pg 7: Left intentionally blank

Got a couple of couches, sleep on the loveseat.

Let me tell you what it's like.

I read an article recently pointing out that excessive white noise is bad for you. Apparently it stimulates a bad part of your brain, affects neurochemical flow, or some other scientific mumbo-jumbo (except, y'know, for real.) Your brain doesn't get accustomed to it, either, so the disruption is ongoing. And in your everyday life this shouldn't be a problem, but the way things are for me lately, it feels like I'm getting near critical mass.

I used to be able to sleep. I had it all. The house was a nice place to live. A nice place to be. It all worked. The system has broken and things will now never be how they used to.

This is the problem with dog ownership. now by and large, I like the new dog. She's a bit overzealous, she's a bit needy for attention, but it's fine. She's in a new place, she needs comfort and reassurance. Probably, I guess. But that doesn't help me when I've gone to bed at 2 AM and she's causing a calamity for mom to deal with every morning. "Durr, don't go to bed at 2 AM then" shut the fuck up.

Then there's work, which is all background noise, all the radio and the customers and the cash registers. And this is generally acceptable, because shit, I'm being paid, I know what I'm getting into.

Lastly, there's Eric, and the personal space issues inherent when someone is sleeping on your couch and scarcely has any reason to get away from it. Maybe this wasn't going to be the greatest summer ever, but it wasn't supposed to be so fucking miserable. I'm trapped in an extremely mundane nightmare that, rather than being outright tragic, is slowly wearing down my tolerance for the everyday... which let's face it, wasn't so strong to begin with.

If I'd known it'd be this way... that Eric was coming back, specifically, maybe I'd have taken a summer course. I know I work plenty to get out of the house, but facing facts, I need as many reasons to be out of this house as I can take. I show up to work in the morning -- because jolly good on top of everything else I'm opening regularly now -- happy, because I've just experienced a rare 20 minutes of freedom between leaving the house for the morning and signing in to the store.

But it's not so bad, it's just that there's nothing for myself. And worse, despite no meditative alone time, I still get absorbed into myself because I'm trying to retreat any way I can. That's a bad habit.

The last week's been a blur. We made flank steak for dad for father's day, there wasn't a lot of it to go around. I worked. Went out for drinks with CB on Wednesday night, talked Lost and the usual good times; drank too much (arguably my plan from the start.) Felt gross the next day, but triumphantly.

And now what.

Now summer starts its slow sink. It's just... this.

And yeah. I'm kind of upset about it.

Keep on rockin'
-Scott

pg 6: Never been nothing

I guess there are two diametrically-opposed types of nights as far as soundtracks go. A lot of music is good "any time," but tonight's the kind of night where I had to stop listening to Broken Social Scene's Forgiveness Rock Record and put on Nirvana Live at Reading.

Been a little down lately. Whether this has anything to do with Eric or work or anything else, I can't say. I'm just detached, like the whole of reality is at arm's length and I can't connect. I'm no tragedy, I'm just bored and lonely.

The other day, I thumbed through a book of Leonard Cohen's poetry in Cole's. I looked at the poetry -- didn't really read it, as I had little time -- and was taken back to the earliest times I can remember feeling a fresh, new relationship with poetry, back in Grade 12. Since then it's been a few notable encounters, and as much as I appreciated Reibetanz's class back in first year there's no going back to those days of Guthrie.

I wrote something last night. I had a story that was 650 words, a nice but brief sketch, and I doubled its length to flesh it out and change the tone of the ending. I was rather pleased with the whole effect. It'd been a while since I had done even that much, so I'm going to try to reclaim my little streak from earlier this summer. I'm wearing my Grandad's old hat, which I think will become my writing hat, my reminder that as long as I'm wearing this hat, I should be writing something and not just idly browsing. I know what I need to do, but I've got a bit of a ways to go.

Well, keep at it, kid. And get back to the world, they might be missing you.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

pg 5: I don't remember you

It's been a busy couple of days over here. Eric's still here, I'm getting over whatever anxiety I usually have and just living with it. Sure, I still sigh with resignation when I get downstairs in the morning to find the TV still on, but I get over it, get on with my life.

We cleaned up yesterday. One of the big projects mom wanted Eric to tackle was to re-paint a portion of the basement wall, behind the couch. See, 6 years ago, when we first moved in here (cripes, it's been that long -- and I had just started SWP then) Frank was living with us, and he was supposed to paint the basement all white. It was primed -- as some will know, primer is white -- by Eric, and then for whatever reason Frank decided "good enough" and didn't bother, despite the obvious patchiness on certain parts of the wall. Um yeah. Wonder why that guy's relationships never work out.

Anyway, it didn't really matter -- mostly it was behind the couch, where it was mostly unseen. But I think mom, knowing it was there, never really got it off her mind and finally got the wherewithal to get on with it. We we took on a pretty massive multi-phase project yesterday, first cleaning up the surrounding area, clearing away garbage and dust. Six years' accumulation of crap can be quite significant. This was followed by the physical moving of furniture and the painting itself. Then Eric called the paint prematurely dry after the first coat and put the couch back, getting paint on the back of the couch. Luckily it was latex, easy enough to wipe off the leather couch, especially before drying.

When I summarize it, it doesn't sound like a big deal, but trust me when I say this was a considerable undertaking. Six years with the attitude of "it's our place and we leave whatever we want wherever we leave it" leaves a lot of random crap -- papers, wrappers, small items -- in random places, even with Eric not living here for the last two of those.

Come to think of it, I've gotten so acclimated to him that I'll actually miss him when he's gone. Don't fuckin' tell him that, though.

Another task was to take an old washer-dryer set to the curb, which was not hard -- they were a small set -- but we noticed a raccoon nesting in our front yard tree, which freaked us out. Also, we were distracted by our creepy Eastern European neighbour insistently drawing our attention to it and offering us his broom to, uh, jab at it with. Um yeah.

Live and let live, man.

Beyond that, life is fine. Getting more ideas, and it won't be long before they bust through my self-denial of writing. I often feel self-conscious about writing when Eric's around, possibly because he's just over my shoulder, possibly because I'm distracted by the TV. I don't get a lot of peace and quiet in my life, except sometimes when I go on walks and decide not to listen to my iPod, and then I often end up muttering quietly to myself just so I can get whatever thoughts I'm having out into the air. I need syntax.

But yeah. Things are going okay. My work schedule is relaxed, and if it weren't for my occasional edginess at the company around the house, I'd probably feel bored more than anything. As it is, it's enough fun suppressing unwarranted aggravation. (That is to say I really shouldn't feel aggravated. But such is life.)

I think I'll tinker with a story before bed.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

pg 4: Shades of orange

Selfish as it is, it's hard for me to engage with life when my brother's around. It's stupid, and I should just be able to co-exist or work around, but I find myself just blanking and detaching myself in an effort to cope. I've grown so accustomed to his absence that I simply do not know what to do. It has nothing to do with him as a person, it has to do with me as somebody who craves solitude.

Which is weird, since usually I'm angsting about simply having too much solitude. Well, there's no winning with me. My point is, I can't focus, I'm feeling lame. To cope, we're watching the 90's X-Men cartoon, which I've been buying volume by volume.

I'm not saying I was ever perfect, that I was all that productive before he arrived. I had one good spurt and it was over well before he did. Could be I'm just projecting pre-existing angst onto him. I don't blame him for anything, he is not antagonizing me, I'm just a lamer who has no stability nor consistency in his life. It's my problem, I'm my own problem, shit like this I've said a dozen hundred times.

Nothing happens and I live like a nobody. I work once every few days. No balance -- too much free time I get restless. Too little I get resentful, taking it out on others, most obviously Eric.

I used to write poetry. I used to be able to put things in order with words, make sense out of things with syntax. Not so much lately. The poems gave way to story gave way to nothing. Now I'm back to the old habit of thinking about things I ought to be writing or would like to write someday, although to my credit the last couple days have both seen me cross some longstanding projects off my list.

Complain, complain, complain.

Eric was nearly scammed recently, part of his job search. Not an overly interesting story, but if I'm ever looking back wondering when that happened, here it is. I was actually disappointed when we found out it was a scam, since it seemed like such a convenient real-life deus ex machina.

Mom's getting a new dog. I was pretty against this after Max died. Not so much out of fear of dishonoring Max, but out of practicality. I didn't want to have to teach a new puppy how to poop outside, etc. When mom said she was considering getting a Yorkshire puppy from our cousin (who breeds them) I was very troubled. Then when I found out Grandma had said either mom was going to take the dog, or she was, I was even moreso (who knew my grandma was into coercion?) And then I started to warm up to the idea, just as long as Mom was aware I was not interested in being the dog's caretaker and trainer. And then the way things shook out...

Grandma's getting the dog, the Yorkie. Mom got a different opportunity. A co-worker is moving, or knows someone who's moving, and they can't take their 6-year-old Cockerspaniel-Poodle with them, so we're taking her. Yep, we get the honor of owning our very-own ridiculously-named dog breed: A cock-a-poo. You can't tell me the people naming these things aren't aware of the joke.

Anyway. The dog's all trained and everything, so good. The main problem is her name. We didn't get to name Max either, although it was a fairly acceptable name. We ended up baby-talking the name into the gibberish-sounding nickname "L'ead" (pronounced "Lay-ed," not quite "Lad" but definitely not "led.") Anyway, the new dog is named "Bella," which is irksome because it's either a Twilight reference or an annoying coincidence. Since it already has its name ingrained, however, we'll probably just end up calling it by some meaningless similar-sounding variant like "Belly" or "Bells" or "Bellsy," then "Bell's Palsy" and eventually "Ballsy." That's how these things work, but you can't force them. B. suggested "Hell's Bells" but I told him that's not how it works.

And that's pretty much all the interesting stuff that's been going on with me lately. And how amazing that it's not interesting at all. I'm losing it.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

pg 3: wtf are you

Work, music, a few DVDs, a weekly meet up with Amanda, grocery shopping, coffee every morning. Continuity. Stability. I'm losing my mind for it.

I'm not at the end of my rope, I'm hanging comfortably from it. I try to take the time to take in the world around me but I don't spend a lot of time getting down to business. A solid week of work exhausted me and got me out of my productivity zone and now I'm getting really vivid nonsensical dreams that are the middles of very confusing stories.

I don't like having to open, as I did today, and despite what I sometimes think, it's not really about who I'm working with, it's abut time. I don't like having to go to bed/wake up early for a shift. I don't like getting off at 2 and feeling like the day is pretty much gone. I like having a day -- as much of one as I can -- and then going to work, and coming home at 9:30 to realize there's still time to write, or do other things. Productivity has slackened.

I had a phase of writing stories last month. I was quite pleased with the work I did on them, and remain satisfied, although it's an ongoing process. I sent a large cache of them to Amanda to get her best go at a straightforward opinion. She generally liked them, with her main piece of criticism being the fact that many of them felt unfinished and therefore should be lengthened. Not hard to agree, as some are under 1000 words, although in some cases that's a stylistic choice I'm hesitant to deviate from. Anyway, it gave me some reassurance, since I consistently requested she be honest so long as it was constructive.

Been thinking about a number of different things lately. Top priority is no longer the stories, they'll have to wait. I need to get back to playwrighting, since we're going to be attempting to get the new play going again this fall, for summer 2011. I had a draft I was happy with, but that I knew could be better. Structure things, character dynamics, jokes. Writing is hard.

Anyway.

Been thinking about a few other projects lately. Big webcomic thing that beckons my attention, particularly as it involves the work of another person. I was also thinking of my old movie script, Summer at Sixteen. Not necessarily about re-doing it, just as idle thoughts on how I wrote it, why I wrote it like I did, and why it does or doesn't work. Structurally it's rather mature/challenging for something a 17-year-old wrote, although it's still clumsy in many ways. Could be more interesting, funnier, more dramatic. Could've been more everything without actually adding more content. But the fact that I did it at all, and it was what it was, is something I'm still pretty proud of.

Anyway. This is all by way of attempting to get it together. I've got promises to break, and miles to go before I... well, that was a half-assed parody.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

pg 2: All your friends are not like you

For my part, I value my free time to work 6 days in a row.

Intellectually, I know more work is a good thing. More money. Something to do. Yada yada. But I get exhausted and cranky like a child, if forced to spend too much time in the work environment. I had this bizarre dream last night about it. A stress-panic dream about work.

Today ended a 6-day streak of shifts, settling me back into my 15 hour a week void. I don't mind it. I made some money, I'll make more money, time is valuable. Life goes on. It sure beats not working at all.

Then again, since I'm not under the same financial constraints as soon (many) people I know, I guess I have a skewed view.

The other morning, this kid came in, wanting nothing more than to tell me his story, how he sings Ricky Martin covers and finds it hard to keep friends, how he insists on respectfully referring to people as "sir" (even when they tease him by calling him "gaylord.") I don't know what this kid had; whichever neurological condition prevents you from understanding not everyone wants to talk to you, but it was clear he was having a hard time. A real nice, earnest kid. It's a bit hard for me to feel bad about myself when I meet a dude like that, just kinda rolling on with his life despite clearly being disappointed with it, and yet unable to rein himself in, and unable to let any of it stop him.

In any case, today was a pretty nice day at work, one lady's passive aggressive trolling about our prices aside (it happens man, I work at HMV.) I was in good spirits, the new girl is learning things at a rate generally considered proper. She's still a bit quiet, but she's getting more talkative than some previous co-workers I've had. Plus she digs Flight of the Conchords, which gives her a notch in my good books.

Sometimes I feel like I'm a dick to certain customers. I don't try to be, I just get exhausted with certain types of people. Fact is, I may sympathize with the individual customers too much for my status as an operative of a massive corporation. I'm not an important part of it, just a minor expendable appendage, like a baby toe or a uvula. Do you need your uvula? Well, I guess I don't feel like a uvula anyway.

Well anyway. I'll be fine. Just do it better. Be more good at it. Whatever it is.

I have stories to polish. I'll have time in the near future. I just need to get unwound. Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

pg 1: I know you're in there

6 years ago I created this blog.

Weird, man. Some years the late-May anniversary hits me more than others. This year it was delayed because I've just been so burned out, but when I say down to write this entry, it occurred to me that We're in the 6th June, the first full month of posts I ever did. Oh those mopey mid-teen days, how hard I've tried to move beyond you.

Every so often I think about giving up the blog. The same small collection of acquaintances reads it as ever did. I'm still bummed about the same stuff. Stuff that changes changes and the rest doesn't. But you know, if I deleted this blog, my baggage doesn't go away with it. It just becomes my sole burden again. If I stop writing here, I go back to bottling it all up, which I've felt over the last couple weeks.

Even if I just stop by here a couple of times a week to talk meaningless chit chat or describe a dream I vaguely recall, it's still something, it's still trying to put it all in order. I don't live a frightfully dramatic life. There is a notable distinction between Taylor's emo friends, thirsty for someone to talk to about nothing, and me, happy to not talk about anything, if the distinction makes any sense.

My problem: same as it ever was, I don't know what I want. My wheels spin, I try to go forward. I do what I can.

Eric went home yesterday, sure to return. I feel bad about radiating negativity during the past week, and some but far from all of it was due to him.

Be good and do it.

Seems easy, but you've got to keep it in mind. Getting my shit back on track entails remembering that before and thing can be done, you must do.

See? See? Where would there be for this nonsense without SWP?

See you in a while. Keep on rockin'
-Scotto