As I piteously whined about being sick and missing out on the many things going on this weekend (which, to be perfectly honest, I would hate actually attending given my inability to handle crowds), I couldn’t help but feel I had done this before – and in fact, I had. Last year, to be exact. I had a terrible flu/cold over the 4/20 weekend last year, and felt sorry for myself because I missed out on Record Store Day, the Vancouver Fan Expo, 420 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, a goodbye party and several other fun things. Going forward, I will block this week out on my calendar as “STUPID SICK WEEK”. This way, I will not be surprised and amazed when everything is terrible and I can’t leave the house for 6 days because all my things hurt.

As I haven’t been downtown for the 420 rally in a number of years, I had NO IDEA that it’s basically gone from a bunch of people in weird hats smoking pot in large groups on the lawn to a fucking circus. And because I didn’t know that the 420 rally is now a fucking circus, I made plans to meet up with someone at the ice rink today at 1pm. That was interesting, made all the more so because I really shouldn’t have left the house .. but hey, I managed to sell my Pentax fisheye lens, so it was worth it. Plus, contact high! We had to wade through SO MANY PEOPLE to get to the rink, and it was kind of nuts – basically, the rally has grown to encompass an entire city block of kiosks and vendors openly selling massive amounts of pot and pot-food. There was a band, and food trucks. Roads were closed! The City of Vancouver will close off Robson between Hornby and Howe for any old reason – craft fair, bake sale, pillow fight, Tuesday – but this was the very first time I’ve ever seen Howe itself closed (between Georgia and Robson). It was amazing to behold, and I felt really bad for the poor Japanese student I was meeting at the rink – he’d only been in Canada for 2 weeks, and was just the cutest little thing. Still, he was a good sport and now has an awesome camera lens, and I have some money that will either buy me things in London, or most of a Nexus 5. The jury is still out on that one.

I’m mostly done being sick. I mean, I’ve been so over this for days now, but by tomorrow I’ll probably be able to go to work and not pass out from the exertion of waiting for the bus.

Hooray.