It's just how it should be. I'm bussing home alone. Bridges snake from downtown like spider legs and along these legs we slide. We're reaching past galleries and then I'm dizzy with vodka and content.

Memories and thoughts spark through my head. Spark, my old boss is explaining what he wrote in my reference letter to Saskatoon - and then it clicks: I made a cut! Like a God he tells me "I think you'll get in". He winks a Santa Claus wink. I curb my fantastic optimism with a mental *Whoa!*.

Spark, I'm walking with her out towards downtown. We're sneaking swigs from paperbag vodka as if we're 16. We rebel now. Just 'cause it makes us laugh. You should have been there to see the smirking laugh on the pizza boy's face. He so knew we weren't drinking water.

The Pit. I'm remembering a blur of smiling at a guy. It's a resolution now. Well, a distorted version of my resolution. She left, and I sat alone. I snuck glances at him. Giddy smiles and rosy alcohol cheeks must have triggered his moves. And of course he came over and used a line from that Book. Construction worker, mmm, constructing my imagination, painting my heart, hauling my thoughts... She came back and blinked. Twice. "Who might YOU be???!"

Then later downtown I met him. He is a dude - he says stoked every second sentence. Still, he's better than I'd thought. I didn't have to lie when I told her "I don't think he's an ass."

The bus hurtles through the woods.

There was a skunk outside the gates lumbering through the grass.