Thursday, Toronto. 20111013

I leave tomorrow. Of course I've left the heavy lifting to today. Because I'm a capital P procrastinator. For a couple of days this week I had doubts that I would actually be going, between airport security screener "work to rule" delays, AirCanada strike action and global market meltdowns. So it felt like I might be able to put off the lifting for another few months. But this Italy thing, the trip I've wanted to do and put off for years, cannot be put off any longer. I don't identify myself as a world traveller. Rather, in our time of nauseous volumes of choices and niches, I think it would have been preferable to be a plain and simple person who had never travelled more than a 100km from home. But this Italy thing. I've peaked over the Italian border from France and Switzerland, and sniffed it out over the Mediterranean from North Africa at least five times. Enough is enough, I'm going. I want to see churches and fountains, and eat real gelato. Now. Even if I have to wait at the airport for three days. Even at the financial risk of not putting turkey on the Christmas dinner table. I'm leaving for the airport tomorrow, even if five months of laundry is still sitting in the basement and everything upstairs that has to go downstairs threatens to topple over and block the staircase, irregardless of the basement hoard fire hazard, with or without a planned and posh wardrobe, one toothbrush and a knitting project short, Edgar dogbunnies curled in the corners of every room, the bed unmade, surly customer service reps notwithstanding, traffic on the Gardiner be damned. I'm going. Ready, set, lift.....