Certificate of Citizenship

Well, it’s official: I exist.

After a significant number of years “off the grid” during which I often lived without electricity, usually lived without a fixed address, and quite often lived without any idea where I would be in the next two weeks, as well as a fraught month without any health insurance whatsoever, I finally have an official address. An official identity. Like a pedigreed dog or a downtown lamp post, I am papered.

I am an Ontarian.

So, anyone looking for raincoaster is probably not looking in Ontario, so on that basis I’m probably pretty safe from Them, whoever Them is/are.

Not sure Them were actually ever looking for me, but my ego won’t allow for the possibility nobody wanted to find me, particularly THEM, so one will continue to assume one has successfully thwarted Them for years.

And don’t try to talk me out of it.

Anyhoodle, the result of all seven months of hard task-mastering and world-class admin support by The Sister is that I now have a temporary Ontario medical card (actually a letter) and in four to six weeks will have my first government-issued photo ID since 1996, when I had a passport, now long since expired. Before that, I believe it was my BC Driver’s License, which expired in 1993 or so and I just never bothered to get renewed. And all of the old ID except the passport got lost when I was mugged in Vancouver a few years back, at which time I found out just how much trouble it was all going to be to replace, and just let it go. Because you don’t need ID if you live in the same place for over a decade and everyone knows who you are and GASP you even run a tab at the Ovaltine and Sunrise Market, no problem, and who can do that? I ask yez. WHO has that kind of privilege? It’s like being Cher or something, only Cher can’t get credit at the Ovaltine. So I let it go.

Which, yeah, in retrospect was foolish, but what good is retrospect? I ain’t got no time machine.

But I DO have a snazzy letter attesting to the fact that I am a Canadian citizen, born abroad, which has a pretty CANADA 150 maple leaf on it, so Yay for Good Timing, I Got The Cool Logo. And now an OHIP letter, soon to be an OHIP card, at which point I can go to yet a different government office, fill out yet ANOTHER government form, write a test of some kind, and get my learner’s permit, as a prelude to getting a real driver’s license, which would have drastically simplified my life last year with the bus kerfuffle.

Oh yeah, the bus. Still hasn’t come up for auction, but when it does, I might just go there now that I have government ID and I know what it’s worth as scrap. Without government ID even the scrapyard wouldn’t take it last year. Wonder if it’ll still have all the stuff, like the dehydrator bolted to the custom-built counter.

But with a driver’s license things like ridesharing become possible. With a driver’s license and a bit of work under my belt, I’ll have some money and can buy a second-hand car or van and then I’ll have mobility and options. With a van, I can even sleep in it for free, so as long as the insurance isn’t a money bomb I will be, however slightly, on the property ladder as they say.

Yes, welcome to the 21st Century, where the Canadian Dream is to live in a second-hand van.

Speaking of work, I’m currently Not-Procrastinating on it by writing this blog post, my first in quite some time (years?). I’m practicing, warming up. Originally, the ol’ raincoaster blog began because I was describing myself as a writer, yet had no writing to show anyone. So, I assigned myself 200 words a day here, and that’s what I still recommend for my students, although I suggest 5 days a week, not 7.

Burnout is real, y’all.

But recovering from the accident has taken far longer than I had hoped. My brain works superficially quite well, so if I were, say, a tv talking head, I could go back to work now or some months ago. As a journalist in a highly complex and constantly changing field, it’s currently somewhat reaching to try to go back to that position, so I’m warming up by taking a couple of assignments that should be easy for me. SHOULD be.

Let’s put it this way: one of them is seven months overdue. One is a month late. And the other, thank god, is with an organization that moves as slowly as I do.

But blogging again, once a day for 200 words, is going to help me. Help me get back in the swing, get back to proficiency and prolixity (I did do 48 blog posts in a 24 hour period once, after all). God knows what I’ll write about, other than myself and procrastination, but here goes. Wish me luck.