022: I'll make you his

As anyone who regularly talks to me knows, I don't have a lot going on lately. This is just one of the many reasons I don't let it out on SWP much lately. There's simply not much there. I work and I fret about my writing output, I drink coffee and I listen to music and I write about the music I'm listening to. The music blog is going well. I do have other outlets... Tumblr has been very good to me since I joined over a year ago, largely because of the community of people I've found. But I don't spill my guts there as much as I ever did here. But as I crawl through my 20's, I also have less guts to spill.

The other night I finally got out of my house/rut, braving the cold to go see Martina before she goes off to England for an internship. I considered not-going, despite my sacred Facebook RSVP, because of the inclement weather and generally feeling assy all day. But by the time I got home from school, I hadn't decided not to go. The pizza we ordered got here quickly and I had time to watch a few episodes of Eerie Indiana, which I recently bought, so I took it as a sign that I could go out and actually enjoy myself.

So I ventured out, arriving at the location after 9 PM. I had a few drinks, caught up with the gang. It's always the same collection of random folks, some of whom I know, some of whom I never really talked to. Marti, Rosie and Jamie have always been good at collecting friends, mostly Cinema Studies people, and what appears to be an inordinate number of gay dudes (not that there's anything wrong with that.) I was a bit awkward in catching up, not really wanting to talk about myself... like I've said, I don't have a lot going on and it's getting to the point where it's even embarrassing to embellish on my various projects, such as they are. Jamie gave me a lecture on how I needed to start a writing blog. First I need to start writing, though.

The night went on and I flipped from conversation to conversation around the table and had many periods of silence. Which is nice, because this is a group that understands introversion, even being the three girls that basically forced me to be friends with them back in second year. I also disrupted Charlie's hipster flirt-off (when Philip Glass and Tilda Swinton get name dropped you know what territory you're in) just to be a dick. And because I knew Charlie could take it. And to be a dick. No, I don't know what's wrong with me.

A large portion of the night was an attempt to settle up the bill and move on to another bar, which is tough when you have a giant unwieldy mob to move around. I ended up paying extra just to get us out of there quickly, and to spare some of my broke student friends the pain.

We nearly went to one bar, which was very loud and karaoke-ish, then switched out for a quieter venue, where Shane engaged Paolo in a lengthy lecture on the moral impossibility of basing a film (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) around 9/11. Personally, I disagreed but wanted no part of the discussion. The rest of us drank and played what turned out to be a very lame "truth or dare" type game on Rosie's iPhone. Then the others got some Tequila shots and I noticed it was after 1.

I sprinted to the GO station. We were at King past Duncan. It was pretty brutal, but I made it to the last bus of the night in time to more or less catch my breath. I dozed off on the road back to the sound of Tokyo Police Club. I woke up just as we were getting to Oakville Station, and walked home in a snowfall. It was about 2 AM when I got in the door, and spent 2 hours attempting to tidy up, because hey, why not.

The truth is, we're moving in a few months. We're getting the house ready to sell, which is a big job because it is lived-in as fuck. We kinda went to town on it over the years because we assumed it would never come to this, that by the time mom was ready to leave, if it happened, we'd be long gone. Nope.

So, we've been needing to clean the basement. Personally, I have a psychological block on cleaning. That's my problem. When you live in a mess, you get comfortable. I'm not a hoarder, I know what garbage is. It's just a matter of moving it around so it's not so problematic. We've been dragging our feet, but we know it needs to be done. Then there's the fact that every time she says "Clean this up," it makes me want to do it less, because... well, it's a hang up. I'm in my mid-20's and I live with my mom, I'm allowed a few hangups. That all said, I know what needs to be done and I know it needs to be done soon. I just don't wanna be told and I don't want it done for me. I guess I want a chance to prove to myself that it's in my own hands.

So yesterday we spent on a massive cleanup mission, clearing out $21.40 deposit worth of beer, wine and liquor bottles that have been sitting around over the years (the beer regularly goes back, the wine and liquor is what's been sitting around.)

Then tonight there was a whole thing about leaving dishes. I haven't seen her that mad since Eric was having problems. And I understand, we're not the greatest sons. We don't take care of the place as much as we should, keep things as neat as she'd like. She was muttering to herself about how sick she is of cleaning up after us, and I understand and I feel bad, and I apologized, not that she acknowledged.

Last time there was a conflict of this sort of thing was in September when I got back from New York and she had washed my sheets but not put them back, meaning I got to bed at 2 AM (on a work night) after a 12-hour bus ride and had to slip my own fitted sheet back on. And it seems incredibly minor, but it was not what I wanted to see, and I flipped, and I pouted about it for a whole day and balled it up with all my other issues about boundaries. And we had this really bizarre fight where she tried to explain to me why I shouldn't be mad, and I refused to take anything she was saying seriously until I heard to admit guilt, admit that she had done wrong in the situation, that she understood why I was mad. We both walked away from that one mad.

Personally, nowadays I would never take away someone's right to be angry. Back when Occupy was happening, I read a brilliant analogy: You can't tell someone they shouldn't be angry. It's like trying to tell them they're not thirsty. Don't argue, just get them a drink and listen. I admitted to her I did wrong and said sorry. I told her where I was coming from in hopes it would be a mitigating factor. She went to bed mad, I think. Eric surmised her dinner with Ross didn't go well. I think that's possible but I don't jump to conclusions. I was perfectly happy from my New York trip before I found my sheets folded on my bed.

I've got issues, which crop up whenever I'm reminded I still live here, years after I feel like I should have left. I was pretty good at convincing myself it was for the best while I was in university. Now I'm working and comfortable and unhappy about it. I feel like as long as I'm here, there will always be this unresolved bitterness about the situation. That's my issue and it's not logical. There I go making it about me, but this is my blog and it's my perspective you get.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

021: Spread far and wide

I was a bit down on New Year's. Every so often lately I've gotten mad at myself for my station in life, limitations I perceive myself as having. Observations and magnifications of things I don't like about myself. A couple of nights ago, I remembered in great detail probably the worst single night I had all year, which might actually rank amongst the worst nights I can remember. It was the night we all went out to Monaghan's to say goodbye to Trevor, and the guys were forcing me into situations I wasn't comfortable with and I felt like I wasn't being heard, I was being boxed into this grotesquely negative interaction with this girl who didn't give one damn about my existence, and who I wasn't particularly interested in at the outset. What bothered me about this night was that they were not hearing my objections, that I wasn't into it and didn't wanna play. They were obsessed with trying to help me and it made me feel like a chump. Now really, that's not such a bad problem, it shows people at least care a bit to meddle in my business, even if they're too thick to tell that I don't want their help. That night kinda underlined a lot of things I don't like about myself and about the situations in which I find myself.

You'd think -- or hopefully you wouldn't since you're not reading this, and it's just me -- it would be Cary's birthday, when I once again struggled with my limits and ended up being completely blown off by the end of the night, but that had a few mitigating factors and honestly, got taken to such ridiculous extremes that I felt like at least, if I felt bad that night, I was still left with a bit of a story.

Anyway, it's all self-pity, all woe-is-me, playing the victim. I had some opportunities in 2011 and either I squandered them or I fucked them up or ignored them. Despite an outward failure to reap material rewards for my little efforts, (a handful of dates that went nowhere and the continued sneaking suspicion that everyone around me is just putting up with me) the trend of 2011 has been positive. I noticed by the end of the year that 2011 was the year I seem to have stopped worrying all the goddamn time, which makes sense.

I mean, the first half of the year, I felt like a mess. Stress at work was really magnified by stress at school, starting with the burnout I felt after the holidays, and the shock I felt when I found out I wasn't graduating when I thought I would. I mean, that one hit pretty hard, and rolled up into a ball of angst about myself and the world around me, including certain sociopolitical issues that I took to heart, which just haunted me for months. I don't know, dude, I was a wreck.

This all culminated in an event that pretty well splits the year in half for me, the replacement of Karen as manager by Bev. Honestly, that was a sheer pressure-dropping moment for me. Looking back I don't feel like the same person who was afraid to come into work and see his boss. The guy whose boss constantly felt the need to deliver bad pep talks and guilt trips about my performance. Honestly, I do think I had them coming, but the environment was negative anyway. I'd hesitate to say Karen was the reason for negative feeling, but her presence, the whole dynamic, did not help it. The situation did not make me want to perform my best work, nor that I could really live up to my potential no matter how hard I tried, because I didn't feel like I had it in me or that I really knew what I was. I was lost.

It didn't come all at once. And it wasn't happy ever after, as my recollection of the events from October suggest. But slowly, as I've grown into my own as a responsible person, feeling like I really am doing the best work I can (and getting frequent unsolicited reassurances from the manager) helps put a lot of that negativity behind me, and keep my life in perspective. Finishing school helped: ultimately, the classes I hated myself for having to do were a bit of a good time, although yes, I could've done without needing to do them, I'm happy with the way things worked out.

I'm in a better place right now than when I began last year, or even for a lot of last year. 2011 was the year I evened out some. 2012 will have to be the year things change, somehow or other, maybe not all at once. I do expect to be in a different place in my life in 365 days' time (assuming we make it out of this year alive) and if I'm back here next January telling you "Boy, what a crazy Christmas at the store" I'll probably be miserable about it.

OH God I just cursed myself. I take it back! This job is a wonderful fallback job! I enjoy it and I'm good at it, the co-workers are great, I could totally see myself still here in a year!

(cough cough)

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto