Sunny ways, I say to myself, sunny ways. I shall follow Justin Trudeau’s advice, behave civilly and approach life with a kind of joy, maybe.

Now I’m the last person to quote life affirmations. A note taped to the shelf beside my bed quotes Margaret Atwood. “Survival,” it reads. I took down the one that read “Life has many worthwhile aspects” because some mornings, I felt it didn’t.

As I await pot legalization — if I can find the right brand I’ll return to the pleasure-soaked unproductive years of my youth — I’m practising for the next thing Trudeau brings back to life: the mandatory long-form census. Had Stephen Harper won, he would have held a second tragic “voluntary census” and Canada would have had a population of maybe 16,000 tops, because who likes filling out forms.

I do. It’s like therapy but cheaper.

As first suggested by Twitter king Stephen Lautens, here’s my attempt at filling out what will undoubtedly be the excitingly fresh green census of 2016. Call it a rehearsal.

“Heather”

Employed.

Crippling work ethic.

Married.

11,000 years.

Two.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

God, no.

Melamine.

5’2¾”.

I’m sorry, I have no memory of that.

Not since high school.

A not unpleasant trickling sensation.

Paid in “Fenobian wooden dollars,” was I supposed to declare that?

Airbnb just outside Budapest, a bit cabbagey-smelling.

Hungarian porn, nothing wrong with that.

Dual citizenship, but I’m begging you, not back to Scotland and its boiled foods, its rolled trousers.

Vestigial only.

A little sore, some chafing.

That’s an odd question.

Yes.

I said yes.

I’d prefer not to. Seven.

OK, 12.

I do not have a “happy place.” Are you sure you’re an official census taker?

Oh, licensed Gentleman of the Census hat, you say, with metre-long speckled tail feather. Continue.

I have an artful scheme of happiness.

Iris scan? Iris sample?

I think not.

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Somewhere between the haves and the have-mores, that’s my dream.

I resent your mocking laughter.

Good day, sir.

…

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled last February that the Canadian government had one year to devise legislation on assisted dying. That means a law by Feb. 7 to give people a means to avoid dying in protracted agony. Sunny ways, sunny days! But what will I say when I fill out my government form on how I wish to join the choir invisible? Next up: my hasty application for help in dropping off twig, as it were. Dying.

Because I want to?

Oh pick a reason. Whooping cough. They discontinued my bra. Domestic editors so mean, foreign so nice. Running out of Trollopes, oak sapling slow to grow. Incurable, they said. I am Satan’s plaything.

Because I thought it was mandatory, like the census.

Not as such, no.

Not a sentimental person. Did not raise the children to miss me, love is discomfiting.

Morphine lollipop, Seconal, it’s all good.

I don’t know, but no walking on my grave. Can I be made into jewelry? Am thinking earrings. Some sort of shrine arrangement possibly.

Maybe scatter in the small leather goods section of Galeries Lafayette.

Model City Mall, Kapuskasing, Ontario?

Not in the fishing lake where my dad is, full fathom five. Detest fishing, do not wish to regenerate other newer Dad-like fish.

Hunk of bone, hank of hair.

Or at Giverny, bone meal excellent garden additive.

Lay me down in the needles of the soft white pine.

Fine, wherever.

Please don’t call my mothe ... Yes, Mummy. Yes, one foot after another, we are not put on this earth for pleasure, my children expect a level of decency, we endure not enjoy, pain is instructive, totally ashamed yes yes.

I'm not there yet. I'll go there now, I'll try and go there now.

I can’t go on, I’ll go on.

Oh, never mind.

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