111: These dots don't connect

Charting my last five birthdays - the actual date, not, like celebrations. Last year I got the day off work to play Super Mario World with Robyn. The year before, I went to the ROM with Manda, followed by a UWA show. 2006 was a dud, but it was building up to the premiere of the Half-Past movie (about which I have mixed feelings, but it stands as an accomplishment.) The day I turned 18 I was surprised at school with a balloon from a girl (who, in retrospect, kinda liked me.) All the ones before that were unmemorable.

Basically, what I'm saying is, I was due for another dud.

It's not surprising or disappointing (well maybe a little) it's just the way it is. For crying out loud, it was a Tuesday, and kind of a dreary one at that. The skies were gray, the wind was blowing. I was in class all day. I had a paper to hand in for Short Story, which was the easiest yet most nebulous assignment I've yet gotten in a University classroom - read two stories three times each and record your thoughts in a journal for each reading. I looked at it as a more analytical review, which plays to my strengths. Lots of personal pronouns. Difficult to do badly, I wonder how this will be graded - level of insight?

Oh, and I nearly choked on an Aero chunky during Poli Sci. How obnoxious is that, dying on your birthday. I didn't even want the stupid Aero, the numbers were shifted over for the vending machine and I pushed the wrong code of Coffee Crisp.

Today wasn't a great day, no. Discovered a new form of creeping - the inadvertent. I got on the subway at St. George, per usual, after my dubious stop for coffee (I always wonder which is better - before or after GO? I have decided I don't care, I just like caffeine.) So I stand on the platform next to this girl. Kinda plain-looking but whatever, I'm not really here to do anything about it. We get on and I kinda space out, but I think she was aware of my presence because in the city I tend to creep just a little bit, when there is someone I think I can get away with. IU didn't get away with it.

So she gets off at Union, just like me, and rockets in the other direction, probably trying to get away, and I'm like "Whatever, I'm going to my train, same as always." So we end up standing next to each other on the GO platform, which probably made her nervous but I was trying to dial-down the creeping because it must've really struck her by now. Awkward. So we get on the train, and she sits in the Scottozone, which is a shame which means I have to sit with my back to her... and every so often I'd crane my neck around and she'd have my in her eyeline, all the way to Oakville where thank the maker she did not also get off. One time she smiled. I couldn't tell if she was amused by my antic, or her book, and just happened to be annoyed by me.

Whatever. It's done.

Birthday awkwardness.

The weekend was good though. Sunday morning I had a good hangout with Amanda, and the evening was the family gathering. I was, as always, on kid-entertaining duty, which involved a lot of wrestling, and then they demanded to play on the Wii, since to my surprise it was here rather than someplace else. It was my own fault for showing them the Wii last year. The problem is, they love it, but they can't agree what game to play, and in the end they don't seem to enjoy themselves very much, and then Cam demands to play with Brandon's transformers (which I maintain is his own fault for being a 26-year-old man with hundreds of dusty action figures lining his shelves.) Before long, I distracted him and Ali with Lego, which seemed to go over well, once I told them what sorts of things to build. ("You build a house, you build a car.") I think we have a winner.

Then later that night, when I was concentrating on Pokemon and decompressing, Cary rang me up on the MSNogram to say he was still in town, let's hang out. He'd called me up earlier to see if I wanted to go to the mall with him and Chris, but I'd literally just come back and was expecting the family (about an hour later, but still.) So nice to get a second chance at that since I hadn't really seen anyone all weekend (I lead a boring life - which you know because you're reading this.)

So I went over and we hung out a while. Linda handed me a glass of wine, which was a nice and uncalled-for gesture (we had just discussed how easily I get drunk off the stuff.) It's nice to walk into a place and be handed an adult beverage. I always feel very welcomed in that house. Of course I like going anywhere where grown people are willing to indulge me in writer-talk and seem to think I have any worthwhile thoughts on the subject. Cary and I headed downstairs with Chris and talked life, Half-Past, video games, TextsFromLastNight, other stuff.

After Chris left, I remained while Cary played on Goo, a puzzle game of sorts. We shot the shit some about girls and life and how strangely accurate Half-Past actually is (I say strangely because I wrote it at 16 having had no authentic life experience, which shows in the somewhat glossy fantasy fiction world it inhabits. My later writing has taken a slightly grittier edge - or even glossier if I'm being self-conscious.)

I've been dragging my feet on this entry. It's just about 3 AM, I've been catching up with my friend/nemesis Schatz, I've opened an adult beverage. It was a good night for walking home in the aftermath of rain.

Stuff is going on lately but this post has reached its end and the situation has not reached a point where I ought to talk about it so let's just leave it at stuff.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott