from Ottawa, where I came tonight for dinner with a friend. To anyone who’s lived here before – Ottawa is barely recognizeable, and that’s not entirely pleasant. It seems very glossy and insincere, and maybe even a bit mean, in that suburban way. At that, though, when I walked into the restaurant where we ate, I did bump into an old friend who I worked at summer camp with about 15 years ago. Which is such an “Ottawa” thing, at least for folks who grew up here. Later I went to the bar that the aforementioned friend owns (she’s a partner, I think, in the Manx) and one of the servers had gone to my high school.

had a pretty good night: Blair’s son ‘drunk and incapable’. I remember going to Hull (right across the river from Ottawa) in high school and having to put a friend in a cab and giving the driver a probably insufficient wad of cash, “take this guy as close to 101 Jones Drive as you can get him!” [Street and number changed to protect the embarrassed].