08.04.06

well, here we are. finally an update. i doubt anyone even comes here anymore because i haven't updated in almost a year. but for those who do, please enjoy all the lovely little scribbles and bits i have for you here!

(there should be more, but i am tired of this copy pasting copy pasting copy pasting copy pasting copy pasting copy pasting copy pasting copy pasting, so this is it for now. if you really want to see more, just head over to my myspace blog. cheers.)

100+ words

I have been meaning to throw this down for the past few days, but have procrastinated terribly up until now. trutch be told, i would procrastinate longer, but i really do not want to work, and need to take a mind vacation, so here i am.

One week after the actual new year, i have finally come up with one direct and unambivalent resolution. Unlike all the others i sort of thought up, quit smoking...eventually, get some exercise, eat better, work out my flaws of character, all these intagible things that i half, or more than half don't really want to change, or, actually want to change, but do not feel like putting forth the effort.

Which segues awkwardly into my actual resolution, to write at least 100 words a day. this idea has been floating around in my head, since i found it in some book or magazine, or maybe it was on tv, i don't know. anyway, this is in no way to be confused with an original thought. my plan is to write little sentence fragments or ideas on a piece of paper, throw them all in a hat or some kind of container, and once a day, pull one out and just go. practice, pratice. (i plan on just writing one draft, so i know they will be rough and not unlike garbage for the first 50 or so, but after that i imagine something good will begin to form, or at least i hope so) so then, since i'm just starting, i was hoping you could maybe send me a an idea or two, and i will put them in with the others. Then you can feel like you are a part of this, and if anything ever happens you can sit by the medium of choice and silently gloat to yourself that i have reached where i am partly because of you. isn't that magic?

- gone -

jack had been feeling worn out. like the last couple of weeks were years spent in a sandstorm. he didn't really react to it much however, just slumped out of bed, threw his shoes on and walked to work. everymorning. he came home everynight, took off his shoes and slide back onto his bed. he knew he had things to do, things he had thought about doing for a long time now, things that had an urgency when he first thought of them, but now,everything seemed to slide away. crumble and fall. all he wanted to do was sit in bed and watch old television programs his father had taped for him.

he often thought to himself, given himself ultimatums and making threats. he was in a constant interior monologue that all but drowned out most other outside noise. he knew someone was speaking to him because he would eventually hear a fuzzy droning in his ear, and depending on which ear he heard it in he would turn in that direction. this method of listening and participating in conversations, angered everyone so much, that all but the most persistent had long given up.

His bedroom walls were the outer protection to the small town he was creating in his head. but this town was under strict quarantine, no one could come in or leave. he was insulating himself from the outside world, as well as his only little life. he was drawing into himself, and it did not seem there would be any way to stop it.

This upset the people who cared for him. his girlfriend couldnt get him to do more than grunt in responce to her questions. And she would cry for joy if his hand brushed her, accidentally or not. The strength of this young women should be commemed, she was often sad, or upset or lost in incomprehension but she never left him. And, lord knows, she could have used any reason to do so. Jack stopped paying rent, stopped paying bills, stopped eating, and eventually stopped getting out of bed.

His roomate kept threatening to kick him out, but Jack only heard a low muffled sound throught the doubled locked door. His girlfriend had finally had enough and left a few days ago. and somehow through all this, andrew just sat in bed. sat and stared with a deep vacant look in his eyes.

He stayed in that room, locked off from everything for about a week. at that point hisgirlfriend and roomate had met in desperation to figure out a plan. they could think of nothing other than force, so they ran and kicked and pushed at the old wood door until they managed to punch a hole, reach in and unlock it.

However, they stopped abruptly when they entered, because jack was gone. There was no sign of him, the bed looked as though he was sitting in it, the television was on, but muted, no windows were open and not even the dust on the floor had been disturbed.

- the fox -

The fox had been running for what seemed like forever. He had small twigs and branches tangled in his coat. He had slipped in a large mud puddle and was covered in wet dirt, and still he had to keep running. He ran and he ran and he listened as he ran. He still heard the dogs chasing him and the men carrying metal branches behind them.

He ran and ran and ran, and soon, he was no longer in the forest he knew. The trees were larger, their leaves higher off the ground, and there were hardly any small plants on the forest floor. He kept running. He soon found himself in a small yellow grassed glade. He stopped for a short moment to catch his breath.

The fox then heard something terribly strange. A soft song was being carried along on the leaves of the forest to his ear. He seemed to be familiar with the song, but could not quite place it. The song also seemed to have replaced the sound of his pursuers. The fox relaxed just a little, to better listen to the song. He tried to discover where the sound was coming from, but was confused. It sounded like the glade was surrounded by a choir, and all were singing softly. He slowly walked in to the middle of glade, and was so tired from all the running, and hiding, and felt so soothed by the song of the trees, he curled up and fell fast asleep.

- the owl -

The owl had been perched outside my third floor window for about a week now. I don't know what kind of owl it was, it looked normal. And by that I mean, it wasn't one of those majestic white ones, or the evil looking ones with horns, just a medium sized brownish owl.

I noticed him there one morning; I had trouble sleeping all night, and finally got out of bed about 2 hours before I usually do. I was just shuffling through the apartment slowly sipping my coffee, and I ended up staring out the window. That's when I first saw the owl. I was surprised to see an actual animal just sitting there above the traffic and noise of the city morning streets. He looked so solemn, I guess, sober and solitary. Maybe it was because I hadn't slept all night, and my pre-coffee brain was open to suggestion, but I thought this was meaningful in some way.

The owl was there again the next morning. I stared at him for far too long and got to work late. I missed a meeting because I was hunkered down in my cubicle, googling owls. I didn't know what to think of my internet search. In some cultures, owls are seen as a symbol of wisdom, in others, they are known as messengers of death. I left work early, and drove around town thinking about this owl.

My life had been slumping. I had a dead-end paper-pushing job for a faceless corporation. The kind of place where they have "Fun Fridays" which are supposed to bring all the workers together, but only served to send me into little mini depressions. I had been working there for three years now, and was still just another cog.

My personal life was non-existent, since my girlfriend broke up with me four months before, taking most of the furniture and my social group with her.

All I had now was this little owl sleeping on a branch visible from the living room window.

After about five days of sharing mornings with this mysterious bird, he was suddenly gone. I admit, I felt emptier now that he was gone. I know this sounds stupid, that I'm projecting, that the owl meant nothing, that is was for sure not a symbol of all my failures. But for the next week, that's how I felt. My feet dragged as I walked, I don't think I looked up, just stared at the ground, and could not go anywhere near the window. My fears and failures reflected in the glass and the empty tree.

- the heart runs -

"Where is she? She said 7:30, at the corner of St-Viateur & Parc, didn't she? It's almost 9! I'm tired of this shit, I'm always stuck here waiting like a chump, freezing my balls off outside waiting to go to some party where I will know no one and talk to even less people, while she is the highlight reel. Basically I'm just a coat rack. And someone to make sure she gets home safe. Basically I'm a giant sucker who sits around hoping for approval that I never received. Why do I even want this? What do I possibly hope to gain from this woman? She will never think about anyone but herself, will continue to make me wait outside in the cold for a party I don't even want to go to. She will never love me the way I love her, why do I even bother? I am pathetic. That's it this is the last straw and I'm leaving"

The man starts to walk away when he hears a woman's voice call his name, he doesn't turn around, doesn't stop; he actually starts running and takes the next corner. The woman stares daggers into his back as he runs away.

- The fish -

We got the fish at one of those games you never win the really big prizes. You know the ones I mean; the ring toss or throw the darts at the balloons or some shit like that. My girlfriend and I decided to spend the day at the fair, we had been going through a bit of a rough patch lately, and we thought a day of innocent fun might helps us out. I don't know what the target market of these fairs is, but it is not a couple of twenty-somethings on the verge of breaking up. Anyway, we head out there, and walk around, and see the little kids running around with cotton candy all over their faces, screaming like it's the end days. It's not going well, we haven't spoken all morning. To distract us, I ask if she wants to try one of these games. She shrugs. I need to do something, so I turn quickly and walk straight up to the shooting gallery booth.

I used to be a pretty good shot I guess. We would practice shooting squirrels off the back deck of my parents' house when we were kids. But that was years ago, I give the guy my 5 bucks, ease the rifle into my shoulder and aim. I imagine the little ducks are the problems between me and her, the lack of truth, the lack of trust, all the other guys trying to hard to be the one there to offer her a shoulder to cry on when things are rough, all the guys who just agree with her to make her think they have something in common (I see right through all these guys.)

I start shooting, and hitting targets and it feels really good. Like pulling the trigger is releasing the emotions I had bottling up. I hit 7 out of 10. The guy working the booth, puts down his sandwich, wipes his hands on his pants and hands me the plastic bag, filled with water and the little orange fish. And somehow this fish is magic. My girlfriend and I immediately form this bond with the little fish; like this is something we, me and her equally, created. We stare at the fish, Andy we called him, swimming slowly in little circles. And she puts her arm around me and we look into each other's eyes and walk out of the fair.

- edna's dream -

Edna awoke with a start. "What a horrible dream" she said. She sat in bed trying to catch her breath and to separate dream from reality. She heard her husband in the shower, so she decided to get up and fix breakfast. When she was in the kitchen, she no longer had any desire to cook. She set out the cold cereal, a bowl and the milk, and made herself a cup of coffee. Her husband came out and saw what was for breakfast. "Are you feeling alright, dear?" he asked, "Cold cereal?" Edna responded that she had come in to make breakfast, but could not find the will to complete it. "Must have slept badly" she offered as explanation. "Well, no worry, I am in a rush this morning anyway, I'll grab something on the way to the office" her husband said. He kissed her on the forehead, grabbed his coat and left for work.

Edna was usually a very efficient caretaker, she had her tasks divided by days, and time allotted for each chore. She consulted her list, but the words made no sense to her. "I am feeling just so strange" she said aloud, "I feel so very different this morning." She felt a strange urge, so she got up and walked to the refrigerator. She opened the door and bent down to where her husband always kept a few cold bottles of beer. Before she even knew what was happening, she had the bottle half-drunk. "well, for some reason, I feel better" she said, once again out loud. She picked up two more bottles and sat on the front porch drinking them.

- stay in bed -

I should have known it was going to be a bad day. I should have just crawled back into bed, wait, I should never have gotten out of bed in the first place. I set my alarm to the radio, because I find the alarm sound too frantic. But this morning I woke up to yellow submarine. I don't know what it is, but that song is just bad luck to me. Somehow, I got up anyway, walked down to the kitchen to start the coffee, but there wasn't any. I should have gone back to bed then. Fine I said, no coffee this morning, I'll just jump in the shower and grab one on the way to work. I turn the corner and stub my big toe on a box of my girlfriend's things. I hobble into the shower, and for a minute I think my luck may change. I dress, and walk out to the bus stop. I should have left earlier. I should have known a snowstorm (I use the term storm loosely here) would have all the buses filled with people too lazy to shovel out their cars. I shoulder my way into a position where I can almost breathe, and shut my eyes against the obnoxious people. Next thing I know, I'm being elbowed in the kidneys. I manage to twist my neck enough to see a hunch over little old lady slam-dancing her way past me. I let that go, come on, she's old. A few stops down the road, and the bus clears out a bit, I manage to find a seat. I breathe a sigh of relief, but too soon it seems, as now I am cornered by a group of 15 year old girls all talking about "Steve's" text message break-up with whomever. Why did I forget my Discman today! I suffer through the complexities of the lives of young privileged girls until it's my stop. I squeeze and sidestep my way to the door, I can taste the freedom, I step out of the bus and into a puddle half way up my calf. I should have stayed in bed this morning; I should have not even bothered.

- the snowstorm -

The snowstorm was starting to make everyone a little buggy. When you have to stay in your house for 4 days, it upsets your little routine, and when your whole life is based on that routine, anything that shakes it a little has to affect you. I noticed I would do the same thing over and over. I spent the whole morning making tea, taking a sip, leaving the cup in some room I had wandered into, and then heading back into the kitchen to make another cup. David was humming a tune, over and over, until it really just fell into a bunch or random sounds coming out of his mouth. And Charley just sat staring out the window with his mouth open all morning. We were all turning into house zombies.

- Henry -

While lifting his cup of tea to his lips, Henry suddenly remembered an incident that had happened over sixty years ago. He was a young man at the time, spending the summer working on his aunt's farm. One Saturday while picking up supplies in town, he laid eyes on the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He was an impulsive youth, so he took off after her. He approached her and asked if she would care to meet him for a drink later that night. She agreed and they made plans to meet at the intersection of the Henry's aunt's farm. Henry walked down the road, and saw the girl standing there waiting for him. His heart quickened as did his pace. When he got to her, he was happy and a little out of breath. They each said hello, and turned to walk to town. This is when 4 older boys rose up form the ditch, and starting throwing rocks and yelling at Henry. He tried to cover his date as best he could, when she pushed him away and began to laugh and yell, "now boys, hit him with the big ones!"

- what happened -

The last thing he remembered was throwing the empty beer bottle across the bar. The first thing he felt when he woke up was that his head felt twice as large as it usually did. He swung his feet out, stood up and fell to the ground. He groped his way to the bathroom and fell asleep on the cool tiles of the floor. He awoke much later. He stood up and looked in the mirror, seeing his face for the first time that day. He wasn't sure, but he guessed that thrown bottle landed on someone, and whoever that was couldn't take a joke...

30.07.06

- thinking about thinking -

i'm finding it hard to write anything down these days. i seem to keep coming back to the excuse that i can not write if i am happy, and i've been pretty happy the last little while. so i went back and read over the last few weeks worth of blogs, and hardly any of them are positive, so then, i am not really writing for style or content, but mostly for therapy i guess. i don't know if i've used this metaphor (or whatever descriptive mechanism it actually is) here before, but i feel if i have written something down, i have released it into the wild, and it is no longer caged and prowling in my head. running up to the bars with teethed bared and growling and howling with rage and sadness. in the open it calms a little, has more room to run, and attacks me less frequently. sometimes the only option i have is to transfer the black clouds into ink on paper if i am going to make it throughthe day. now, i can't really tell, if the "connaissance" of this is a good thing, or if the whole situation is some messed up mental syndrome but for now i think, we will work with it, because i am usually quite pleased with the words produced from these flashes of black anger and sadness.

strange sidenote that doesn't really have anything to do with the above post, but is something that came to my attention last night:

apparently, i come across as having this superior, seen it all, know more than you, confident attitude. when i was told this i couldn't quite believe it. here i am, unsure, insecure, knowing i know nothing, willing to learn in fact in possession of an unatural (or so it seems in comparison to others) hunger for knowledge and wisdom, i feel like there is too much i do not know. so i was taken aback by this comment, as it seems the attitude i would least likely possess. but 2 or three people agreed with it. i guess the question really is, would a person be able to create such a public persona, a persona in drastic contradiction to the actual person?

- one man's trash -

it had been awhile since i had seen anything good from my balcony, (in truth, it has been a real long time since i sat out on my balcony) but last night made up for the recent lack excitement.

sitting out for a smoke i norice two people hunched down on the sidewalk across the street. and it takes me a while to decipher what i am seeing. Turns out, this guy is meticulously taking apart a cpu, while his girlfriend reads her romance novel. i found this starnge, because it menas this guy walks around with a screwdriver in his pockets waiting for just such an opportunity. and in this case preparation would lead to the spoils!

a little later a woman walks up. and stops. and stands just above these two staring. and she stays there for like 10 minutes. she finally moves on a bit, only to turn towards us, and we see her face. her hand covered her mouth, but if you were to believe her eyes, the guy on the street was dissecting a puppy, and not salvaging parts from the garbage.

- on commmence lentement -

after a month of procrastinating, i finally got off my ass and wrote a couple album reviews. you can read them here.

(the reviews for the paper chase & beatglider albums are mine)

arrrggh -

the thing about dating one of the only women in your workplace / office is you have to put up with every other guy making advances at her. she just told me some guy was asking to see her nipple piercings. and that is somewhat tame compared to some of the things i have heard other people say. and really, i'm no position to say "don't talk to so and so anymore" because she talked to these people before i was in the picture, but i want to. when i heard the nipple thing, i was ready to go up to the guy's desk and punch him. neanderthal. reptilian. i have to breathe and detch myself from this situation, because the more i think about it, the angrier i get.

- meditations on the bus -

In the aim of greater understanding of oneself, there are times when you need to remove yourself from any situation, and then look in from the outside. Yesterday was one such day. Here is the description of what happened written as I rode the bus;

"a horn honks outside, the women in the bus turn their heads & stare intently at the source of the sound, trying to decipher the reason why the horn was honk and by who.

I feel like I am ruining everything with my camouflaged fears. I will try to love you truly and wholly and to hell with the consequences. Scars are stronger than flesh they say, but I think a fresh wound on a scar amplifies the half-forgotten pain and adds to the sting of the fresh wound. But I no longer care.

I walk to you naked, my fears shed like wet, heavy clothing when coming in from a storm. And there is another apt metaphor for you. I have been in the driving rain howling wind booming thunder and lightning for so long a sunny day makes me suspicious.

I lay there awake last night, sure that all the signs pointed to infidelity. I know how wrong that is. the shields against the demons of paranois are weakest at the gray zone between wakefulness and deep sleep. They sit at the gates and wait for their moment to strike. These agents of fear, sowing doubt, they who burn building and bridges in my mind and heart.

How I try to fight! But they are overwhelming. A chorus of cracked voices chanting my simple, truest fears, bells ring to emphasis the severity. You cannot trust, You cannot love.

I reject these attacks and swat them away like the flies they truly are. Midgets made huge with tricks of shadows and light. Booming voices from field mice.

Once again, I try to convince myself to throw all this away and give of myself and take of you and enjoy it while it lasts and who cares and try to act this way."

- last nights party -

Well, the ugly drunken face of craig appeared last night, and I was on a real asshole-roll. Some of the things I did:

- Almost made some 14 year old girl cry, because I basically told her to shove off, when she asked me for a smoke.
- Told some guy I hated him , when he asked you dont like me do you?
- Told the GF that I couldnt stand her friend, and that it would please me greatly to never be in the same room as him again
- Made her cry because of the above comment
- I'm pretty sure I told someone else to fuck off too, although I cannot remember

Beyond that, it was good times. The lesson is you should never drink 6 or 7 or 8 pints on an empty stomach, on a 5 day drinking binge. And you should leave the shitty feelings you had about your day at the door, otherwise your night will just be poisoned.

On the good side, Paul picked up the waitress at the bar, and because of that we had free shots for most of the night. He was about to move to Gravenhurst this weekend, but as he walked out of the bar with the waitress on his arm, he told me he was now no longer sure if he was leaving.

I didnt have a chance to shower this morning, and I smell like last nights party. And feel like an asshole covered in a bad easter chocolate. Good times.

Anyway, I just needed to focus on writing to not pass out.

- a toast from me to me -

Here's to a long life, and a merry one; a quick death, and an easy one; a pretty girl, and an honest one; a cold beer - and another one!

- Irish Toast

- bonne st-jean -

in the name of science, we went to quebec city for the St-Jean weekend. If you are not Quebecois, then you might not know this is the province's national holiday. and les quebecois celebrate it by getting piss drunk in public. basically, you are allowed to drink in the streets with thousands of other people. crowds are huge, it takes 15 minutes to buy beer and the whole thing is just ridiculous. and then, off course, to fully appreciate the whole thing, you have to be fucked out of your tree, as i was. (and by that i mean, i had vomited at 8 pm, just as we started the night)

we started out just walking around, waiting for the other people to show up. met some kid named Denis, who was walking around with a drunk girl on each arm. he was hesitant to take them home, but i gave him advise, from an old guy to a younger one, that if he didn't take these girls home, he was retarded.

talked to some bums, a few punks (who tried to tell me all about the FLQ) took pictures of weird looking people, especially this one family....jesus, we were out of control. following some people we knew, we ended up at the "candy tree." things spin out of control somewhere around here. it was so dark i couldn't see anything. i was convinced a group of 3 girls were following me, and giggling while i peed. i kept seeing strange reptilian creatures in my peripheral vision. i felt like i was in a strange hunter s. thompson adventure.

more hilarious insanity followed, but it was mostly witticisms and clever wordplay and in french, so i really find it hard to relate all the good times. just know i started a 3 hour laughing trip, and the night ended in ridicule. all in all it was a giant drunken circus.

spent the rest of the weekend drinking too much, and mumbling. and laughing at the jokes from the night before. there's much more to the story, but it wouldn't be as funny if i typed it. call me, i'll give you the rest of the details.

- the hardware store -

went to new bar yesterday after work. and it was really nice. really high ceiling, heavy wooden tables, art covering the walls, those smoking rabbits toys in the liquor cabinet, une serveuse tres sympathique and fairly cheap beers.

i'm slightly conflicted, because on the one hand i really want to tell people about it, and have them go there to support these guys, but on the other hand, it's also really nice to have a secret little chill place like that.

- on boldness -

"I have the belief in boldness. What I generally lack is the boldness itself. Because boldness doesn't feel bold. It feels scared, not brave. The explorer feels more and more lost, the prophet hears himself uninteligibly blaspheming."

- from the character Nelson Fairchild, in the novel Already Dead by Denis Johnson

- contents of my backpack -

i have been mostly living out of my backpack for the last 2 weeks. the current contents are as follows:

- book (already dead by denis johnson)
- two forks
- deodorant
- aviators
- dirty socks (1 pair)
- 3 pay stubs
- credit card bill
- camera (35mm)
- pyjama pants
- cd holder thing (24 cds)
- toothbrush
- 2 t-shirts (1 clean & 1 dirty)
- 2 week old bag of blue sharks
- spiritual propaganda
- discman
- empty pack of gum
- tupperware sandwich container
- crushed granola bar
- 3 dead batteries
- notepad & pen
- bus schedule for bus i've never used
- post it notes with phone numbers and addresses

good times.

- friday, as i remember it, in reverse-

the clouds were speeding by overhead, the glow from the ember of my cigarette could have landed planes. the tunnels went on forever. i was sure there was someone sitting on the passenger side. it was late. my feet were wet from the 2 inches of water in the bathroom. the air was thinck with yellow smoke. i could see better without my glasses. no one let me take their picture. a bum called himself an anarchist. i had a good seat in the crook of a tree trunk. someone came by, peddling his spirituality. we bought styrofoam cups.

13.06.06

- ink spots on dreams -

my weekend was like that old hayden song, although i don't remember which one, and all i can remember is the overall sentiment the song was trying to get across, and the line "pizza boxes tower." and even then i'm not sure if it the same song because they all sort of run together like written notes left in a flooded basement. anyway, the point is i spent the whole weekend in bed and it was good. very good. i feel like i let myself be too vulnerable, but i do not regret it. skin pressed up and seeping past the cracks in my armor. i feel good. pieces falling off exposing soft, white skin and surfaces that have not seen the sun in years. uncertainty is shrinking by crying out loudly as it shrivels. a last-chance-death-scream and dance, but one that has little pull because i now realize this voice/presence is a traitor to happiness and fullness of life, it feeds on misery and loneliness and cannot last long in this new light. but still it screams in moments of weakness, it still has air in it's lungs, and sobs its story in the moments before sleep, and some of the tears drop on the canvas of dreams like ink stains, spreading out in directions ambiguously attemtpting to confuse you with its own confusion of not being dominant anymore. cry your little heart out, i've listened to you long enough.......

- those kids kicked it hard -

awesome night. went to see be your own PET at some small club. there were maybe 20 people in the audience. they didn't seem to care. they just fucking kicked it up. the openers (whirlwind heat) kicked it out as well. i was jealous of these 18 year olds partying around the continent, you could tell they were loving this whole thing they had gotten themselves into. it turned out into an intimate frenzy!

if these guys come to your town, go see them, they bring a big handful of party with them! jesus, even bigfoot came in and danced away!

wait, i forgot. it was most likely even better because for one of the first time i was at an awesome show, with someone i thought was awesome and she also thought both i and the show were awesome, basically it was like a giant hug of awesomeness all around.

- community -

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Not to be too prideful in myself, but we are slowly creeping towards forming a neo-familial community in our neighbourhood. We currently have 3 households all somewhat connected by blood or history, and we are working on a fourth. that would bring the total to 8 adults, 2 kiddies, and a dog. we were talking and we feel this is a good number to begin with. from these 8 we can expand and pull others in and eventually create a "folk society" where we are comfortable & welcome in any of the 4 homes, and anyone can ask for and receive what they need, be it services or support.

we had a small moment the other night. paul had just got in that night, we were sitting on the front porch, mitch & rachel playing guitars, smoking cigarettes, talking, tuesday playing with her toys, it was nice. it was how it is supposed to be.

we all need to work to create our own small communities and collectives, and then work to connect all these isolated societies so that one day we may have a world that is healthy, and not burying its head in the sand or shopping bag, where we aren't afraid of our neighbours, where support is always there, if you need it, where we can be happy and know we belong to something greater than ourselves.

- quote from hesse -

found this in Journey to the East this morning, and found it fairly apt.

"Once in their youth the light shone for them; they saw the light and followed the star, but then came reason and the mockery of the world; then came the faint-heartedness and apparent failure; then came weariness and disillusionment, and so they lost their way again, they became blind again."

- there is no way i can make it through the day without falling asleep -

so tired. alot of walking yesterday, all over town, at least 3 or 4 neighbourhoods plus the mountain. slept deeply with windows open under blankets. did not want to wake up today. one of my buddies from back home moved here on friday. i had no idea he was coming. it was a nice surprise. drank on saturday. talked about things i can't or do not usually get to talk about with other people. tired. 2nd "date" yesterday. i think it went well. i think i might be....let that go for now. mice chewing through roommates wall. too tired to care. chilly at work. no appetite. took everything to choke down muffin. later.

- i actually did things yesterday -

i walk out of the metro and there a huge friggin storm. the rain is falling sideways and my pants, shoes, socks are soaked. i meet up with the editor of the album review website thing, talk about the "job" walk out of there with 10 or so albums. being hungry i stop in and buy a six-pack of still oven-warm bagels, and i eat them on my way home. then, and this is the most surprising, i had a "date." i wouldn't call it that but other people did, and it's the easieat thing to say so....and i had a good time.

hopefully yesterday was but a brief glimpse of the next little while. because it sure feels beeter to be on the move than sedentary.

- delusions of adulthood -

entered a strange dimension saturday afternoon. sitting around the backyard, watching (neighbourhood) kids run around, too many beers brought on the feeling of having entered a middle-class family style existence. and then i started to think if i was actually "this guy" what would i be saying to these people. so when there was a lull in the conversation i started throwing things like this out:

- "so Susan (in my middle class fantasy, my wife's name is always susan) was down at the new portugese market on 5th. the sausage was pretty spicy, but they make a very fine cheese."

- "was down at the garage and Gerry was telling me about this new premium motor oil, apparently you can get more mileage and less viscosity breakdown and it costs 2 dollars less than the regular stuff."

- "looks like we're going to have to reshingle the roof this summer. the rain is getting in and dripping in on susan's sewing room."

anyway, people weren't really impressed with my choices of conversation, and i was ostracized and told politely to leave. so i tightened up my khakis, tucked in the polo, slipped into my loafers and waddled home to watch dateline.

- new rules -

1st new rule: if say, by some random chance you find yourself in a group of three, and one of those guys is married with children and hardly ever leaves the house, never let that guy decide where to go. because he never gets out, he will try to find the "most spectacular night out" but all you will end up doing is walking around in circles, getting on and off metros, chasing him when he walks off somewhere, have to listen to him complain about wanting to go home and finally ending up in some bar with bad music and drunk & awkward 18 year olds performing chorus lines and handstands on the dance floor.

silver lining: beer was 2$.

2nd new rule: and if you are in a group, and you are going out as a group, i will find you terribly rude if you listen to your mp3 player. and even more when you ask me to repeat myself, because you did not hear me the first time due to the earphones implanted in your head.

- a small step in the right direction -

so it seems i will now write record reviews for a local internet magazine. no money, but apparently paid in albums and maybe show tickets. which make sense, cuts out the middle man and all that. just waiting for a bit more info on the gig. in the meantime check out the site, where i will (hopefully) be starting my (quasi) professional writing career; left hip

- run may run -

when my roommate gets drunk, he usually decides that i am his enemy. from this point on, he will start giving me the finger, slurring a ridiculously angry comebacks to anything i say, and attempting to convince everyone else i should be shunned. he wil use drunken nonsense to show how much i fail. sometimes i realize what is happening and i laugh it off. sometimes he catches me at a moment of weakened awareness and i get angry. i snapped last night and very directly told him off. he was upset and i even think he threw a bunch of my dvds behind the tv cabinet as payback for who the fuck knows. they were really too far for me to believe his "probably got knocked over while we were drunk" story. because the rest of them were in a rigid row, and after the banana incident i'm convinced he does things like this. beyond all the time i had to dodge verbal & passive aggrressive attacks, i had a good long weekend.

Friday was pretty regular, small gathering at a house, maybe blew an opportunity or two. saturday was filled with meeting weird people in the neighbourhood. playing frisbee in the back lane, when some guy steps out onto his balcony and asks if we are locals or part of the "plateau bour - geou - sie moving in." it was funny. missed that damn sunset rubdown show, because i couldn't find the place. went to the big cheese. drank. drank more rum with some guy on the metro in exchange for a couple of smokes. talked to some other guy about his daughter (she's a biochemist AND a ski champion). he wouldn't take my number or give me hers.

then we ran home because the roommate was sure the guy walking behind us was the local neck stabber. he dresses in red (pants & shirt) and wears a white glove and is ready to stab you in the neck with a bic pen. if you see him run and then call the police. animals are out of their cages.

- smells like -

strange the things that make you think of the past. for the past few days, construction crews have been busy demolishing the building across the street from work. basically it is a huge pile of rubble and debris. but the smell. it smells like that first few days when you open up your cottage for the summer. dank, musty humidity mixed with dust. and when i walked past it the first time, it made me nostalgic of my cottage, and everything that goes with it; swimming, chopping wood, bug spray, bbq, hot sand, trees. the city is grinding me down again.

- new book recommendation -

jPod - Douglas Coupland

from amazon.com ....a zeitgeist-trawling satire about twenty-first-century cyber obsession. JPoder Ethan Jarlewski narrates in deadpan geekspeak, reporting on life in gamer land, where he and his fellow designers--each precocious, cynical, oddball charming, and possibly a touch autistic--invent hilariously clever trivial pursuits to avoid work. But Ethan is often distracted from fun with porn sites, math problems, and an evil cyber version of Ronald McDonald by the crazy demands of his off-the-charts family. There's a (...) edginess and surrealism to the frequently violent escapades of Ethan's actor-wannabe father, gun-toting and pot-growing mother, and real-estate salesman brother, who gets them all entangled with the gangster Kam Fong. As both actual and cyber mayhem crest, Coupland, himself a character in this rampaging comedy, reminds us that no matter how seductive the virtual realm is, it is real life that requires our keenest attention.

- how brave we are when backs are turned -

what a strange feeling it is when someone you know calls you a certain thing, and you hear that and realize you could say the exact same thing about them. and you get angry and you say to yourself me? no, my sir, it is you that behaves in such a manner. some people do not have the ability to see their faults, and this isn't supposed to be some self-aggrandizing comment. i do the same thing. it is quite the eye opener when you hear yourself cast as whatever or whichever, when you think there is no way it could be. but a person close to you has said it, so there must be some truth to it (somewhere).

or maybe not, maybe it is only a rash reactionary thing to say, and you only say it because you are sure the subject will never hear about it. how brave we can be when backs are turned.

(self-aware of hypocrisy ps - see, i could have brought this up to the people in question, but i chose to let it slide a ways away, but not so far i couldn't generalize the whole thing into a blog.....)

- lines -

being bored, i decide to compose, no wait, steal words written by other people and arrange them in a strange pattern and see what happens. so i threw all my music into the player, randomized it, and cycled through, picking up the first lines of the songs as i first understood them, and have sewn them altogether as follows. (eerie side note: there are strange moments of continuity...you'll see.)

we are here to save your life
if you happen to be educated
dogs they make up the dark surrounding
can you remember a time when the city was
our stepmother, we did everything
dance hall dance hall everyday
desert nights and lonely stars
things are getting awfully deep
my arms are all twisted
i hear that train a'coming
specters move like pilot flames
it wasn't me
you think you know, but you have no idea
lion comes from his watch
i've got nowhere to go
when you first walked in
now that it's june
don't wanna be
in dire reminded, of the time that i was blinded
from the ice age to doorways
maybe this is what it's like
minding my business
in my mind
the ladies on the corner
a dangerous woman up to a point
don't breath down my neck
i was alone, i took a ride
crooked mattress & broken backs
small sacrifices
out on the street again
tonight the moon hangs low
we all know
it's so cold in this house
i know that you 've opened up
time to stop
and i tried to swim
this plane is definitly crashing
i thought my resolve was
dancing like they used to dance
a wildcat, you are a worm
the sun is shining on full blast
that's enough
well it's a tragic day
i'm tired of everyone
who would've though that
i won't mistake you for
what you do
most folks spend their days daydreaming of
you bring your bell & smile at
your whole life made mistakes
all the time we spent in bed
i left my home down on the rural route
run devil run
keep my head up right
the passion
everyone's afraid of their lives
who's that girl there
woke up this morning, seemed to me
love is a burning thing
you're just the same as
down on the road
riding alone thru the night
i dreamt of a fever

- a touch of the absurd -

a strange feeling of absurdity is swirling around me today. i want to have incoherent stream of consciousness conversations with at least five other people, babbling all at the same time, but everyone understanding each other. until we raise our chorus to such a level, it becomes one voice flying in formation and sweeping clean the path it is about to travel.

saw pony up! last night at club lambi. they were good. but their opening band left a lot to be desired. as far as we were concerned, their outfits were the best thing going for them. strange pseudo thundercats playing out of tune and too loud. and the urinals were slightly high, i had to stand on the tips of my toes....embarrasing.

weekend. weekend.

- hungry ghosts -

woke up with this lyric from metric, circling in my head: "tonight your ghost will ask my ghost, who put these bodies between us?"

in fact all kinds of images of ghosts have been haunting me for the last little while. strange dreams too. have you ever tried to write your name in a dream? apparently i did, and it came out something like "Rafciag." i tried again and again, but could not get it right.

unable to sleep for any extended period of time all weekend. kept waking up every few hours. had a meeting with the roommate over glasses of juice at 4am in the kitchen sunday morning. last night, i was awake every hour on the hour.

all this probably has to do with all the ghosty music i have been listening to for the last few days...

- stumble to the balcony for messages -

after having stumbled home from a very packed terrace, and after having alienated my roomate and his date with said drunkeness, as i sat on the balcony holding onto my head (so that it would stay in one place) i had some kind of epiphany about awareness. i ran inside to write it down, but when i got halfway through writing it i forgot what it was......so i wrote this:

"i am aware of...(this where i forgot what i was about to write)...something but do not know what it is"

does that make any sense at all? i didn't think so.

10.05.06

what's this you say? 2 updates in under a week. what has happened? what has happened is that mitch (my internet provider) has become a housewife, and he calls me over for dinner everynight. i think he wants me to take care of the kids but i slink down here to the computer under the guise of applying for jobs. hahaha the fool!

- none none -

i had to shave off that beard yesterday, i decided it was the "crazy, angry guy beard" and it was responsible for my doldrums. but i am a coward, so i couldn't shave it all off completely. so i am now sporting the "just got back from a week or so of camping" beard. i feel better.

this weekend looks good with two shows delicious on the ears and the wallet; the Hot Springs on Friday & the Lovely Feathers on Saturday. and i have to go see this Brick movie. it looks fantastic.

should have some new photos flying around tonight, so i will have to remind myself to add the pic of the drunk guy that got me into all that trouble a while back. (see "22 degrees" blog). and maybe a few more if they are nice.

the security guard at work continues to make excuses to touch me, and it is freaking me out. i have to stop taking the bus at the same time as this guy.

- synchronicity? -

this horoscope seems just a little too timely, as for the past week i have been flirting with the idea of trying some kind of mood medication, in the hopes it would "better" me....i wasn't sure before, but my decisions is heavily leaning towards not doing it. (and really, i'm not so sure how i feel about horoscopes, but before i've had two coffees and the days' cynicism has set in, i'm pretty open to most things.)

Cancer

Pathologist Paul Wolf has suggested that some of history's great artists may have never created their masterpieces if the wonders of modern medicine had been available to them. For example, what if doctors had cured van Gogh's mental illness with a regimen of drugs like Prozac and Xanax? Maybe he would have been spared the torment that goaded him to the outbursts of genius that erupted on his canvases. It's an interesting theory--one that I invite you to apply to your own life history. Are there ways in which the very things that have driven you crazy have played a role in your finest accomplishments? This is a perfect time to acknowledge and celebrate that ironic miracle.- from freewill astrology

- hungry ghosts -

woke up with this lyric from metric, circling in my head: "tonight your ghost will ask my ghost, who put these bodies between us?"

in fact all kinds of images of ghosts have been haunting me for the last little while. strange dreams too. have you ever tried to write your name in a dream? apparently i did, and it came out something like "Rafciag." i tried again and again, but could not get it right.

unable to sleep for any extended period of time all weekend. kept waking up every few hours. had a meeting with the roommate over glasses of juice at 4am in the kitchen sunday morning. last night, i was awake every hour on the hour.

all this probably has to do with all the ghosty music i have been listening to for the last few days...

04.05.06

when i started this thing however many years ago....anyway, it turned into a way for the people who know me to spy on my life and find out what i was up to without having to go through all the effort of picking up a phone and pressing 10 numbered keys. i like to help people, what can i say? so, i find it somewhat surprising i keep getting visits from these strange places like niagara falls & mchenry. when i first saw these places in my tracker, i thought about, and asked around, as to who i knew in those places. turns out i know no one. but someone from these towns visits somewhat regulary. so, this was a really long way around the point of if you happen to be one of these people, drop me a line to say what's up or something. or not, and continue your voyeurism into my (sort of) life.

but is it really voyeurism if i am posting these things? more like a push/pull between that and exhibitionism i guess, if i really wanted to think about it. and i suppose if i really, really wanted to think about it, this is just some lame whory type post for acknowledgement....but i totally choose to not think about it that way. we cool.and we out.

27.04.06

- homeless -

news from back home: the local mill is shutting down, and throwing it's 230 some odd employees to the streets. not that many people, i know, but in the context that one person from most families worked there, and it was the only industry in town, this is a death blow to the small, remote, northern village of smooth rock falls.

we are homeless now. gypsies cast to the winds. children of a ghost town.

- cover letter -

ed. note - the following is an email i just sent some magazine in an attempt to get hired

Dearest City Magazine

For too long now I have allowed myself to wallow in this pit of no ambition, and now I feel the walls starting to crumble in on me. I have done little to change my course from the easiest path, have in fact stayed as true as I could for as long as possible, but I know see that it cannot be this way. I need to be challenged to be happy, and I have been avoiding all but the most necessary challenges for as long as I can remember. Even now, I meant to send this last week, and surely will think very hard about pressing the send button at completion today. But I will do it.

I know my journalism experience seems so long ago, and there will be rust deposits, but I know these can be oiled. I feel a slick machine crying from under the years of self-imposed corrosion. Not to say I havent been writing, I have mostly in blogs, although all the writing lacks the formality and is perhaps too loose to be published in a respectable magazine. Things can be tightened!

This may seem like the ramblings of a desperate man, and I can assure you they are. I have reached a point where decisions need to be made and actions taken. Im finding it easier and easier to believe it is nothing but a slow run down a long hill from this point if nothing changes, and I am terrified.

As for preferences of areas I have none. I will do anything you deem me capable of doing. But the reviews section might be the easiest to dive into.

I have included a review of the Wolf Parade show as one of my pieces, and some other fluff I think may be able to demonstrate my style of writing. Hopefully you may be able to see where my particular piece may be able to fit into your magazines jigsaw puzzle.

Well, I have most likely eaten up too much of your time with this, I will end it here. If you managed to get this far, thank you for taking the time.

Craig Towsley

- sunday -

the coffee has gone cold, i`ve smoked my last cigarette, the sky is grey with rain, and i am lonely.

postscript: so feeling badly i shuffled my way to used bookstore to see if i could buy my way out of my funk. lo and behold, some fool had decided to get rid of his entire Vonnegut collection, so i was able to round out mine. I did go slightly overboard and spent more money than i now realize i would have liked to. but i have 8 books to hold me over....

- it was 22 here yesterday -

what i need is a stenographer of sorts to follow me around and write down all the glorious, glimmering rubies of conversation that fall out of my mouth when drunk. i can't usually remember what is was i had said, but i am mostly sure they are worth remembering.there were so many last night...but the dark sweathole of le National has stolen all my precious words and refused to give them back. it kept them in invisible balloons and tied to the wrists of people on their way out. also, i have learned the disarming power of saying "pardon me." not that i didn't say it before, i just never realized the influence those two little words had. more than once last night, i turned scowls into smiles. or maybe they just saw how drunk i was and let it all go, come to think of it, they had that look that you give a little kid when he is trying but failing miserably at something. ah! I was too drunk for it to be that early. the danger of hot afternoons and balconies and beer. and smoking with the downstairs neighbour. sometimes he (we also realized that although we have hung out with the neighbours a few times, and talk to them often enough, we have no idea what their names are) gets into these attempts to give us advice. last night, he was telling us about finding the Right Woman. and when looking for the Right Woman, we should never discount single mothers. he thought he was blowing our minds. he always thinks that. ha. long have we heard the single mother tactic. we are aware!anyway back to the show. blown away. awestruck. (i need more words but my online thesaurus is not taking into account the nuances of my inflection in its search). Holy Fuck lived up to their name. but the main point here is Wolf Parade. it felt like everyone was there because they loved the music, (not just to y'know be there (sidebar: this guy was supposed to go tonight, but then his buddy the ticket holder told him that his girlfriend saw them in the local weekly and now she wants to go. bandwagonners.) and were into it, and this was palpable, and i think the band felt it too and reciprocated, and then the audince felt that, and so on, like two mirrors facing each other. i got caught up in a trance and loved it. come to think of it, seeing a show in a dank pit of a venue, with sweat running down everywhere, people straining to see, is a good thing.

- i couldn't think of anything that would unite the text under one banner -

the security guard here at works seems a little too friendly with me...the other day i was making one of my many trips out of the office, he called me over, grab my arm with both hands and asked if i could feel how cold he was....i felt faintly violated. now he is my biggest buddy, and asks me questions like i have any answers at all.

had a good week, went to Manotick saturday for a turkey dinner, and then a rousing game of let's get drunk around the kitchen table. one of my favourite games. i also went there for dental advice, as it seems an ogre of a wisdom tooth has decided to squeeze into my mouth, slightly swelling the side of my face, and causing me a fair amount of discomfort. i could hardly open my mouth yesterday morning. on sunday, met up with another old timey bud from back home for a few pints and laughs on a patio. we met up with some bum who started telling us about how he is looking for his mother, trying to track her down, like he is some kind of gumshoe. if i were more intelligent, i might be able to argue this man never really existed, and was just a physical manifestation of unspoken needs of society as a whole. he looked a little like jason lee. ever the enterprising individual, he wanted to charge me 5$ to take his picture. i declined. then as he was leaving he said something that sounded a lot like "see ya later boat guy."

still i have said it before, if a guy is going to go ahead and get killed, and then come back to life, the very least we could do, is have a 4 day weekend.

- walrus and rabbit laying eggs -

it is an ancient belief that polar bears kill walrus (what is the plural form of walrus? walruses? walri?) by throwing large rocks at them. it's true, i have a wood carving showing them doing exactly that.

the end of another work week, because i for some odd reason have monday off instead of today. now, i don't mean to get all, riligious, i guess, because really i'm pretty secular about most things, but if we are going to celebrate certain holidays (and by celebrate i mean have paid days off work) shouldn't we acknowledge that to get killed and them come back to life deserves at least a 4 day weekend? i mean come on this guy apparently died for our sins, or something, and all we get is one more day off. that just don't seem right.

should be heading out to ottawa (or rather just outside of) tomorrow night for dinner with the Legaults. i have come to realize i am terribly lonely and will take any chance i have of seeing any of my old friends, even if i have to pack all kinds of fun and excitement into a short few hours. and i am supposed to move roomate 2 into her new apartment tomorrow morning, but she told me i didn't have to because some other guy said he would. incidentally, i believe he said he would because of slightly harsh things i said to him on the phone before he accepted. so now i can ditch, but feel a little guilty about strong-arming him into doing it.

things i forgot days ago: i spent tuesday afternoon (i left work early) on the balcony, reading high fidelity, drinking beer, and soaking in the delicious but cancerous rays of the sun. and i realized i have a problem of sorts. the thing is i was reading, and identifying too strongly with rob, especially the passage about hearing a song and falling in love, and then trying to find someone to thumbtack that feeling onto, when i began to wonder if my personality isn't really mine, but an amalgam of all this little things that have stuck to me from music, books and movies i've consumed over the years. 1 part rob fleming, 1 part harry haller, 1 part sal paradise......i think you get it. and then i started to worry. what if this was true, and i have absolutely no idea who i am, except this person in a suit of armour made from typed pages and vinyl and magnetic tape...

finally, as my chinese landlord said last night, Happy Easter Day!

- une fin de semaine pas comme les autres -

or maybe it was just more of the same but it seemed fresh. went out to a roommate 5 a 7 (happy hour for you anglos) at a local brew pub franchise. always trouble when you start doing shots at 5pm. we were all well into our cups when my roommate's date showed up. we delved deeper inot our cups, and there were many conversations, and much more innuendo in these conversations than i might have enjoyed. anyway, i thought i was hilarious. things starting going sour at one point, but i was not involved, so i can relate most of what i remember as i found it hilarious.

some guy was passed out on the bar, so i thought it would be hilarious to take his picture. his buddy objected, and came over to tell me. i thought i had dealt with it enough, and then my roommate got involved and they had words. i do not know what was said, because i (thoroughly drunk) was slightly infatuated with the girl there for my roommate. so i focused on her. then at some point, roommate 2 threw a drink in roommate 1's face, and stormed out without paying her bill. the evening spins out of memory control at this point. we settle up the tabs, and i receive some wisdom from our fine server Stefano, who asks me if i have learned my lesson of taking pictures of people in bars. i tell him i have.

we smoke a joint at some fountain with red lights at the foot of mcgill, and discuss seinfeld episodes, when i realize i am maybe talking too much, so i quiet down to give the roomate a chance to score. i try to leave them alone, but the follow me as i duck into the metro. at this point i have a case of cotton-mouth like i haven't had in years, my tongue feels like a styrofoam popsicle. i meditate on the fact that if i can have a glass of juice, everything will work out. in the metro i strike up a conversation with some stranger about how people on the metro never strike up conversations in public. on the walk home i ask my roommate what he was trying to accomplish by putting rotting bananas on my stereo, when the putting them in the garbage would have been easier and less passive-aggressive. he mumbles something about a lesson, and i reply that i will never learn anything and it would have been much easier to just tell me the bananas are rotting because i sometimes forgot about things, and that i cannot be expected to keep track of all the fruit in the house. i get home and i pass out fully clothed, with my wallet and smokes still in my pockets.

saturday i spend all day getting aquainted with my new xbox 360. and realizing my "feelings" from the night before were probably just the liquor and loneliness talking. then we went to see the yeah yeah yeahs at the metropolis. a very good show, i left wanting to get karen o pregnant so she would be stuck with me. then we went home, and i started writing down the things people were saying.

some of the quotes & terms from that night:
- yesterdays pockets
- this party sucks i'm going home
- super clever, comme, yes

got semi-drunk sunday afternoon, under the guise of cleaning and painting roommate 2's new apartment. really didn't feel like working, it being sunday and all, left early and went to bed.

- thoughts from the balcony -

while sitting on the balcony last friday, trying to squeeze as much sun time as possible, listening to records, drinking a few after-work beer, i came to a few conclusions and the seeds of some new theories were planted. I will share what i remember with you now:

- if there is no such thing as individuality (as i like to believe), then everyone is somewhat similar to me in their make-up. so then it is really pointless to dislike and judge other people, because it would seem, in the end, i would just be disliking & judging myself.
- in an effort to break out of my little publi-bubble, i will from now on aknowledge people i meet while walking with a nod, and if i am wearing one, a tip of the hat. it is a small step, but one in the right direction i think.

01.04.06

- while walking down bannantyne -

i came across a scene. an bunch of kids are standing around staring at a fight of some kind. from what i could tell, some girl threw some guy's cell phone to the ground, shattering it. he then yanked at her coat, spinning her, and removing said coat. he then started to walk towards me, and it turns out this guy is like 50. i keep walking, the girl, about fifteen, bring her purse out from under her shirt (?) and chucks it at him. purse innards are everywhere. i walk past. she had turned around and was huffing past me. but then, she shoved me int the street! i stood there mouth agape and arms outstretched and asking what the hell is going on. she blurted out some tear-soaked gibberish and walked on.

oh, and a word to the wise. apparently if everyone thinks you have died, but they cannot find you or your body to confirm if you are alive, they will wait a few days, and then clear out your apartment completely. at least in my neighbourhood anyway. and this is just what i hear from the roommate, who has been talking to the locals.

- on the back balcony -

...cats have taken over the back balcony. i saw them there this morning. tapping on the window did nothing, yelling did less. they just sat and stared at me, four of them. then i saw the boss, this huge white and black cat, whiskers either cut or ripped out, scars all over his face, staring at me. looking like sam jackson in pulp fiction. i scared one and he started to move but sam jackson looked at him with a steely gaze and he moved back into position. that sam jackson cat is badass...

...i find myself mumbling under my breath a lot more often these days. but i can't make out what i am saying. my voice is too low, speaking under my breath. incantations, curses, prayers...

...if i don't respond to your negative anecdote the first time, what makes you think i will have a response when you tell me the same story five minutes later. sometimes saying nothing shows you how some people really are...

- a small burst of the damn -

it was a real nice secret society we had once. now, i suppose i should just write the things i want to in private, just asking for trouble by posting things in public....lessons learned? hardly.

spent the weekend looking for something, what exactly i am not sure. a basketball court was the one tangible thing we could not find. we did have sun and warmth and sitting, sipping giant coronas in the sun, and that was nice. but then misunderstandings, over-reactions, fear, a yearning for something, the assumption life is better outside, in public, and "more things will happen." this invalid belief saturday is the one and only night available for craziness, so you move sideways into the light streets trying to catch some scent you can't even remember on the air, like a trail of odor will lead you to happiness. you won't change even if you are elbows up at the bar or half-asleep on the floor of your bedroom, you have chosen half alseep. stop questioning me, i don't care to care. ideals from another time do not exert pressure like an arm-bar or leg-lock. these are things i can do without.

people are transparent and me more than others. the fear is painted in streaks along my belly and back. but i wear shirts to cover that fear, so really is it better or worse? 2 layers is the point. insulate yourself. imagine "no one is going to get you" even though life examples mostly prove this true. articulate what you really mean, don't assume everyone can grasp the larger meaning behind a sardonic comment. (and especially stop believing there is always a larger meaning. your words will be taken at face value) but distorted when they stroll thru the ears of other people, and twisted when they think about it, so their mouths curl slightly in the corners but only in a bad way, their eyes focus, and you know a line has been crossed. keep coming back to the same thing. but your attitude changes. the same conviction is behind every word, but the words themselves have changed so much you are now speaking in opposites and angry because you have confused yourself, but the blame is placed elsewhere.

- a dangerous combination -

a dangerous combination of nice weather, work boredom, the smell of barbeque, and just the right song have really aggravated my urge to skip out on work and slink down to the nearest open terrace, to soak up the sun and suds. or maybe just toss the frisbee back and forth in the park, drinking out of bottles in brown paper bags.

- seasons -

the first day of spring brings with it the inflammation of my treacherous intincts (although it rises slowly, the instincts being long dulled from misuse), what that old saying, thoughts turns to fancy or something or other. inside, it feels like the slight cold you find when you are awake very early on a summer morning.outside however, winter still has a few fingers dug in. but the sun rises sooner, and seems more orange than white, so we are getting close...

"and so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, i had that familiar conviction that live was beginning over agin with the summer"
- Nick in The Great Gatsby

18.03.06

- ah work -

ah, right now i would much rather have my elbows on a dark mahogany bar, with a cold pint in my hands and the froth and foam on the upper lip. with a deep brogue singing over the pipes, and mandolin, and tin whistle....but no. Sláinte!

- infested -

arms raised and covered in pigeon shit. mouthing silent cries to the clouds. who ignore you. feet begin to take root, and crack the concrete. they travel down looking for actual dirt. but it cannot be found. past fossils of worms and grasshoppers. bottle cap doors of tunnels to beetle singles clubs. the fetish kind. ants throwing dice in the alley out back. ladybugs in fishnet stocking and red high heels. bees amble by. wasps in sniper nests on the roof two buildings over. leaves sprout from my finger tips. caterpillars and spiders spin silk from my wrists. house flies making back room deals, rub their greedy little palms together.blackflies drag race on my forearms. infested. hummingbirds take nectar from my neck. the wind picks up again. crows and owls circling above. the sun break through and hides again. god flicking her cigarette. ash like snow falls.

- the metro -

as the train comes closer to the station, they crowd up around the door, like horses or greyhounds, too eager to be the first out of the gate. they push past you, push into you, get right up in front of, behind. you can smell their breath on your neck and the clouds of cheap, dime-store perfume are so thick you almost wanted to drop to the ground and crawl. but they would trample you. hold your breath. they shuffle forward, pressed three deep against the still closed door. always trying to be the first one out. they erupt from the opening door, arms flailing, bags flying, heels clicking in a race to the stairs. at this point they all must tucker out because they move like jelly up the stairs. they waste all their energy in trying to get to the front, they can hardly make it out of the station. they shuflle slowly up in a very tight group, impossible to pass.

- blame it on bon jovi -

i need to start lookiing into some kind of martial art type class, so when the day i get into fight (should be soon) rolls around, i will at least have some kind of chance of coming out of it slightly more alive...but i am getting ahead of myself here, back to the beginning. we headed out saturday to see and support one of our friends spin at some club we have never heard off. turns out we were not the target demographic of said club...i do not know if this is going to come across as racist, but, it was my first time being a minority in room. and according to the roomate, we were being stared quite often, and with a vaguely fierce intensity. i don't know how i feel about it, if it is a compliment or not, but we were the only 2 guys who didn't have to be searched with a metal detector as we came in. but the set was really good, and i was very-well behaved. sooner or later, we were told by our friend the dj spot had been double booked, and she was out of there. we stand around outside trying to decide what to do....back and forth until we head out to some other bar playing funk and where we can get free beer. at first, none of us felt very comfortable in this new place, everyone else looked like they were 16 years old...but then the rhythm of the music got into our bodies, and we ended dancing for 3 or 4 hours straight. we approached a frenzy-like state, and all initial apprehension had been swept away like so much sweat from our foreheads in the much too warm basement bar. we left after big hugs and with feeling of exuberance.

the trouble seems to have started when we decided to go for poutine. we walk into this crazy little diner, the waitress's hair is in some kind of mutated 1950's boufant style and she does not seem to be wearing her false teeth. there are some other "interesting" characters in the place (i actually have to remember to back there and take pictures). anyway, this place has these old school jukeboxes in every booth, and being still really excited, i start leafing through. i come across the song "wanted: dead or alive" by bon jovi. we all know this song kicks so much ass, i must play it, and i also must sing along, and try to get everyone else in the restaurant to do the same.

there is a couple of couples sitting in the booth behind us, and for awhile, we are joking back and forth with these people, then something snapped. the one guy gets up and stumbles over to our table. he starts making vague threats and saying the most moronic movie tough-guy cliches, like "i eat guys like you for breakfast" we tell him to calm down to which he responds, "you will know i'm calm when you are eating your hat and your buddy is not wearing his glasses." whatever that means. then they start on about how you should never fuck with acadians, because they will get you. ah. we are still not sure how this happened, we believe it is because the girlfriends of said maritimers thought we were both cute and hilarious and they took offence. but we somehow managed to avoid a fight....for now. like i said it is only a matter of time.

- a vomit of random thoughts -

....now, it's not so much that i would like to have some kind of romantic-type partner, it's more like i have this incredible mix tape building up in my mind, and i would enjoy making it for someone i cared about....

...the themes we all try to weave into our lives are frayed strings tangled in bottle caps and twist-ties and rubber bands and all kinds of things from the junk drawers of our minds. that drawer needs to be cleaned out, but i can't bear to let go of all the little collected parts and pieces of my life. the odds and ends piled in corners and in drawers and in shoeboxes are some of the most important facts we have in identifying ourselves....

....my questioning of life can always be distilled down to one single question, why? is there really no other purpose of life than to contibute to the system. to build up something for the future, because as far as i am concerned the future is highly over-rated. or is it to reproduce, cramming more people into this already too-tight world. this is heading down a strange path, i urge you of frail constitution and limited vision to turn back now.....

...sometimes i find it all kinds of fun to analyze the way people behave 1. when they are around only me 2. when there are more people in the room. there is always a big difference. it's funny. they always try to come off as bigger, better, funnier, and they usually do it by trying to knock me down. but i can sit there, aware of what they are doing, and giggle and giggle (to myself of course)....

...i'm looking for something to believe in but am always faced with a brick wall of cynicism and skeptism and have a real hard time trying to believe in something intangible. i want god to show me her face. i'm looking for the ninth path. my place in the world. the one thing i am good at. my purpose. a plan. a partner in crime. i need more stories to tell to children around a campfire. i need a campfire, i think that is supposed to be some kind of metaphor, but for what? we can sum it all up with a single punctuation mark "?" always looking for something more, afraid to make any decision in case it is not the "best" one. seeking the truthful answer to questions i have not yet figured out...

...i feel burdened, like i've somehow set myself up to believe i deserve greatness, but only if it rolls right into my palm. the paths are invisible but you can see them if you squint and look at them from the side. walking them is another story completely. i can feel the spring coming, and its effects on my dulled, rusty, survival instincts. clocks are ticking. change jangles in pockets. snow melts on the cuffs on my pants. i do not have a defining ringtone...

...for 2 weeks i kept seeing a hair on the lense of my glasses, i would clean them constantly but it was always there. then one day i was in the bathroom, and i noticed i had a white eyelash that was three times as long as normal, and that it was the culprit. it hurts alot to pluck an eyelash...

26.02.06

- saving for something more -

the pot is starting to boil over, i can feel it. change is on the way, i feel it on the faintest breeze as i walk through snowstorms in the early morning, just insert another cliche here. i'm tired of writing in this unoriginal, uninspired way. i need something to set me off, and i sense it sneaking and lurking in shadows. i see quick movements in my peripheral vision. hummingbirds darting. i had a small bout of spring fever the other day. but i drowned it in beer. ghost hands are poking and prodding inside my chest. how can you complete the puzzle when all the edge pieces are missing? the tide is rising in my mind, eating away beaches and pulling fallen trees into the ocean. fish jump when my back is turned. mumbled conversations grow louder from the dark corner of the bar. the air is thickening with yellow smoke from too many stale cigarettes, used as filler for the lulls in conversations. i spilt my drink on the coffee table and it ran onto the carpet. floorboards creak under invisible feet.the faces of people i see everyday are growing older. their shoulders slump a little more everyday. they drag their feet a little more. clothes wrinkle and fade along with the afternoon light. people are losing control of their ability to wink. the hum of electricity masks the group thoughts visible in the clouds. ghosts stand in corners complaining about today's youth.underfoot, the concrete sings protest songs. my shoelace is untied. i don't bother. some kind of storm is coming in from the east coast. it will rain fiddles into puddles in the corners. sewers will back up with all the ego and good faith discarded in gutters. pigeons fly banners championing new laundry detergents and odour masking agents. trees bend down to pick pennies off the street. saving for something more, and every little bit helps. i hear laughter echoed off brick walled alleyways. the rats have gotten in the liquor cabinet and are making martinis with our personal flaws and quirks. knuckles crack while trying to hold on. the wind picks up. windows wink from third floors. gusts. the cries of war translated into beeps and clicks. one eye always watching. always.

- concentrate on a small point -

i really am going to have to write up a contract that states anything i do while drunk cannot be held against me. Because, in reality it isn`t me doing or saying these things, it`s drunk craig. and that guy can be an asshole.

anyway, the only anecdote i feel like sharing is this: i was just sitting at the bifteck, concentrating on a small point trying to keep the room from spinning out of control, when this guy comes up to me and wants to know my name. i give him my usual response of it`s not important. he then tells me i have the look of someone who will change the world in my eyes. now i`m going to hope that wasn`t a pick-up line, just another stranger with confusing and hopeful words.

25.01.06

- illusions and relief -

a sigh of relief escapes through the corner of my mouth. as i click to magnify the new seating arrangement plan that just came into my inbox. i am not out of work on friday, i will continue on the project we started. a lager sigh of relief starts bubbling up. i had spent the morning checking through the internet job boards, and morale was low. i could just imagine being back in some stuffy office or call center, grey felt-like half-walls separating nothing from nothing, dealing with the assholes of the world while wearing sensible shoes, dress shirts and khakis. oh yeah, and every other friday is wacky tie day. pseudo-fun corporate garbage meant to slightly distract your usual worker-bee-routine. from your another sigh of relief escapes loudly. this job has ruined me for every other job. i can only shudder when i think back to the "friday awards" ceremonies. where they would hand out laminated sheets, shaped like ribbons, to all the "good" workers; celebrating some inane goal reached or something like that. i never displayed mine, never wanted them, was asked repeatedly by management to be more of a "team player," to show pride in my job. i soon quit.

i don't want to gloat, but i feel like some are staring at me wondering, why this guy? i work harder than this guy. and that may be true but the image presented and the perceptions of the higher-ups is not exactly always reality. i have somehow learned the ways of not doing anything, while still maintaining a reputation as a hard worker. i am an illusionist. but i think i have also discovered the hierarchy of this place. you do need to know people, and it helps when you have a good time with these people at the staff parties. but i imagine that works everywhere. the only difference is that here a majority of the worforce is on contract all trying to reach the goal of gaining full-time status. bottlenecks are created in an attempt to all rush through the small potential opening. but i am starting to see how the lines are drawn, what is being looked at, and how to present myself in such a way....

- random tuesday bar night -

i heard the best version of young mc's "bust a move" last night. it was at some open mike thing, and some guy was just flowing over a simple three chord beat. then some other guy got up and was beatboxing, then everyone in the bar joined in for a random chorus calling for the bar owner to step up and spit, but instead he bought the whole bar a round of jagger shots to shut us up. good times.

then as we were leaving the bartender told me i looked like her dad. odd times.

and i thought of something as i sat there last night. i wondered if people still wink at each other? i haven't seen a wink in years

- two days off -

i had forgotten how good two days off in a row could feel. i woke up saturday to the sun shining on my bedrrom wall and making them glow in that strange ephemereal yellow they throw off with the rising sun. it was a beutiful day, i could stand outside without sock on. i sat on the bench, drank coffe, smoked cigarettes and lapped up the sunshine and the fact that i had no reason to shower, dress, eat and leave the house. went out to buy some records (the white album for 13$!) and just walked around, digging the fact i did not have to be at work for another 30 or so hours.

we get back home and have a few beers on the balcony. the downstairs neighbour walked by, and the roommate invites him up. this is when things get a little more strange. first he just climbs up the supports to our balcony, and then he tells us fabulous stories that may or may not be true, but very well told. such as his past as a art thief, how he met his wife (she was beating the shit out a bouncer), and how he almost got a house for free. he was doing that annoying thing where he realizes i am english, and just speaks in english for everything, even though i will sit and respond only in french....i don't know why i find this annoying.....anyway, on his way out he seems to be scoping out our house for things to steal, and the roommate is nervous....we keep drinking. later we are walking somewhere, and we come across an elvis impersonator rocking out on the tables of some restaurant while a full house of seniors are throwing their depends at him. we stood there and watched this guy for like 30 minutes. hilarious.

- possibility of impending doom -

yesterday we found out the release date of the game we have been killing ourselves for is now going to be pushed back six months. and because of this most people will no longer be working on it. so the threat of unemployment looms heavy inthe air of the office today. you can see it on everyone's face and shoulders. we may be moved to another project, but that is unlikely. a lucky few will continue on the project. morale is down. my future here is uncertain. i am now forced to deal with the fact i have no life. to spend my nights at home, most likely with only a bottle as my companion. into the cycle of not wanting to stay sitting around the house, but without enough money to go out. of course i could look for another job, but i have been ruined by the atmosphere here, i do not want to get a job where i need to dress in clothes i would not usually wear, to be hounded into combing my hair, to be clean-shaven......

on the other hand, i may have a chance to stay on the project (although i do not know the odds) i have worked hard, and it has been noticed by the higher-ups. we will have to see how it all unfolds.

beyond that, i was explaining all this to my friend who currently lives in calgary, and his response was that i should go out and visit him for a while.his main argument and convincing point was "think about the line." (we both have maps of canada, with our travelled routes marked out in pen over the highways and roads we have each been down.) and when he says think about the line, it is a powerful phrase. i want to have the whole canada road system under my feet at some point or another, and this would be a great opportunity to do so. the wanderlust grows and growls faintly for now, but feels like it is awakening from a long season of hibernation.

- mix tape aficionados -

you should run out to your local conglomerate bookstore and look for "mix tape: the art of cassette culture" by thurston moore. i just picked it up last night and it is really good. plus it looks really cool. at least 5 people asked me about it on my way home from the bookstore. so it could also act as a nice conversation starter (assuming you enjoy talking to random strangers).

beyond the book, all i have been doing is working. 75 hours or so last week. not so many this week. yesterday we took a field trip to some other company (who we have sub-contracted some of our work out to) about an hour north of montreal. the strangest thing was being outside and hearing a stream rushing off into the distance, as compared to the usual barrage of horns, sirens, and yelling i typically hear when outside in the city.

and it made me wonder if i actually would rather lived in an urban setting or a rural one. ups and downs to both i suppose...

(and then i realized how god-awful all this reads, but have decided to leave it up anyway, as a warning about getting complacent in my daily writings.....and using too many periods....)

- time you have for the time you need -

when you work for 60 plus hours a week, you have to find the time to do the small things that make you happy. i thought i wanted a whole day off, but it turns out, all i needed was to wake up (from an after-work nap) have a few cups of coffee, smoke a a few cigarettes, listen to some good music and read the newspaper. you have to substitute the time you have for the time you need.

- my life on (imaginary) film -

see what I do is listen to music, and find a particularly moving song, that affects me in some way, and I think of my life as a movie, and that this song would be the perfect soundtrack to any variety of things. at this song I could get into a bar fight, here I could come to some realization about my life, I can get together with an old childhood friend, here I can imagine eating egg-salad sandwiches at someone's house, here I can meet some girl, and so on. basically I have too many "moment" moments when I listen to music, then I get caught up in this whole huge fantasy world I’ve constructed for myself based on records.

Indoctrinated by 25 years of watching television, not to put the blame anywhere, but most of my life experience comes from the box. How did mike seaver react when his friend's mom died? What is the appropriate thing to say at a wedding? What gifts should I by people? I use what I have seen to make it through life. And with that in mind, I probably believe that everything will eventually be resolved, and that a neat little lesson will be learned and we will all wear funny sweaters and sit around and have a nice, big family dinner.....

What was the point? I have no idea, but this text has been bubbling around inside for a few days and I needed to get it or something like it out of the system. I feel lighter.

- late new years resolution -

now that i have had time to sober up and dry my brain out a bit, i finally figured out what my new year's resolution will be. i am going to stop believing i am alone in this world. stop thinking i am the only person who thinks a certain way. stop isolating myself from other people, i am going to try to be out there. i will let go of my fear and introversion. i will meet other people. i will start conversations with random strangers. i will accept any invitation to do anything. i will break holes in the shell i have built around my heart and mind and flow freely and with feelings through this world. i am ready for it. i have waited too long now. watch out.

oh. and i almost forgot, i want to join some kind of fraternal organization, like the elks or stonecutters. but not one where i have to do community service, i want to join the one that secretly makes all the worlds decisions....

- honky tonk blues -

on the rare occassion the little protective publi-bubble you wear can be burst by a stranger with something to say....i felt like that scene in waking life about how we are all ants and we just go about our day, trying not to bump into anyone else...so back to the story. sitting on the metro, i pull out my new hank williams cd, to read the book. the guy sitting next to me asks;

"is hank williams back?"
and i say
"i don't know but i enjoy him"

and them we proceed to have a large talk about most music, computers, modern pop music and its pre-fab-likeness and i think we end on the theory that there is a movement in music to reject the perfection of the modern world.

earlier that day, we had decided to go do our xmas shopping, but we decided this on a day when i was horribly hung over. after trying to move through the single lane of sidewalk with more people than those buses you see from india, or whatever with people hanging off the top, out the windows, i finally get to one store and i decide to buy a shirt. busy, busy, busy. i'm waiting in line, i finally get to the cashier, but some sour-faced woman throws here crap on the counter claiming to be there first. i disagree, but say "fuck it, it's xmas after all, go right ahead." then her husband has the gall to say, "no it's not xmas, she was here first." i thought really hard about decking him, then thought of the consequences, and decided i just wanted out.

then saturday, i had the company xmas party to attend. while in line (outside, mind you) the fire alarm went off, the fireman arrived, and i was still waiting outside. after an hour i finally got in. the set-up was pretty bad, it was 5 levels but you could only get to the higher levels via the elevator. so i was stuck in a hallway with about 200 other people for another 30 minutes. although i did meet a very helpful woman who explained everything. then i could not find anybody i knew. so i wandered around lost, for about another 30 minutes. finally i found the people i knew, and had a pretty good time.

funny sidenote: at one point one of the guys i work with ask me if i know so-and-so. i do and say so. he then explains how he knows her (but i knew that already) and i explain how i know her. anyway, this all happened because for some reason the other person said my name, and he said, craig? craig who? and found out it was me. so the point of this is, there are not that many craig's out there. and if you here someone mention the name, and you know someone with that name, it could be the same person.

at one point of the party i got a little depressed. i was separated from the group, and as i was walking around alone, i saw all these other single guys walking around alone, and i realized i was one of those guys, and i felt like i really needed to make a change.

sometimes after a night of drinking i wake up with a lot to think about. they say truth comes out in wine, don't they? anyway, during conversations people might say things and then you say things, and then you wake up the next morning with all these things which have been bouncing around you head all night while you slept, and then you have to go thru the rest of the day with, like a weight, and you are constantly thinking about what was said. at least i do anyway.

- drinking on an empty stomach -

is never a good idea. but after i drink 2 or 3 beers, i have no appetite, and all i want is to continue drinking...this can lead to problems. problems like getting in a fistfight with the roomate on our way out to a show. more specifically in the metro station. he was drunk and slapping me (i imagine trying to play the slapping game) but i felt he was going too far. then there was the pushing in the escalator, then i somehow got the upper hand, had somehow caught both his arms, and came in for 4 quick backhands to the face, no wind-up, just 4 quick slaps. i guess i made him bleed. so then he he does the old hockey coat pull move, and punches me iin the face. so there we are, standing around, both bleeding from the mouth...anbd we then realize 2 things; one is that we are f*cking idiots, and two is that we will never play the slapping game again.

the strange thing was i felt all this rage i had forgotten i had. flashes of being 17 again, and the temper i thought i had gotten rid of. but it is only sleeping, lying in wait. ready to flare. i thinks it takes something to get punched in the face, and realize you have this anger, and be aware of it, and be able to say, wait a minute, chill the f*ck out, take a breath,. one more step on the path towards enlightenment.

- my friends, my habits, my family -

...mean so much to me, i just think that it's right. - one chance by modest mouse

next friday i will be heading home into the barren wastes of northern ontario to what has affectionnately been called beer-mas 2005. i can't wait. i haven't seen my parents or most of my old friends since last xmas.

and then, it is always fun to go to a town where they not only expect, but encourage you to get as shit-faced as possible as often as you can stand it. i might have to explain...i originally come from what you would call a village, population less than 2,000 about 10 hours north of toronto, the boonies, as it were. and because we had nothing to do growing up, we would drink, and there is also this vibe back home that nothing ever happens, nothing ever goes wrong, no one ever dies, no one ends up in the hospital, there are no fights that last longer than the following hangover, it has a protective bubble. and if you are high and you happen to look up at the sky, it looks more round than the sky here in the city, and because it is always snowing, you can start to think you live in a snowglobe.

and you can see stars. every night, the whole sky is littered with them. and aurora borealis, every night. i remeber walking home from a mushroom trip one time, and looking up, and the entire sky was pulsing rivers of electric white. it was so breathtaking, i had to sit in the snowbank and stare up for an hour.

- conversation between god & the ocean -

i read the following passage in a story called "the only meaning of oil wet water" by dave eggers on the bus this morning, and i really liked it, although i'm not sure why i liked it, and i'm not quite sure what it is supposed to mean, but i felt like sharing it with you:

God: I own you like I own the caves
Ocean: Not a chance. No comparison.
God: I made you I could tame you.
Ocean: At one time maybe, but not now.
God: I will come to you freeze, break you
Ocean: I will spread myself like wings. I am a billion tiny feathers. You have no idea what's happened to me.

06.12.05

hohoho. it's getting close to xmas, so that means it's almost time to make the long trek into the barren wastes of northern ontario again, for a week of gorging of fried foods, cookies and beer. this year, however i will most likely be flying. that's 4 hours of travel compared to 16. and for some reason, the plane is less expensive than either the train or bus. i don't know, and i don't care, i just want to go home. it has been along time since the last update, but do not worry, i have transferred all the entries from my other, secret blog here, so you will not miss out on anything. and i also know the new background is somewhat sexist and perhaps slightly demeaning to women if you look at it a certain way, but i choose not to look at it from that angle...

- labatt 50 & a hotdog to wash it down -

(i am aware i am going to sound like a retard in this blog but i don't care....) after searching and searching and walking miles out of my way to explore new grocery stores, last night i finally managed to track down pierogies. and here is the kicker, they were in the grocery store right next to my house. ah the deliciousness of potatoes, cheese, bacon, onions & sour cream...i felt so good after dinner. then we went out.... i am not sure if you are aware, but verdun has this stupid bylaw where you cannot have a bar in the quartier. but you can have resto-bars. so being bored, we go out to play pool, just to keep it quiet and not too expensive. so we walk into the "pool hall" (i'm not lying, the apostrophes are necessary) and some swarmy long-hair in a puffy shirt break it all down for us.

- "no, it is not 2.50$ an hour like the sign says, it's 8.50$,  the long-hair says.
i look around, only the crazy VLT addicts are in the place.
- look, i say, how about you just let us have an hour for 4$ seeing as how there isn't anybody else in here, plus we'll each have a few beers to make up the cost.
- Cannot be done, replies the long-hair, but have i told you about our hot-dogs?
- yeah, that's fine, i'm not hungry, i say while staring at him in disbelief
- well, if you want to drink you have to order something, he says, if you want to drink.
- (grumbling between the 2 of us) Fine give me a goddamn 50 and a hotdog and a we'll play on the dollar tables!"

we played a few games, didn't touch the hotdogs and left.

- santa beware -

as i was walking to the dep last night, i happened to look up into the trees in the front yard of the local church. i had to do one of those cartoon double takes because i really could not understand what i was seeing. it seems the church has decided to decorate their area for christmas, but what they have done is throw santa bodies into the trees, so it looks like they have been hanged or dropped from great height....basically they have a bunch of dead santas just hanging around. i couldn't really figure out waht the hell all this was supposed to mean....the nearest thing i could figure was the church (and by connection jesus) were pissed because of all the attention being drawn away from jesus and put on santa claus, so what jesus did was go out an kill a bunch of santas and then hang them around as a warning to other santas.... (i'm going to try to get pics, but if you want to see the total morbidness for yourself, and happen to be in verdun (although why you would be there is questionable), walk on past verdun & 4th....it's worth it....)

- circling & jumping -

i often wonder if i am living life to the fullest, as they say...because i don't think i am. if i were, would i feel so constantly empty? okay, maybe empty is a bit to far, i am living life to the 1/3. but then i wonder what else can i do? i can talk myself into and out of all kinds of things. I might be more happy if i created something, but then i get the nihilist streak, and realize nothing i can do will amount to anything so why bother doing....but lately i've had dreams / visions / delusions of life being some kind of winged human kind of thing, circling around, taunting me, daring me to try to catch it, while darting just out of reach. the strange thing is i feel like i should try. to continue the delusional allegory, if this creature were circling me, and we found ourselves near i cliff, i feel urged to ignore trying to capture it, and just hurl myself over the edge, because deep down, i know this is the only real way i can dig my fingers into life.......

- the floodgates are open -

i really have to work on watching my mouth, and the things that come out of it, when i am drinking. i am liable to say just about anything. all the twisted, rotten ideas from the depths come charging out like mongol warriors....

- old blues men should tell more stories -

so we go to see the black keys last night. we aren`t feeling so great because we pretty sure that tacos we had for dinner had gone bad. we pushed through. anyway, we get there and the place is empty...we have a few beers. sooner or later these these middle-aged guys all wrearing the same t-shirt come out and start to play. fine. they play for about ten minutes when they announce the lead singer. out on to the stage walk nathaniel mayer 70 year old black man, wearing a powder blue tux (with tails and everything!), a satin shirt and a giant diamond & gold 3-finger-ring. right away we knew this guy was bad-ass. and we were, of course, right. his songs were pretty good, his performance was better than average but his between song banter was gold.

- T.G.I.W -

why would i say "thank gawd it's wednesday" you ask? ah. that would be because we have been given thursday and friday off (and paid) as a result of all the hard work and long long long hours we have put in on this damn game. and i couldn't have fallen at a better time. here is a quick jotting of my plans for the next 5 days:

wednesday: waste time at work until "end of project party" - heavy drinking
thursday: black keys live! - heavy drinking
friday: former room mates coming into town. - heavy drinking
saturday: dropkick murphys live! - heavy drinking
sunday: sleep. sleep. sleep.

what's that noise? oh, that's just the drunk machine revving up...

- missed opportunities -

if i only had a passport i would be on my way to europe right now. damn. although all i would have seen would have been some airport and the inside of some other computer game building, still it would have been a great story.

someone: i tried calling you this week, you didn't return my message.
me: yeah, sorry about that i was in Europe!
someone: really?
me: yes, well in an airport in europe anyway

- house warming party -

we had a house-warming party on saturday, and i had a pretty good time, even though i was not really into it at all at the beginning. at the last minute i figured out it was going to be a reunion of all these old friends who haven't seen each other in a long time, and they would all be reminiscing all night, not leaving too many openings for other conversation...but that turned out to not be the case, and i got fairly drunk.but it seems i have somehow lost my bloc party remix album, and we have looked everywhere, so i am starting to think someone stole it, but since my roomate says he can't imagine anyone doing that, i have to word it as "someone might have accidentally grabbed it." those bastards that was a really good album...

- rock n roll rock n roll rock n roll -

i woke up feeling pretty damn good this morning. and i thought i would have suffered under the weight of the how many odd beers i drank last night. but no! a little cotton mouth and that was it. maybe it was because of the gorgeous temperature, or the fruit smoothie i had for breakfast, anyway i felt vibrant. people at work even noticed. (i guess when you slump around all the time, a little bounce in your step goes a long way.) but i think the real reason is that i was a voyeur on a conflict last night, and although somewhat involved was not a major player in the action. i couldn't have been because i had a great time last night because i did not. we went to the foufs and it was like travelling back to when i was fourteen. the music last night was the same as that period...i figured out what i do when i go somewhere and am not having a good time. i pretend the reason i am not having a good time is because i am so much more intelligent than everyone else, and they if they were as smart as me they wouldn't go off their nut because a rage against the machine song from 1993 comes on. (sidenote: these kids must have been what, 6 years old when this song came out?) so i sat there and thought myself so much better than everyone and then finally realized i am an asshole.

- on the hunt -

it seems the problem (well, one of, anyway) of growing up in a small, isolated commmunity in the boreal forests of northen ontario is all the pop culture i missed out on. i wish i had enough money to totally devote myself to catching up on all the books, movies and records i "should" have read, watched or heard. what i have been doing the last year or so is, finding a band i really like, researching their influences & similar artists, finding those albums, listening, trying to find the influences of those.....you get the picture....the same with books, and movies. the thing is, this is just an overwhelming task....

- slowly awakening to the drip of the percolator -

apparently you can't just jump right in to living with people again, after having been on your own for a medium amount of time. all these new boundaries to find (and not cross), a personality & character to learn, senses of humour have to grow or shrink to accomodate the other. like now, this new room maote of mine, i never really knew him knew him, before last week but the picture is being painted very quickly. and i thought to myself, craig how shallow can you be to judge people because they eat white bread? or hot dogs? really now your dietary habits are not that good either, and yet you sit there silently mocking his enriched flour buns & stove top wieners...bad man. and he seems to just need to chill, i sense much anger from this one. always "in crisse" about something. the painting, no tv in his bedroom, some guy who hasn't returned his messages. (but i can accept the overlaying reason for all the mini-stresses as part of a larger thread of questioning why he moved here exactly, when he had all things moving forward in former city.) meanwhile, all i can think is i get a break on the rent and someone to split a box of beer with. but have to move out of only taht, because he wants to see things, to get to know the city, and i have to be the guide...is this coming across a little spiteful? i really don't mean it to. i think i am finding it hard to adjust from one crappy, self-defeating routine into another, more vibrant. like last night; he wants to go walk around downtown, while i am tired from a monotonous day at work and just want to sit back, organize my books, shave and do nothing. but when outside smoking i realize: here i spent the last year complaining about being forced to stay in the house for lack of anything better to do, and now here i am presented with an opportunity to do something, which may possibly lead to some kind of adventure. like karma or kismet or fate is just waiting around the street corner, waiting for the bus (and us) and when we come upon her (of course these intangible things would be female) she would run up and hug us and lead us by the hand down alleys & sidestreets, laughing and hollering, because finally, finally, we have decided to choose life....

(the author had just sat down with a coffee when he started this, and had drunk more coffee near the end, which may account for the sudden change in pacing of this blog. - ed.)

- urban nomads -

based on the fact we hauled garbage from the back balcony to the street for an hour yesterday i have come to the conclusion that the quebecois are a strange people indeed. they think nothing of packing up a few belongings and moving on to the next apartment, while leaving so much behind. maybe they are all so detached from the possession of material goods they just don't care, or perhaps they are just incredibly lazy....anyway, here is a short list of some of the things we threw out last night:

- three pairs of cross country skis
- some kind of ergonomic chair
- 2 lamps
- 3 boxes of empty wine bottles
- lots of wood
- 2 sets of car mats
- and a shitload of other crap

- weekly horoscope -

"According to an old Tibetan saying, "It is better to live one year in the life of a tiger than 100 years in the life of a sheep." I'm not saying you're a sheep, Cancerian, but I do believe you haven't allowed yourself to enjoy nearly enough experiences as a tiger. It so happens that it's a perfect astrological time to make up for lost time. May I suggest that you turn into the human equivalent of a big, fast, wild feline?"

- open letter to the universe -

"I'm an atheist who prays to god in times of desperation"
- Sweatshop Union

Dear God or the Fates or Karma or Whatever,

sure i would like to believe you have some kind of plan for everyone's life, how all the struggles people go through will be rewarded and all that. but my question is, what am i supposed to learn from having my faith in humans totally shreddded and flung to the edges of the earth? i am aware we are a filthy, egotistical species, do you have to keep rubbing it in? Is there not one person in the world who is reliable enough to do what they say they will? Listen; i am miserable and lonely and poor, and i accept all these things. but when i try to make my way out of this snake pit, do you have to send all the goddamn challenges  and obstacles at me? i know i have not been the best human either, but i was going for the whole indifference leaning towards good thing, and i guess, i was hoping that would be enough. I didn't think it would be reason to constantly kick me in the shin and run away. Am i making too big of a deal about all this? i am really tired of being let down by everyone i want to believe in. i just want to move, and to move i have to find someone to take over my lease, but everyone in my path is as flaky as pie...

- alone in the crowd -

...and then i came to the realization that i might just be stuck in solitude for the rest of my life. this revelation came to me as i watched wolf parade perform last night, because the loneliest place is always a crowd. so i was a bit down, but of course not dopwn enough to do anything about it. i don't want to go through all this work of getting to know people, most people, in my opinion, are not worth it.....anyway. i'm just waiting for the "boom" to happen. but i don't know if the "boom" even exists....bah, my ears hurt and i haven't gotten enough sleep in a long while, and i happen to be a little bitter this morning.

Oh ya, wolf parade was awesome.

Postscript: You might think, that wolf parade would be aware baggy shirts are not worn so often anymore, and that maybe stocking up on more smalls & mediums would be a good idea. but apparently they do not think of this. what's the point of going to a show if you can't buy a t-shirt?

- wolf parade -

wolf parade is tonight! i am really excited, however  i almost have some hesitations about going to see them play live. I kinda feel like their songs have become incredibly personal to me, and i wonder if see them performed live and surrounded by who knows how many other people will somehow wear away some of the mystique.....

- beards and views -

because i am sitting directly in front of a webcam, i figured i could throw some fairly recent pics of myself up, as compared to the current photos, which are probably like three years old. truthfully, i had no idea i looked like such a lumberjack, and will soon shamefully slink away to shave the shrubbery from my face.

and although this really isn't the same thing at all, my next thought was; how i believe others see & understand me can be very different from their actual perceptions. the question of authenticity came up the other day, and i was asked for my opinion, which turned out to be i did not believe it existed. (apparently, not the right answer) but the more i think of it, our perceptions distort everything, and if i believe i am acting in an authentic manner, you might just think i'm something completely different from the image i believe to be presenting. and even then, i am presenting an image of who i think i am, but what if i am wrong...

- positive & negative -

growing older and apart from your friends sucks, because all of a sudden some people have wives and kids now and they have have all these other unselfish responsibilities to take care of. but sometimes you and a friend can end up at the same place in life, after similar paths, and have a parallel view of the world, and then that friend comes into town, the two of you can get drunk and talk about all the things and thoughts you've been holding inside yourself. and you don't have to worry about anyone calling you bitter or negative, unless you are calling each other that, but more like a badge of honour than to be insulting.  Well, my buddy came to town over the weekend and  from our conversation i would like to share  some of the drunken  wisdom we spewed forth:

"there are no anchors, you've just forgotten how to row your boat"
"you are your brother's brother"
"it has been proven in studies in chickens"
"Ah, we will see"

put these into whichever context you like

An Ontarion's Guide to Living in Quebec part 2

well now that the cold weather has started to creep in, the one absolutely necessary accessory you need to blend in with the locals is a good scarf. But it is not only important to have a scarf, you must learn the correct way to tie it around your head. the  knotting method is similar to a necktie, only not quite as complicated. You are trying to have a scarf bulge on the left side of your body, with a a certain percentage of the scarf exposed. I'm still getting the hang of it myself.

There is an unspoken ritual here that at first i felt a little ashamed to be taking part of. Now i don't have too many things in my apartment and the urge to decorate has been numbed enough for me to stop myself from purchasing dust-collecting knick knacks, i have developed the habit of looking through what people leave on the sidewalk for garbage collection, to see if i can use anything. (to be far, les Quebecois throw out all kinds of good stuff, mostly because they can't be bothered to pack it all up when they move) like i said i felt a little ashamed to be trying out street couches and thinking about using the broken window as art on my walls. then i walked a little further down the street and spotted a prime collection of trash/treasure, still the old Ontario pride pulled at me, until i noticed everyone else does the same thing. I watched a fairly attractive girl rifle through the piles until she walked away with a few books and a lamp. And it happens all the time. Everyone does it, I'd even have to say garbage days are most like impromptu garage sales without all the consumerism in the way.

And lastly, the minor yet important difference between our cultures as seen in television commercials. In the Anglo version of a recent Dentyne commercial, a young couple is out shopping for a futon, when they eat gum and start making out. In this version the saleswoman gets flustered and throws them from the futon. In the Quebec version, the saleswoman steals a piece of gum after looking at the couple intrigued and even a little excited, and grabs the next guy who walks past and starts making out on a futon of her own.Sexuality is a lot looser here (at least in theory, sniff.) Another example is the oxy commercial where some teenage girl is looking for her Oxy acne pads in her younger brothers bedroom. Anglo version, typical sibling rivalry, younger brother steals older sister's things, she gets mad and walks away. bland right. In the version over here, the teenage is dressed more provocatively (tank top and those annoying velvet-like sweat pants worn low,) and as she swaggers (as only Quebec woman can) out of the room we see her huge lower back piece.I had another example but it escapes me at the moment.

15.10.05

The following is further proof that the general malaise i seem to have embraced is nothing new, and it only drives the point that nothing of our generation is individual or new.

And what shall i be at fifty
Should nature keep me alive
When i find the world so bitter
and i am but twenty-five?

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

01.10.05

the one thing i like about fall is the imprint left by leaves on the sidewalk after it rains. it's nice to walk around and stare at stencils of nature on cold concrete.

top five albums in rotation as of today:

- Wolf Parade - Apologies to Queen Mary
- Bloc Party - Silent Alarm Remixed
- Blackalicious - The Craft
- Bedouin Soundclash - Sounding a Mosaic
- Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It so Much Better

i also added one row of new pics in the photo section. i have more but got tired of scanning. and i really want to go out for a smoke.

01.10.05

alright,i found an internet cafe that will allow me to download ftp programs, so i may be able to update more frequently. first off, i did not design the background image. i stole it from ok47. now that all potential lawsuits have been side-stepped, a quick update. uhm. well. i'm working all the time again, on the new Prince of Persia. so i'm never home, this leads to one of the entries below. i went out last wednesday to see a show. a damn good one, at that: telefauna & the hot springs, two local mtl bands that all of you who unfortunately live elsewhere will hear of in the next year or two. anyway, a really good show, and that night and the next day i felt happy. of course things change.

i think a lyric from wolf parade sums up my feelings the best: "modern world i'm not pleased to meet you. you just bring me down." what? you haven't heard of wolf parade? jesus. I will be seeing them live on oct. 18, as well i need to buy tickets for the upcoming go! team, black keys and dropkick murphys shows. that's alot of shows!

i think that's about all the shit going on right now. i may have plans for thanksgiving (paul said he will be here, but i can't get my hopes up on that one.) i still need to try to get out of my lease, and find another apartment for november now. since i did not have regular access to a computer from which i could upload, what i have been doing is jotting down potential blog-entries in notepad at work so here is a bunch of crap i've typed out in the last little while.

"Strange old hermit prose written under the shadows of silent trees
Waking up to the songs of birds and falling asleep to the chorus of frogs in the ponds"

- unfortunate lessons -

one the most unfortunate lessons we have to learn as we get older is we really cannot rely on other people. it seems almost as the older you get the more people will let you down. in thinking back it could be before everyone was doing things they said they would just to protect you from the awful truth, but now you have reached an age of maturity, they seem ready to let you know you really can only ever rely on yourself. people will always let you down, and the pessimist in me is screaming to never get my hopes up again, to always assume words and oaths and promises will be broken, to have no faith in anyone...oddly enough the meek inner optimist is silent, and his lack of opposition makes me think for once both sides agree.

- ghost hand of fate -

i sat there last night
with the ghost hand of fate
pulling at my heart
dragging me out
into the lamp-lit streets

(i get this feeling sometimes, like i need to be out, fate is calling, so i put my shoes on, grab my camera, press play on my discman and go out, knowing i'm looking for something, an opportunity maybe, but without having any real idea, usually i will try to fight it, i will start cleaning or writing or anything, but the feeling ususally just gets stronger, and i have to leave, so i go walk around getting lost in not the best neighbourhood to be walking around in the dark with like 400$ worth of electronics hanging around my neck, thinking i will find something, something with meaning, or at the very least, taking the first steps of an action towards a reaction, but it turns out to be nothing, and all i do is have a conversation with the video store clerk on the merits of the family guy vs the simpsons, hemingway and good movies... wait a minute, i guess that's an okay finish.)

- books rain smoke -

saturday, i came in to work under the mistaken impression i had to. once i realized no one else was coming in, i finished my coffee and left. it's a strange feeling to walk downtown while its semi-deserted early on a saturday morning, it was one of those warm/cool mornings with a faint threat of rain, i had a junior kimbrough cd in my discman, and i felt that everything was going to turn out alright. i dare say my attitude was positive. i made my way to the core and to the used cd/bookstores i usually visit. picked up all kinds of good books (high fidelity -  nick hornby, ghost of a chance - william burroughs, already dead - denis johnson, faust - goethe, franny and zooey - jd salinger, this boy's life - tobias wolff). when i got home i was a little tired, but i couldn't find the remote for the tv. so i started reading high fidelity. and i read. and i read. about halfway through the book i thought to myself, this is actually good, i am in the position to sit down and let a book completely consume me, and not have to worry if someone is waiting for me, is bored, or wants to do something. it was a completely selfish feeling and i loved it. i sat there while it rained lightly outside, a gray light sky, just me lost in this book, no distractions, no real noise, a few comfortable pillows and light thrown from a lamp, coffee and cigarettes...

- runnning from thoughts of escapism -

i imagine everyone runs a certain risk of developping an alcohol and/or drug problem. the imagery i saw the other day was some kind of platform being held up by a number of posts. (number to be determined based on numerous factors). and the more posts the less likely your platform will fall into the water. anyway, i saw my platform being held up by 6 posts. but i think in the last week i've dropped down to 4. i've drank and been a little drunk everyday since saturday, with the exception of yesterday. but the thing is, i was really tempted to get drunk last night too...somehow i managed to fight the craving. after watching all kinds of tv about the subject, i do realize i am just trying to escape down some avenue, away from the stress, boredom and loneliness of everyday...but there is a small voice, slowly growing louder and more aggressive in the back of my mind telling me to just give in, fuck it, drink up, the night will be easier, do it, come on, just a few beers, there's no harm in having a few beers after work, you deserve it, come on have a drink, just a little buzz, you'll feel fine....even writing this now, i am salivating a little at the thought of picking up a six-pack after work, or even heading to the tavern across the street for a liquid lunch. i am a little afraid.....

- selfish horrible man -

very early this morning i realized i am a completely despicable, horrible person. just to put everything out there, i am trying to get rid of my apartment, and find a new one for october, so i can move in with a somewhat friend type guy, but mainly so things won't be as expensive and i won't be so alone. then on sunday my landlord calls me to tell me he is going on vacation this friday, and will be unreachable for 2 weeks, and that if i am serious about moving for october i have to find someone by thursday. so i have all this apartment/letting people down stress and i am having a real hard time falling asleep. so when the phone rings at 3:30am (2 hours beforei need to wake up) i am not terrible impressed. one of my old buddies from back home is calling me after a night out at the bar. i don't want to talk to him. i want to go back to bed. so i tell him this. he gets upset. i start to hear the waver of tears in his voice, and then he tells me that his doctor thinks he might have cancer. after a short period of remorse and being the selfish asshole i am, all i can think of is "why are you telling me this, i have more than enough shit to worry about" without another black cloud (a very black cloud) hanging over me...and thats when i realize i am truly a shitty slug of an excuse for a human.

