This post was actually supposed to be for the 15th, but I wasn't able to post it on the machine I was working on.

Well, I made it to Tofino after a long six hour drive. Faizal and I were entertained by a lovely Aussie woman to whom we gave a ride to Nanaimo, where she would catch the ferry. She was going to Whistler. She had us laughing all the way with her idioms and stories about the "bush," and how Aussies tend to take words and shorten them to no more than one or two syllables. "Umbrella" becomes "brelly."


The hostel here in Tofino is gorgeous (www.tofinohostel.com). Faizal said he's never seen one so great, even in Europe. It's very west coast architecture, made of cedar, right on the ocean. There's only four people per room, a large living room with fireplace overlooking the ocean, a game room, internet, tv room (I watched Married by Americans last night - yuck), sauna, and enormous kitchen.

Today we took a floater plane to Hotsprings Cove after a little air tour, and it was spectacular. At Hotsprings Cove I said hello to Sean of the InnChanter (see :: Wednesday, April 09, 2003 :: ). He was shocked to see me, but happy. I left Faizel at Hotsprings so he could go enjoy them. I wanted time along so I went back on the plane.

I woke up this morning and looked in the mirror and thought I looked terrible - bags, wrinkling around the eyes. I've only had about 10 hours of sleep in the last few days. I went to the pub with Faizal last night too which doesn't help. I kept looking in mirrors all day to see what was happening with my face. I started doing that gay thing, obsessing about my growing older. Now that I'm 38, I'm getting worried about wrinkles and bags. Dumb eh?

Then I just came from the store where I bought some vodka for later tonight, and the woman serving me asked for I.D! What? I was stupefied and said, "I'm nearly 40." She said, "Well, you sure don't look it."

Maybe I've got some really f*cked up thing with me - It's like anorexia, but instead of thinking I'm never thin enough, I'm never young enough. Maybe I'll end up like Cher in my 50s. Personally I think drinking vodka regularly has put me in a state of preservation.

Anyway, I'm feeling much better after she asked me for ID.

This internet terminal is not very private. I keep looking over my shoulder to see if anyone's reading this. At the Victoria hostel, I had my blog page up when I left the terminal to get some change to fill the machine. I was only gone for a minute, and when I got back a guy was sitting at my terminal, reading my blog page with fascination. When I came up he said, "Oh, weren't you done?" He and I both looked akward. I was too embarrassed to return to the computer after he had been reading my blog so I said, "Ah, yes, go ahead."

"I'll just close everything down before I start then," he said, meaning the blog page.