i'm at home this weekend, home home, not london home. i could have easily spent the weekend in london, studying, because this is second year and thus i should be (more anal) studious and disciplined, but instead i planned to meet friends in toronto, and just hang out at home. i haven't done that much reading, although this morning i read a bit of removable prosthodontics. friday night, i vegged at home with my family after the usual price club-highland farms-oriental supermarket rounds, i met friends for brunch, which turned into a long-drawn out lunch, followed by leisurely window shopping...a brief stint at the beautiful Morrison study pavilion at the U of T gerstein library (i saw a few UWO dental kids on the U of T campus), dinner with family (complete with apple strudel from the montmartre bakery, which is hidden away in an industrial area; their strudel is so simple, quite the best i've tasted), we watched tobey maguire in the cider house rules...so what i'm saying is despite my obligation, mainly to myself, i guess, to do well and be studious and be conscientious and miss out frequently on events and parties and dinners, there is an ever-stronger, nagging sense that sometimes i should really be at home home, with my family. it's not that they cannot get along without me - of course they can (because falling trees make crashing noises even you are not there) - but while i'm in london, whether they realize this or not, i miss out on the daily day-to-day quasi-rituals of my family's life. even stupid stuff, like my dad calling my brother to look at something everytime he fixes the vents, or the locks, or some gardening thing, or the spark plugs...i know life changes eventually, and these family rituals will change once my brother moves out, once my parents retire, once i graduate and do whatever it is that i eventually do, but perhaps that's all the more reason to capture it while it's here and still exists. even now, i can visibly see my parents getting older, and that always reminds me, now more than ever, of our immediate mortality. isn't it fascinating how we exist from second to second? presence and brevity.
at least i have the option of a quick two-hour train-ride from here to there; i can't imagine how lonely it must be sometimes to not have the realistic goal of seeing family that reside a few provinces away as often as you wish. in that sense, your friends really become your family.

anyway, last friday i took the bus home with genevieve. we had such a good talk, lasting the entire ride, about so many things - whenever i have such an involving conversation with someone who is able to empathize and understand and identify, and reciprocally share and so willing to do so, i don't know, i'm so grateful to have "discovered" such a friend and to have been given the time to talk. our conversation made me laugh and cry, it was serious and contemplative and exasperated and touching, but it made me think about the things we had talked about for at least an hour afterwards, during my subway ride home. sometimes it is quite irreconcilable that beneath someone's pleasant and unassuming exterior, there is such depth (or maybe not so - unassuming hints at sponge-like observation)...it would be safe, then, not to underestimate anybody.

beautiful day! go outside!