permission granted!

achievement unlocked: work permit acquired (the next milestone).

one of the lawyers drove me to the border as my representative, and i was shocked to learn that the previous time my lawyer had given me bad instructions! as it turns out, if you tell the americans that all you want to do is turn around at the border they will refuse you entry and give you a white slip, which you then take to the canadians. as far as the work permit application is concerned you're entering the country from the united states, but as the united states denied entry the border officials essentially have to let you back in because they weren't supposed to let you out in the first place.

that's all very, very weird, and super-bureaucratic. but i guess if everyone's happy with it then i'm happy with it, and the guy who admitted me was really cool and efficient. having been through the process a couple of times before i was a lot less nervous. but still a little nervous: those guys are essentially omnipotent regarding permits and visas, i wouldn't want them to dislike me.

...

i was pleased to learn that i pretty much know my shit regarding the permits and residence application procedures, but i was fortunate to learn that the rules for applying for residence might change soon. this means that i need to pitch a no-hitter for the next four or five months if i don't want to find myself having to fight to stay here...

---saturday:

i forgot to mention a thought i had on saturday about the burqa fundamentalist muslim women wear: its use puts humans on the same level as all the other animals, where the females have drab colours and the males have otherwise useless or counter-productive flash, like the peacock.

with the good news that i'll be working again, i splurged on itunes: i bought foo fighters - greatest hits for $7. and then today i picked up a comedy album whose proceeds are all going to a good cause, but i'm so far a lot less satisfied by that one :/

---i tried to take a nap after lunch, but my ocd was acting up and i began compulsively tidying. which mostly consisted of setting up the old amp and speakers in gd's "salon". we're now one rca-to-headphone cable shy of awesome :)

we watched stake land after going shopping, and were both thoroughly enjoying ourselves right until the end. it's a bad-ass super-cool movie about what are essentially a cross between vampires and zombies, and the ending made me feel like the world had dropped out from under me. in a bad way. other than that, the writing was really good, aside from one scene where it felt like someone had just stopped caring for a moment because they wanted a fun, scary effect that couldn't be easily justified.

gd made a double veggie / daiya cheese burger that was delicious, and we watched a bit of dan cummins - crazy with a capital f until i realized that it was midnight and i needed to be up at 6am.

---today:

around 4am i got up to serious rls, and it took about forty-five minutes to go away. i finally fell back into bed, and had a nightmare in which i watched a large green spider enter an infant's nose. after that i rushed off, barely in time to meet with the lawyer and cross the border, but had to get off the bus i'd just hopped on to return home and pick up forgotten documents. i woke up with that dread still in my chest, and discovered that i'd slept through my alarm and it was ten minutes after i'd intended to leave; it took me half an hour to get out - butterflies in my stomache turned out to be more than just butterflies - and thank all the gods gd had ironed my shirt the night before and knew where the shoe polish was.

of course, my representative would call when i was down in the metro: why does my phone bother ringing if there's not enough signal to talk? then there was a metro service slowdown, but it was only for a few minutes. then i got lost in the building, but the guy found me instead.

...

it was a gorgeous morning and the scenery on the way down to the border was stunning. on the way back, my lack of sunglasses, my lack of sleep and the looooong drive with aircon and no fresh air had me trying to hide yawns all the way. i kicked myself for a while after we said our goodbyes and i ended with "see you soon" :$

i thought i was going to take a quick nap but i crashed hard for an hour or two. gd and i played carcassonne, which she eventually enjoyed, and the rest of the afternoon has been a whole lot of random, including some very unpleasant political stuff with our friends on facebook.

at least there's more good news: vector's back on the project! very cool, that had been upsetting me.