C: Magic Masks

I've been tripping back and forth all week on whether I think my life totally sucks or if it's just livable or if it's actually pretty good. The first and last options are pretty unlikely. Everyone's life has its downer moments. Heaven forbid I should get a fatal disease, you poor people would never hear the end of it.

Well, I suppose eventually you would. AND THEN YOU'D BE SORRY!!

Anyway. School began on Wednesday. There's nothing to get you thinking and panicking about the future like the first week of school. And it happened every goddamn year. I'm totally powerless against it. Just this major shift in routine and all the new faces and the time of year gets to me. I don't wanna talk about the actual week. It was in some ways notable and I'll get to it later but I wanna talk about stuff that could be talked about at any time previous to this or afterward, but I'm gonna talk about it now because now is when I am thinking about it.

Fall. When I think of the fall, and the beginning of the school year, my mind usually puts me back in one of two places and I don't really know why these particular places but by gum they stick out. Obviously in both cases it's that crispy-chilly September/October feeling that accompanies the new school year. One is the beginning of Grade 10. Grade 10 was a pretty bad year just based on the principal that all my high school years were pretty rough on a sliding scale and everyone's high school years suck (and if someday you consider your high school years to have been the best, your life has officially sucked.) So there's me in grade 10, still an awkward teenager (I am now an awkward 20-something.) Still trying to figure out where I belong in the grand scheme of the high school universe. My inherited grade school friendships were starting to run out of gas as our interests started to diverge (the people I was friends with were not bad people, but they were not meant to be my friends.) I had bought my dad the Beatles 1962-1966 greatest hits set for his birthday, and proceeded to borrow it and listen to it repeatedly. This was the beginning of my rediscovery of the Beatles forming the foundation of my long-running fixation on them. One time I listened to Eleanor Rigby -- I am sure it was not the first time in my entire life I had heard the song, because I remember hearing it and feeling like it had been buried deep within my subconscious for years (after all, the radio was mainly tuned to Oldies Radio 1050 Chum when I was a kid but I was not as observant then.) And the phrase "All the lonely people" just hit me deep. Motherfucker, Paul McCartney.

(Perhaps the supreme irony of my writing of my love for the Beatles right now is that instead of actually listening to them as I compose my thoughts, I am listening to a certain mid-90's British girl pop group. Stand in awe of my super-masculinity.)

So there's me in first semester of Grade 10, taking classes that would continue to affect me throughout my life as a student at White Oaks -- my early CommTech adventures, Food School, and of course grade 10 drama which is where I was introduced to a lot of people that would remain in my life to this day, primarily CB and Cary, although I wasn't friends with them, not for a very, very long time. Also, Emma and Vanessa Brown. And in CommTech, Kyle and Josh. Oh Kyle and Josh.

I don't know. I was a helpless kid in a big black coat and I'm glad that that level of awkwardness is behind me, at least I assume it is. For all the awkwardness I exude these days, I am far, far better now than I was then. I am now the person I secretly hoped to be in my head in grade 10. Now if only I could become the person I secretly am in my head now.

The other year is the sequel to that year, Grade 12. Oddly enough, skipping over grade 11. Grade 11 is a harder year to grab ahold of because stuff was going on that seems like a deviation from what the story ultimately turned out to be. Kris living with us that year. Randi. Actually being friends with Josh. That year was sort of an extended tangent.

Grade 12 is where my mind immediately goes because of Earnest, and the shock of learning I was actually developing, you know, social skills. This is largely discussed in actual entries from the time. Actually developing a social life was a long and painful process. And I documented that shit.

I don't think it qualifies as nostalgia if I acknowledge that times were pretty shitty. Like I said, apart from maybe the last semester, I had a pretty textbook example of "shitty high school experience." I don't mean to carp on it, but fall does that to me. Every single year.

You're gonna read this entry again a year from now. I'll be re-writing it.

I can't really remember the early parts of Sheridan (it was all terribly confusing in first year, and it was very busy in second year.) My memory had never been exemplary which is why I am so keen on keeping up SWP, because someday I'll wanna know what things were like in 2009, or 2005 or 2004. Any earlier and I'm SOL, and that's probably for the best because as I mentioned once or twice they were not good years (although maybe they might've been better if I'd had this thing to write in, but probably not.)

Every year begins at U of T on a similar note. New big imposing buildings, new anonymous crowds, mostly full of people I will never speak to. I've got some friends in my American Cinema class. Martina. Some other folks I don't know properly by name, which is a shame but I'll learn. I'll have to learn.

The first class I got to was a Modern Drama to WWII (Wilde, Brecht, Shaw.) Almost entirely female, which of course is par for the course and I should totally be used to it as an English major. There will be acting (I imagined it was possible) but only a smidge. The prof seems like a pretty cool dude. Enthusiastic. His name's Ackerman, he's giving us Yom Kippur off. No complaints.

Second one was the first of a couple "OH GOD WHY I have to drop this nowww" classes. Literary Theory. Of course, given it's a requirement, I will not in fact be dropping it. The prof talks/acts like John Malkovich on uppers and the class is (ostensibly) from 6-9 on Wednesday night. It's a good thing this is only a half-cred, so I won't have to worry about missing Lost. I would not miss Lost for this crap.

The next day was American Pop Film Since the 70's, my only full-credit course which, along with North American Pop Music next semester, comprises my "Wait I'm paying for this education?" tour. Be glad I have avoided taking The Graphic Novel (advance word is that class sucks.) We watched a crappy Peter Fonda flick called "The Last Movie" as an example of overindulgent art-cinema at the dawn on New Hollywood. Despite some of his reputation, the prof, Mackenzie, seemed like a likable, affable dude. I suspect some of the negativity comes from Film Theory being a drag anyway.

I mean, maybe he's no Rob King or Charlie Kiel (described by Adam "Nay" Nayman as "the best.") But I feel like I could take him for the year.

From there, it was dashing down to Sid Smith where I came to a massive, already-in-progress lecture on Baudelaire ('s thoughts on Poe) that made me wonder whether I'd stumbled into the middle of something before confirming with a classmate that this was, in fact, the Short Story collection. For a lot of the class I felt as though I was destined to drop this class in favour of The Novel (Dr. S. Rayter whaaat.) but then I got a look at the workload. Sigh of love.

The key to all my classes this year, most particularly Short Story Collection and Theory, is that they are not loaded with giant 12-pages essays. They don't lack papers. You can't be an English major (or really study much of anything) without a certain amount of writing. But it's the nature and extent of that writing that gets you. I had so many godforsaken papers to handle at the end of last year I had barely any cognition of what I was actually doing, and it showed. I've stumbled into some accidental brilliance with some of these classes. Getting off light, as I explained to Manda when I saw her on Saturday.

For the record, I have Fridays off, so it shakes out that I have light duties on Monday and Tuesday, giant heavy stuff on Wed and Thurs, then freedom Fridays. I can live with that. I mean, I'll probably skip half of those Short Story Collection sessions (by that I mean, the last hour, skipping out at the break, that sort of thing.) I liked Kuhn a lot but it didn't stop me from doing that with his class. I have my limits. I am prepared to pay the price.

That last sentence always seems to be my undoing.

So I was hanging out with Manda on Saturday. Nothing particularly interesting transpired although we discussed in greater-than-average detail my prospects for the future, as well as hers given that she's likely to be unemployed by the end of September (although that's been the line for a while now.) I decided I would be fine filing Obits for the Star or something. Or teaching English in Thailand or South Korea or whatever I need to do. See, I discovered a long time back - yet remain powerless against - the fact that to me, everything seems to be connected. My inability to succeed with women is connected to my struggles at school is connected to my inability to move out is connected to a bleak future where I fail at writing and am mopping up overflowing toilets. In times like that it helps for me to brainstorm things I might actually be able to do when I'm done with school (being done with school itself a terrifying prospect.) The fact that I know Kyle Chapman and he did the Thailand/Laos/English thing makes it seem possible and real. That fact also makes me wonder why I bothered going to school rather than just going and doing it like he did (rhetorical question, there are reasons.)

ANYWAY.

I was glad/dismayed to see a familiar face at HMV, a girl I temped with. Nice gal, we got along well, but her being there means she was hired and I was not. Of course, she's not in school or anything so I console myself saying that was the reason. HMV, sadly, has ruined me for other employers. I must have that job.

Today I went out to Toronto to see Joe and Viki play some music at Starbucks. I tried to get some of my Toronto friends out to see, but the ones I did get around to asking were unavailable. This whole "being social" thing is hard. They started late, at like 2:30, so I left early, about 10 after 4, to catch my train. It was a good set, nothing too unusual other than some different covers from Viki. They play good music, or occasionally bad music well (Viki does an Our Lady Peace cover. It's one of their less offensive examples but still, OLP. Clumsy.) Some of Joe's other friends were also there.

I pitched Joe an idea I had for a play incorporating his music. He seemed game, so now I just need to get through the whole business of "actually writing the damn thing," which I will do after I finish this one play that I am working on. Had a good long session on Saturday night. Then I realized one of the characters I introduced was completely useless, even obstructive to the plot, so I need to snip him out. Which will leave a bit of a gap, but nothing I can't wallpaper.

The hint was when I brought him back onstage and literally could not think of a damn thing for him to say, in a play that is already destined to be overpopulated with subplots and dialogue.

It's based on a few short stories I wrote, woven together. Well, two I wrote and one I wrote down a summary for as a framing device. It incorporates my usual themes of lost love and regret and concern about the future.

It's like Half-Past's evil cousin. Like the one from Bewitched. Or Sabrina.

I should end this entry. I was supposed to do other stuff tonight but fuck that. I'm my own man. Not to mention I don't know what would've happened if I went another day without an entry. Christ, do you remember when I got home every night and wrote on SWP? Much to Eric's annoyance, of course.

Tappa tappa tappa.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto