I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow by Jonathan Goldstein Page A

narrowed, as though sizing up an opponent.
    â€œI see what you’re doing,” he says. “You’re trying to go toe to toe with the kid.”
    â€œI’m trying to enjoy a meal,” I lie, my stomach beginning to ache.
    After our dinner, we each eat a wafer-thin chocolate that comes with the cheque. I feel mine go down like an iron barbell plate.
    I leave the restaurant, woozy, my stomach doing flip flops.
    â€œI think I might have steak poisoning,” I finally admit, a sob in my voice.
    â€œIf anything, you may have pork poisoning,” Howard says. “You ate about an industrial dumpster’s worth of bacon.”
    I beg him to stop saying “bacon” and “dumpster” because the words are making me feel like my stomach is a plummeting elevator full of oatmeal.
    In what I know is Howard’s version of a victory lap, he suggests we stop on the way home for ice cream.To refuse would be to admit defeat.
    â€œIf it makes you happy,” I say, my face shiny with sweat. And moments later, at the ice cream parlour, as Howard eats a double scoop of pistachio and I force-feed myself a ball of orange sherbet, it would seem it truly does.
    FRIDAY.
    Gregor visits me at my office.
    â€œWhat’s this?” he asks, pointing to the large yoga ball under my desk.
    â€œSomeone in the office was throwing it out and I thought I’d try sitting on it while working. It’s supposed to do wonders for the posture.Want to try sitting on it?”
    â€œI wouldn’t even touch it,” he says. “Balls are great for dribbling, kicking, and helping man determine winninglotto numbers, but not for sitting on. A yoga ball is the rare object that can boast having had buttocks pressed against every millimetre of its surface. The sphere, my friend. Nature’s perfect cootie catcher.”
    I guess that’s why it’s the perfect shape for a place that’s home to asses like us.

The Weight of Worry
    (22 weeks)
    MONDAY.
    My office chair has been sinking of its own accord. Maintenance has been by to fix the problem twice and they still can’t seem to figure out what’s going on. In my heart I fear I know something that maintenance does not: the chair responds to emotional heaviness, and confronted with seven hundred pounds of worry, it doesn’t stand a chance.
    WEDNESDAY.
    I’m at the airport with Gregor. We’re flying to Toronto for a mutual friend’s wedding on Saturday. In line at the gate, we watch as people late for their flight are rushed to the front of the line.
    â€œI don’t get it,” Gregor says. “These guys roll out ofbed fifteen minutes before their plane’s about to take off, and they’re treated like members of the landed gentry. It’s airport welfare!”
    Walking through security, my bag accidentally wheels over Gregor’s loafer, scuffing it.
    â€œSorry,” I say.
    â€œThere’s an old Russian expression,” he says, bending over to rub his shoe, “an apology isn’t a fur coat.”
    â€œOf course it isn’t,” I say. “One’s an abstract idea and the other’s a physical object.”
    â€œBoy, you’re a barrel of laughs,” he says. “By your logic, ‘who’s on first’ should have been called ‘the exchange in which a personal pronoun is confused with a proper name.’”
    Boarding for our plane is announced. We stand and wait as the people in first class have their tickets taken.
    â€œI don’t get it,” Gregor says. “These guys just roll in making more in a week than I do in a year and they get treated like members of the landed gentry!”
    â€œCall it airport corporate welfare,” I say.
    On the flight, Gregor forces me to take the middle seat.
    The stewardess comes by with the snack wagon.
    â€œCookies or Bits & Bites?” she asks.
    â€œThe latter,” I say.
    â€œSorry?” she