104: We's as leaves a-fallin' from de trees

Since enrolling in Reibetanz's Reading and Writing Poetry class, I seem to be thinking in verse a lot more. I keep a spare notebook in my bag in case I ever get an idea I need to jot down, and there seems to be a lot more poetry written in there than I might expect. It's the sort of creative kick in the ribs I can really use. Since I need to write a steady stream of poems (one ever few weeks) it's good to keep the inspiration levels high. Take for example, this title, which came from a short piece I tossed off recently.

Also, my WritersCafe account has gotten a few notices recently and it's easy to keep providing poetry rather than writing new stories or posting old ones.

Of course, there was that one guy who sent me a PM thanking me for the compliments on his poetry rather than returning the favour and reviewing mine. That makes me wanna take back my remark about how touching his piece was (presumably about a miscarriage or some other such, not very light material indeed.)

It's been a big long weekend, but there's not much to the story. I have a few complaints to muse on but they're totally unrelated to the weekend's activities. If I can remember, I'll get to 'em at the end of our feature.

Then again, something must have happened. there was a bit of a hit spike yesterday, probably from people around here who read this thing and, I guess, were expecting to be written about, or hear what I had to say about others? After all, shucks, I've gone since Friday without posting and here we are on Monday.

Saturday was a hell of a day. I got up to feed the dog and let him out, but I was still very tired and it was raining like a muthafacka, so he didn't go out. I went back to bed and had a dream about a train and some villains. As the villains got the upper hand, I panicked and literally pried my way out of my sleep, like you would a window. In the dream it was an escape hatch, in reality my eyelids. I got to pass through that unreal feeling of being asleep but aware, half-dreaming, for the second time in about a week. Hrm.

When I got up and out, the rain had stopped, replaced with grave humidity. The day itself was uneventful. We kicked around the house a while, had steaks for dinner, and I went on a run with Lauren. Eventually, 8:30 rolled around and, shaved and brushed into place, I waltzed on over to Chez Ferg for the "Dude it's thanksgiving and everyone's in Oakville, let's rock" type party. Early on it was mostly Chris' friends, those younger than me but in many cases I'm pretty good friends with. Before long, Doug came and I was real glad to see him, as the last time I had, it was that party I had at my place in June where I was very much inebriated by the time he showed up, and didn't really notice. We caught up and compared notes on our similar situations - being 20, starting over at University (in his case, McMaster) and commuting. We noted, of course, that no matter what, we were going to keep having the same conversations with people all night long. "So where are you, what are you taking, how do you like it?" Hrm. I wouldn't mind it so much if I had anything honestly interesting to say on the matter, but the truth is, there's not much to tell. If even one other person there went to U of T I could relate, but when you try to describe your own school, in terms of other peoples' that you don't go to, it's less interesting.

Eventually the party began to branch off, as could be expected, into one downstairs, typically younger, and upstairs, typically older with growing exceptions as it became the place to be. I caught up some with Pat, Cary, CB, the people I usually seem to see anyway. More youngers arrived (not to deride their age, but they are.) More than occasionally did I stand around and merely observe conversations as people talked about their common Universities. Hrm. As I said. It's all about how you can relate. Where do I belong in a conversation that involves three people who go to Mac and two who are at Queens? Erk. The one honest-to-goodness high school friend I have at U of T was elsewhere that evening, to my chagrin; apparently on a Tropical Island. Her loss.

People continued to stream in, many of whom were arriving with new haircuts. Girls with hair cropped to their jawlines, I suppose in an affectedly mature University Girl appearance. Not to dis it, because looks like that stay in style. They're classy. But when however-many girls, some of whom sisters, are standing around with the same 'do, you might ask, "Did you guys co-ordinate your haircuts?" I mean hey, I hated having the same haircut as my brothers, and these days it's not an issue since while I'm loyal to my haircut (read: afraid to change and somewhat concerned it's not possible,) E has been shaving his recently, and B hasn't had once since about Grade 9 (which was grade 5 for me.)

There are definitely people I wish I had talked to more. I don't get to see these people very often, as they will inevitably return soon to London/Kingston/Guelph/Ottawa, even Hamilton. But it was hot, crowded and loud in that room. Lightning flickered out the window but the rain eventually tapered off. Bryan M. and I began a conversation about beat writers inside, but ended it as a conversation about his relationship troubles outside on the porch as he was more or less going (having finished a bottle of wine on his own, he seemed to feel a bit of shame/embarrassment/bemusement about being the drunkest in the house.) I listened and gave my thoughts; for obvious reasons I've not had any relationship problems of my own to worry about. I make snarky comments about that fact like it's no big deal, but I can't stress enough that 's been now a very long time and I'm getting really down about it. More on this later, if I can remember.

A car pulled up in the driveway. It was Anisah's, despite her actually already having been there. A silhouette stepped out of the front seat, flipping its hair in a very distinct way. Ryan W. Reportedly there had been some scheduling clusterfuck and Ryan and Becky given she was doing a show this weekend and he, for some reason, felt the need to go see it. So I was kind of annoyed that they weren't going to be there, as I hadn't seen either since February's reading week. BUT they had caught the GO back to Oakville and Anisah was good enough to go pick 'em up.

The night went on. More crowdedness, with a slightly increasing level of departures. More half-conversations, "Where are you, what are you taking, how do you like it?" The last big arrival was Emma and her new guy, whom I'm thinking was named Ian but the night was understandishably blurry by this point. He was wearing a Sherdain "I Choose" t-shirt. I asked him what he was taking and he told me, "Journalism." Double-take. "Print journalism?" "Yep," Why shucks, that's exactly what I just finished doing! We talked, I gave my always glowing review to the program, we shared Mitro~~* and Walsh impressions. Eventually they went off for a smoke and didn't stay long after that. This was about 1:30 maybe. Things were starting to settle and an exodus was imminent. As Ryan left he said I should keep writing so he can have something good to be in someday. Perhaps harshly I noted he gave that up when he went to Waterloo. Not-so-carefully worded. Becky left telling me she still liked that I call her Maggie, even though I remember virtually nothing about the play we did where she was Maggie. "That's not my name, but I love it."

With Mrs. Ferguson doing a mitzvah and taking many people home, the group got whittled down to a few. Mostly it was Cary's closer friends, Chris and Pat, two girls who were hanging off him, and a couple others. And me, naturally. When the girls left, we talked about them for a while, all of us chipping in his two cents' worth about them. For the most part I only had a few observations - the brunette was positively hanging off Pat, and the blonde had her goods on complete display and was a bit dizzy as far as trying to throw the Wii remote.

We played WarioWare until about 3:00, by which point a pre-dawn hangover was already settlign in among the group. I sauntered home through the back football field in the frightful fog and sub-horizon light, moon totally obscured in a vaporous haze.

A few tabs of acetaminophen and a load of water later and I'm in my bed hearing the cat cry to get out. No sale, because I don't wanna hear about it in the morning from Brandon, "Who let Rocky out? He's totally injured." Bollocks to that.

Sunday was a gray day indeed, during which I did not eat very much in anticipation of Thanksgiving dinner at Dad's. They provided a good spread, with moist turkey and great stuffing and the other various usual sides. I broke from habit and had a glass of wine, knowing that hey, it's Thanksgiving and even if I don't really like wine that much, nor drinking with family, it might be nice. And it kinda was, although in drinking the wine (a white, to match the bird,) I kept thinking, "Okay, just sip it and then put more food in your mouth." What can I say? I'm no oenophile.

After some relaxing and some pumpkin pie, we headed for home. We lazed around the house all evening watching TV and in my case resisting Eric's attempts to make me help him with his homework. Around 11, Chris F. came on and asked, "Riiiiisk?" It had been discussed the night before as something that must happen. By this time we were all long done our Thanksgiving dinners and ready to go. CB even ditched a party loaded with non-English-speakers.

He brought his Xbox360, which posed a bit of an obstacle in the gameplay but it was mostly Cary playing while us 4 (me, the Chrises, Pat) played the board game. For once I did not start off with Ukraine or indeed any of Europe save Scandinavia. I gladly abandoned my usual strategy and managed to snag North America. The game proceeded until about 3:30, during which time some of the most impossibly offensive filth came from our mouths, which is always the joy of Risk. We parted after that, with Chris F and I coming out on top, Pat being "not the winner" and CB having been eliminated sometime not too long before. Again I came home and drifted right off into sleep.

It's now just about time for the next Thanksgiving dinner, which is also a birthday dinner for my aunt. It's going to be a busy night. I've been here typing away for over an hour and a half and I'm not going to go onto what I was annoyed bout at the outset, but I can guarantee it will continue to bother me for a while so you'll hear about it (if you care enough to read, I mean, just to let you know what I'll be writing about in my next entry, probably tomorrow.)

Yeah, mama this surely is a dream.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto