Forget Magazine. Remember, Remember, Remember.

1.
At the coffee shop across form the bus stop where the girls with hats materialize almost as quickly as those without, sometimes it is hard to get any work done. No problems when it's mid-day, mid-rush, when it is busy and loud - the shrieked hiss of steam, swoop of newspaper pages turning, small children asking, "dad, dad, dad, can I put, dad, can I put the sugar in?"

One group of people cancel the chatter of another; white noise generators; the SkyTrain attendants bass rumbling negating the teenaged shriekers; a conversation about the need to limit one's exposure to negative thinkers obscured by a lecture on the shit-state of everything and how the Liberals are to blame. The noise wraps around itself, a steady roar like surf. Only the occasional words crawl from the clamour, conversations mingling: "Mark's girlfriend Jen," "yeah," "well, you know," "yeah," "huh," "can't wait it out," "yup," "still looking," "yeah," "see you tomorrow."

If I wanted I could operate: a typewriter, on an un-anaesthetized child with or without an inflamed appendix, loud heavy machinery; no one would notice. I can read the text I'm editing aloud, or read it silently, no distractions.

2.
"Hey, hey, check out dudes' hair."

"C'mon, check it out."

"We need two more fries, eh?"

"I'm telling you, look at his—"

In Ontario, on the 101 there are convenient rest stop compounds - a combination of ESSO, Tim Hortons and Wendy's. The Tims and the Wendy's are housed in conjoined domes, the kitchen and counter at one end, tables with attached seats that spin part way around fill the circular space. The domed ceilings are encircled with metal - I'll say steel even if it isn't - all the way around where the walls meet the ceiling.

"Who's on fryer? You shits, who's on fryer?"

In June, my sister Megan and I were two-fifths through our East-West travels, eating, sitting in Wendy's and spinning on our chairs. I kept hearing voices, and I was spinning in my chair and not seeing where the voices were coming from and not wanting to ask Megan about it yet, in case she didn't hear it too.

"No, this weekend we're going to Orangeville."

"To get drunk? Man, last weekend we got so hammer- hey, get back here. You can't go on break until April comes back. We still need two fries."

It took a minute to stop pivoting my head and notice that the voices, which seemed to emanate from somewhere very close, were in sync with the moving mouths of the Wendy's staff sixty feet away. The metal loop at the base of the dome was transmitting their voices around the perimeter with digital clarity, like they were sitting greasy next to me. I considered the architectural foul-up as I ate my square hamburger patty in its round bun, and burned myself on the medium black. The meat tasted boiled but the coffee was decent.

1b.
It is February, late, the coffee shop waits for closing time on a slow day. Individual conversations separate from the general mutter of talk. Under the mushroom patch of hanging ceiling lights - silver growths, long and thin, that light the walls and squat black toadstools that illuminate everything else - voices are reflected by the glass wall that faces the bus stop; they meander around the room loudly, making themselves hard to ignore.

1c.
There is an exchange at the counter and the customer protests, "-but, honey never goes bad."

"Never?"

"It crystallizes eventually, but it never goes bad."

"Oh, maybe I knew that. Anyway, we don't have any left. Sorry."

3.
We were somewhere in Northern Ontario —I drove from Charlottetown to Vancouver, so I know: the Ontario to elsewhere ratio is skewed in Ontario's favour, whether you like it or not - when I started to get the shakes because I had been drinking only caffeinated beverages, coffees and cokes, for the last two days and had become very dehydrated. I didn't realize all of that right away. I was very tired. I said mean things to Megan because everything was her fault.

1d.
"I'm a writer," someone at a table near the bathroom says, "since New Years. I just decided." He is speaking with someone quieter than himself.

"I used to give speeches, but there wasn't a lot of money. I was, I called myself a community educator."

"Speeches about anything, yeah. Have you seen The Bourne Identity? The movie ruined the book."

"Robert Ludlow is one of my favourite contemporaries. The movie had a really clichéd plot, it was too Hollywood; you should really read the book."

5.
The dump truck had a sign on its ass that said, "Do Not Push" so I didn't push. I hung back, looked for an opening. Passed. Between Marathon and the Ontario border only five cars passed my Hyundai. Except when we stopped to pee, to eat, to get coffee —lots of cars passed us then, but I wasn't counting.

1e.
Off topic, not getting much work done. Shaming me with their obvious work ethic, people at the bus stop are helping their selves with soft-cover books they hope will dispel the hum of disappointment they feel, that they don't talk about much, that they couch in a positive attitude that they don't feel yet, but might sink in with more repetition. Even now, at night, under the street lights they are learning the power of now, of financial fitness, how to be a self starter, while waiting they wait for the bus — a loud brake-screeching example of the success they've not yet achieved, but really hope and work for.

1f.
The tone of voice makes implicit that while he would like his co-worker to be attracted to him, he is not attracted to her. He declines the obvious openings she tries to create with her sad stories, flirts with flirting with her.

"You're a young, good looking girl," he says offhand, audibly not looking her in the eyes.

"Really?" she replied, "I didn't know they did that there."

"Anywhere. Bars make lots of money from young women — guys will go wherever there's women, so, you should get in to any bar without cover."

"I guess that makes sense."

The silence is awkward.

"Yeah. Did you know honey never goes bad?"

"Not ever?"

"Never, eventually it crystallizes, but—"

I'm out the door and gone.