Tight

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A bright, warm sun.  A cloudless sky.  A chill wind, but above freezing.  It isn’t quite spring but it will be soon.

 

Meanwhile, I am waiting to hear back from the Ontario Ministry of Humiliation and Half-Measures about my summer loan application.  The time between loans is always the worst—a steadily worsening spasm of website-checking and not-knowing as one’s bank account dwindles inexorably to nothing.  It’s why I swore I’d never do this again, and why I routinely kick myself for breaking my vow.

 

I was taught to be good with money, which is to say that I was taught to live in fear of the prospect of suddenly not having any.  Because of it, I budget carefully, at moments compulsively, as though the logic of quantity can be subverted by repetition.  I can still hear my father’s drawl in my head—“You have to plan!”—which I did not take as advice but as a paternal decree.  The Ministry, for its part, remains unmoved.

  

In the interim, life is small and tense.  There is enough for the hydro bill and one more run of groceries; there isn’t enough for a haircut, a vet appointment, or an impromptu bus ticket to New York.  I feel stuck, and this post is a weak attempt to become unstuck.  Humour me, will you?

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