Fourteen: Rest my achin' bones

It's actually hard to believe how long goes between posts these days. I never thought I'd be the guy who keeps going "Gosh I haven't updated this thing in a while." And while we're not at the weeks on end phase yet, time was I'd be on here six days out of a week. Now, it seems like scrawling down my every life detail isn't very high on my to-do list. Go figure. Never thought I'd see the day.

I just feel like I've been off a step for weeks. Maybe it's the whacked-out sleep-and-schoolwork schedule and commute. Even though I've been on vacation for weeks, the holidays have ground me down a fair bit and I'm just... well, donefor.

I was sick late this week, I woke up on Thursday feeling like my Adam's Apple had become one of those spiky balls from Medieval times. I fought it off with Cold-Assist (the generic equivalent of Cold-FX, which I swear by) and herbal tea. I've actually remained surprisingly healthy this winter. I'm quite proud of myself for that.

Dad wanted to do a whole thing for New Year's Day; he's having a turkey and stuff, because nobody was around for Christmas (although we had Christmas Eve dinner with him, and visited on Christmas Day. Deb's kids were scattered.) As it turns out, as usual, my mom is having all the aunts and the kids and such over for dinner. Eric suspects dad feels we take mom's stuff over his, which isn't true per se, but we live with her and stuff. I don't know. I feel bad if that's the case, because it's not like we had a say. What are we, gonna ditch our aunts after they've already been asked over? Hm.

It's December 30th, and I've got nothing planned for tomorrow night. This exceeds last year in terms of last-minute planning. It's not impossible something's going to work out, but I'm getting very nervous. I fuckin' hate it, in fact, and I feel like too much of a nebbish to go "Yo what's happening tomorrow?" even though I've asked others repeatedly. Who knows. I sure as fuck don't.

I've been having very vivid dreams about people I haven't seen in years.

I'm incredibly frustrated with myself right now. I kinda feel like a ticking timebomb of caffeine and frustration. And if I don't let it out tomorrow night the entire last few weeks will have been in vain.

Life ain't so peachy right about now.

But I'm trying.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Thirteen: You're mostly a secret, partly a mystery

Wow. And thus, Christmas heads on its way for yet another year. Santa's coolin' his heels at the pole and we're left sweepin' up the wrapping paper.

Christmas eve was a tough day. It was gray and cold. I was up until 3 AM the night before doing my first Interneta update in months, my annual Holiday celebration. You can read about what I did on that day in the Story of the Christmas Rupee.

After dinner with dad and Deb, Eric suggested that we get the Super Nintendo out and play like in olden days. It seems to be the oldest surviving Christmas gift we've got (although we got it sometime before the actual holiday.) In under 2 hours I'd gotten to World 6 of Mario 3 before turning the thing off and feeling like I'd just spent the last two hours staring at a magic eye. I was mostly despondent, however, later when I went to find Mario 64, and it was not there. I'd hat it within reach of my N64 for years, and now suddenly I up and lost it. I've been somewhat depressed ever since, but I don't show it. We wrapped our gifts between 9 and 11 that night, the longstanding tradition of putting our wrapping off until Christmas eve no matter what.

I was a little delirious that night, hurrying to get the Christmas update up before dawn. Strangely, I couldn't force my body to fall asleep afterward. I'd set my alarm to 9:00 but by the time that hour rolled around I'd had less than 5 hours of sleep and was totally knackered. As a consequence, Christmas didn't really begin until 10:00 when I rolled out of bed and set out the Stockings, which mom had set aside and filled the night before. Then dad called and asked if we were all ready, to which I replied, "Uh, gotta jump in the shower."

Mom was at Tim's for the morning, so around 10:30 dad came over and we went to his place, leaving a note for mom on the front door. As we walked in, dad was caught off-guard by a phone call from North Bay, which was unfortunate timing as we couldn't really say "Thank you" for the cards we hadn't opened yet, so we lamely had to say "Call ya back later!"

So we got to opening gifts. It was your standard "Oh great I asked for this!" Christmas morning; Deb seemed to like the wine we'd gotten her, and dad, after falling prey to our socks diversion, liked the CD's we got him (although not to the extent I'd have hoped to be honest.) Then we set about opening our gifts and there was a very large one under the tree. I knew without opening what it was and immediately called dad, endearingly, a "sick, weird old man." Not because of the gift itself, but because of the headgames he'd been playing. He made a point of telling me how noplace had GH3 for PS2 (ah, we are the generation of acronyms) and such, which irritated me because I don't care about what I don't get. Of course I should have realized he was ribbing me, and I'd had a notion he was but blew it off because I didn't think the guy had the wherewithal to mess with me like that. But he did anyhow.

We had a nice, typically brief passaround of the phone thanking the folks in North Bay for their contributions to the Christmas cause and went home around noon. Mom had been kinda spooked seeing our note pinned to the door before she knew what it said. It was one of those things that would make you feel guilty if it weren't so amusing; harmless misunderstanding anyway.

We opened more gifts and then headed off to Toronto* where there was a lengthy delay before any more gifts were opened. We let the kids run around, they'd had a pretty full morning, as you might imagine.

*This is the first time we've ever left the house on Christmas day.

We played around with the kids on Cameron's new air hockey table (lucky kid) while Ali played Magnetic darts, all the while giving me a lecture on how megnetism works ("Y'see 'cuz it's magnetic so it sticks 'cuz that's actually what magnetic means!") She referred to the dartboard as a calendar "B'cuz I don't actually know the word for dis." She says "actually" a lot. It's actually adorable.

We did a lot of playing with glow sticks. Go figure, they get all this complicated stuff for christmas and they want to play with the simplest little things. Then Ali offended me a little by offering the biggest insult I've ever been given.

"You're a grown up."

I was shocked. I've never been accused of that before. It upset me a lot and put me in a bit of a foul mood. Well not really, but it was shocking. In the midst of this I realized that little kids exist as a chaotic element in the otherwise formulaic lives of adults. They exist and behave according to their own whims in a rigidly regimented world. And Christmas is bonkers for them, as you must know.

Aunt Karen noted how all-out this Christmas was, and I mused "I understand, y'know, the desire for parents to give their kids everything for Christmas. But y'know what? The kids don't really see much difference between everything and some things." After all, a kid can only play with a finite number of toys at a time. She agreed, thinking maybe she'd scale herself back next year. I just have my own chip-on-the-shoulder about how things keep getting more and more focussed on commercialism and consumerism. Some is great, but too much will destroy ya.

The evening wound down with dinner and some more entertaining of the kids. Before we ate, Tim innocently asked who was going to say Grace, and mom was, weirdly, totally on board with the idea even though we haven't said Grace since Great-Grandma was alive. Nobody was rude enough to ask if he was serious, so we did it. He said a by-rote prayer of thanks. Then we ate.

We headed back to Oakville to relax after a long day. I settled in and, instead of playing with any of my new toys, I decided to soend an hour or so playing Super Mario World, during which time I got to World 5 (Forest of Illusion.) Not bad. Afterward I fell asleep as we watched the first disc of How I Met Your Mother Season 2, but only toward the end of the last episode on there.

I had a dream last night I feel like I should have remembered. I mean, I did remember it and thought "Haha what a dream." It just came back to me. Somehow I got put into a big championship basketball game. I really wanted to look good and came out as a surprise talent, bt eventually got overwhelmed. I felt crowded in and had to trip some guy and we got into it. Then it gets a bit hazy. That was the first time in a very long while, if ever, that I've dreamed about sports glory.

Don't kid yourself, though, this entry has been accumulating all day long. It's not what the timestamp says. Closer to 12:45 AM the next day. If I don't note that, I feel like I'm lying to myself for later when I can't know.

Today was your typical post-Christmas day of vacation. Actually that's not true; I didn't spend the day fawning over my gifts, in fact I was still kinda engrossed in Mario World. I got most of the way done. I'll probably polish it off tomorrow and then crank out GH3. Eric and I sat around all evening and watched MuchMoreMusic's "Fave Videos of the 80's," mostly heckling them, because for every good song on there, there was about a half-dozen bad ones, and that's putting it liberally. The fact that Rick Astley wasn't even the most offensive thing on there is a telling sign.

I missed the last installment though, Lauren, Ryan L. and I went out to see Juno. It was quite good, as expected; there'll be a review on Interneta possibly before the end of the year.

There's a lot of stuff to say and hopefully I find the time to put it down. I've been going over it in my head.

Man I'm gonna feel lousy when school lets back in. But that's how it goes.

Meet me where our edges join.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Twelve: Wherever I lay my head

I stared into the cold, hazy, quivering, glassy blue eyes in the mirror. My face wore a wan expression: still, colourless. I tried to ask my reflection if I felt okay, or if I had gone horribly wrong somehow the night before.

Saturday hadn't been much of a day. My main task for the day was the post office. At 11:30 I was the first one up, but I dallied around a while. Eventually I got the Christmas Card my dad had asked us to send Grandad and stuck it in my jacket pocket. "You know," Eric said, "You can just go to the corner store and mail it there. They send stamps." I didn't want to. A lot of the time, I'm a curious fellow who will do less convenient things because they amuse him. I wanted to listen to my only podcast - Wrestlecrap Radio - grab a cup of coffee, and then swing by the post office at the pharmacy. So that's what I did.

On my way up to the post office, Tim's cup in my hand, when I realized I had to visit the lavatory. Fortunately, I was well-acquainted with the medical building in which the pharmacy was situated, and comfortable using the facilities therein. I went in the main entrance and thought "Gee, how stupid would I feel if I pushed the elevator button and waited for twenty minutes, having to go, and then realized they turned the elevators off on weekends?" Well I didn't know why they didn't just have washrooms on the main floor, but they didn't, so shucks, better roll with it.

I felt like I was being sneaky as I found the stairwell access to the basement. There was no loo on that floor either, so I passed by "Hazardous Materials" rooms, under half-level fluorescent lights, (that is, every other one was off,) thinking I'd just wandered into a crappy American remake of a Japanese horror movie. I took the stairs up to the second floor, making damn sure that the lock was not in effect on either side. I didn't want to be stuck in this building - I felt like I wasn't even supposed to be there, but told myself if I wasn't welcome, they would have locked the damn doors!

As I finished up my work in the restroom, I heard what sounded like footsteps or doors opening and closing. I paused a moment and then carefully made my way to the door. Was it security? Was I in trouble? No, I reasoned... I was in a public building using a public toilet. I wasn't damn well gonna get busted for that!

I crept out of the door and found nobody. All I heard was the churning elevators. I'll be damned, they were active. So I went down and, after buying a stamp from the pretty counter girl with dreadlocks (and I don't usually go for dreads on white chicks,) handed it off to her and went home.

The afternoon died slowly, into a weird meatloaf-like dinner mom made us. I waited until 8:00 and then stalled longer. I was to go out but figured I oughtta at least hang back a while and take it easy. I shot for 8:30 and headed for Cary's.

I arrived just in time to see a SUV pull up and a few figures pile out. I headed in with Connor, Adam and Emma to find Cary fussing over a plate of segmented Clementine and bronies while Lauren looked on. He's looking more and more like his mother as he pulls bruschetta from the oven and muses that he wasn't expecting people to actually show up at 8:30. I actually kinda wished I'd been able to show up earlier and just hang out with those two, particularly as I didn't actually talk to Lauren much until I was beyond the point of enlightening conversation, and felt kinda bad. In any case the six us of sat around shooting the breeze, discussing who might come and why they might not, things being somehow still awkward between certain people. Things I don't completely understand have driven a wedge, apparently an irreparable one, between some of our closer friends. We also ragged on Emma for leaving, being a "party slut."

Eventually, people started trickling in, mostly Chris' friends asking where he was; playing big band music for an old folks' home. CB sauntered in with a $9 bottle of white wine and proceeded to drink directly from the bottle until Cary got him a glass. The usual girls also came by although many of them left to see Sweeny Todd, which actually annoyed Cary as far as I interpreted. The night wore on and I dove into the gin.

Things started going by the time Cary's parents showed up with Chris in tow (there must've been some other way to word that, but it is what it is.) I talked with Chris and Pat about the play I had halped them write, about about the Christmas assembly, comparing their effort to ours two years ago, saying nothing could have been worse, although we had all done our best and got some laughs, it was decided what sunk us, in addition to the constant threat of Fedurco coming down on us, was the influx of people who just weren't funny, especially the ruined ending where we swerved the audience out of the expected "12 Days of White Oaks" song, which was the idea - nay, demand - of one very particular voice in that scene. Bitch.

The night began to get hazy when I was talking to Janessa. I was still standing and had my wits about me and we actually had probably the longest and most in-depth conversation we'd ever had. I wish I could remember what it was about, but as I recall it was mostly about school and a wide variety of tangents. She was a sport for at least indulging me, letting me test my coherence. Linda insistently hyped up Yeats, a favourite poet of hers, as I attempted to downplay the first half of "Reading and Writing Poetry." At one point, CB and I briefly resumed a long-running conversation on wrestling deaths, which caused eyes to glaze over from lack of interest. I've been reading the Hitman's biography.

I wandered around the room attempting to converse with as many people as I could manage before drowning in Gin and 7Up. A lot of the time I found myself lost ,out of place and mystified. Sometimes there's just no room for me, and though I feel far more welcome now than I did years ago, I might never truly escape my awkward nature. I sat, trying to tiptoe the line of sobriety (not successfully, mind,) and keeping track of other peoples' conversations in hopes that I might be drawn in. For some of the night I'd feel lousy, and then find a place and feel okay before feeling lame again. The pattern repeated.

There was a mass exodus sometime around 1:30. Not needing a ride home, I vowed to stay "as late as I was humanly welcome." The Ferguson bros and I hung around a while, back to shootin' the shit and passing the Wii GH3 guitar around. I did surprisingly well for someone who was admittedly half in the bag (or as Cary put it, "half out of the bag." Or maybe that was Chris) and whose performances are historically inconsistent. After Chris' 2:05 alarm they decided it was time for bed and I staggered home with the notion Cary wanted to do something for New Years, but didn't know what yet.

I sat on the computer a while before unthinkingly going upstairs and ploughing into bed, gulping down as much water as I could muster. I'm no fool but I'm not brilliant.

I woke up a few times throughout the night and morning. Mom and Tim were stomping around, which I couldn't believe. They couldn't have known but I thought it was really inconsiderate (as if they had any idea!) I drifted in and out of sleep feverishly. Around 10:30 I could pretend to rest no longer, although I felt like I'd been kicked by a horse. My stomach was dry and putrid and rumbling. I walked across the hall to the washroom and looked my bleary self in the eye. I couldn't decide if I needed to vomit, eat, or use the toilet. I tried the first, but it didn't take. I stood up confidently, knowing that my streak was intact, at least since Nov 1.

I still felt ill, though, when I was in the shower. I got out and hunched down again, reaching deep down into the dry heaves. I felt like the night of the second Earnest performance, when I drank tainted iced tea and spent the night trying to eject every drop of liquid from my guts. Not particularly pleasant. In the end nothing more than spittle came out, you'll all be happy to know. Or grossed out. Whatever.

I was still hunched over and contemplating my health when Eric got up. We watched a little bit of reality TV when it was decided we had to polish off our Christmas shopping. We walked down to the mall, in the light icy drizzle. I was feeling more alive by this point, so we got lunch. I was pleased to find that the girl at Mr. Sub still remembers my topping, even though I don't go there too often anymore. Of course, I've been getting almost the same sandwich, without much variation, since I was in Grade 9. As we ate, Eric and I reminisced about old Christmases.

We picked up some small items from Sears and eventually found ourselves at the Body Shoppe. Now, there are some very pretty girls working there, and I didn't want to seem like I knew too much about what they sell, but we did have to get in and out in a bit of a hurry.

I finished off the Hitman book. He had a very interesting career, filled with great highs and unfathomable lows compared to most. But the thing is, no matter what happens, nothing will ever truly tarnish the legend of the Hitman. He was a true mensch, as they say in Yiddish, an honest, hard-working, determined individual who never got by on anything but his natural talent and brains. and he was beset upon by a supersized dysfunctional family, forces of jealousy and frustration, and a changing world without much room for his never say die attitude. After his unceremonious exit from the WWF, he had a lackluster tenure with WCW for 3 years or so before it sank and he was forced to retire due to injuries sustained while there. But there is nothing to tarnish the story of his long, powerful climb to the top, not even the quick plummetting of his fortunes. History won't look to kindly on his rivals: Shawn Michaels, Paul "Triple H" Levesque, Kevin Nash. No matter what they did in the ring (and as far as talent goes, that's in descending order,) or what they meant for business, their legacies will always, always, always be tarnished by the truths about their characters, their attitudes, their actions. no matter how they attempt to deny, atone or justify their sins, they will always be haunted. I think that eats away at Michaels moreso than the others. In the years since Survivor Series 1997, he has done everything he could to make Bret look like the bad guy, or at least to make himself not look like it, but there's not a leg to stand on. And the fact that he let his own insecurities and unprofessionalism get in the way of business will be forever linked to his name. And I think that's a far worse fate than Bret, who left undignified, but lives on in the minds of fans as a legend. Because in the end, all we have are our memories.

I wasn't planning to write all that... I don't write about wrestling too much here, even though a lot of the time it's all my brothers and I talk about, but I did feel the urge to weigh in, to put something in writing.

Tomorrow's Christmas eve. I haven't done much of what I promised myself I would, but maybe it's all good.

Try not to let yourself get caught up in any of that funky kicks going down in the city.

And do keep on rockin'
-SAW

Eleven: It's not easy, but anyone could do it

A quick one before bed.

It occurred to me, while hanging out with Amanda today, that this is the first Christmas since high school that I haven't worked. I was pondering the crater my finances are looking to become when I wondered why I hadn't felt this anxious in previous years, and then realized that last year I was at HMV, and the year before, Classic Bowl.

She had some Christmas shopping to finish up, and was celebrating the end of three long weeks doing the overnight shift at Tim Hortons. Hopefully, she gets that OIP position and says goodbye to bullshit counter-jockey jobs. She also presented me with my gift; an HMV gift card she got via her "Tim Points" (a motivational system employed to hearten miserable employees.) I told her thank you, and she acknowledged that I would not be getting her a gift, because I am cheap and broke. She already understood, since I wasn't working.

I got a Christmas card for my Grandad, and also a gift for my dad. We stopped in at HMV and I passed by Trevor. I said hello and how are things, he said in that inimitable way of his, "Hey... wanna work?" I kinda laughed to myself, assuming he was just kidding. If I'd been asked six weeks ago, who knows what I might've said, but I knew this was just a joke. I know it gets busy in there over the holidays - which explains why there were about 6 people at the counter, including Phil T. from high school and some girls far more attractive than any I'd seen when I worked there - but the busy days are what goes with the territory. I loved working there, and if I happen to find myself in that navy blue tee again someday, so be it. But for now I'm just a customer.

After some more eats and some talking about distant memories, we split and I spent the rest of the day doing not much.

Last night, after grocery shopping, Eric and I stopped in to the LCBO. We had to pick up some extra gifts, and on the way out I thought the girl doing the check out was familiar. She was kinda giving him the third degree about his health card so I had plenty of time to think "Hey is that..." until I could get a good look at her nametag. Nadia.

Nadia was on my bowling team for almost the entirety of my Grade 12 year. She was new to the sport and not very good but she had a sweet face and tried her best, and improved. Now she was asking my brother how exactly he got to the Liquor store if he didn't have a driver's license. I wanted to tell her to be cool, but I never like being the one to say "Hey we know each other." Instead, we finally slunk off, grumbling about it. She was probably just new.

Does anybody else ever think about whether objects have memories? Kind of an "if these walls could talk" notion. If you walk into a room, do the memories of everything you've done in there linger in all its furniture? Do they talk? Do they judge?

These are the kinds of things I think about. It's a wonder people don't think I'm crazy.

Well, they do, but in an endearing way. At least nowadays. I've come a long way.

I haven't updated Interneta in months. I've got stuff to do, and tomorrow might be the day. The dishes are done. Tomorrow maybe.

But until then wouldja keep on rockin?
-Scott

Ten: From a standing start

Hey beautiful.

I have a thousand things I've promised to take care of; promised to myself and/or to others. I've made a dent or two in that list but I feel run ragged even though, superficially, I've got nothing much stopping me. Maybe the season's got me down. I just feel by off a step.

I woke up this morning at 11:30, proud for allowing myself to get a more-than-decent night's sleep Two minutes later the phone rang. I have a policy - which I frequently break - of not leaving the bed for the phone. I did anyhow, because I wasn't gonna hang around under the covers much longer anyhow, and I had a hunch who was calling. I was right.

It was CB, calling to quickly confirm details of giving me a ride that afternoon. He said he'd swing by around five-to-one. From there I showered, shaved and sat around doing my usual computer routine, having a quick breakfast of Golden Grahams to hold off my apetite. Amanda said last week how cereal doesn't really fill you up and that before too long you get hungry again. I was counting on it. Sometime after 12 I got an MSN message from Emma, talking in her particular temporally-displaced dialect. "Hey doll, how are ya? You coming this afternoon?" I explained that I was, and she asked if I had a ride. I said yes, it was that incomparable wheelmeister CB and that she oughtta ring him up.

Promptly, mere minutes until 1:00, I heard a faint but anticipated knock on my front door. In olden days, it would have set my dog into a barking frenzy, but he doesn't exactly have his weits about him these days. I love him anyhow. I rushed upstairs and flashed the visitor the "1 minute" sign. I grabbed my jacket and downed a spoonful of Buckley's to ease my CB-style cough. I set my MSN to "Away" and bounded excitedly down the driveway to see a sight for sore eyes; CB's van, with Emma and Cary in tow.

A few weeks ago I had gotten a Facebook invite listing many of us once-and-former drama kids, the class of 2005 to be exact, out to a gathering at the Mandarin. Pricey as Mandarin was, and as loathe as I am to eat in public, I wasn't going to be a lameass. There are a lot of people out there I don't get to see nearly as often as I'd like. The day arrived today.

After a car ride during which Cary and Chris detailed their rading week scheme to road trip down south somewheres, and Emma philosophized on the notion of guys peeing on campfires ("Because we can," I explained. Cary added, in that tone that he's long since perfected, "One more way men are superior to women." Emma lamented the female anatomy's lack of ability to piss on fires and I remarked "Well that really changes the meaning of 'Burns when I pee.'") we arrived at the restaurant first of our party. Vanessa and her gang arrived next, followed lastly by Becky, Ryan and Doug. There were a few key faces missing, people I damn sure would've liked to catch up with, but these things happen I suppose.

We were eventually shown to our seats, a party of 11 or so. After CB, Emma and I ordered beverages (two soft drinks and a glass of "Killer Kool-Aid" Emma was very excited about) while the rest stuck with the free water and we all headed for the buffet.

We all talked on excitedly about whatever. Doug and I traded stories about commuting while I somewhat unexcitedly answered what Doug knew to be the belabored obvious questions about how school was. I mostly just traded schtick with Emma. I'm not sure why but the the two of us tend to talk a lot at these gatherings. Maybe just because she banters well and is, at times, a very interesting person. Of course, I was also seated next to her at the end of the table, so it was either that or turn left and have a conversation with CB, and we didn't not; after he grabbed me a slice of Lemon Merangue slice at the dessert table, I mused to anyone who could hear, "Am I the only one who remembers that song Jesse Cree recorded?" The table burst out laughing at the memory, those who did know. Doug, upon hearing this, demanded, "I must have that CD!" There are always laughs when Cree's brought up, maybe not for the right reasons, but we ain't malicious people.

After much laughter and merriment, the cheques came and we dispersed with Fortune cookies in hand. I consoled myself that sometimes a random piece of paper does not know the future when it declared, "Your car will be trouble-free for the next 50 000 miles." Shouldn't be hard, given I don't have one.

We headed for home and I bummed around all afternoon, ate dinner, went grocery shopping, then bummed around all evening, confronted by the remaining Christmas shopping I have left to take care of. Last night dad called and asked us if we were planning on sending Grandad a card, strongly implying we should. I groaned. We never had before, and thought it isn't that we don't care for Grandad, it's going to arrive late and seem like an afterthought.

Nobody should ever accuse me of having my shit together.

So I've got some errands to run tomorrow; probably going to meet up with Amanda for some java and said errands. I shouldn't feel like there's a chain around my neck; we're all wearing the same one so maybe I ain't got right to complain.

I should compile various stray thoughts like that one for my next poem.

I'm still looking for you: someone to look out for me.

Keep on rockin'
--Scott

Nine: Teeth and tongue

I'm wearing this silver-gray shirt I really like. I'm not sure why I like it so much but from the second I got it I took a liking to it. Maybe because it wasn't yet another blue shirt. Not plaid. Just a nice silver-gray collared shirt.

But strangely enough, you look at it, and notice that it isn't gray at all. It's actually made of alternating white and black threads. I smirked when I noticed this and thought about it; that was one of the first things I learned two years ago when I started at Sheridan, the little black dots on white pages. There's a technical name for it but damned if I haven't forgotten!

Some guy from Sheridan called this evening. I think I had been ducking the call for days, seeing the number, a 1-866, and thinking it was a telemarketer. He asked me about what I'd been doing since and whether I'd recommend my program to others (I would, and have, twice.) Although I didn't care for him occasionally being short with me.

What I'm getting at here, though, is that it's been such a boring few days that I actually began to stare at the fabric of my shirt. I don't know where things took this turn but I've settled into an even more rotten version of my summer routine. It's been really hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit, feeling kinda morose and listless. I've got free time for the first time in months and I just vegetate, or read Bret Hart's book (good read though it is.) I've told myself over and over "I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that" but for the most part I don't do it, whatever it is. Little things in need of taking care of. Like the dishes. The sink has developed a disgusting pink scum that may or may not have attained sentience.

Well, there's one thing I've done. I caught up with Kyle over MSN. We don't talk very often, and there's no real reason for that (although there is a reason we don't hang out as much as we did 2 years ago.) I had to ask him the timeline of his breakup with Steph, which I'd figured, accurately as best he could remember, happened in mid-Grade 11. It was an odd question, but I wanted to know as a matter of semantics for a brief passage in the book I've been writing since November's NaNoWriMo. My autobiography. I'm not writing as furiously fast as I was last month, but the fact that I've gotten back ot it suggests it might eventually get finished someday. When I explained it to Kyle, he seemed supportive, and I joked that it would be handy to have if I ever got amnesia.

I wouldn't go around publicizing the project, but it gives me something to do and isn't hard (since I know how to write the story of my own life.) A few people have claimed they'd want to read it, which is flattering but weird. Given I haven't led the most interesting life, it's less about what I've accomplished and more about the setbacks, the weird way things sometimes work out, for better or worse. There's a lot of laughs, a lot of love, and probably an inordinate amount of vomiting.

We've been keeping up some Christmas shopping, with most of it taken care of by now. We're notorious last-minute shoppers, but we're pretty far along. We'll probably still be shopping on the weekend though. Eric just got a gift for Gail today, a boxed beer set in the vein of what she'd asked for, but not exactly, so hopefully she likes it.

Things are getting a bit tense around here. Maybe it's me, maybe it's the boredom or cabin fever or weather or something, but Eric and I were sniping pretty heavily yesterday for no good reason. I don't know. He was being weird about something and I teased him aobut it too much and he took exception, then I took exception to his exception, and it ended in one of those tense silences you hate being part of. It blew over, but not without the knowledge it could probably happen again. Things used to be like that a lot more before he was in school, yet not so much over summer or anything.

In any case, it may just have been a one-off thing. I'll have to be careful, because lord knows he won't be discriminating when it comes to getting set off. Not that this is a nice thing to say about one's own brother.

Most interesting thing I've done all week was last night, getting very suddenly asked to run a *(technically illegal) errand with Lauren before the place closed. Other than that, the week is stagnant. Tomorrow, though, looks promising.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Eight: A Poison High

Today was not going to be a good day. Why would it be? I woke up at 11:30 this morning to find the world lost in about 20 centimeters, a mark that would expand by about 10 by the end of the day. I went down to have a shower, and as is often the case, found the faucet unresponsive. I cursed fate and muttered around the house. I was trapped inside and would have to use my mom's lower-pressure shower upstairs. Boo-hoo right? It was a Sunday and I was restless, looking for any reason to complain.

I had been bored into a coma the night before and didn't intend to spend my day that way either. I was already bouncing off the walls. So I left the house and set out on only the second most ill-advised excursion of my life, the first being this past Valentine's Day. And I survived that just fine.

Using the powershovel - an intriguing contraption my mom picked up but feared didn't work - I carved out a little pathway and did my share of driveway-shoveling before dropping everything and heading off.

In near-whiteout conditions, I sauntered down the road, walking in the tracks of bygone cars, keeping my head just high enough to see if one was oncoming. Eventually I arrived at the mall. There wasn't any particular reason for going. I mostly wanted to defy nature and common sense, and was successful. For good reason, the place was decidedly deserted for a December weekend. Normally you'd be shouldering your way through a throng of clamoring shoppers. On this day, very few were able to get out of their driveways, and fewer still was stupid enough to do so.

So all I really did was grab some lunch and browse around abit before returning. Had I had my wits about I would have done more Christmas shopping, but there you have it. I'm actually not in too much of a Christmas mood lately. When asked for suggestions for gifts I gave a half-hearted rundown of the usual items.

I've discussed this before but this being the season, I figured I'd renew it. I'm not a fan of Christmas music. Almost all the way across the board, Christmas songs are prone to awkward lyrics, overly peppy tunes or else overly sentimental, and the singers almost always sound lame. I can understand why it's that way - it is Christmas after all - but it's just not my style and I don't find it pleasant to listen to. The one exception is a song written by a man I despise, "It's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" written by Phil Spector, originally performed by Darlene Love (numerous covers have been released of varying quality, probably the best being by U2.)

I got home to find the guys finishing the job I'd started and abandoned. The afternoon passed in quiet distraction. I felt good for most of the day, really, after getting home and warming up a tad. Once my skin regained elasticity, I mean. I don't know if this is even possible, but I had a good moment, just a good moment, sitting here playing Spider Solitaire and listening to The Solids. Little things like that sometimes stay with you.

Let the moments stay. You may enjoy them later.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Seven: Spinnin' and reelin'

Oh, Gods almighties.

There's an expression we sometimes take for granted. "Bored to tears." I say this sometimes like it means nothing, like I could interchange the qualifier of the statement. "Bored to hell," "bored to death," whatever. But "bored to tears," I cannot know the meaning of until a night like tonight. I literally just want to go to my room and cry, that's how bored I am.

Being a manly man, I don't even remember the last time I cried, although it might be a lot more recent than I think, and I only don't remember because I've made it my business to forget, because crying is embarrassing. Emotions are embarrassing. Hence, I don't show 'em in public often.

That said, the boredom has got me down. I'm beat, I'm bummed, I'm blue. All the bad words start with "b." There's gotta be a poem in there somewhere.

There's no cure for this, it seems. I've been sitting on my computer all night reading old webcomics and playing Spider Solitaire, which owns my soul in the way Freecell used to. The worst part is that I have about a dozen things I could be doing - reviews, dishes, stories, whatever other stuff - but I can't because I have no motivation. I've got nothing but a void inside of me, a restless portal into nothingness. Winter blahs indeed.

Times like these are compounded not only by the weather - the cold and the darkness - but by my worst enemy... my mind. Once brought down, I begin to wallow in all the damn things that depress me.

It probably won't surprise longtime readers of this blog - or anyone who pays attention - that I spend an inordinate amount of time absorbed in my own thoughts. I have an overactive imagination, which helps me as a writer, but is a burden I have to walk around shouldering. My mind has been distracted for weeks on some of the most miserable, depressed thoughts I could ever muster. For the most part I've palyed 'em down and been able to leave 'em behind a lot of the time, but I keep coming back to 'em. And I don't understand why I can't get out of my head.

I just mean that. There are times when I literally have trouble reminding myself that I exist in the physical world, that there are things to see and touch and those are the things that are real, and that 99.9% of what goes on inside my head is not. Not tangible, not corporeal, not something that acts on my real life. I feel like I've got a monster in my closet. I'm paranoid as motherfuck. I feel like I'm giving off bad vibes out into the universe, and I can't let myself see the truth.

Because the truth, as I see it, is pretty sweet. I live a very comfortable life. I'm among the most advantaged demographics in the world: I'm a straight, white, middle-class male living in a first-world/developed wester nation, aged 18-40. I'm attending the second most reputable institute in the country. I have a sharp mind, I'm creative, and some would say I've got a sense of humour. I know a good deal about the world around me and am eager to learn more. I treat most people with goodwill and consideration, or at least try. I should focus less on what I don't have and agree that what I have is plenty for now. And if I have to spend a saturday night in idleness, that's my own damn fault, ain't it? And I'm good enough to know that and to try harder in the future to use my time. These are the things I can know. They are the things that will not change. Fuck Hume and Russell, fuck skepticism; Chisholm knew his shit and so do I. This is life.

This sounds like an epiphany, but I'm wary of that notion. I go through three or four such epiphanies a week, sometimes multiple in a day. Then I forget and need to convince myself all over again that I'm living in the 3-D world. By writing it out, I'm hoping it will stick, and maybe it will.

I'm on a bit of a Zeppelin kick lately. It started when I heard a song on the radio and had to go find out what it was; Misty Mountain Hop. From there I began collecting up all the Zep tunes I really dig.

