september 18, 2001. Today is Little Spider's quarter century birthday! Huzzah. (All of these birthday announcements are starting to feel a bit shallow & sad, now that I'm too far away to participate. Sigh.) A couple of days ago, bgirl wrote me, asking among other things what was going on in the Canadian mind. I've been pondering my response for awhile, since all of my answers come down to "a lot of things, some mutually contradictory." One of those opinions made itself heard this morning, as I woke up to the CBC. "We should find them and eliminate the problem. Otherwise we'll all be threatened." This was a report from Goose Bay, Nfld. A plane had been diverted to the airstrip there, and the CBC had used this as an opportunity to ask the residents what they think should be done about last week's acts of terrorism. All I could think was thank god the country isn't run from goose bay. I can only hope that they're not unconsciously echoing the real policy makers who have the power to lead us into battle. I dunno, b. I dunno. this time last year: I have enough social problems without being known as the girl who smells like spoiled dairy.