7:00 AM: For Pete's Sake

Okay, let's do this.

Urk. A Friday night at home with TV and Guitar Hero. Sounds about right for me. Admittedly my last few weekends have been decent ones, so it's no surprise things should get back to this speed. I'm not all that down at it neither, although I'd admit it's always nice to have a night out. After all, I've had plenty of nights in in my time, I'm just not obsessive about getting out. If I go 6 months without another night out, well shucks, then I'd be concerned.

Mind you, I should be going at a faster pace than this by all rights. I don't know what RyLai, or Cary, or Conorton is doing tonight but the smart money is that it's more noteworthy than what I've been doing over here. But I could spend pages and pages of this blog (and sometimes it feels like I have) pondering the hypotheticals of what if my life were different and I'd taken the oh-so-obvious step of actually moving out of my house? I'll tell you this much - I'd feel plenty worse about not having anything to do on a Friday night.

Well, now that I've gone and justified that, let's move on.

I've been personally frustrated lately. It's the usual suspects at the root of this all, with whatever doubts I have about my personal life and creative output compounded by annoyance at my academic responsibilites. Basically, all the bullshit of life has got me down. This leads to me feeling sulky and all these problems getting worse. I'm not upset about anything, I'm not depressed or angry or even all that desperate and lonely. I'm just tired and want to relax. For a very long time. I'd like to isolate myself, not go on trains or sit in class, not talk to people in person or MSN (with all due respect to them) and just... try to re-align my shit. I know, following the Christmas break that sounds like an odd request, I should've done that already, but... well, it being the holidays and Eric being here and me working sometimes kinda made it tough. Admittedly, doing nothing would get old before long, but the aim is that I would straighten out those minor items on my to-do list. Do some writing, polish off my undone reviews. Meditate a bit. TCB.

It was with that in mind that I did not go to class Thursday. I know, cliche. I mean, when you don't live a brief walk from school, skipping class takes on a new meaning, not something you do on a whim. Going to class, and therefore not going to class, is a commitment, a decision. My rationale was that with one class (which is low on my priorities list anyhow) it wasn't worth the risk of repeating the previous day's 90-minute train ride. So I went to the bank and cashed some cheques, which somehow led to me opening a new savings account, and then filed my OSAP. Hurray, yeah. Then I rented and watched Pineapple Express. Not bad, but not as great as Superbad and the other highlights of the Apatow canon.

For several days my MSN status was set as "Basically trying to write." While for the most part nobody notices, cares, or is intended to care about my MSN status (which often consists of pointless non-poetry, random song lyrics/tv or movie quotes I like, or genuine updates about my life) this was my way of reminding the public and therefore myself that there was still writing to be done. Specifically, I'm trying to get back to getting back to my incomplete (on paper) novel about Melancholy Catatonia, which I wrote 55,000 words off, then lost about half or more, and decided to re-do from scratch last year while reading a random book for Narrative. One of the recent books in Canadian Lit, The Diviners, which is about a young woman who must search for her identity, put me in mind of my similarly-themed concept. I've no idea if I could ever sell it, but if I intend to, it must be finished first.

Anyway. This was my MSN status when I was suddenly and unexpectedly messaged by Alyssa, whom I hadn't seen nor heard from since fall when we met up for coffee. I figure, you know how these things go... you get caught up with school and life and you lose track of people temporarily. So she asks me what I am "basically trying to write." I told her I was trying to revisit these old projects, but sadly the process seemed to chiefly involve opening Word documents, glancing at what I'd written, and sighing. From there we caught up a little bit, she still busy with school, work and dance (what I'd termed the "Alyssa Special.") Anyway, it was an encouraging conversation and the next night I ended up writing 1500 words, which is slightly less than a minimal NaNoWriMo nightly effort, sure, but far more than anything I'd written in recent months. I also have a bunch of spare lines rattling around for poetry, but one thing at a time.

Alyssa had mentioned that she'd missed the deadline, but intended to submit something for Idiom, which is basically a collection of literary papers (essays) by English majors. The guy had come to my classes advertising this, but I've never thought highly enough of my essays to believe they were worth submitting (neither do the people who mark my essays.) Alyssa, apparently, had had it suggested to her by a prof, who'd remembered her from a previous class they had. Remarkable. I've hardly spoken directly to any of the profs I've had over the past three semesters. Reiby, sure - we get along well even, I visited his class last week and implied I may drop off some material for him to enjoy (or at least read.) My first-year philosophy prof subbed in for an absent TA once. Beyond that, my most direct contact with an actual honest-to-goodness prof came this past Wednesday when I went onto the elevator to my AmLit class and there was the prof, we made chit chat about the weather, and surprisingly enough he remembered my name later (he takes attendance, which is part of the reason I make it a habit to not skip his class. So when he got to me, he just noted, "Scott - I saw you already.")

Whereas at Sheridan I was constantly in the ear of my profs. Kyle, when we ran into each other on Wednesday, asked me which I preferred. I told him they were plenty different, and I was glad to do both, but for the honest-to-goodness experience, I liked Sheridan better.

If I were getting laid currently, the response may be different. Just saying.

So it's cold down here.

I'm studying to get my driver's license. This kinda came about in gradual, and of course, since I'm 21, how much more gradual does it get? But it's like the lead-up to getting my cell phone. More and more I'm seeing times when I could use it, and things I could be missing out on, and how much later I am than everyone else in getting it. And what it takes is three instances in a short period of time to hammer this point home. Part one: Cassie's party two weeks ago, where, hypothetically, if I could've driven, certain levels of stress would be averted. Mind you, there was no car in the driveway, but maybe if I'd been able to drive, mom would've left her car and just gone with Tim in his pickup. The one-car thing is a pretty big deterrent to getting a license.

Part two was the next week, when I was getting a ride to Clarkson with that girl, who mused about how enthusiastic she'd been about driving when she was 16, and how unusual my attitude toward it had been. After all, if I had my license I wouldn't even be in her car.

Part three was the big one. Last Saturday, Amanda showed me that she'd gotten her license. She, the one who grew up with a blind mother and no car, living too far from anywhere anyway, but went all that time with no license. After Cary, then her, that leaves me as the last person standing (apart from my brothers) with no G1. Coupled with that, she offered to send me along to this website where she had already paid to take practice tests and no longer needed her account, which was paid for through the end of the month. So there. I guess it's just time.

Other examples include not getting a bank account until I had a large sum of money, and not having a photo health card until I had to leave the country (it was sufficient at the time.)

Which reminds me, I should get my passport too.

I think that covers it for tonight. I think I can muster up some material to write, provided my fingers aren't too tired. I revisited Guitar Hero III earlier and was frustrated that I am still unable to overcome the Lou battle on Hard. It left me with a deeply unsatisfied feeling that GH World Tour has yet to give me, which is a good and bad thing. More playable, less challenging. Unless you count the music studio: that's just nonsense.

I had this dream last night, more of a fragment. I was riding a bus with Cary and we were getting into this really involved conversation about music. I dunno where that came from, except I was basically repeating a rambling session I'd deposited here on SWP, in a detached and nonsensical way. I cherish my dreams nowadays. They're pleasant diversions. And I don't spend as much time as I used to in them running around in a panic.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto