017: Lonely sayings

I don't know how I do it. Or why I do it. Or what I'm doing.

Okay, I borrowed that line from myself, but in my defense, I used it a long time ago, most have forgotten, and I still dig it.

I miss a lot of moments. I was reading old entries,a s I am apt to do (I've got plenty of em.) Sampling random moments from three years ago, Fall '08. Funny how some of those thoughts seem like they just occurred to me yesterday. Amanda and I used to talk and she'd say how perception of time speeds up as you age, and I dreaded knowing that was true and now here we are. I remember early in second year, that awful first day with seven straight hours of class, including a Film Theory class I was in no way set to handle. Eventually I did take Film Theory, and I dug it, with a different professor, after going through Lit theory, which prepared me for it. Things dovetail in University. Everything that rises must converge.

So I was reading these old entries and I wrote in detail about my day, about what happened that day and how I felt about it. Every minute irrelevant detail felt so fresh and clear, and I could put myself back in those days. And I guess that was the point.

Nowadays I don't anymore. Every individual day isn't worth talking about and I don't have the energy to sit down more often and write about it. I imagine putting more worthwhile creative pursuits first and letting SWP fall by the wayside, and yet I was much more creative when I did SWP more often. Output begets output.

Like today, I went to work. Lately, we've been on this weird thing where Trevor and I will come in in the morning, and then the deliveries will start coming and Trevor will receive them and Kyle will show up for four hours (which is a baffling notion in itself,) and then he'll be gone and Trevor won't be done the receiving and I'll be alone on the floor until the evening crew shows up. So I hardly interact with most of the other staff anymore, just Bev, Trevor and Kyle, then I have passing interactions with the others. This will change when the new Assistant Manager (the Assman) gets in next week, which will present its own issues, then we'll lose people and gain people and the circle of life will go on. Two years, I never thought two years. Believe me, believe me, there was a time not all that long ago when I thought my future tenure could be measured in weeks, not months. But let's face it. I've got some atrophying to do yet before I finally get it up to break free.

I went with Eric the other day as he handed out some resumes. He explained how badly he felt the need to recharge after his school experience, which didn't go as well as he'd liked. He spent the summer idling, but now is the time to get going and he knows it. I think he got some good leads, following many of the same paths as I did back when I had to look for work. I hope he gets something, if only because I'd be interested to see what happens when he works.

I was thinking the other day how comfortable I've gotten. This is a good and bad thing. One, it's unprecedented... I'm not stressing out over anything, not running from place to place, dividing my life, worrying about the future, it's mellowed me out. The other, however, is that it obviously breeds stagnation, an unhealthy sort of comfort. The other day dad asked what was new and I said, borderline contemptuously (with a hint of humour and a hint of truth,) nothing, like it would be absurd for something to be actually new with me right now. It was sort of a splash of cold water to myself.

But this period of peace, this interregnum... it's doing me some good.

I sense I will be moving back toward writing soon... maybe it's wishful thinking or maybe Iv need to bootstrap myself into motivation. But it keeps rolling around in my head and if I know me (and I almost do) I can't let that urge stay suppressed forever. Do I force it or wait for the time to feel "right" (if that ever happens?) Hurm. Stupid amateur writer dilemma. Stupid amateur writer.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

New York Part 6: Two Lights

Or, how I managed to spend the weekend in New York on the Tenth Anniversary of 9/11 and hardly noticed.

I don't want to say it's because I'm shallow, that I don't care, that I wasn't thinking about it before and after. I was. It seems odd to me that someday soon we'll be teaching this to high schoolers, like World War II, JFK and Vietnam. There's probably no way to teach the level of paranoia and uncertainty that afflicted the global consciousness in the aftermath. People kept asking whether I went to Ground Zero or whether I planned it out that way, but I hadn't. It was just a date that worked for Meg, and she hadn't thought of it either. At the party, I didn't think it right to start pressing these New Yorkers for their memories. The thought crossed my mind, but by the time I was talking to them moment passed. It was early in the night and one pointed over the backyard fence at the beams of light from Ground Zero, "Hey, 9/11!" Like it was some fucked up version of a surprise visitor you weren't sure was going to show up.

"You know, this is the last time they're going to light those," someone said. "It costs $800,000 just to light them, (or some incredible figure) and the money was only set to last ten years." A conversation ensued about health care for rescue workers. I didn't say so, but no, none of the Canadians I know envy the American Health Care system.

I left on the 11th. The most I saw was a few streets being blocked off. I got up at 9 and by 10 was on a subway to Manhattan. I stood outside the subway station, hugging Meg and finding no adequate way to really express my thanks for the weekend, simply said "Thank you so much. It was great meeting you." That's all you can say.
Again, here's one of those things I would like to have planned better. Maybe I could've taken an extra day and gotten an overnight bus back. I could have hung out in the city again, seen some of those things I missed. Admittedly, I wouldn't have wanted to drag my bags all around the city again, but when I was planning the trip I wasn't thinking of that. I had only a couple hours to get food and some souvenirs.

I told Meg where I was going and she told me where to change trains. Then when we got to Manhattan the Subway decided it wanted to start hitting local stops (New York train logic again!) so I managed to get off just a couple blocks away from where I was going, the same spot where I was dropped off Friday morning.

Of course, this is one of those cases where what I was doing and what I was supposed to do didn't line up. I thought the bus was leaving from the same spot as it dropped me off, but I was thankfully smart enough to double-check my ticket, and it turns out there was a whole different bus area several blocks over. That could have been embarrassing. After getting my bearings in the city, I found my way to a cafe to grab a sandwich and some Cokes for the road, and dodged into the first gift shop I saw to grab some trinkets: a magnet, keychain and bottle opener, and a t-shirt. I opted for a Brooklyn one. I figured I earned the right to wear it.

On the way home, I took advantage of the Bus' Wi-Fi to check Twitter and Tumblr. Of course everyone was talking about it. Why wouldn't they? It's important. I was reading, later, about the late comedian Bill Hicks, how he would do material about his family and childhood, despite having no real animosity: he picked at the wound to keep it fresh. And with something like 9/11, that applies. It's that whole "Never Forget" thing. I read some really incredible stories about the human spirit and, if not always heroism, at least perseverance. I didn't have any of that, of course. I was just living a struggle for normalcy.

I was 14 at the time it happened. It was my second week of high school. Imagine that. You're already uncertain enough about the future and then this thing happens without any precedent and your entire track of what you thought life was gonna be like -- which you barely had any concept of already -- gets switched to this other course. And I'm up here in Canada, and we felt it. Like everyone, we had the same struggle to process it. I got to class and my drama teacher, Mr. Rosser, sat down with us and in a very serious hushed tone, sat with us and told us about this thing that just happened, and nobody was sure exactly what it meant yet. I remember being in North Bay visiting my Grandparents and Uncle and Aunt, a month later for Thanksgiving. I was alone in the car alone with my dad and winter had come on early that year, (well, in the North anyhow) and we were in his 1991 Buick Century driving around the backroads toward Kirkland Lake looking for something to do, and the only radio station we got was CBC and there was this very stern-sounding news announcer talking matter-of-factly about how the jets were taking off for Kabul, and it was so fucked up and heavy.

Between the two moments, my grandparents had been on vacation to Las Vegas. They were constant travelers. The main topic of conversation was how quickly things had changed, how difficult security was, of course. That was the lens through which we viewed the whole thing: how did everyday life change? What was now different? Not, are we in danger, will they attack again, just, how long does it take to get on a plane? Of course. I learned later in journalism, local impact is always important, even if it should be dwarfed by the larger story. Driving away from the hotel/restaurant that night, my dad and his girlfriend discussed how off Grandma seemed that night, she seemed very tired, compared to how ably she usually dominated every conversation. Maybe she was showing her age. We found out not long after that she had cancer. They never traveled again.

They gave her a very conservative estimate and she outlived it for two good years. Unlike certain other relatives, I don't really remember the last time I saw her. It was one of those cases where you weren't sure it was going to be the last time. I remember the morning she died. The night before I had acted in a play I had written (as a group, but I was the dominating creative force) for my Grade 12 Drama final project. It went really well. I knew immediately the next morning what had happened, I recognized my dad's knock on my door, because although he didn't live with us I just knew his knock, and I knew the only possible reason he could be there at that time.

It was January. A few months later, Mr. Rosser was organizing a trip to New York for all the drama students. I had initially declined, didn't give it a thought, because I wasn't sure how to pay for it, I wasn't that close to anyone else who was going. Unfortunately, as the trip approached, I became very much involved with the drama kids, and it was sorta lame that I hadn't even tried to go on the trip when it was time to sign up back in the fall.

Then at Easter, when we visited North Bay again, Grandad dropped an envelope in all of our laps. Grandma had left us each a certain amount of money. I didn't know what to do with mine until I caught wind that there was a cancellation on the New York trip. And that's how I ended up taking my first extended trip outside the country. So all along, there's been this strange connection between that side of my family and the city. At the wedding last weekend, my Grandad's cousin Mary, one of the few we have left from England, talked about how jealous she was that my brother and I were going: her husband, Ron, who has the same relationship with her as my Grandad did with my Grandma (he barely gets a word in edgewise, although when he does he's a bit more sarcastic than my Grandad was,) wouldn't go.

This isn't a particularly inspiring or meaningful story, but I guess what it means to me is the way it's become part of our life, sewn into the fabric of our experience. The way our lives have long since rebuilt themselves secretly around it.
As we pulled out of the city toward the Lincoln Tunnel, I turned my iPod to the Strokes' Is This It, to see me off from New York. The title track of the album is cynical, weary, sarcastic and skeptical, but the answer I came up with as I got a last look at the skyline was, "Yes, and I'm glad I got this much."

Twelve hours later, I was back in Toronto, making my way to Union Station from Yonge and Dundas. I thought about how strange Toronto now felt, because I was quickly on a street by myself. Well, just me and some crackhead banging furiously on windows.

Toronto: It's very clean.

Keep on rockin
-Scotto

New York Part 5: We're All Really Confused

Let me take a second to express even more gratitude to Alex and Meggo for helping me out this weekend. They were taking as much of a chance as I was, because who even knows how accurate these words on this site are to what I'm actually like. Even I don't know what I'm like. A lot of the time I was quiet, but a lot of that was because those two girls, no joke, have such a bond that when they get going all you can really do is watch. And here I am a spectator in their city.

But they kept saying, thank God, we were worried you'd be weird or something. So my main concern was whether I would live up to the hype. I told Alex I was trying to be the "best version" of myself, which is different from lying, because it's me, just minus whatever I don't wanna be. They asked if they should call me Scott now, but to them I'm Scotto.

After "brunch" -- really just lunch because the restaurant's brunch menu was only Sundays -- Alex had to split for a hair appointment and Meg and I went to Coney island. When I first started talking to her about "So what can I do when I'm down there?" She listed a lot of things, all of which interested me, but having to pick and choose I put Coney on top of my list. I was worried it was just some lame attraction that New Yorkers don't really care about, but everyone I talked to was really enthused that we went.

It reminded me of the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition, or the Ex,) because it has that old school midway atmosphere. I haven't been to the Ex in years because they charge wicked fucking admission, whereas Coney, you just load up a card with credits, and the credits needed per ride varies. And the Ferris Wheel takes cash. The other thing about the Ex is that it's only open for about two weeks at the end of August, meaning it's constantly full, and its mere existence is a reminder that summer is ending. The fact that it was September meant I could pay for a ride on the Cyclone and be seated in the span of minutes.

On the Ferris Wheel I mentioned my favourite book was about a serial killer in the Chicago World's Fair, which was where they built the first Ferris Wheel. They invented it to be the American equivalent of the Eiffel Tower, which has been the symbol of the recent Paris World's Fair. Imagine being the fist person to get on this fucking giant wheel. And Chicago's windy as hell, of course, so everyone's like "Is this thing gonna blow over and kill everyone or what?" But it turns out the designer, George Ferris, was not an idiot. I realize saying shit like that makes me sound like Ted from How I Met Your Mother, but that's how I am. Look, these posts are climbing up towards 6,000 words. I'm a wordy guy. I'm also interested in the way things come back and overlap. The next day when I was on my way to the bus, I passed by the Flatiron building, which was designed by Daniel Burnham, who designed the Chicago World Fair's White City.

Learning can be fun!

As we left, we passed by all the boardwalk games. Carnies kept offering to let me have a turn failing at their games. "Win or lose, the lady gets a prize!" I turned to her, and said, mock-enthusiastically, "Hear that? Win or lose!" "Well that's good," she replied, "Because with those things, you'll always lose." I think maybe the real prize was knowing she wasn't hosting a dude that would throw money away on rigged games to win shitty stuffed animals. Ever see Adventureland? "Nobody wins a giant-ass panda." The hat is glued on.

Coney was fun, but I might've thought twice if I knew getting back was gonna be an ordeal. I'm used to very basic public transit (like I said: the green line, the yellow line.) New York's is intricate, and apparently governed by insane troll logic when it comes to service changes. So although we could get a subway out there, we had to take a bus back. It uh... was not fun. It might've been a good time to get back to talking like people, but I think we were both pretty low energy. You spend a whole weekend with people, it happens. We eventually got back to Brooklyn and napped. Well, she napped, I read Cracked and ate leftovers from my backpack.
Then there was this party. The one I'd been coached on how to lie for. We stopped off for beer and headed up to this random neighborhood that looked vaguely like many I'd known in Toronto, with the downstairs and upstairs houses. We wait outside for a while, and I laugh to myself. "They do know I'm coming right?" Yes.

So we get in and everyone takes turns greeting this random Canadian dude Meg is pulling around. Typical responses included: "Toronto? I've been to Montreal" and "Toronto? It's very clean up there." One guy had been to Kingston of all places, on a camping trip. And some place so small I'd never even heard of it. "What have you done so far? How do you like New York?" etc etc. You worry about hostile or at best indifferent locals, but they were pretty enthused. Maybe because I had Meggo's approval. For a while I melted in the background drinking quietly, getting a feel for the atmosphere. There was some talk of politics, which I opted not to join in, because when you're in a foreign land the last thing you wanna do is argue with the locals about their politicians. Although at one point during the conversation, a girl turned to me and asked "What do you guys all think of us up there?" I smiled and answered cryptically, "We're all... very confused by you." That got a laugh: I think they got it.

I didn't mind fielding questions about my home and native land, as best I could. Over Lunch they asked "Hey, you've got free health care, right? What's that like?" I showed them my Health Card. "Haha, it's like a credit card for the doctor! Nice picture, too." Also, "So do you speak French?" French up here is like Spanish down there. You have to learn it from grade 4 to 9, then it's optional. I read it better than I speak it. There are French Immersion schools where classes are mostly taught in French.

There was talk of accents. Someone said the way I said "About" was very Canadian, which isn't quite true. The stereotypical Canadian accent pronounces it more like "A-boat," which I don't do as broadly as some people I know, especially from Northern areas. I do say "Sore-y" instead of "Sar-ry," though, for "Sorry." By the end of the night, I was explaining how I sometimes throw on a British accent at work to fuck with people. Another guy did his Liverpool, I did my generic. They challenged me to do Brooklyn. It needs work. One person, I noted, had a very mild, nondescript accent. Sorta midwestern amidst the sea of Brooklyners.

If I were writing comedy, or like a heartwarming sitcom, the whole scheme of lying would have been blown when I left a thread hanging and her friends pulled it apart, only to reveal the truth, with them being accepting after all and everyone learning a lesson about trusting each other. That wasn't likely to happen. The lie went off more or less without a hitch, except one guy who pressed for a bit more details. My plan was to deflect by saying I really didn't know the whole story, just that my mom went back a ways with Meg's, and that came into play when I decided I wanted to visit. It's flimsy, but I tried to sell it, then change the subject. Fortunately, by this point, I was quite inebriated and ready to go from quiet Canadian dude to preachy music geek, making declarations about certain bands' underrated catalogues... post-Pinkerton Weezer as my leading example. I don't know why, I don't tend to get so fixated on it in my normal life, but here was a chance to declare my overall reviewing philosophy. I talked long and loud about music with this one guy but aside from the Weezer thing I can't remember at all what was said. There was this other girl in on the conversation, and you know me, always eager to chat up the girls. I even passed up an opportunity to go inside with the ones who brought me to keep going, until inevitably the word "boyfriend" came up and I got dismayed. That's me. For whatever reason, I ended up talking with some other girl at the end of the night about sports. I don't really give a shit about sports, but when you're out of town, you find yourself calling up every scrap of available conversation. I like to go to parties where I only know one or two people. Like I said, any random thing could happen.

Beer after beer led us to the end of the night. A game of flip cup happened. The girls were really excited, and I was drafted despite being a rookie. I picked it up quickly. It's not rocket surgery. There was dancing and the girl whose birthday it was put on a playlist of Britney Spears and Black Eyed Peas, and I told the girls "If you're curious what my job is like, it's a 6-hour loop of this music." They expressed sympathy. It was an exaggeration, but it used to feel like that.
It was just so weird and cool that I happened to end up in New York City at this random-ass party like so many I've ever been to before. I guess they're not really used to backyards in Brooklyn, so they were weirded out by the constant sound of crickets. The night ended with me chucking a twenty at a cabbie and collapsing again on the air mattress, not bothering to correctly set the fixed sheet. Fixed sheets suck.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

New York Part 4: A Liar and a Secret Keeper

I reached the threshold of the bar where I was to meet Meg and Alex promptly at 5:30. I saw them immediately through the window. I froze. Suddenly this was real. This was happening in my life. In the past few months I have met a number of people who were previously nothing to me but words and pictures over the internet, but this was the most important. It hit me like a sockful of nickels that this was it.

Almost immediately, after the welcoming hugs and "Holy shit we're really here aren't we?" I excused myself. Heatstroke and nerves were knotting my stomach up, and I hadn't used the toilet in what felt like 48 hours. I felt dried up and awful. Fortunately, there is beer in the world.

Some words echoed in my ears from months ago. "Here's what I don't understand about you," my co-worker said. "You're really charming..." That wasn't the end of the thought but that was all she said. She implied that I should have no trouble with women based on how easily I talk and joke around with customers and befriend people. But I have this weird double life where I sit quietly in my mind and overthink every possible action and end up doing nothing. It seems antisocial and introverted to everyone and it's been a problem in my life. But nudge me, show some interest, make me think you wanna hear what I have to say, and I'll talk my face off.

When I initially told that anecdote on Tumblr, Alex and Meg speculated she was probably indicating she was interested in me. I knew better and in fact much later found out she started dating another co-worker. They actually never told me directly, and when they're both around I act like I don't know. If they ever do tell me, I plan on acting oblivious. There's at least one photo of them kissing on Facebook, but I didn't see it until a further co-worker pointed it out.

After taking a deep breath and reminding myself that it's not really all that hard to be that Scotto, I ran some water through my hair and rejoined my friends. I ordered a Stella and soon enough I did become that Scotto. We were quickly talking like we'd known each other for years. They congratulated me on wearing Chucks instead of some weird Canadian shoes (?) and on the fact that my hair was naturally doing its flippy-uppy thing rather than being something I spent time styling, and just generally not being a weirdo like they feared. They told me stuff I hadn't gleaned -- or they wouldn't have mentioned -- on Tumblr. I responded by sharing some comparable, outrageous stories. They referred to something I said before the trip: I'm a liar and a secret-keeper and I'm awful but it works.

This came to me when I was reflecting on an experience I had the weekend before, at my cousin's wedding. I was talking to this girl and she mentioned the guy she was seeing and how it wasn't serious. She then asked where "my girlfriend" was, and instead of telling the truth -- that I don't really date all that consistently -- I said we had just broken up, that this nonexistent girl had moved away and ultimately we had different goals in life. When I said that, she immediately came out with the sympathy and understanding, "That's so true, it's impossible to stay with someone if you don't have that."

I write fiction. I used to act and do improv. I write English papers and I work customer service/sales. What all this means is, I'm quite comfortable lying to someone's face if it suits me. I'm not sinister, but I weave my own narrative just to get around the awkwardness of the truth. That, it turned out, was going to be important.

Meg came out with it. One of their friends was having a birthday the next night, a backyard BBQ. They'd tear her a new one if they knew she was playing host to some random dude she'd never met, from the Internet of all evil places. I was to play a character. My mom was friends with her mom, and I hadn't met Alex. "Can you do that?"
I said yesterday you never know what's going to come at you in life. You have to deal with it, adapt and let it happen. "Yeah, sure." I said. "I'm down."

After a few drinks we took the subway to Brooklyn. Toronto kept coming back to me in weird ways. I'd see neighborhoods and buildings that would remind me of the Annex or downtown. I explained that Toronto's subway is only two lines, the yellow and green (Alex correctly guessed) and the rest is buses and streetcars and walking. A woman on the platform overheard. "Excuse me, are you talking about Toronto? I'm from there!"

She and Alex started talking and Meg and I started talking so I got distracted. The Torontonian lady asked where in Toronto I lived and I admitted, embarrassedly, it was Oakville, which has a reputation for rich snobbery (which my high school shows was not universal.) I went to U of T, but I commuted. The lady tried to explain it to Alex and Meg in local terms. When she left, Alex joked (I think) that I was rude to the lady because I wasn't really into the conversation.

We got to the apartment and drank and hung out and had pizza. They played Sufjan Stevens and I played them some Joel Plaskett, ("Through & Through & Through") which they seemed to enjoy if they caught it. I told them Abby liked him. After that, Meg started fiddling with my iPod and happened to land on the second half of Arcade Fire's Funeral album. I found it so odd she'd pick that, my recent fascination and the very CD I had briefly discussed with Yara the random London girl earlier that afternoon. I decided Arcade Fire is one of those things, like Arrested Development, if you want to make a friend, you mention you like it, and either they will too, or they won't and you won't want to be their friend as much. Alex rocked out to "Ready to Start." We went out a while, but I was so dead from a night of travel, a day of wandering, and an evening of drinking, that I basically passed out on the Pac-Man table. Still, when we got home, I had the presence of mind to plug in my phone and pop some of the Advil I brought for my teeth to prevent hangover.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

New York Part 3: Streets and Avenues

I got off the bus at about 10 AM, two hours later than expected but not really caring. I took a moment to stand on a street corner and really take in the fact that I was here, breathing the air of a different city for the first time in years.
I was hungry.

That first time in Grade 12, when we stepped off the bus, my friend pulled me aside as everyone was rushing to the nearest familiar fast food place. "We didn't come all this way to eat Wendy's." No, sir. We went and found some random corner deli to eat in. My brother Eric, the one who stayed home, echoed similar statements, not to eat in familiar places if it was avoidable. I'm not saying I ate like a king while I was down there. The first place I went was a random breakfast spot that was not that different from what you might see in Toronto. But I deliberately did not eat at the Burger King/Gas Station outside of Scranton three hours earlier, so I had to eat quick. I needed to unfold my map and get my bearings.

In the interest of not unfolding a giant goddamned map every fifteen minutes, I located the fold where my dropoff location was and staked out a territory between there (7th Avenue & 29th St) and Central Park on the other side of the fold. Meg had told me what bar we'd be meeting at, so I plotted out a route to it on the way.

Now, I could have planned this out better. I had no agenda and a whole city as my playground. When you're in a new city, you wander. Just be sure you're not wandering into the wrong neighbourhood. Luckily, I was in tourist central. I was too stupid to take her up on her offer to hold onto my bags, so here's me wandering around Midtown Manhattan with a backpack (full of precious reading material for the road) and sports bag (full of more clothes than I probably needed) on an increasingly hot late summer day just gawking at everything and trying to decide what I actually wanted to do. It was like the ride over, when I could hardly decide what to listen to, presented with all my options. My trip was on shuffle.

Incidentally, New York's grid layout is a frigging gift from the heavens for this sort of thing. If you were new to Toronto and I said "You're at Bloor and Avenue, you need to meet me on College and Bathurst," you'd be taking your map out over and over. In New York: You're on 7th and you need to be on 5th. Traveling as subtraction.

I roamed through Times Square and met with a hustler who quick-changed me out of a few bucks. I didn't tell this story to Alex & Meggo because it was embarrassing as hell. I was right off the bus -- and looked it -- and perfectly willing to stop and chat anyone who'd shove something into my hands. "Hey, I got this CD. Show some love, anything you got. Where you from? Toronto? Shit man, I love Montreal. Here, let me autograph this for you. You got a ten?" I make the mistake of opening my wallet, fat with tourist moneys. More CDs fly into my palm. "Yo, you gotta show them some love, too." Fuck! "Gimme that twenty, I'll give you ten, you give me that other twenty..." Look, I didn't walk away and only realize hours later "Wait a minute..." I'm handling money all day. I know my shit. "Hey, um," I say like it's an innocent mistake, "One of those guys didn't give me the right change." "What?" The first guy says like a seriously-concerned quality assurance manager. "Here, let me go talk to him." They huddle up. I have very little hope of actually seeing a cent returned and I know it. He comes back. "He says he didn't." That's my cue to walk away, admitting defeat. There was this episode of NewsRadio where Jimmy was obsessed with getting back at some hustlers who rolled him at Three Card Monte. I may be a pavement-pounding Torontonian at home, but here I'm a wide-eyed suburban tourist. I fell for it. Have a nice life, enjoy a few extra drinks on me.

Grumbling about this experience, I tromp away from Times Square and head for the park. If I'd known it was my best chance, I'd have made for the Empire State Building and gotten that out of the way.

I just looked it up on Google maps.. A direct route from my dropoff the Central Park is about 2 miles. During the school year, when I had time, that was about the distance I walked from the train station to campus in maybe 40 minutes. Except there it was the "Head down, keep moving" type of walking, and this was the "Gawk at everything, watch your step" type of walking. So it probably took an hour or more. When I saw the trees, I thought "Cool, a place to relax."

In the park, there's a small stretch of lawn right by the south entrance where I sat to unfold my small part of map, to rest my luggage a while, and catch my breath. A stone's throw away is a female body sprawled out on its belly, face shaded by a sun hat, nose in a book. She's clad only in bikini bottoms, the straps of her top unfastened beneath her. I don't know if it's ever come across on this blog but I'm rather an enthusiast when it comes to breasts. I gawk a moment before realizing she's kind of old and I'm a huge perv.

I move over to a nearby bench where, of course, there's a more age-appropriate female fiddling with an MTA route map. "Awesome," I think, "Hot lady tourist." I sit down with my bags next to me, enjoy the view (of the park, not the old lady or the young one.) I notice the girl turn behind us and snicker. I turn and see the elderly woman sitting up fastening her top.

"Aw, man," I say out loud in my inimitable Scotto way, "You mean I missed that old lady's nipples?" I have no idea who would say such a thing to a complete stranger, except of course me. When you can, you test people.

"It's actually rather jarring," she says in a difficult-to-define accent, "The progression of age." She indicates a young man and an older one sitting shirtless behind the older lady. We have a laugh and I ask where she's from. "England. Can't you tell from the accent?" I explain that, of late, I've had difficulty telling British accents from Australians and New Zealanders. I've made a few embarrassing failed guesses at work. Her name was Yara, a Syrian name.

I tell her I'm from Toronto. She says she'd been staying with friends in Montreal and spent a day in Toronto recently, praising it. She visited during Buskerfest. I didn't go, but I don't explain that it's because I live in the suburbs. She asks whether I've been to London and I say no but it's on the list. I've got family in the north of England. "Whereabouts?" "County Durham." "Oh, that is North." Well yeah. "Lovely country up there." We compare notes on our trips and ask the usual questions you do when you're meeting someone for the first time: what do you do? She's a law student, I'm a globetrotting investigative journalist and masked vigilante. Or I work in a CD store. I actually mention which store, because she's British and she knows the chain. Another question, "what do you think of the city?" She said it was making her appreciate London. Not because it was so much better or worse, but I surmised the differences helped remind her what she loved about her city. The same was holding true for me. Toronto is New York miniaturized and every few blocks Toronto came back to me some way or another.

She asks what sort of music I'm into, and I cite Arcade Fire as my most recent interest. She gasps and says "Thank you! You're the first Canadian I've spoken to who knows them." I find that odd, particularly as they're considered a Canadian band. Most of my friends knew of them years before I got into them. Maybe she knows the wrong Canadians.

She mentions she's thinking of going to the art museum. I say that was on my list of possible activities. I had discussed either MOMA or the Natural History Museum with Meggo and still hadn't decided as of this random conversation. I knew MOMA was nearby, so I asked if she'd come along. We began to walk. When we arrived, she realized we'd been talking about two different museums. She'd already been to this one. She said I should go and enjoy it and she'd go back to the park and read, nice meeting you. Privately I wondered if it was because, during our conversation, I mentioned how I got scammed in Times Square, and she wondered aloud if I was maybe trying to grift her somehow. I tried to joke my way out of it but all of a sudden I felt very sketchy, so when she opted to get away, I let her go instead of saying "Wait, I can go to the other museum."

I should note at this point my bags, which felt perfectly fine when I left the house, now appeared to be full of cinder blocks. The other museums, I now know from checking the maps, were in a location known as "Very fucking far to walk" when you're schlepping such cargo. So I wasn't too eager to chase after her. I was at the MOMA. If nothing else, they had baggage check.

So there's me wandering the Museum of Modern Art just because it means I can put my bags down. Last time I came, we did MOMA, Modern Art wasn't my thing. I would look at a Jackson Pollock and think "Fuck, anyone could do that." Immature. In University, Modernism and Postmodernism were explained a bit more clearly to me. Modernism came in when Photography began to dominate people's perception of real, and acts as a counter by presenting things that cannot by depicted by photography. Splatters of paint, designs, lines and shapes. The painting is a thing for itself, not a recreation or even an interpretation (Monet, Van Gogh,) and Postmodernism is when we understand the world through shared reference points (hence: cans of soup, comic books, satire.) Maybe I'm no art scholar and maybe I don't even know what I'm talking about now, but I at least have a frame of reference now. That doesn't mean I didn't think some of it was silly. I like art, but mainly as a friend.

I took pictures of paintings and I took pictures of people looking at paintings. I took pictures out the building's windows and I took a picture of the gift shop because I figured that was as good as spending money there.

After an hour or so of wandering through exhibits -- including an elaborate installation called "Sum of Days" where you wander through a path of thin white drapes while speakers play jungle sounds -- I decided it was time to man up and get myself back on the street. I picked up my bags (maybe I should have left them and gone and come back) and headed back out. My feet took me back to the park, because my thought process goes something like "Maybe I'll see that girl again." She vaguely alluded she'd be headed back to the park but I had no illusions she wasn't already long gone.

From the park I reversed course, found a small diner to eat and enjoy a Coca-Cola (unspeakably refreshing under these conditions.) When I'd said I was hoping to go to the Empire State Building, Yara mentioned she'd heard Rockefeller Center had an even better view. I went there but was running low on time so I decided not to go up. I just sat around until it was finally time to meet Alex and Meg.

Keep on rockin
-Scotto

New York Part 2: Between Here and There

I took the Bus to New York City. It was a strange impulse. I could've flown, not expensively, from Buffalo. That one time I went in high school we took the bus and I didn't find it completely awful, although I couldn't sleep on the overnight trip the way back. So the bus had familiarity. I spoke with one of my brothers later (the one who didn't go) that it was a balancing act of time, money, convenience and comfort. Next time I go I might fly.

But I figured, the travel is part of the trip. By taking an overnight bus there I avoid getting up early the next day and finding my way to an airport and devoting a whole day to travel. If I play it smart I'm on easy street: put my bags on the bus, stare out the window for 11 hours, nod off if I'm lucky, and then suddenly I'm at my destination.

The last time I took the overnight bus, when I was on my trip in high school, I was keeping a journal. I was in a writer's craft class and we had to do three a week and I was charged with keeping track of my thoughts on the trip since I wouldn't be in class. Except I had no time at the end of each day to sit down and write, so I did it all on the bus back, in increasingly shaky, sleep deprived scrawl and disjointed rambling prose (even worse than this!) I was keeping a blog at the time, but I skipped blogging about it, so now that scatterbrained, illegible journal is my only written record of that first trip. And I'm notorious for my bad memory even of my own life. At least, the bits I don't write down.

I didn't intend to sleep on the ride over. Not soundly, not all the way. I wasn't going to take a pill and drift off by any means. I wanted to savor it. To test myself. To crawl into this dark corner with a book and some music and trance out. I haven't had a lot of time lately to be alone with my music. I didn't listen to anything twice while I was down there, except one CD I intend to review soon.

If I was writing a comedy article, I'd say here's where things went all wrong. My iPod wasn't charged, my seatmate was a fat Albanian who wanted to talk and share his goulash. The bus broke down and I had to help push. Then my coffee caught up with me and I had to actually use the toilet on the bus!! Hilarious over-the-top Zack Galafianakis-type disasters.

But no. It was as mellow and serene as I could ever imagine. I read. I listened to quiet, darkened music apt for the setting. I stared blankly out the window. I wrote bad poetry on my new phone. I even slept a bit.

There's this thing called quantum entanglement or something (I just Wiki'd that phrase and found something unrelated, so I don't know.) Whatever it is, it's a theory, probably not very scientific but what do I know, that any two objects that have interacted have that much chance of interacting again. A woman saves a child's life, that child grows up to save hers: true story, according to William Shatner's show.

It's late. We've crossed the border and I'm done using the bus' WiFi to post on Facebook about how I'm somewhere in the darkness. At the Buffalo airport people get on. The seat next to me had been unoccupied. A couple boards, and can only find seats apart. I don't want to go sit next to one of the other people already there, so they have to split up. The girl sits next to me, her boyfriend a row up across the aisle.

As soon as we get moving again, she nods off. She has a neck pillow but she isn't using it. She's thin, her neck is slender and angled away from me. You can probably surmise from my posts -- sad as it is to be admitting it this way -- I haven't been near a sleeping woman in a ridiculously long time. I just enjoy the sight. Every so often she slopes inward toward me and my mind thinks it's an overture, but she wakes up and corrects herself. At one point I nodded off and woke up, noticed we had sloped in together and I think, how about that? My body's better off without me. By this point she was using the neck pillow so I was less interested in looking, because that's a bit less sexy, isn't it? Plush animal wrapped around your neck.

We barely said a word except when she sneezed and I said gesundheit. People like it when someone says gesundheit. It's a little less godly than "bless you." Funny word. If you take the time to say it, it's charming.

Finally, after one stop, people shifted and a pair of seats opened up. We shared a laugh at the awkwardness of napping next to a total stranger for hours on end before she moved over with her guy. The two of us could've done a lot worse. I was happy to have a bit more leg room after that. It was about 6 AM on Friday and we were at a gas station outside Scranton. I didn't buy anything to eat, only a map of the 5 boroughs because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get Google Maps on my fancy new phone down there and didn't want to have to bother.

Sunday morning I am finally boarding my bus back to Toronto. I get on sooner than I had before and have virtually my pick of seats. I choose one a row up from where I'd been sitting. It was on the upper level of the double decker bus, overlooking the back stairs, meaning I had the advantage now of not sitting behind someone. A kind of bonus legroom.

As others board, I peer over the railing and notice, right in the row in my eyeline, is a vaguely familiar looking back-of-a-guy's-head. And sitting next to him is a cute, thin girl with glasses and a neck pillow. They could've been sitting anywhere on the lower level and I would not have noticed them. Until, I guess, we got off at a rest stop. Two and a half days is such a strange duration to be in New York: more than a weekend, less than a vacation. Reappearance seems unlikely, but there they were.

We got off at the rest stop and they were ahead of me in line for coffee. I wanted to tap her on the shoulder and say "Hey, remember when we slept together?" But I decided to leave well enough alone. Maybe they saw me. Maybe not. Best case scenario I say something and they offer a three-way, but I just wasn't up for it after that much travel.

As the sun set over upstate New York and we barreled toward the border, I thought about how everything on this trip was routes rather than destinations.

Keep on rockin
-Scotto

New York Part 1: Alternate Routes

What follows was originally posted on a different blogging platform. I know I don't check in at SWP as often as I used to, so I wrote it up for that audience, but it's important to keep this as part of the narrative. One or two people still read this business and it'd be weird if I did come back later and didn't acknowledge this. So if it seems like there's a gap, it's because it's not originally part of the narrative of SWP. Even though it's... y'know, my life. I posted these in five installments between Tuesday and Friday after I got back Sunday night the 11th.

I'm attempting to wrap my head around what I've just done this weekend. I rode the bus away from New York City in love with myself and my world and thinking only "Thank God or whatever that I'm not a normal person. A normal person would not have sought the experience I've just had." A normal person takes a plane to New York (or sure, a bus,) stays in a hotel for four days or a week, and plots out their days based on the numerous attractions available. Empire State Building, Village, Central Park, Museums, Statue of Liberty, tours, whatever restaurants get good Zagat's ratings... shopping, souvenirs, maybe a Broadway Show. I've done that trip, when I was 18 years old. I was on a school trip and though there is plenty of "wandering around" time built into any NYC trip, it was also structured so that we were always on to the next thing. Normal people do that all the time and it's fun. I could easily have and enjoyed it. But because I'm not normal, I also had this alternative. I'm mild, I'm shy and quiet and introverted most of the time, and very, very comfortable in my own little world, but that doesn't mean I can't recognize a good opportunity when it comes up. That's what's abnormal about me.

I have this philosophy that anything could happen in this world. And I don't mean Earthquakes and Hurricanes (although clearly, yes, even in New York.) I mean you could meet anyone and they could tell you anything, so you've got to be game. You've got to adapt and deal. You can't constantly be stymied by things from outside your little world.

I have a whole bunch of stories from this past weekend (and beyond) and some pick up others' dropped threads, some overlap, some are complete tangents. This whole weekend has been made of tangents. It's easy to get distracted in a strange city. In more than a few conversations we'd find ourselves getting far off topic then backtracking, "Wait, what were we talking about?"

Many of the stories are not interesting except that they are a deviation from my normal existence of work and home, and by virtue, hopefully, of how I tell them.
I write this not merely to write a long journal entry (entries) about my trip, but as a writing exercise, because of how many different ways I could tell this story. I used to write like this all the time on less worthy topics. I can't promise it'll be entertaining or worthwhile to read, but it will definitely be thorough.

There's a bunch of reasons why I took this trip. It first occurred to me back when I thought I was graduating in April not August that it would be the ideal time to take some time off and go on a vacation. When I learned I would be spending a further four months in school it became a finish line promise to myself. It was harder getting through the winter knowing I'd have to take summer school, than it was to actually go through the summer. I had a great summer: my classes were enjoyable, work got a lot better after the change in management. I sought adventure with strange women (and familiar ones.) But all the while I was looking ahead.

It was all pretty abstract until August. I didn't have my Passport, I didn't have any plans, I just knew I wanted to go. I had to get my wisdom teeth out and I had to go to a wedding on Labour Day weekend. After that I was whatever, but I only had so much time until the weather got lame and I have to work hellish retail holiday. It was my secret happy thought, though: my first real time away from home, away from family, from responsibility, from anything that bothers me about my life. At some undetermined time in the future. I didn't talk about it.

Then one day at family dinner, my Grandma asks what my brother is up to and he says "Oh, I'm planning a trip to New York." My jaw drops. "Uh... no, you're not. I am."
I hadn't realized I never mentioned it. And now my brother -- a minor part of the reasons I wanted to go -- was cramping my style. I was actually really pissed off. I felt like the only two options were to go along with him, or to not go. Both sounded awful. It wasn't just that I wanted to get away from him, but I did want to go alone, and I didn't think I wanted the trip he was taking. I wanted my own. And we both had our eyes on the same vague period of early-mid September. I'm the youngest, so I have a complex about things that I consider "my own." I rarely put importance to those traits, but there's some truth there.

After I came down from my somewhat uncalled-for private hissy-fit, I briefly considered going along on his trip. It wasn't out of the question; I could get away from him and his buddy Steve, I could do my own thing and meet up with them at the end of the day. Share flights, split hotel room. From what I gathered, he did not object to this because he knew I'd probably be doing my own thing with or without him, and I'm sure he understood my need to get away. Then my cheap ass started pricing hotel rooms and thought "Fuck it, I've got a better solution."

Somehow it happened that I was on this site and I came into contact with these two crazy chicks who kept urging me to come to their city even to the point of claiming Meg would put me up for a weekend. I think a normal person would get an offer like that and say "That's really nice, but let's be serious." I'm words on a screen. I'm a few random gpoys. But after whatever contemplation, and an irresistible sense of adventure took hold, I said "Yeah. If you're serious. Let's go."

The trip came together quickly after that. Passport, tickets, plans. Dad would tell people at the wedding that my brother and I were going to New York and I would clarify, "We're both going. They're separate trips we're planning at the same time." Then came questions like "Wait... who do you know in New York?" Even at customs, they asked "Why are you going?" (Tourism.) "Who are you staying with?" (Friends.) "How many times have you met them?" (Uh... never...) Cough cough. Somehow, the officer just rolled his eyes and shrugged. He was more interested in the fact that my name is so common that when he looked me up he got someone whose information didn't match mine. "Has your passport ever been stolen?" "No. You're probably looking at the wrong Williams." "Oh, here you are. Okay, go ahead." I'm sure mom spent the entire weekend assuming I was in the process of being brutally murdered.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

016: What you thought you heard.

Hot on the heels of one of the most busy weekends of my life, I'm diving headlong into another.

Thursday, we visited with Ron & Mary, visiting form England for Laura's wedding. I barely remember the last time we say them; Mary surprised me by reminding me it was in fact right before I started at either Sheridan or U of T, at the airport. (The meeting I remember, the time I do not.) It was awkward then, only slightly moreso now. Ron poked fun at the fact that I was the only one at the dinner not drinking. It got to be one of those lengthy gatherings that you just don't know how to kill until it's 10:00 and you have to make a stand.

The wedding. Holy hell. It was half an ordeal, particularly getting ready. We don't do "getting ready" very well and have only gotten worse since the bygone days of twice-annual North Bay trips. All we had to do was get ready for noon, but Eric specifically requested a half hour head's up, and dad specifically forgot.

In the meantime, I went out for coffee and found that it was, meteorologically, "hot as balls." I got home and started dressing. Eric hesitated until I got a text asking "Is Eric ready yet?" Naturally no. So I usher him off the couch.

Sometime later, after much ironing and redetermining of ties, we're on the road. The trip up was long and uneventful, just sitting in the back of a rented van (since we'd be shuttling Ron & Mary around) listening and humming along to hits of the 60's.

We had a quick lunch -- really beverages for the three of us -- and went to the wedding. Hot. As. Balls. It was in the sweltering heat of a vineyard. Gavin and the groomsmen were all sweating. Everyone was sweating. I was thankful I'm a pretty light sweater, but I felt a trickle of perspiration roll down my chest.

The ceremony was nice. Didn't drag too long, although everyone was antsy from the heat.

Afterward, before the reception, was a wine tasting. It was nice to get into the ultra-cooled wine cellar, have a couple of sips, and make our ways up to the reception. Let's see. We left the house at noon, got to Wine Country (Jordan to be specific) by 2, the ceremony was supposed to start at 3, and after a delay finally concluded at 5. The tasting took us past 6. Then I lost all track of time.

The first part of the reception was hors d'oeuvres and an open bar. At large events, especially when there's alcohol, I always manage to find myself in the company fo a willing female. After making as much small talk as I could handle with my brothers and dad, I turned around and there was this girl. This woman. This human female standing by the veggie platter. I introduced myself as the bride's cousin. She was her college roommate. Apparently Laura had been obsessed with her perfect wedding since she was a teenager.

We talked about how nice the ceremony was, about the food and how far she had come to be here (Vancouver.) I pledged to catch up with her after dinner. Dinner, incidentally, was an excellent beef tenderloin. I mentioned how little of my fifth grade presentation on Napoleon I'd retained, and Mary told me stories about the Duke of Wellington, and of Wellington boots in general.

It was weird. We needed to drink more.

Things got rater murky after dinner and the first round of speeches. There were a lot of really nice speeches. We were getting drunk and rowdy. Hours passed. The sun slipped under the hills.

I began to think about weddings and marriage in general. It's my second wedding but the first, with all love and respect to Amanda, was a passive affair. This was so involved. Laura planned a dream wedding and she got it, but there's so many intangibles that occurred to draw my attention to the specialness of the occasion. So many speeches about how long Laura and Gavin had been together. About what they meant to each other. About how to safeguard their love.

It hit me hard: does every marriage begin this way? With such an intense celebration of love? Nobody gets married thinking "We'll put a little effort into the wedding and break up in a few years anyway." Right? Everyone wants their version of a dream wedding, don't they? And doesn't every dream wedding, necessarily, take the form of a celebration of love, of a reminder of how great the love is between the two newlyweds? All those shitty marriages that end in divorce, do they begin with beautiful speeches about the sacredness of love, about how they knew they had the one during that one cute anecdote, that prolonged courtship and inevitable proposal? About how they were destined for each other?

I thought I was numb before, but that hit me hard. I wish Laura and Gavin the best. I do. I want what they have someday but I'm afraid for anyone who uses such heavy, important words, and then goes back on them years later. Was my parents' wedding like this one?

I was talking about it with Matt last night, how people who come from divorced parents have such a different view of marriage, a skeptical one, how people like me aren't as predisposed to be desperate to find love and settle down, but I would, I would settle if I ever felt I had found the right girl. But it's things like that that keep me guarded, that keep me from pursuing. I haven't been able to -- or really ever tried to -- explain that this is my biggest fault in dating (aside from generally not being desirable to most girls, let's face it I'm nobody's ideal) That I'm so skeptical, not judgmental, but definitely guarded and reluctant to pursue even what could be good.

I'll never be able to convince my parents they had anything to do with this affliction. They wouldn't see the connection even though Eric and I have both agreed it's at least part of the case.

So that was a thought that cropped up that I washed away in complimentary wine and not-so-complimentary Gin & Tonic. I found the ex-roomie again and hovered near her for the rest of the night, very transparently. Unfortunately, drunk Eric was on my case and I couldn't shake him. It got to the point where I couldn't stand standing next to him in a conversation and had to walk away, even when the roomie was around.

You'd think I'm somebody who needs, or could use, a wingman, but I've always done better solo. It just happens to be the case that anytime someone tries to help me out it just fucks me up. Eric probably wasn't even trying to be a wingman. So he was pretty much just blowing up my spot. Of course, he was pretty schmattered, so if I pointed this out he would have taken it badly. Best to just let it be and live to fight another day.

I distracted myself with others on the dancefloor. I look foolish when I try to move but nobody cares, I've learned, at least not unless there's video footage later. Mary was particularly popular, and that lady could shake a leg.

There was dancing, though. Arms wrapped around waists. She told me her original date was a journalist who got called away. He's not her boyfriend though. She's seeing someone back in Vancouver, but there's an age difference, he's in his late 30's, has a kid, they're in different places. I took this as a green light, or at least a "go ahead, slow." She told me her family lived in Oakville, and she was getting sick of the West Coast and considering moving out here with them (she was from Windsor rather than Oakville) and that when she did, we "had to be friends." I agreed. My presence must've seemed like a sign to her.

Eventually we found our way outside. She asked where my girlfriend was. I answered nonexistent. She asked what happened. I took this as my cue to try something different, which I had been kicking around in my head for some time. Something other than the truth. I told her I'd broken up with a girl a few months back, she moved out west, we wanted different things. No further explanation was required. She was sympathetic. I think the story had the desired effect.

Yes, it was a lie. A bare-faced goddamned lie. But girls don't wanna hear "Muh, I don't date much, I have problems finding the right girl, blee bluhh." That makes you seem like a charity case and most girls aren't into that.

I'm always trying to find ways to manipulate and control the narrative about myself, which is probably why I'm so averse to having my brothers around when I'm trying to get anywhere. This is my fist real foray into straight-up deception. I didn't think it wrong, though. She's some random girl at a wedding. Anyone she'd ask wouldn't know better. Even Eric probably couldn't say with much certainty that I hadn't just gotten out of a brief relationship before he moved back. My family seems aware that I have this whole other hidden existence that I'll just never willingly share with them.

I'm a liar and a secret-keeper and I'm awful but it works.

Of course, I don't lie to cover up misdeeds. I lie to cover up boringness. I'm a storyteller, after all.

Eventually Eric lumbered back around and again I couldn't deal with his presence. In retrospect, the theme of me quietly walking away from conversations involving him probably made me come off like (read: be) a dick. I just couldn't deal with the reality, the version of reality he brought along, as I was trying to stack up these delicate Jenga blocks of identity according to my own design.

This time I wandered back upstairs and noticed a pretty bespectacled redhead tending bar. I asked for another G&T and chatted her up, commiserating about wedding duties, family and bartending. I asked if she'd ever seen the show Party Down, because it was her life. She said no, but what a shame, because she was planning to write about event service herself. Admirable. I told her if she liked Arrested Development, she'd like Party Down. And of course, she said, she liked Arrested Development.

I was beckoned away soon after that. Dad was eager to find Eric and go. I knew where he was. He was hard to pull away. He wanted to go to an after-party and I told him this was impossible. He was not happy to hear this and tried to concoct schemes in which he could stay, but I nagged. I death-glared him. I was extremely upset with his conduct, although perhaps more indignant about it than I had a right to be, the fact remained that he had over-indulged and was starting to get belligerent. I came to the point of wanting to sock him in the face. Admittedly, it's not the nicest thing to be rushed by your family when you're having a carefree drunk good time and told it's time to go. I knew because I'd just been through it, but I'm always easier about such things than Eric. Oh, I complain, but I do my duty. Frankly, this was not the time or place for that level of insane drunkenness.

We left abruptly, then. In the car, I seethed with irritation if not rage, but he was eventually apologetic. I told him we'd talk about it later, when he was sober, and when I'd had time to calm down. He said nah, we probably wouldn't, and he was right. You know you're someone's brother when you can be murderously angry at them one night and shrug it off after a night's sleep.

Truthfully, due to Eric's conduct and my own, I'd be surprised if I ever do see her again, whether she moves to Oakville or not. Not sure what I'd say if I did. The fridge horror of me constantly abandoning them with my ass-drunk brother dawns on me and makes me look nearly as bad. "Here, he's your problem." I wasn't thinking clearly.

We got back to Oakville in good time, less than an hour, about half the time it took us to get out there. Beautiful night driving conditions. I went to bed as soon as I could and got up early the next morning to go to the store and work. Bev came in briefly to do paperwork, and it was then that we learned two of the people booked were going to be out sick, and nobody to replace them.

I've had a bug up my ass about this for a while, but I still haven't expressed it to Bev: We need more people from around Oakville. No more goddamn Brampton or Brantford people. People who can come in on a moment's notice. Lord knows there are enough people nearby who want the jobs. It's not personal, I like all the co-workers wherever they come from, but when Trevor comes in a half hour late because of traffic, what can you say?

So Kyle and I agreed to do our best working Sunday on our own, which was double fun because Kyle had to arrange New Releases. So basically I was on cash all day. Upsold a ton. Monday was a nice day off, and then Tuesday the corporates sent us a shit-ass insane sales target, which through the virtue of more rampant upselling and some very fortunately-times bulk customers, we made and beat with an hour to spare. It was a personal triumph. Which is good, because things have been tense, with the RM breathing down our necks more than usual.

Of course, there's no pleasing some people, and those people have a nasty habit of getting into authority positions.

I'm still reveling in the fact that this is my first September without school. Normally fall means adjusting to a new schedule, devising routes between classes, finding where to sit in this and that lecture hall and -- more importantly, the part I'll miss most -- scoping the girl or girls I will talk to but not do anything with.

I'm not sure how I feel that that part of my life is over.

So the big news is that after a long period of contemplation, I'm headed to New York tomorrow night. I've been thinking about it since before I knew I wasn't graduating and it was just a matter of finding the right time, and now here we are at the right time. It's just a weekend, but for so long I've been craving something that is my own. A little solitude and space. And I'll have plenty of it on a ten-hour bus ride, a weekend in a foreign city.

I planned it loosely around my friend's schedule, who I'll be staying with and what we can do. I ended up getting a new phone because my old non-committal plan wouldn't handle international calling, and being able to contact people is kind of key for this type of travel. So there's another 4-year phase of my life gone. And 6 years ago, there I was writing about my New York Trip in this blog and skimming over it, at a time when I absolutely wrote about everything, just because the experience was so overwhelming.

The kid comes around.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto