Sixteen: The Ancients

So, listen.

I just finished writing the post below, and I though about just adding onto it with an edit, but I wanted to use this title above because, well, I just did - title-logic on this thing has been fuzzy since the beginning.

In fact, that's what I wanted to talk about, the beginning. This blog first began just over fifteen years ago. Just after writing that, that I was not naturally feeling nostalgic, I decided to make myself nostalgic by re-reading a very early portion of the blog, around Grade 12.

It was remarkable how "me" it all was. Young me, to be sure - some of my opinions and observations have not been fully informed by the experiences I have had since. Some of my turns of phrase are clunky but my penchant for bad references and complicated wordfuckery totally exists. The cadence of it is all still me, which is pretty impressive, if you look at it from the perspective of a 17-year-old writing nearly as well as an adult would -- and terrible if you look at it from the perspective of a 32-year-old not really getting past where he was at 17.

Now as luck would have it, I am past a lot of it. In those days a lot of what I had to say came from the boredom and sadness of being young and directionless. Ha-Ha! But now I have the boredom and sadness of being an adult! Back then a lot of what I wrote about was overly enthusiastic about minor positivities that occurred to me. A girl looked at me! Someone said a nice thing! That, in addition to life being a drag when you were a 17-year-old in the pre-smartphone days of 2004, I was a particularly awkward and underdeveloped person (all while I drag the younger crop of Reach kids for letting their jaws drop when girls joined the team.)

Something has been lost in the decade and a half since then. I was totally unembarrassed to just let all my shit out on the internet for, if I was lucky, absolutely nobody. (Remember when two girls from your class found the blog and never let you hear the end of it?) Now I am very guarded. There's a lot of "We did this, we did that, things are hard, life is whatever." I don't vent as thoroughly here. I also have twitter to make sassy remarks, bad jokes and observations - I recently had a tweet about Kubla Khan that got a whopping 46 likes and three retweets, which puts it in my hall of fame for sure. (Wow, as time goes by I have not grown less thirsty.)

It's probably for the best I am not still blogging the same as I used to do when I was a 17-year-old weirdo. Like, that's a sign of growth, and I wonder if it's a problem that I don't write differently enough. But I think it's fine.

My main point - and I absolutely do not have a point but let's pretend this is a point - is that you can never quarantine the past, in the words of Stephen Malkmus. All that shit happened and I thought it and it's on the record and this 32-year-old man is keeping continuity with his 17-year-old self for whatever reason, completeness, consistency, lack of anything new. I could tear it all down and rebuild my brand elsewhere, as I have occasionally done, but for what? SWP would creep back to me. I am this blog.

Maybe on purpose.

I wouldn't say I have more baggage than any average person and maybe less than most. And maybe that's because I have itemized it so well.

So the point I find myself arriving at is this:

I wish I wrote more here and that it wasn't like just-barely-catching-up every time I checked in. But scratch that because what I also wish is that the writing I did here was something I felt was appropriate to share with the world again. It was sort of the hope behind BLTN, but that didn't come to pass (and everything I write there has to  e to Content standards) and now I write less there than I do here- but I will link to there on FB but not here. But I will stay faithful to this blog because it means something to me. Embarrassingly, wretchedly personal as it is. I wish then, that BLTN was this blog, but to where I had more filter over the content, not to where I was super guarded but to where I wasn't embarrassing myself.

Hm, hm, hm.

Something to work toward, I think. But I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever have the kind of time I want for that shit. To sit and bitch to the internet all night every night like when I was 17? But also make it good and funny like I might possibly at 32? While my future-wife is right there expecting to be my main audience and looking for my attention? Nuh-uh.

Tweets are all you get, I guess.

This all really didn't have a point, but it was better than nothing.

Mel naps. When we got here she was thrilled to see a puzzle laid out that we could work on (Lori even invited us to do so) but Mel was aghast at the lack of piece-sorting they had done. So we sorted, and placed a bunch of pieces, it was nice. Also we made friends with a caterpillar and laid together on the dock.

I have to work on dinner soon so that it gets done before the sun goes down. Getting peckish sine we had a late breakfast and no lunch.

