Eleven: Results not typical

This is one of those entries, which used to be so common, where I don't really have anything to say.

In fact, I shouldn't even be saying this nothing. I should just go off to bed. After all, it's 2:23 in the morning as I type this and nobody would fault me for crashing at this perfectly unreasonable hour. But after a relatively short day at work (despite the fact that before that I was walking all around town) and a second dinner I'm all keyed up on sugar and whatever, so I need to burn off the energy with typing.

As I mentioned the other night I've been rather productive lately. I managed to avoid a prolonged period of bitching about how I had all this free time but couldn't force myself to write. The stars aligned and my initial burst of freedom has been accompanied by a satisfactory amount of output. It's generally of a decent quality, too. I'm just proud to be doing it, since nothing disgusts me more than being the guy who says "Hurr, I have all these ideas but I can't write them." Bullshit. In high school, that's all I did (accounting for my occasionally substandard performance.)

Some of these stories have been in my head for years, some are practically on-the-spot. The longer you spend thinking about a story without actually writing it, the harder it becomes to actually get it out on the page. You get attached to it as this thing that exists completely in your head and feel less inclined to transcribe it (even though in transcribing it you tend to have to negotiate things like syntax and narrative structure, which generally aren't enforced in the head.) Sometimes, when you write it out, the entire meaning of a story changes.

I think I would hate to hang out with myself. If I had a clone, you know, one of those instant-replicated personality clones, like in Multiplicity, I wouldn't get along with him because I would be aware of all his bullshit, and he mine. We'd constantly be analyzing each other and trying to explain how we had it wrong about ourselves. If there was one guy who was not meant to live in harmony with himself, it's me. I don't know how other people stand me, sometimes. "Jesus, would you listen to the shit that comes out of your mouth?"

I know this sounds harsh, but I mean it lovingly.

Then again, I'm the guy who often mutters to himself while grocery shopping, "I hate people, I hate all other people, I hate all humans."

I was talking to Cary about the new play, plus this other idea I had. As far as plays go, the current one is top priority. I also am still really enthusiastic about that webcomic idea, but structure as always has proven a bit of a stumbling block. It's one thing to have an idea, it's another to present it.

I have so many stupid things on my mind and not a Goddamn one of them is important. This is why I don't sleep. I wrote a story about that.

Some nights it feels like the Jenga blocks of my mind are ready to tumble.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Ten: Slow Down Time

No particular place to go.

Times like these are why I have video games. In a way I am actively shunning productivity, but I've already drafted up a whole bunch of stories this past week, so I don't need to prove anything to myself. I keep getting ideas, and many of those ideas are the type that just improve old ideas. Good new ways of looking at things, keys that unlock projects that had long since stalled.

When I started writing short stories -- in fall 2005, although I'd made some very unimpressive stabs earlier -- I was trying to uncover the raw thread of emotional truth, the way young writers do when they think they have something to say. Lately, my tact has been more to obscure that emotional truth the way it is in real life. Instead of having a character break down and cry, I'm more likely to just have them stunned, wondering whether they should cry. Uncertainty feels like the only remaining emotion I can tackle, because every time I try to make my characters sad, I ask myself, what right do these people have to feel so sorry for themselves? And sometimes that's the point, and sometimes it's not.

At the same time, I don't want to make it seem like I'm handing down life lessons. Everybody feels shitty sometimes, lord knows I do. Everyone who's ever read this blog for any length of time knows I do. It's communicating that they gets hard. In public, we don't all run around expressing our emotional states all the time. Human body language is rather cryptic and interpretive. Sometimes you're depressed, sometimes you're just tired.

I believe lately that less is more. That may be why I gravitate toward Hemingway so much: not because of what he writes about, but how he writes it. My philosophy used to be to dig as deeply into my characters' stories as possible, making each one long long long. And sometimes you'll still see that, but increasingly they are, like other people, shrouded in mystery. My favourite story that I've written recently is only about 300 words long and barely seems to be about anything.

My dreams are getting weirdly vivid, which usually signifies creative energy. At least, in my head.

The other day I was walking down the sidewalk and this girl is coming the other direction by bike. She seems to look in my direction, so when I think it's safe I look over at her to see if she's someone I know. She must have caught me because then I catch her swinging her head around to glance at me again. Finally I just stopped and straight-up looked at her, and she back at me. I even waved, and she acknowledged. It was an awkward, "Do I know you?" wave. Then she called out: "ARE YOU CHRIS?"

"NO...!"

And off she went.

And I was left wondering what if I had been Chris.

Doesn't she at least know what he looks like?

You can't make this shit up.

I was on Omegle the other night (as I am wont to do) and I was talking to this high school aged kid, a grade 9, to be specific. I consoled him, "Well, that's hell." He agreed.

It got me thinking about it. I don't happen to long for my high school days. If I had them back, I'd likely waste them the same way I'm wasting my present days. I'd be better at dealing with people, but I'd still be super-introverted. With the exception of Grade 12 it was complete and unavoidable awkwardness for this kid, and Grade 12 began a years-long process of growing out of that shit.

But if we've been following along this long, long story, we know about that.

Anyway, this conversation got me reflecting on just how bad it was. It's healthy to be able to engage with old angst and to not feel it anymore. Every girl I ever wanted that didn't want me. Every dude that ever made fun of me for whatever stupid thing (and believe me, after Grade 9, very few dared to engage me in that kind of smack talk, I had a pretty sharp mouth.)

It was hell, and I don't miss it, but I don't regret it either, oddly enough.

Well, as I often tell my e-sister, there's nothing wrong with either of us.

One final bit of self-deprecation for the night. Although I'm not terribly desperate for companionship at the moment I find myself browsing the usual stupid online dating site. More and more it seems impossible that I'll meet anyone there. In real life you have no control over who you might meet and how you might feel about them. In the internet and specifically no a site like that, you get to make a statement about what you're looking for and what you think you deserve.

And if I may permit myself a moment of understated self-hatred, I don't think I would ever fit someone's ideal criteria.

Oh sure, I'm awesome. That is to say I have many good, hard to define qualities to offset the unappealing things about me, but I'm not the kind of guy who looks good on paper. The real world is calling.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Nine: Here among us

Things you realize for no good reason after midnight #809: I would not make a good booty call participant.

I don't think I have it in me. Just the pure "no strings attached, let's hook up" situation. Friends with benefits, maybe, who knows. Boyfriend, I have absolutely no idea. Guy you call just to fuck and never see otherwise, no. Highly unlikely.

I think about things like this as I wait for the washroom to make itself available so I can brush my teeth and go to bed. In theory this is "reason to move out #612" but really, if I move out, aren't I just sharing the washroom with someone else, working around their schedule?

Well, life is a never-ending series of compromises.

Today wasn't even post-worthy, but I had this thought and I felt like it might as well get posted. Work was dull, although I made up a dance to amuse my co-workers. I ran into someone unexpectedly later in the evening, and though it was a meaningless non-event to that person, it bothered me to the point where it indirectly led to the thought that opened this entry.

wrote a couple stories last night to alleviate my angst. I don't write depression well when I'm bummed because it makes me feel lame about the whole depression thing. Oddly enough it tends to veer my writing more toward the, if not comedic, then at least the sardonic. I just ask myself "Why should this matter?"

So I've written some pretty off-beat stories lately. For the most part they were already in my head but the timing was such that they were able to come out properly. Sometimes it's hard to be true to whatever you envisioned in the first place.

Short stories are a medium with certain contradictions. You want it to feel complete and yet completeness takes on a whole different meaning in that context. It isn't as much about problem-solution storytelling as it is about event-aftermath. The movie "Night on Earth" was actually the one that started me thinking about short stories. "Dubliners" by Joyce more or less codified it, and Hemingway played his part. Icebergs and shit. I've talked about this a lot lately. I'm recapturing my enthusiasm for writing in general.

I want to set myself apart from every other asshole who claims to be a writer: I want to be a very particular asshole. I want everyone to know I'm kidding. Everything nowadays is either off-the-wall madness that gets old after a few moments of hilarity (Internet meme style) or serious business about how cripplingly painful one person's feelings are. The middleground is so rarely explored, I feel.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much Writers Cafe stuff. I mean, if that signifies anything about the way these folks write, yeesh. No offense to the people there, but have you seen the people there? Everything is a tragedy for them.

What is one person's broken heart? What is one death? What is any missed opportunity? We've got an entire world out there, and I've always (or at least, over the past several years) found it problematic to really believe my problems are more important or interesting than anyone else's.

Which makes it weird that I write whats I do here, but I think this viewpoint has been represented thoroughly over the year.

I'm just a few hundred words on a screen night after night. You're in pain and it sucks, or you're happy and it sucks for me.

Well, I do my best. That's all I've got.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Eight: I could be anyone

Today's post's title from a scrap of language I scrawled on my arm during my exam today. I was working on my essay for the last portion and of course I found some way, mentally, to connect it to something I'm writing. Everything I'm writing. Everything ever written.

"I could be anyone." I wrote yesterday about how stupid I feel for having my characters sum up the theme of the work within the stories. So I do these first drafts where it's patently obvious, and then I find ways to filter it all out. That line more or less crystallizes it. No need to further explain it, I don't think. Two characters meet for the first time. "I could be anyone." As far as you know. That's what's so exciting. I had to write it on my arm to get the feeling down so that it would stick with me. I hate forgetting things like that.

So today. The first time I've felt the enthusiasm for dragging my ass out of bed at a reasonable hour since, well, my last exam. I've been a sleep fiend all week, I get a late start on the day, spend the rest of it doing catch-up and before I know it it's time to start thinking about dinner. Day after day after day and the worst so far is that I'm not even working during the weeks right now, which is a first. I mean, even during the school year they were hanging extra shifts all over my availability, Monday after Monday, Friday after Friday, and I didn't mind, although I had to admit it drained me for all those papers I had to write. Oh man, those papers. And now, time unlimited, and now they have me go five days without a shift. Sheesh.

And I like closing on Mondays.

But okay. There's only so many shifts to go around. So it's really just my problem.

So here we are today. After walking from Union to campus (because hey, I've got time and it's a nice day) I meet up with my friend Daron in front of the exam site. We talk about the class, and school in general, and life. I like having her as a friend because she can pretty much talk forever. A real motormouth on that one. It's funny, too, how we end up having class together time after time, although I'm not sure it'll repeat next year.

We both speculated on our strengths and weaknesses going into the exam (which books we had read or ignored) and whether studying was even necessary. Not to be, like, cocky, but with English exams, you either know the books or you don't. And you can study a bit, but there's no telling what'll end up being relevant. This is where my "If you know it, you know it" mantra comes in. If you read the books, you read the books. If you saw the film, you saw the film.

Well anyway. I feel like I did really well on the various identifications and passages. The essay (40 of the 100 marks) I feel like I just rambled. Which is often the case, with varying results. One of the exam topics was pretty much my essay, (use of mythology in three books, or so.) so I didn't do that one. The other one was about whether there is any inherent truth in the body, as many books used body themes. Race. Gender. Even death.

I had some points buried in the large heaps of undistinguished obviousness I was slinging, obfuscated by occasional philosophizing. I mentally checked out in early March, which is a shame since that's before I wrote all my papers.

I handed the essay in and got my paper back, and it was about what I expected. I was expecting low to mid 70's, due to having turned it in a day late (3 mark penalty.) I was particularly pissed off about the lateness because had I not been an idiot it would've been avoidable. And I fucking needed those three marks, if only for my own emotional gratification. A 75 would've felt half decent, going out on a 72 is a bit of a bummer especially considering the weak sauce I delivered on that exam.

I also felt like I should have delivered, like, an 80-- but I started spinning out of control. Basically, the verdict, which I happen to agree with, is that I started getting into ideas too big for an 8-page paper. This hurt, obviously, both the presentation and the content. So it isn't that I'm an idiot or anything, I'm just a renegade who needs to be cut down to size.

Well, that's one particularly self-glorifying way of putting it.

And then that was it. I got on a train and went home. Goodbye third year. I had dinner with dad (B. was at the King Tut thing at the ROM.) and came home and just felt... bummed, man.

I mean, shit. It hasn't been the easiest semester of my life but it may have been the most fulfilling. I actively enjoyed the last 4 months, as crazy as they've been. I liked the classes, I liked the people, I liked the routine, and for the most part I did it well with only a few exceptions. More than that, the craziness gave me a compass orientation, a direction, a motivation, a driving force. Just to get up in the morning and tromp downstairs and leave the house and get coffee and get on a train morning after morning. It worked. It felt good. Then to come back and put on my shirt and get to work, and to feel like I had no time to myself. Man, it was so convenient, being able to blame lack of personal productivity on that. Now there's nothing. I feel so grown up, it's disgusting, being annoyed by the potential for idleness, feeling so helpless without being spurred on by a constant routine.

I mean shit, man, I even took summer school classes last year. I haven't had this much idleness ahead of me in years. But here I am and here we are and there you go.

Well I guess instead of moaning about it I ought to enjoy it. I ought to seize the opportunity about it. Hell, I even already gave myself this pep talk.

I've got stuff, I've got it in the works. It may be midnight, but the night isn't over yet. Maybe I'll get to it.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Seven: Fake British accent

For no reason today I was practicing my fake British accent.

I don't know why. I consider myself pretty decent at them, and at one point my British friend Claire admitted I was. There's a few different ones, although notably I never really got the hang of imitating my grandparents, who had a distinct Northern accent. But generally-speaking, a Ricky Gervais-style accent is at least consistent. There's also Yorkshire, Liverpool, Manchester, and of course, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the latter two I can't do. Scotland I'm okay and the first three your mileage may vary. Basically, I'm basing my accents off various members of Monty Python and various skits therein.

No reason for this. None at all.

British people are way better at doing American accents. Except on Monty Python, oddly enough, where their occasional American accents were way hammy.

As a Canadian, I find myself in an odd position. If I were to act in, say, an American television show (not that I'm an actor) my Canadian accent would be probably a bit noticeable in places. I don't say "aboat" for "about" (which is what many people think we pronounce as "aboot") but I do inflect my vowels a certain way that I have to think consciously about in order to sound more American. Usually it's a matter just sounding more cocky and putting more emphasis on certain syllables. Like, say, a Southern Accent is one thing, but to do a good generic Midwest "Heartland" accent, you have to really work at it to make it subtle. Whereas a British accent would just be an out and out fake, as opposed to an affectation, which is what an American one would be.

When I was in Grade 12, and auditioning for Fringe plays, Ana asked me to do the audition piece in a British accent, then cast me in her (as of then unwritten) play. I actually ended up writing it for her as a gift, but by then it was too late. I've told the story various times. I wonder whether she ever considered anyone else for the British play director character. I know Barrett didn't consider anyone else for the role he cast me in (Vernon, from the Breakfast Club, natch) because he didn't even audition anyone else for the part. That, I thought, was nutty. I think he was the only one who saw me in that role beforehand, myself included. But I did enjoy it. Would've rather been Bender, but who wouldn't?

I have been all over nowhere these past few days. Truth. A couple nights ago I wrote a couple stories: one only a couple hundred words long, one a couple thousand. Very satisfied with the shorter one. The longer one, I know exactly what's wrong with it. The narrator gets too opinionated. I do this a lot in first drafts. I try to use the narrator to explain exactly what I'm getting at, partly as my own reference point.

The stories are by and large about not being able to understand other people. That should be obvious. I shouldn't feel the need to have the characters summarize it in every story. But I write it, I write it as progression and then I cut out what doesn't work.

Beyond thinking about writing, I've just been kicking around town. I went to get a haircut the other day, but my girl has already gone on maternity leave (not surprising) so I had to get a stranger to do it. I go to my "girl" not just because I like the way she cuts my hair, but because we have good chemistry and the experience never feels awkward for me. This was every awkward barber moment I've had for years back to haunt me. It also looks weirdly short, but that kind of always happens anyway. Then I felt so old with the short hair and the goatee, I shaved my face and took about 10 years off my age. Lastly, when I tried to vent to Amanda about any of this, she pulled the "Yeah, well it takes me way longer to get my hair done (because she's a girl, you see) so count yourself lucky." Thanks, Amanda. Good friend.

I have my last exam tomorrow. Not psyched but I'll be happy to have it over with. It's American Fiction, which is something I don't need to study too much for but a re-reading of my notes on the train wouldn't hurt anybody.

It'll just be good to be done with it, and be done with school on a more or less ongoing basis for the first time in years -- by that I mean, not even Summer School, and therefore having a break longer than three weeks. Nothing on my mind except work, video games, and whatever creative projects spring to mind. And oh there are a lot of them.

I mean it's weird. I haven't exactly been devoting all my time to studying, but my enthusiasm for my various projects hasn't been stellar either. It's just because I have this cloud hanging overhead, there's this invisible Elephant in the room called studying. After tomorrow that is GONE. I can write, and read, and play Mario, with impunity.

So I've got this webcomic I may be setting up. I'm thinking a lot about it. And stories, as always. And more and more, the idea of just outright re-writing the new play from scratch seems appealing. One comment Cary made back in December, that he just plain didn't like one character's dialogue (even though he liked the character himself he said "I don't like any of his lines") struck me. Maybe I could do better. Maybe not. But I could stand to try.

The thing behind that is, the premise and overall concept of the play has expanded yet I've tried to keep all the original lines intact as much as possible. Why not just overhaul it? Shit. Might as well.

I also keep coming back to this other play idea I had during the course of Post-WWII drama. But one thing at a time. Well, who the fuck am I kidding. I'm not quite a "one thing at a time" guy, but I should at least limit it to one play at a time.

The plan, as I see it, is this: Finish this play, then write the other one and if I get it done in time, submit them both to the Fringe festival. If both get in, decline whichever I wanted to do less. Assuming there's not a prohibitive submission fee (doubtful) I don't see the harm.

I'll... I'll be better next week.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Six: A cup of coffee

Sometimes, nothingness can be exhausting.

Reminds me of a Mitch Hedberg joke about how tiring his dreams are, one minute you're lying down to rest, the next you've got to build a go-kart with your land lord. Last night I dreamed about getting punched in the face repeatedly. What does that tell you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for the nothingness. It just gets a little hard to focus on anything when your mind is permitted to wander so much. I've come up with so many ideas lately I might never get around to.

A long while back I pitched to Martina the idea of collaborating on a webcomic, knowing she's a hell of an artist. Except I didn't have any ideas ready at the time, so occasionally she'd check in by asking "Anything yet?" Then a few weeks ago I was digging through the forgotten files of my mind for stuff I used to think about writing, and I remembered The Knave, which was to be my epic Medieval story, my Mythological Stew of dragons and sorcery and Greek myths and pirates and all sorts of crazy whatever off the top of my head. And since then I've been dreaming up all the various pieces of the puzzle I intend to fit together in the end, although the route I take to get there seems quite jagged still. My attempts to write up an outline so far have been... tricky.

But I'm determined, because Marti has shown a good deal of enthusiasm for the project, and I'm keen on it myself because I get to invoke and play with all those quest tropes that have become so ubiquitous in pop culture lately, with LOTR and all. More, though, that I'll be drawing on old stories that came to me in picture book/illustrated form in my Tales of Magic and Illustrated World Myth books as a kid, which were largely what opened my mind to the richness of storytelling tradition.

So it was an ordinary crazy ass weekend, which began with my Music exam, which I probably didn't do quite as well on as the midterm due to what I perceive as being the more nebulous nature of the material. But that's just me. Maybe it's all really concrete and the problem is me.

The revelation that the problem was me all along would not be terribly shocking, given what we know.

Anyway, the exam was fine and I didn't feel like I was at a loss at any point, although I did occasionally feel like I was stretching my points... which I also felt during the midterm, and I did well on that, so who knows. I'm thinking 76.

This all ends with the soul-crushing yet entirely expected bummer of my paper for that class. I had a feeling, when I opted to do the paper the way I did it, that it was a high risk high reward proposition. It ended up in the high risk territory, as I sacrificed what could probably have been a more solid yet less interesting (to write) straightforward paper for a chance to take advantage of the paper's incredibly broad outline. My own bad. It was not well-received.

Well look. I get it. It's like that paper at the end of the American Lit last year. I know exactly what the problem was, and why this didn't go well. I feel bad about it, but I'm not going to feel sore about it like I did with the first paper here. But after three relatively conventional papers, I was just fuckin' sick of the same old, and if this one allowed for a bit of creativity, I wanted to take it as far as I could, and I did, and I paid the price.

But it was not a good paper. I know that. As I have a habit of doing, I made incredibly broad claims and didn't support them terribly well, as well as all that anecdotal business (encouraged but I was far too casual with it.) I wasn't shocked, and while I do reserve the right to be disappointed with myself, I do not believe an injustice has been served, except perhaps the one I inflicted upon myself.

Life goes on.

In case anyone is interested in the resolution to the little psychodrama I described in my previous entry, the answer is that it's all cleared up, without even a spare word needed to do so. Ob-la-di, ob-la-da.

The weekend sort of passed without anything particularly important happening. I'm feeling more unenthused about work, mainly because I'm getting less in the way of hours despite my increased availability. And yet people continue to drop off resumes by the bushel to the point where I feel guilty telling them they've got a shot. We even just lost someone (well, by the end of this week.)

The main interesting thing about the last few days is that I bought a CD by the new Canadian alt-rock Zeus, and I quite frankly can't keep from listening to it. I wouldn't say it's as good as some of the other albums I've bought this year, but it's very good listening material for just chilling on the web.

I want to say so much, but there is nothing left. And none of it's important anyway.

Anyway and anyway.

There is no way to reach out.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

Five: I know where it goes

I can be pretty obsessive. I don't think I would still have this blog 6 years after such formats were useful if I weren't. It comes and goes in certain scenarios, but I do fixate. I think a lot of people do. The difference is, I have SWP.

This girl I mentioned last night. We were talking today and she mentioned this one person she had become very fond of over the internet some time ago, who had lied to her in a particularly egregious way. I'm fascinated by representations of identity, particularly over the internet. Blame University, which tends to fixate on this theme.

It reminded me in a way of a story I wrote/have been writing for some time now. It started out as being an improbable romance between a guy in his mid-20's and a girl in her teens. My main problem, however, was that as I had written in (first person past tense) I felt like I had made the protagonist too sympathetic, to the point of author appeal. I'm very conscious of the way people might interpret my writing and it seemed very obvious that it would come off as me going like "Come on guys, it's cool to date 16-year-olds, right? It's fine, really..." when that really is not the point.

What is the point? I can't be certain, as I haven't finished writing the story yet, but so far I'm leaning toward "desperate people will grab onto anything." I've reached a point where I feel slightly more comfortable being critical of this protagonist, to the point where he is no longer the narrator: the story is voiced by his friend, whom he has told in his own defense. The friend is understandably skeptical. Except again, I haven't really written it yet.

My problem is this. I've got this story in my head and I'm already grappling with the ethical quandary and how to represent it, when I meet this girl, and she more or less fits the profile of the female character of the story, right down to the significant age difference. So that problematizes is considerably: if I continue to write this story (which I intend to do) it will appear that I am writing about her-slash-myself, which I am not.

I wrestle with the issue of whether or not I should even mention this when the anecdote I told you she told me up there is dropped and I think "Oh, that reminds me of this" barely even thinking of the unfortunate implications. So when I introduce the idea of the story, her response is "What are you trying to say" and then she goes offline.

And then I go fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Because gradually the possibility dawns on me that she drew the very conclusion I thought she might (which makes me wonder why I even bothered saying it) and that she logged off abruptly due to awkwardness.

Now, this, I simply cannot abide. I can't stand not knowing what she's thinking, and I can't stand not having made myself clear. So I begin to ramble to her offline messages - which at one point I suspect are her appearing offline or outright blocking me, but I know she goes to bed early and her internet cuts out also - to the effectof "Oh you didn't think--" and I go on and on a while.

Who was it that said every word is an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness? Oh, fuck, it was Beckett. Well you're right in this case, Beckett, except you also prove your own point because the word "unnecessary" is unnecessary (what stain could possibly be necessary) and you don't really need to mention both silence and nothingness, but whatever, you're the historically lauded playwright and I'm the asshole on the internet.

WELLP my point is that my stupid half-baked conversational topic has jeopardized what was a pretty decent friendship. In the long run it'll probably all work out, but I need to be able to get her input on the matter before I can get back to feeling comfortable about anything. It's not the fact that I said it, really, that bothers me.b It's not even so much the fact that I felt the need to keep clarifying. It's that she said "What are you trying to say" right before going offline preventing me from confirming that my explanations were being heard. So now for the rest of tonight and into tomorrow all I've got are speculations. And I fucking hate speculating, because I'm a real worst-case scenario guy.

I mean, I put off dealing with feelings I had for a girl for four years just because my mind went to the nearest convenient worst-case scenario. I've been known to be apocalyptically-fixated, you can ask Amanda about that. There's not a lot of rational thought up here.

It's frustrating, to have mixed up your connection with another person that badly and not be able to fix it immediately.

But these are problems of the modern world.

I should write. This is a really good headspace to be in for writing, oddly enough. My mind's been scrambled for days and I suddenly feel the need/ability/urge/impulse to put my shit in order. I do thrive on stress, in a certain respect, although I wouldn't go so far as to say I enjoy it or that it's a good thing or that my overall mental state is that healthy. I'm just an obsessive dude who wants everyone to like and understand him, which I think is why I write/blog/talk.

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.

I'm not looking forward to resuming that conversation or in any way referencing it in the future. It was a simple misunderstanding, but until now we'd actually done a pretty good job avoiding the typical assumption that two people of the opposite sex who get along must be interested in each other. This, we know, is not true for Scotto.

It's not doing me any good to keep rambling about it. I'm wasting time, wasting energy, going in circles, I just need someone to abuse with my words, because the correct audience for all this repetitive nonsense is not around.

It's okay, but I want to know it's okay. Basically, what I need is for her to have stayed online for like one more minute.

Derp derp derp.

Beyond that, my life has been the usual bullshit. Boredom, non-productivity, laziness and general insanity. Rambling about this has made it easier for me to relax, just a little. It's stupid. I have an exam on Friday. Then year 3, which has had its ups and downs, is in the rear-view mirror.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Four: Nothing and nothing and nothing

I am feeling strangely disconnected lately. Just gotten on exam break and I'm so unfocused. I worked a lot last week and now I'm just... blank. I mean, I want to be writing or at least studying but mainly what I'm doing is getting up, getting coffee, eating, playing video games (I unwisely bought New Super Mario Bros. Wii while I had other stuff to do. I do this shit to myself.) And then I wait online for people to come online.

It's like this.

I've been doing this other thing for a while now. For the most part I meet creepy dudes who just wanna be talked off by underage girls. Every so often you get plunked into a real conversation.

A few weeks ago this happened. I just started talking to this person and we really got on well, (she claimed to be female and I believed her.) And she made a Monty Python reference, which, although not exclusive to males, is not typically the go-to for the female sex. So anyway, this goes on, and she becomes the one and only time I have ever offered to add someone on MSN from Omegle. I offered one other person, but it was more or less against my will and we never talk. This despite a significant age difference and of course geographic distance (she's from Pennsylvania or something.) Anyway, it's not romantic or anything, I just like knowing her. I don't know what she looks like (I imagine her face is horrifically scarred in some way.) She doesn't know my appearance except from my MSN display, which is my Grade 5 class photo.

Anyway. This friendship-interaction-thing took a step up the other day when she told me something very personal about herself, that she keeps from people so as to not affect their opinion of her. Out of respect for her, I can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you that in all my years of hearing about other peoples' weird things, I have never come across this particular quirk. In order to drive this anecdote home, however, I need to come up with a fictitious counterpart. So imagine someone you've recently met and become fast friends with tell you she believed (or possibly still believes, as the case may be,) that she is an alien. Full-out, psychologically convinced she is part of an extraterrestrial race, making up a fictional backstory and feeling despondent about the lack of connection between herself and us Earthlings.

So she tells you that, and she's serious, and she's made her peace with it or gotten over it as the case may be, and her only problem is that this very odd but very important part of her life, she must keep hidden because, fuck, people tend to judge people like that. But after this brief period she feels comfortable just telling you all this. And in this case, "you" is "me." So what do I say?

Well, I pause, and I take a breather, re-reading the words on the screen to make sure I understand the story correctly, and I know on the other end of the Internet, this random girl whose face I can't even picture is just waiting for me to dismiss her or get weirded out, and what do I say? What do I say?

"Well," I say. Pause.

"Nobody's perfect."

Don't you just love me? I hate to brag, but I'm a really understanding cat. This thing she'd told me -- not that she's an alien, it was something else from that -- was incredibly persona and more than a little odd in nature, and well, what can you say? Nobody's perfect.

Anyway, in her lead-up to this bombshell, she asked if there was anything I was deliberately hiding to keep from souring her opinion of me.

The answer is, I don't think so, no. I could be mistaken, or doing it unconsciously, but to the best of my knowledge I'm very upfront. I've created what could be considered a very complete narrative of myself here and I usually stick by it when I build my identity for other people.

I don't really feel like saying anything to anyone lately. I feel like I'm sinking a little bit into the swamp of the internet. I've gotten a little time and I am squandering it. Focus, focus Scotto. Don't lose yourself.

I'm weird, man, but mainly just unmotivated.

This post is nothing.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Three: So bad it's driving me mad

So it's quarter after 2 in the morning and I ought to be in bed, but the truth is I started listening to the remastered Abbey Road and I don't think I'm going to be able to fall asleep until after it is over. Right now I'm about halfway through, nearing the end of I Want You (She's So Heavy).

I love this album so much. It's so easy to take it for granted. I love albumcraft, I like to listen to albums and ponder what, if any, are the unifying themes. Hear lyrical and sonic motifs that are maybe not overt, but there all the same. Consider the way in which Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hears Club Band is a concept album, pretending to be a different concept album. It's not really about a fake band, it's about examining why a band might want to pretend to be another band. It's about shifting notions of identity. It approaches these themes not on a lateral plane -- going from point A to B to C, as a straightforward concept album (Ashtray Rock presents itself as a wonderful modern example) but as a collection of short stories; as Joyce's Dubliners, say, constantly shifting and re-examining its subject matter. But I'm not thinking about Sgt. Pepper right now, I'm thinking about Abbey Road.

Abbey Road does have a more lateral narrative, in its way. It seems like it's just a collection of songs, until you see how they fit together -- not just the medley but the entire album. It begins with an invocation to "Come Together," let's see if we can do this again -- the band was splintered after the White Album and, what seemed apocryphal at the time, Get Back sessions. So let's give togetherness a shot. In comes those classic Beatle tropes, the beautiful lvoe song (Something) the whimsical flight of fancy (Maxwell's Silver Hammer) and passion (Oh! Darling). Octopus' Garden is key in establishing a theme, because, written by Ringo, it matches with another nature-themed song on side two, Here Comes The Sun. Basically, "Fuck this nose, the complications of the working world, let's get back to what's important, or just get away from it all."

So then comes I Want You, which I've always loved because it is insane. It is inanely long and lyrically simplistic. Lennon explained it that, when you're drowning, you don't yell out "Please if it's not too much trouble would you mind rescuing me!" You just scream for help. And so here he is drowning. I WANT YOU SO BAD IT'S DRIVING ME MAD. And that riff repeats itself over and over in its singularity and you barely notice the sound of the wind rising and then suddenly, click, it just ends, mid-tune, mid-chord, mid-note. Nothing. Done. snap out of it. It's not important. Here comes the sun.

I love the effect this has on the CD. The problem with, and sometimes beauty of, the LP is that it separates its sides, but a CD can build to a moment like that. Hearing the opening twinkle of "Here Comes The Sun" after the intensity of "I Want You" is such a beautiful thing.

Then the medley. Yes. I have no idea why it works so well. It shouldn't. It sounds like an awful idea. But it's so awesome, and I think I'm starting to get why: it's not a lyrical thing, it's a sonic thing. It's just a good sequence of incomplete strays that works well together. They just sound like they go along. In the Paul bits, there are the good, if obvious, allusions to the disintegrating state of the band ("You Never Give Me Your Money," "Golden Slumbers," "Carry That Weight,") but none of that accounts for the John parts ("Sun King," which is pretty-sounding nonsense, and "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam," which are more character sketches, to which Paul adds with "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window.") So I think it's this: Paul sings "Pick up your bags, get in the limousine," and John replies, "You wanna play? Let's play," and serves up this apparent nonsense and proves how good they are by making it so damn good.

And then "The End," which is not really the end, of course. That's the beauty of it. A lot of attention is paid to that awesome last line, as well as the amazing guitar/drums in the song that everyone overlooks the wicked-badass Please Please Me-style invocation at the beginning of the track. "AW YEAH AW RIGHT ARE YA GONNA BE IN MY DREAMS... TONIGHT?!" (dub dub dub dub dudududuh.) It began with the sun coming, and the sky being blue and turning me on, but now we've sung a lullaby and carried the weights, and the day's over, we're thinking about our dreams.

So here's what it is. It's like what I said in my last post. Even after something's over, things about it linger. So the Beatles' day was done, but that doesn't mean they would never dream of it ever again, it was part of it. They really were gonna carry that weight a long time, and they knew it. The future remained uncertain, but it was certainly going to grow out of the fact that they had been Beatles.

And THEN that last line, which is just plain good advice, "In the end, the love you make is equal to the love you make." Whatever happens next, it's all because of what we did before.

And the sound of the medley, and the album in general, is not inconsiderable. The thing is drenched with rising-falling arpeggiated riffs, signaling birth, death, rebirth. Maybe. Maybe not. And then they collapse into those solos at the end. The modest instrumentation at the beginning of "You Never Give Me Your Money" swells several times over the course, particularly in "The End," only for the modesty to return in "Her Majesty," a little bit of capriciousness that just happened to fall into place and remind us that the end isn't really that. That track also begins in the right speaker and fades left over its course, which is a neat touch.

It's an amazing album, as I've said many times, effectively a concept album about a band breaking up. It sounds so amazingly in its remastered form that it's almost not fair.

Anyway. There's plenty been going on in life that I ought to share, and I will tomorrow probably, but it's late and I'm tired, so remind me when we get there: stuff about exams and cool people I meet and movies I feel inclined to buy and other random thoughts.

Until then, please keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Two: Acoustic record

So this is what it's been like.

Probably as a consequence of coming out of a very ridiculous overactive time in my life (the period from January to last week) I'm feeling somewhat unplugged. Downbeat. Worn out. I get up, I go to work, and a void exists in between into which I would normally pour my self.

Waiting for exams. Trying to reconcile my desire for social interaction. Being overly melancholy.

I feel like I'll start writing again soon. At our family gathering, aunt Lori gushed over my last story, the revised version of the Insomniac (a story I've been writing over and over since the first year of Sheridan.) I feel like it's almost there. She also gushed over Eric's script, which I also thought was very good. I feel like the two of us are really starting to "get it," although I can't say exactly what it is, because I haven't gotten it yet.

We were talking a lot about writing when we returned the DVDs to Blockbuster. Cary and I are thinking of taking the new play to the Toronto Fringe (actually, we're more-or-less decided on the matter.) I mentioned this to Amanda and she suggested it might be more prudent to put Half-Past on again, because I know how much people enjoy it.

Eric disagreed with that. He's always in the position of advocate for the arts. We complement one another well because I'm a conventionally-minded writer with a decent sense of art, and he's an artistically-minded writer with a decent sense of the conventional. The main difference in our styles is where our sympathy lies in that dichotomy, but we're not one or the other.

But he's always nudging me in the direction of artistic growth. That was his chief argument. "I think it's best of you move on," he says, and I don't disagree. "Do you think the new script is good?" It's getting there.

I know Eric has a very complicated perception of Half-Past, as his wont. Being the person who knows me best, or at least has far too close a view of me for anybody's comfort (I'm the same way with him) he can sort of see the genealogy of the characters and storytelling better than anyone, and he can also see the potential. His experience of Half-Past was definitely different from everyone else's, and I think there's definitely a level on which he didn't quite enjoy it because of that. He's particularly pointed out a certain immaturity to the writing that I wouldn't deny and in fact would suggest is part of the appeal for some.

So he sees me as a writer who is growing - which I am, of course. And as tempting as it is to just ride through the same success, as imminently practical as that idea is, there's also something to be said for moving forward. It's a tough call, but I do think the new play is the right way to go.

That said, the new play won't be an artistic revolution for anyone's money. It is more or less calculated to provide a similar experience to that of Half-Past. Similar tone, similar subject matter, themes, jokes. Not the same, I don't want to say I'm doing the same thing. Cary and I have discussed the ways in which the protagonist is different from Mark, Mark being passive, the new one being more of an instigator.

It's still messy, still rough. I have some formal matters I need to iron out after I'm done the current draft. It's not even what I plan on writing next. I want to keep going with the short stories. I have unfinished work there.

Anyway, I'm just kind of feeling down and aside from the general chaos of my life, part of it is that when E. and I were out I walked past this girl I met online back in November, and at the time I think we had a lot of fun (she was laughing, like, a lot) but whatever I did to make her lose interest I don't know. It's over, it's done, I did my best, these things happen. It just sucks to encounter someone like that, when it seems like they had a relatively minor contribution to your life, all that hope and potential comes back sour. That's my point. If it is a point.

Anyway. This encounter was even more minor, proportionately speaking, that our initial acquaintanceship. It consisted literally of me seeing her talking to a guy outside the video store, her not glancing at me, and me taking another look back to make sure, yep, it was her. No acknowledgment. I'm just about nobody. A shame, too, since aside from not being a TV watcher, she was really cool.

My point is, even when something's over, things about it linger. There's a story in there, and I've probably already written it but it's not in any form I want to share.

Tonight's plan is to go out to Toronto, watch LOST with the gang, sleep there, get up the next day and go write my exam. Then, hopefully after some kind of hangout, I get on a train back to Oakville and work five-til-close. Such is the ragged life.

What it is, man.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

One: This road leads someplace

I'm very caffeinated, and I said to myself that I was going to write tonight, and it's 2:00 and here I am just doing an SWP entry. You can chalk it up to bad habits.

It's been a long uneventful but tiring weekend.

My last entry was just prior to going and interviewing the owner of the Moonshine, which was cool. He was very helpful, gave me some good quotes for the paper, although in the end I felt I came across like an a-hole with a digital recorder asking bad questions. May just be in my head. After the interview, I went off to work, and when I got home, I was all set to spend the evening writing up the paper, when I found my brother Eric sitting on the couch.

This was not terribly surprising, but it was unexpected, and a bit of a setback because in the end we spent several hours just hanging out and talking while I kept checking the clock and wondering if I should've gotten started (hint: yes.)

Anyway. I did eventually finish up the paper, more or less to my satisfaction. I don't know how good it was, because although it came out basically as I'd envisioned it, with a fairly clear focus, expressed with my observations and interviews, I have a history of going too faro out on projects like this and ending up missing the point. So long as I don't fail, I don't really care. I feel like I learned something anyway.

Thursday was a gorgeous day, I was starting to get over my cold. Pretty chill, in the end. I felt good about my last paper being dropped off, and to top it off we watched Lost in Translation in film.

Friday: A family gathering, which I only found out about once Eric got back, to celebrate cousin Elizabeth's birthday, and her daughter's. We spent much of it in Mike's clubhouse shooting pool, drinking beer, watching that movie Extract; pretty funny. There were enough kids that they mainly amused themselves with a certain level of supervision. I bonded with Elizabeth's dog.

We got home and rented some movies. Kind of an Easter theme. Inadvertently, they all corresponded to a book of the bible: Genesis: The Invention of Lying, Job: A Serious Man, Revelation: Zombieland.

Saturday: work.

I was talking to Matt after a hot girl came through the store. Very good-looking. Blonde, conventional good looks, nice face, good body. Matt gave her a ten, and asked for confirmation. For me, I said, she was an eight. "What does a girl have to do to get a ten from you?" I found this concept hard to explain, but she was actually too conventionally good-looking. I don't know. All my tens aren't really tens. I see a lot of beauty in imperfection, and yet I'm susceptible to the same aversions as most guys. It's possible I don't have a ten at all, because a girl would be brought down by those very imperfections that the lack of which makes a girl in equally unappealing. It's a catch-22.

But I offered as my possible ten Zooey Deschanel, because she has that look to her, that sweet yet dark and mysterious glaze in her eyes. Her gigantic Bambi eyes. And dark hair. I've always preferred dark hair, but that's not to say I dislike other colours. But dark hair and a nice set of eyes really does it for me.

Maybe it means I'll never be satisfied, maybe it means I can be satisfied with nearly anyone, in theory. Also, girls like the one in question don't tend to have the personality I look for. Not that they never do, I just don't expect them do. Until proven otherwise, and believe me, I'm willing to be persuaded (they're hot after all,) I do judge them based on their appearances.

So yeah. I mean, I judge based on appearance insomuch as I can tell what kind of personality someone has, in many cases.

I was down today. But I don't really have time to explain why. I'll get back to it later. Something stupid and small that made me want to write lame little Emo poems.

So I'll just sign off with that promise, to get into that tomorrow. Lord knows it'll still be affecting me somehow.

Keep on rockin'
Scotto