Duly got to the club. Much more crowded than on Sundays, but the blaring musak was almost pleasant.The shower is , I realised, particularly pleasant because the water comes out well above my head, whereas, at home, the nozzle is just above my shoulder, or seems that way. There was less steam than usual and I stayed in for about six minutes. Also the sauna was cooler.

There is a fairly common mantra, which I use when I see some thing, (or person), particularly lovely. It came spontaneously to my mind when I saw tonight's sunset through racing clouds. Do not theists praise the Lord for such beauty? What really is the difference between what we are doing?

This darned ice. It's a real menace. The nice nursing students supervisor at work had quite a black eye. When we were alone I asked her about. She had slipped on uneven snow and ice in front of her house and bruised her hands and legs as well. She said, giggling, that it had happened on Valentine's day and her husband had refused to take her to the restaurant they had planned on, as people would assume she was an abused wife. They saw Slumdog Millionaire instead.

I came home by train and was deliberately holding onto the rail, as I went down the stairs off the platform. People rush on these stairs and in the tunnel to the car park side of the tracks for reasons I have never understood. Two or three steps from the bottom, the woman in front of me stumbled. She lurched forward and regained her balance on the floor of the tunnel. Crying out, she lost it again and fell, hitting her head against the bottom of the wall. Someone knelt down and asked if there was anyone she could call. The victim mumbled half sarcastically "How about 911?". Within about twenty seconds two nurses had materialised and what they really needed was space, so I said so to some of my fellow starers and left.

It's not just the ice. After all this accident was not on icy stairs, although they are always wet and heavily salted, but it's also big, bulky coats and gloves and the whole frustration of having to suit up to go outside.

The nice nurse supervisor at work and I discussed how often older people actually die as a result of falls and how, from our age onwards, our balance deteriorates.

This is for one of the wonders of God's creation, (as an atheist, I can say that with admiration, but without fear of exaggeration).

1. I hope Mr Wilberforce is well out of the way.

2. Death, (I think), is the privilege, which gives humans the incentive to realise eternity in certain moments, including, it is thought, in the moments before, during and after breathing has ceased.

PS I wrote a much longer version of this, but it got wiped out, or, rather I wiped it out, because this keyboard is critically different from the others I use. Oh dear.

Long ramble, only worth reading by me

From photonet.com

It snowed here in the last few days. The ground, in many places, was covered with hard, dimpled ice. I walked slowly, taking short steps, with great fear of slipping. It was very cold, especially in the early morning.

*

I have only taken the train twice this month. I get an invigorating, brisk walk down Jarvis to Queen. I often get my favourite seat on the streetcar and, although it is long, I don't have to change. I frequently fall asleep out of sheer boredom. I must find or buy an USB cable and load some new music on the MP3 player. It is astonishing how many of my fellow travellers have them. But the cars get full quite quickly, people step on my feet or bump me with their bags. As with much poverty there is, as the song says, a persuasive undercurrent of violence. Given my status, these are my people. I'm rather below the right status on the train.

*

The streetcar short turned at Kipling the other night. Short turning, decided after the trip has begun is the single most annoying thing the TTC can do and I often think I should write them about it. On family day, Monday last, I had to work. I took the train to Islington, but two buses were cancelled, so I had to walk from Islington and Lakeshore. This was not so bad, as I phoned home and Matthew agreed to come and get me. As I waited I saw a most magnificently clear sun setting and lighting up the whole Lakeshore west of me in a wonderful pink/orange light. A hands down fabulous picture. As I looked at it, I heard a frightful bang and turned to see a pedestrian, who had just been hit by a car running the red light, its driver possibly blinded by the sun. The pedestrian was standing and screaming with pain. The driver was lucky not to have killed him.

*

Poor people, as on the streetcar, (and they are already richer than the ones who can't afford to ride), are competitive with each other. We race for premium seats, old people are frequently not offered seats, the line up to get on is as scattered as it might be in Curacao or Hong Kong, nevertheles, I smile at people and they often smile back, babies and dogs get plenty of attention and there is a sort of camaraderie that comes out of sharing the experience. By contrast, the train is much more comfortable, very fast, but socially snooty. They make me feel like a Caliban for blowing my nose or eating a sandwich. I once smiled at a woman, whom I had seen every morning and evening for a few weeks and she looked at me then and at other times as if I were a well known railway rapist. I know that is, as they say, her problem, but it now makes me awkward as we travel in the same section, both being keen to be near our exits.

*

I used to take the College car a relatively short distance, but the occupants may have worked at the University or in the hospitals on University Avenue and many got off for the train at Yonge to go to downtown offices, so it was only when I moved to the suburb that I noticed a whole caste difference between train riders and the streetcar crowd.

*

Now, at work, they would say that I only notice these things because I am English. They take great pleasure in ragging me about that and about my privileged education. Work is going supremely well. I enjoy what I do. I have carved out a kind of niche employment and we have very lively discussions both at lunch, which we have in the office together and a bit less so at the daily group meeing first thing. I work with two teams and love the variety as well as my shorter days.

*

Every morning I sleep walk my way to College and Yonge, wake up in Starbucks, and take the long way across the park from Sherbourne and College, just as I used to when I lived on Clinton. I lose an extra hour travelling every day. How long is this piece? Too long, and I probably should not discuss my class observations in public, but I think I will. Generally, "je m'en fiche", is working better for me than, "Perhaps I shouln't".

An intellectual Buddhist hippy, (there were lots of those around in the early seventies), told me when I first arrived from Europe that the native people of North America respected certain "power places". Nelson, British Columbia was such a place, he said. Surely Yosemite must have been one too?

Oh, oh, can we go there, can we go there?