Borderline

I made an eight hour visit to Canada yesterday - a quick trip over the border for a meeting, then back again. That sounds hilarious coming from me - as if I were the sort of person invited to cross-border business meetings all the time - which I'm not. But this once, it happened. My X boss from my X company (recently filed Chapter 11), is scratching around for business, and he's decided I'm crucial to his plans (he rants and waves his hands and I attempt to make drawings of his visions to sell to investors). So I get an offer I can't refuse and three of us are off to British Columbia to meet with potential clients.

Canada has always been a 'through the looking glass experience' for me: everything is totally familiar, and everything is totally different - almost like a dream. Vancouver is like an idealized queer Seattle - Just the same, except they allow naked go-go boys in the bars. Ever since 911, the growing U.S. fascism has also made Canada seem like a safe haven if/when the shit really hit the fan.

We drove up in Frank's car: "the red sled", a 2002 Chevrolet Impala. I'd been looking forward to this trip ever since I realized the syncrotic (syncratic?) significance of the Chevy bow tie with Darth Vader AKA Jesus. To me, Frank's Chevy was a red balloon/dirigible/grail/star gate, and we were heading for Oz/the Promised Land! It only got better after I realized that Frank shared his last name with the LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin - twin of the ill-fated Hindenburg!

The meeting had been scheduled twice before and then broken, but this time it held - to be had on the 29th of February. So even that was cool: we were meeting on a day of the year that didn't even EXIST most of the time.

So we headed off, with Frank the captain of our fate. I rode along, Frank doing all the talking (as usual), I'm just a sync processor. We breeze through customs, heading north. As we drive by the vast BC green houses, Frank tells us about a customer who was one of the first BC Hot House tomato growers. Double H duly noted. For a while we follow a white Chrysler 300, and he comments how much he admires that car. On the way back, we follow another white Chrysler 300, and he notes the coincidence. I note the Spartan reference.

We arrive at our destination - the Crossroads Best Western. Our potential customer is a small aluminum boat builder - Kingfisher boats. The Fisher King is a Merovingian term, but also refers to Jesus - the fisher of men. The meeting was typical in the extreme, and at its end, we'd won another client. We pack up, and head back over the border.

Frank drops me off at my car, I drive on home, and absolutely nothing has happened, and nothing has changed. Yet somehow, I feel like something has. Like a mission was accomplished - as if I were a secret agent crossing the border carrying info for the resistance. I really am borderline.

"Ask, Believe, Receive". Another message from HH. Don't tell Oprah.