I even have something positive to say about Air Canada. Really! It’s not simply jet-lag induced delirium. There is a small screen in each seat, and a selection of films. As usual, there are a number of schlocky Hollywood titles available, none of which I cared to see even a trailer for. An unexpected additional option, however, includes four French films, with English subtitles. I was able to sit back in my window seat and enjoy a choice (“Un Secret“) from my favourite genre: the Holocaust. And you wonder why I’m so dark.

Fredericton, I am happy to report, is not dark. It is sunny and, most importantly, warm. Hot, even. It’s been a tad chill in Vancouver recently, and any temperature over 12 degrees would be a welcome change, but I was able to enjoy cycling into town from the airport in highly satisfying 24 degree comfort. It’s not all bliss, though. As I sat on the front lawn of Fredericton’s tiny-but-pleasant airport re-assembling my bicycle, the local mosquitoes relieved me of no small amount of blood.

So here I am, travelling once again. I’m not sure if this cycling thing is going to work out, or if my knees will collapse along the way somewhere, but I am hoping that the new bike will make the difference between pain and pleasure. The plan (such as it is) is to spend a few days in Fredericton visiting Darren and Brian, and then to cycle in an as-yet non-specific south-easterly direction. I intend to arrive at Easton Mountain (the ‘commune’ in New York that I stayed at last summer) by June 24. If the knees don’t work out, I’ll send the bike home and take the bus.

Last night, Darren, Brian and I attended the award ceremony for the 2008 Strathbutler award, given to a visual artist by the Sheila Hugh McKay Foundation at the Fredericton Playhouse Theatre. This was preceded by a gala private cocktail reception in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. One oddity was the bar at the gallery where, when I asked for red wine, I was told by the bartender that dark beverages are not available in the gallery. “I guess a Guinness is out of the question?”, I asked. He laughed as he poured my white wine, but I never did get further explanation. An Acadian tradition?

As ceremonies of this sort go, it was pretty good. It was well organised and stuck to its already compact schedule. As well, a short welcoming speech by New Brunswick’s Lieutenant-Governor Herménégilde Chiasson was the most intelligent and passionate defense of the arts I have ever heard from a colonial representative of the queen (though that is perhaps an unfair description, as he is more accomplished and respected artist and intellect than regal mouthpiece).

The weather continues to be hot and sunny, though there is the possibility of rain forecast for the weekend. Today, I will be out cycling on the north ‘shore’ of the St John River, testing my knee before I decide whether to venture across the Appalachians under full pack.

The other day, I took a test ride to the local town of Greenwich (that the locals pronounce “GREEN-witch”), not a particularly hilly route, and I did it with no luggage. The round trip is 30km, and by the time I got back, my left knee was sore again. As it seems unlikely that I’m going to manage to peddle this bike to the Poconos, let alone New Brunswick, I abandoned that plan in favour of a less knee-straining public conveyance: the Adirondack Trailways bus. As a result. I’ve got Simon and Garfunkle tunes stuck in my head.

Displays of patriotism are everywhere, some more tasteful than others. Here’s one on highway 40:

Now I am in New York City again, where I will pick up a charter bus to the Poconos tomorrow afternoon. This evening, I went to the National Museum of the American Indian, at the southern end of Manhattan, to hear Martha Redbone sing. The theatre in the museum has terrible acoustics, and I could make out almost none of the lyrics, but it was still pleasant.

This church on highway 40 has the crosses all ready to go. But for what? If only I’d had someone to push the shutter for me as I posed…

The nudist convention in the Poconos starts tomorrow night, and goes for a week. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to stand the company of 800 for a whole week, but as Grant always says, “God hates a coward”.

I’ve enjoyed my stay at Easton, and have decided to go back there after the nudist thing. For one thing, I left my bike and most of my luggage there, but also, I like it there. It’s an interesting dynamic. In the simplest description, the residents can be divided into two groups: “The Party Boys” and “The Church Ladies”. Though I don’t think of myself as wholly either of these, I tend to think that I have a foot in each camp, as I appreciate characteristics of each, in my own peculiarly paradoxical way.

Residents contribute, in exchange for food and shelter, to the maintenance and running of the place, which operates a not-for-profit model retreat business, mostly providing programs of spiritual- and self-development to those to those in the queer communities. Last week, I painted the rear wall of the guest house, and washed a few dishes. Who knows – maybe I’ll come back again next summer.

Here’s the view from Jeff’s pool deck, looking toward Vermont/Massachussets:

An interesting side note to this summer so far (interesting to me, though perhaps too much information for some of you) is my newfound chastity. It’s been almost a month with nary an orgasm, which is by far a post-puberty record, and not a blue ball to be seen. Really, it seems inexplicably relaxing, like having a vacation from biology. Or maybe my knee isn’t the only thing suffering the effects of a bicycle. Perhaps there is a life for me in the celibate world of the clergy. Well, except for that little atheism problem.

In the meantime, I wander, and experience the non-carnal. I haven’t managed much writing while at Easton, but that’s mainly because I have been more social and haven’t made time for it. Or maybe an overabundance of under-utilised seminal lubricants somehow inhibits creativity.

Now that I am giving up the bike trip, it seems likely that I will postpone the trip to New Brunswick, perhaps until next summer. Instead, I will probably spend the remainder of my time at Easton before returning to Vancouver in early September, though I may stop off in Chicago on the way to visit a friend, if she’s going to be in town.

I came to Easton to attend a week-long all-male retreat focussing on “Self, Sex & Spirit”. It was a busy week of workshops and group discussions covering topics including identity, voice, spirituality, massage, theatre, compassion, movement, erotic energy, improvisation, poetry, art, yoga, writing, and combinations thereof, along with plenty of swimming, games, volleyball, and other activities.

This is a part of my ongoing quest to experience my life as a variety of diverse but integrated activities that challenge both my own conventions and those “recommended” to me by the world at large. I feel compelled to defy many of the “rules” of social convention and propriety, whether in search of more meaningful rules that better suit my personality, or in order to test those rules and adopt them with a greater sense of ownership and awareness than if I just accept them on the basis of their being approved unquestioningly by tradition, the family model, religion, or economics.

Partly because I enjoyed the week here so much, and partly out of deference to my complaining knee, I have been re-examining my travel plans. I am due to arrive in Tannersville, PA (in the Pocono Mountains) for a large nudist gathering on August 17th, and had originally planned to spend two weeks cycling to it via a semi-circular route through Boston. However, I have decided to remain here in the community as a “work-study” participant, and plan to cycle toward Pennsylvania on August 13 or 14. After a week of running around in the woods au naturel, interviewing participants, I will once again take stock and decide what my forward path will be.

Today, I cycled north through Queens toward the Bronx. On the way, the bumpy Queens streets (rural Saskatchewan backroads are smoother) broke the bolting holding on one side of my rear rack. Because of the weight, the rack bent, and I had to unload the whole bike to fix it, putting me behind schedule. Then, having carried on, I discovered that the only bridge that crosses to the Bronx is a bicycle-forbidded freeway with no sidewalks. Thus, I was forced to cycle west to Manhattan to use the Triboro bridge. Unfortunately, I somehow confused west with east and ended up way the hell out in Little Neck, practically in the next state, before I realised my error. To make things worse, my left knee started to hurt again.

As I have to be in Easton (north of Albany) by Saturday afternoon, I no longer had time to make it cycling. So, I was forced to rent a car and drive to Albany. The nearest location? Kennedy airport. I rode all the way back down there, and by the time I arrived my knee was killing me. There’s nothing cheap about New York, and I’m paying an exorbitant rate for this stupid car, a Dodge Magnum that looks like the vehicle of choice of a gangster pimp.

As I write this, I am having dinner at a “Roy Rogers” at a truck stop on the I87 Thruway, where a portion of every large Coca-Cola is donated to “support our troops and their families”. I ordered water.

I’m not sure what the knee problem is. I like to think that it’s this bike, which isn’t ideally suited to long-distance touring. At least, that sounds a lot better than old age. I won’t be able to stick to my plan to ride to New Brunswick if the pain persists, so a change of plan may be in order. Maybe in the end it will be a Greyhound tour of the northeast. I’ll have to put some Simon and Garfunkel on the Ipod.

Better news to come. I hope!

According to the site stats, there are 342,726 Facebook members who have registered themselves as belonging to the “Vancouver” network alone, which is really quite a remarkable portion of the population who have cheerfully volunteered to provide the faceless Facebook empire with a complete database of every historical and social aspect of their lives, conveniently sorted and linked and collated. What better business model could one imagine than a data mining firm that need only throw up a website and have money-making products delivered to it for free? So much for privacy concerns. It’s going to be an interesting world soon, when everyone wakes up to the realisation that their Facebook profile can be matched up to their blogs, their Flickr account, their credit card provider, and of course the faceless pictures that they posted “anonymously” on such important cultural sites as ‘Newbie Nudes’, or ‘Rate My Poo’. Separate sites, yes, but not to the CIA under the Patriot Act. The Media Access Code (MAC address) will undoubtedly be the downfall of many. I can’t wait for the 2014 congressional elections!

What really irritates me about Facebook, however, is something that seems to be quite common on US based websites these days. There is a field that asks your political views. The choices are:

• Very Liberal
• Liberal
• Moderate
• Conservative
• Very Conservative
• Apathetic
• Libertarian
• Other

What about the rest of the political spectrum. The furthest “left” one can be is ‘very liberal’? Was Karl Marx ‘very liberal’? And what does ‘very liberal’ really mean? Is this like ‘extremely moderate’? Why not let us call a commie a commie? Or is it the philosophy of corporate America to eliminate socialist tendencies in the world by simply pretending that no such thing exists? Nonetheless, I have identified myself as “other” (which is really the best description for me anyway, whatever other choices might be offered – and that’s not limited to politics) and carried on.

Anyway, there I am. Now I, too, can keep track of all my friends without having to go to the bother of actually seeing them.

In other news, I am getting back in shape again after the relative inactivity of the tropics. I retrieved my stored bike after my return and set a goal of 200km a week, which I have been successful at achieving or exceeding so far. On Wednesday, I am planning to cycle up to D’arcy (north of Whistler) for a few days of camping on Gates Lake. This is warming me up for my return to the east coast in August, when I plan to ride from Pennsylvania to New Brunswick, or thereabouts.

Well, after mulling my options for a couple of days, and calculating all of the expenses, I have decided to fly back to Vancouver on Wednesday. I will stay in Vancouver for a week, and then fly to Costa Rica, where I will spend five weeks.

Though I am disappointed that I won’t be making it to Quebec or the Maritimes this year, perhaps I can do it next year (when I will actually be able to speak a reasonable amount of French, if all goes well). Besides, I’m getting two great trips: one bike trip across western Canada, and a month exploring the rainforests (and beaches) of Costa Rica. Did you know that there are almost 850 species of birds – more than the total of what North America has – packed into an area half the size of Kentucky? Of course, many of them will have migrated to Canada for the summer, but there must be a few stragglers left.

Strangely enough, while it was well over 30 degrees today in Toronto, it was only 26 in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital.

Oddly, I was recently discussing the alleged laws of karma with friends, during which I posited that karma is not an element of retribution, but one of opportunity. This experience had me reconsidering that briefly, but there is opportunity to be found. When I was riding from Calgary toward Edmonton, I had a strong headwind, and fell back on my dictum that this should be fun, and took the opportunity of the wind and went to Saskatoon instead. Now, I can look at this as one adventure completed, and a new one ready to start. How lucky am I? I get to venture off into the unknown twice in one summer!

Now, what to do? I still have not ruled out cycling east, but I am feeling rather unenthusiastic about buying a new bike. I could take a bus trip east, but my knees hate buses. I could walk to the coast, but I don’t think I have time. I could fly to the coast and just wander the region. Or, I could get on a plane and go somewhere more exotic. To replace my bike will probably cost upwards of $1,500, if I buy new. I can buy a plane ticket to San Jose or Havana for about $700.

Maybe I could go to India and get one of those massages that Beez got?

Toronto (Sightseeing). July 09: DAY: 8.06km. ODO: 4,240km. AVS: 18.6km/h. MXS: 34.0km/h. ATM: 0:25:56.

I should have left on Thursday.

Last night, I went for dinner to Le Commensal, a vegetarian buffet off of Bloor. It’s a great place if you like to pay for a steak but eat rice and beans. Afterward, I went to a cafe near the former Maple Leaf Gardens (which is now being converted into a grocery store) for tea, and while I was there, my bike vanished from the light pole to which it was fastened.

I questioned a nearby hooker to see if she had seen anything, to no avail, though she made very sympathetic noises. With the outfit she was wearing and the traffic jam she was causing, I knew it was pointless asking other passersby if they had seen anything. Futilely, I walked a block in each direction to see if I could spot any evidence of it, also to no avail, so I took the streetcar home.

Needless to say, I’m moderately distressed. I’m hoping to happen across the thief somewhere so that I can cave his skull in with a pedal wrench (anger is a normal part of the recovery cycle, and my personal favourite). In the meantime, I suppose that I have four options:

1) Buy a new bike and carry on
2) Have someone ship my other bike to me and carry on
3) Put the remainder of the trip off to another year, and return to Vancouver
4) Do something else completely different with the remainder of the summer

These I now contemplate.

Toronto (Sightseeing). July 07: DAY: 18.9km. ODO: 4,207km. AVS: 16.3km/h. MXS: 42.5km/h. ATM: 1:09:20.

Mostly I’m just hanging about town, reading, and wandering around the various neighbourhoods, interspersed with sessions at the beach.

Tuesday, I had dinner with friends Darren and Brian at an English pub on Kingston Road, where I had a rather good steak pie. I met Darren in grade five in Winnipeg, and then lost contact within him for a few years before we met up again in grade ten. After that, Darren moved to Edmonton and I moved back to Vancouver soon after, and we lost contact once again. We reconnected again about two years ago, and we make a point of getting together everytime I visit Toronto. Brian, who is originally from the east coast, has also been an valuable resource for information on Quebec and the maritimes, and I will probably have a better trip thanks to his advice (if I ever get around to leaving Toronto, that is).

Wednesday, I stayed close to home for a good part of the day, reading, and also replacing the front pannier rack on my bike, a piece of which snapped on Manitoulin Island, but I ventured back to the beach in the late afternoon, where I stayed until 8:30, before heading back downtown for dinner. (I have to get the beach time in now, before Toronto’s outside workers go on strike, which will probably eliminate the harbour ferries). I’m finding it a bit of a challenge, despite the plethora of dining establishments, to find a decent meal in this town. I tend to search “Now”, the local weekly newspaper, for restaurant suggestions, but actually finding the places is sometimes a challenge, and then, other problems sometimes arise.

For instance, after the beach I looked for a place called, simply, “Soul Food”, out near High Park. It was supposed to be at 582 Lansdowne, but wen I rode out Lansdowne, there was no such address in gthe 500 block. After 45 minutes of investigation, I finally discovered that 582 comes after the 700 block. But the place was closed Tuesday and Wednesday. When I do find places that are open, service issues are frequently encountered. This is particularly a problem in the trendy-ish Queen West area, where customers are apparently expected to consider being ignored by the junior-Gen-X staff as a integral part of the experience.

Today (Thursday), I ventured out to an outdoor art show at Nathan Phillips Square (City Hall), only to find that it doesn’t start until the weekend. So, I settled in to another Timothy’s and contented myself with a couple of George Orwell’s essays and a good cup of tea. In the evening, I met up with ex-Vancoverite Joe Wilson, whence we dined on burgers and reviewed the current status of our lives and those of our mutual acquaintances.

Though I had been planning to leave Toronto today, I am going to hang around for the weekend, as Ben and Carol are off to the cottage again, and I will look after the cats. I don’t mind at all, as it means a couple more days of beach relaxing. Besides, I’ll need the whole weekend to figure out how to re-pack.

Toronto Island (Hanlan’s Point) beach:

Toronto (Sightseeing). July 04: DAY: 34.6km. ODO: 4,121km. AVS: 18.9km/h. MXS: 39.0km/h. ATM: 1:49:41.

Well, I’ve now been in Toronto for ten days – and how quickly they passed! I guess it’s about time I summarised the visit.

I spent the first five nights at the hostel, which is conveniently located at Church & King. It wasn’t a bad place to stay – I had very quiet dorm-mates. The only drawbacks were the excessive squeaking. The door to the room creaked like a haunted house prop, and all the beds were made of metal, so anytime someone went out to pee during the night, there was a lot of drawn out squeaking.

My first full day, the Saturday the 25th, I spent pretty much just sitting around in Timothy’s, an air conditioned coffee shop on Queen, reading the Globe & Mail. I had forgotten what real humidity is like, and this is all I could dredge up the energy for. The only physical thing I did was to ride my bike out to Duke’s bike shop to get the damn rear brakes looked at. They didn’t have any time to look at it until Wednesday, but I left it anyway, as I could just walk around town.

Despite my loathing for parades of any kind, I decided to go to the Pride Parade on Sunday. For some reason, there is nowhere on Earth that I feel as lonely as a Pride parade, whether at home or away. And besides, rather than the politically charged affair of activist angst of days of old, these days Pride Day is generally more of a deviants’ trade fair. Think of the home shopping channel dressing all their presenters in leather, spandex, and rainbow boas for a day. Oh well, just because I’m a boring curmudgeon doesn’t mean everyone else shouldn’t enjoy themselves. Except for the little puke that hit me with one of those water pistols that hold eighty litres of water.

He’s just lucky I didn’t catch him.

I spend a lot of time just wandering around, checking out various neighbourhoods, having tea, and reading. In between, I find something more touristy to do. On Monday the 27th, I went to the Royal Ontario Museum, which is currently under renovation, so only some of the galleries are open. I viewed the current “Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight” exhibit, as well as the “Biodiversity” and “Islam” sections. In the evening, I went to a reading at the Harbourfront, where Michael Cunningham read from and discussed his new book “Specimen Days”.

On Tuesday, I had the fun chore of taking public transportation to suburbia get the “E” key on my laptop repaired, as it was not functioning properly and was driving me nuts (oddly, I use the letter “E” a great deal). After calling the TTC for directions, I bought a daypass at King subway station, and took the subway north to Eglinton. Then I got on the number 32A bus, which was not unlike sitting inside a barbecue for 55 long blocks. It took for-bloody-ever to get there, it seemed. The Sony repair depot is right on Eglinton. One and a half blocks before it, the bus turned right, and I immediately rang the bell to get off. Before stopping, the bus turned left, which put me about a block north of my destination. However, what I didn’t know is that when the bus turned off of Eglinton, it entered Mississauga or some such burgh, Eglinton being the boundary between two suburban nightmares. And, as I discovered, the TTC considers Mississauga a whole different transit system, though it’s the same bus, same driver, and same sweaty passengers. The bus driver would not let me off until I forked over another $2.75. He wouldn’t even look at my day pass, nor would he engage in any helpful dialogue to help me understand why I had to pay more. Each question I asked elicited only “We’re in Mississauga now” as a response. Stifling a number of vulgar expressions, I paid him the money to get the door open.

I often rave about the transit system here, and I still do. It really is great, at least compared to Vancouver’s toy trains and non-existent buses. However, the transit employees are the worst I’ve seen anywhere. Trying to get a subway attendant to even acknowledge you, let alone speak or look you in the eye, is near to impossible. A fine case for union busting if ever there was one.

Wednesday I picked my bike up. They had replaced (and charged me for) the cable, though I had told them that it had been replaced in Southampton. However, when I got outside, the brakes were no better. Back in I went, and they took it in the back to look at it some more. They said they would replace the cable this time, and would not believe me when I told them they already had. However, they also sprayed something called “Dr. Disk” on the brakes, and they work much better now. I don’t know what Dr. Disk is, but I’ll have to get some, if it means avoiding bike shops in future. After that, I took a bike ride up to Israel’s Judaica on Eglinton and bought a book that I had read a review of in the Globe.

I had been able to reach my friends Ben and Carol (formerly of Vancouver) by this time, to find that they had just bought a house in Leslieville (Queen East), and they invited me out to stay there, so I abandoned the hostel, thinking I would stay with them a day or two and then leave for Ottawa. Despite some peculiar paint choices by the former owner, it’s a pretty cool house, and the garden is a jungle of various plants (and a few weeds). I’d be tempted to stay for the summer just to work on the yard.

On Thursday, while Ben and Carol were at work, I went to the beach on Toronto Island. When I lived here (ten years ago), it cost about two bucks to take the ferry over, and you could sunbathe nude at Hanlon’s Point, as long as the cops weren’t around. Now, it’s six dollars for the ferry, and the beach is an official nude beach. It’s no Wreck Beach – just doesn’t have the same cachet, but on the other hand, it doesn’t have all the irritating vendors, nor the Beavis and Butthead wannabes, either. In the evening, Carol was off to visit a friend, so Ben and I went to “Batman Begins”. I had not thought much of the previous Batman films, but this one seemed a bit better, though still generally the same Hollywood formula.

On Friday (Dominion Day), Ben and Carol were going to the cottage for the long weekend, and asked me to stay and enjoy the house, as well as look after their three cats: Zeus, Tayo, and Chester. During the day, I cycled around town a lot, just looking around and getting exercise. Late in the afternoon, I decided to take a ride to The Beaches (the south-eastern part of Toronto before Scarborough), where there are beaches along the lakeshore. However, I had forgotten that there were fireworks, so the place was packed and I fled. I picked up some salad materials, grabbed a pizza, and went home to read.

In the mornings and evenings, I have to give Zeus medication (several pills) for his heart condition, which isn’t bad as I just have to mix them in some wet food. However, every evening, I have to give Tayo, who has colon cancer, three pills orally (through the mouth, thank god!). You know what Siamese cats are like – if you look at them the wrong way, they try to disembowel you with their claws. Well, I have to grab this cats’ head, pry it’s jaws apart, drop in a pill, and then sort of hold it’s jaw shut until it swallows. Then I have to do that two more times. Fortunately, this is a pretty easygoing cat, and he just wriggles a little and looks at me like I’m Satan, which is sort of how I feel.

Saturday, I spent much of the day hanging around the house, reading, working on some course planning for the fall, and organising Ben and Carol’s kitchen for them. I took a ride out east on Queen Street quite a ways and picked up some food, but otherwise hung around home.

Sunday morning I continued to be lazy, and sat out in the sun on the deck in the afternoon. Ben and Carol returned later and we went to Buddha’s Vegetarian Restaurant (Dundas West) for dinner, and then I went to a staging of “Much Ado About Nothing” in High Park.

Today, Monday, late in the afternoon (I am avoiding the peak UV periods) I went to the island again, so that I could get some sun and go for a swim again. However, after gettng all the way there, it got a little bit cloudy, some thunder was heard, I discovered that I had forgotten a towel to lay on, and when I went for a swim it seemed that the water temperature had dropped twenty degrees since my last visit. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant evening, didn’t rain, and I stayed there until about 7:30 before I headed back to the mainland.

I have been looking for a new pair of shorts, but it seems like all they sell in stores these days that they call shorts are what I call trousers for dwarves. The shorts all come right down past the knees, almost to mid-calf, and they have huge pockets all over them, enough that if you went grocery shopping, you wouldn’t need bags. May as well just wear pants! So, I went to Value Village and found a great pair of proper shorts, for only $4.99. Then I grabbed a Roti for dinner, and went home.

Sorry this blog entry is so boring… I should have taken the time to do it daily.