bright eyes smile.

 "be happy for this moment. because this moment is your life." omar khayyam.

parking is ridiculously easy while snow descends upon the world. an ambulance speeds by, lights flashing, no need for a siren. the city is strangely quiet, peaceful. it’s a numbers game now with names attached, like grampa sam 21,293 or ezra 21,294. either one might’ve been me of course, and was in a way, as the question of a future hangs in the air like a cloud. 

some say there’ll be a micro-chip in the vaccine to track our comings and goings. only, nobody’s tracked my coming or goings in years and i kinda like the idea. of course, if one has a mind to rob a convenience store it could be a terrible inconvenience. so that must be said, or it might just be me, probably is. and has there been sufficient animal testing? i don’t mind waiting in line, although the future hangs in the balance. so even if as many people die each winter of influenza, the logic escapes me, as i hide a toothless grin behind my mask, which is me for sure. 

i doubt that the virus was unleashed by the world’s ruling elite to collapse the economy. as well, i don’t believe it’s fake news, even though my buddy says the ‘cbc’ should be renamed ‘the covid broadcasting corporation.’ and hell no, i don’t believe the u.s. election was stolen. so maybe it is me, almost for sure. the bakery ladies might think so. their bright eyes smile, appreciating our shared existence, albeit briefly. their shelves are full, deliciously aromatic, and i buy a few extra scones, hand a guy outside a couple with change. 

so, yeah, maybe there’s no future. only for sure there’s now. and i can’t help but notice the beauty of it, this moment, which must be you, probably is, almost for sure. 

the camping toilet.

the question many van-dwellers, van-lifers, even weekenders often ask is: ‘toilet or no toilet?’ i don’t wanna come off as sounding anal about it, but i feel it’s a no-brainer. a toilet is a must.

long before this blasted pandemic made leaving our homes as difficult as if our feet were dipped in cement, i appreciated the independence of my van’s porta-potti. why should i beg a cafe owner if i might use his or her precious bathroom? why should i constantly be furtively looking for clumps of bushes to do my business? the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. 

initially i trundled off to ‘canadian tire’ and proudly purchased a ‘dometic portable deluxe camping toilet.’ i felt like a king while sitting on its full-sized throne above the attached holding tank. but i found cleaning the thing complicated and frankly a bit unsavoury. so, i cleaned it up real good, slathered it with lysol and threw it into my back shed. 

to simplify matters, i bought a bucket and applied a gamma-seal, double-bagged it and added a dash of saw-dust. it was simple, easy peasy, only i sure didn’t feel like a king and it kinda left marks on my, well, it’s in the shed. 

in an attempt to compromise i next purchased one of those collapsable crappers off amazon. the photos looked terribly inviting. unfortunately, the reality is they’re more suited to a recently potti-trained infant than a grown-ass man. it felt as though it actually might collapse at the most inopportune moment. and that’s an unthinkable image that now i can not un-think. it’s in the shed.

i tried ‘the luggable loo,’ from ‘home hardware,’ only when sitting on the thing you’d need a shoe-horn to get your male appendage in to its proper placement, in case it wanted to also avail itself of the facilities. that went into the shed quicker than any of them. 

i even went so far as to purchase a lovely high-end commode. that woulda been a keeper if it didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. there simply was no discreet place for it in my van. sadly, i had to find a place for it with all the others. i’m using a ‘reliance portable toilet’ from ‘canadian tire’ these days. it’s adequate and easy to hide away. 

all that to say, if anyone out there needs a camping toilet, i’m your guy.