Snore

A very quiet trip to Winnipeg; there was rarely more than a handful of people in my car at any given time, and it was often completely empty. Still, the few folks who did frequent my dome were very friendly, and quite generous at trip's end. I had $53 in sales and $51 in tips. Not a bad percentage! We got into Winnipeg 3:20 late, thanks to a combination of a mechanical problem before we even left Vancouver, costing us 2 hours, and bad freight traffic congestion.

I did a fair bit of reading on the way. I finished George Ellenbogen's Morning Gothic: New and Selected Poems and took a fair bite out of Robert Bringhurst's new essay collection Everywhere Being Is Dancing, which is a companion volume to The Tree of Meaning. (Gaspereau's offering both books as a set, which I recommend if you haven't got the TofM yet--and if you've got a spare brown bill hanging around.) I'm reading both the Ellenbogen and the Bringhurst in bound galleys for review in Quill & Quire. Nice when you can get a bit of night-job work done during the day job. Ellenbogen's an underrated, if not virtually unknown, Canadian poet, probably because he lives in the States; I get the impression he's one of the rare cases in Canadian poetry of being better known abroad than at home. I'm not crazy about everything in this book, but the best work is very strong. The Bringhurst book I'm loving. He's one of the great minds of our era, I think.

Rachel interviewed for another job yesterday, substitute-teaching reading and writing to adults at the Vancouver Community College. Not surprisingly, given her background in adult literacy and newly acquired creds as a teacher, she was hired on the spot. It's a foot in the door to a possibly very good-paying job. Which isn't what one goes into teaching for, but it's never unwelcome.

Working on a new poem tonight. If it doesn't turn out utter garbage, might be posting it soon.