Nine: A way away

I'm glum.

It was actually a good weekend. Really good. An all timer. We took Friday off. We got our Engagement photos taken, which was magical. Mel had set aside a particular top to wear but forgot it so I spent a chunk of the day heading back to the city to fetch it. She was working from home in Oakville. The session was a lot of fun, I think everything we hoped. We had bought fresh new Chucks for the occasion, too, except in the end Mel's were a half a size too small and gave her a blister. We had the session at the park, one where we often used to walk through and play in. We have a good vibe with David, our photographer.

Saturday we picked up my wedding ring. I had had my doubts about my ring in its original incarnation. It felt too thick and too wide. It was also a size or two big. It took a while to come back and when it did it looked really good, I felt really right about it.

We had dinner at Dad's that night, then went with the guys to Dave and Busters. The Raptors game 6 against the Bucks was on, as was the inaugural AEW PPV, Double or Nothing. It was fun, although we maybe bought too many credits. Basically spent all our tickets on candy. They tried to sell us on a package where you get unlimited play on non-ticket games, plus a pass to see the hypnosis show, which tbh I habe a phobia about. We made the right call. Afterwards we had some wings. It was a late night. Honestly felt great to reconnect with those guys.

The next day - my actual birthday - also  ery good. Actually heard from some people I wouldn't have expected, faces from the past. We went to Nonnas, had lunch and watched the Jays-Padres game. The day before, Mama and Papa H had gone to the game and the Jays did the j-o-b (to use wrestling parliance) like 19-1 or somethig but this was a much better showing. The fam got me a shirt from the same series they had gotten me last year, nearly identical. Hey, it happens, we laugh.

On our way home we realized Mel had left her computer behind so we missed our train and got home a half hour later than we wanted... c'est la vie. A late dinner and 90 day fiance.

I was too wound up to sleep though. Too hot on bed, or she's too far over on my side, or dinner was too late or I had too much Espresso at Nonna's. I slept from a out 12:30 until 3, and thrn 5-6. Rough.

I felt salty all day. Feels like every Monday comes with free reminders thst I am, if not bad at my job, poor at managing all the variois elements. Shit falls through the cracks -- more lately than even before, even now that I am trying, or trying to try, to be more aware of this. Each workday brings new things for me to feel guilty about, incompetent about. It makes it hard to bring my best self to work. Lack of sleep also doesn't help.

I felt grumpy by the time I got home and didnt want to cook so I did a boil bag butter chicken. It was pretty good, easier to ensure the chickencooks properly than if I really had cooked it. Eventially I felt better.

Not perfect but better

Tomorrow: another day. Early gym, more work. Focus. Do your best.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Eight: Tell

Deep, deep, deep, deep down, I am a man in crisis. On the surface I am calm cool water. Beneath, a storm.

I have become far too enamored of my past. You know the mind tricks you and makes you think the past is the future. I think often about where I have come from and what I have been through, and all the now defunct futures I used to think I'd have. It  auses me to fail to appreciate my actuality, my reality, my present. It makes me think the present should be different but it really shouldn't be.

The past was not better, although in some ways I may have been better in the past, the truth is thst I am mostly better now and the main advantage that the past has is that more of the future was a blank slate then. I shouldn't glorify it. My glory days have not passed me by.

I am craving the past, though, as content. I wish I had written here more in 2012, 2013, 2014. I was on Tumblr a lot in those years and among that site's many faults is a ahit archive.

I have things I want to write and am in no shape to do so today. This post is nothing. Honestly you (I) deserve better than even this. Another hurried, unfocussed third-life crisis missive from beyond bedtime. I am in Oakville, in the bed I left at Mel's parents place. I have the day off work tomorrow. I have to go back to Toronto to get a shirt for her, for our engagement shoot. God I hope I find it. I will always knock myself out gor her happiness. Sometimes there is a bitter feeling that that is one sided.

I am a consummate wreck for reasons I cannot even say. I haven't even brushed my teeth.

More than probably everyone I work with I feel like I define myself by my past, where I've been rather than where I am going. Dangerous... but I think a storyteller needs a grip on the past for continuity, as much as an ability to imagine the future.

How about that ending of Game of Thrones...

Keep on rockin
Scotto

Seven: No time like the presence / Empty of myself

I couldn't decide between two titles today and it's possible, I daresay likely, I would forget them before having a chance to uae both. In fact, that's arguably the reason I'm even blogging - not because the titles are so great, but because I have them, and want a record of them. That of course was always the entire purpose of this thing.

I've been reading old posts again, just when the two or three websites I actually enjoy are between updates, to give my brain some sweet content to chew on. In one Icused the typo about presencecand I liked it so I rehashed.

Right this second I am sitting up in bed waiting for laundry to be done. It's one of my more enjoyably self destructive tendencies to sit up and read or write while Mel sleeps and I should also be sleeping, but the laundry thing is a legit concern since the dryer makes a chiming noise so there's no point trying to sleep if it is going. Ditto the dishwasher. And sometimes it's just cool to hang out in bed in darkness while someone sleeps.

I was thinking about blogging. I have quite a few official projects lately. I'm keepig the X-Men readthrough going, and it's getting decent support. We'll see howcI feel about it in another year when I'm well past the Dark Phoenix Saga (whic is currently being posted) and into those draggy, aimless mid-80s stretches. I've thought about howcI might modify the blog if I get tired of doing it the way it is, or when I have to accomodate two monthly comics. But we'll see. The current format is the best way of doing things. But not the only.

I like it. I like reading, parsing the narrative, analyzing and commenting. I had wanted to do this idea for years before I finally felt prepared to. I put in the work.

I do my other blog, Better Late Than Never, once or a few times a month, depending if I have something to say. I write differently there than here. It's not like I have the mental energy to really craft a masterpiece but I have my voice, my "smart idiot finding out about the world" perspective. Sometimes I tell personal stories in a more elevated way thsn here. Sometimes I write at length about Game of Thrones. I don't know what else I do. I completed a three parter running down the whole saga of Half-Past. Ryan commented, which was nice and a little unexpected. My conclusion was thst I'll never be the writer I thought I was going to be, but that doesn't make me nothing.

It's not meant to be any huge thing, just an outlet, a sounding board. I think an outlet and a project are always important for ne. Not that anything I say is of specual value or perspective, but it's content, delicious wholesome content.

Sometimes I feel it's not enough, but I don't have the wherewithal to attempt something bigger or more meaningful. I have given thought to e-fedding, only I would control the entire scenario based on characters I devised for my TEW scenario. You've really got to want it to go that far. I don't even know that nobody would read it, if I took it to an FW board and said "Look, just check it out and see where it goes."

At times I think about reviving myself as a music critic, or incorporating that into BLTN, but it would oddly be a bad fit - if I do it, thats what I do, not a watered down sideshow. So I resist. Posts discussing my time as a musoc blogger or addressing music's importance in my life are another matter. It's about staying on brand.

My point is, I do keep busy, but mainly during these fringe moments so not with anything that cant3 be tossed off. Nothing serious. But not nothing.

This past weekend was Mel's dad's 60th. We went out to a piano bar - really a pub with music.  "DUELLING PIANOS"  was actually a piano player and his son and daughter or dryms and sax taking requests. I don't know what duwlling pianos actually is. They played good boomer atuff - Born to Run, Bee Ges, September, SwwetvCaroljne. A good time but gads long. And too much pop country. We got home after 1. I did enjoy the Radiohead/Hollies mashup.

Well. I hear my chime and I've gotten some stuff off my chest for tonight. Not everything, but maybe sometime soon I'll be back. Gym early tomorrow so I should probably turn in as early as possible.

Today was the first really nice day, so I took a long route home. Nice, but by the time I got in I was ready to be in.

Keep on rockin'
The Same Scotto as Always