Chapter 12: If the shoe fits, eat it

I don't know what that means, but I think it's funny.

You know you spend too much time in Toronto when , as you walk into Oakville Place, you pass a man standing outside (presumably waiting for his taxi,) and instinctively give a rapid head shake to indicate, "No I don't have change."

Despite only being at school for about three hours yesterday, one of which was lunch, it felt like a long day. My first tutorial was cancelled, presumably because we handed in an assignment (that's Boyle's MO,) so I didn't have to go in until 11, which meant being on a train at 9:30, which meant sleeping until 8, which meant awesome.

In the tutorial, we talked about "As I Lay Dying," into which I was about 50 pages. Stewart (the TA) just kinda shook his head at us and proceeded. There was a great deal of biblical discussion, as the book has some significant religious overtones. Or are they undertones? I can never remember in what direction the tones were supposed to be going. Either way, they're religious, and significant.

The two people in the tutorial I know were both absent. Afterward, I was in the subway and met someone else from the class, a girl whose name may be Alison or Alicia or maybe not. We had had one brief conversation, last week, before class. She seemed very studious, quite serious, she was wearing a polo shirt from a Catholic Secondary School where I assume she went. During our brief prior conversation, I had made one of my typically deliberately lame jokes (most of the things that make me laugh are incredibly stupid.*) She didn't laugh, and I hadn't really expected her to, but she looked at me quizzically until I explained, "That was a joke." She nodded, suddenly comprehending, and then explained, as though it were some gene she lacked, "I don't get sarcasm." Ah to be so wide-eyed.

*An example of such a stupid joke came on Wednesday in Poetry. We were passing around our latest compositions. Someone had written a poem about a Sax-player. Reiby asked, "Are you a sax player?" and the guy said yes. He then asked, somewhat excitedly, if anyone else played an instrument - a very Guthrian tangent - and some chatter was heard. Some of the girls beside me conversed, ("I used to play the piano," "I was a flutist in high school" etc.) I turned to them and said "I used to play the woodblock." Some laughs, more at what a ridiculous thing to say. I've made a reputation out of my inexhaustible supply of ridiculous asides.

Back to Alison or Alicia or something else. We met in the subway. I'd gotten there just in time to see it pull out and she arrived a moment after. I asked her, "Ever have one of those days where if you'd just walked a step quicker, you'd have caught the subway?" She agreed, it happens, and we talked on this subject a while, before going onto the usual first-time conversations betweens students. "What are you taking? How do you like U of T? How about that TA?" etc, etc.

She mentioned, in due course of the conversation, she was a second-year, life-sciences student. She said second-year, as if to underline it. We learn as much about people by what they tell us as what they're saying. She chose to say "I'm in second year" because she is a second year, and a life-science student (I do not know what that entails,) taking a first-year English course. She first asked me if I was a first year and I said yes, but did not add that I had spent the last two years doing journalism at Sheridan, which I usually do, to put myself in the proper context. She probably thinks then that I'm a year younger than her, and less experienced in the ways of the world. We build people in the contexts of what they say. The note about Sheridan didn't fit much into it. I don't always mention it, and some people don't learn until they get me on Facebook, and even then only if they're paying attention.

I don't know why this stuck in my head hard enough to write such a long paragraph, but it did. If it hadn't been such a weird interjection, "I'm a first-year, but I'm 20, and done all this other stuff," I'd have mentioned, maybe so she wouldn't think she would have anything - age or experience - over me. I have many friends who are younger, and many who are older, but you want to make sure people understand which you are, because that does guide the relationship to some degree. If I never speak to this girl again - likely - she'll have a mistaken idea about me. I can live with that, but I'll correct it at the first opportunity that presents itself.

She seemed studious, serious, the kind of girl I'd have sat across from at a Reach tournament. Ever since hearing what a particular honors student did with Jeff A many years ago, I've had this peculiar association with serious-seeming girls in my mind. If pressed, how far would they go? The notion of corrupting a studious, serious, ordinary-looking girl is weirdly appealing. If they want it at all, then maybe they'd want it more. If they want it at all. I've certainly known my fair share of studious girls - fun though they were to be around - who had little interest in the physical (mine or otherwise.) She was weird. She didn't care much for emotions, for romance, and seemed to have to push herself to get as close to me as she did. I'm not talking about Alicia-or-Alison-or-whatever-her-name-may-have-been by now. I've segued into someone else, you know who it is. It bothers me that I occasionally still wonder about her, years after the deal went bad. I was asked last weekend what had truly happened, and I could only sigh and say, "Man, I don't know. We were both weird, and then it was September." Had it been six months earlier, things could've gone well. Can't live in a could've.

So I bummed around Innis, eating and going on the computer, for an hour before the Film tutorial. Another quiz on the reading I meant to do but didn't. I really mean I meant to do it -- I bought the course reader and everything. More unwanted commentary from Master Douche. He says how Schindler's List affected him more than Night and Fog and I'm thinking, "Schindler's List was fiction, douche." There are walls in his brains, unscalable and made of fortified stone, stubborn, douchey. When he says things, I groan at how badly he misses the point, embarrassed that the TA has to struggle to find the words to explain what he's not getting (and not going to get.) I doubt his mark will be very favorable. Maybe he's reading this; hopefully, hopefully not.

I walked to the subway with a classmate, one who takes the subway West, not South, from St. George. I was very early for my train and wasted 50 cents in a wasted effort on Austin Powers pinball. I used to be very good at it, but then I kept going by and someone would be on, and I stopepd coming, so I must've got out of practise. It was pathetic, I felt bad, and it ruined the afternoon, briefly.

I'd forgotten that episode, however, by the time I got to Oakville and went for comics. Running in the cold, my iPod started behaving oddly (digitally blipping out) during a Steely Dan song. I was irked, this is an expensive piece of technology that is only a year old and may not even have a warrantee. The blipping went away after a while. I'll be vigilant. I arrived at the comic store at the hour, quickly got my stuff, and waited eight minutes for the bus, lucky timing I suppose.

I got home in time to order pizza, we ate, I wrote for a few hours until South Park came on. At 10, I went over to Chris' for Risk. Pat had had his wisdom teeth out and was apparently too tired to stay up all night playing, so he didn't show. CB was missing, presumed asleep. We watched nearly two full discs of How I Met Your Mother season 1 while we played with guest players Ryan L. and J. Edgar. I wonder how they feel about being "guest players." I don't know. At least we've asked them back - there have been people we've asked once and never again. Something about the usual four seems most solid, but more and more we can't all get together.

James spent most of the game on a campaign for Asia. Unusually, I did not end up with Ukraine and opted to try a new strategy of getting Africa and South America, with much success. Ryan, who was based in North America, had a one-turn truce with me on the border while we all took Edgar out (after all, nobody gets Asia. It's a sure way to lose.) Chris had Europe, as well as Australia (rare case of having two unrelated continents.) VOnce Edgar was out, we just kept card-attacking China until the big set was traded in, by me, and shortly after Chris' 2:05 alarm, "shit went down." Well, not as severely as it should have, first I broke up his European monopoly, then he broke up my African one, and then I called an end to my truce with Ryan and got Africa back and disrupted North America shortly before 3:00 when we called it a night. I came home and, after sating my craving for microwaved pizza, crawled into bed, and slept until noon.

When I put it like that, it's not so hard to see how it felt long.

Saturday posts are rare, but it's the 24th and I've only done 12 of these bad boys. I don't think I've ever done 30 posts in a month, but I don't think I've ever been as low as 15 either. A testament to a) how exhausted I get from travel, and b) how tedious life is.

But I'm gonna live this tedious life as long as I can mange.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto