15.14: Stargazing in your eyes

Yep, that's a Joe Chammas lyric up there. He's a talented songwriter and he's just released his EP. It was mixed a bit low in my opinion, but it's quite crisp.

I've been a bit through the ringer lately; as stressed out as a guy with no job and no life can get, I suppose.

Part of it has to do with this stupid mafia game I introduced over at CX. I can't go into detail, but the lack of progress has me frustrated. But there's another area in which lack of progress has me frustrated.

I'm not such a normal person. Shocking, I know, but you had to have figured it out by now. I just ain't right.

A normal guy sees something he wants and he takes the steps to take it. I see something I want and I figure out a way to make it come to me. I don't deserve this thing unless I can figure out a way to make it want me first. I'm alluding of course, to waffles.

I mean, women; which ranks one slot above waffles on the "Things I Want to Have" list.

I'm back on this tonight, after many a sober night wanderin' solo. I'm sorry to Linda, if she's reading. This is certainly not the side of myself I prefer to present.

"You seem like the kind of guy where the girl would have to ask you out first," was Amanda's appraisal of my situation. Sad but true. Maybe I just fell off the horse too many times to bother keep getting back on. I can't take the rejection, man. I had too much of it right off the bat and for far too long that I just got damaged, even beyond normal shyness. I'm simply incapable of dealing with that - in my twisted little mind, if I can't get her to say so first, I shouldn't ask (conditioned to expect rejection.)

The reason I've drudged up all this self-pity for you on this lonely late July night seems to stem from a friend's relationship, rekindled with her ex, which led to me examining myself (not physically mind you.) It's not like I'm a man bereft of options - I'm just a fuck-up. A seemingly irreparable fuck-up who, at the age of 21, doesn't have the balls to walk up to a human female and say "Listen, I like you a lot, can we get a drink?"

My own worst enemy, folks.

I've had some problems with my course enrollment. I got an e-mail today replying to my question and apparently it had to do with my transfer and my transcript. The bureaucratic fun never ends. Awesome.

So I went down to Sheridan today and went through the relatively painless procedure of getting my transcript, and tomorrow I will go down to Toronto and slap it down on their desk. I thought this had been cleared up last year; I filled out an application on Sheridan's website and never heard anything more on the matter. I guess that's just code for "Shit fucked up and we won't tell you until it becomes important." Whatever. At least I get a day trip out of the deal.

Life sucks, blahhh.

At least there's a Risk game tomorrow night. Sweet return to normalcy.

Scotto, get out of your fuckin' head.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

14.13: How to eat cake

I think I may go to bed at a reasonable time tonight. Depending of course on your definition of reasonable.

I was up until well after 2 last night, hemming and hawing. For weeks I've been BSing myself about this job I may or may not have taken. It involved writing short write-ups for used car lots or some such. They sent me a sample to work from and I didn't understand what the objective was. I started writing one and it occurred to me I had absolutely no perception of whether I was doing what I was supposed to. I was flying blind. Within 20 minutes of the enterprise I realized it was entirely bullshit and called the whole deal off. One less thing to worry about but a whole lot less money.

I might revisit it later but I don't like that idea. I'm doomed to wander aimlessly the Earth.

Eric and I went for Gelato today at this place down by Comic Connection. It was raining a little but we were basically already there when it started. It was a nice treat. A bit expensive, but I'd do it again.

I remembered some of the things I'd forgotten about yesterday. One actually had to do with the title I used: I watched a movie by that name, The Gods Must Be Crazy. It's about an African Bushman's first interaction with "society" when he goes on a mission to dispose of a mysterious item that his tribe has found (a Coke bottle.) Although by the last third it devolves into a B-grade slapstick, (which it had tended toward all along) it does offer some clever commentary and uses its subject well throughout. It made me think a fair bit about the follies of modern man.

Today's not been too interesting; I've put too much pressure on myself. Last night I was sick with frustration and ended up writing a nice short poem before bed. It relieved a fair bit of my tension. Good to blast through writer's block.

This break has been fairly restless for me.

More to this story later.

Keep on rockin
-Scott

13.12: The Gods Must Be Crazy.

I had one of those disorienting mornings today. The type of morning when you wake up and you can't straighten out what was the dream, what's reality, and what was neither. I couldn't remember what day it was (understandable as I have very little to use as a marker,) and I got this panicky feeling I was supposed to feed my dog. It took me a few moments before I realized that it was Tuesday, and whatever the dog needed had been taken care of, and I don't like him being fed in the mornings anyway.

That should more or less tell you where my mind's at lately. Every day seems to be following the same formula: Wake up before 11, shower and get coffee, sit around for a while as brothers awaken (and thus go through their morning routines,) get lunch, either before or during a lengthy bike ride; come home, lounge for a while, have dinner, watch the news (CityTV at 6) watch TV and/or go for a late night walk, come home and try to focus on all my shit that I ought to be doing in theory.

There's plenty of room in there for taking care of business but it does not get properly. Lemme address that.

After I saw Robyn on Saturday we agreed to hang out the next convenient time when she wouldn't be working. That was Monday. She fell ill during the day apparently after drinking some kind of aloe beverage - I maintain that if you put something on burns it is best not served as a drink - but by the evening was apparently good to go.

So we went out for a hot beverage on a warm July evening and waxed philosophical... mostly on her situation at work, some recent trouble she'd been having. I think she may be the victim of a conspiracy, but because I actually was the victim of a conspiracy, I may be seeing things from a skewed position. Besides, the people she works with seem generally well-meaning. We spent an equal or greater amount of time discussing body hair and other physical curiosities. Regarding my current beardiness, I asked if women prefer men with or without facial hair. She said for her part she likes the idea of a man who changes it up often enough.

Right now, I'm just too damn lazy to shave. And I keep getting positive feedback on it.

Anyway, amidst all the various disturbing notes of discussion, we came to agreement on one unrelated point when she asked what I'd been up to: when you don't have anything to do, your motivation goes to hell. There are things I should be doing and things I want to be doing and to be honest I'm doing neither. Lately it's a lot of staying up until 3 AM just passing the time. Years ago I'd have been writing, but I'm finding it a herculean task just to string coherent sentences together (writing in SWP is easy enough because I've never bothered to try making this thing coherent.)

I probably thought I had something to say for the rest of this entry, but as it turns out, I really didn't. I tried to access the part of my brain that writes posts and it just froze up. That's how uninspired I am lately, I can't even ramble about nothing. I'm hardly the man I expect myself to be these days. Such is the nothingness of summer.

I'll figure it out eventually. At least I've still got a comic strip I can work on.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

12.11: Shampoo and berries

So it's Sunday night. Real late, although Caffeine Man over here hasn't been chugging it down. It's after 1 AM and I'm only on the drowsy side, reliving the Coke I cracked open at 10 and the fruit juice I've drank since. I've just been chilling out today, wondering if I'm ever going to do the shit I need to.

I had this dream last night. It was one of those fascinating dreams with a few varied, unrelated scenes. Also, one where you could take nearly every icon and image and tie it into something you'd recently done or seen. Broken down into sections:

I took a train to the city to visit Alyssa, whom I haven't actually seen since the middle of semester 1. I arrived at her place and she was surprised to see me as I was an unexpected visitor. Nonetheless, she was cordial and offered me a big slice of meat for dinner, which is interesting since she's been a vegetarian since I've known her. The idea of her not knowing if I was coming recalls an incident where I planned to visit her at her apartment during our first year of postsecondary, and since I didn't confirm with her that I was coming immediately beforehand, she was surprised to see me when I arrived. Also, the buzzer of her building wasn't working at the time, so someone let me in, adding to the surprise.

My brother and I began playing a table-hockey game, the kind with maneuverable players (like foosball with pucks.) We had a game like this as kids but I hadn't thought about it in years. Also in the dream, the game was a little broken.

So lastly in the dream I began the new school year. Except I( was back at ROPS. And I don't mean, in the dream, I was young, I mean I was 21 years old and suddenly I'd decided it was time to transfer back to grade 8. And who was there with me? Robyn, of course, who was pulling the same shtick and very nervous about returning to grade 8 (??) Well, we stuck by each other and prepared to be 13 year olds, or pretend anyway. Then I went to my locker and got some linens, which needed washing. So, we walked to the dry cleaners, and on the way, some kid was playing the harmonica part of Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels," which I then began singing.

That's more or less what I remember. The grade school thing seems to come directly from my recent work on Regular Guy, whose current chapter follows a similar plot. The dry cleaner thing is probably a mental adaptation of the laundromat scenes from Dr. Horrible, which Amanda enabled me to watch on her computer. It was indeed quite awesome.

It's been a largely inactive few weeks, which accounts for the infrequent posting. I'm really squandering this summer, but I knew July was going to basically be a write-off all along. At least I don't have to deal with Xena - she's in the care of a trained, comparatively well-paid professional. Also, I haven't grown a cyst and none of my childhood heroes have performed double-homicide, so this summer is still waaaay better than last.

I've mostly just been watching myself grow facial hair. I'm usually very on top of shaving, but if I'm ever going to get lazy and let it be, it's right now, while I have nobody to impress. I ran into a couple friends the other night whilst wandering a grocery store (without any agenda) and got some positive feedback. It's not a permanent thing, but it'll be here for now. Life is the same when you have facial hair, just scratchier.

At the time, I was in Whole Foods looking for Organic Jelly Beans (so I guess i did not have "no agenda," just not an important one.) I ran into Doug and Robyn, which explains her presence in the dream; Robyn related some recent drama she'd encountered with co-workers. I hope it gets settled out, I know how bad it can be to have people against you. Or maybe I'm just paranoid (for the record, I am.) And then Doug gave me some gelato and we discussed the possibilities of grabbing a drink sometime.

Changing the subject abruptly, the other night we were going to have pizza. For whatever reason (sense of excitement?) we decided it'd be a fun night to go retro and go find a Little Caesar's, so we could have crazy bread. We went down to the Maplegrove village but the Little Caesar's that was supposed to be there was absent. While we went on our way to the one at Third Line and Dundas - diagonally on the opposite side of town - mom recalled there was a Little Caesar's off Winston Churchill. So we went to that one, and within moments walked out with two regular pizzas (they keep all their pizzas hot and rady for ordering, explaining their sparse menu. Keen.) And that was how we spent a half hour driving around for pizza. It was a lot more interesting when it happened. Crazy bread was good too.

See how boring life's gotten? It was either pizza anecdote, or Amanda and I met up for coffee and we discussed out book and her wedding.

Life has slowed down. The gang will be back from Europe soon, which should be good. I spoke to Chris Ferg recently, and of course Risk is in order. His description of their trip also disappointed me as it was lacking any Eurotrip-style misadventures.

I need to take some action. The other exciting thing around here is that Eric and Brandon sat around all night playing Bubble Bobble. In aobut 3 hours they got to the boss, which is decent.

I used to be excited about doing entries. Now I just sigh and think "Time to tell people aobut my boring life."

And yet I still write 'em.

And yet you still read 'em.

Heh. Awesome. Keep on rockin
-Scott

11.1: A tweak in the right direction

I still link every entry back to Interneta. I'm not sure why, since I haven't done anything with that site in a long while. I had something, in its separateness from this blog, but it fell by the wayside when I got wrapped up in being a commuter and having other holes in the Internet to crawl into - Facebook, eg.

Then again, perhaps the same could be said for this blog. I mean, I went from Saturday night to Wednesday night without saying a damn thing, unheard of in past years. Now the point could be made, it's summer and I've said nothing because nothing's going on, but I'm no stranger to the nothing post. I've now done over 1000 posts, probably 900+ of which were really nothing but incoherent rants about whatever random object I happened to be looking at on my desk. What is up with my speakers, anyway?

The truth is, my day to day nothingness has really ground me down. I woke up this morning in a bit of a daze. I hadn't slept well the night before - probably, this had something to do with the copious amounts of caffeine I ingest daily, in this case not even long before bed. I also had to swap out my dvd player - again - when it became apparent that the PS2 was not feeling like co-operating with my DVD-viewing habits. Luckily, no damage was done to the disc (Superbad.) I swapped the player for a portable mini player mom had gotten as a door prize, which worked surprisingly well (when connected to my TV) at least in the short run. We'll see if it has any staying power in the long run.

Anyway, after a mostly-sleepless night I was pretty unfocussed. I didn't feel like doing anything, although it's unfair to blame that on the day, because I haven't felt like doing much lately. Hermitifying, as one friend has called it. Not a positive condition. The problem is, being my own worst enemy, I prevent myself from getting anything done, pretty actively. I've been distracting myself with little amusements, and avoiding those things that do not grant me instant satisfaction. My limbs are heavy.

Indeed I seem to be procrastinating even more hardcore than usual. Whether it's school - loans or course selections - or getting that damn job. Things that would be beneficial to me, I shun in favour of slight distractions, Wii Golf and DS Tetris and the like. I feel like a mess.

It's no picnic being inside my head these days. Such low energy. So the gray, dreary morning devolved into a thundering, stormy afternoon and then a bright, cheery evening. Go figure. When I checked the weather network this morning, it said the long-term forecast was "N/A." It shouldn't be allowed to do that, unless there's not going to be a tomorrow... which I think would at least warrant a graphic of its own.

The other day, Eric and I went to get Fish & Chips. It isn't that either of us particularly care for Fish & Chips, but Art's - a Sixth Line mainstay for years now - has a Tuesday special and we've been trying to find interesting meal ideas to get us out of the house. I hadn't been there since early in high school, grade 9 or 10 when I'd go over when friends. It hasn't changed a whit since, right down to the Trivial Pursuit cards with the somewhat out of date questions. The Fish & Chips are still decent, though.

Sunday night was Cam's 5th birthday. Go figure. He's becoming quite a little ruffian, or whatever old people call kids. He was mostly interested in playing the usual games... Octopus, Spider-Man, Hide & Seek (my personal favourite because it involves little effort on my part) and of course... wrestling. Yeah, the kid's starting in with the roughhousing, and as a result the brothers and I worked up quite a sweat tossing him around. Some extended family members - Elizabeth, her kids and aunt Marjie - were also there. Elizabeth's daughter Madison is a sweet girl but at this age, been described as a bit of a "drama queen." She's a bit grabby with her little brother, (Aaron, a real quiet kid,) but but the second anything goes wrong - bonks head, stubs toe - she wails bloody murder. Kids. Hah.

Needless to say, we'll have plenty of ammo in a decade or so when they're capable of being embarrassed of their childhood personalities. Cameron's fixation on wieners and vaginas goes at the top of that list.

I'm sorta darting all over the place, but there's not much of a narrative here these days.

I spoke to Chris F. earlier today. I told him things were boring here, and he reported some road-weariness over on that end, although not necessarily from himself. Of course, a monthlong trip through Europe isn't going to be easy on you. I'm envious, but frankly, I wish they were doing more exciting things. Hah.

The title of today's post came from someone I met recently. She had just gotten back from Russia and described it as one of those "slight life-changing experiences." I said, well that's always good when life changes, but just slightly. "Just a little tweak." She laughed along with my lame remark and noted, "Yes, a tweak in the right direction." I think that's what I need right now.

Incomplete thoughts in run-on sentences.

Me, as always, trying to get a grip on my life tonight. Every night. 1,000 nights and counting.

Oh, and I need to give myself a shave.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

10.9: Push me down in the sandbox

This is the long-awaited (by nobody) 1000th post. Yes, if every entry was a single page - which, in a lot of cases, is being modest - my blog is a Tolstoy novel. That is, if Tolstoy wrote overlong, repetitive, plotless, rambling nonsense. Of course, I prefer to think of it as a "coming of age" story, and who doesn't come of age with rambling nonsense? And it only took me 4 years to get here. Mazel tov.

Of course, this entry hits most of the same touchstones as the previous 999... nothing special; movies, rock n' roll, friends, girls and Coca-Cola all swirling around in my head.

I've had a few moments over the past few days that have helped alleviate a lot of the anxiety I'd been having about loneliness and boredom. I still have my issues - believe me I got my issues - but I've been in the business of feeling good these past few days. Good enough to not let it be ruined by sitting on the computer on Saturday night. It all started on Thursday.

It had been a mundane, uninteresting day. I can't even flipping remember what I might've done during the course of it. Most likely, I spent the entire day sitting here while Eric watched the Food network. And then we went grocery shopping. The evening passed rapidly too, by watching an episode of Last Comic Standing (that Iliza Shlesinger is a feisty one!) And then it got to be 11 or so...

CB had mentioned he planned on seeing The Dark Knight at Midnight that night the last time we hung out. I mentioned I planned on coming along. When I hung out with Robyn earlier that week, it came up, and she suggested she'd like to come along. Okay, so that's three people. Great.

Well unfortunately, much to my chagrin (but sadly not to my surprise,) I couldn't reach Robyn at the time I'd told her I'd contact her. CB had gone to the trouble of procuring tickets in advance, and now one was going to waste. Well obviously it was returned after a lengthy chat with Guest Services. I was waiting in line at the concessions by this point.

Suddenly I was approached by a familiar, friendly face: Nate, Cary's running buddy. Nate's a cool dude and every so often we run into each other and he extends the courtesy of acknowledgment each and every time, so he came over and we made small talk about what either of us is doing these days (apparently not much, certainly not my side.) We weren't in the same theatre though - I think he was seeing the 12:02 showing, and we were seeing the 12:03.

I had CB hold the place in line while I went to get seats. It wasn't toally necessary I suppose, but I didn't want it to be Spider-Man 3 again, where I spent the entire movie looking vertically up the Joker's nose. I got a good mid-level side-seat, which was as optimal as you were going to get given the crowd. Incidentally, lots of loud people, and lots of Indians. Some overlap but I don't mean to insinuate all Indians are loud or all loud people are Indian.

So the lights go down and the trailers cue up. There looks to be a good deal of interesting comic-related flicks coming up, not the least of which is Watchmen. After seeing stills I thought it was walking the borderline of being cheesy but the trailer was one of the most impressive ones I've seen since... well, the trailer for the Dark Knight. It was so astounding, Nate later messaged me saying how incredible it looked, and this statement he prefaced by saying he had zero familiarity with the source material. The catch is, Hollywood has a terrible track record when it comes to handling Moore's work (from shit like Constantine and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to more impressive yet still less interesting stuff like From Hell and V for Vendetta.) The thing is, the worst of those looked like bargain basement shit from the get-go. This looks like something else. Something special.

Another, smaller one, was for Frank Miller's The Spirit. It appears everything he knows about filmmaking he picked up by hanging around the Sin City set (all blue screens and de-sats.) I'm not overly familiar with Will Eisner's original comics, but from the trailer, it appears to be about a noir detective in a mask who bangs a wide variety of exotic, dangerous-looking women. Should be good.

Anyway, the movie. It's hard to put into words exactly how awesome the movie was, so here are some bullet points:

*Thanks to a deft script, Heath Ledger's Joker overcame the hype in the wake of his untimely death to become a truly worthy, memorable, haunting and original take on a classic character. It was like Silence of the Lambs, a little.

*The plot was unconventional for a superhero movie in that it was not only complicated, but predicated on problems not easily solved with a fight scene

*Harvey Dent, a character designed to become a murderous villain, was so well written that I was legitimately shocked at his character's turn at the end.

*Although the script shortchanges Bruce Wayne himself, I may as well say what we all secretly know: Bruce Wayne is boring as fuck and nobody wants to see him. They want to see a man in a black cape fight a lunatic in a purple suit.

*I have no idea what basis they can possibly use for a sequel with Joker out of the equation (Knightfall perhaps?) but I have faith that when they do, they'll figure it out and hit a home run.

*Bottom line, this was the Empire Strikes Back of superhero movies.

The film ended at about 3:00 AM and I crept in, still somewhat abuzz. I slept through a lot of Friday, although this had little to do with going to be close to 4.

Last night I had one objective: get to the Snooker Club. I've gone to a few of Joe's shows and I've missed plenty, but I felt there was no debate in this. It was the release party for his long-awaited EP, which I've been hearing about basically since we met. "Hey I'm Joe and I'm recording an EP, let's be friends." Well not precisely, but it's been bubbling under forever.

Now originally, I was going to catch a ride with Amanda, who was going to finally come see Joe play for once, but sadly she was called away to a family gathering. So I had to find another way there.

Tangent: I just messaged a friend on MSN. In response: "Oh hey I'm a hacker, I kinda was interested in *********@hotmail.com's life, probably shouldn't talk on her behalf." Well that was very courteous. How do you respond to that, eh? Either that's a polite hacker, or a most inventive way of saying "I don't want to talk to you."

I'll have to remember that one. Anyway, transportation.

As is always the case when I find myself in a bind such as this, I called dad. Actually, I e-mailed him and when he called later on an unrelated matter before he'd read, I asked him. He said yeah, and I asked that he pick me up around 7ish.

Well it got to be 7ish and I heard nothing from him. Then it got to be 7:15, 7:30, nothing, nothing. I began to pace annoyedly, as I always do. I don't like being kept waiting. I called his house; nothing. Called his cell; nothing. This repeated a few times and my imagination spiraled out of control with possible explanations as to my dad's lack of presence. The obvious but depressing one was that he had forgotten (but why was his cell off?) The less obvious, more petrifying, and thus more easily fixated-upon possibility was that he was injured or in trouble. I called and called. Now I just wanted to know.

Eventually he did get me. He had turned his cell off while on a business trip earlier this week and forgotten to turn it back on. Fair enough. and where was he? Well when Deb got home she suggested they go to dinner, and, indeed forgetting about me, off they went. Sigh. "I'll come get you as soon as we're done," he insisted. Groan. "Okay then."

I was annoyed and didn't want to be late, but I didn't make a big deal because I knew in the end things would work out. Dad arrived not long after and we got there frankly, in good time before even the first act had gone onstage. But it was pretty close. This was about 8:30 by now.

The first up was a fetching young blonde singer whose name I didn't catch, though Joe made reference to her later. After catching Mansoor for the first time in months, we sat and watched her play. She did a few songs on guitar, and then at least one with her instrumentation having been done in Garage Band, kept on her iPod and plugged into the sound system. It was an impressive feat, she had considerable talent. Her last song was on the keyboard. While she was on the guitar she played a slower, rather moving and much-improved version of Rhianna's Umbrella.

Although Joe was very big on the next guy to perform, Mansoor and I took the opportunity to skip out and catch up, discussing life, the past present and future outside the lounge.

Next up was Victoria, the love on Joe's life. Her performance was indeed quite impressive, a mixture of covers and originals mostly played on the keyboard. She then went over to the acoustic guitar and announced "I think everyone will know this one." She started to play some generic chords and I'm kinda thinking "What random song is this?" And then she started singing "I see a red door and I want it painted black..." Well that's a good omen right there.

Lastly was our man Joe, who opened with his energetic version of Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?" And then proceeded to play each of the tracks on the Window EP, followed by a few covers including a duet with his ladyfriend (they harmonize very well together, another good omen.)

The closing moments of the night were rather emotionally charged as the room was more full than I'd ever seen it. All the regulars were there - JB, Steph and the others from the last few times I'd been there, in addition to Vicki's family and friends and many more besides. And of course at the end of the night, we all bought our CD's.

I said a quick goodbye to Joe as Mansoor gave me a ride home. He is at the beginning of a very exciting time and I cannot wait to see how things unfold for him in the near future.

I've been running a mafia game at CX, which is fun for me since I'd done a few at other forums and they're always a big hit (albeit sometimes stressful to be playing when you find yourself a target.)

I've got some writing and drawing to do. More to come later, as always.

Here's to the next 1000, eh?

Motherfucker.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

9.8: Baby if you've ever wondered what became of me

Some people make New Year's Resolutions. But need one confine self-improvement to one day per year? I make every day resolutions. Yesterday's, of course, was "Start making more resolutions." Pretty self-explanatory. They don't need to be too life-changing (what, me, change my life? Pshaw.) Today's is "work the word 'chicanery' into everyday conversation." Or at the very least, a blog. Check.

I left off at some point describing my weekend. This would sound ridiculous as it is now Tuesday, but since the average rate of things happening in my life is approximately 1 thing per 6 days, we're fine.

I was hanging out with Chris and Cary on the weekend, as I mentioned, and both mentioned that they read this blog. It's flattering, you know, but every time people confess to reading this thing, I'm faced with a minor internal conflict. Am I really providing a substantial source of entertainment, even to people that know me? Day after day I do battle with myself on this subject: the blog craze died down like 2 years ago and here I sit, banging out the 999th in my continuous never-ending thread of go-nowhere anecdotes about my personal life that are more or less merely a handy reference guide for me to determine when things happened.

But all the same, I always remind our wonderful readers that if they don't feel like they're getting their $0.00 worth, they can click back, and thus anyone who keeps coming back is clearly satisfied with the level of service provided, and we will continue our arrangement, with me typing and 12 people reading. So there we are, guys. You too, Linda.

So we were playing Guitar Hero all night. Linda came in and I asked her how Europe was. She spoke very highly of it, which was the incorrect response to give someone who's been chained to the rock like Prometheus (read a book, pleebs!) all summer. but she was very reassuring in insisting I should scrape the money together as soon as possible and get out there. Man, I was fired from a job painting houses. In my future, a great fortune ain't.

Sunday, however, was another story. I had some offhand remark about this in the previous entry but got derailed somehow (like always.) So I'll elaborate. Life is a combination of getting lucky breaks and making your own fortune. Sometimes you can plan and try hard and come to nothing, but it's all circumstance that pushes you over the edge. If I'm not making sense, it's because what I'm saying makes no sense, but it's my obligatory philosophical topic paragraph before describing what I'm really on about. It's the type of literary chicanery (check) you must have noticed by now I'm into.

My typical response to boredom these days has been to go on a lengthy bike ride to fill my days. Granted, this has delayed my attempts to get work, fill out necessary paperwork, writing anything interesting, and just about anything that doesn't involve speeding around town on two wheels, but it's a lot more uplifting than much of those things. As for routes, there aren't that many different ways to go.

For the past month and a half, I've been trying to get a hold of Robyn. Mostly, because she's acknowledged she's not likely to be the one to do so if she wants to hang out with me, and I don't want our friendship to evaporate (again.) And of course, because I spend 90% of my time bored, and the other 10% asleep. (In case you think those numbers don't add up, I'm even bored in my sleep a lot of the time.) So the remedy for boredom is to hassle any friends I can. This has included randomly going to Dominion to find CB, weekly coffee with Manda, trying to see if Kenzi is ever in town, and of course, lots of calls to Robyn's house, which most often results in a brief conversation with roybn's mother. "Hello?" "Hello, is Robyn there?" "Let me check... no, sorry she's at work/yoga/anywhere else." "Okay, tell her Scott called." (Or, after 10 or so in a row, that last line is replaced with an embarrassed hangup.)

Well I finally did catch up with her while I was randomly biking around town. She was on her way home from work and somehow we came to opposite sides of a crosswalk. Amazed that I wasn't hallucinating (I hadn't actually spoken to her in so long I was becoming convinced she was just a figment of my imagination) we started to catch up and I found out when she wasn't working. Incidentally, that was the next day.

Without anything to do that day, except wait around to flip steaks every hour or so, I called her up and, as we have too many times to count, we went for a coffee. This involved a somewhat amusing (in a "you had to be there and even then not quite laugh-out-loud" way) revelation that although we'd been to Starbucks plenty of times, we both actually preferred Tim Hortons.

After stopping off to see a free magic show at an ice cream place, wherein we both helped with the trick and Robyn got herself a balloon giraffe, we went down to the lake to swat bugs and talk. The conversation, naturally, turned to the subject of dolphin rape. Don't worry - I mean, in this scenario, the dolphins (as I had read earlier that day and was oddly eager to share) were the aggressors. Robyn wondered aloud how someone gets raped by a dolphin. She also offered to pay me 20 bucks to jump right into Lake Ontario. I declined on the grounds that I was pretty sure there were dolphins in there, and I'm saving myself for a sweet young dewgong.

(And if you don't get that one, ask me sometime.)

To placate my paranoid, self-destructive mind, I got her to re-iterate that she wasn't avoiding me and that it was generally a good call that I keep calling her sometimes at an insane frequency. That is to say, how frequently I call her, not some sciencey-type broadcast thing.

She noted my haircut and I brought up my "cut your problems out" theory, which she agreed there was something to. Elsewhere, she mused on the effectiveness of certain facial washes, stuff I probably could've used when I was 15 (I was a mess and yet by all accounts I seem to have turned out okay.)

There's more to my recent goings-on, but I'll let them percolate further and leave off tonight. It's late and I have a comic I should consider lettering.

I didn't get my shit done today. I wanted to, but was lured away by comedy articles about video games. God damn you, Cracked.

Let's just be thankful my computer discourages YouTube use, otherwise I'd just sit around watching Let's Paint TV.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

8.7: She can't find the moon or the secrets I keep

There are any number of ways I could approach the beginning of this entry. When I sit down to write a new one I try to begin with a broad statement and go into detail. There are many that come to mind. "Things are starting to turn around" is bland but not inaccurate. "Suddenly finding out who is in my audience has given me some perspective on things" makes me seem a bit wiser than I actually am. "Sometimes making things happen takes a combination of action and luck" is vague and somewhat self-contradicting if not blatant obviousness. The one I'm gonna settle for?

It never hurts to cut your problems out of your hair.

I often relate the anecdote of when I first saw Alyssa after she'd come back to Oakville. She'd long since dropped out of school and shacked up with her boyfriend. When they split (weird speculation: in that entire time I haven't heard of her dating anyone, but then again neither have I. I'm just not as much of a catch) she had to come back to Oakville and was apparently quite bummed about the way her life had been going. She mused that the next thing she needed to do was get a new hairstyle. The idea came up that that sort of reinvention goes a long way toward de-stressing. I reasoned that that means that all the problems in life are trapped in one's hair. The number of stressed-out bald people walking around seems to contradict this (my Grade 8 French teacher being my prime example.)

So I'd been carrying a great deal of distress under my shaggy coif. I was crying out in boredom and loneliness. I was able to channel a lot of this into creativity. Jasmin and I have a poem contest going on, wherein we provide each other with words and compose poems to use them. It's an idea I got from Alyssa long ago (a lot of her in this entry... I wonder how she's been lately) and Jasmin really took to it. Anyway, she couldn't choose between "Umbrella" and "Story" so I decided to give her a two-fer. After some contemplation I bound the two into a metaphor representing my loneliness and despair. When I presented it to her Friday night I kinda kicked an imaginary clump of dirt and shrugged and said "It's a bit darker than I usually go but I hope you enjoy it."

Well, apparently, it struck a chord with her, and it was indeed the appropriate time because it matched how she too was feeling. Apparently a male friend of hers cut off their friendship recently because his girlfriend had become jealous. I think that's a really crappy thing to do and no way to treat a friend. I've never been put in that situation, admittedly, for obvious reasons... but I like to think of myself as a peacemaker, a compromise artist. A sly cat.

I was unwinding on Saturday morning, as has become ritual, with Amanda over a coffee and a breakfast sandwich. The previous week I had been ungainly morose, utterly fixated on my station in life. I must not have been very good company, but I started to cheer up when the two of us hit on something that might actually be a really fun project. Anyway, this week was different. Even if I'd brought the moroseness, we'd have had no time for it. Amanda, after being engaged basically as long as I've known her, (minus about a month,) has finally set a date for her wedding. After I got over my initial disappointment at not being her Maid of Honor, (or is that Made of Honor, Patrick Dempsey?) She started musing about how there weren't many good venues around and other little details. She tended to favour a sandwich selection rather than buffet dinner, which I agree with. Also, she cautioned me not to under any circumstances stand when asked "Does anyone object?" and announce that I was pregnant with her baby, or that she was her own evil twin. I guess I can live with this.

Marriage. It's a tricky subject for me. I don't think it's something you should enter into lightly, and I know Amanda and Bryan aren't. They've been together a very, very long time and have taken this inch by inch. Marriage seems to be breaking out all over the place. My cousin, I suppose, is still engaged and nobody really knows what's going on with that, we don't have the gall to ask. A friend of mine of many years (like, we met each other as very young children) recently announced her engagement and it blew my mind.

Like I said, marriage isn't something I'd suggest anyone enter into lightly. It's a serious lifestyle commitment not to mention a legal and financial one. I don't know how many people who get married are aware of or maybe care about the crushing divorce statistics in our recent era. Me, I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about them and this would keep me from asking. Could I do it? I wouldn't be able to say "'Til death do us part" with a straight face, I don't imagine. I'm capable of loving another human being. (I assume.) I'm just not capable of putting that kind of commitment onto paper.

It was after our little conference that I went to the barber. I'd been needing one for a while, although not as long as my mom thinks since a month or so ago at my birthday she suggested I did and we all (me and maybe my brother) disagreed. But by July it became obvious that the shagginess was become too much. So I tracked down my usual barber. She's a great gal, young, I talk about her every time I get a haircut. We caught up - since I tend to go about 4 months or so without seeing her - on what I'd been doing and how she'd been dieting (I didn't want to say so, but I could tell. when I admitted to this, a sheepish change of topic followed.) I fudged the facts of my life to make it a bit more pleasant in conversation, explaining the job I may or may not soon opt to have.

So the haircut is short. I always look different freshly out of the barber's chair. A new, slicker look and it gives me a bit of a slicker attitude. Maybe.

I killed the day in my usual way, searching for garage sales (nothing interesting to be found.) In the evening I wandered a long time until sunset in a brief spitting rain, in search of comfort and coffee. I found a giant-ass rainbow, which although it sounds odd, made me smile, because although it's just light refracted through raindrops, it's one of those amazing natural sights. A giant-ass rainbow. The type Thor might ride to get to Asgard.

When I got home, Cary messaged me, asking what I was up to. My reply, "No thing. Two words for emphasis" got the point across. He was in town and wanted to see if I'd be down to chill with him and CB. Well of course. We ended up playing Guitar Hero at his place until about 1. I stayed up late, writing. At some point recently I wrote most of a new chapter for Melancholy Catatonia take 2, which has finally brought some of the funny (in my opinion) back to it.

Anyway, it's gotten ridiculously late. More stuff has been going on, but I'll have to think about it later. But I've got a good feeling these days. Well, decent anways.

C'est la vie.

...Which is french for Keep on rockin'
-Scott

7.6: They don't know what I remember

So what fills the days of an unemployed slacker guy like myself?

Well, not a whole lot of social interaction. We've established a pattern here and it doesn't look like it's going to break. We all know my friends are scattered and I frankly haven't got the energy to check in on most of the ones I have left here. Many of them work most days of the week. There doesn't seem to be many ways out of this place so here I am and anyone who wants me knows where to find me. I still call Robyn often enough to be slightly creepy about it. Maybe I'll actually talk to her herself eventually. I'm not terribly optimistic about it though.

So what's left is a lot of random biking and Van Halen. I go through a lot of musical kicks, and this week's (after two weeks ago's Tom Petty) is VH. nothing too obscure of theirs and only David Lee Roth, but I have really been digging "Dance the Night Away." there's something wonderfully and probably unintentionally nostolgic about Eddie's guitar riff on that one. It's quite sweet and yet also sexy (if it weren't, and Roth were singing, it'd be embarrassing.)

So I mean, obviously, I've been doing nothing. Really nothing. The other thing I do is ingest caffeine, largely out of sheer boredom (and it's a cheaper drug than alcohol.) Last night I stayed up until 3 AM writing things I had promised people long ago but weren't of terrible consequence to me. After waking up at 6 AM to the sound of my mom and my boarder discussing his being locked out of his room I fell back asleep for 6 hours, basically sleeping in. Of course, it's debatable whether it qualifies as sleeping in when one never ever has anything important to do whatsoever.

I've also spent a lot of time reading Cracked.com. I'm a bit annoyed about it, since I used to read the magazine all the time as a kid, but outgrew it around the time it stopped publishing. And now its rebuilt itself as a fairly kickass entertainment/popculture humour blog the likes of which Matt Caracappa wishes he could've dreamed (if a tad on the cynical side) and I can't stop reading it.

I've got this shit I should be taking care of, none of it feels important. I'm in a writing slump. I'll try to knock out a comic strip before bed tonight but I'm just so low energy. Fuh. This despite the caffeine. I wish I could be satisfied with anything I've written lately and have the urge to add to it, but I'm just kinda spinning my wheels. This is all amiss.

I need to get my vigor back. This is just a tad more morose than I'd intended but still maybe a bit more interesting than the story about how we spent more than we'd intended on groceries tonight.

Anyway, keep on rockin'
-Scott "I can't believe I've done this over 990 times" Williams

6.5: The same conversation twice

I'm not a fighter.

Pretty stark statement, but not a controversial one. I don't just mean physically, either. Sure, I refused to fight RyLai a few weeks back on the grounds that if he kicked my ass intoxicated, then I'd have nothing, and if I beat his ass intoxicated, (less likely) it would prove nothing. But I mean in life. I can be a bit of a defeatist.

I have written off many a promising young lady because of one bad experience or unlucky moment. My one major relationship I gave up on without much struggle. The next closest thing I had disappeared and neither of us seemed to notice. A month ago, I was fired, and instead of asking "Why the fuck would you fire me? What's going on here? Can't I just get another chance?" I shrugged, smiled, told her "Thanks anyway" and decided it was for the best.

However, a normal person probably would've been fired, tried to get a new job, and gotten on with his life. Apparently not me. This is no open-and-shut case. The mystery remains.

It's like this: after I was fired, I did a favour for James, my dad's girlfriend's son (the word "stepbrother" has never been used, but more or less I suppose) and got him an interview with Kerisa, which ultimately, as I found out today, got him my old job. He seems to be cool with it, too, moreso than I ever was, so everybody wins. But there's this weird dangling plot thread.

"Nobody seems to know why you were fired," he told me. Apparently not even Kerisa. First off, it's nice to know that the others are still thinkin' a little of me since I've been long gone. Second, it re-affirms my thoery, that I was railroaded from the beginning, that Kerisa's douchebag manager didn't like me and decided to have her cut my ass loose as soon as possible before he even saw me get decent at the job. I knew about this from the second day; this decision was made right after the first day and was constantly lingering in the background, although it was not made apparent to me that it was still an issue until after the infamous Spackle-debacle (traumatizing, but amusingly rhymeful.) After that was over with, I worked one or two more days, was put on hold, and finally cut loose after a week of inactivity. She never specifically said why I was fired and I never really cared to ask.

I have something on the go now. It's not glamorous. Hell, it doesn't even look that appealing. But it's simple, profitable, and suited to my writing abilities, not to mention do-able from home. Since I've basically re-adapted to being a shut-in and would resist a change in that by now, this is fine, even though I find it hard to get motivated in this chair while Eric halfway across the room watching the Food Network of TLC reminds me how empty this existence is. As cool as Alton Brown is, I've probably gotten more than enough of him this past month.

The rest of my day-to-day life has been spent staying up late, sleeping late, observing random girls on this dating site (my online version of people-watching) and generally not holding up my end of the "existence" bargain. Slowly but surely, however, I'm penetrating that to-do list, deep and hard.

If you have to ask whether I meant to write it that way, ask yourself whose blog you're reading.

The point is, I have a comic review to write before bed (which lately has been around 2:30 or 3) and more random scrawlings than I care to count up. Perhaps I've got too many irons on the fire, and worse yet none of them pay. Aieee.

I'm all over the place. Trying to keep my pace, though.

That almost sounded good. Keep on rockin'
-Scott

5.4: Complete control

I think I'm going to start re-reading On the Road, the Jack Kerouac book that ranks among my favourite pieces of writing. It could be a way for me to vicariously leave my dreary setting and transplant myself into the ever-changing setting of the story. I never thuoght I'd be one of those spazoids who actually needed books to use as escapism like that, but here we are.

I'm not actually all that down about it, I'm kidding. I just thought maybe I'll go ahead and read it again. I didn't even technically finish it the first time.

I'm just trying to live my quaint little life. Resigned as I am to my situation, all I can do now is enjoy it as best I can. That's just a smidgen depressing, but it's all the freedom I've got until September, when it's back to school. Sometimes I wonder why I do the things I do to myself. Then I realize it's because I don't know what else to do.

So after last year's transfer SNAFU my whole situation with Queen Elizabeth II scholarship was a big question mark. By now I know the answer: it doesn't matter, because my GPA was just barely too low to qualify (by .15 or so) but if I had qualified then all the paperwork would have been in order. Well that's re-assuring I suppose. It would've been nice, since it was free money I won't be getting, but I didn't qualify so I didn't qualify. And that was with one guaranteed A.

But yes, I have indeed been taking care of some necessities. I did a little more work on Melancholy last night, some pretty good stuff. Unfortunately it still falls into the realm of tinkering rather than consistent work. But it is something.

It's amazing how this summer pivoted so quickly. At one point it looked like it would be dreary and I would be constantly busy. Instead it's dreary and I'm constantly bored. And that was a month ago and I'm still in awe.

So this random girl added me on MSN this morning, first thing after I turned on my computer. It was suspicious but I wanted to see where it was going. Predictably, she was trying to sell me a webcam show. I wasn't really into it, as tempting as "Ill get naked if u do" was sounding. Somehow I don't think my brother would've cared for that.

Am I really so bored that I would even consider the random meaningless advances of camgirl? The truth is closer to yes than I'd care to admit. Facing facts, I'm stuck in this goddamn town with my few friends all off doing their own things most of the time. I'm not as broken up as I was last week but ole Scotto's still feelin' left out a tad. But it's not so bad I can't be amused by it.

Xena was here this weekend but mercifully left earlier this evening. She's gotten very hostile toward Max these days. Poor guy's got enough to deal with.

It's still difficult to suss out, though, how I want to do things. What I want to be doing. How I want to be. right now, anyway. I've got a lot of things going on and I've got to buckle down and focus on living my life. It's not much of one but I can handle it.

This isn't much of an entry and I haven't said everything that's on my mind. Even the things I have said I haven't really said well. I must really need to clear my mind. It'll be fine.

Won't it?

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

4.3: Treat me like you did the night before

The first time I was ever here it was November 2004, right after the last Earnest show. I've been here innumerable times ever since, especially over the past year, whether for a party or a small hangout, or even just to pick something up. But I've never sat here, at the Ferguson house, all by my lonesome.

I'm dogsitting. I hadn't heard any follow-up on Cary's request between the time he asked and last night, when I was bored and afraid I'd fallen into a parallel dimension when Eric accidentally cut the extension cord with the hedge-trimmer. I texted Cary around midnight asking whether he still wanted me to dogsit. He replied yes, and that details would follow when he was less drunk. Fair enough.

This morning I met with Amanda. I have to admit for a lot of the morning I was a huge downer. I don't know what came over me but thinking about things caused me to kind of go back into my bummer mode. I dunno, just attempting to converse about my life in reasonable terms led me to just flip out, which is not at all out of character. I found it hard to believe a while back when a friend told me she couldn't imagine me losing my cool.

Anyway, as we got to talking we were browsing Cole's as usual, musing about literature and publish and eventually she jokingly said we should write a book together in the Pre-teen Fantasy genre. She didn't seem too thrilled with my first pitch, "Franken-Ninjas," so I then pitched a cross between the escapist magic of Harry Potter and the outrageous lasciviousness of Gossip Girl. And then something weird started happening. We actually started brainstorming a series of fantasy novels, and the idea took shape from there. We started laying out characters and objectives and antagonists... suddenly it's not a joke and it actually seems like something we can do. And it's this amazing feeling I haven't gotten in a long while: the feeling of being a writer. The feeling of building a project from the ground up and having confidence in it. The only original idea I'd had in seemingly years prior was for a film I haven't written (although I did write down a decent plot summary.) I've still got so many projects from along the years that I've been burning off, so the thought of doing something new has seemed impractical. But I like this, I like the feeling it gives.

We left off on that, suddenly lifting me spirits. I biked the long way home, by which I mean I went the opposite direction and took a little tour up Trafalgar and then down Cross. As I was heading for the path under the QEW, my phone started to ring. It was Cary with the details on the dogsitting. It was pretty straightforward... come over, hang out, feed the dog, let her out, keep her company, et cetera. While we talked, Robyn of all people rolled by on her blades. She had to get to work.

So now here I am, taking care of business. I was figuring maybe I'd get CB over and hang with him, but he is, as he occasionally goes, unavailable. Others I also tried were similarly preoccupied. So I've just been talking to the dog, playing video games, and reading old entries (which is a sure sign an evening is going nowhere.) It's been kind of weird and quiet and relaxed. Being really self-reflective without being too down about it. There are better ways to spend a Saturday, but it's something ain't it?

After all, everything these days seems to be dogs. If it ain't dogsitting for Cary, it's being responsible for Max, or having Grandma leave Xena at our place this weekend. So in essence by taking care of Kylie over here, I'm avoiding other canine problems... for now. I just know that I'm gonna have to deal with it tomorrow anyway. It's just my lot.

Amanda, when we were talking earlier, was insistent that I need to get out of this town. Lamentably, I know this, and yet I am powerless to do so myself. The thing is, I wasn't that bad over the school year, it' just these days. If reading the old entries has shown me something, it's that I should try to surround myself with people who know me. It's a shame that I couldn't raise anybody on the phone but that's the way it goes.

I leave well enough alone for tonight on that note. Life, like anything else, is just what you make it. I hope you have a good night, sexy.

Yeah, I mean, I can imagine there are sexy readers out there. Maybe.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

3.2: Soundless sleep

I'm having a weird night. I keep getting paranoid that technology no longer works. No that I was suspecting a call or an e-mail, but not even spam has come in recently. And I'm one of those fools who doesn't go long without checking e-mail.

I made a list last night of things I had to do or could be doing, along with stuff I could be working on or writing, and people I could potentially contact. It's supposed to be a guideline for ways I can avoid doing nothing all the time. Though I'm not as low as I was on Monday, the fact has become apparent to all that I am in a rut.

I can tell I'm in a rut, because I'm frequenting that site more often, that lame-ass dating site that has a few cool chicks on it and a lot of lame ones. Occasionally I'll see a girl whose profile hits close to my ideal and I'll try to come up with a witty opening line, but I'll usually just end up getting flustered and typing something that sounds creepy, and then, well, if it even warrants a reply the conversation usually won't last long. I'm not cut out for that shit. I need to start meeting girls in person.

Sorry, I'm kind of a mess. All over the place. It isn't that I'm terribly bummed, yet the circumstances would suggest otherwise as I dictate them. My life isn't a whole lot of fun right now. I used the word "rut" once or twice already, didn't I?

Someone recently described my wallet as "kinda girly," possibly because it has a change pocket. I'm not sure what other attributes would make a wallet girls, especially since I got it from amongst a variety of other men's wallets (as I understand, womens tend to be fitted more to purses than pockets. Could be mistaken. Why did I start writing about this anyway? My brain is pudding.)

What's amazing is that I've written this much and this post isn't really about anything. I was already a little nuts but I'm really starting to go quite insane. I don't have enough mental infrastructure.

The sad thing is... I'm sober. And this is what I've written. But I guess it could be worse. Actually it could be a lot worse and I damn well know it. I ought to enjoy the positives of my life more and not sweat the fuckin' small stuff. That cliche that someoee stuck into me in Grade 8 (that'd by my teacher, Ms. Mainville,) I never thought would ring true but I'm starting to come around. I just don't want this summer to suck.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

2.1: The poor guy didn't deserve it

It's been an interesting week. No, but it's been more interesting than your usual do-nothing week for yours truly.

So for a couple of days I was depressed. And then I was less depressed. And then I started being really upbeat, and I saw some boobies. And now some more stuff has me chugging along at a decent pace.

Maybe what I needed was to go over to RyLai's house to play Rock Band, which I did last night. If we can hang out some, then damn this crazy-ass summer might just work out. Rock Band always feels more like a party-activity than an actual game. You've got someone wailing away on the drums, one or two doing the Guitar Hero thing and the fourth person stepping up to the vocals. Laura was also there; I don't really know her that well, which may be why we barely acknowledged one another except for polite nodding, and she seemed slightly confused when she was leaving and I said "Nice seeing you." Anyway, since this whole thing was kinda about not having anyone to hang out with, (or feeling like nobody wanted to hang out,) it was more or less exactly what I was looking for.

I did a fair bit of vocals, which usually takes a few tunes to get into before I just start going nuts. Like the first one or two you're kinda self-conscious, and then you start to amp it up a bit, and then by the time you do Train Kept A-Rollin, you're way into the Steven Tyler "Ya-ka-ka-ka-kows." And if there's one singer I've had time to get acquainted with over the years, it's Tyler.

I'm not much of a drummer though.

The other part of the "Scotto feels wanted" cavalcade was that I've been asked to dogsit over the weekend. I was eager to accept, because it's at the Fergs and they're just down the block (assuming they just want me to go over there and feed the dog.) Nothing I can't handle, and I'm glad to be asked. I just hope I do a good job, because if something happens to that dog on my watch, I may not be allowed over for Risk again.

I've got some stuff to take care of. We put together an Ikea shelf last night to keep our DVD's now that we no longer have the giant wall unit. It'll do for now.

I've got to start getting my shit together, though. The job thing is basically a non-starter (or, non-restarter.) I did, however, send out some letters of inquiry/resumes/writing samples as needed for a few different journalistic-type endeavours listed on Craigslist, stuff I'd be qualified for although maybe not my dream positions (and if you want to know what kind of positions I'm in when I'm dreaming... ahem. Dirty. But isn't that what this audience is here for anyway?)

But yeah. It's July now, I guess I'm at the point where I can either get my shit together and enjoy my summer, or be lazy and frustrated. My future's in my hands.

I suppose it could go either way, but I'm doing well right now.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

1.0: No shortage of stones for skipping

There's only one thing to do when life sucks:

Blow something up.

It's like this. I was pretty freakin' low last night. My faculties of expression basically fled me and I couldn't explain with all the nuance and subtlety that I intended exactly why Two aborted entries prior to the still-weak one I actually did last night attest to this. Partly, because when I complain about something on the blog, I don't want to lay the blame on anybody, particularly not anybody who might read this and take offense. So I was trying to blame myself but my only fault - and it's not a small one - is reacting too negatively to my own situation, and to the situations of others, and how others treat me, most likely without their realization. As I mentioned there, I'm sensitive, and not in the "I feel your pain" way. More like the, ah, "I feel my own pain" way. But we know that already, don't we?

So why am I so chipper, so talkative today? Damned if I know. I went to bed still with a dark cloud over my head, didn't sleep well, and woke up with it still hanging there. And over the course of the day it did dissipate, but gradually.

I was out a lot, soaking up that vitamin D, wandering and wondering. As in many of my lower points, the teachings of Buddha eventually crept into my head. Existance, you know, is suffering, and that suffering is caused by the desire (to have and control things.) And it seems odd, but this is comforting, taken as a universal truth. It rings true. I have yet to hear a religious doctrine that summarizes the human experience so succinctly and accurately. And while it seems pessimistic, there's also hope in there, which is why it got me cheered up.

So this is what I was thinking as I was zipping around on my bike without any agenda. I was supposed to go help my grandma connect her phone, but I couldn't get over there because my mom took the spare keys and r-u-n-n-o-f-t with them. And when I tried to call, I got nothing - which I assumed was because here phone hadn't been set up, but given she called alter, I guess it was something else (obviously she's smart enough not to have already disconnected her previous phone.)

So I was biking and as is not uncommon, I found myself down by the lake. It being Canada Day, there was of course a sizeable crowd there, and I'm usually not fond of that, but it was an interesting mix of people - and by that I mean, not entirely old people, but also young ladies. And as I sat in the vicinity of some very attractive chicks while they sunbathed in bikinis on the grass, they talked in French (possibly about me, for all I know, "Look at that silly man trying not to stare at our gorgeous bodies, he is not succeeding at all!") things began to seem all right. And while commenting on their ridiculous hotness seems shallow... where do you think you are? It's not all awesome metaphors and clever wordplay. At the end of the day, I do love a good eyeful of boob.

So I sat by the lake a while and skipped stones, since the beach there is made of rocks rather than the more traditional sand. And things started to feel okay. And maybe my life does suck and maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and be totally bummed out again. Lord knows things haven't changed enough to keep that from happening. But all the same I know things can work out fine these days.

So that brings us to explosions. It wasn't much of an evening. I did call Robyn and she was spending the day with family (understandishable) so I hung out with the bros. At one point I went over to the corner store and decided the affirmative way to chase my blues away was to blow something up. Sitting right there was the remaining selection of fireworks for Canada Day. The fact that we live in a country where one can walk into a corner store and purchase explosives is worth celebrating in and of itself.

I've never set off fireworks myself, and decided to change this. So the three of us went out to the WOSS football field with four crackling rockets and a BBQ lighter. The lighter was inconsistent and would take a few tries to catch, but once it did... damn was it a sight to see that flare rise up into the night sky and burst. It was the right kind, flashy and noisy, not one or the other. It was fun.

But like I said; with things not really being different, maybe I'll go back to being down tomorrow. I feel a little guilty for being so obsessed with my own slight depression, for calling attention to it, but as you can imagine it's kind of my main thought at the moment. If you see me in public, I'll probably be pretty upbeat (glad to be out of the house.) If you ask what's up with this, I'll probably level with you, and because it came up at all, I'll probably get cheered up. I just have a problem with my current station in life and how isolated I am from so many of the people I care about, (and I assume care about me. Part of the problem is that not hearing from them causes that assumption to reverse.)

I'd sum it up with this anecdote from the first version of yesterday's post:

Several years ago, in Grade 12 (there's a sentence that suddenly sounds odd,) I was really bummed out one day. I was having some self-inflicted teen angst bullshit that frankly wasn't too different from what's going on right now. I was taking it really badly and was morose all day, including through a session of Improv team. Well the next day I was hanging around after school and who should come to me but Alyssa, who had noticed my mood being out of sorts. By this time, we had only been friends a few months, but those were the Improv days and we worked together a lot and got to know each other well. And she cared enough to bring me a "Cheer Up Scott" cupcake. She was always with the baked goods. It was a vegan cupcake, but the message was beautiful. And I felt like suddenly how I felt mattered to other people.

Flash forward just over a year and Alyssa is back in Oakville. She'd given up a while earlier on Ryerson and went into co-habitation with her then-boyfriend. Apparently, in early February, they split up thus necessitating her move back, and who should she call but me? Her life in upheaval at the time, I imagine she was distraught and I hoped, by meeting her for coffee and conversation - at that point out first in several months (although we've gone much longer without talking since,) - I could do the same as she'd done me earlier, cheering her up and showing her that her feelings matter. Reassurance, I suppose. A friendly voice. It was a warm moment. The thought went on to ruminate that the lack of that is what's troubling me.

But I'm actually still in a good mood today, so I'll not end this post with a sigh of grief. Instead, a few thoughts that have randomly occurred to me over the course of the last few days.

They are going to rebuild Yankee Stadium in the near future. This is a great idea, and I'll tell you why. Yankee Stadium is a classic American ballpark, a New York Landmark, a great piece of architecture and even a great establishing shot in dozens of episodes of Seinfeld. It's been the site of many glorious victories for the Yankees, probably innumerable father-son memories, and other great moments. But when I went there in 2005, there was a hitch. We were travelling without the bus that day so most of us had our backpacks on us. This being New York City in the post-9/11 world, they didn't permit luggage into the stadium. We shrugged it off and obeyed, but what they had us do was pretty ludicrous. While half the students (mostly the girls and younger guys) were taking their seats, Rosser and the senior guys (such as myself) and some others had to go down the block and deposit all the backpacks in a bowling alley. Now, it's one thing that they don't allow baggage in Yankee Stadium. That's their right. But they don't even have the facilities to properly enforce that rule, and so they have to rely on a bowling alley around the corner.

So I hope the new Yankee Stadium has a baggage check on the premises. I know that, if there's a bomb in the bag, the place would possibly still be in danger, (there are ways around this) but at least you wouldn't have to go put it in a bowling alley down the street.

The other thing was, when I was in HMV recently, I was looking at belt buckles. I don't wear the kind of belts that use custom buckles, but I was wondering about options if I ever did. There was evening a nice-looking Aerosmith buckle, which I would've gotten. Then I realized that I'm really not comfortable with people examining my crotch to determine what kind of music I'm into. As much as I love Aerosmith (and that is a LOT) I don't need their logo sitting right above my groin.

And that's where the post ends. Keep on rockin'
-Scotto