So there were 64 people at the family camping trip that I missed over the weekend in Canada. I should have just gone, because I just lay around my house all weekend feeling sorry for myself because I'm back in the South where it is seriously hot and people are losing it. This weekend a gang of high school kids decided it would be fun to attack pedestrians with metal bats as they walk by in the evenings. Where? Oh, just on my street down a few blocks, no big deal. The newspaper is full of very disturbing things. Egh. I'm glad to be back at work, but I'll just take all of these as signs that I'm supposed to move back to Canada next year.

e is unexpectedly visiting because her boyfriend decided that their amazing cross continent dream was all too much and he wanted out. So she drove up from Central America in their van and landed at my door in the middle of the night on Saturday. We just hung out at the house all day Sunday, resting, but eventually our history won out and we ended up drinking far too much and wandering home not too late, but late enough, considering all the events I learned about today.

It was only recently that I even started walking anywhere at night because it's been pretty safe lately and I felt things were starting to settle in my neighbourhood, but this weekend's events have confirmed that I was overly optimistic. So that walk home was ill advised. Gah, and then as we walked by the house where we lived together until 2011, e tried the gate and it was open and before I knew what had happened she'd disappeared down the side yard to the backyard. I froze there in the dark on the sidewalk for a moment, then ran after her to drag her back..footsteps were so loud, crunching on the gravel into the cool quiet of the backyard. I wish I could have taken a minute to look at it because that was a beautiful place we loved so much. All kinds of dreams happened there. But actually I was fully expected to be shot at any moment. Or to have a dog attack us. That was one of the more stupid things i've even been part of. This is not a city where you can just walk into a random person's space. Bad things happen.

3:56 p.m. - 2014-07-28