Passing time as I wait for time to pass.

Some afternoons just drag on, as if to spite a person. I don’t feel like I write well anymore, and it bugs me a little bit. On the other hand, i realize that I don’t really practice very often, so I should just shut my damn yapper and get some serious pen-time going on if I want to feel better about myself. I wrote well once, I think. My oeuvre is well liked among certain literary circles.

I freaked out a bit this past Monday about school and Montreal. I read at first that getting my student permit would take 6-12 months from application, and I panicked. Finally I found the fine print that stated that as an international student from the United States there was actually NO wait time involved, and that I could just get my student permit at my point of entry. What I do have to do is get my CAQ (quack backwards: reminds me of a bad joke. What do you call a duck that flies upside down? A quack-up!), which is something like Certification d’acceptance des etudes a Quebec, or something. The CAQ takes 4-6 weeks, which is certainly manageable, but it also requires proof of funds, not only to pay for the entire first year, but to assure them of being able to pay the second and subsequent years as well (should there be any). So, I got stressed out again, until I heard from the financial aid office at McGill that I should have already received or will at least receive soon a letter of award for the sum of $18,500 in loans. While I’d obviously prefer not to take out that much in loans, at the least it will assure my CAQ eligability while I wait for less soulsucking sources of funding to avail themselves upon my wallet. I should hear about ALA scholarships soon, though not about the big, supercool fellowship until mid-July.

I’m giving serious, very serious and honest-to-goodness no-holds-barred thought to selling my car and flying to Montreal. I would not own a car. It would be the first period of my not owning a car since before I turned 16. Over ten years. It’s a frightening and liberating concept. Montreal does have a good transportation system, and if I live close enough to campus, which is the goal, I think that I’d much prefer to walk everywhere anyway. Among other things, it will be cheaper, and the way things are looking I will most certainly be your quintessential dirt-broke grad student who needs every penny. Obviously I’ll lose a little outward mobility, i.e. it’ll be tough to visit folks like Tim who would be a relatively short drive away otherwise. I did think that maybe I would buy a motorcycle for weekend excursions, but I can come to that when I come to that.

In an effort to feel like more of a writer, today I decided I would create new idioms for the english language. Here is my first attempt. If you like it, please spread it around and say things like, “Wow, that Ahniwa fellow sure is a heck of a guy, did you hear this thing he made up?” and so on.

The idiom expresses an attempt made by someone to do the impossible, to bend a person or thing, which is impressively stubborn, around to your point of view. Furthermore, it implies a negative consequence for even making the attempt, such that by even trying to argue the point you are turning the person or object against you.

The expression itself is: trying to milk a lemon; or, milking lemons. And variations thereof.

Example: Sergei tried to impress upon Anna the efficacy of the Bush regime. The more he pushed, the angrier Anna got, until finally she threw him down a well. Years later, his friend Ajax came by to say, “That’s what you get for trying to milk a lemon.” Sergei had at that time, one might surmise, already been eaten by rats, and could not appreciate his friend’s advice.

Tee hee. Morbid, I suppose. My apologies. Please, go now, and have great weekends, and above all, don’t milk any lemons around any wells. Those rats are already overfed. Thank you.