Eleven: You keep thinking that

For someone whose life is typically very ordered, structured, routine, to the point of rigidity and dullness, the last couple days have been a tad chaotic.

So Thursday, the day after my pivotal drama presentation. I say pivotal because it doesn't feel like anything else in the semester will require as much of my time and energy, and now, relatively speaking, I can relax. And it's a damn good thing I had this presentation before I started work (well, after my first shift) because of all the madness of planning and rehearsing.

Thursday night was Vasa's Halloween party. Much to my dismay it looks like that will be my only source of Halloween fun this year, because I've got work Saturday and Sunday and I'm too lazy to do anything. I'm preparing for work to take over my life, which is a dangerous prospect considering how much of my time should be reserved for school. And all together it's a damn shame because I really liked my costume and am not getting to show it off a whole lot.

So on Thursdays I am supposed to have class for six hours straight, although the first one is a screening (this week, Coming Home) it's still pretty tough when you think about eating and stuff. I ate in the screening, and my second class was canceled due to the prof's laryngitis. This led to me having three (well, two) hours to kill before the party. I had invited Martina, because I knew she had a costume and would get along with others at the party.

During the screening I got a missed call on my cell, it was Gus leaving a message basically asking if I wanted to work the next day. Despite the fact that I had every intention of going out and partying (in Toronto far from my bed and work no less) I agreed, because I consider it bad form to turn down shifts too often, so I didn't want to make it seem like a pattern. I'm not in an adversarial relationship with this job (yet...)

In the meantime, we went over and got our costumes on. People really liked Martina as Leia, and I got a few notices as DHARMA guy. I may have to recycle it next year to justify having bought it. For a different crowd, in that case.

I was a bit awkward because we were mostly surrounded by people who knew each other, although once the drinks started flowing, I... well, let's just say that I have a habit of playing up everything you've ever heard about alcohol as a social lubricant. Meaning at one point late in the night, I got into this really bad attempt at the Thriller dance with this girl, and neither of us could really get the moves, so we just started a whole different thing. More of a ballroom thing. To Thriller. Did I mention I had been drinking?

I'm awesome.

So it was a pretty decent night, and sadly I left early so as to be all "good night's sleep." It was not so extreme a case of self-destruction as I went through earlier this summer the night before Amanda's wedding, mind you; that really set the bar. I figure that the ability to go out, drink my face off, get sick, go home, sleep, and get up the next morning (in both cases far earlier than I ought to have) and do my duty, sans hangover of any kind, to be a rare gift of youth, and I try not to squander it. Someday I will be old and fragile and as modest as my drinking exploits are, they will have their revenge someday. Or something.

For the record, I was drinking Whiskey and Ginger Ale, which reminds of both the best night of my life (the Half-Past cast party) and, oddly enough, my late Granddad, who always kept Ginger ale (or really, ginger beer) around the house and would serve it.

There was a guy from my (and Martina's) film history course last year. Inevitably, we had a loud drunken geek conversation about Star Wars. Yep, yep.

Some notable costumes: Vasa and John as Star Trek Original Series folks, a dude as "sexy Lincoln" a ghost costume, which I made the obvious Klan joke about, Coraline, and a nudist on strike. And of course, some random sexy ones. At one point, there was karaoke, but it only lasted two songs; the girls doing Lady Marmalade, and pretty much the whole room joining in on Man of Constant Sorrow. Had there been time and more of an audience, I'd have done Twist and Shout, because there was a movie-themed disc, and that song was used in Ferris Beuller's day off.

I went home, and rather than going directly to bed, watched the episode of the Office I had missed on a certain video website Manda recommended to me. So I cheated myself out of 22 minutes extra of sleep just to get a more instant Office fix. And besides, I didn't sleep well, possibly because of Whiskey, possibly because Holy fuck I have to work tomorrow in this condition."

But as I've already implied, the day went smoothly. Well, there was one incident with a lady who wanted a dance CD but wasn't thrilled with my limited ability to help her, and I took some flack for it. As much as I boast of my experience at the store, year after year there isn't too much to differentiate myself from some noob. I have to re-learn a bunch of stuff (or, stuff I remember, people mainly assume I don't know) I take a while to get into the groove of customer service (usually through incidents like that one) and I just generally space out all day, go on auto-pilot drone mode, which is not healthy. I should take more initiative, and maybe when I'm a tad more comfortable, I will. I'm going to keep missing Mandy, goddamnit. She was a big part of the reason why working there was so cool last year. She helped get me out of my head. And when you're outside of your head, you make fewer mistakes because you are actually paying attention to your surroundings.

Sigh. Much of the day did go by without incident, although a lot of it was busywork, as is often the case, hence the spacing and all. I should learn to take more pleasure in my work.

Anyway. I'll probably slap together some more whimsical thoughts on the subject later. I'm working all weekend, as I expect will be the trend from here on out, or at least until the holidays and my schedule gives me more leeway; even then. Well, gotta make the money while I can, you know. I'm very lazy about finding work, because this is the only job I've ever liked, even when I haven't.

I just hope I don't feel so brain-fried and lame tomorrow, or in the future. Maybe it's because I didn't have any coffee.

This entry actually should have been better, but I dawdled and now I am tired.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Ten: Does she have a sister?

I have issues. I frequently carp about how I'm my own worst critic and am often prone to the belief that people who compliment me don't actually know what they're talking about. It's a really sick form of self-deprecation.

Occasionally, I'm able to admit I did something well. There's no possible way I can count Half-Past as anything less than success. I've written some poems and short stories that I don't think totally suck (in fact, some I really am rather fond of.) But there will always be doubts. Part of me thinks Half-Past was mainly funny because of the amazing cast (I had a delightfully glad-handing drunk conversation with Michael Patricelli about this at the cast party.) Sewerman was never really the all-out gutbuster it was supposed to be, partly due to Eric's artistic aspirations and my immature sci-fi/fantasy/superhero aspirations (really, even at 18 I was too green to know how to execute satire properly most of the time. Yet the Sensational 7 comics were better about it...) and then there's the matter of the new play.

I've made no secret about my difficulty in arranging this motherfucker. My inability as yet to get it done fuels my insecurities in this respect. I spend hours and hours at school and on the train daydreaming about it and here I am cruising the internet and blogging rather than actually writing it. I did write a few pages of the new draft the other day, but I know I want to revise that already anyway. I can see it in my head, why can't I make it work on paper?

I wouldn't call it writer's block. I don't really believe in writer's block, it's a cheap excuse invoked by hack writers to blame their lack of creativity. You can tell they're hacks, because the best they could come up with is writer's block. I'm more inclined to blame my lack of creativity on childhood trauma creating a psychological inability to function until I reach catharsis. Or succubus draining my spirit of inspiration (among other things...) I once heard Dan Shive blame his lack of productivity on "writer's sphere" which he characterized as an overload of ideas and an inability to decide which to pursue. That sounds a lot more writerly... which is amazing, because I've never considered writing to be his strong suit. Okay, that's not fair. The guy has a ton of imagination and his characters are often very memorable, but he be over-explainin' shit, yo. Dude gots no concept of precis.

Anyway. You can tell I am not suffering from writer's block because I am writing right now. It's just not that I want to be writing. Besides, there's been a lot on my mind lately.

October has been a nonstop train of midterms. I guess the profs are in disagreement as to when the actual middle of the term was. In any case, I've got at least one thing to worry about in each class seemingly every week until the end of the semester, which blows, and I suppose is the curse of the half-credit. I should've realized this, but I never attempted a schedule of this scale before.

This week has been dedicated to my Modern Drama group's production of Trifles. We took way longer than we should have in getting around to it, but they were a very dedicated bunch of people and managed to get it organized fairly quickly; three drama majors, and two of us English majors. It was an intense rehearsal process that led to me being dragged out to Toronto on numerous days when I oughtn't have, or in the case of the last two days staying on campus for many, many hours longer than I should have.

I mainly worried about myself and the things that directly affected me. I'm not much of a team player but I'll go along with what is asked of me. I did contribute a few ideas, particularly as it concerned costuming (I had an idea of what I wanted to wear for my character, and based my entire theory on that.) Mostly I sat there and took it as our director pitched outrageous interpretive ideas, like setting the play in Taliban era Afghanistan. (Um, no.) We were able to restrain her on that one, but I had to let it slide on another aspect, which was that the male characters (I was the only biological male in the group, there's maybe four in the class) were to wear shoeboxes on their heads when entering or exiting. I lobbied to get this changed to hoodies, but the idea didn't get traction, and I didn't object vociferously enough to the shoeboxes. The bulk of my time leading up to the presentation was spent thinking "Oh man, I'm gonna have to put a shoe box on my head, it's gonna look retarded." But I did not say this, because I knew that if I allowed myself to voice my objection, I would not relent... I had this problem a few times in High School Drama; I mainly got over it by the end of grade 12, when Emma injected as much wangst as she could into the concept for Night Sessions. In the end, the play was a compromise we could all live with, and was generally remembered as one of the better ones of the night. I think.

There were other interpretive details we could all agree on, particularly the conspicuous partitioning of the stage and organizing of the audience by gender (research the play if you want to know why.) Last night's ultimate rehearsal, during which I finally got something close to my lines memorized, kept me very late and resulted in a blogworthy episode of running for the subway, missing one, and fearing missing the train because I wanted (needed) to go grocery shopping.

It's sad how attached I am to my schedule, can't abide by things fucking with it. Hence why I'm not big into extracurriculars. Also, I work now.

I had forgotten how miserable it sometimes is to act, since I haven't done it in about 4 1/2 years. The Breakfast Club, June 2005. (I don't really consider my cameo in the Half-Past movie.) I was good in that, and I enjoyed it, but it's not like I was unfamiliar with the text. I also had a lot of interesting things to say. As County Sherrif in Trifles, I had a few amusing exchanges but a lot of my early lines are cursory dialogue I struggled to say properly. My later lines are along the same theme but are more self-conscious in their perfunctoriness. Meaning, I'm an idiot detective and it's been revealed by this point that I'm not doing my job well, so everything I say is jokes.

But my early lines were a lot of "What did she say, how did she look" and if I said the wrong one it'd mess the other actor up. What I like to be able to do is get a feel for what the actual line is and say it however I feel most comfortable. And yet, if someone had done that during Half-Past (Flaherty...) I might've gone mad. Nah, not really. I love my words, but I'm only married to them as far as they get the point across.

So we did our presentation today, and it all went over well, even the ferkakte shoeboxes. All the girls were good, but I liked Maddie in particular and felt she made a strong lead, and I also liked our little exchange. Afterwards, Prof. Ackerman talked about most of the obvious points. I rambled a bit when he asked me about my character, because a lot of what I had wanted to say had already been covered, and a lot of what I was called on to say felt obvious. He did note that I was the only male character wearing a tie, which I did think a notable point and certainly not an accident; I lobbied hard for my tie.

Anyway. That presentation being over frees up a lot of the stress on my brain. I got my test back, and it was predictably bad. I felt downright embarrased after writing it and the mark reflects that. The essay was okay-not-great, the identifications were pretty epic fail, considering I only got 3 of the required 5, meaning if I aced everything I wrote (which I certainly did not) I could only have gotten an 80. I prefer to think of my mark in terms of double my essay mark, which gives me 12 extra marks.

It's a harsh lesson I keep needing to re-learn, about applying myself and studying. There were a lot of ancillary materials for that class I should have read. Hell, there are a lot of canon texts I should have read, for that matter. I only talked about 4 different plays and really suffered for it.

But I think, assuming I take the lesson offered here, I have escaped the worst of it. I can't see my short story midterm as being worse, although it'll probably still not be up to my standards (again tripped up by identifications of stories I did not read, and some I did, which is sad.) I really did have a good feeling about my essay for that one, though. Well, we'll see.

I also got my Literary Theory paper back. I should've gotten it last week, but I ducked out due to a combination of Big Mac sickness (Yeah, I actually ate a Big Mac, a shocking feat for me, and I remembered why I generally don't) and the need to study for that short story test. For all the good it did me. I am my own worst enemy.

So, for the short paper for Lit Theory, I did okay-not-great, and probably could've gotten a half a letter better if I'd cited the text. Really. Citations are often my downfall, I don't know why I'm so stupid about them. I probably could've added ten marks to my AmLit paper last year just by bothering to cite. I blame Journalism, where everything is assumed to have a source, although that source is usually cited in text, so it really comes back to me being lazy. And I keep re-learning not to be lazy. I'm like Sammy Jankins.

But really, what are marks? Other than an objective ranking system of quality of understanding and mental acumen, not much.

Well anyway. It's after 2 by now, I ought to mosey along to bed. Tonight was not a particularly productive night but this is nothing new.

Not that I suddenly have nothing on my plate (constant papers albeit short ones as well as class and work to consider) but I think I'll be able to get some writing done in the near future. I'm back to my initial thought... writing. Sometimes I doubt my ability as a writer because of my tendency to look at pieces I admire and go "I could never have come up with that." But part of the truth of that is that I have a style, and that whatever I'm admiring isn't quite in the realm of my style. It'd be nice to extend the borders of that style, and I think as years go by, if I keep practicing I can, but for now I know I have limitations.

I just got to keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Nine: Keep me in mind

So, I worked my first HMV shift today.

It was good. The day went by smoothly, we were mostly re-pricing. Despite being there from 9 (two hours before opening) until a little after closing, and doing a rather mundane task most of the time, there was nothing grueling about it. It's good to be back; there are plenty worse ways to make my wages. Manda jokes about our whole graduating class working in Oakville Place. She's got a point. Of course, I can't speak for Andrew or Perrin, but I'm still in school. But like I said, if I weren't, there's plenty worse places to be.

That said, I am a little sad it won't be like the past. I decided, walking home, that pretty much everything changes sometime. Even things that don't change themselves are changed by the things that do. Time marches on. The Mona Lisa is regarded as a beautiful piece of artwork nowadays, but it was perceived very differently in Leonardo's time when it went by its original title, "Stupid Ugly Bitch from Upstairs."

I miss Mandy. Try as I might to get at the idea without outright saying it, she really brightened my day when I worked with her. She was fun, and I was fun around her. And she dug my taste in music. Not that I have anything against the people I'm working with now, of course, they're all pretty cool folks, but I permit myself a certain amount of nostalgia. It's jsut one of the things that have changed. No more Mandy, no more Fieldhouse or Cooper or Aryn. Taylor's still there, and still more or less the Dwight to my Jim.

But I think I will be enjoying myself plenty this time around anyhow.

Still trying to straighten out this play. There is so much potential here I don't want to overdo it. A lot of the problem with my recent writing has been overindulgence, I think. A lot of my approach to Half-Past was restraint. In my recent writing I tend to get too carried away stray too far from my initial vision of the premise.

I've been watching Freaks and Geeks, on a website Amanda recommended for me to watch shows on. (Cough.) The show didn't have a ton of big laughs, it was quietly funny and very honest. I have a tendency to re-watch it in the Fall, it just has a very fall-feeling to me. I also want to re-watch Undeclared, which I remember as being more directly funny.

Anyway. Part of me wants to write something quiet, with some laughs and some heart. Part of me wants to crap all over the idea of emotional honesty and make as many dick jokes as possible. There's probably a middle-ground there, where my actual writing resides.

This entry hasn't gone as far as I'd have liked it to. My back is sore. I oughtta get to bed. more rehearsing tomorrow.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Eight: Forever Ago

Dipping into the gin tonight. I am alone and not upset about it. There are times when I feel bad that I never seem to do anything on Saturday nights but I have generally made my peace with it. Plus, I'm just too damn tired to fight it tonight.

Things change fast sometimes. It was Just over three years ago that I called the Sheridan Tim Hortons to check on the status of my resume, and ended up working like a 6-hour shift. It was one of the worst feelings of my life. This weekend's circumstances are considerably more favorable.

I was sweating my HMV interview a little bit. Partly because It'd be my 3rd time interviewing for the job since 2006, and it'd be the 3rd different person I've interviewed with. I wasn't looking forward to going through all the motions again. What's more, I had made the interview for Saturday, thinking I'd have to go to Toronto on Friday to work on my Drama presentation. Well, after a brief meeting on Wednesday (man, we are disorganized) I found out I'd have to come in on Saturday and not on Friday.

So on Friday, I made arrangements to come in and talk to Karen, the new manager, at 1. I got there early and spent some time hanging out with Manda at Coles. The meeting, much to my relief, wasn't an interview at all. She pretty much just wanted to hire me and talk to me first to make sure I was, you know, cool, or whatever. I guess.

I ended up booking myself into an all-day shift on Sunday. I had a choice between coming in at 12 or coming in at 9 and for whatever stupid reason I picked 9 because hey, more money. I'm not even sure whether I'm just Holiday temp or if this is for real. I'm a little nervous if it's permanent, because it was what I've wanted for years, and I guess it's kind of stupid to be nervous about that. Well, I've never claimed anything I've ever said made logical sense. I'd be okay if it's just for the holidays, and yet I also hope it's permanent, because if they're going to employ people, they ought to employ me.

So all of a sudden, like in previous years, I'm a guy with a job, and I'm in school. It's funny how, except for that one time, I never work during the summer. and that one time didn't even work out. I guess it's just because I'm only ever interested in working at HMV. I mean, it's my ideal part-time minimum wage job. I get to talk about music and movies, it's close to my house, I'm good at it. None of that was true of my first and next-most substantial part time job, at the bowling alley. Well, I was kinda good at it I guess. But of course there was no passion.

After that, I was feeling pretty good for the day. Got comics, did stuff... then after having a brief convo with Cary about the next play, which I've been letting gestate in my head, I decided to actually do some writing. I kept saying "Oh, November, November will be better" but for once I decided fuck it, there's no time like the presence. It felt good to finally get some stuff on the page, although I sense it still has a ways to go before it is really good.

But it's good to start in on it. I've had a good sense of how I am going to go about this project, but until you really make it, it's all speculation. I was considering forging ahead some more tonight, but I decided I didn't want to get too caught up writing when I should actually go to bed before much longer. You know, because I'm working at 9. For some reason.

I don't even understand myself much of the time.

Today was that rehearsal... it's coming along, and we're doing our best to balance naturalistic elements with expressionistic ones. I'm disappointed with myself for not learning my lines better. I shouldn't be surprised though, it was never my forte, and that was 5 years ago when I was in-practice as a half-decent drama student who didn't think enough of himself to act more. Oh well. It's coming along.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Seven: Cell phone debris

Is it weird that I often hear despair in dance music? Does anyone else sense this, or am I just a bummer? The more disco-dancefloor oriented it is, the sadder it sounds to me. There was something weirdly lamentive (which is not a word) in songs I've heard from Boney M (Rasputin) ABBA and Aqua. Like there's kind of hopeless surrender to the impulse of the dancefloor, a world the singer knows is utterly shallow and soulless but is powerless against. I feel like that's not a thought that occurs to a lot of people, and probably for a good reason, it's a bit dumb to think. I'm kinda messed up if I'm hearing sadness in these hedonistic rhythm and beats. Poker Face by Lady Gaga sounds like one of the saddest pieces of music I've heard in a while, obviously not by design. It's not a very good song.

Well shit, man, I can't explain it. I'm messed up in that way. I don't even know why I was listening to Poker Face.

It was a gorgeous autumn day. I was feeling good. I can't explain it. I stepped off the subway and felt the warmth of the sun and the cool fall breeze and I felt good. The music in my ears made me feel cheerful, particularly Dreaming of You by the Coral, whose peppy tones belie the sadness of its lyrics. I was bobbing my head and shuffling rhythmically along the sidewalk. I was smiling at strangers. I so rarely do that. I felt good.

I chatted up this random girl. I don't know her name; I feel like I should, but I never asked and now we've talked too long for a natural opportunity. I first spoke to her because Martina was, but Martina doesn't know her name either. Shh.

The good feeling lasted through lecture, which was the standard Film course lecture on how Spielberg and Lucas took down Coppola's and Scorsese's brilliant auteurist movement with their cold calculating cash grabs. I'm not a big fan of that perspective, I think it overly simple.

I started to feel a bit less cool around lunch, when my sandwich felt gross; the latest in a trend of unsatisfying homemade sandwiches. I need to alter my eating habits. I didn't buy sandwich stuff this week. I can tell already it's going to be something I regret, but I figured I might as well change it up a little for this week.

It feels later that it is, owing to a bit of not-depression, but certainly bummer, on my part. After dinner, I was supposed to have an interview at HMV, but it has to be rescheduled, and the only available times I kinda need to work on my drama project which isn't coming along perfectly (we delayed way too much with it.) From the way Karen (the new manager at HMV) spoke, it seemed like a foregone conclusion I'd already gotten the job, but she needed to actually converse with me to ensure I was not in fact some kind of psychopath. Well she was sick today. We'll deal with it. We always do.

I'm feeling stagnant. I should've done some reading, I probably still can. I felt like writing. I've been putting off this play, constructing it in my head, afraid it still won't be as good as I want it to be. When did I start to doubt myself this much? Used to be, it was the only thing I was confident about. Cocky maybe even. I always had a bit of self-consciousness and doubt, the ability to re-evaluate my work, but I've never felt paralyzed by it. I keep putting it off to focus on school, but if I'm not focussing completely on school, what's the point? Now I'm just doing nothing. Warg.

Dusted off a story from the summer I was very happy with. When I re-read it, it still held up in my mind. I posted it on Writer's Cafe, the first thing I've put on there since they wiped out their databases (I was rather outraged when that happened and did not intend to ever return; a number of my items only existed there, which was my own fault.) The first and as-yet piece of feedback was that it was "interesting" but that the end should be expanded, and I agree, although I hadn't thought it before, so it's already worked out.

I have a lot of stories I am eager to re-write. Even the ones I think are good, I know I want to change. A lot of them are supposed to fit together. There is never time for this sort of thing. I owe too many people too many things to do anything for myself anymore; a shame, I could write whatever I wanted when I wrote only for myself. And I did.

I have put a bunch of new 80's songs on my iPod, mostly weird pop songs, the kinds of things I was really into in high school. A-Ha, Animotion, 'Til Tuesday, Modern English, Madness. The kinds of things they use to sell on massive CD compilations at the dawn of that medium. If I saw one of those commercials I could probably sing along to the exact phrases of each song... Glass Tiger, REO Speedwagon, Thompson Twins, although not so much for actually putting those on the iPod. I used to love VH1's Top 80 of the 80's special, and nearly as much its sequel, Top 90 of the 90's. The first time I saw those specials, I uncovered a number of gems for myself.

A quote, attributed to Frank Zappa but who knows if he actually said it, says that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. I talk about music a lot. I'm not a musician though, so it's all I can do. I was once in a car with Joe and Viki and Viki's parents (who have slowly gotten to know me over time as I keep showing up to their gigs.) My not being a musician yet still being passionate about music was a topic of conversation. Even now there is a lot of terminology I get confused on but would use more properly if I were an actual musician.

Now I'm just rambling. I wonder if, in this state, I could write something relatively productive. Hm, hm. Not the right night for playwrighting, but...

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Six: Celebrities you've never heard of

I was thinking today on the train home from Toronto that some songs lock us into a certain place and time. Sometimes but not necessarily the time where we first were listening to them. Not the first time you ever hear it, mind, but the first real listen. But sometimes it's a song you've heard numerous times before, but leaves a greater impression at one particular time.

I believe that's what B. Schatz calls curse songs, although I'm sure he got that phrase from somewhere. He links his curse songs with girls he has loved and lost. Mine are considerably more platonic, mostly relating to school and other quotidian aspects of life. Sure, I've got my songs that remind me of girls what hurt me. Part of the reason, I suspect, I love Aerosmith's Just Push Play album is that it so perfectly acts as the soundtrack to that very difficult Grade 8 year, as I listened to it fairly constantly that year trying to balance my understanding of why the Aero-fan community loathed it and why in my adolescent state of mind it seemed like a very good piece of work (and on that level, it still speaks to me, and holds up far better than it ought to.) So I can listen to that album and reflect on how much I've grown, and be impressed with myself. Anyway, they're called Curse Songs because I guess by and large the feelings they remind you of are negative, and those songs inextricably linked to those feelings are inescapable. But mine are neutral, leaning toward pleasantly nostalgic. I am going to express the last two years of my life as a narrative of particular songs and general artists.

I was largely out of love with music during my time at Sheridan. My computer was a jumbled mess, my MP3 collection scattered to the winds that was my hard drive. I did not yet own an iPod until the end of second year. Mind you, whenever I hear any notable song by Boney M, I am immediately taken back to my first stint at HMV. So there you have it.

The iPod became my constant companion pretty instantly after I got it, but nothing really grabs me until this one memory standing on the platform at Oakville GO - a place I hadn't often been before then but have been countless times since. I was going to Toronto to take a tour of the Innis campus and get all the preliminaries. I was still unsure about this University thing, it had been dreamt up on a whim and I was having second thoughts about the whole arrangement. The song in question is She Said She Said by the Beatles, which I can't even be sure when I first heard it. Maybe it was not long before, maybe it was years earlier. I know this was not the first time but it really struck me in a particular way.

When I started school, I made a playlist of songs, hits (and misses) from the late 90's, and this along with my random playlists became the soundtrack of my first semester at U of T. I couldn't tell you what musical artists were on the top of the charts in fall 2007, but I can tell you that I listened to Possum Kingdom by Toadies (a song that was taken from me when it was put into Guitar Hero II for 360) a lot, along with Lit's My Own Worst Enemy (later of Rock Band 2) Verve's Bittersweet Symphony, Robbie Williams' Millennium, Inside Out (Eve 6) Tubthimping (Chumbawamaba) You Get What You Give (New Radicals) and a host of singer-songwritery girl songs that I don't care to own up to. Natalie Imbruglia, there I said it. Sheesh. Among other things. A lot of those songs have a double-curse on them, since they remind me of that time but also the time they originate, when I was young and innocent. Well, sorta innocent.

The second semester of that year actually has a song in the Schatz tradition, a couple anyway. A girl had told me her feelings, and I was very overwhelmed (and ultimately missed whatever chance I may have had, a fact of which we are both aware.) And that month, the music I had been listening to a lot was the Beta Band, specifically the songs Dry the Rain and Needles in my Eyes, which still get me a bit misty-eyed for that time period, because they just strike me with that alarming feeling of being in over my head very much by accident.

For a while, Weezer's Pinkerton (the whole album) was associated with the end of that year, but it appears to have worn off. I can't think of any really evocative songs until a year later; The Weakerthans will always remind me of some cold, lonely evenings in March 2009 (specifically, Plea From a Cat Named Virtue, Civil Twilight and Left and Leaving.) And then we have Through & Through & Through by Joel Plaskett, which is what I listen to if I want to be teleported back to the Half-Past days.

Anyway. I'm not sure what has possessed me to write so extensively on such an untimely matter, because really, it was not an uninteresting day in and of itself.

I miss having Fridays off. I still have Fridays off, but they haven't been my own in weeks. It's a pity too, because after Thursday nights spent restlessly in short story collection I enjoy coming home, kicking around for several hours, watching west-coast primetime, and then sleeping for hours and hours. But there's important business. I went out to Toronto to meet up with my Drama group to talk Trifles. One member has some big ideas that I don't necessarily agree with but haven't decided whether it's worth standing ground. I'm not the kind of guy who goes to war unless he really wants to go to war.

Then I fucking go to war.

Well I went out there, except I was having a bad day. The bad day started when I realized I had gotten up an hour late if I were to make it in time for the meeting we had set. So I was a half hour late. Other minor setbacks. No big deal. Then I arrived in time to sit in on the end of a read-through. We talked about our interpretation for a little while then made our plan to meet up again and dispersed. I was there for maybe 45 minutes. Dissatisfied for having schlepped out to Toronto for only that, I called up Vasa to see if she wanted to hang out until I saw fit to go home.

This is rare for me because I honestly could've just gone home. Hell, I'd even seen Vasa that week. But no, I took the opportunity to branch out. In retrospect, I could've called Ryan and seen if he had the afternoon off. He'll be my first call next time.

Anyway. She said sure, come over, "we're" going to a costume shop to check out Halloween stuff. "We" being some of the girls I'd met earlier in the week at Glee, her boyfriend John, and this other guy. So I went along. I ended up talking to some of the other girls a fair bit, learning names, making good smalltalk. Doing prop comedy in costume shops.

The group split up, and the two guys and Vasa and I ended up in American Apparel of all places because she was building a classic Star Trek costume (Uhura stylez) out of a t-shirt skirt.

On the way home, I thought about how long it had been since I ordered my Halloween costume, and when I got home, lo and behold, a notice was waiting to tell me I could pick it up. A rather frustrating day became an enjoyable, rewarding one for several reasons. The costume has a good balance between seeming homemade and seeming authentic, and fits well, except I have pretty short arms. I've been wearing it. I bought a Tiki-type tribal necklace that may or may not go along with it. The Lebowski wig doesn't really go with it, if I wanted to be Horace. Otherwise, it's quite a bitchin' costume. I'm pleased.

Accomplished very little tonight. More midterms ahoy. Sigh, sigh, keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Five: Mind Your Surroundings

Over the last several months, maybe the whole year, I've made mention of the fact that, years and years ago, mainly when I was a moody teen with many observations, my blog entries were far more numerous. Nowadays I am a busy, often-exhausted twenty-something (resisting adulthood with every fiber.) It's not that I have fewer observations, but I have changed my criteria as to what is blogworthy, to the point that very little is. Not to mention, since starting at U of T, the cast of characters in my life has grown unwieldy. My life is littered with minor characters who don't get very fulfilling storyarcs.

We've been over this, my life is a TV show.

In that sense, my life is kind of a bummer, but that's not news, and there will always be something (or a lot of somethings) about my life that is a bit of a bringdown. I've been thinking lately how I mainly blog when something interesting has happened... or I am bored. Whichever the case, I tend to focus about what made each day unique, what specifically about the day caused me to think about blogging, or at any rate I am likely to think about when blogging. And I'll get to that momentarily, but I was thinking about altering that at least once. The shame of that tendency is that the routines, the little moments, get obscured, and I forget them. It's like how the other day I recounted all the stuff around the house that was busted, much of which is now fixed (the toilet handle is still in rough shape but the faucet and side door handle will hold for now.) That stuff had been on my mind for weeks and there was never an occasion to mention it.

This particularly occurs to me early in the morning, when blogging is the furthest from my mind. I've never mentioned this, and I'm likely to forget sometime down the road, but I am awakened every morning at like 6. It's the havoc of having a boarder that I took for granted between John and Erica -- actually, John wasn't even so bad, but when someone lives with you, you accept their need to keep certain hours, and my misfortune is that my wall is common with the kitchen. Every morning, more or less without fail, between my mom's routine looking after the dog, and whatever Erica is up to, I am awakened fairly promptly, usually after going to bed around 2, because I am a glutton for punishment.

And then I roll over when the noise dies down and try to get another 2 1/2 or 3 hours of sleep. Usually it's not so hard, but damn is it exhausting when I actually do get up. See, this is the little things I forget, because they are fairly utterly inconsequential, little thoughts likely to evaporate as soon as I think them, like the micro black holes the LHC is supposed to have conjured up, destroyed by their own Hawking energy or something sciencey-sounding.

When I do get up, and the house is more or less vacant because Mom and Erica have usually gone off on their way but B. isn't up yet. So I leave my room and it causes poor little skeletal Max to raise his head from his mid-morning nap. Poor guy, I can't really hve friends over from how shabby he looks now, because over a year ago when I had Robyn over she said he looked in rough shape, and that was before he really started to go downhill. Speaking of dead pets, apparently you can see Rocky in front of my house on Google street view. So he's immortalized on the internet. For now. And by that, I mean in a place other than Brando's Facebook.

The rest of the mornings aren't particularly worth mentioning, I seem to have found the exact rhythm of sleeping past alarm/shower/eat cereal/make lunch/websurf/leave for the train. The weather is nice enough that I can still walk right down there, I'm not even sure I'll ever feel differently, except next semester when I've got Pop Music in the morning at 10. Well, that's a labor of love. At least that isn't the case 3 days a week like last year, as far as I can tell. In fact, apart from that one blip, next semester looks like a better schedule, with fewer evening classes. That's good, because I'm getting a little weary of eating roast beef sandwiches in class. Which is something that is within my capacity to change anyway, because hell, I used to eat BLTs in AmLit last year anyway. It's complicated, and by complicated, I mean pointless. This is SWP after all.

So the interesting thing about today I suppose, part one, was that I had my Drama midterm. It was particularly shocking to me to find that we are now in the middle of the term because in my mind we are still in that "Just finding my footing, getting into the routine" stage. But I guess I'm just too used to yearlong classes. So this midterm, for which I was not at all prepared before the weekend. I did manage to catch up on plenty of reading, although not enough. I should've gotten some Chekhov in there, and I really fucked up at least two identification questions, one of which I utterly did not do, forfeiting me 10%. I suck. Although I think I did fairly well on the essay, because I was able to speak fairly eloquently about three of the four plays I read/examined. Ghost Sonata was fairly elusive. And every line of Earnest rang out to me in the voices of my friends in 2004, even the lines that were cut from the play.

Then I kicked around Pratt for like 3 hours, followed by Theory. Again I was actively trying to involve myself with the lesson, because the material is actually not incomprehensible, or even necessarily as dry as I feared, it's just that the class takes a very long time to resolve itself, because on a Wednesday night between 6 and 9, time takes about twice as long its normal rate.

But I was particularly looking forward to the end of class because Vasa invited me over to watch Glee with her friends. I enjoy the show -- I think it's got a bit too much hype on it, but it really is an impressive piece of TV entertainment. I got there a few minutes into the episode, and mainly sat there for the hour, occasionally commenting while we all watched and while all the various friends of Vasa went over their friend-business. I understand, I've been the stranger before.

It was a nice night, I'll do it again, and now I'm at home and tired. I've got some reading to do this weekend, that's for sure.

Last night, a female acquaintance of mine made a very interesting request. She sends me a Facebook message at like 1 AM (she doesn't have me on MSN, I neglected to add her when I changed my username because we didn't talk often) asking if I'm still awake. When I confirm this, she asks that I tell her a story, I guess because she had a rough day and needed something to ease her mind before going to sleep. Flattered to have been asked, I started typing a little nonsense, and hopefully she liked it.

It was actually a nice little moment between me and this girl; like I said, I was flattered she asked me, and hope she does so again, although that means I'll have to have something ready. Or not, since what I wrote her I came up with on the spot (although previous on-the-spot story attempts are sometimes met with failure.) It was a fun activity.

Well, it certainly put me in a good mood before bet, and led to some very unusual dreams (not involving this girl, at least directly. Ask Freud, who the hell knows what it was really about.) A dream, I might add, from which I was awakened at 6:00 AM. just to bring this whole fucker full-circle.

I've been listening to a lot of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes lately. I get really energized by their takes on familiar songs. I have acquired probably more tracks than I should by not-entirely-kosher means. The less said the better.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Four: An Underrated Epilogue

Amongst Beatles aficionados, a lot of ink is used discussing Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, two undeniably excellent songs that act a direct counterparts, the former a sunny photo-book recollection of small pleasant moments in suburbia, the latter an open-to-interpretation reconsideration of childhood memories through the lens of an introspective adult (or something like that.) The former is a straightforward pop song with bright piano and soprano trumpets, the latter a surrealistic soundscape of instruments fading in and out, remarkably harmonically considering the first and second halves are completely separate takes.

They were released as a Double A-side single, back when such a thing as a side existed, failing to make the top spot on the charts because of Englebert Humperdinck. They were later rolled into the Magical Mystery Tour double-EP, and there I think they met their underrated little cousin, Blue Jay Way.

Blue Jay Way is a George song, from a period when he was exceptionally experimental and overly obscure, and as he would be throughout his songwriting career, fairly inconsistent. A lot of the time, especially before Abbey Road, he didn't really succeed in marrying his romantic and mystic sides (indeed, there may be no more mystical track than Here Comes The Sun, thing of beauty it is.) He also struggled with melody, his songs being fairly obtuse compared to his bandmates', he was not gifted the way Paul and John were in that respect, he had to learn.

Blue Jay Way is a terrific (by some measures) yet haunting song that fits quite well with those two for a few reasons, the most obvious being geography. Sort of. Whereas those songs took their names for, and therefore invoked, areas around Liverpool, Blue Jay Way is a residential neighbourhood in Los Angeles, where the scene is promptly set (the opening lyric, "There's a fog upon LA...") the song is not overtly philosophical like say, Within You Without You. It just describes a time spent waiting for people to arrive at a house. It's literal like Penny Lane but also elevates itself near the realm of philosophy with its remarkably chilling chorus, "Please don't be long, please don't you be very long" and a spacey, organ-based melody. It kind of sounds like Moby, 30 years earlier.

But whereas Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields root themselves in the past (either way of seeing it,) Blue Jay Way sounds like a man crashing on the shores of the present. Think how far, by 1967, the Beatles had come, from the shores of Liverpool to the vistas of Los Angeles. The telling second line, "And my friends have lost their way," has an obvious double-meaning that someone prone to over-interpretation, like myself, might find. It's a reminder that they aren't playing in Penny Lane, nor daydreaming in Strawberry Field. They're in LA, and it's foggy, and they've been up for a long time.

Just my thought, anyhow.

It's been a fairly busy weekend, it being Thanksgiving and all. Yesterday I procrastinated all over the place, ended up at Cary's/Chris' place, hanging out with them while they dogsat and watched (most of) Fargo. It was not a terribly interesting day, I caught up on some reading (but not nearly as much as I ought to have.) Today being the family gathering, I mostly entertained the kids. I had expressed my concern to Manda that the kids have become more and more tough to please lately. They were very eager to play Wii but grew tired of each game after a bit of playing, although they've much improved at Golf, which is good. They also played with whatever toys they could find (a problem since B. keeps a ton of Transformers around and he doesn't dust.)

They also goaded me and Eric into playing Soccer and Tee-Ball in the backyard, even though it was chilly and after dark. Sigh. The things we do to entertain kids.

Instead of turkey, mom made prime rib. Keen.

Anyway. I've got 1000 words on MASH or the Godfather to write, so I should probably get busy soon. The house is falling apart. Tim came by (despite the breakup, he and my mom remain in good standing) and fixed our drain for now, but she's gotta get that thing done permanently. The handle on the side screen door. The dog. Oh, the dog. Poor guy.

Anyway, I should shuffle off. More lamentations tomorrow. Keep on rockin
-Scotto

Three: You won't believe how it ends

I have a few items on the agenda for tonight. I've already accomplished a bit of it, but there's more to be done, some of which I know ultimately will not be by the end of the night. The good news is that it looks like I'm in for the night (wasn't really in doubt, but one never knows, people are in town.) I ought to do some writing, some reading, some drawing. Not everything can happen.

I'm not, as a general rule, a fan of Friday night gatherings. I prefer Saturday nights because if you are like me and have too little stamina to leave the house twice in one weekend you end up with Friday as the high point of the weekend and Saturday as a bust by comparison. If you begin with the bust on Friday, the high point on Saturday seems like a saving grace.

Maybe this all stems from years ago when I bowled on Saturday mornings and thus felt the need to restrict social activities the night before. The last year I bowled (which was about two years too late, or more,) I pre-bowled a lot so I could take the Saturday off and enjoy my Friday night. Nowadays I meet up with Amanda every Saturday unless otherwise specified, but she's understanding about how some days need to start later than others.

So it's Thanksgiving. And I did indeed see a lot of people, although not everyone I expected or hoped, but still plenty, and that was good. I'll get into it momentarily. For starters, the day begins several hours earlier. After an exhausting week made unbearable by the wait for Friday, it arrived at last. I had made arrangements with Vasa to meet up, after spending the first few weeks of the school year going back and forth whether it was possible or not to meet up. I hadn't wanted to come in to the city on a Friday before because in September I was using tokens (I guess this did not stop me when we saw Night On Earth,) but now that I have a Metropass to go along with my GO ticket, it literally costs me nothing extra to get to campus, so why the fuck not, eh?

So rather than sleeping in after a late night getting misty-eyed during the wedding of Jim and Pam, I woke up at my usual hour, after the usual routine of everybody else in the house waking me up with their activities at a time earlier than I wish to be awake (in these cases I roll over, fall back asleep, then accidentally sleep later than I'd intended because of the interruption.) Ahem. Got on the train without the usual stop for coffee because coffee was of course the destination, a little coffee shop Vasa frequents. It was raining and I walked over from Museum station.

I haven't seen her since June, just before she went to BC on an archaeological dig. We had only met a few weeks before she went, purely by chance and by mutual stalkerishness. It's all in the blog. We had hung out that one other time, again at this particular coffee place. We caught up on school and life and stuff, the usual topics of conversation, and delved into other topics, which is always good since the worst friendships one can have are ones where your only topic of conversation is "So, what's new in your life?" If you can actually talk with someone about things, they're worth keeping around. More about that later. Anyhow.

After coffee, we went over to Robarts and I picked up a bunch of books -- plays, to be sure, for my class. I've got a few days to read them, as well as put up with whatever Thanksgiving stuff the family cares to throw my way, and I've already sorta wasted today. My bad.

Sidenote: Bono's version of I Am the Walrus is less enjoyable than Jim Carrey's.

We parted ways after a couple hours or so, and I now have a standing invitation to join a bunch of people at her place to watch Glee Wednesday night after class, which is nice.

After pizza and hanging around killing time, I went over to Cary's. I had been looking forward to this gathering for a while. I had seen most of the people there at least at some point over the summer, mostly for the play but some for other reasons; in any case it was all less time than it usually is between gatherings.

I loaded up my alcohol in my canvas satchel and cinched up my hoodie and coat and set out a little after 8. I got there in time to be the second one there, with Alyssa (of all people!) having been the first. I say "of all people" not because she's not punctual, but because I was surprised she had even RSVP'd to the event, often being elusive. I set down on the couch and the schmoozed -- me, Alyssa, Cary, Linda. Rob, a little bit, too. Chris, CB, Pat, Doug began to arrive, and then very quickly the room started to fill.

Like an even more complete version of Half-Past (which had been split across a few days anyway) more and more people came, many of whom had driven themselves and so did not drink, which did not make me feel silly for drinking near excess, thankfully. Anisah, Adam, the Gurnhams, Janessa, Vanessa, Becky, Jasdeep, Ryan, Lauren (never thought I'd see those two in the same room again although they were certainly not sociable with each other) Jeff and Mackenzie, later Cassie, Nate Prasad. If I've left anyone out, I apologize but I was saucing pretty considerably, as anyone who conversed me must've noticed. I was talking loudly, it was a loud room. As I recall.

I tried to have a conversation with everyone I thought I had something to say to, but I think I missed a few because I can't remember making more than small talk with Becky and Lauren, and that I regret. But they were busy too. I remember having a lengthy discussion with Kenzi about school and life, marveling at how old we've gotten (I've known her, and Becky, since the very early years of grade school) and how much older we've yet to be. Talked Lost with RyLai and Jaz. Ryan also invited me to a potential Halloween thing, so at least I've got some possibilities on tap. I'm thinking Toronto this year rather than Hamilton, but again, nothing is concrete.

Paid special attention to Alyssa while she was there, because I felt a sense of duty. Not that I was hovering around her all night, but if she seemed unoccupied I decided to chat her up because I know what it is to be caught in a swarm of impenetrable conversations. I just feel that I'm the one to whom she has the most connection; not that she can't talk to anyone else (in fact she is a terrific conversationalist) but you know how it is when you fall by the wayside. I sure as hell do. We ended up making less-than-vague plans to hang out in a few weeks when school craziness has died down and hopefully I have replenished my stock of conversational items. It's not a science, I mostly wing it.

Then of course Anisah who, were it not for my intervention, would spend the entire night conversing Adam about their mutual Queen's acquaintances. I say I intervened I mean not on her behalf, mind you. For all I know she rather enjoys talking to Adam about stuff. But it's a damn shame to waste a night in a room full of people you hardly ever see talking to the guy you always see. So I interjected myself and we had serious talks about the nature of farangs (she is visiting Thailand in the near future) and Stephen Harper's compensation for his small penis. Among other things, I'm sure, since the bulk of what I remember is me fighting a 300-pound monster made out of gin. Social lubricant, I say. I exaggerate, though, it was only maybe 4 glasses of Gin/7up spread across 6 hours. No hangover neither. I hope some people got at least a little bit of enjoyment out of my presence. Really, we did have some good one-sidedly drunken conversations, we go well together.

The last major thing I remember was a heated debate with Jeff about KISS and Aerosmith. Had I been more sober, I would've presented a more cohesive argument. I feel I won on style though, or at least passion, because my heart was really in that one.

Hugs, handshakes, altered states (not for me) good nights and good lucks. Some of these people I've no idea when I will see them again, or if. Some I know more or less exactly. Some I won't see nearly as much as I want to. And now we scatter ourselves back to the four winds. Earlier this week, I ran into CB at the train station (hence I did not spend as much time talking to him as I might otherwise) and he mused that it had been nearly two years since our last gathering, a Christmas thing in 2007 where again I had plenty of gin. I remember a Thanksgiving get-together slightly before that where I was disappointed with my performance.

There were no pictures of this one. Nobody takes photos anymore. I think we're all fairly satisfied with the number of pictures of ourselves out there.

There was a break-up. Not at the actual gathering, but, like, a few days or weeks ago. I'm not here to gossip but people familiar with the situation know what I mean. A long-lasting relationship ended abruptly. I didn't want to talk too much about it to the person involved who showed, but it makes me wonder. After so many years, what happens? A line in an aborted project I intend to revisit -- what makes two people stay together? What makes two people fall apart?

The end of the night was me, Cary, and Nathan in Cary's basement. Cary, mostly-asleep, Nate and I bantering, I decided 3:00 was a good time to walk home.

It's unfortunate so few of these people are regularly part of my life. I didn't get enough of them when they were around. It's been years and though I'm quite happy with the friends I have, you know, the grass being greener.

I walked home and slept the night through. Got up and hung out with Manda. I find it remarkable how much things have changed for her this year, exemplified by the ever-changing content of our conversations. A year of conversations. A changing life. Getting married, moving into a basement apartment, and now changing jobs, probably the biggest change (yes, bigger than the wedding.) Then I got comics, which I have yet to read.

I have no special insights today. I really ought to clear my head and tackle some of those to-do list items.

Things will work out.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Two: A swig of your disease

Objectively, it's not all that hard being me. Now, any observer should be able to tell that there's nothing about my life that warrants any serious amount of envy. I could rattle off all the things about my life, most of which are either decisions I have made or the side-effects of decisions I have made. I have always, always said that my worst enemy is me. Well, aside from B. Schatz.

I don't know what the future holds. There are times when I am extremely concerned about it. Someday I am seriously going to have to provide for myself and possibly others. What the fuck. Who would put me in charge of another human's wellbeing? It is at this point I feel it necessary to disclose that I am in fact slightly intoxicated (on a very slight amount of alcohol after a typically exhausting day.) I'm not sure if I ever made a police that I should never blog while drunk. I'm not drunk, and I would not adhere to such a policy anyway since I'm usually too tired when sober to blog anyway, why would I rule anything out? Fuck.

A test, this coming Wednesday, in Modern Drama, has snuck up on me. An inconvenient truth given the fact that in that class more than any other I have utterly shirked the readings. Worst enemy again. Tomorrow I go into Toronto (on my day off, no less!) to collect a bunch of plays, and then to intend to read them before Wednesday. Maybe not all of them. But at least two. Come on, Scott, you're setting the bar exceptionally low, don't trip over it.

I had a paper due in Literary Theory, the first of a number of "Oh, I can do that, it's only 1000 words" papers, scattered across various courses. I did it in a few hours before class, a fact I would've been a lot more proud of in the past, but now I'm just shaking my head. Self-loathing is a difficult vice to manage. I had intended to write it the night before, but because I hate myself and endeavor to make things far more difficult than they need to be, did it this way. "It's only 1000 words," my mantra. The idea was to explicate ("make clear," do a close reading, write a summary, state the obvious,) an excerpt from one of the theorists we've read thus far. The one I felt I could jive with was Eichenbaum, representing the Russian Formalists, who appropriated from Linguistic science the idea of roughened form, art being that which defamiliarizes, making the stone stony and other easily-shouted slogans. A large portion of my 1000 words was taken up by the passage I was analyzing. I also fell a bit short of the actual 1000-word mark, because fuck. Because fuck.

I don't think I did badly, but I've been surprised before and wouldn't be that surprised, (*although I would be rather disappointed indeed) if I were called to bear for my transgressions of laziness. I am a bad student and I won't be able to change unless I start to operate at a level of quality below that which I consider acceptable for myself, which I should note, changes according to whatever is the average in that class. I've never been below average in anything, so I just keep doing things my way. I have very shockingly low expectations for myself, I know, but am practical about it.

In any case. This week has been a tad anxious for me. I just wanted to torpedo right through it and get to the Thanksgiving weekend. I haven't been this excited to see my high school friends since, well, Half-Past, I suppose, which is the last time I had an arrangement to see them all. And that was exciting for its own reasons, and also very nerve-wracking for those reasons.

In any case. It's the first Thanksgiving in ever that I (in concert with my brothers) have skipped out on the North Bay ritual. There were two nonconsecutive years that we did not go for Thanksgiving, instead we went for Grandad's birthday in September. This year, B, E and I all agreed that it's pretty much over. I keep saying "I don't know, maybe we'll come again in the future," an idle statement since I don't really intend to subject myself to that routine, and yet it's hard to believe that there will be no more twice-annual visit to Aunt Pat and Uncle Alan. They're very nice people and absolutely do not deserve shunning.

So that said, the reality is about as painful as any average non-traumatic trip to see family. No big dramatic moments, of course, we're not that type of family, but it's always the same and I think that pragmatically, repeating the ritual isn't satisfying anyone anymore, so... yeah.

I actually had a whole thin gin mind that I no longer feel keen on writing up, but perhaps later when I am in the proper presence of mind. Perhaps it will not be so long before my next entry.

Let's make another date to kill time together.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

One: Finish up quick

I should be concise and quick tonight. It's one of those night where it would probably be in my best interest to go to bed, clear my head, start fresh in the morning.

I've talked about my tendency to have a lot of things going at once before; how I often procrastinate my procrastinations. I go long periods without drawing my webcomic, I still efed but have a bad habit of keeping people waiting, I review when I can but have gotten inconsistent, and of course, the play I ought to be writing, the most pressing of all my projects because that's the one that's for people. Not to mention this blog.

I won't go too deep into it tonight, I've been there and done that. That's just where I'm at right now. I'd like to take the weekend and knock things off that list. I could too. Or I could go to Nuit Blanche. I had no plans to go to Nuit Blanche until someone asked me whether I'd be going along to Nuit Blanche, and then the next day someone else asked about it. I don't wanna be the asshole who says "It's not my thing" all the time but at the same time I could get some stuff done this weekend. I made this mess myself. I probably won't go. I might, though, at least for a bit. Fark.

I could've written a post last night. Let me tell you what I was thinking. I was in Literary Theory which isn't a half bad class... a bit boring of course but I'm actually getting a fair bit out of it. As in every class I was letting my mind wander (I am a bad student, there is a ton of proof on this blog,) and I started thinking about my current play, and Half-Past. In Half-Past, Perry is cheating on his fiancee, or he claims to, or he intends to. It's vague. In the new play (The End of the Night, working title,) a character has a history of cheating. This isn't even the thing I was annoyed with myself for repeating, it's just one of those motifs. I was watching Vicky Cristina Barcelona the other day. Pretty much every Woody Allen movie of note involves an infidelity of some kind (not so much Annie Hall, but Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Mighty Aphrodite, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Small Time Crooks, Anything Else, Melinda & Melinda, Vicky Cristina, and the excellent Match Point spring to mind.)

My Short Story Prof over the summer, J. Kuhn, said, notably, "What would fiction writers do without infidelity?" noting how prevalent it was in general but in particular referencing Chekhov's "The Lady With The Dog." I love the dynamics of cheating and love triangles, and I plan to revisit them compulsively in my work, as long as I can keep finding different angles. For one thing, they're quite pervasive, you can always believe a character might be tempted. If you want to characterize a character as rotten, it's an easy, effective start that will add to the drama.

For another, having an affair, being unfaithful, strikes right to the heart of constructed fiction. An unwritten contract between two people says they'll be together, but someone breaks it, and now how, if at all, does one deal with punishment? There are a trillion stories about infidelity. Admittedly a lot of overlap but still, so much variation.

And one would think, although this is not always the case, you would have to really want someone to break the "contract" for them. Or else, you really want to hurt your partner. A cheater can be a hero or a villain.

My only serious relationship was a love triangle, a fact I mention to myself with a lot of amusement and wonder. It's the only interesting thing about my romantic career, aside from how abnormally dull it has been.

I pledged I would never put myself in that situation again, and since then I really haven't had any serious intentions with any girl who's already with someone. I don't pine over girls that are taken, at least I make it my policy not to.

So that leads me to my wandering mind in Literary Theory while the prof is going on about Ferdinand De Saussure, I start to think about this girl I know, who has a boyfriend. No names yawl. Let's call her Kim. I don't know any Kim. As I was idly daydreaming about hypothetical fictional affairs, I imagined a situation where I was with Kim.

In a terribly uncreative way, in this fictional scenario, I imagined convincing Kim to cheat on her boyfriend with me. She didn't put up much of a fight (why should she, it was my subconscious.) It was exciting, until I imagined her friends looking at me and going "That's the guy Kim's cheating on her boyfriend with." I'm lame.

It wasn't exactly like that, but anyway. If I was bold enough (read: asshole enough) to do things like that, I'd be in a much different place.

Well this thought lingered with me as I headed toward the GO train and ran into Jess. I hadn't seen her much since high school, and I admitted to her later on the ride that it was one of those occasions where you run into someone you kinda know, and you wonder "Should we sit together? Am I obligated to? Are we gonna have enough to say during this train ride, or will it get awkward?" We actually had a really good conversation, mostly catching up from high school but also talking about life in general. It may actually qualify as the best conversation we've had, since a lot of our conversations when we knew each other in high school concerned her and Angela making fun of me. I brought this up, but admitted it wasn't so bad, and I can take stuff like that better now. I've grown, I've mellowed, and she's not really like that anymore anyhow.

Anyway, we had a good talk, shared some laughs. She asked if I was still doing this, and I admitted yeah, and she asked for the URL, so Jess, if you're reading this....... yeah.

Today was what it was. Watched Klute in film, talked Joyce in story collection. Over the course of about a week I read most of Peter Biskind's Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, starting at Bonnie & Clyde and reading through the completion of Star Wars and how it destroyed the film industry.

I'll maybe get into it later, but there's a fascinating way that film critics/historians/pundits look at the mid-late-70's Jaws/Star Wars shift away from the artistic to the blockbuster. I find it problematic to say that Star Wars is somehow less valuable as a film than the Godfather. I don't know that importance is based on box office receipts (the Godfather did pretty well for itself back in the day) or some kind of nebulous artistic criteria, or what. Maybe the truth is, there is no hard and fast way to determine what is an important film, it just simply makes a crater in the public consciousness, a place where it lives on.

My brain is a little addled, it's late, I'm not really making my point. I wanted to say something about this, you know, about the way film history looks at that moment, but I'm just rambling now.

You can't deny the course of history. You know?

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto