Above: Laura and book, with accidental lens flare. — Below: Virginia Woolf, The Waves, Neville speaking.

‘Change is no longer possible. We are committed. Before, when we met in a restaurant in London with Percival, all simmered and shook; we could have been anything. We have chosen now, or sometimes it seems the choice was made for us — a pair of tongs pinched us between the shoulders. I chose. I took the print of life not outwardly, but inwardly upon the raw, the white, the unprotected fibre. I am clouded and bruised with the print of minds and faces and things so subtle that they have smell, colour, texture, substance, but no name. I am merely “Neville” to you, who see the narrow limits of my life and the line it cannot pass. But to myself I am immeasurable; a net whose fibres pass imperceptibly beneath the world. My net is almost indistinguishable from that which it surrounds. It lifts whales — huge leviathans and white jellies, what is amorphous and wandering; I detect, I perceive. Beneath my eyes opens — a book; I see to the bottom; the heart — I see to the depths. I know what loves are trembling into fire; how jealousy shoots its green flashes hither and thither; how intricately love crosses love; love makes knots; love brutally tears them apart. I have been knotted; I have been torn apart.’

We’ve been in touch with the tenants who will be moving into the old apartment in October, a pair of girls who work nearby. I’ve told them about what the building is like, things both good and bad. But I’ve remained silent on the subject of bats. I’m not sure whether the greater disservice would be to tell them or not tell them.

Above: Bat and Bat Net, August 2007. Story here.

Option 1: Tell them that, yes, bats can get into the apartment, that it happened to us twice in three years (i.e. not often, but more than once); and that to be prepared they should go out and buy a Bat Net (euphemistically called a “butterfly net” in stores), and keep it right inside a bedroom door, within easy reach. Just in case. It might never be used. It is a bat insurance policy. It beats trying to bring down a bat with a bedsheet (which I have done and it’s a huge pain in the ass).

Option 2: Don’t tell them about the bats, or the possibility thereof; let them live there without the thought ever entering their minds, so if it never happens they’ll be none the wiser and will always sleep well. If by chance they do get a bat, and are unprepared for it, that’s too bad, but they’ll figure something out, probably just shoo it out into the hallway, or try their luck with improvised bat-capture methods, sheets or towels or large garments, hopefully without getting bitten or be-guano’d or both.

(For all I know those girls are hardened bat-invasion veterans, they fully expect them, they have their own Bat Nets already, they can pluck the creatures out of the air with ease, and I insult them with my condescending Good Samaritan concern.)

We are keeping our Bat Net. The bats may have a tougher time getting into the new place, up here in our downtown-core concrete bunker, but I have no doubt they will find a way. Condo bats are cunning. They’ll pickpocket a tenant, steal their keycard, take one of the elevators up, bide their time in the exposed ductwork, emerge with fangs bared and dripping with infectious Bat Flu. We will make them eat mesh.

Above: Stuff outside the windows this past weekend, from a few miles above Florida.

Airports tomorrow and Sunday. Hope we don’t come back with the Hen Wen.

Last night we buy some floor speakers off a guy on Craigslist. As we stand in the guy’s living room, testing the speakers, watching some marching-band movie through them at teeth-rattling volume, the guy’s family’s spectacularly fluffy black cat, a fat and sinister cloud of drifting fur, rubs affectionately against my leg and then pushes a doll stroller across the room with its body. Laura and I are insanely allergic to cats, so we know we have to conclude the transaction ASAP before we start wheezing, sneezing, sobbing, and hacking. We announce our satisfaction with the speaker test, the cash money changes hands, the speakers leap into the car for the ride home, all is well. The speakers are here in the house and are hooked up and they sound very pleasant, even when playing all our unpleasant music. Now I just have to figure out what Sound Pressure Level is required to expunge cat hair from felt speaker grilles. (There is a cat-related tweeters-and-woofers joke in there somewhere.)

Waiting, waiting, waiting for this house to become familiar. It is not a house, but I think I am going to start calling it the house. I recently read that in earlier centuries, the original legal definition of a home mortgage granted you ownership not only of your land and the structures built upon it, but also extended ownership downward to the center of the earth, and upward into the sky. A fifth-floor dwelling like the one we have, of course, could have no such extensions. We can only possess a mere block of space up here in mid-air. (Plus a parking spot, a storage locker, and a mailbox.)

Among the things we move over to the loft ourselves: Seven empty fancy whiskey bottles in an antique dynamite crate. I don’t ever want to take them out.

The move last Friday goes very smoothly. The trio of moving goons is fast and organized and they do not damage a thing. They show up in the morning just after half past eight and they are done just before half past one. I hide in the kitchen and anxiously work on a cryptic crossword while they load up the van. They Saran-wrap the great white sofa and find a way to shoehorn it down the treacherous Chez Tunis staircase. They march up and down the stairs many many times in the process of carrying out our books, nine hundred volumes packed into a cavalcade of small but heavy three-quarter-, one-, and one-and-a-half-cubic-foot boxes. They assent with great good humor when at the last minute I ask if they can also move over the pile of assorted-size rocks sitting on the floor. (Inuksuk parts.) At the loft we have reserved one of the elevators, so the unloading is quick, takes maybe an hour. After the goons finish and split, I start unpacking and within minutes break two glass lamps.

Our new address’s postal code has a Z in it. Damn. This means that when I speak my mailing address aloud, say, to someone on the phone or at a store checkout, I’ll probably have to start using the Canadian pronunciation of the letter Z, which is zed. I’ve been able to avoid it up until now. If I say it zee, like I’m used to, there will be confusion. My cover will be blown. Possibly there will be a tiny pause, as the listener silently processes my American accent, and then confirms: “Zed as in zebra?”

I wonder if and when I will ever make the Big Switch — change to Canadian spellings. Centre. Humour. Favourite. Colour. Cheque.

Above: The Stretchy Room, or Accidental Fun With Lenses.

OK. We are pretty much moved in. Furniture placement is still pending, so the books and movies are for now on the floor.