16x: For this, I shaved?

I'm trying this new gum - Five (or "5?") It's left a weird taste in my mouth (the flavour is "Cobalt" which I think is a type of metal, which is disturbing,) but damn is it long-lasting. I was going to fnish chewing before I started typing, but that was like a half hour ago. Don't ask why I needed to be done chewing before I typed this up, I just wanted to.

I'd been bummed and directionless for a couple of days. I didn't know what to do with myself and had little motivation to crack the philosophy books. I just wanted to wander around aimlessly and drink copious amounts of coffee and just quiver with frustration with myself. Going into today it was the fourth or so day when I just had no agenda and continued to avoid what I knew or thought I ought to be doing.

And then today I picked up a pencil.

Okay, it's no big deal, because I was drawing over the weekend, but it was something. It's hard to believe I ever get anything done with my Guitar Hero controller sitting across the room, or when I know exactly how long it would take to get a cup of coffee or when I could be checking Facebook to see what groups my friends are joining. I've been drawing a strip called Regular Guy for nearly a year, off and on, whenever I feel like it. The story hasn't advanced that much (it's not much of a story) but it's something, something to do that doesn't involve me typing endlessly or pouring over John Perry's dialogue on personal identity and immortality.

So I drew, I washed the dishes, I shaved. I was beginning to like my roguish beard but it really does make me feel dirty and sketchy so I decided it was time to clean up. And then the major thing, I found out around dinnertime.

I got a reply back from one of the places I applied for work. Not gonna give too much away but I'm pretty jazzed about it, not so much for the work itself or because I'm guaranteed the job, but because I've got an interview and it seems like something that could at least keep me outta trouble/a rut for the summer. The girl was also very enthusiastic in her e-mail, since she used numerous exclamation points.

So to celebrate, I dragged a sick and ailing friend down to a coffee joint to dish. Well admittedly, she just had a case of the sniffles and when I called her, I offered her a freebie first off - "Hey, how are ya feeling?" She seemed enthusiastic about going, so we went. And though she was sniffling a fair bit, she was solid company. We caught up (on the last week or so) swapped work stories and other miscellany, including my sharing of a normally-taboo anecdote that involves a discarded newspaper and a very unfortunate restaurant. Overall, it was a quality evening.

As soon as I finish this I'm going to get back to my studies. Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to head into Toronto for a review period in my Film Study class. I don't necessarily think I need it and likely won't stay for the entire thing, but any help would be useful, as well as a chance to spend my day doing something. Also I'll be getting my last assignment back, and I'm eager to find out how well I did on it because frankly I've got a good feeling (but then again, sometimes our feelings betray us. Okay I don't know what that means.)

One thing I did mean to talk about though was an apparent gluttony for punishment and abuse. Earlier this week, Chef Gordon Ramsay was in town doing a book signing and all the media was there, seemingly in a fruitful deliberate attempt to bait him into yelling at them, for instance one reporter got into a conversation with him about her last night's dinner, and it was only moments before he flipped out, "You CAHN'T STEW CHICKEN! It gets all stringy!!" Much to everyone's delight. similar scenes were seen in other interviews where he was involved in cursing matches just for yuks and tossing interviewers out of the room. I don't know, it seems weird to be so fascinated and eager to bait a man so obviously full of rage. Like yeah, his gimmick is that he yells at people... it's like a parlour trick for the amusement of his public. I don't watch his show, but it just seems odd to me how enthusiastic they are to watch him explode. Like, is that healthy?

I don't know. More idle thoughts from an idle mind's idle hands.

Strangely, I'm all abuzz.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

15x: You don't know what you've begun

This title courtesy of a song by The Solids, the band that performs the opening theme to How I Met Your Mother (also, two of its members created it.)

My arms are tired. A few months ago, when I started doing Guitar Hero on Hard, I stalled on Knights of Cydonia, the last song of the 7th section. Particularly, there is a section that in theory seems easy, a continuous sequence of three notes. For whatever reason I just couldn't handle it until earlier tonight when somehow I managed to squeak through. Then I proceeded to get four stars on Cult of Personality, which has a decent riff and a solo that you can basically smudge your way through. Anyway my arm is still pretty tired and yet here I am typing.

Because that's what I do.

Since my old files were obliterated, I had been wondering what I was going to do with myself. I took it as a time of reflection, to wonder whether I truly did have any future as a writer or if I was merely kidding myself. I still don't have an answer, but lord knows it's still the only thing I've ever felt comfortable doing. Off and on since 2005, I had worked on a screenplay that basically amounted to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" but less funny and also less good. I mean, it's different enough that I can feel comfortable revisiting it in a few years, I think, but for now I want to step back from it. Having it completely voided from existence helps that.

Anyway, part of what was distressing me was that I haven't had a really good idea in a while and I was starting to wonder if I'd passed my peak. Admittedly, that's a sad thing to be worried about when you're only 20 and still basically unpublished. That said, I felt like I hadn't had a good idea since I started writing my couple of unfinished books. I guess that, since they're unfinished, they should theoretically give me plenty to work on over the course of the next few years, but I was still restless. Having less of a past made me wonder where my future was at.

I wasn't thinking about that, not consciously anyway, this morning. I was thinking about my life, and my continuous inability/lack of motivation to find a job. I began to think of my options and fantasize about life as an entrepreneur and that's when it hit me. It started as an idea for myself and then I realized I should just write a movie or something about it. I got home and eagerly wrote down the beats for the new script, which would ideally be solid comedy, which I don't feel like I do often enough. I've got it tucked back in my pocket for when I need something.

In honesty though I have still been looking for work, applying at a few places I'm not too psyched aobut but would do. I don't know why I never took Chris up on getting me in at Staples, I have a feeling he would, it just never comes up when we've played Risk.

I just never seem to get the timing right on these things. On a lot of things. (Ah zut, les filles!)

It has not been much of anything the past few days. Dreary, chilly. I went out today to get a gyros from Extreme Pita - no cheaper and much further than the mall but it was a nice experience. I like gyros. They're one of the main hundred and twenty reasons I can't be a vegetarian.

Haven't done much today. I might not even go ahead with studying tonight, which is not a good sign. I've got some reviews to write, I want to draw some and finally get around to re-doing Interneta. I'm so busy without being busy, I'm bored while having so much to do.

I've been trying to get ahold of someone, but every time I try to make contact I just feel lame. That's probably just me inside my head but hey man, that's me.

I wish this were more substantial. Unfortunately we just ain't got much goin' on.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

14x: Hustlers rustle and pimps pimp the beat

The entry was originally going to quote a different song in the title, but suddenly I felt like the Clash. And that ain't such a bad thing.

This was kind of a nothing weekend. Yesterday I did nothing, last night I did nothing, today I did nothing. That's not entirely true, but my adventures this weekend were hardly worth mentioning. So of course I must recount them because somehow I keep getting hits and haven't totally alienated everyone with my boringness... yet.

I had heard about a garage sale yesterday morning and got up early (or at least at a reasonable hour) to check it out. It was disappointing... no classic action figures, no vinyls... just a bunch of baby merchandise. I know I don't have a record player, but I like to browse people's old LPs and recall a time before I was born when music was tangible.

It had been a stressful morning. Mom had left for the weekend, which was good, but she had teased bringing Max with her and not followed up. I mean look; I love Max. He's been so good and now he's getting old and blind and, well, he craps inside a lot. And most often I'm the one who has to deal with it. Shit, the night before, he was pacing around at 4:30 AM to wake me up and let me know he decided to take care of business on the rug, even though I had only gone to bed about an hour and a half earlier, and had taken care to let him out right before that. But that's another issue. My point is, it was a shitty weekend, in that sense.

So I was kinda distraught and what I ended up doing was seriously looking for work for once. My only answer to "what's up this summer?" is a half-hearted explanatin that I intend to work, but I'll admit: I freaking suck at looking for work. Most often jobs have happened to fall into my lap. I get discouraged really easily; the entire summer of 2007 was about that. So I've been trying to find opportunities. I ended up sending my resume out a bit but I'm not optimistic aobut it because, well, I'm not ever.

Great attitude, Williams.

I've basically just tried to unnerve myself, which is not easy. The school year is up and yet there's plenty of crap still weighing on my shoulders. I feel guilty when I'm not doing anything, I get depressed when I realize I don't know what to do any more than what I'm already doing.

Today was filled with my getting comics and Eric making a flank steak for dinner. Oh, and Mom calling early in the morning because she couldn't reach Grandma by phone. Yeah, that was a real positive note to start my day on. My mom is probably the source of my sunny disposition: always invent the worst case scenario. I later spoke to Grandma. Thankfully, she did not disappear, or fall and couldn't get up.

I had this drema last night wheere I was talking to a couple of my friends from grade school, and was all depressed in the dream because they seemed to be living more exciting lives than me.

I got no plan, man.

Apart from the studying I've occasionally indulged in, I've been writing and drawing a bit more. I've gotta let it out.

Let it out.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

13x: I'm here because I am

What's chewin'?

Years and years ago, when Josh and I were friends, we agreed to try to make that a thing, a form of "what's up?" It ended up more as an in-joke, something we said to each other and laughed about. I don't know... sometimes with that guy I couldn't tell if he was laughing with or about me. Lookin' back, remembering the things he was able to say to me about other people, I only wonder what he'd been sayin' about me. But that's water under the bridge long past anyhow.

Walk, walk walk; it seems like that's all I do. It's a gorgeous night out, crisp and warm with a breezy coolness hanging in the air. I went for a walk late tonight because, after failing to make it to Joe's show (I'm sure I'll manage the next) it suddenly became quarter to 11, and if you're still in at that time the house can suddenly seem very oppressive. So I went for a walk to escape it, but y'know, I can't escape myself. So I walk, and I think about life, or at least what of a life I have. I tried to decide whether I was depressed.

Maybe I should be. I'll admit, I don't seem to have a lot going for me. It's been as hard as ever for me to get going, get motivated, get active. Got some friends, got some exams I can't bring myself to study properly for (it's at a crawl.) Got no job and not a lot of prospects. Ain't written anything substantial in months. Got some poetry of varying quality. Got the memories of things I had written once but now are gone, the leftovers I can save, and the imagination of what I could be writing if I wasn't so down on myself.

Got a lot of doubts.

But we all have nights like that, when life seems to be shit. This is hardly the most depressed I've been over the last few years I've written here. I've not got a lot going for me, but I've got some potential and some possibilities and if I can get a little spark of inspiration, a little spark of motivation and enthusiasm then maybe I'll be set on my way.

I did nothing today. Walk, walk, walk.

I'm going to study for 40 minutes and then write something. I'll force myself. Get outta yer head, Williams. Get out before you're trapped.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

12x: I couldn't control it if I tried

It's one of those evenings where you just want to relax. It was a long day, perhaps unnecessarily so. But I feel good and I'm relaxed, despite the fact that it's about midnight and I've pledged to do some studying but yet to fulfill that.

I woke up around 9:00 because I had this crazy plan that if I get up early enough, I wouldn't have anything from the dog to clean up. Yes, this site has hit an all-time low when the running story is about dog feces. Mark your calendars kids, you're reading it. Anyway, the plan paid off. Even though I didn't have an exam until 2:00 I left the house immediately after this to seek breakfast, run an errand at the bank, and just generally enjoy the morning.

Like seemingly every day lately, I was feeling kinda bipolar, as it didn't take long for me to get into a funk about my lack of motivation as far as jobsearching goes. It doesn't take much to get me off in a mental tangent, and yet it also doesn't take much to distract me from that either. I got on the bus and saw someone I recognized. She was an ex-coworker at HMV. I didn't even say hi because I wasn't sure it was her, and yet I was convinced it was. We got on the same damn train.

Anyway, that tangent doesn't go anywhere. I got to Toronto before noon and had plenty of time to bum aorund, find lunch, and just chill before my exam at 2. In the course of my travels, I noticed a band set up under a gazebo outside the U of T radio station building. I stuck around a while to hear them play a song, and it was quite good, so I spent $5 to get their CD. The band is called the Antiqs ("Anti-Queues") and they play a pretty good garage-revival rock sound. The song I heard them play was "Tired Faith," which may have been the best song on the CD but I'll give it another listen or two to see what else I like.

Eventually I got to the exam. This "eventually" occurred about a half hour before the examw as to start, so I sat outside the exam hall with an ever-growing league of classmates I had never seen before (one of whom, a fetching blonde, I was sure I recognized.) I was nervous but not afraid. I just wanted to get it over with... two hours of solid writing was not going to be pleasant - most likely, both physically and mentally taxing. I wasn't afraid of going in cold... since that's basically how I did my last three essays in that class.

So I got in there, armed only with my pen, and a backup pen. I start reading over the exam. It's exactly as they described. The first part, worth 40%, involved "close readings" of passages. I looked over them, and while I was fairly sure of each of them, I was only positive about the first two, so I set about dissecting them. The first one, from Pride & Prejudice, I think I close-read the crap out of, but my effort on the second, from Mrs. Dalloway, was about half, because I just wanted to bust through and get to the essay. When I read over my first option, I thought, okay, this is do-able... something generic about how characters change over the course of a narrative. Let's take a look at my other option...

I read it over, and then started chuckling to myself. I must've seemed to all the other students to be privately insane, but really, I just couldn't believe the luck. The second option essentially asked, "How are the texts we studied distinct from newspaper stories?" Ka-ching. It was like slow-pitch softball for someone who has spent his last three years thinking about exactly that.

I nailed it down to three examples: the use of motif, as in Devil in the White City, to link unrelated stories, the variation of perspective, as in As I Lay Dying, and in the cause-and-effect narrative as in Mrs. Dalloway, an example for which I went into damn-near painstaking detail about leads and inverted pyramids. I finished in time to leave early (there was to be no leaving for the last ten minutes.)

I got home, went grocery shopping, ate Wendy's for dinner, and jsut chilled out on a well-deserved Spring evening.

Stressful life, but it's been a good day. now if only I could bring myself to crack those philosophy books rather than typing in this thing...

Well, that's a dilemma for another day. Keep on rockin'
-Scott

11x: You're not going anywhere, sweetie

I've kinda been all over the place lately, particularly today. I've been stressed out, depressed, exhausted, content, relaxed and excited over the course of the day. Nothing especially big or important happened, but it was one of those days.

Like, it was a particularly bummer morning. I hadn't slept well the night before. I kinda drifted in and out of sleep anxiously. And then there was what I found when I woke up.

Although I staunchly defend my dog's health, his bathroom habits have been, er, less than sanitary lately. Usually I'm the first one up after mom goes to work and I have to find a mess to deal with. Sometimes it's not much, and sometimes thre isn't anything at all, but today... today was seemingly everything there is to hate about pet ownership. I love the guy, you can't help but admire the way he stumbles around, blind but plucky, yet somehow he knows to crap in the same spot morning after morning. Maybe it's something in his diet.

Anyway, I had to deal with that in the morning, it was quite a little project. Messy, gross. And that had me bummed out, combined with boredom, I was really down. And this is all just compounding all my regular stress and frustration with life so things weren't looking so groovy by about 2.

Things got a little better in the afternoon when roybn and I were hanging out. I mean, compared to the way the day had been going, it was plenty better, but beyond being livelier, it was also... heh, weirder. Somehow, we wound up in a water-drinking contest. We picked up two 1.5 litre bottles of water (and a couple larger ones for good measure,) and set down with them. We gave ourselves 5 minutes to chug. After about two minutes of solid chugging, during which it looked possible that I might finish the whole damn bottle, I began to feel queasy and waterlogged. Then I did something that I hadn't done in front of another person in a very long time. Well, it was behind a tree. It felt like I had just been rescued from drowning. This led to a lengthy conversation about vomitting, and laughter was shared by all.

So I was a bit drained, to say the least, for the rest of the day. I've been trying to focus and study for the rest of the night but it's not easy because... I don't really want to. It's hard to get motivated, but I'm determined to crack the books every night for the next week and a half until my final philosophy exam. The fact that I've already started shows that... I've already started.

A friend contacted me out of the blue yesterday. I hadn't spoken to her in a few months and she left me a message (on MySpace of all places.) I'd actually thought about contacting her but didn't get around to it before this. So I told her to go on MSN for once, and she did. We got to talking and, after I told her what I'd been up to since September, she told me about her life. We had a lengthy conversation about her relationship with an older man and how, after a couple years, it seems to be posing an impassable obstacle. They can't move forward, and now things have been said that can't be unsaid. I didn't outright tell her to break up with him, because I assume there's some reason she's been with him this long, but I didn't get the sense they had a healthy relationship and I did encourage her to consider calling it a day.

"It's just easier," I told Cary on the weekend, "When all your friends are single." I suppose that can't always be true, though.

I have my first exam tomorrow, an english exam that can't be studied for. I'm excited and nervous about going in cold. "The same as every english exam since Grade 9," noted Robyn. So true. It's a little depressing that I am on the brink of my first exam, and some people I know are already done. Sigh...

I need to get myself in order.

I should go relax, collect my thoughts, and get back to my studying.

But please, do keep on rockin'
-Scott

10x: Against the wall

Taking a study break.

Actually, an extended study break. I haven't buckled down yet but I have my philosophy book open in front of me, and I fully intend to read several articles tonight. It only today occurred to me how much valuable time I've let slip through my grasp and how potentially fucked I may be if I don't buckle down for once in my life.

Yesterday was a bit too disrupted for serious studying though. I began by tidying up like a man possessed (possessed by someone else's cleaning ethic anyway,) I cleared my room of garbage (turned out there was a lot) and plastic bottles (I already knew there was a lot) and other places like my desk. I'm not sure how much bearing these aesthetic differences had on the effect mom was trying to get but I did them anyway since I rarely do and this was as good a time as any.

My room still looks like a storage locker full of comics and dirty clothes, though. The main point of concern was Eric's room, where the electrical box is located.

So anyway, Eric and I did our part to clean up. He was vaccuuming in his room, however, when the vaccuum started making a "ka-chunking" noise and emitting what Eric described as "a lot of smoke." I guess some things aren't meant to be clean. So we left it at that. And literally, we left.

We warned mom beforehand and she was fine with it. While some dude came to our place to look around and appraise it, we hit the bricks, wandering at first without any agenda and then down to Lakeshore for ice cream at Baskin Robbins. It was actually rather chilly down there with the lake effect breeze, but no big. We took the bus home and got there after about 5:30. We ordered Swiss Chalet for dinner since B. wasn't gonna be home and what's the use in cooking for two when you've shopped for three? (Plus dad isn't cooking for us this week, he's working late.)

I was utterly zonked out at the end of it, I'm saying. No focus, barely conscious by 10, although there had been an excellent How I Met Your Mother on earlier so thankfully I didn't pass out earlier.

Been coping. Nothing to do now but move. No, more than that: nothing but to groove.

All's I need is a couple good nights, eh?

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

9x: I need to know what the words look like

My moroseness notwithstanding, it's been an interesting weekend; at least as interesting as this bad boy gets.

Yester-evening began a little after 9. We (the guys) had decided the plan for Saturday night was to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall and then Risk. So CB picked me up, the first time I'd seen him in a couple weeks, and we met Chris and Cary at the theatre. Pleasantries were exchanged, CB regaled me with tales from his scholastic hell, we got our tickets and went on in. I was hesitant to get popcorn - earlier in the evening I felt mysterious tooth pain and was a little panicky about what to do about it (Is it a cavity? Wisdom teeth? Gingevitis?) I later decided it was because we'd been eating freezies the night before and rather than using scissors (which would've made sense because I had my keys/pocket knife on me,) we opened them with teeth. But anyway at this point I was just like "ugh, kernels on top of that? No thanks dude." Yet I still got a regular (read: abnormally large) coke because, damn.

While CB and I were getting concessions, the Fergusons got us our seats toward the front but not painfully close. I initially sat down between Cary and some Hindu women who asked politely (well not really all that politely but somewhat anyway) if I could move because they'd be joined by someone. So I moved to the other side, between CB and this couple. The movie began and, as has been widely publicized, about four minutes into the picture, Jason Segel drops his towel and does a scene in the nude, eliciting some laughs and a whole lot of discomfort among the audience. Not long after this, Cary later noted, the elderly Hindu folks beside him walked out (what the fleck were they expecting?) leaving me between CB and this couple whispering to each other and cuddling. C'est la vie.

It was actually a really hilarious and sweet movie, one I've definitely got to see again. It seemed a bit weirdly paced in places, but the comedy made up for that. The audience had some trouble warming up to it, there were some early jokes (such as a sign in a cheezy faux-sensitive music video that reads "SODOMIZE INTOLERANCE") that only the four of us laughed at, but by the time the plot got rolling, the audience got with it. I intend to get back to Interneta in the not-so-distant future just so I can review it.

So yeah, we headed back to Casa Ferg afterward, picking up Nate in the bargain, and started up a little Risk game (along with How I Met Your Mother Season 2, which CB had bought and brought.) I got a bit of a rought deal, did my best with it, and got kicked out of the game first after having some really lousy rolls. And it was CB who did it, too, playing for the first time in many months (and for the first time without going for Australia first.) But as soon as he kicked me out, he was spread so thin that he was immediately thereafter ejected by an effort from every other player, which made sense. We went home after about 3:30, I don't even really recall who was left. After 3 1/2 hours of sleep that morning I was plenty ready to call it a night, collapsing into bed around 4 and not regaining consciousness until 1:30.

That, I needed. I felt better than I have in days, although I spent the day tolerating it as mom flitted around obsessively cleaning. I usually hate it (for reasons even I don't totally get,) but I understand this. Mom's gotta have some dude over tomorrow to impress him, get an assessment on the house, and then move all her loans and debt and stuff into this crazy moneymaking scheme. I don't know the full details (I tend to zone out when she goes into detail,) but it sounds legit and I hope it works out because that would be one less thing for her to worry about. So the house has to be straightened up and the guy has to inspect it (I doubt he'll care much about the levle of clutter but it's good to get that shit down.) So the day was full of dusting, throwing stuff in the trash, vacuuming, et cetera. Still not really done, including a not-quite-fulfilled promise on my part to clean up my desk area.

I guess the conventional term would be "spring cleaning" although this is actually cleaning with a purpose. The house smells like Febreze, Lysol, Pledge, and all that other lovely disinfectant stuff. New bathmats and throw rugs. I've even stashed all my textbooks in my room, which is a tad inconvenient, especially since I've got to straighten that up, too.

But if I can forge myself a tenuous metaphor here, I need to do a little spiritual spring cleaning. It'll be good for me to finally clear the remains from this year and relax a little.

Maybe work.

Maybe.

One thing at a time, no?

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

8x: I only know my own part

Maybe it's lack of sleep, maybe it's lack of life. I feel stuck, stressed out, bad vibes.

I'm trying though.

The shit is piling up, though. It's just that: shit, I say. Shit that impinges on me from all directions. Can't properly verbalize, which compounds my frustration. Wasn't it Gertler who said that it was all about communication? Or do I truly not know my philosophy?

Between losing a large chunk of history (which has the dual effect of feeling like my life was destroyed and like I've been set free... the latter will probably become more prominent later) feeling guilty about not studying enough, concern for keeping the house neat, trying to find a job, and so on and so forth... not to mention my usual psychoses, I'm going ballistic. I just want to unwind. The weather's gorgeous but inside my head it's a fuckin' maelstrom.

I went to play Risk last night. After earlier in the day tending to my soreness from all the concrete, I was hanging out with Chris and Cary. We tossed the frisbee around, Cary mentioned he thought his mom might be reading this. (Hi Linda.) He also mentioned that he Ctrl+F's his name every so often on here, so he shouldn't be surprised to be reading this paragraph.

Later that night, we reconvened for Risk: me, Chris, Cary and Ryan. After Cary got eliminated (he considered it a concentrated attack on himself, I just think he happened to get a shitty draw from the get-go,) Ryan found himself being attacked by both Chris and me. He seemed to take exception to my attacks and leveled some charges against me that seemed somewhat personal. I don't know if he meant 'em that way, but Risk is all business. And when you find yourself getting attacked be a lot of people - believe me I've been there - sometimes you want to speak out about it.

We were watching How I Met Your Mother Season 1; we started disc one at 10:30 or so when I got there. The game ended abruptly when Ryan left and The Fergusons and I continued watching until Chris went to bed. And then somehow, Cary and I decided just to keep watching. It was 7:00 before I left that house, having only nodded off for periods of about 10 minutes toward the end (missing much but not all of the last two episodes, Milk and Come On.) Slightly delirious, I congratulated us on our feat and walked out into the refreshing morning air. I got home to see the mess I had figured Max would make, but opted instead to collapse into bed at 7:30 and not re-emerge until 11:00, still woozy and ultra-sore. Coffee.

It was a nice day. Breezy. Good weather for my black spring jacket. I kinda just kicked around all day, procrastinating and trying not to be all pissed off for no reason (although given I got about 3 1/2 hours sleep I suppose some would excuse it.)

Hope you're all right. We've all got to find our ways.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

7x: Debris

I have been coming to terms with the fact that, more or less, my entire body of work as a young writer has been obliterated.

Okay, slight exaggeration, but only slight. Like I said earlier, I have several of my more important pieces backed up, but I will never be able to catalogue all the files that I have lost. I have done a lot of writing, and over the years it was all stored in that folder until I got my current harddrive last year. So yeah; there went my original drafts of Half-Pst Eight PM, Sewerman scripts, Summer at Sixteen, among others... lots of homework and a shitload of never-finished short stories' beginnings.

It troubles me, it does, but I guess things like these happen and we move on. I guess this is the kind of thing typewriters were good for, but... goddamn were those things noisy! (He says, as though he ever lived in a world where typewriters were commonplace.)

However I had something to distract me today. I'm actually quite tired after today's activities. Roybn and I usually hang out on thursdays these days, and today she was helping her dad demolish their driveway with a jackhammer and, without much convincing, managed to get me into it. So I went over, very appropriately dressed (...that is, wearing basically what I always do, draw your own conclusions.) I helped clear debris (mostly moving large chunks of concrete) and at one point got to use the jackhammer. I never really thought about using one before, but now I can cross it off the list of things I've never done. I cracked up some of the concrete before realizing that I didn't have much idea what I was doing and was at one point perilously close to obliterating all my toes.

I ran into an acquaintence from high school at the grocery store today. I'd only seen her a few times since I graduated; we always got along and at one point I seriously considered letting her be the one I chickened out of asking out, until I realized there was someone more eager for the role at the time. She looked gorgeous, we made small talk, and I did that thing where I actually said things that were funny.

Later, I attempted to pay for some chicken with an incomplete $20 bill which I must return to the bank tomorrow... sigh... life keeps dealing me these winning hands. (Yeah, everyone loves a "why me?" Maybe I'm still a bit on the morose side; it's jsut hard not to get caught up in shit.)

Eric had his last day of school today. So to celebrate, he and some classmates are out getting drunk. Mom has gone off to Tim's for the weekend and B. is going to Montreal for the weekend tomorrow. Lots of comings and goings, I guess; such is life.

I should get to studying. I should straighten my life out. Same as it ever was.

If you ever need me, you know where I am.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

6x: Beat to Beat

I've got a fair bit to deal with these days and I don't just meen in a practical sense. There's been a lot weighing on my mind, and now it appears my cyst is poking its head out again, so... not psyched about that. Oh medical oddities.

My dad was helping me run an errand the other day and he vented a little bit about my brother. I thought it was really uncalled for and wanted to tell him to knock it off. I don't speak tersely to my parents much, not out of respect per se but out of basic courtesy, because I don't want to deal with the outcome if I was to start bitching at my parents. I do drop plenty of harmless sarcastic jabs but that's about it. Anyway I just kinda sat there as he rattled off whatever was bugging him. He had a point, but I didn't think it was cool that he was using me as a soundboard for these complaints. If he does it again I'll probably bring that up.

It comes down to employment, I suppose. That was the topic. I'm not very good at looking for work, but I am very good at getting hired once I've got a bite. But I'll freely admit that when it comes to actually seeking jobs and handing out resumes I fucking suck; I know it, I don't feel good about it, but I try my best, goddamnit. Goddamn.

Then there's the big thing. I realized yesterday that my computer apparently had alzheimer's, and randomly deleted a bunch of my old folders. It wasn't until this morning that I realized the extent. Like, it was my very first thought this morning; and you know, the first thought of the morning often colours the rest of your day. So I was walking around all morning freaking out, feeling like my house had burned down and I'd only been able to save a small shoebox full of papers. Like, there was a lot of stuff there, some of which was backed up, but a lot that was not.

My brother suggested something, which might work, but I have yet to try yet. I may only get one shot so I want to make sure I have all my ducks in a row. It gives me hope and I am hesitant to kill that by blowing it.

It's not that my life is unbearably bad, it's just that it all seems to pile up. I just need to relax and take care of my shit. And maybe do a little more with my days than play Guitar Hero and do cursory clean-up of the basement.

But after all, how much is there to bemoan? The weather's gorgeous and I've got some degree of freedom.

More tomorrow when I've got my head together more. So keep on rockin'
-Scott

5x: A Culture of Heartache and Loneliness

I've been wondering. Is there a connection between sad music and mood? The obvious answer seems elementary: yes, and yet, I ask... do we listen to sad music because we are down, or do we become low when we listen to it? It was thisquestion that inspired the title up there. I've been wondering this because I did something for the very first time the other day. I pulled out Eric's copy of Pinkerton and listened to it all the way through, whereas previously the only songs I was familiar with were The Good Life, El Scorcho and Pink Triangle.

Though it's hard to pinpoint, I'm not surprised the album was panned when it was released 12 years ago, but for those same reasons I find it irresistable. It's a really tough, blunt piece of work of high quality. Really affecting stuff. I've listened to it, feels like four or five times since Sunday night. I'm wondering if it's had any effect on my mood.

I do feel a little more morose than usual, but that's most likely the work of illness. I'd been fighting a cold off for weeks as the weather shifted from cold to cool and wet to warm but breezy and wet. I avoided total illness by popping ColdFX (or actually, the Life-brand equivalent, Cold Assist) but as I wound my dosages down, the weather lingered in the chilly zone. It didn't help that I spent a good deal of Saturday wandering around in the dreary rain and cold. Indeed, that seems to be the likeliest cause of my current malady. Shall we back it up a tad and re-examine how I came to be in that state? That's what SWP is all about.

It was friday, the beginning of a nasty-ass rainy weekend. I was in a pitiful rainy-day mood all morning but when I got to the Oakville GO station who should be there to brighten my day but RyLai. Damn am I going to miss that guy when he moves to Toronto and I inevitably pussy out and stay in Oakville. We caught up and talked the usual... albeit less inappropriate than usual since we didn't even go into those wonderful hypotheticals. I think we exhausted 'em last time when we started talking about who we'd slap if we could get away with it.

I'm starting to double back over the last post... it was a relaxed day, Kira the TA brought cookies for our enjoyment and had us fill out feedback forms. I got home and had to figure out what to do with my night. I kinda miss the days when I was content to just sit on my ass Friday nights and watch the WB but I've grown up and the WB no longer exists. Around 10:30 I got the call that, as usual for Fridays, Risk was go. So I headed out with my umbrella into the drizzle.

I was crossing Sixth, passing that other street, when a car stopped and got my attention. Who should it be but the person who seems to be the running theme of my life these days, Robyn. "Face it," I didn't say, but could have, quoting some movie I can't recall "You drive around lookin' for me." Of course that's not the case, but it would've been a smooth quote.

So she asks, "Where are you off to?" I tell her, Chris', and she asks if I need a drive. Like I said, it's raining, so I hopped in the passenger seat without hesitation of feigning indecision. "Actually," I say, buckling up, "Can you give me a lift to Hasty Market?" I have a tradition of bringing Dr. Pepper because I did once for caffeinated refreshment's sake and it went over well. So took me over and the place was closed down (well, it was after 10:30 after all.) We considered other options and she opted to take me to Dominion, which is open 24 hours for a good reason (because somebody has to be. In retrospect, Rabba was closer.) So she took me down there and easily fulfilled my quest. On the way, we had an inappropriate conversation of our own stemming from some stories Mansoor told me long ago about working late nights at a gas station.

So, after I bought my cola and she bought some blackberries, she dropped me off at Chris', possibly a bit later than I was expected (given I was just down the street when we went off on our trip.) In hindsight, the more polite thing to do might've been to invite her in to say hey, but it's not like there was some giant party going on, just us dudes in the basement playing Risk. Besides, I didn't really ask but it seemed like she had had an exhausting night (she politely requested not to go into what she had been doing prior to finding me, and so I did not.)

Ah, the hazards of knowing me... sooner or later I write random stuff about you on here. Ah well, I'm sure she's used to it by now.

Well we got down to business, laying out a three-man game while watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The game got kinda deadlocked and I took the brunt of it from having both North and South America. We went until nearly 5 AM and nobody was officially knocked out, although I was right on the brink when we all decided to call it a night. We had watched the last episode on Disc 1, all of disc 2, and all of disc 3 (which is only 4 episodes,) making it a very long night. Ry and I decided to crash.

It was still raining the next morning when I went home. I woke up when Chris' dad came down to go on his computer, and decided it was time to go, and left somewhat suddenly without saying goodbye to the likely-still-sleeping Chris. It happens. I walked home in the rain, went to the bank, then came home and watched Across the Universe, which dad had rented from Blockbuster, and I borrowed. If I was still updating Interneta I would say "review to come" but truth be told it might be a while. After returning it (since it was like a day late anyhow,) I decided to swing by the comic store, which happened to be on the other side of town. I neglected to factor the crappy weather into my decision, otherwise might've waited a day or so. All the same I trekked down there and got my meagre offering and then awaited the bus. This is most likely where I got sick although I'd woken up a few of the prior days feeling phlegmmy.

The weather was better the next day; sunday, I didn't even realize was sunday, if you can wrap your head around that. I did, however, get the call to fix something for Grandma's TV (the saga continues.) She had the widescreen set-up for non-widescreen channels, so the picture was all stretched out and cut off. I set her TV (a friggin' 36" Flatscreen HD number, might I say,) to "Normal View" within moments of arriving, and then stuck around and made chitchat about dogs and family to keep her company and justify my having walked down there. I had phoned Grandma a few days earlier to see if there was anything she still needed me to do, and she said no, but this had slipped her mind.

It was just unfortunate that, in order to get down there, I had to miss Ghostbusters 2 on Mpix. I haven't seen that one in forever.

Yesterday, my last class of all, I dragged my ass outta bed at the usual ungodly time, basking in the sun through the window of the train thinking things were maybe gonna be good, trying to allay my own concerns that I was going to be the only person to bother coming in on what should be the first day of the break at 9 AM no less. Five people showed up, four more than I expected; a quiet guy, two silent Asian girls (one of whom seemed utterly startled when the TA actually addressed a question to her) a very talkative guy and me: a medium talkative guy who often asks the TA to repeat himself when called upon because someone said something that got my brain off on a non-philosophical tangent. As a result of the other talkative guy (and in part, me,) it wasn't a half-bad class and a decent way to spend the year.

I headed down to Pratt and killed time before realizing it was probably a good idea to get going. I had no tokens left; I would've had the exact right amount but I decided to be a good person once in my life and gave Ryan a token on Friday. (Okay it wasn't actually that good since I took money in return.) Because of this I decided to do something I had never had time to do in the past, which was walk down University Ave. and see the sights (and also try to find Union, which is somewhere at the end of that street.) It was... interesting, in a looking-at-buildings sense. Not exactly the most breathtakingly beautiful view of Toronto but at least something I had not taken the time to see before and I was glad for that. Even stopping to pick up a BLT I managed to get to the station in plenty good time for the train. Go me.

The rest of the day I bummed around town. Chris and I had figured on going to Burlington and seeing the Sears play again but our ride (Robyn, not surprisingly I suppose,) had to work. And besides, it was a new episode of How I Met Your Mother so was I really going to voluntarily miss that? The evening worked out for the best in that sense.

I was sniffling a bit at the end of the night but woke up feeling utterly gross. I've been back and forth on how I feel but I imagine the whole process is going to begin again tomorrow with me feeling nasty all over again. That's the nature of sickness.

Didn't do much today. Unlimited free time and I'm feeling comatose.

One last thing is that on Friday night I applied for a job, possibly the first of many over the next few weeks prior to me getting utterly disheartened. I don't take rejection well but when I apply myself it's usually not hard for me to get a job. Hrm; stay tuned.

I've also gotten kinda lazy and grew something resembling a beard. It's uh... scratchy. I keep putting off getting rid of it; it's not really an exam beard.

That reminds me, I should be studying. At the tutorial Cathal handed out some good summaries in bullet points of all the readings for the last two units. If only he'd done that for the ones prior to that, I'd be set, but you take what you can get, no?

We'll see how life goes from here. It's roughly time for me to get it together (and this was a very long entry, I had to take an extended break and it's now after midnight.)

So keep on rockin'
-Scotto

4x: You've got the tools but not the talent

I've meant to write this entry since Thursday, but whether I have the time or not I seem to have dropped right out of the blogging habit. A few years ago that would've seemed unthinkable. I was at one point writing in this thing more regularly than talking to my mother.

As usual, however, it's not for lack of material, I just keep falling asleep on the couch. All last week I had "final classes" of the year, goodbyes to my various courses, at least until exams. Monday was my last english lecture (the last tutorial had been weeks earlier.) Wednesday was my last philosophy and film lectures, as well as the emotional goodbye to Reiby's poetry class. All year it had basically been the strongest source of mental continuity, the highlight of each of my weeks, a time to relax and focus on the potentially-atrophied creative side of my brain. It meant a lot that I was able to express myself in that way during a year wherein I often didn't know who I was/was supposed to be/was trying to be. We got our portfolios back. Not surprisingly (not to sound like a cocky jerkass) I got a really good response, some high praise on my stuff as well as the feedback I'd given, as well as some suggestions for edits that I may actually take seriously (and some, not so much.)

The week has been sprinkled with feedback sheets. I don't really like filling them out... I see how necessary they are but frankly I don't see myself giving any feedback that could be considered helpful. I'm not incredibly bitter about any of my experiences but for the most part I'm not terribly enthusiastic either. I don't know so I just tend to sprinkle the computer circles with lots of "Goods" and "Very Goods."

Wednesday night, upon my return home, continued the lengthy saga of Grandma's TV and how it seems to have negatively impacted everyone's lives. While I was on my way, Eric was barbequing some burgers when the phone rang. Mom was at Grandma's desperately trying to help set up her TV. While Eric was counselling her (to no apparent avail,) he was distracted and dinner burned. So he had to order us wings. Meanwhile the problem at Grandma's was eventually fixed, apparently that she needed to call Cogeco and get the cable box set up, something we'd already suggested. Sigh?

Thursday was an interesting day although it didn't seem so at first. I started by calling Grandma to make sure she didn't require any further help. I did this early so that, if I had to go down there on my day off, I could get it done fairly quickly. She told me things were fine now. I then kicked aruond for a while uninterestingly before, as these things often go, winding up hanging out with Roybn.

When we met up I saw in the distance what appeared to be the figure of a person - seemingly a girl of her description - walking a dog. I had to think, I know Robyn doesn't have a dog and yet she certainly does seem to be her. Perhaps, I thought, the dog was from some unseen source, it wasn't on a lesah, just following the girl.

Well it was indeed her and she explained, in enthused fashion, that the dog, an extrordinarily well-trained Boxer (apparently quite a loyal friendly breed,) had followed her basically all the way from her house, wandering the streets, sniffing around and marking its territory, but generally sticking by her. We decided to go back to her place and try to find the owners. It did indeed stick by us and we even attempted to play fetch in a soccer field, but it had trouble getting the stick, so we moved on. We got back to her place and it hung out on the porch with me as she called the Humane Society. It was such a loveable dog, nuzzling up to whoever was around - she dubbed it "Milo." After a while, the van came and he jumped right in the back, knowingly. Even the Humane Society man said, "I've never seen a dog so eager to get in my van!" He was special. The dog, not the Humane Society guy.

Hopefully, his owners get him back. He was probably chipped, but no collar.

Afterward, we hung out a bit and had one of those long conversations that skip all over topics, some of which I can't in good faith repeat here. There was a lot of "Whatever happened to such-and-such?" and an ongoing attempt to guess my middle name. I love making people guess after knowing my middle initial... for some reason they never can, until it takes so long they get embarrassed, when they realized they should've thought of it a lot sooner.

We ended up getting Wendy's for dinner after grocery shopping. Friday, I only had one class, my film study tutorial. There wasn't much to say, and another feedback form to fill out, and also Kira the TA brought cookies so she's aces in my book.

I'm tired now, so I'll write more about Friday onward later (not that it was a particularly exciting weekend, but the obsessive diarist I've become begs to keep track of such things.) I've got one more class tomorrow morning, and then my first exam isn't until April 24th, and my second is long after that.

Someday I will have my brains back. But if you can, please keep on rockin'
-Scott

3x: You don't know what you've begun

It's been an exhausting, if uneventful, few days. I keep meaning to update but I hold back. Is it because nothing's happening? That hasn't stopped me before. Is it because I'm busy? No, most of my schoolwork is past tense and I'm just twiddling my thumbs waiting for exams. Is it because, after a long first year, I'm just plain outta gas and need to recharge?

The continuing tendency to crash on the couch after 10 PM suggests yeah, probably that. But here I am with a rare two hours between classes (Cobb decided to finish his course early this year) so I might as well use it.

I keep trying to decide whether I should declare myself to be at the end of a very long arc, or having come "full circle" or something. This past week, Museum Station, which has been under construction since the first or second week of school it seems, was finally unveiled in all its (artistic? kitschy?) splendour. It looks neat, certainly a lot better than the ugly-ass station it was at the beginning of the year. Well that's hardly fair - all the stations are ugly-ass. I just happen to get off at Museum a lot more often. Various other construction projects (along Bloor and St. George) which pre-date my school year, remain unfinished. So do I. (Booya, metaphor.)

Friday night I decided to go catch Joe's latest show at the ESC (Executive Snooker Club yo.) It was... frankly, dead. I mean, Mansoor wasn't even there. He had some kind of work emergency. This left me without a real ride home (Joe's other friend stepped up and helped me out. Good dude.) The show itself was remarkably low-key... the only people in the audience were me, Joe's three other friends, and the band that was to follow Joe. I felt a little guilty, actually, that we didn't stick around for them, but they all seemed keen on leaving and as I mentioned, they were my ride. Oddly enough it was one of Joe's tightest performances yet, which I guess makes sense as he continues to develop his stagecraft. He started with the ballads and then finished with Hourglass, which is my favourite song of his and which he continues to play around with (incorporating new verses and the Inspector Gadget and Super Mario themes, which shows Joe to be the cool, lighthearted hipster we all know and love, not just a lovesick balladeer, haha.)

Rather than continue to hang out with Joe and his friends, I opted to go home. I may have been a bit insistent on that, but I think Joe and others will understand the tendency of the situation. They're all cool guys but I'm not someone who likes to insert himself into a pre-existing group of friends if I only really know one of 'em.. y'know? Like, they're buddies, they have their jokes, and me I'm just Joe's friend from school. If Mansoor had been there it'd be different.

So I got back to Oakville and wandered around town all night while back at home my computer attempted to fix itself. The jury's still out on whether it actually did, or didn't change anything, or did more harm than good. I could use a good maintenence. You'd think, having so many computer people around, I wouldn't have these problems and yet... I seem to get them unnaturally often. Maybe someday I'll just get a buttload of disposable money and get a Dell or something. (Currently ranking high on the to-do list: getting a job.)

Saturday I don't even remember. No that's not true, I wandered around a lot and enjoyed the spring weather. Not really noteworthy though until I got home and jetted off to play Risk with Chris, edgar, and their friend Pat K. Decent game, although Edgar as usual targeted Chris immediately, but Pat and I managed to unite against Edgar's growing forces, leaving me in second at the end of the game.

Sunday morning I hung out with Amanda, and then yet another family gathering. I shouldn't complain too much given I've already got a reputation as someone who hates family gatherings (I don't, but that's not totally inaccurate...) Cam was being really fussy by the end. I don't like dealing with that, I know I should just grin and bear it when it comes to kids, but sometimes they get upset over the smallest things and it's hard to console them.

Monday I hung out with Roybn. We played some Guitar Hero and despite occasionally being overwhelmed she seemed to pick it up pretty well. The only unfortunate thing about the day was that Max had been sick and made, er, messes all over the place. So the house stunk. Mom's really worried... and me, well I'm reserving judgment and going on a day-by-day basis for now.

Tuesday, I felt quite frankly out of it all day. I just need to crawl through this week and then I'm good (although there's a bit of a hangover for Monday but beyond that I'm done until exams.) It'll be good... I need to study, I need to work, and I need to relax. These three things all contradict one another but I think I can manage,

Or, you know, continue to be insane, which I suppose is the worst case scenario.

I guess that's it. More later? More life later? More nothing?

Who knows.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

2x: Hit the ground fuckin' & runnin'

It's been a couple of days. Altogether the days weren't all that fascinating, but a few interesting, certainly blog-worthy, things did happen.

Wednesday was progressing as tediously yet lightly as usual. Kant in philosophy, Thailand in Narrative, Chungking Express in Film (interesting movie by the way.) It was after film study that the really interesting thing happened. It was one of those "This stuff only happens to Scotto" moments.

My routine after film study has, for several weeks, months, been to get a coffee, drop my bag off at Old Vic outside my 4:00 poetry seminar, and then hang around the campus, usually stopping at Pratt to check e-mail and kill boredom on the computer (yes, computer real estate is short by this point of the day and it's usually inconsiderate but I don't stay that long.) On this day that was exactly what I did: coffee, drop off bag, computer.

I got bored of the computer relatively quickly, without much to keep me interested, so I schlepped myself back up the stairs to the third floor of Old Vic. It was still a while before class so I decided not to stick around, which seemed like a good idea when I was headed down the stairs and saw some policemen (actually Campus Security/Special Constables/Keystone Kops) heading in the opposite direction. Rather than ask what was the problem officer, I kept my head down and hoped everything would be all right. I decided to sit down in the lobby with a classmate until I saw the policemen come back down the stairs.

After that, we headed back up to wait around outside the classroom. It was about 4 and the class in our room hadn't let out yet. So we were just kinda standing there, chilling, when a very skittish, uncomfortable woman with a hint of shock in her eyes comes over to us.

"Is one of you Scott?"

I pause. There are a ton of Scotts. Hell just last year, I was stopped by Sheridan security looking for Scott... Keane. So I asked, "Uh, what last name?"

She paused, "Erm... Knapsack?" Okay, that was odd. Yes, that was my bag indeed. I admitted to that, but felt no good could come of it. "you shouldn't just leave your bag like that," she explained, "Because of the situation of the world right now, you know, some people might think it was some kind of, um, danger. We had to call security to go through it." With that, she went on her way.

My first response was embarrassment at my poor judgment and a sense of personal violation. Indeed "the situation of the world right now" has been shaky (for several years, mind you.) But the more I thought about it, the more it amused me. Obviously, the "some people" she referred to was her... she saw my bag, freaked out, and called security. I've been doing this for weeks with no reprisal; after I got away with it the first time I assumed nothing bad could happen. The worst I figured would happen is my homework would get stolen (in which case, good luck deciphering it,) or my bag would be taken to a lost and found. I gotta laugh... who else but me could start a bombscare?

As the classmates massed, we told the story again and again until we were tired of repeating it. The class in the room actually went way over time but in any case it wasn't much of a class... we listened to some poetry and talked a bit about it but it's the end of the year, the portfolios have been handed in, we're just marking time by now. We got out fairly early even.

The rest of the night, and thursday, were uneventful. I spent my day off taking care of business at Sheridan. I had put off trying to wrangle this damn scholarship question forever and now that the year's about over, I might as well get it off my shoulders and pretend I care by this point. So I went down to Sheridan for the first time in months and went to the OSAP place. They directed me to a woman in the awards department, who swore she couldn't help me, so she took me to some other woman. The third woman responded by firing off an e-mail to someone else. I'm not surprised nobody knows anything, but this is the most amazing display of buck-passing I've ever seen. Truly impressive. I still don't have an answer; no doubt e-mails are currently firing back and forth around the OSAP Headquarters and I'll soon become an urban legend of circuitous bureaucracy run amok.

Naturally, while I was at Sheridan I decided to drop in on the newsroom. I saw Nathan and we had a chat about, you know, catching up, how did the year go, how are people, et cetera and so forth. I left just as some corporate communications students came to talk to Nathan about a project... surprise surprise, one of them was Jacklynn, a classmate from PJour. She seemed genuinely surprised/delighted (?) to see me, gave a big hug, asked what I was up to... asked if I'd be going to "this thing" in a few weeks, one of the occasional alcohol-flavoured reunions. She couldn't make it, and I said I didn't know, since I never know where I'm at week to week and it depends who is coming, anyway.

That was actually the second of four Sheridanites I've run into recently, with varying degrees of unexpectedness, none of whom are working in the field... sigh, what a bleak outcome that seems. I ran into Amberish at Union. I actually didn't recognize him when, dressed in what appeared to be a labcoat he approached me and asked "Excuse me, did you go to Sheridan?" Apparently, he's doing promotions, at the time giving away free samples of Aspirin, among other work. We actually never spoke at Sheridan but had enough mutual friends.

The next was yesterday at lunch, which was at A&W, where Andrew is still working. That was the least surprising because, well, I know he's still there since I'm at the mall all the time and I do enjoy A&W. The last was while waiting for the bus in downtown Oakville when I ran into Dave Sharpe. He's living in Toronto but working in Oakville, which sounds like the craziest idea ever. He's still determined to get work and I hope he does.

I finally got my birth certificate the other day... well it's unfair to say "finally" because they said it would be up to 15 business days and they did it in 5, so it was surprisingly quick, for a government operation. It arrived on Tuesday in a Purolator envelope... I wasn't here to retreive it, so I had to go last night and pick it up. No big deal. Now I can go about doing all that crap I needed my birth certificate to do... sigh.

Paperwork never ends.

More later (I would assume.) Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

1x: Anyone who's ever had a heart wouldn't turn around and break it

Girls smell prettier in springtime. That's just a fact. I don't mean to be weird or anything, but it was a gorgeous day in Toronto today. April Fools really... I'm not really one to play tricks on people but the weather damn well played a trick on me. Like I said it was gorgeous in Toronto but when I got back to Oakville the whole damn town was beset upon by massive icy gusts. I didn't even have change for the bus and was in my spring coat. Oh life.

But I'm not here to bitch about the weather really. I'm here to try to go back to bitching about my weekend. If it were an inconsequential weekend I might just leave it out by now but like I said, as far as the life of Scotto goes, this was as busy as it gets and I surely don't want to cheat my loyal readers out of this chapter, nor myself when I inevitably go back and try to figure out what I was thinking in early April (well really late March but by now I'm not retconning the beginning of the month.)

I left off with... the giant. I hate to mock this poor woman but she really was... she towered noticeably over Chris and Pat, both of whom are north of 6 feet tall. We just kept glancing quickly then away trying to not look like we were noticing, which is often when you are caught noticing most. I actually had to switch seats with Pat so that I was in front of her, because if he and Chris were sitting together in front of her, they wouldn't have been able to keep from laughing throughout the production.

Cary, who is doubtlessly Ctrl+F-ing this blog right now looking for this paragraph, will be glad to hear that I thought the play was really good. I like Macbeth, because it's such a dark, violent play, and the plot isn't overly difficult to follow... some witchy women tell Big Mac he's gonna be King, so he decies to make it happen by spilling a little blood, and then he gets cocky. As good as his role as Lennox was, I don't think Cary will blame me for saying that he wasn't the standout performer of the piece. The actor in the title role was absolutely suited to his part, and the bulk of the cast gave energetic, often intense performances. I think I liked the witches best, as a group. They seemed really into their parts.

After going to the car to grab Chris' backpack and say goodbye to Pat, we met back up with Cary, as well as his housemate who played MacDuff. There was a cast party. We got to the house and immediately started playing Smash Bros., which Chris had brought (hence the bag.) I actually performed worse than I can ever remember doing, but then my heart wasn't really into it on this particular evening. Eventually I put the Wiimote down in order to just catch up with Cary's old roommate Alex, whom I always (and only) see at these parties. We talked about nothing in particular, with the most notable point being a brief debate on the virtues of chewing gum (I was in favour of it, he was against.) I tell you, there's nothing I like more after a night of heavy drinking than a piece of Dentyne, but I had to go without, which I would later lament.

Cary had had the foresight to invest in a keg, and I had had the foresight to secure the proper amount for a buy-in (I'm really not sure what I'd been planning on doing.) It was Pabst, but it didn't taste as gross as the last time I'd had it so maybe the problem that time was on me. (I mean don't get me wrong... Pabst is far from Stella but it could be worse.) Feeling done with video games and beer in hand, it was time to chill. And, as so frequently happens in these situations, there was this girl... (I guess I just can't help myself.) A bit of foreshadowing: this is not going to be one of my better (more positive/more interesting) stories. We'll see how well I come out looking by the end...

I hadn't had my eye on her to begin with, I really just wanted to sit down. She was next to Edgar, her friend (a girl whose name I didn't get) was next to her, and next to the friend was a gay dude (I wanna say... Jonathan.) She was introduced as the third Chris (Kris?) in the room, after Chris F. and Christopher J. Edgar, whom the guys all call Edgar, and the girls all call James. The female, I spent the bulk of the night calling "Girl-Kris" for my own amusement. Girl-Kris scooched over and her friend did too, leaving me between the friend and (Jonathan?) to make jokes about Edgar's name since they were coming up with an ever evolving nickname for him, from J. Edgar Hoover, to Hoover Dam, to Hoover Vacuum, to Mexican Maid (that was mine,) to the ultimate conclusion I reached off that, "Taco Face." Edgar became Taco Face for much of the remainder of the night.

My work done and done, I switched back to my original seat on the other couch. At some later point, Girl-Kris settled in next to me. And when I say settled in, I don't mean she sat next to me, I mean she got weirdly cozy, the kind of cozy one doesn't normally get until a few more drinks. As it turned out, she was the girl who had sold me my ticket (see below entry.) After offering me a taste of her Mojito (who drinks Mojitos?) I offered in return my usual joke about Rum being a drink for women and pirates, which has become a sort of standard acid test for judging how a conversation is going to go. Eventually I found myself between Girl-Kris and the friend. She kissed the both of us, and between you and me, I suspect she preferred kissing her friend.

I can't say for certain what happened next but the night began to spiral way out of control by either misfortune, malevolent agents, or some combination of the two. Whether I was cockblocked, out of luck, or never had a chance, I may ask myself for a long while. The lesson I took home from that night is that I can be clever, or I can be drunk, but I can't be both. And once I got off track, there was no getting back. I wasted a lot of time and energy going off half-cocked and without any direction and the misery I began to allow myself to feel was proportional. In fact, at one point, I lost my internal monologue and began to feel sorry for myself out loud, prompting one nearby listener (other random girl I met that night, who managed to utterly no-sell every psuedo-witty thing I might have said,) told me to quit pitying myself, which didn't make drunk Scott feel much better.

I don't intend to dwell on this, but that was basically a night's work for me, because I'm the kind of guy who is always determined to finish what he starts and to never lose track of a random girl. Even if she's gone off to hang with her real friends, or if Cary tells me she's unavailable (which I didn't believe, and thought he may have been thinking of a different girl.)

My point is, whether I had a chance or not, I certainly could have handled the situation better. It was a live and learn situation. It's not likely I'll meet this chick again and if I do I'll (hopefully) just shrug it all off and move on. This may be my last effort in the "random girl" arena for a little while, which may be a relief to Cary (no promises though.)

Anyway the moment where it started going off the rails (but was still theoretically salvageable) was when she asked me a question I hate being asked, at least when it seems accusatory. My typical response is merely to say "What do you think?" and let her draw her own conclusions but frankly that's no good.

At various points of the night I vaguely recall speaking with Cary. He would apologize that we hadn't spoken much all night and we'd chat and then one of us would get distracted (for understandable reasons on both ends, I think, since he had a houseful of partying castmates and I had... the previously stated potential capitalization.) I recall the two of us discussing Kant. I pronounced it "Can't," orrected me by saying "Kont" and in response, I called him "Cunt." I don't know if I was talking about Kant or Cary, but I was drunk and a little belligerent.

Anyway, she left but on a puzzling note anyway, and I got on with my night. I think I went one beer over the line, but that's the risk you take with a keg; more beer faster. I mingled a bit, trying to stave off my tiredness while the guys continued to play Smash on the couch where I would inevitably sleep. I'm usually the kind of guy who remembers an entire night, but sometime around 5 the night becomes a blank yet I don't remember going to bed until a little before 6, and even then it didn't take... I felt a rumbling deep down inside me. Well, it had been a while, no sense denying it, so I hurried to the washroom downstairs.

I'm pretty sure I made it, even if it was a squeaker, but if something spilled, Cary, I apologize. However, I checked the next day and couldn't see anything, so I think my reputation as an immaculate vomitter is untainted.

Twice, or rather, in two halves.

You wouldn't think, from my description, that I had a good night, but hey, I saw a play and managed to keep myself amused and economically drunk, so it was actually a really solid time.

We got up the next morning around 10:30 and left in a fair amount of haste. I demanded we find a Tim Hortons (not that the idea was met with much resistance) so that delayed us a bit. From there, we went to the bus stop. As I unroleld my rim, we all chanted "Boat! Boat!" My dad pointed out last week that the prizes this year are lame... no money, no TV, just a car, GPS and the boat and Tim Cards. The "Boat" chat did net me a free doughnut, however.

After overpaying for the bus by about 10 cents apiece, we got to the GO station and waited a long while for a bus to take us to Aldershot. At the station, I bought a Dr. Pepper, Chris bought an Arizona Iced Tea, and Edgar bought Combos and possibly solely because I joked about it, an egg salad sandwich. Eventually we got on the road to the train to Oakville.

Once in Oakville, we went our separate ways; Chris bought a ticket for Toronto to meet his mom so they could see some lecture. Edgar and I walked home under the QEW and talked about... well it was a lotta nonsense, some Mitch Hedberg references, and observations about the night before, most of which have been recounted here.

When I got home, around 2:30, I had to watch Red Desert, an Antonioni art film, for class. Eric was keen on it and I enjoyed it and found some good points to make in my essay. After that it was WrestleMania evening. I don't talk about wrestling a lot on here, because I don't imagine anybody cares, and because I find myself caring less and less these days, both because of the lackluster product and because of the events of last summer. But it gives me something to keep paying attention to. It was a better show than I'd anticipated going in.

Afterward, I was supposed to watch Dark Victory, but couldn't stay awake. So rather than going to class, I went to school, and, after writing the bulk of yesterday's entry, and some lunch, watched that film in the media commons; mostly between 1:30 and 3:45, which was enough time to watch the entire thing and do my shot-by-shot analysis. While there, I actually ran into some friends from class... a lot of people were last-minuting it.

I got home around 5, and after TV, (which included Degrassi, How I Met Your Mother and Raw... I loathe trying to schedule homework for Monday nights...) I managed to find time to write what I think may be a pretty damn good 8-page paper. I guess we'll find out before the exam, no? I may not have maximized the two-week extension he gave everyone, but it did wonders for my morale. After I printed it off,around 1:30, I messaged Alyssa for the first time in weeks to say "I don't mean to brag, but I just finished my last paper of the year... and it feels good." We ended up talking for a while before I went to bed.

Today was not much of anything, a much-needed repreive... I had a lesson on Post-Modernism, a cheeseburger, and a revelation of sorts. If anything comes of it, I'll mention in a few days. I also got 180 lines in Tetris, which is a new personal best.

Despite the looming threat of exams over the next months, the still-complicated whereabouts of my paperwork and the fuss over employment and housing, I feel good right now. However, I still won't apologize.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto