realized that with every single day I have become more and more Canadian. Weather has become my main concern and topic of conversation, especially during the cold season. This morning, breathe froze in my throat the moment I went out with Rex. It was like an icy fist that struck me powerfully in my chest. We managed to walk maybe 200 meters only and after that, I had to take him up in my arms and run home with him: he’d frozen. He remained with one little paw in the air and couldn’t move anymore. His eyes were looking at me with so much distress that I knew I had to be as fast as possible to get him back inside so that he could warm up. I wasn’t very happy about going out again to get to work as I had to bundle up and I felt like a robot, moving with difficulty, weighted down by all the heavy clothes and the bag with the laptop. Every step seemed a punishment and when I realized I was effectively puffing I straightened my back horrified that I got to that point. Thankfully, the trip to work wasn’t too awful. The bus came on time and it wasn’t very full. I even managed to find a seat – the trip is long and with the added weight it is a real problem to travel standing, holding a bar. It’s true that I had to ask a lady to move her stroller a little to the side, as she occupied three seats, blocking them with her stroller. However, I had a seat and I had only to put up with the stroller coming over my legs every time the bus braked. The lady in questions hadn’t bothered to block the wheels and didn’t care too much that the wheels would dirty my dress pants. I didn’t complain though: I understood she was put off by my request to use one of the seats she had already procured for her personal use. I was lucky enough with the subway. If line two wasn’t working at all – it seemed that there was a signal problem - my line was running just fine. Everybody around me sighed relieved when they heard that the signal problem was for line two. Whenever a signal problem occurs, the wait is long, sometimes over one hour. It is longer than when we have suspicion of fire in a station or tunnel or an emergency on the train. It was a funny moment when they announced us that due to track conditions, for safety, the train would have a lower speed than normal for a while, but instead it started getting more velocity. I think they had their announcements mixed up. Besides that, they also forgot the communication speakers on and we had the chance to hear the bawdy discussion between two of the employees: one of them seemed to have had a very interesting night before and confided everything to the other one like it was a secret. Well, the cat was out of the bag. An entire train was privy to his confessions. At the beginning of the conversation, for a few moments, I could see confusion on the faces of my fellow travelers and afterwards amusement hit us. I spied a guy with a huge white scarf around his neck having a cup of coffee. He was amazing: not even a drop fell on his scarf. I cannot drink coffee having half of my face and the neck covered. That the coffee would go on the scarf, it is a certainty. Maybe, I am just too clumsy, who knows. Monday morning, people have a specific look. You could see long faces all around, tiredness, like they’d partied all night. On Tuesday, the faces seem to become perkier and on Wednesday, they are back to normal. Now, on Friday, you could see two types of faces: long ones, tired, like they are just a hair from collapsing, or, the opposite, happy faces, advertising the weekend, which for most would start later in the afternoon. It is interesting to look around, although not everybody does it. Most of people just try to keep to themselves, avoiding eye contact. The frantic reading of the advertising material on the train’s walls is one of the ways not to look at anyone directly. Now, talking about advertising, it is beyond my understanding why all posters show huge smiles, and when I say huge, I mean huge mouths with huge teeth, held in forced smiles that never reach the eye of the poster’s subject. I understand such advertising for toothpaste or a dental office. However, I don’t understand it for other things. It seems that shallowness reached most of the corners of our life. Showing big and straight white teeth is more important than the message carried by a poster. I prefer to see a real smile or none at all. I can see when someone smiles only because it became the norm but they actually have no wish of smiling at me. It feels creepy. Or maybe it is just me and everyone else is comfortable with these false smiles. Anyway, today, I have to cut it short as I have a little emergency in the house. I will come tomorrow with a vengeance. So, see you tomorrow.
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ROXANA NASTASEBorn sometime in the past century, living in the 21st century. https://www.ebookstage.com/welcome/NTYyNzY=/
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