Keep on rockin, again
-Scotto

Fifteen: If it is in your blood

It's September, let's cry/party.

I think the impulse for me to get bummed in September is pavlovian and maybe something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I feel like I should be sad and bummed in fall and so it happens. Most functioning adults I habe spoken to - disproportionately women but some men too - prefer fall over summer and even spring. I wonder if my negative association with fall is because of memories of new school years, or because I genuinely value warm weather, or because of very real associations between fall and decay. I told someone recently I prefer even the dead of winter over fall - possibly an exaggeration though.

The past few weeks - and the next - are dedicated to squeezing every last bit of summer out of 2019. We went to the Ex with Eric again. It was chilly and I was glad to have pushed for long pants and maybe even should have done a hoodie. I found it more of a haphazard trip than last year, a lot of the same, and in those cases the same but worse, or at least less organized. So we were all over the map, didn't eat right away, which took its toll, separated for some time, skipped the silent disco because it looked more rinky dink than last year.

Did do the ponies, which Eric killed at by betting over and over on Samson. One guy joined in and everytime he would hit his friend would shout his catchphrase "Howyoudo bay-BEE!" In a thick fake Italian-American Joey Tribbiani accent. We heard it a lot, with the guy running the game complaining we were cleaning him out. I stayed away from Samson to superstitiously avoid cooling him.

It was a nice night, but really not as memorable as the first time we three went to the Ex. That seems to be a trend of sorts - do a fun summer thing, then try to make it an annual thing with diminishing returns. It happened with Ribfest too.

All but the previous paragraph were written on Sept 3, it's now Sept 7.

Last weekend was more relaxed, going to dinnervat mom's new place saturday, then a barbeque at Nonna's on Sunday. Honestly it hammers home how much of the summer heat we've missed, between being too chilly to really enjoy a beer at the Ex after dark, and nkne of that weekend's activities being outside. We did have an outdoor breakfast with Laura, Ryan and Papa H though.

Still, we stayed late at Nonna's, watches Rockys 3 and 4, played a hand of cards. It was nice. That was labour day. We got home aroind dinner monday after being lazybones.

Now it's the next weekend, our trip to the trailer, which links back up to my point about recurring events with diminishing returns. Mel loves the trailer but with all the craziness this summer we haven't been able to get up here until now - patently too cool to really do all those fun summer things. We'll still barbeque and have a fire and do Smores but we never manage to get here when it's blistering hot and you *need* to go swimming. Maybe next year.

Getting up here was a debacle itself- we both left work early, but Mel had a Doctors appointment she was late for. I was cleaning the apartment, she needed a late lunch, and with last minute packing we didn't get on a trajn for Oakville until 6:50 (it was delayed from 6:43.) We spent a long time grocery shopping - and then had to stop off forvsome chicken sandwiches at A&W for dinner at 9:30. Damn!

The drive up was actually good from there. We got stucl behind a tractor or two, and missed our last turn (hard to see in the dark) but beyond that, a breeze that went quick and featured lots of flipping around the radio. I guess I'm of the age where spending 90 minutes in a car isn't the worst thing, since I felt that way going to Fonthill also.

Still, when we got in around 11:30, basically all we did was put groceries away and make the bed (a big thing was that we had to bring our own sheets. I took it to mean comforter and blanket too but this was not necessary).

Last year when we did this, when we got here it was early enough for a late dinner of pan-fried burgers and a portion of Vacation. I'm also of the age where it feelsl ike I *just* watched that movie even though it was a whole year ago. We didn't even watch the whole thing. Mel wasn't feeling it, though her whole family loves Vegas Vacation, and I think to some degree European Vacation.

Despite what I wrote above, I'm actually not feeling as naturally wistful and sentimental and nostalgic as past years. There is so much going on and so much to do that I really can't indulge, only at my own risk. Work has been crazy, wedding planning is not my fave thing, and just generally trying to have a life

Well, I should relax and get back to my vacation. One improvement over my childhood trips here is WiFi. It would have changed the whole thing - In some ways I would have liked it, but in others it's for the best I didn't. I was one of those late 90s kids when being on the computer/internet all the time was considered a bad thing.

Part of me wishes it still was.

Keep on rockin'
Scotto