- radical, it's friday -

it seems the new theme in my life is people bailing on me. there was the guy who was supposed to move here, had his shit packed and all, but wishy-washed his way out at the last minute. and now, i was supposed to host a group of friends for a weekend of drunkeness and hollering, but that too has fallen apart. so now i'm looking at a long weekend of doing not much, but at least i won't be at work. (although they have threatened us with the possibility of having to come in this weekend). i feel like a complete loser and i need a life real bad.

- another blow and more -

another blow to the frail esteem i hold for other people, the guy who had agreed to takeover my apartment has now backed out. i had to find out from my slightly-pissed off landlord...does a verbal agreement mean anything to anyone anymore? this further pushes humanity into the already-shaky ground of my trust. i almost feel like crawling into bed pulling the covers up tight and sleeping for the next 10 years. i get these "daily quotes" in my email every morning. today's quote was slightly ironic: "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen." it doesn't seem to me like this universe is helping, if anything, i think it is throwing more obstacles into my path, trying to make things more difficult. the theory on this i had last night was that because i have spent so long hiding from life, it was going to make things more difficult for me, as punishment for avoiding these things for so long. but i am trying, trying to cut away the cobwebs anchoring me to my isolated, safe, humdrum life, shouldn't trying be enough. the way i see it is enough of a challenge to move from this static position, couldn't the universe give me a little help? does it have to feel like i'm being attacked from all sides? does my complete faith in mankind have to be shattered before i can move on? after typing this out, i feel like i'm making too big a deal of it all... fuck. all i really need is someone to talk me out of these mad deleriums before i get myself all worked up on the thousands of horrible possibilites which will all absolutely happen, (or so i manage to convince myself). a soothing voice of reason, to tell me i am completely overreacting, because i can't seem to do it myself... and why is it so hard to find some kind of writing workshop in this city? i finally found one the other day, and apparently it is for women only...damn, i need things to do. if anyone reads this and knows of some kinds of class or workshop thing in the mtl area, please let me know.

- saturday night drunken stream -

what always happens is we decide to go out to see a show, and because we are unsure of what to see, we always end up at the sala rossa. we pay 15$ to get in, to see bands we have never heard of. and of course we are cursed. the first band is never quite something we like, and by the point they are finished their set, we have already spent 40$ on beers, and now our patience has run out and we are disappointed, so we leave. we walk down st-laurent looking for anything good, i stop at a bank machine, casually call a guy a nazi because he wouldn't let us in the money booth, the threat of getting beat up is looming, but passes. we head up to the jupiter room (mitch has never been) empty when we get there, some guy offers to trade a joint for a smoke and after i give him a smoke, he can't find his weed claims it's lost, but who cares at this point, i'm fairly drunk and my spirit of giving is high (although we later see the same guy trying to get free beer from the bartender). we leave there, and head to the bifteck, where pitchers are cheap and the bartender is like an amazon goddess with bra straps hanging off her shoulder and glowing smile. strike a conversation with some guy sitting at the bar (teardrop tattoo and tight t-shirt) we drink awhile discussing things, many things, trying to get latecomers to the bar to buy us a pint or at least throw in on a pitcher, when i ask him if the tattoo means what i think it means, and he says that it does and he killed 5 people with a machete (these five had apparently killed his friends) so i get a little nervous but try not to let him see, meanwhile mitch is talking to a guy from guadeloupe with the beatest hat and he is angry because i keep referring to him as my chilean friend. the threat of getting beat up looms again while in the bathroom where i foolishly comment on the snaziness of some guy's coat, and he says something then i say something, then he looks at me and tells me to leave, so i do, because the leather jacket-turtleneck-gelled hair combination makes me nervous. we do shots of whiskey as the lights come up and then we are back out on the streets. high fives with random strangers down the street, random conversations with homeless guys about the best places to keep drinking, now that is so very late, but nothing. then into the cab for deep conversation with the cabbie about the privilege of canadian youth, and how we don't know or appreciate how good we have it because we never had to flee our country under threat of genocide (he was from somalia), or know what real hunger feels like. we get back to my place where mitch (a incorrigible drunk-dialler) finds my phone number book and then calls everyone until someone picks up the phone, and the only person who does is my ex-girlfriends current boyfriend (we were looking for my former roommate) then mitch has a 30 minute conversation with him, while I sit there cringing, knowing he is about to say something embarrassing, or that the unspoken nuances of the conversation will have other effects of my life, and people will start to get new ideas about what is what.

- cheerful misanthrope -

someone decided to give me advice, based on what they had read from my blogs. apparentely i am a misanthrope, and he had some good things to say, so i figure i'd post them here for other people with similar disposition to my own, and maybe they could feel a bit better too.

"The overall view is that someone in this position (the one that I think I/we have identified under whatever labels) has to accept that there are far fewer people for them to hit it off with than there are for other people. One backlash-type response to this is to become misanthropic. The cost of that is that it slows you down from accomplishing things and also gets in the way of making connections with the 1 % or whatever of the population that actually is suitable to connect with. (Freud said "love and work" when asked what happiness consists of and I think he pretty much nailed it.) The type of attitude I have now is one that a friend of mine described to me (talking about himself) as that of being a "cheerful misanthrope." What I think he meant is that you don't expect much from others but you enjoy what there is. This lets you get through life better, doesn't drain your energy therefore letting you use it more productively. It also makes you more appealing to people in general and to the aforementioned 1% rather than being pissed off at people for not being suitable for you, put the energy to making yourself a better person (brainwise, bodywise). And also don't get pissed off at *yourself* for being someone who finds only 1% of the population worth bothering with. (It's so easy to do that.) It's just the way you are, it's not a sign of some deep flaw. So the summary of this, I guess, is that you keep your spirits up for your own sake, and for the sake of the 1 per cent when you do encounter them, and it's a *side* benefit of this that it makes the relations with the other 99% easier; but it's no part of this program to try to become someone different from who you are. No reason to castigate yourself for not being someone who finds that 99% appealing as everybody else seems to find them."

- dreams gone wrong -

last week i get a phone call at three in the morning. one of my buddies calling me up after his night at the bar. i don't want to talk to him. i have to get up for work in two hours. then he tells me his doctor thinks he has cancer. shitty. after trying to get in contact with this guy for a week, i finally do. he then tells me that he never called, and he doesn't have cancer, and he has no idea what i am talking about. so then i think, was it really just a vivid dream? i can't be sure, because the phone was where i left it, beside a glass of juice i had poured while talking to him...and if it was a dream, then i figured i must be going insane.... Then saturday night i had another strange dream. but it felt like i had physically gone somewhere, way more intense than a regular dream. and when i woke up and stumbled into the kitchen for a drink, there was a cat with two different coloured eyes (one of them looked like a glass eye) staring at me from my back balcony...

- over the weekend -

over the weekend i realized all i do is work to make money to afford rent and food and a bus pass to get back to work. my life is nothing but work and the few hours between shifts. then i read this passage during my morning reading hour/commute:

"The thought of my evenings makes me shudder; they wait for me like a dragon. I don't know what ugly face of my soul i see between six and ten. I don't understand it - i run like a hunted animal and usually i cannot escape...I am sure there must be some remedy, something like soft mist to fill the chasm of the soul between six and ten"
- from The Opium Eater by Iqbal Ahmad

and i felt a little relief that i am not the only person to feel this. but still i need to find some thing to do during these hours of anguish. any ideas?

17.08.05

it seems like my entire life is now spent in front of some kind of screen...i'm seeing double because i just spent almost 2 hours scanning, formatting, and coding new pics onto the photo page. (the top three lines are new) blaaarg. things in life are looking up, with the possibility of gaining a couple possible roomates/friends in the next little while...but we won't jinx it here. those little scribbly designs on each page were made by me, using this thing, which has also hypnotized me at work for the past 2 days.

i also cancelled my voice mail, i was tired of paying 8$ a month for recordings of people hanging up...

final thoughts: sometimes i just feel so disconnected and apart from everything and everyone else like i'm just a little ghost going through the motions in a city, where nameless faces rush past me lost together in a giant motion blur like those pictures of freeways filled with cars each running into the next and all of them just passing by...

31.07.05

i have been pretty busy since the last update. i think i worked for 14 days straight, ending it all off with a 24 hour shift this past thursday. i put in 80 hours in the last week. thats 2 weeks worth of job time spent in one week, minus travel time and sleeping, i think im left with something like 1 hour a day me time. but that week is done. it will all be worth it on payday.

luke and tracey stopped here on their way to NYC. good times. i have also discovered i must be some kind of robot, because i woke up thursday morning, after getting wasted wednesday night, and somehow managed to make it to work by 7:30, only a half an hour later than usual. i didn't even realize what i was doing until i got off the metro near work. i have somehow automated my morning ritual, so that i can do the whole thing without ever really being aware of what i am doing. but it was really good, just to meet up with people after work, to go eat and drink at some sidewalk restaurant. (i also think i came up with a measure of male friends. you see it all depends on how many running jokes you have between you. the more jokes, or common comments, the greater the friendship.)

there was more.....

16.07.05

alright, about 2 years ago while i was ckecking out the hellcat website, i found out about this movie, called "live freaky, die freaky". and now i find out it will be playing here tonight as part of the fantasia festival. it's going to be so bad. semi-pornographic stop motion animation movie based on charlie manson and voiced by a shit load of punk stars. i can't wait.

10.07.05

things about summer i miss because i am stuck in the city:

• swimming
• the smell of bug spray mingled with sweat
• barbecue
• sitting in the basement watching movies when its too hot
• chopping wood
• chip wagons
• camp fires
• citronella candles

09.07.05

i don't know if i was just really tired, but when i sat on my bed to test out my new foam mattress topping and my new 3$ pillows, i immediately fell into a huge, dark, silent cavern of sleep...i awoke several hours later, but not for too long, my bed has just become so comfortable. before i added the foam topping, i could feel the coils digging in between my ribs and poking my kidneys, and it was so hard. (although, this is probably only in comparison the air mattress i have been sleeping on for the past year and a half.) but now, all i can do i think fondly of how little time is left until i can crawl back into bed.

had a few days of anxious excitement here earlier this week. it seemed that paul was moving here, after deciding there was nothing for him in smooth rock. he would have moved into my place taking the edge off the rent and my loneliness. it would have been cramped in my one-bedroom for awhile, at least until i could break the lease. things were looking up. luckily, i know this guy fairly well, and decided not to put the cancellation in motion until he at least got here. and good thinking on my part. 3 days after he said he was coming, he calls to tell me he isn't anymore. the only thing i could think is "goddamn, craig, your gut instinct is right fucking on these days!"

so based on that little episode, i have come up with a new character to add the roster of dysfunctional personalities already housed within me; the cynical psychic.

01.07.05

apparently, 2 guys can walk down a (somewhat) major intersection at night, dragging a barbecue, which is making all kinds of a racket as it hits the bumps and separations in the sidewalk, and no one will even notice. ah, the city...we could have stolen it for all they know, but do they care? not one bit. we did get a few laughs from some old ladies walking past us, but that was the strongest reaction, most people chose to ignore the loud rattling outside their open windows...

mitch was trying to convince me to load the bbq with other crap we found on the side of the road, like three-legged end tables and a cushionless couch. he kept stopping at every pile of crap left over from when whoever moved out of the nearest apartment, trying to convince me i needed someone else's garbage. i don't think his point was to get me more things, he just wanted to see me haul a crap-laden bbq through the streets of verdun...

you may notice, i cleaned up the site a bit. or you may not.

29.06.05

i was awoken by thunder this morning...thunder so loud it set off car alarms. or at least that's how i figure 3 car alarms were started this morning. in other news, i finally have a bed. no more sleeping on a deflated mattress for me. now i won't feel so bad on the off-chance i ever manage to lure a woman back to my apartment. but mitch and rachel are on the lookout for prospective ladies for me...this came about because they were trying to hook up paul (who doesn't even live here) with a girl...so i got huffy. i asked them why they were finding a companion for a guy who lives 611.01 miles from here, when there was a lonely guy just down the street.

went to a strip club over the weekend...a little disappointed. i guess i had my hopes built up from hearing rumours about montreal strip club. how it would be the raunchiest show ever and what you could do for an extra 10 bucks...not the case in the one we went to anyway. (i won't give it's name, but it's the one with the huge neon sign on ste catharines street.) the strippers all looked and danced like they were on valium. they seemed bored. i don't quite know what i was expecting but....

21.06.05

i am completely aware that if you view this site in internet explorer it will look like garbage. but then again, why are you still using explorer? get with it. use mozilla, the site looks fine in mozilla.

18.06.05

according to Statistics Canada by next monday i will have used up a third of my allotted life expectancy. so now, as i face the next third of my life, this third i shall call drudgery, because i imagine this is the third when i am supposed to do all the regular things people do when they grow up. get married, have kids, buy a house, mow my lawn every week, buy a car. work on my car, get a 20 to 30 year hitch at some god awful job....

i fail to see how that was ever appealing to anyone

don't worry its not all doom and gloom this year. i have decided that i haven't been active enough these last 25 years, and now i will attempt to get a fuller fistful of life. i will wait for life in alleyways, then jump it when it walks by, kicking its ribs and stealing its money and sandwiches.

in the odd case you wish to buy me a present, email me for my address