I spent the last three days or so mostly decompressing from the semester. I did nothing, and I did it unenthusiastically. I was just totally drained. Weather aside, it's time to get a bit more rejuvinated, and to attack some of those projects, not the least of which is a big ass pile of dishes sitting on the counter. God knows what's growing in my sink. Time for action. How do housewives do it?

This entry hasn't exactly been the most positive I ever did, but considering how it started, it could've been worse, no?

Like I said, I've done nothing of note since my last exam. I've bummed around town as best I could in the cold. I've brought my winter coat out; it's still comparatively huge, but it keeps me plenty warm. Addiction is a powerful thing, and somehow even snow and ice (and a nearly-cracked elbow from falling) will not keep me from coffee. I've got a sickness of sorts.

I haven't been sick, per se, but not well either. It's impressive, though, because by this time last year I had already been sick in early November. So far this year I've gotten off with a bit of the sniffles and a nasty phlegmy cough, CB-style. I keep telling myself "I should have a cup of tea," but I have a hard time working it into my beverage cycle. If I ordered it from Tim's I'd feel like I was defeating the purpose, plus I'd just tell myself "Why? I've got plenty at home." Then I'd get home and think "Well it takes so long to make." So I haven't been drinking tea.

Yes, it's sooo hard to see how I've been bored.

This is not post #900. Somewhere along the way I accumulated 12 un-posted half-entries, which means I'm at 888, which is a funny number to look at.

'Nuff said. Keep on rockin'
-Scott
YOUR role model.

Six: Standards and Practises

Hear that? Shhh... listen as it washes over you. Freedom. The kind of freedom you get when you're done a semester's worth of work.

Of course, I have to be careful over the next three weeks not to flat-out forget what I learned over the last three months, as most of it's going to come back later on; most of my classes span the entire school year, which apparently is not the norm at other schools. Go figure.

Yesterday morning I got my bleary-eyed arse out of bed. I had hardly slept the night before, attempting to replenish my knowledge of astronomy in preparation for the day's final exam. Rather than break my brains going through my giant-ass Astronomy textbook, I took myself a shortcut. I went onto the website and found all the multiple-choice quizzes we've been doing throughout the semester and went over all the correct answers, figuring the bulk of the test would be derived from those quizzes.

My hunch proved a good one. After I found the exam, situated amidst Trinity College in the smack-dab-middle of the campus, I settled in and listened to the (somewhat bitchy) TA barking orders about electronic equipment and when we could and could not leave. I got my HB pencil and my pen out and set to work at 9:00 sharp, with the bulk of the first half of the exam being lifted directly from those earlier quizzes, verbatim.

The second part of the exam consisted of a few longer-answer question, most of which I could come up with by scouring the depths of my memory and/or imagination. I remembered this time the step that cost me many, many marks last time, to skip two of the eight questions. Lcukily, there were two questions I was utterly unprepared for. And only two.

The exam was set for three hours, beginning at 9. By 10:07, I was down at EJ Pratt Library checking my e-mail. A little later I got some lunch at nearby Wymilwood (I just love typing that for some reason) and called it a day. At Union station I had a weird experience, but I suppose that all things considered, you could have much weirder experiences at Union station.

I was very, very early for my train. The usual remedy for this is to head down to the arcade and do a round or two on the Austin Powers pinball machine, but most of the time when I go there some chump is hogging it up (it's one of the only 50-cent machines there, so that explains that.) Today was no differed. I silently boiled with rage as I considered my options. None of the other (two) machines lived up to the potential. So I walked off, all sulky. Then I returned a while later to find the machine unoccupied... and off. I wondered aloud, is someone fuckin' with me?? I saw, with my own eyes, only 5 minutes earlier, a guy having the protracted time of his life on that game, and when I come around for my turn, it's suddenly dead. No fair!

With still 20 minutes until my ride comes, and without any book or anything to read, I needed amusement. I think my generation's entire purpose is to seek amusement. So I considered my options and decided to try the Dr. Who machine. You're probably not going to be good at a machine the very first time you play it, but I was doing pretty well until the game unexpectedly cut out during a multiball round on my third ball.

Someone musta been fuckin' with me.

Whatever, though. The point was, as soon as I rolled into Oakville I'd wouldn't have to sit on a GO trian or see a TTC station for the rest of the year. It's not even as though I was eager to end my commuting; it had actually grown on me after all this time. But the point was I could go home and relax. No more alarms, nor miserable dogs, classes and studying. Peace and a comparative amount of quiet.

Nothing of much interest happened after that, I bummed around the house a bit then went to dinner at dad's. Today was much the same, as the cold really prevents things from happening I'd say.

At grocery shopping, mom was noting a few foibles in the new boarder. He just moved in, in something of a hurry, on Monday. He's got some engineering job that's temporarily in Oakville although he and his family are based in London. So he's intending on staying here for a long while, but going home on the weekends to see his family.

It's always a peculiar brand of outcasts who find their way into our spare room. He's a Chinese immigrant and while he seems generally nice and well-mannered, mom's already wondering what she's done by letting him have the room for a year. I don't know. We'll see, but it follows the suit that mom is always very excited about a boarder when she first snags him, but by the end, things find some fresh way to go awry. That's just how it always goes.

We'll see.

I'm wearing the thickest version of a beard I've ever had, although that's not much by most standards. I never bothered to shave this past week and may not for a while yet depending on what I do this weekend. Call it an exam beard if you will.

Life is that boring at the moment.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Five: She's gullible and I'm bored.

I know why David Berkowitz killed.

The Son of Sam, according to his own testimony, was commanded to kill by a neighbour's Dog (the neighbour's name was Sam, the dog's was Harvey.) The dog, supposedly possessed by an ancient demon, would bark irresistable orders to kill. Or maybe it just wouldn't shut up and frustrated Berkowitz to the point of homicide. That's kind of how I felt this weekend, when my grandma's dog came to stay over. And when I say weekend, I mean much more than that, because it's Tuesday, and the dog didn't leave until earlier this evening. I could feel a tightness in my chest by the end, and I'm of the belief that the stress of looking after her for two weeks in the summer caused my cyst. (It showed up the day she left. I got very little peace this summer.)

But in any case, she's gone now and I can get on with my life. It's been an eventful few days, in a boring SWP kind of way.

Sunday night I had the most bizarre conversation of my entire life. I was watching the film XChange, which was a low-budget sci-fi thriller shot in Canada like 7 years ago featuring Stephen Baldwin, Kyle McLachlan, and Canadian actor Kim Coates, who was an acquaintence of former WOSS and current Sheridan Drama teacher Mr. Melymick. The film's plot takes place in a world where body-switching is used as a form of transportation (for business trips, etc? It seems very impractical.) Toffler, the character played by the aforementioned actors, must regain his original body (Coates) from a terrorist before the cloned body he is using (Baldwin) expires after like four days. Along the way he does a lot of running and has crazy body-swapped sex. It's the kind of movie you watch late at night on Space and laugh about.

I'm watching this movie, which I first saw many years ago, when a note pops up on my computer, someone's trying to add me to MSN. This is odd, because hell, nobody ever adds me to MSN. I don't give out my Hotmail very often (as I find it embarrassing to still be using a crappy joke that was barely funny when I was in Grade 8,) it's not on my Facebook, etc etc. Nobody adds me and I rarely have to add anyone because anyone I need to talk to on MSN already has me (and twice as many who I don't need.) I don't recognize the e-mail address or the Username. It sounds like a crank. But I think it's completely legit. Consider, now, the movie I just described, while I continue.

He says, "Oh Good, so you have MSN." Before adding, "Are you the person behind the Swap Nation Blog?"

Several months ago, I wrote as part of a fiction blog where the world was facing frequent, unexplained bodyswaps. It was written like news articles and we had a little bit of fun but after a while it got repetitive and lost direction. I lost interest and the thing just petered out. Plus I got the feeling we were just writing spank material for literary fetishists (not that there's anything wrong with that?) This was from like, April until June or July. I hadn't paid it any thought since, and we got virtually no feedback on the blog (part of the reason I quit, I need constant reassurance.)

So when this individual, whom I've never met, mentions the blog, I corked an eyebrow (of course, he couldn't see this.) I tell him, yes, one of them. He asks why it hasn't been updated recently and I give him the general idea that we got tired of the story, and then he asks, dead serious, a question I never could have anticipated.

"Is it real?"

Presenting it as journalism, we didn't bother to write up a disclaimer for the site. We didn't want to ruin the suspension of disbelief, I guess, by admitting it was fake, trusting the ridiculousness of the material would speak for us. I have a habit, whenever someone contacts me for the first time, to jerk them around a bit and have my fun. So I say "It was fiction... or is it?"

As deadpan as MSN can convey, he responds, "Cut the randomness. Is it real?"

I admit, no, wondering exactly what type of person would even have doubt. He identifies himelf as an investigator of metaphysics and magic. He asks my background, I tell him, journalism student. He asks whether I actually know anything about those topics, and I confess, "Only what I make up." He thanks me for being honest about my "falseness" and admits being tripped up by many such fictions before. I'll bet. The conversation ends by him telling me he knows of at least one factual case of documented "soul switch." Or a half of one, in any case. Or something.

The conversation only lasted about 11 minutes and I was on my way to bed, but it was the most bizarre moment of my life. I wished him luck on his endeavours and logged off, pondering, as I drifted off to sleep the mysteries of the universe.

My summary of the conversation - verbatim here except for the Xchange tangent - blew Amanda's mind the next morning when we were talking. I had the day off and we decided to try something radical that we'd brought up before. We met up at Sheridan, at Second Cup, and lurked like weirdos outside the Newsroom all morning. We spoke with Nathan, Leslie, Mary Lynn, and a few of the current second-years who were just wee first-years being mentored by clueless me and Amanda once upon a time. This was, of course, in between our usual conversations.

There was a lot of catching up and accounting for ourselves as our old teachers passed. Me, less so, because I have the convenient status of being still in school. They ask where and I say U of T and that elicits a mildly impressed "Ah, yeah?" or some such. Mary Lynn asked what college I was at (I'm still not sure what the sigificance is of that,) and mused that nobody seemed to go to Victoria anymore. I never really had much choice in the matter, nor would I have known the difference. All the teachers renewed their pledges of letters of recommendation and job leads, particularly for Amanda, who has a bit of pressure on her to succeed given her dedication to the Sun (not to mention the way she ran her internship!)

Eventually, Amanda and I decided to head down to the mall so she could shop and I could pretend to be interested while I crack jokes endlessly. After going through the usual stores, we got lunch - which is unusual for me, but I got Mr. Sub which is not so unusual - and we ran into Tammy and her boyfriend. Eventually we laughed, besmued, about how sad, you could find half of our graduating class hanging out at the mall on a Monday afternoon; Andrew was working at A&W and another classmate of ours works at Sears. Yes, we are a successful bunch. Of course, we always look to Mansoor and Mitch and a few others as models of success. I ran into Dave S. on the bus a few weeks back. We didn't say anything, just nodded in acknowledgement. I wonder what he's doing lately, although the fact that he was on a bus in the middle of the afternoon in Oakville didn't suggest much. Still, he already had experience, so he is way past the "3-5 years in the industry" hurdle we all met. Ditto Mitch, although the bulk of that seems to have been served in Mongolia.

Eventually we split and I went home to hang out all afternoon in frustration at my Dog, avoiding the studying I desperately needed to do for Philosophy. I did it, but I've never been a great studyer so it wasn't as effective as it should ahve been, but certainly more effective than had I not done any at all.

After sleeping two interrupted thirds of the night, I woke up early this morning to head out to my exam, barely recalling what I'd crammed into my head the night before. I brought my notes with the intention of looking them over on the trainride, but I was zonked out despite stopping for Coffee before getting on the train (unusual.) I considered finding some way to look over the notes before the test, but it was too late. I arrived at the building to see a wicked line of people massed around the doorway. There was nowhere to run, this shit was on.

I sat down in the midst of the gym filled with equally confounded students. I got the exam and looked over my options. I had to answer ten of 15 questions, and I was truthfully qualified to address maybe three of them. However, I picked out the names and key terms I remembered and managed to fumble my way through ten, to varying degrees of bullshit. It's better than not writing down anything, that much is true. I know I'm not going to do well on that part of the test, but it was only half. The other 50 was a lengthier essay on cosmological and teleological arguments (well there was another choice but I had nothing to address it.) I actually kind of kicked ass, philosophically-speaking. I walked away from the exam not proud, but not terrified either. I'm just unsure. f I get 60 on the test, I'll consier it a success. I said to my friend, going in, "I've never been less prepared for an exam." It was a learning experience, in that I now know what was expected of me, and how I failed to meet that.

I hacked and sneezed my way through the two hours. I don't know what it is about this cold. I'm not really all that sick, but it crops up every now and again in full force of grossness, primarily during the test. And me without my hankie.

After checking in at a public computer to both kill time and satisfy my e-mail curiosity, I headed to Union. I got a Jr. Chicken sandwich for lunch form McD's - oddly, almost exactly like the chicken burgers we had in the caf - and I was on my way home. Home to TV, to my boredom and laziness, to my miserable canine visitor.

On the train, there was an ad for a depression hotline (or something.) Seeing it, asking whetehr you felt like nothing mattered and then going into the psych-talk about depression, reminded me of a time when I was upset. Probably not depressed, it was too much of a passing thing, but I remember one day in Grade 12 when I was utterly miserable. I don't even remember, by now, what it was about. Was it frustration with school? Was it a girl? was it some combination of a bunch of things? I couldn't tell ya, although it's documented somewhere in the blog. In fact, I just found the entry. I referred to myself as feeling "unloved," which was exactly what I was thinking when I saw the poster. I was really despondent about the lack of appreciation I was getting. I was a really fragile person but have grown over the years to understand these things.

First of all, I was not unloved. I wasn't seein' the love, and sometimes we can't and would rather sit in a haze. But it's only long ater that episode that I've learned it's not really important how much love other people show you. It's only important that you love yourself. I swear. And maybe at the time I didn't. In fact, I'd venture to say that at the time, I was utterly crammed chock full o' self-loathing. I didn't see myself as being loved and didn't see myself as being worthy of love. And I don't use the word "love" a lot and I don't mean romantic love, although I was certainly having a hard time, then as now, but I mean the grander, universal love.

I don't feel that low now, and I haven't in a long while, except during that period in the summer when the world seemed very upside-down for me, so that was a totally different reason for depression. It's not always easy to find love in the universe, but it's a lot harder if you don't start by looking inside yourself.

You dig?

I do believe I am actually going to end the entry on a positive note for once! Odd, considering how I began this sucker...

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Four: She knows and it shows

It seems like I can't take the thought of anyone having a problem with me. I always need to square every ordeal away, to compromise and set the record straight. I do what it takes to fold. Whether I believe I'm right or wrong, I must arrange peace. I'm not sure this is an admirable quality. It might make me a good diplomat, or a shitty lawyer.

This was what I realized when I went Christmas shopping this afternoon. Eric and I went to the mall after having a brief disagreement with Brandon about the nature of Christmas gift-giving. In recent years we've each gotten a name of one of our aunts and picked out their gift, putting all three of our names on it. We then rotate the next year. Somewhere along the way Brando believes we've gotten mixed up, because he believed he was in charge of one aunt, and I was intending to go shopping for her. He pressed the issue, getting kind of in a huff, and I realized how little it ultimately mattered who shopped for whom, as we were meant to spend equal amounts on each, and ultimately, they're from all of us. It's a matter of pricniple I suppose, and on the facts themselves (he hasn't bought aunt Lori a gift since Music World existed,) he's right, but that's ultimately not that important. It bothered me that it bothered him. This is not the first gift-related disagreement we've all had. It bothers me, and it taints what should be a pure, joyous act, gift-giving, with pettiness.

Eric and I pondered this as we sat in the food court eating lunch. Chris F. and Lauren actually came by, not surprising, as I've always known that eventually, everyone passes through Oakville Place at Christmastime. We said a few hellos and they were off, and then Eric and I got on with our shopping.

I think I'm on the downslope of a light cold. During the day, apart from some strained vocal chords, I've been pretty good, but I keep waking up in the middle of the night, hacking and snorting, my sinuses and thorat coated with phlegm and lung-butter. It's disgusting (so I've made sure to document it in detail here.)

I keep having weird dreams. In one, we're trapped on a stopped train. On naoter, I'm being chased through (Robarts Library?) by an old friend firing lasers at me while I duck and evade trying to reach some goal, back and forth. Weird.

I'm procrastinating. I should be studying my ass off. I'm too cavelier. I certainly don't take my studies as seriously as I ought to. Ought implies "can." I learned that in philosophy. A lot of this, I know. I don't know what I'm supposed to know.

My grandma is staying with my aunt in Toronto so for whatever reason we have to look after her dog. I don't know why. I understand why we look after the dog when she's in Nova Scotia (although I don't particularly care for it,) but this is just Toronto. I'm miserable. The dog won't shut up and we have nothing to please her. Fuck, fuck, fucker.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Three: Reasons and seasons

Time was, it would not have taken me 8 days to accumulate three posts into a month. But here we are, with me coming home each night, fatigued and wondering at the futility of recounting my current existence.

And it's surprising it took me this long, too, because I did not need to go to school on Thursday and flat-out did not go Friday, which may be the last time I ever say that. Fridays. Typically, they are important, but at the end of the semester, in the midst of exams and whatnot, they become less so. My 9:00 lecture was still on, but I was not getting up at 6:30 to ride the train to Toronto for one neutered class of exam prep. No wonder the universe is trying to convince me to move to the city. Or maybe it's not.

Thursday I had a sad little adventure when I got off the train and walked down to the comic store. I miss the convenient routine my dad and I had established when I was bowling, but at 20, it's a bit passe to have little routines with your dad. It was cold and I walked, and I was not timed conveniently to catch the bus, (and I mean, in fact, I was in time to see it pass,) so I walked back to the station afterward in the cold and waited for the bus there. I could use a license, but then again I always pose myself the question, what would I drive?

But anyhow. Friday I decided to take for myself, and did nothing. Today has followed much the same pattern.

I eat a lot of shitty food. I don't know what it is, but living as we do - college guys, in our 20's, without a lot of time or effort to spare, we tend to favour easier, lower-quality foods, and even the foods we like that are good that we get to have often, aren't particularly healthy. It's a lot of McDonald's, a lot of Pizza, a lot of steak and burgers. Yet, over the years, I have actually heard disapproving jealousy from some of my female compatriots about my figure. Go figure. The male and female metabolisms are different things, I suppose. I don't have too much meat on me; I eat the shitty food in moderation, I suppose, and work it off with stress and activity. I once mused, aloud, about the health benefits of my choice of a donut for breakfast, and one such image-conscious girl noted, "Yes, God, go have another one," rooting for me to fatten up. Hell, in those days, I was eating Tim Hortons Breakfast Sandwiches three or four times a week. I haven't had much craving for those lately. Got back into cereal for the school year.

I contemplated this lack of a waistline (also, lack of an ass,) as I went over my appearance in a full-length mirror. I had a blue formal shirt tucked into dress pants. The shirt was pretty wide so it disguised me a bit, but made my thin little waist look all narrow and weird. Legs, too. I'm not bitchin' about being in shape (as much as I am) but all's I can say is, it'd have been nice if I looked less weird, less like a kid in his dad's clothes.

I was dressed this way because we were going to go to a photo studio; the one at Sears, to be exact. Dad wanted to send his dad some family photos for Christmas. Sounded like a nice idea. The actual photo-taking procedure wasn't all that lengthy or painful, although I'm never gonna be the guy with every hair in place. We took a few with dad and Deb, with just dad, and the three of us, looking (in the last case,) like a promo shot for Saved by the Bell: The College Years, if Zack had worn glasses, Slater been pudgy, and Screech have long hair and a goatee. I'll look at that picture for years to come and it will cheer me up how goofy we all look. I have this ridiculous grin on my face, both because I'm imagining the pose we're doing, and because the girl photographer was hot and spunky and I wanted to look like I was enjoying myself. Or something.

Later that night, I went over to Chris's and we played Risk while we finished off the last of How I Met Your Mother and some of Arrested Development season 3, because I felt like seeing Charlize Theron. It was the two of us, Edgar and Ryan L. Pat mysteriously vanished and CB was studying. It wasn't a great game, Ryan and I basically dominated the scene, with me being in charge or no fewer than two and maybe three continents by the end, mostly because Edgar seemed so concerned with whatever Chris was doing.

Today, more of yesterday. A day of idleness. Lately, the pattern is that the week breaks me down so hard that when I do get a moment I just sit and vegetate. I don't care for it much and I do intend to muster up the energy to take care of a few small tasks tomorrow, after I get done some Christmas shopping.

We did the tree today. It involved pulling it out of the storage room, looking at how ugle it was, then wrapping it in all the tinsel and ages-old Chistmas ornaments. I love our ornaments. When we were kids we used to make them; we had weird ideas about what constituted Christmas material. Amongst the santas and snowmen and bulbs and icicles are a spider and a pirate.

And now here I am, chilling in the basement, worn out and bored on a Saturday night. But such is life.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Two: Caffeine and context

Someone like me, who sleeps far less than he wants, comes to depend on caffeine. Maybe not like a crutch as much as like an ole dog depending on his master's attention. From the Oakville GO to St. George station, I'm barely conscious. Caffeine is as much a problem as it is a solution. It's all about context. At 8:30 in the morning it's a blessing but if you drink it too late... ah-ah...

I had a long talk, largely about sleeping habits, today... it was a strange day indeed.

I had no omen it was going to be a bad day, and it wasn't. It was only the usual sensation that "I shouldn't be up this early" when the alarm went off at 6:30.

I followed the usual throng of commuters onto the ole 7:58. I think the GO system gets far too little credit. I've only been seriously late a small number of times. I was headed, behind some lady, to what I now call the Scotto Zone, the left-hand side of the middle deck of a GO car. Usually the middle four in the row. The quad was inhabited by a sole young lady of her mid-twenties. The woman in front of me sat down diagonal from her, and I across from that. In an instant, the woman got a strange look on her face and made for the next car. The girl and I shared a look of bemused observation as I took the woman's seat.

It should not be surprising that I enjoy sharing a look, any look, with virtually any young lady. It's a good way to start the day. I have had issues that inform my present perspective on the female gender, many of which will be explored in my autobiography.

Or not.

Once in Toronto and on the Subway, I made for St. George station even though my class was at Museum (and a considerable walk therefrom.) For weeks, months even, the routine has been a detour at Queen's Park when I needed a caffeine jolt, then hopping back on the TTC. That was when I had a Metropass that could allow me to go to and fro on the TTC as I pleased. Now I'm a lowly peon with tokens. I have to ration them like a noob.

So I stopped at the Tim's outside St. George. There was a man (thirties?) and a girl (early 20's? Teen??) huddled outside with a ballcap full of change. In only a few months prowling the area from Queen's Park to St. George, I've become accustomed to all brand of beggars; the downtrodden, the buskers, the beggars, the ones with causes. The story here was that these two (who looked too close to be father-daughter but too far to be a couple, draw your own conclusions,) were on their way to Ottawa. As we waited in the line that lingered through the door and outside the store, they regaled us with how they'd been caught in this storm and that, etc etc, coming from beyond Winnipeg. Or was it Windsor?

Someone ahead of me offered, "Do you want a coffee or tea or something?" Graciously, the offer was accepted for a coffee and a hot chocolate (beggars and choosers and all.) Once I had my coffee, gripped by the philanthropic spirit, I dropped a couple of quarters into the cap and advised them, "Stay safe, brother." It perplexed even me, talking like some weird hipster lifestyle guide, but he thanked me and I went on my way, pleased with myself. It was going to be a good day.

I had been in my usual two classes by 11:00 and had gotten my usual bupkiss out of them, except a tipoff what I had done wrong on my Narrative essay that I might rectify on my next. I had lunch and read the book I had brought with me, A Lion's Tale, the recently-released autobiography of Chris Jericho. It's terrific.

By 12 I was gettin' punchy. I usually had a screening at that time but the exam was scheduled for 12:50-3:00. So I spent the extra 50 minutes making small talk with the guy I know in that class.

The Cinema Studies exam was/is/will be my way of recouping my shattered self-esteem after the affair with the shot-by-shot analysis. I don't put a terribly great amount of regard in my marks, but a guy's got to have standards. It was done in two parts, a 50-minute portion on Tuesday and a 2:10-portion Wednesday. There were a few short questions, a few longer questions, a short essay question (longer than the longer questions) and a long essay question, which was long. It had been a while since I got he lefty's curse, a blue splotch on the side of the hand from excessive pen-use. The past two days reminded me why all the bad words (gauche, maladroit, sinister,) seem to come from leftys. No respect.

I feel good about it, but it's one of those "wait and see" situations where I could turn out to be totally wrong. In the long essay in particular, I felt like I was slinging some potentially flimsy bullshit, but I poured out every scrap of retained knowledge I had for that thing, flimsy or no.

After the test I was to meet someone. She didn't show. There may have been a miscommunication; I want to give her the benefit of the doubt (she'll probably read this.) She also indicated she had a big take-home due the next day and I was, after all, pulling her away for frivilous hang-outage (and time is money and I am the walrus.) So I waited 40 minutes or so before deciding I'd been stood up, and went on my way.

