I: If your life had a face I would punch it.

It was one of those days. Let me re-phrase that. It was one of those days. I had a word for those days back in the day. Blog-worthy. Perhaps ironically (perhaps not, depending on how strictly you apply the word,) when I used to use the word "blog-worthy," I blogged more often anyway. Now I'm down to what, three a week? Less? And I haven't used that word in Goodness-knows how long.

I was watching a movie today in class - I'll get back to it later but it's pertinent to the subject. Two women, sisters, were talking about their childhoods, and one delivered this monologue about how their mother used to read through her diary and get disappointed by the contents. Irked by the invasion of privacy, the woman started hiding the diary in different places, and yet the mother continued to read it. This compounded the frustration: the mother was not merely finding and opening the diary but actively searching and examining it. What gets me, amuses me at least, is that the response was to move the diary, not to stop writing in it altogether. And I understand that. Once you get to this level of being a diarist, you can't put this pattern of behaviour away. You become dependant on your writing, at least I have. For some of the grief SWP has caused me over the yers I've considered stopping with it altogether, or maybe at least starting afresh. I doubt I ever will, even after my not-too-distant 1000th post.

SWP has provided me with an astonishing level of release over the years and has allowed me to become a balanced, thoughtful individual, or at least that's what I tell myself. I can understand myself and my problems in lieu of paid therapy and not internalize and drive myself insane. More than that, I've actually made a friend or two because of this thing, or become closer to others than I otherwise would have.

And thinking back, that's a damn good feeling.

Last night I wrote a couple pages of prose, or something resembling prose; it was the most I've written in several months if you discount my autobiographical writing. Not having to get up particularly early tomorrow I intend to do so again after this. I didn't remember my dream this morning. I have a vague impression of one, but it was more of a montage and upon waking it was gone, a change from recent days where each morning I wake up feeling like I downloaded a 3-hour epic feature film from my subconscious. Ever since the summer of 2004, I've equated vivid dreams with a lack of creative output, and rarely have I been proven wrong.

It was a below average day, especially from the outset. I slogged through my early classes with some palpable mental resistance. In film, we watched some films to round up the idea of feminist criticism; the one I earlier mentioned (Daughter Rite I believe) and Orlando, in which I saw Academy Award Winner Tilda Swinton's naked body. It was rather sophisticated.

On the subway between classes I saw the second-oddest thing I've seen on the subway (after a guy hitting on a random girl and ahead of a guy telling the story of how he swiped an iPhone from a counter at some store.) After the doors had been open a while a woman got in at Museum and asked "This goes to St. George right?" We were headed to Queen's Park so someone turned the woman around and as she hurried to catch the northbound train the poofball at the end of her scarf got caught in the closing doors. She tapped on the doors and walked alongside a while when an older woman (fifties? Sixties??) managed to pry the door open a crack and release the woman from certain doom. It was quite impressive, and congratulatory nods were handed out.

Last was poetry. It was pretty dedicated to workshopping, so the class went by quick. There's this one girl, she's from Iran originally, and I think (and my friend Jasmin agrees,) she's probably infatuated with me. Not in a sexual way or anything; she has a boyfriend. I kind of think of her as being very sweet and innocent because she doesn't have a terrific grasp of the English language (although her English is far superior to my Farsi.) Although I've seen her modelling portfolio... not innocent. It's just that she happens to leave her group for whatever group I'm in and is frequently asking my help, my opinion, etc. So I have a reputation as somebody who helps others. I'm really not sure how I got that but it's most surely ill-deserved.

No, I do try, and I was trying to give out some good comments during the small and large workshopping. Maybe I actually succeeded but a lot of the time I felt like I was just rambling for the sake of making sure I said something to fill the awkwardness (that is largely the philosophy behind this blog.) I had Claire in my group, who is always genuinely interested in improving her own work and in discussing those of others. She's also British. I don't know why that is important or amusing but for some reason it is. I read a revised version of "To Quebec City," a poem I started writing in October but didn't feel comfortable with until March. It's the wordiest piece of writing I've submitted in that class. It has at least two interesting features: one, I shot it full of rhyming bullets like a 1930's Chicago tommygun fight. The other is that it dares to be in turns and sometimes at once: nostolgic, self-deprecating, innocent, sexual, clever and somewhat brutal. I didn't explain the story of the poem, because it's not much of a story, more an interpretation of something that may have happened. I let the listeners each have their interpretations and never explicitly said anything all that overt, and rarely even made much attempt to imply anything. It managed, somewhat unintentionally, to really play with their minds, which I'm proud of.

There were a few good suggestions, and some praise for the sense of humour that permeates my work. I'm glad it come out; if I didn't have a sense of humour I think I'd wind up writing some of the darkest most depressing pieces. The only one this year that didn't at least seem to have a humourous slant was my second one, Eclipse, which was referred to as "creepy." Maybe not in a bad way, but I wasn't sure how I felt about it. Anyway, by the end I managed to absorb all the compliments I could, as I tend to do whenever I sense people are willingly giving praise. It's not much of a character flaw that I'm a glutton for praise (I just consider it my charm.)

We moved into a larger group workshop session, started in on pieces by Tara (the aforementioned Persian girl,) Dion, and Claire. Jasmin actually snuck one in on the end, running through a revision of a neat 3-line piece she wrote around Valentine's.

I got to Union. No Ryan, expectedly but disappointingly. Rode the train home in silence. Walked home singing along obnoxiously to my iPod. When I got home, Eric delivered the sad news: there was no supper yet. I was hungry and I took some anger out on him but he already had reason to feel bad (just didn't know it yet.) He'd fallen victim to a well-known scam, I won't say which or for how much, but once he realized he'd been conned he got understandably bitter about it. I didn't push the issue and dinner was thence done in good time. Yeah, thence.

I just don't know what to do with myself.

It's late and that's all for tonight. I hope you're having a wonderful evening. Maybe I'll do some writing but not much. Hands tired.

Please do keep on rockin
-Scotto