Q: Quickly I'm standing still

"This is a story about a time when someone was sick."

So begins Pekar and Brabner's excellent graphic novel "Our Cancer Year" (art by Frank Stack.) It's actually quite an inspiring piece of work. But I'm not here to talk about it, so I'll paraphrase.

This is a story about a time when someone was bored. Not just the "oh I have nothing to do tonight" type of boredom, more of the restless, "Where am I going with my life, how can I spend my energy?" type boredom.

It started last night. Well actually it goes much deeper than that, but the story centers on last night. The entire day had been centred on the insanity, the pandemonium, the mania surrounding the release of the only important book apparently ever published, Harry Potter and the Naughty Sausage. Or whatever it was called.

I'm the only person I know who seems not to care about the Hogwarts universe. The books began publication sometime around when I was in grade 7 and have continued onward ever since. At the time I wasn't much into reading for pleasure, and little has changed since. I do read, there's a lot of good that can be done in the written word, but I'm still not one for pop fiction. As I explained to a friend, I also just hate anything that gets millions of people utterly obsessed.

Rowling has apparently been working on this series for 17 years. She referenced some remark Charles Dickens made in the preface to David Copperfield, referring to it as a "two-years imaginative task," saying, "Try seventeen years, Charles." Uh yeah, but you know David Copperfield is only one of Dickens' many novels, and that back in Dickens' era, you didn't write 7 books about one character and market the shit out of him. But whatever! A lot of people happen to enjoy those stories, and I for one have nothing against that; it's jsut not what I'm into.

So the entire world was reading all day yesterday. I believe they had the need to finish as soon as possible to avoid the rapidly impeding spoilers that would surely be flooding all ears as soon as everybody else finished the book. So it was a race against time, and one that Chris F. was determined to win... sorta. He would have finished in good time, but had made a deal with his aunt that they would read the last 100 pages together. So he wanted to kill some time and get his mind off the book. We were going to go see Live Free or Die Hard , but nobody else was aorund... they were all reading, or in the case of Chrisbrown, working at 5 AM the next day.

So nothing happened last night. I sat around, bored, as I'm sure did he. I watched on the news where they tracked down a man named Harry Potter and discussed how amusing his life must be to gawk at. Clearly this was pressing news, the kind of shit you get educated about when you work on the Sheridan Sun, but hope you never have to do.

And Xena went home. Finally. I got paid. I had said earlier how much I would consider to be "enough" but didn't get it. I understand it but can't hlep being disappointed. Grandma had after all just gotten back from a trip and had to also buy birthday gifts for her 4-year-old grandson. She can't fork over a fat wad of cash to me just because I fed and walked her dog for a few weeks. So I accept it, graciously, but I still have to sigh and say "Not worth the trouble." But at least things are back to normal.

Today was a family gathering, Cameron's birthday. He's at that age when all the cool toys start to be geared toward you ("Three and up" and that sort of thing.) I spent a great deal of time catching up with my own aunt. Given that I will be going to school in her city she seemed eager to let me freeload off her, offering me a place to stay whenever I feel the need. It'll be hard, at least at first, to guage exactly when that will be, but I'm sure she'll be seeing plenty of me. My other aunt wants to get in on it to, and why not? I should spread the freeloading around, so everyone gets sponged off of. The decision not to go to res is looking better all the time.

There's still some issue with my OSAP application. I'm annoyed about it and will have to address before next monday when the course enrolment starts. I've been working on it for a while and am nearing a solution but it's still not quite straightened out. It's annoying.

Still, I've been pretty zen about the future since Niagara Falls, minus one night of belligerent drunkeness. I do have a bit still to get off my chest, but this (for once) isn't the appropriate forum. But time heals, or at least gives you bigger injuries to worry about.

It's been a dull weekend. This will be the last week of July. Uhm.... er.... yipe.

Well keep on rockin'
-Scotto