Ch4: Symptoms (what you've got)

And holy fuck, has this weekend been proof positive of the essentially balanced nature of the universe.

If you can get your environment in line, things will fall into place. If you can get to the point where you can't affect your own life one way or the other - as I have - then I think you'll find that a roughly equal number of good things happen as bad.

Consider the fact that throughout this weekend, I've been struggling with the realization that life is not static; that even if I'm not doing anything (for the moment) other people are, and things therefore must change. People leave town. People can't hang out. Etc, etc. It's not hard to see how that can get a guy down. The whole "everything's moving so fast and I feel like I'm standing still" cliche.

It began with the continuing Fringe festival. Cary, Chrisbrown and I pretty much agree that the apex of the Fringe experience was the second night of Don Juan/Breakfast Club last year, but this year's Friday would have been stiff competition. It began with Wanted: One Groom, an hilarious middle-comedy about a mistaken response to an ad for a Groom, and an antique. Chris F. played the eponymous groom, and made a generally good straightman in the ridiculous scenario.

The weak link of the night was the bizarre hybrid script/improv version of "Death Knocks," the play Chris had directed. The problem was, neither Connor nor Stuart, the entire cast of the 2-man play, had really memorized their lines. It was quite bizarre to watch them fumble and pass through this strange concoction, the culmination of which was Connor's invocation of "Ned" instead of Moe Lefkowitz. It was still funny, but clearly not living up to its potential.

Lastly was Clue, which was perplexing, but had moments with hilarious zingers, and featured use of the word shtupp, my favourite euphamism for "have sex," which I tried to work into a script once.

So I was a little down last night, thinking about what was mentioned earlier, when mom comes down. I'm not in the best of spirits, so I don't feel overly excited even when she mentions that she won a non-Mac iPod as a door prize. I'd tried to convince her that she didn't want it, nor did my cousin as a birthday gift. What I was hinting at, naturally, was that it was I who wanted it. However, it had been left in her friend's car, so I decided to leave be until she had it. And somehow, in one of the classic blunders of our time, she gets a call from this so-called "friend," who says, "you know, my son said he wanted one of those, and you left it in my car, so I was wondering if you'd give it to me for $100." So she considers it. And she actually accepts. And the horrible, horrible punchline:

My mother thinks afterward, "gee, I hope I didn't rip her off!"

I'm frustrated just thinking about it! You should have seen the scene I caused today when I heard about it - at a birthday party for my little cousin Ali no less! I was bloody pissed, because she used my words, the lack of enthusiasm I showed on Kris' behalf, and the attempts to dissuade her from keeping it for herself, as justification. "Gee, I didn't think you'd want it."

Now I'm not gonna jerk you around. I said my cousin wouldn't be interested because he's not much of a music guy. but facing facts, nobody wouldn't want one, least of all for free. If I asked him, I know he'd have said yes, so not only did I cost him it, I didn't get to enjoy my manipulation. Usually things work out.

Now, this all didn't come to light until this afternoon. This morning, I was still a little depressed about life. Meanwhile, I was killing time for the bus outside of Tim Hortons when all of a sudden, who should appear but Mr. Guthrie. And we go inside and I meet his wife and we talk for a good 20 minutes about school, writing, and general catchup. It was so pleasant. The overall irony of the situation (and after much soul-searching, I decided this was, in fact, somewhat ironic,) was that at the time, and indeed immediatley afterward, I was at that particular Tim Hortons because I was on my way to the comic store, which Guthrie would doubtfully have appreciated.

Anyway, the party was nothing to write home about. Apart from the aforementioned blowup about the iPod, I was generally feeling ill and unenergetic. And I've spoken before about this Tim guy. He's the type who'll chime into every conversation and go off into some unrelated tangent. He's a conversational hijacker is what he is.

Afterward, I caught the last Fringe play of tonight, Bottled Spider, which was a historical comedy which saw Patrick Visintini looking (and more importantly, sounding) like he'd stepped right out of a Monty Python sketch. Sharp.

Then it was your basic hangout with my mooching of drinks off whomever I could. Pat once again proved why he's such a fun drunk. And once all the younguns had gone, we elders (plus a few youngers though mostly Chris, and Connor,) sat and did what we do best... amuse ourselves. In fact, we made up new rules for Pogs, which as I mentioned once before, are back. Due to the unusual circumstance of being able to flip the whole stack of 9 Pogs with one slam, that was deemed necessary to do in order to win... 6 times.

We're in the midst of the one-year anniversary of New York. I have absolutely no way of following that sentence. It has virtually no context or relevance, nor any real need for elaboration. It just is.

It's also the kind of Saturday night that makes me feel like staying up to roughly 3:30 AM just to finally get back to the blog. My lack of motivation really doesn't lend itself to blogging.

And you would leave this paradise?

Not sure where that came from, but I heard it once. It's my message for tonight.

So I've been back and forth so many times in the past 48 hours as to whether or not I was depressed, upset, pleased, content, satisfied, mortified, or apathetic about my current state of affairs, that the entire argument has lost all meaning. I simply am where I am. All things even out. I know that many of my friends are in turmoil right niw, and I've never been preapred to offer advice, except that all difficulties will pass.

And all ups to Chris Brown. Just because.

Keep on rockin'
Scotts