Two: Safely returning home

I think my new coat may have magic properties.

I exaggerate. Admittedly, it's a really good-looking coat, fits perfectly, is warm enough for the recent temperature downturn, was reasonably-priced, and found in a store I had previously loathed. That's a great collection of attributes right there. More than that, I... I think girls like it.

There's no one incident to prove this, but you can certainly say that it makes sense that looking less like a hobo would be appealing to the ladies. It could also be that they're responding more to the new attitude the coat has given me. Walking around in that coat makes me feel like a nicer, more affable person. One who no longer carries the baggage of 6 years of frustration in his giant pockets. No longer walks with slumped shapeless shoulders. A man with some modicum of pride and self-respect. And you know what they say... fake it 'til you make it.

Interlude: I love gin so much. In the right proportion, a Gin & Tonic (or Gin & 7-Up in this case) will cause you to get drunk without even realizing it's happening. Not unlike the magic Kool-Aid at ArtSci Halloween. That should tell you a bit about how to read this entry.

So this coat. I'm walking around feeling all self-confident and stuff. In places like the GO train and TTC I keep noticing girls' glances shifting my way, something that really didn't happen with the old coat. I'm having vibrant conversations with people in my classes (Film History) I had previously only nodded and waved at. The big case I've got though, was in American Lit.

Now, I've kind of got a love/hate thing going on with AmLit. I really like the class - the readings are uniformly good, the prof is insightful, and I somehow don't even mind that it takes me until 9:45 to get home (thus thwarting my desire to watch Lost) nor that I have to eat my dinner (usually a BLT, about which I've recently become self-conscious) sitting in my seat before class starts. But the problem is that the seat I have chosen as my territory is adjacent to these people... they're really nice, and they're a small group of really good friends, and they have their friend conversations right behind me, and I just want to turn around and go "Hey, I have some thoughts on this!" And occasionally I do, and then feel like a douche for doing so. So what I'm getting at is that I feel isolated - them behind me having fun, me in my deserted row, alone and quiet, eating.

So this past week I'm half of a BLT deep when this girl sidles up. The row is empty and she chooses the seat one apart from me (unless you know someone, or seating is super-tight, you never sit directly next to someone. Besides, I was using that seat's desk for my sandwich.) I glance over, and she's well... cute. Pretty. Hot. My dark-haired/light-skinned/red-lipped type (this is what always seems to catch my eye but is by no means the only thing I like.) Well, lucky me, I think, even though I've got nothing to say and no cause to talk to her. The lively conversation behind us picks up in volume as the prof starts reading the attendance.

"I can't hear him," says the girl.

I'm not sure why she said it. It was a valid observation - the room was getting loud - but did it need to be said? Did it warrant a response? After my initial shock that someone had struck up a conversation with me (although it's been known to happen, just not normally in this place and time,) I came up with a short riff on getting him a nice big sound system, or a bullhorn, or something.

It was a good class. We looked at Howl, which brought back all kinds of wonderful memories from Grade 12 (and I mean that in all sincerity.) We listened to a reading of it and got good and deep into the meaning of the poem as far as its construction and its being a representation of beat writing. Rayter opined that it was the most widely-regarded (or best) poem of the latter-20th century, noting some compared it favorably with the Wasteland as the best poem of the entire 20th Century - expressing doubt about this, but noting it anyway.

Of course, for my money, the best poem of the century may have been "This is Just To Say" by William Carlos Williams, but that's subjective anyhow.

So after class I resumed conversation with this girl, not accidentally, and she indulged me a bit about the piece before we got to talking about the final and stuff. And then we went our separate ways.

Look, I clearly don't have a lot going on, what did you expect? A moonlight serenade?

I don't know why this innocent conversation with a new acquaintance should mean so much, and I certainly don't mean to objectify or obsess over this one girl (whose name I did get, but will not reveal over reasons of objectification and obsession) but all the same, it's progress. It's interaction. I spend so much time on the train, leaving and returning to school and home, it's a miserable feat to try to forge a real human interaction sometimes. I'd been in a rut when it came to this class especially. So maybe I'll never see her again (that much I doubt since we're in the same class and all) but it was a nice moment.

Another possibility is that I am simply losing my grip on reality altogether. On Wednesday night I had to call my brother Eric because at some point I became obsessed with the idea something bad had happened to him, and needed to hear his voice.

This week died a slow, agonizing death. Thursday was pretty brutal because I had to face the harsh realities of my History class' upcoming midterm. After grocery shopping, I was relaxing as per usual with popcorn and the Office, when Cary messaged me (which he relatively rarely does) asking whether I was in Oakville that night (an odd question, since I wouldn't be anywhere else, I don't think.) He said he was too, a remarkably subtle way of trying to hang out. I was torn between my desire to actually do something and the fact that I had class the next morning. He said he had a dentist appointment the next morning anyway, so I said fuck it, I'll come over for a few hours, what's the harm? So I got there just before 10.

Cary, not long ago, floated the idea of doing Half-Past Eight PM in Hamilton. He actually first attempted it in first year, but lacked casting resources. After I re-wrote the play and it was not accepted into the Vic Drama Festival (potentially because I am not technically a Vic student,) I think he got the idea to try it for one of the various drama things that happen in Hamilton over the summer. Sure, I says, and I sent him the script. And after some stalling, he tells me a few nights ago he's filling out the application. Wicked.

So we spent last night going over the script and hammering out the dents in the script, awkward workings, continuity errors, that kind of thing. There are a number of references to High School in there and he wanted to make the timeline more vague so the play would be relatable, so it became ambiguous as to whether they were talking about high school or University (there are also a number of allusions to university already in the script - Perry's fiancee is in school, apparently a Grad Student, and the girl he cheats with also mentions it.) Some other stuff. Basically we went through it line by line and read it aloud to get a sense of what worked, what could be improved, etc. A little workshopping session. It was productive and fun. Eric, the person with whom I have collaborated most over my lifetime, has always seen me as averse to criticism, that I hate having my ideas altered in this way, that I'm defensive. I think he's thinking of a very different time, long before we even created Sewerman, where that was the case. Eric and I co-wrote about 8 issues of that series and only occasionally did I ever get emotional about criticism. My alternate theory (which Eric naturally denies) is that Eric isn't very good at giving criticism, that whatever he does to make it hurt less (because he really does believe he has a soft touch) has the opposite effect. I've learned to deal with it, but he can be unintentionally harsh.

It's hard working with someone, and I do it as little as I can, but it was obviously important Cary get some input there where he felt it needed. And he had some very good suggestions and some very valid concerns about dialogue and staging. Beyond that, we also talked about what the characters were like ("secret Jews," he jokingly described many of my characters' dialogue,) why some jokes worked, and why some of the big overhauls were improvements. That being the replacement of the John Lennon/Ghost character with Elaine, who didn't exist in the first play but once I decided she needed to appear, I burst with comedic possibilities.

It should be said, Cary also seemed to appreciate the coat, although he noted there had been some benefits to looking like a hobo.

We wrapped that up just a bit before midnight, and I stayed up only a little later than I usually do, getting out of bed the next morning with severe reluctance. Another day, another tutorial. A presentation on Romeo and Juliet, a CanLit class or Lorna Crozier, a sandwich, a train ride home. During CanLit, because the TA was speaking so passionately about writing and poetry and everything, I began to feel creativity stir up inside of me. As the lecture continued along more conventional lines I grew irritated. I needed to escape. Suddenly everything was a poem and I needed to write it down!

Eventually, but not until getting to the train, I let it out by finishing off one of my oft-referenced "stray starting lines" in what is a rare but far from unheard-of case of me writing a free verse poem (about half my output in Poetry last year was free verse but I much prefer to work with rhymes when possible/appropriate.) It was a good release and got some real stuff off my mind. Not that I'm through or truly satisfied, merely... appeased for now.

After getting back to town I wandered long and far to the comic store and back, sans bus.

Time to crawl into a nice comfy bed.

Keep on rockin'
Scott