pg17: What do they know?

Nothing really happened over the weekend.

On the day after my last post, I mulled arund the house in North Bay most of the day. It was gorgeous weather our and I considered taking a walk around the neighbourhood. When I was a kid, one of the nicest ways to spend time up there was going on a hike up this giant hill not far from their house. Of course, I'm not a kid anymore - just a lazy guy. So we watched TV until Grandad arrived and it was time for supper.

He was surprised and glad to see us. Dad had neglected to call and wish him a happy birthday, knowing we were surprising him. So he'd called and been troubled by the no answer. We sat down to eat. I attempted to counteract the always-persistent feeling of colourlessness here and there, making jokes and one-liners when I could. I wanted to feel like myself, not just some catatonically well-behaved doppelganger. I never seem to know how to behave like myself when I'm around that part of the family. Part is it that, in North Bay, I'm just always tired. It's a long ride up and sleep takes a good percentage of my time if I can help it while there. Maybe I divorce myself from caffeine there, too, or am just too far north from the pulsating buzz of the magnetic fields. Who knows?

When we presented him with a cake, Grandad grew very solemn. Since becoming a widower, he's far more prone to reflection and in blowing out his candles, wished to "Have a few more good years with you all." I suppose it's the right of all elders to think in this way. Dad pragmatically noted later that he was now older than his own dad was when he died some 20-something years ago. We don't like to think about death, but it seems to be his occasional companion.

He was indeed solemn, like I said, but not just sad. Sure, he has this weight on his shoulders, but I think he grew misty in the eyes also because he knows he has a family that loves and supports him and loves to have him around. And I do miss grandma Williams.

I basically collapsed into bed last night, the inflatable mattresses we each used that, on night 1, Brandon had neglected to inflate his until 3 AM much to Eric's and my sleeping chagrin. They had an automatic air intake so it's no hassle, but so very loud. Anyway, I totally conked out, which is consistent with my constant tiredness every time we go.

I had a dream where I could fly, but was not very good at it. It was more like hovering, like willing myself off the ground, or a long Mario jump. One of those dream sensations that doesn't exist in real life.

I woke up at the very instant dad came down to try to wake us all up. He wanted to get going in good time, and breakfast was imminent anyway. Aunt Pat is a terrific hostess/cook and always provides a delightful spread before we leave. Eggs, toast, fruit salad, etc.

We stopped off at the cemetary and then at Grandad's before leaving town. I never know how long we are supposed to stay at the cemetary. If I'd been alone, I would have talked and stayed until I had nothing left to say (which is, oddly enough, the philosophy of this blog.) As it was, we all just stood around her gravesite and pondered it. Then eventually we turned around and got on with our lives, having gained nothing, spiritually. I don't know. As we drive away I imagined her, sitting comfortably in her chair years ago, telling stories of the old days in her voice, which I'll never forget. I say I'll never forget, because she sounded so much like Eric Idle might've when playing an older woman. That's not to say my grandma sounded like a man, because hey, it was a man doing an impression of a woman. That just speaks to their understanding of the peculiarities of speech of older British ladies.

We spent some time with Grandad. He'd compiled a photo album to show our relatives in Australia, his brother's family, whom we've never met. It was mostly snaps from around North Bay, and a few of the family. I appear, with my brothers, a few years apart. Brando has no facial hair in the earlier one, and by the later one, Eric had put on weight (which he has since dropped considerably.) It also captures Brando, like all flash photography, mid-blink. It's become a recurring gag that Brando just can't be pictured with his eyes open.

We hit the road sometime shortly after 1 and arrived in Oakville around quarter to 6. And all we did after that was hang around. Like I said, nothing really happened all weekend.

Been getting the creative bug recently. I remember once I told an acquaintence that the reason I seemed to write so much was that I always put writing ahead of schoolwork. They seem to exist in two separate worlds and the school one has always felt less important to me. Do well in school, or don't, but don't let it get in the way of telling a story or creating something you enjoyed doing and can work with. That's always been my philosophy, why I co-wrote and drew 12 comics between the end of Grade 8 and the beginning of college, why I have more than half of two novels sitting on my computer, a number of plays and screenplays in arious stages of completion, and a notebook I carry with me to school every day just in case I get a good idea.

As is often the case, I've been pondering Melancholy Catatonia. It never feels like the right time to go back to it, but I know it needs improving, and I have a good sense of how to do that. I just never have the time or will, especially now that I'm in transit and at U of T so much.

Sigh. Such are the days of our lives, eh?

I've got a freaky-deaky ultrasound appointment tomorrow which will tell me exactly what's going on in my neck. Hurmp.

I should go to bed soon. Early morning tomorrow. Philosophy and rhetoric and logic and all that. No coincidence maybe that I've been on a Supertramp kick just now. The Logical Song.

Goodbye Stranger. I'm taking the long way home. Give a little bit of your love to me. You're bloody well right to keep on rockin'
~~Scotto