I had time to kill. I usually have class at 4 but this week Reiby had opted to schedule each individual student (if they so desired,) in a 15-minute interview about the status of the course. It was about 4:10 when I arrived at Old Vic. My interview was at 5:15. I only had so much interest in sitting on the computer at EJ Pratt (solid library though,) so I sat alone outside the office reading the Jericho book as a few of my classmates, the latecomers, trickled in and out. To my surprise there wasn't a great congregation, everyone just showed up in time for their interview and left accordingly. What, did everyone other than me have something better to do than go to the class they didn't have?

Did that sentence make sense? My grammar is too impeccible not to.

Eventually 5:15 rolled around. Then 5:20 rolled around. Then a few minutes after that, the person ahead of me finished up. I went in and he started by telling me I'd done some good work and people had mentioned that I was giving good feedback. He was probably talking about the girl whose poem I had utterly revolutionized by suggesting the start with her third stanza. Come to think of it, it's surprising that I should come up in other peoples' meetings. Impressed maybe? Full of myself?

We talked about a bunch of things, starting with what I thought about the course and how it might imrpove. I didn't have much to say because I've been enjoying it so far and when I'm enjoying anything, or even just not miserable, I'm likely just to go with the flow. He asked if there was anyone I thought might get integrated, and I mentioned how captivated I'd been when Sonnet L'Abbe (there's a google-snag* for ya) spoke at Sheridan.

*Google-snag is my new term for random search items that are likely to end up with people finding this place. Famous names are huge google snags, movie quotes and song lyrics are moderate ones. My name is a piss-poor google-snag but inexplicably, the biggest of all is PG7, which constantly comes up in Korean search engines, as I used it in the naming scheme years ago, short for Page-7.

Back to Reiby, and Sonnet. He mentioned he knew of her, and that he belonged to a writing group with her uncle. Small world. I steered the conversation, briefly, toward my favourite topic, myself and things I've written, asking if he had any thoughts (maybe not phrased so desperately.) He said he liked how I kept varying myself, and I mentioned I was intent not to keep being the funny one or the sad one or any particular one. This could work opposite, mind you, in that if you're known for something, at least you're known. I just wanna be known as good.

He had nothing but praise for me, which I think he'd been handing out a fair amount of all day (as he did indeed praise the class as a whole,) but I soaked it in anyway. He asked what an aglet was (as I'd written a piece called "Sympathy for a Busted Aglet.") I told him it was the little plastic tip on a shoelace, and gestured to my left shoe, short one aglet. Inspiration strikes.

We talked, largely, about life, about my commuting and my occasional lack of sleep. He suggested I maybe move to TO next year and get a fuller University experience, and on that he hit a bit of a nerve. I'm sometimes insecure about the fact that I don't always feel like part of the University because I don't even live in the city, and I go back to my own world every night. I would be good for me. It would be bad for me. It would be caffeine.

Welcome to Metaphor City, population You.

Toward the end of the meeting, I flashed back to my Writer's Craft days, name-dropping Alyssa (noting "I can't believe I went this long without mentioning it,") when I mentioned I wasn't too fond of poetry in my formative years, until I got turned onto Kerouac and Ginsberg et al, and then "The switch went on."

I talked out sometime around 5:45 and got on my way to the Subway, to Union, to GO. I arrived in time to see a "Lakeshore W 18:05 Proceed to Train" notice; I was sure to punch my ticket.

One of the only interesting things that happened yesterday was that I had to buy a new ticket. Because I'm only in school this week and 2 days next week, it seemed downright foolhardy to invest in a monthly pass, so I got a 10-Ride. The key is, however, I've been conditioned (Pavlov represent) to rush to the train like a knave because all I ever needed was to show my omnipotent pass and I was good. I got my ticket yesterday and hurried to the cancel-machine. Fair enough; but when I got out of class yesterday I was in such a rush (again, the "Proceed to Train" notice was up) that I just got right on, all cavalier and whatnot. It wasn't until we'd passed Exhibition station that I realized my mistake. Only a week or so earlier, I'd seen a kid get nabbed and have to talk his way out of a massive fine with a warning. I wasn't sure I'd get such lenient treatment.

I considered my options. It was either sit tight and await that likely fate, or jump off at the next station and get my ticket punched like a good honest morally upstanding individual. Long Branch rolled by and I stayed put. I was risking my ass, but detested the notino of delaying myself, which felt like biting my own hand off. Paragon of virtue I ain't.

So I sat, ostensibly reading the Jericho book, panic-stricken and looking over my shoulder constantly for the ticketstapo. I had already been ticketed that morning. Theoretically, the odds were on my side suggesting that I wouldn't be ticketed twice in one day (on those rare days I was ticketed at all,) but the week before, when that kid got caught, I'd been ticketed just that morning. So the situation seemed to be playing out for me again.

Lucky lucky, I didn't get ticketed. I celebrated my badassery by sprinting to the bus and remembering that quiver in my liver when I realized my ticket had no stamp, to remind me that I wouldn't always be so lucky.

Today's trainride was a nice one, in darkness outside while I quietly absorbed myself in the Jericho book and the guy diagonal from me read Hitman, the Bret Hart story, which I intend to read next (after exams.) I got home and laid our relaxed for the evening.

Beware jive suckas wanna lead you astray.

There are some turbulent exams coming up, but for now... rest. I'm clearly not doing enough of it.

Blame the caffeine, for keeping me same.

And blame me for keeping on rockin'
-Scott

One: Another title I didn't want to write

I did nothing today.

With an ever-growing sense of frustration, I've been taking more and more mondays off. Getting up at 6:30 to catch the 7:58 train in howling wind and ice is not exactly a playground. So I took today off and did nothing.

I had intended to study for my Film Study exam. I still haven't shaken the crushing feeling I got when I found out how badly I did on the shot-by-shot. I'm suddenly very determined to prove, to my instructors and to myself, that I'm not some jabroni who doesn't belong. For fuck's sake, I will not settle for a lower mark than King Douchington himself. I owe it to myself and to my good name to straighten this out.

I've not been taking the postsecondary world as seriously as I ought to, I think. In some way, maybe I just believed I wouldn't actually be around long, and it didn't matter, but an entire semester has now gone by and I have no inclination toward leaving, so I should be treating this very seriously. My mind has been elsewhere all November. There will be time for the world outside University later. I am here, now.

I had a dream the other night where I bought a bunny, and it was biting people. I had nowhere to keep it and lost it. I have no idea what this might mean. Maybe the answer is more obvious than I think. Maybe there's a poem in there.

Back to the nothing. I took today off and did nothing with it. I did not study. I did not write. I played shitty games and read.

The weekend brought a massive and crushing first snowfall. I was kind of hoping, however guiltily, for one of those warm winters we've been having where we don't see much snow until, like, New Year's Eve. I can't really enjoy them because they feel wrong, but at the same time, it's comforting that it's warm. It is not warm; indeed, quite cold, very much a quintessential winter. I wanted to do something this weekend, but resigned myself to isolation and a glass of cold gin. It feels like the world has no time nor comfort for ole Scotto. Don't nobody wanna see me down and out.

Today began, to a slow start, and I went for coffee. Because of the cold and I wanted to try going someplace close, I thought maybe I'd stop by Sheridan. I did not go to the newsroom, I only went as far as Second Cup, but I did run into Jimmy.

I got a cup of coffee from Second Cup. As the girl was handing me the change, a penny fell into the cup. "Whoops." She dumped it and poured me a fresh cup. I got my sugar and cream and went on my way. I was just about home when I heard a tapping or scraping on the inside of the cup. No, it couldn't be. I had seen her pour out the cup. Paranoid, I got home and poured the coffee into a mug through a strainer. And sure enough, stuck to the bottom of the cup, the penny.

It occurred to me at that point that while it was not cool to be drinking copper-flavoured coffee, the real problem was the currency... it's cold and flu season, and how many damn people do you think handled that penny? Yech.

So I did nothing this weekend, nothing today. I have my test tomorrow. I'm driven to succeed at it, and will be going over my notes - which have been taken quite dilligently as compaed to any previous class - but I have to believe most of it is in my head. That's always been my approach, that if you know it, it's there. I know the different between panning and tracking, between low angle and low camera position, long take and long shot... hm.

Maybe I'll blow the lid off this thing. Maybe I'll expose myself as the fraud I secretly think I am.

I guess things will turn out the way that they do. Alls we can do is jump and hope we land.

What a ridiculous thing to say.

I'm worn out tonight. Barely wanted to write this, and I ain't been around since firday. No motivation, I suppose.

Keep on rockin
-Scott