I once again find myself the occupant of an army-style cot. This time last year, I also slept my winter months in Calgary on a nearly identical piece of furniture. I should probably try to escape this fate soon, except soon it will be all but cots throughout the summer. When I lay motionless and attentive, the cot, with its seismographic attributes, picks up the the motions of the blood in my body and steadily oscillates. I tried to make it stop once. It can't be stopped. I am alive.

I also find myself asleep on this cot not in any room of the house, but the master bedroom of the house. The great PURPLE master bedroom, with old forest-green carpet, which I'm sure is the culprit for my allergic mornings. Adrift on this sea of green, I sometimes call out to the corners, just to hear my name echo and reverberate in the distance. This provides me no small comfort. I am not alone, if my name comes calling back at me. I can stroll my own room, in fact. A man living out of bags alone in this wasteland of grape-flavoured walls and a marsh of a floor. I found one piece of furniture down the street. Aside from my paintings and drawings, it's the best I could do to garnish the room. It's an old black dresser. Well, it was black. Sort of. It was chipped and bleeding black when I got it. I found the can of grape in a closet and adjusted the dresser a bit. "Someone was trying to be Jackson Pollock." Katie mused. "Urm, yeah. Well I had a small painting accident... What's a man to do without a brush?" I offer.

The bottom layer of my cot, the sleeping sheet, is covered with cartoon trains, I believe called Thomas. With this in mind, I slumber every night with a gentle rocking, and a metronome of clickity-clacking so I might keep time in my sleep, keep time with the railroad ties. Incidentally, there are no trains in Newfoundland. It's a bit of a story, because there were trains, but not since this place became part of Canada. I do what I can to conjure that old-gauge steamer back into this land. People do not realize that the key to redemption is the same now as it was one hundred years ago; that is, we're short on trains, stuck in perdition.

It's snowing again. To welcome Spring, Newfoundland waits until her coat is shed, with painstaking measures of sunlight, and then puts the hair back on the dog. Yes, we are back to being a hairy dog. Maybe even a very hairy dog. I've heard unofficial broadcasts calling for forty centimeters. I've also heard unofficial broadcasts calling for the new Florida (Nova Flor?) in ten years. I'm willing to wait for both.

Today, CBC radio reported a naval incident between China and the US in the South China Sea. According to American reports, the US survey ship, 'The Impeccable', was in international waters when five Chinese ships, including a warship, came over and harassed them. The Chinese say that the US boat was in their waters. To settle the dispute, one of the Chinese boats came within seven meters of the US ship and dumped some wood in the path of the American boat. The American boat barely escaped this harrowing turn of events and responded by spraying the Chinese crew members with...water. Yeah, from the ship's fire hoses. In retaliation, the Chinese crew members stripped down, on the spot. What this sounds like to me is a bunch of guys at sea for a long time getting a little lonely and letting their homo-erotic selves go. It all adds up. But the Chinese and American governments, being homophobic as they are, decided to cover it up by pretending that there was some international grievance at stake. Even if there actually was, I just gotta say that I think we've come a long way from threatening each other with nukes at every turn. Hurray for fire-hose conflict resolution!

A little while back, I attended a gallery opening in town at which the artist, Kym, asked if some friends and I would be interested in joining her downtown for the "sessions" at Erin's Pub. The "sessions" happen every Friday night when some talented musicians get together and play some old folk tunes. It's the kinda music where the accordion and mandolin demand a little hoe-down, and we, of course, submitted. Kym's mother was there, spinning with the rest of us younger folk, drinking with us younger folk, and Kym was quite humoured by all of it. Very humoured. Suddenly, between laughing gasps, she exclaimed, "The only thin funnier than this was that time last week when we decided to go slidin', and it was the three of us out there at night, and we did the hamburger, and I was the little bun on top, AND I PISSED MY PANTS!" This elocuted with great breathlessness and glee. The story made my night. And it was already a good night.

St. John's is finally embroiled in 100km/h winds and quickly accumulating snow. Things are feeling a bit more normal. People come out and methodically shovel, in poor form, as soon as the wind abates for a while. I feel like it's an unthinking obligation, the way they go at it for hours in the wet snowpack. I don't. I don't have a vehicle to drive or much hear for sidewalks, in general.

My roomates have created obscene snowmen in the backyard. I don't think that bashfulness put the sculpture in the back, but rather that we don't have a front yard. Picture a choirboy with an affinity for carrots. It's pretty creative. Blizzards also usually mean a trek for food, and time and space to eat and drink. I'm full, and my teeth are stained with wine.

I paid eight dollars at the corner store for chips and eggs. Later, I sat down and considered what a markup that was. But snowstorms render a person careless. What is a four dollar bag of chips when all our houses are going to blow over? Nothin, man, nothin.