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