20040929 
Dude. I can't believe they just disappeared. WTF? Friday I left maybe 6, and sunday another one. Not like they were really important or anything, but they took the place of me not being able to find my dictaphone. Shit. I'm typing without looking at my hands for the first time in a long time. It's really the right way to do it. Otherwise I find myself taking shortcuts, which implies bad style. And, it's pretty fun to watch all the kiddies bike by. 9:55. Running off to class. Run, run, run!
I feel like shit, really. And I can't find my wallet. I was severely scolded for not doing enough around the lab yesterday, and find that this morning I'm just totally unmotivated to do anything. There's nothing really to do. Shit. All that worry and conflict for nothing. My advisor is just very unhappy that I was presenting my ideas to other people, and that I'm having ideas at all, really.
20040928
You know sometimes the world doesn't make sense to me in any way shape or form and those are the days that I probably feel the most lost. There is comfort in understanding. Comfort in predictable situations. Comfort in the mediocre routine of everyday life. But there are times when the understanding and the routine just isn't there. There are times when nothing seems predictable, at least not with the cheap and inefficient modelling tool called my brain.
So I look for comfort, somewhere, in all that sadness.
Masochism at it's best: Running is my weapon and my body is my prey and I stick that knife in like I'm trying to kill. Running as an escape. Running as payment for feeling sorry for myself. It works, too. Running is an activity I hate and to do it means I'm throwing my ante in, I'm in the game, I'm willing to gamble. Running means I'm willing to pay the price, willing to risk things.. because I know when I stop running, when I just don't want to do it anymore, when I can't get out of bed, can't put my shoes on, can't stumble out the door, I know that's it - I know I don't even want to pay my dues anymore.
Which means I'll have given up on this membership club called life.
One of the earliest memories I have in life - a memory so real and vivid it appears in my mind as if a photograph, as if I could search through my drawers of pictures and actually find this one in there even though it never existed on celluloid - is that of my favourite cat at the time, dead, lying in the middle of the road as a tractor towing a thresher ran over it. I was standing at the end of our driveway, a wide dirt path, waiting for the school bus and looking up the road, up the hill, at the sun coming up over the trees. I could see my cat, almost at the top of the rise, and there was a bright red slash across it's body. If it hadn't been for the sharp redness of the bloody gash you'd think it was just taking a catnap, all curled up head in towards it's belly and it's tail wrapped around it's legs. The tractor rumbled along slowly, no faster than 10 mph, and it rolled right up that hill over my cat and as it's front wheels hit the peak I could see my cat come out the other side and then the thresher rolled over it as the tractor itself headed down the backside of the hill and disappeared out of site.
I'm not sure I really understood that, either. I think I thought the tractor killed it. I think I knew the tractor didn't but since I saw the tractor roll over my cat, my big double-pawed Maine coon with the sweetest disposition of any cat you've ever known, I think I knew it wasn't the tractor really and I didn't blame the tractor really, or even the farmer atop it. It was more just this inanimate object that moved through space and time in some linear fashion, unable to make judgements about speed or direction, unable to stop on the account of a little creature like the cat. No hard feelings.
The moment struck me as very very sad but I don't think I ever did have any bad feelings towards the tractor and I just sort of accepted that these things happen, but like I said, in a sort of unable to understand sort of way.
And through the years I've thought more and more about these things, these moments of intense sadness - not true emotion really, not a personal experience per se, but a real deep down misunderstanding of the world where the compassion is taken out of it and things are all just inanimate objects moving linearly through this universe with unending velocity, just crashing into eachother smashing things into smithereens with no regard, no regard whatsoever, for the preservation of existence, like a cat gone loose on your table has no regard for your nice cup of tea and then..
*crash*
Now now, don't cry over spilt milk. Nor tea. Nor dead cats or lost causes or anything really. Don't cry, so I run and I cough some - spit up some nasty coloured shit from smoking shisha the night before and I press hard into my side right below my ribs as I lean sideways trying to will away the cramps and maybe I don't cry but there are tears of sweat streaming down my body regardless and I look up, the trees around me, and I look up, the sun the sky the stars the moon, and I look up and there nothing but the sound of my pounding feet grinding into the dirt path and the *swish* *swish* *swish* of my shorts rubbing together and the pound pound pound of my little, tiny, insignificant heart - like a jailed bum, his hands wrapped around the bars of his cell shaking shaking at them, crying out to the guard, "I need to go. You have to let me out of here! Hello? Anybody. Help me".
No, I don't cry but I think the feeling is in there somewhere regardless. I'm no stalwart, I'm no feelingless monument. I am flesh and blood as the rest of you and I to think of old and dead pets fondly. I too think about things that were once and are now lost and I, too, sometimes get lonely, sometimes get lost - lost in the echoing empty caverns of my own mind so much so that I stare off into the distance as if the wall in front of me were miles away and the floor were sand of a beach and sometimes, I fear, I almost never come back. The sound of my brain saves me, brings me back to reality, the clickity-clack of gears and whistles blowing, the tiny men in there moving the different scenery around for me to enjoy, like a big tiny play inside my head.
God bless those tiny stagemen, their quick and speedy work, their sunsets dropping into view right as the stage director calls the que and the moon showing up, perfectly hung mere inches below the top of the curtain. God bless them for their tireless acts, but God bless them, too their pattering feet, which is just enough to bring me back from my revery, just enough to keep me remembering it is all just a play, just enough to keep me in this world and not some other one contained in a padded white room under a coat with arms wrapped about me.
And so I go running sometimes as if heading to the theatre to watch another of the classics, another greek tragedy, another romeo and juliet, another sad sad story. At first I'm never sure how far I might run - I always want to quit - but when the lights come down and the stage opens up I feel the sweat begin to pour like tears down my face, down my back, and in that there is living. There is a sense of it anyway. I am laughing inside, laughing out loud, tears of joy, tears of pain. And in those hours, running along down some dirt road thinking to myself how lost I quite truly may be I am as found as I'll ever be.
Mr Gould had swallowed the pill, and it was though it had been compounded of some subtle poison that acted directly on his brain.. ..Mr Gould exaggerated to himself the disadvantages of his new position, because he viewed it emotionally.
- Nostromo, by Joseph Conrad.
More tiddly-bits later.
20040927
And I'd been feeling sick for a few days, despite all the potentially good news you might have read below.. At first I thought it was anticipation. Anticipation of a good kegger on Saturday. Anticipation of a potential cool new girl to see. Anticipation of life "working out" the way they tell you it's supposed to your whole life.
You know, "Aww, don't worry.. it will sort itself out"
Well I figured it out. It wasn't the anticipation at all. It was the bullshit I was fed this weekend. It was the line of crap I ate up like a hungry dog. And let me tell you, that shit is enough to make anyone sick to their stomach.
This blog is on the verge of becoming a few shades darker and a whole lot more cynical. I suggest averting your eyes.
Remember my last post where I said you gotta take life less seriously?
Man, if i don't start taking life a lot less seriously than ima gonna shoot myself.
20040926
note the new addition from the hammer, ontario: after the debachery.
Lots and lots of epiphanies these days, but all little tiny ones that don't necessarily mean much until you weave them all together like a big quilt.. Which is to say, isn't that your every day? Life's little epiphanies getting woven together, maybe some vague sense of chronology, throw in a random quote here and there and maybe some old photos.. boom: human life.
Which is to say we're, all of us, just walking down this road smelling the flowers on the way and - I don't want to be cliche here at all but - we're maybe not always getting the idea that stopping and smelling the flowers on the way is what it's actually about.. That whole "life is a journey not a destination" crap. I still think people can miss the point on that one sometimes, even as obvious as it really is.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you should take the flower-smelling more seriously. I'm saying take it less seriously. If you take it seriously you're missing the goddamn point. You think there is a point... flawed! A point, what's that? It's a location. x, y, and z. It's a ..
destination.
didn't I just get over saying that there is no destination? I mean, there is a plot somewhere out there for you where you'll be taking a nice long nap in a big wooden box.. sure, that may be a literal destination, but I'm talking about a different plane here. I'm not talking about the brain here, I'm talking about the mind.
Without life's little chuckles you're just trolling for pike in the fucking rain. You can't tell me anyone likes trolling in the rain unless they know how to chuckle.
Fuck it. I can't say it nearly as well as Tom Robbins, who essentially had the same message in an essay printed in a recent Harper's (Sept 2004) called "In Defiance of Gravity". I can't find it online but there is a short worthwhile snippet over here.
Go read it, then come back. I have more to say.
Frankly, life is treating me quite well lately and it occurred to me that I'm always telling you how blessed I am - how nothing ever goes wrong for me. How nobody in my life gets sick or dies. How I've never had anything stolen. How I leave my doors unlocked.. but it's a big lie. This was one of my epiphanies. I lied about that. Last May, on my birthday in which I was out at a bar with friends and not a single friend bought me a beer, I also had my leather jacket stolen. My uncle has been diagnosed with some nasty form of ALS. These are not the facts of a care-free life. These are unfortunate..
but frankly it's alright. I can say that a little easier since it's not me with the ALS, sure.. but what I'm saying, in a wordy sort of way, is shit happens and what can you really do about it, really, other than have a good chuckle.
A guffaw if you're up to it.
Life isn't not so bad, it's pretty fucking good. Even at it's worst it's laughable. William Saroyan's The Human Comedy hit the nail on the head with it's raw depiction of human emotion. To cry is to laugh out loud as life plays you a prank.
I know I'm on this Guinness kick but I gotta say it again: BRILLIANT!
The trick is to enjoy life so much you're playing pranks on it. Which was, roughly, the impetus behind the self-inflicted "cock block" move I described on Friday. Knowing I have certain game (or lack of game) I knew I couldn't play the smooth operator. I was in no position to go ask a girl out who barely even knew me at her place of employment. Sure, I could try but it would never work. Never in a million years. Not for me, anyway. It's not in the cards. So like a joke as dying words, I shot myself in the foot. "I'm going to ask you out and you're going to say no." I took the human tragedy and rewrote it as the human comedy so to speak.
And it worked. Fortunately my roommate is vaguely friends with this girl and so when I came home friday evening I found out he'd had a talk with her.
"What you said was brilliant" he said, in his english jersey accent. "That's the best line I've ever heard. She told me it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her, it made her night." which, in the end, was all I'd hoped for.
Another little epiphany. Even drop dead gorgeous girls - the pedastal posse - the people in this world practically forced into being the darlings of society, even they need a pick me sometimes too. A flash of the eyes. But who was I to ruin it with the cheapness of a pickup line? So I did the only thing I could think of: remove the pick up from the line. By demanding she say no I took all the pressure off, which was another way of saying "I think you're fucking cool but you owe me nothing for that." I gave her a freeby.
Did I hope maybe I'd get something out of it? Was it sheer selflessness? Of course not.. personal gain was in the equation but the underlying message was pure. Honesty at it's most raw. In a subtle sort of way.
Maybe I think too much sometimes, in fact I most certainly do, but on this one I know I got it right. Some friends of mine think it was a bone-headed play and for a second I started to see what they were talking about. I started to think I screwed something up but then, again - an epiphany - I'm only cool if I think I am. I'm only right if I think I am. So I - in a rare occurance of standing by my actions - explained how in fact it was the best possible thing I could have done in that situation and it wasn't too long until the blinders came off and they started to see the whole picture and I could see the truth dawn on them like a sunrise coming up over the mountains.
So do I have a chance? If you're asking that question than I think maybe you missed my whole point. The real question to ask is does it matter? And the answer is no, of course it doesn't. In the famous words of popeye the sailor man I yam what I yam and the best I can do is yam it up as much as possible. The best I can do, the biggest favour I could do anyone, is to just be myself. I can't play the pickup game so don't even try. Don't put on a face you can't wear. If, and this is a big if, IF it would ever work then she'd have to dig on me, the real me, anything else is hopeless.
So when I saw her Friday night she came over and slipped her arm under mine and said "that was the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, it really made my night, I wanted to thank you for that." We danced to 80's music and then we took a breather, sitting on the back of the bench at the bar, and she told me she liked to watch people dance and make fools of themselves but then she stopped, looked directly at me as if she were worried about what I might think of her and she said "But you know I'm a good person." She looked back and forth trying to see something in my eyes and I said "How do you know that?" and she replied "Because you wouldn't be sitting here talking to me if you didn't see it in me."
BRILLIANT!
This is a girl of my ilk. Woven from the same fabric. Seeing the world in a specific light. You all know I don't believe in fate or souls or any of that metaphysical crap but I do believe you can see someone, on rare occasions, and know - just from looking at them - know what they're about and I knew, walking into that bar the first time I saw her - I knew exactly what she was about and what she said to me, in her words of "But you know I'm a good person" was really I know you saw me - the real me.
I dunno. Maybe I should have kissed her. I'm an asshole so I didn't.. not living in the here and now like some would say I should have but I was too busy being real and for me, god I still get butterflies in my stomach the first time I ever kiss a girl I really dig and that takes some time, dealing with those butterflies, and so it just wasn't right, it wasn't me to bend down and take from her what I wanted - it's not my move at all. My move is to wait until there is a moment somewhere - maybe on a bench on the street or in a park or on a picnic table outside at a bar or leaning against my car at the end of the night - my move is to wait till that moment when both of us don't want it, we need it.. both of us, as a collective. Partners in crime, like we're stealing a little something from the human tragedy and giving it to the human comedy.. Robin hoods in our little space in time stealing the biggest joke you can from life - like giving it a big "fuck you" middle finger with a big happy grin plastered on your face, a happy "fuck you", jokingly, and with some verve.. and doing it with someone, not at them.
It hasn't happened yet but I think I might have already won.
20040925
Someone should fill me in on what tony is up to. I've been busy and I don't have time to make it through his mammoth posts. has he had an aneurysm cause of george w. yet? Is he gonna survive till the elections? How's chopper one?
 A friend of mine is applying to a job in Japan. She is super excited about it and so when I checked my sitemeter yesterday and I saw an odd hit on my website, I figured I should mention it.. Before I got it out she showed me an email from her potential boss in which he requested more information (scan of passport, areas of expertise, etc).. and I noted the time stamp which was right about around the time of this odd hit.. which came from a japanese domain... the referring page of which was a google search for "mcgill" and her full name.
The odd thing about all this is that I still to this day get a crap load of search hits on this site from people searching for names.. A long time ago I had a column down the left side of this site listing many of my friends and a short sentence about where they were / what they were up to.. ala "in montreal doing a masters at mcgill", which she was doing at the time, which is how google returned my site for the search.. but still, those pages don't exist anymore, they haven't for well over a year, and yet the still produce these phantom links. How odd is that?
Which is why I will take the time to explain google caching to you right now. Many of you, in fact I should hope most of you, probably already know about google caching so go ahead and skip this paragraph if you want. However, if you wish to learn something on this slow saturday afternoon, well - mouth closed, ears open. Google, as it traverses the web and indexes pages it also keeps a copy of those pages. Later, when you search on google and get a bunch of hits, you can click directly on the large heading to go to that web address as it is now. That last part is important. What it means is that the search terms you are looking for might not even be on the webpage at that site anymore. Which, if you don't know this, makes for some frustrated bumbling. It reminds me of an old mainer's joke where a guy gets a letter from his parents. Among the "your uncle died in a vat of whiskey.. they tried to save him but he fought them off bravely" jokes there is the gem: "Next time you come and visit you won't recognize the house. We've moved". Which is a brilliantly back-assward way of looking at things but it's got a nugget of wisdom in there for our little google discussion. When you arrive at a website there is no gaurantee that it is the same as a) last time you visited, b) last time someone else visited and told you to go to it, or c) the last time google indexed it.. THUS. When searching on google you can always click on the much smaller link labeled "cache" following the short excerpt. This will take you to a copy of the old website as it was when it was indexed by google. In addition, google automatically returns that cached page with all your search terms highlighted so it's easy to scroll through a page and find what you're looking for. And last but not least, using google's cache has the added benefit of letting you access information even if the original site is down for some reason.
Like the Guinness commercials say: BRILLIANT!
20040924
So I finally squashed that irritating bug.
The little bastard waitress at the local watering hole had been bothering me for quite awhile, plaguing my brain for the last few weeks but now, she owns me no longer! Last night, after some celebration at another bar Sam, Paul, and I made our way to the biffer where the girl was discussed. I was getting sick of the whole thing so I said "fine, hold on, I'll be right back". I walked over across the street to her bar, walked up to her, and said "Hey, do you remember me?".. she looked confused so I mentioned the handlebar mustache I'd had until yesterday afternoon, which was enough to jog her memory. "Yah, well.. I gotta move on with my life so I'm going to ask you out and you're gonna say no, okay?" She looked confused but I went ahead anyway. "So, would you like to go out sometime?" She thought about it for a second and said "Umm, no?" And I said "okay, thanks.." and walked out. Paul was aghast, said I "cock blocked myself" but hell, I gotta say I feel so much better today.
Sometimes I gotta have these little side projects for myself to keep my head above water.. something to chew on, you know?
Really, though, I'd like to be taking a bunch of pictures for you good people but I can't find my charger. I probably won't be able to find it, either, until I get around to doing my laundry which is, well.. doesn't look like it's gonna get done anytime soon based on how much has gotten done so far.
It's almost been an entire month for me here in the windy city of the north. Montreal is treating me alright but I'm still not settled. It feels like yesterday I was packing up the old Saab and chugging my way up over the north applachians but it's been a whole month. I dunno where the time goes. I dunno how I got so old.
I just dunno.
20040922
Oddity indeed. Things are turning, whirling, and spinning around much unlike their normal staid selfs. Clocks are ticking off-beats and the sun is twinkling like a star. The dark of the night has an eerie glow and I just, I just feel a little strange. You might think this is the blanket of fall being laid over the land, disruppting slightly the free flow of summer's breath. You might think that it's just the change, the transitioning I'm going through. You might even try to say it has something to with the NHL bailing on us this year but you know, it ain't any of that.
I'll be honest, I'm not happy about the NHL. In fact, I've had to go and find myself a weak substitute in McGill intramural hockey. Even though I can't skate and I can't stick handle worth a damn I'm still putting myself out there on the ice to be destroyed by the swarming masses of the enemy of Black Shuck.
"Black Shuck?" you ask. Well, let me tell you. In the barren wasteland that was the aftermath of my exodus from Canadian and from my former team, the Rez Dogs, a plague of great proportions took over the city of Montreal. The Rez Dogs, once mighty warriors, fell to under 500 and soon, soon, it was no longer the great team I had once played for. In this aftermath, in the torrential downpours from the hockey gods, somewhere out there in a dark cave, on the mountain, under the stars, a new dog was born.. behold the mighty
And in my return to this fair city, this Gotham of the north, I joined up with a band of a few brave and powerful men who have found it in themselves to journey to this dog and take him on in some sort of sick pagan worship in order to weild the gi-normous power that is Black Shuck - in the name of all that is good and involved with hockey. Behold what you have seen here and tell the story far and wide for it must be known that the power is real, it has been unleashed, and it will.. it will...
Strike again!
20040920
Okay, so you're all wonder where the hell I've been for the last week. You're wondering if I got mugged or just gave up and left town or if I've been in some drug coma for the last 96 hours. Well, fear not.. I've been here the whole time, I was just swamped.
Swamped with school work and the early-semester chores of setting your course registration complete and getting a student id card and setting up a bank account and and.. one nasty machine learning assignment.
Don't worry, i haven't been ignoring you. I've been checking in on you at night to make sure you're all getting along nicely and I'm happy to say it's been a pleasant surprise this little sabbatical experience. Besides the guilt, I could do it I tell yah, I really could.
But the guilt of leaving all you nice people to the likes of this alex character, why, it's more than this one man can bear so I'm back and I even have something to show you.. since I know you were all so excited to find out what this secret plan was that I spoke of before. Well, I've spoken of numerous plans but the one I'm referring to right now had to do with those sky/foliage pictures from earlier and a little someone I sometimes like to lovingly refer to as the girl or if I'm in a particularly good mood, my cross to bear. Anyhow, the birthday is coming and so I mulled over a few romantically heady ideas before I plunked down my penny on this one. A picture. Or pictures, as the case may be. It actually came together with very little concious thought.
I was strolling around campus a few weeks ago inbetween classes looking for a nice place to snooze and I found it, under some trees next to an older middle-aged guy sleeping on his side. I pulled up my backpack and rested my eyes for a bit, just taking in the sounds of a bustling late-summer day at university. When I opened them back up I saw a deliciously rich blue sky, some deep green foliage, a few straggling leaves already heading towards red, and white white puffy clouds sailing slowly by. Two girls came down from the path, one of them a young teenager and the other one a bit older - a freshman maybe. The older one came over to the man sleeping on the grass and shook him lightly. It seemed clear they were his daughters and he rubbed his eyes and they sat down and he talked to them. The older one smiled. The younger one looked around and took in the sights and sounds. I looked back up at the trees and nothing seemed more just right than that sky and those trees right there at that moment.
So I whipped out my camera and snapped a photo. And another. Adjusted the settings and took another. The clouds moved slowly across the canvas of my mind and I set the color to black and white and I took another. At one point almost the entire field of view was clouded over yet the sun still shown down on me from over my shoulder and I took another. When I was finished I tried on more drastic measure, the angled-across-the-body combo shot with five pictures to be stiched together back at the studio.
It really didn't occur to me that they'd speak to me at all, these pictures, I was just sort of having fun taking them. Yet when I got home I couldn't stop staring. There was something in those simple curves of the tree branches, something in the green glow of the leaves, something in that deep deep blue of the sky..
I don't know if I knew what I was up to right away but at some point over the next couple of days the plan just sort of coalesced in my mind without much prompting from me.. The project was born, sort of. It was just that - a plan - for a solid week at least as I procrastinated the inevitable and avoided the work that lay ahead but this last week I finally set the plan to action. Trips to the photo lab, stops at the dollarama, visits to the hardware store.. It took more time than I ever wanted it to but now, finally, tonight, after hours of labour over this love of mine, I have a finished project.
After all that talk it doesn't seem like much and it's certainly no masterpiece and there are things I would have done differently if I had the chance all over again but I don't and this way is just perfect anyhow because it's not perfect at all. It's slightly crooked and not all of the pictures fit the frame quite right and the wood finish could have been more finely sanded and the cardboard backing is less than professional but you know.. yeah, if you know me at all you know - nothing is perfect. I'm not perfect. Life is not perfect. This world isn't even perfect! It's not a proper sphere, yah know - it's an oblong spheroid. A spheroid! Our earth is a spheroid. It's as if the bad planets got together and came up with a hurtful playground name for us; ugly little spheroid. But we take our licks and keep on keepin' on and you know, that's okay.
It's the thought that counts - a real thought, not a thought of a thought but a real honest-to-god thought, one where you feel the need - not the obligation - it's those kinds of thoughts that count and I know, selfish or not (for we shant lie here and pretend it's not personal), I had a thought just like that.. and so I took that thought and I put it in this and I can think and breath now. Life is back to normal.
Almost.
20040917
Adam calls the bank. The guy/woman still has an account. The bank guy says, "we can help you with this." 30 minutes later he gets a call from a "company employee" from the volvo place. I'll send you a contract right away, we're remodeling the office. Fishy . . . but perhaps Adam was right, and there was no literal connection between the mafia man and the woman's suspicious name.
Then again . . .
The Third Dyana is a spectacular radio station. Everyone should listen to it.
Someone requested my Blogger password be changed. I got an email telling me so. Are you trying to tell me something, Michael? Maybe it's Daniel. Jesus.
Today, I feel like an Ev. Psych. pimp. I understand a lot. At the same time, I feel like my future could take me down an a "unaccountable" path if I'm not careful. A path in which nothing that I do or say really makes a a difference in the world. My friend Eric brought this up in relation to his depature from a religious studies PhD to attend law school. He said, "it's a lot of the same issues, just now, at the end of the day, I'm accountable for my knowlege." You just left an accountable position for a stab at an unaccountable proffesorial future. Is that what you want?
20040916
RJD2 is my new Messiah. RJD2 is the new Messiah. I'm going to see him Oct 23. Unless that's the weekend I'm in Toronto. Which would suck.
I'm writing an 18 year old Mission College student from San Jose to get her to do the detective work on the eBay fraud case. I'm a fucking genius, if you don't mind me saying. She works at the HP Pavilion, right across the street from where the alleged car building was happening.
Do you know anything about this story? Do you know anything at all?
Adam, my roommate, bids on a car on an eBay auction. He wins. The place of business in San Jose comes with a tremendous amount of positive feedback from glowing and satisfied customers. The car is priced at $8000.
He awaits patiently as they build his car. He has lots of phone contact. Phone contact becomes more difficult with the passing of time, and he feels like he is being passed around to many different people in the company. After three months of talking, receiving pictures, etc, they need a small advance. Of $3,900. They unfortunately can't wait for paypal, and Adam unfortunately decides to wire them the money directly. Then, the amount of phone hassle increases. More runaround. People not returning his calls. Three more months. Increased worry.
Tuesday, the phone gets disconnected. He asks me to look up the name of the woman who he's wired money to in San Jose. No woman by that name, but there exists a man (unisex name) who used this name as an alias to set up a phony company under this phony name. The guy was also incidentally sent to jail on unrelated drug charges in the 80s. The woman's husband happens to be named the same as the man's true name. I know that last sentence is very confusing, but I'm a little facking scared to put the actual names, because it is entirely possible that these people are Mafia and will have me killed if/when I solve the case.
Adam doesn't believe it could be the same person, he asks "why would they use the same phony name in San Jose . . ." I personally can't imagine that they aren't the same person. Too coincidental. So, furthermore, it turns out the number he's been calling belongs to yet another name, perhaps unrelated, perhaps another alias, we don't know. We just don't know, dude. The address of that place is half a mile from the address of the alleged Volvo shop.
So, the HP girl wants me. I called her up and told her that she was going to be part of an adventure. She was a little skeptical at first, but now is emailing about twice an hour. She's 18. She's thinks I'm really smart. She's going to be my San Jose sloot. Dude (doo doo doo dude) she'll be a woman. Soon. She's going to snoop around and see what she can find. I hope this guy doesn't kill her. What a bummer that would be. However, I would probably just never hear from her again. So no big loss.
Also, I spoke to my landlord, and forced her into making a decision about the house. I said that I would no longer pay rent to Daniel. That I didn't trust him anymore, and must pay directly to her. I said that he has threatened to have me evicted and that legally the only way that he could do that is if she gave him the power of property manager. I said that I need his status in writing, so I know where I stand with her and with him. I said the only solution I saw is that she sends us new rental agreements, with no ambiguity. I feel she kind of caved, and said she would take care of it. I'm fucking hoping that mean take care of it in a good way. I have invested a lot of fucking time into this deal.
20040913
> Okay okay, so I've been slacking a little bit. [read: I've been jerking it slightly more than usual]. Friday had some hot chicks [read: easy sloots] come over and make me dinner just cause they wanted to [read: wanted to get out of street]. Called me up on the phone early and said please please puhlease can we come over? and I sighed and said okay and then they made tacos [read: got nekkid]. I love tacos [read: I got them good and ready by munching their tacos]. In the aftermath of dinner [read: post-coital exhaustion, magnum wrappers littered everywhere] we threw on a movie [read: barely legal XVII] and I worked on some digital photos [read: took snatch shots while they weren't looking]. Saturday morning I had to go shopping to outfit my room [read: we had busted the mattress the night before] and so of course this girl I know [a St. Catherine sloot] was all excited to help since it involved shopping and all [read: she calls me "Big Pimp" if I buy her a new thong]. I layed the groundrules first [read: I tole the bitch wat was UP]: no more than 10 minutes in one store, preferrably 5 [read: we do it in every store, but they've got to be quickies], no more than 2 minutes discussion about which direction to head next [read: "Baby, baby, please. Shut your hole."], no more than 1.5 hrs total for the whole ordeal [read: Big Pimp has other fish to fry]. She agreed, with a pout [read: a quick BJ] . . . Guess what I just heard on the radio? I'm on a Mexican, woah - oh, radio. First time I ever heard it. It was pretty damn exciting.
20040912
Okay okay, so I've been slacking a little bit. I've been busy! Can you fault me?
Friday had some hot chicks come over and make me dinner just cause they wanted to. Called me up on the phone early and said please please puhlease can we come over? and I sighed and said okay and then they made tacos. I love tacos. In the aftermath of dinner we threw on a movie and I worked on some digital photos and when 2am rolled around they were both fast asleep on my couch so I put them to bed.
Saturday morning I had to go shopping to outfit my room and so of course this girl I know was all excited to help since it involved shopping and all. I layed the groundrules first: no more than 10 minutes in one store, preferrably 5, no more than 2 minutes discussion about which direction to head next, no more than 1.5 hrs total for the whole ordeal. She agreed, with a pout, and so we were off climbing the gradual hill of st. laurent up towards mont-royal looking for hanging fabrics and other such nonsense.
When we were done I had the place to myself so I cleaned up a bit and pretended to do some school work. Then I jumped in the shower with a beer and got ready for the evening. Volleyball girls. Lots of 'em. I didn't even make it to the party cause they were out on the street by the time I got there but they were heading to a bar so they grabbed me by each arm and off we went, whirlwind style. Deadly.
By the time 2am hit I was surprised I was still standing so I bowed out early and headed across the street for some late night fries and poutine... hit the spot, then I was gone.
Went home and watched Far and Away on tv cause after all this, Kidman is still a babe - maybe more so - and I hadn't seen her in awhile. Thought about calling but after all she's been through.. she'll call me back when she is ready.
20040911
My post just got eaten. How irritating. It surely merely implicates my own incompetence, so I will not express to much anger.
I got high last night, and had difficulty holding conversation. I don't what the deal was. My memory got jacked; just as I was going to say something, I would have forgotten what I was going to say. There was high tension about my being an attention whore. This is a reoccurring theme in my nights out these days, and in social interaction in general. I am a pretty entertaining guy, but I would hate to be doing so if it meant that this behavior prevented interesting shit from unfolding around me. And there again, what is my real goal here?
The fucking friendsters are not writing back. What recourse do I have left? Approaching actual girls? Fuck. I need to be going out more. I need to order a "how to get girls video," or just watch magnolia several times in a row. Isn't that the point of that movie, treat girls like shit and you'll become famous like tom cruise?
It's 4:20.
20040908
First ever cantilevered design on this blog, EVER!
The center is what makes it. Fucking precariously supporting the whole structure.
I'm pretty psyched that I got you so pissed. Mainly because my ego desires stroking so badly that it interprets even a post entitled "fuck you" as a positive event, as long as it's communication directed at me. I love it that someone cares about what I do or say enough to reply to it. I know how weaksauce this is. Yet that desire continually burns my ass.
But let me apologize if I sounded preachy; certainly not my intention. This is just, like, my opinion, man. And thank you, for bringing up the tension that I feel is inherent in 'now' living.
Let me rephrase the point of your reply, and please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thinking about the past and future are extremely useful to me. And if you're so interested in the 'now' just go do it, and stop talking so much about it. You fucking ganoober.
That's it, dude - of course! For example, somewhere in undergrad I decided to start remembering peoples names. Knowing names is having power. It's my goal, still. I remember my students names, not out of trying to make them feel special and individually validated (though sometimes that is a byproduct), but because later I'll see them at a party, and have beer with them and/or ask them to get to my nether regions a little better. I'm not arguing your point. And, in fact, this is one of the primary tensions in my life right now. What do I invest in? This is what it comes down to. I have this machinery, memory, that allows me to invest in the past, if I want. I have simulation machinery that allows me to invest in the future, or as close as I can come to simulating it. And I have time. What to do with it?
And what is it I'm expecting from my investment? That's another fucking basic question. This year I have toyed with using laughter as currency, awe, contentment . . . it's still an open question.
So what's my point, and how does it relate to the present? Sometimes, I find that I am simulating the future to my own detriment. This past December, I noticed that I was thinking about the future a lot. What the fuck was I going to do to get through grad school? What the fuck was I going to do with my degree? Was I going to feel like a failure if I graduated without publications, a job offer, the opportunity to practice, as opposed to just doing research? These were my own issues. They weren't that useful. In fact, I wasn't doing any work cause I felt like shit all the time. Then I stopped. It was hard. I tried to believe in God. I tried to remind myself that I had no idea about what was coming in my life. And I made some new friends, and stopped bumming about being apart from old ones so much.
And I started thinking about shit like 'the present' a lot more. And I'm a lot happier than I was then. Frankly, I still don't work qualitatively more than I was working then. And the future still scares the shit out of me with relatively high frequency. But I'm fighting that, every day. Instead of fearing, doing shit that I want to do. Instead of being lazy, reading for my exams. For me, thinking (or dwelling) less about the future and past have been very healthy.
I get pissed at new-agers, too. That's wonderful that you're so content with your present. But you irritate me, and you are wasting my oxygen. Eckhart, in the book, says something like
Once you are able to live fully in the present without dwelling on the past or the future, you will be able live without committing any negativity towards yourself or anyone else in the world.
Tell that to the poor motherfucker that stitched your $27.17 Nike yoga wrap for 15 cents and hasn't had a decent meal in three weeks, you self-satisfied sack of shit.
> The future is as real to me as this computer in front of me - not the outcome,
> not the fate of it all, but the existence of it.
This is the only thing that you said that I totally disagree with. Sure, I'm not you, but I'm not so much of a relativist to let this go by uncommented. Bullshit, dude. Sometimes I get pleasure out of thinking about the funny shit I'm going to say during section, or how funny it was when I did it. But it's never as good as the real thing.
I'm a fraud for many reasons. Telling my students that there's genocide going on in Sudan as if I knew a fucking thing about it. Taking so much pride in being a good teacher when I don't put a fucking minute of prep. time in to many sections. But I don't think that my attempt to integrate more awareness of the present qualifies as phoniness. And, once again, these are just descriptives of my experience. If they're not appreciated here, or anywhere, I can respect that. I'll turn in my badge and gun the moment it's requested.
Incidentally, I fucked up my arm pretty good yesterday.
I was longboarding down the hill. The one that I was so psyched to get down a few weeks ago. Oops. Fucked the shit out of my cell phone, too. Oops. Looks substantially worse, today.
20040907
Alright, I gotta come out and here and put a few things down. Okay, just one thing:
You and alls yous "live in the now" fuckers can go fucks yerselfs.
Yah hear that?
There is only now? Really? RIGHT now? Like, when I'm typing this or when I post this? Is this not now until it's available on the web? If I'm living for the now, should I stop writing this? Should I be out somewhere banging some chick instead cause, let's be honest, what am I here for other than to permeate through the system my inferior genes? What am I, RIGHT NOW, if I am not doing that exact, actual, real, goal, now?
I suppose that one could have a wonderful conversation about the non-existence of the future and the past. I'm sure one could convince oneself that they don't matter at all, in fact, since they are not real. I'm sure, in fact, that even a relative dullard could, with prompting, come up with this oh so novel idea. And that would be great. Until the future, tomorrow, when he doesn't pay his mortgage and he's on the street trying to support a family. Seems pretty trite to say that future doesn't exist, now doesn't it?
I dunno, form your own opinions. All Ima gonna say here is that, gee, mental construct or not, the future is real within the realm of my perceptional powers. The future is as real to me as this computer in front of me - not the outcome, not the fate of it all, but the existence of it. The thought there is a guarantee that there will be a tomorrow sits pretty well in my mind.
Okay, so maybe the universe implodes tonight. Maybe.. but these things are so much beyond my perceptional scope that to deal with them would be to play a game you do not know the rules to..
which is to say: pointless.
I know - enough to say I know - that things will unfold in front of me, day in and day out, and I know that my actions - in the NOW - can have "real" perceived consequences. I know that if I leave my clothes on the floor tonight they will be wrinkly tomorrow. How wrinkly? I don't know. But I have a certain faculty with which I might make perceptional guesses. Hmm, Cotton, I might say. Maybe not too wrinkly. Will I be wrong? Maybe. Will it be worthwhile to go ahead and throw the clothes on a hanger instead, just in case?
Uh. Yah.
Fuck you and your now. Now - the real now you speak of, this fancy thing you call life - it is already over. Now is so two minutes ago. You're wasting your time chasing this "now" and in doing so you've wasted valuable minutes reading this retarded post. You, my friend, you do not live in the now. You're a fake. You're a fraud. If you lived in the now you wouldn't even know this existed. You wouldn't know anything. The past - your past - would be a figurine on your dresser, porcelain and breakable like all simulations. It would be like a facsimile of a white piece of paper - it would tell you nothing..
Your only real information would come from the now - the little voice in your head saying "why, why are we reading this? we have no time! no time at all! we must go, live, live in the now! What? NOW! We must go. Stop. stop this now, stop reading because he doesn't know.. remember that time that he tried to convince us that.. wait, no. No memory. Nothing. All constructs. Fake. Meaning nothing. Fuck. FUCK. Stop reading. Go fuck. Yes. Fuck. Goddamnit it you have no idea.. what, who the..? I'm not ..
"There is only now," you say.
"Then stop talking about future presents and fuck off," I say.
Fantastical, my ass. To deny the existence of time - whether truth or mere human perception - is like denying that your family ever existed. Time is as much a human product as any and it's the only construct we have to manage our day to day lives in an, ahem - excuse me - timely fashion. If yah can't dig with that fine but don't come preaching to me cause this ain't the choir.
So I don't want to hear it.
Cause I'm working here. I have a goal.. a future goal. I have lots of them, actually, and they help me form decisions and choices and they dictate much of my daily routine. Go to class. Call her. Study. Clean my clothes. Fuck, it would all be so easy if I could just forget it all, stop working, sluff off, turn yellow like the skin on a dying man.. just stop.
but... I've been keeping a close eye on you now people and i see you going full steam ahead as if you're expecting something around the corner and, well, you know me.. always a bit paranoid... so I guess I'll just keep on keepin on just the same, if you don't mind.
Thanks Alex. Good luck on your exams!
Joel
That's Joel fucking Cadman writing to me right there! He wrote that to ME! He's a HOT visual artist. Check him out at http://www.joelcadman.com/
Spinning lights, especially.
20040906
Rough man. That's a rough one down there. So here's the deal, as I see it.
There is only now. My two good friends here talked often about this book called "The power of now," and one of them finally just gave it to me. I don't really like it, surely in large part because what I've been thinking to myself for so long is in there. I want it to be mine, still, and there it is for all to reference. But here's the point, and I might even recommend that you pick it (new agey and irritating as it is) up.
There is only now. This is not really arguable, at least from an intuitive human perspective. The future doesn't actually exist, nor does the past. The future and past exist only in the present, as mental constructions, as (re)presentations. As goal states, most often to be pursued, to be avoided, or to be learned from. Life will never actually reach or become these goal states because the contructions are incomplete, fantastical, and frankly, life doesn't give a shit what your goal state is. Life will always be slightly different, more complex, less perfect, or whatever. So, though it can be very helpful to have these goal states, 1) the more you become attached to achieving the goal state in the form that it takes in your mind, the more you will be disappointed. 2) The more time you spend focusing on these goal states, the less time you have to actually do other stuff in the present. And 3) though you may enjoy the goal state when it arrives, chances are, that if you've been practicing working towards a goal, you may likely be working towards another goal at that point, and not present enough to suck the juice out of the future present.
Anyway, I don't think that a lot of that's in the book. That's just me. Because I'm so cool. Because I have other ideas that I didn't even put down here. But, what I'm trying to say is that, as much as it does ring of the new age garbola that I loathe so, one never actually finishes the marathon. Or rather, I don't plan to. And I sure as fuck don't expect anyone to be there waiting for me if I do.
Just one week in this city and I'm ready to run. Everything is hot, grimy, and I forget how dingy even a clean(er) city like montreal can be. Bus stops filled with random garbage, trash on the streets, filthy old furniture abandoned on the sidewalk.. It's enough to make me want to crawl right out of my skin and, if I am smart, I will remember this and somewhere in the future when I'm looking to settle down - you know, actually buy a house (it's the american way) - I'll know enough not to do it in a big city.
Don't get me wrong, big cities have a whole heck of a lot to offer. Nightlife - bars and restuarants and concerts and street fairs. Jobs. Access.. but it starts to get fuzzy from there and the opportunity cost comes a-knockin', wondering why you're not enjoying the nice outdoor green space in front of your house - oh, you don't have one. The opportunity cost comes by and asks you how come you're getting up so early and you sigh and complain about the traffic and the commute and opportunity cost asks why you're paying so goddamn much in rent.
I don't know, frankly, I don't know. Just seems like the thing to do, you know? All the kids are doing it so gee, I must head for the big city, make my mark, be an international man of mystery.
et cetera
The big city just isn't for me. Great for visiting. Great for college maybe and even as a summer gig but me, I can't do it. I can't see the weigh-out tipping in favour of smog and bums and overpriced product and parking tickets up the wazoo.
So I'm doomed? No, I'll manage. We're survivalists, us humans.. able to live in the most wretched of situations and even I, as lazy and unmotivated as I might be, even I can manage up here in the land of milk and hockey. I can manage by spacing out my trips home so that there is always a country fix within sight. I can manage by keeping my head down till the real weather comes and it's cold enough out that the streets are a little less crowded and I can move around again. I can manage by working, sticking to the important stuff, and just hanging on for dear life until I look up and realize two years have flown by faster than a squadron of blue angels.
Even I will survive.
I would not even post today - would let my pal alex continue to destroy this site with his silly posts - if it were not for the fact that my very good friend - a kindred spirit, really - expressed to me that he has given up.
You see, this hits home here with me. We're kindred because we both have these long term situations with these girls who continue to chew up our insides like so much minced meat. We're kindred because we both have this belief, this powerful optimism sneaking below the surface that says yes, it will work out.. until now. Tonight, he expressed to me in not so uncertain terms that it - it - was done. He has officially given up on the only thing he has ever seen in his life that he thought was worth going after..
And that just makes me sad. So I don't mean to get in the way of fat chicks bouncing balls off their bellies as seen below but I do want to say that this is a big milestone for me, and not a good one. This is like running the Boston marathon with your best buddy and seeing them give up on the 18th mile, so close yet so far away.. The gut-wrenching realization is that they couldn't make it, what makes you think you can make it? What makes anyone think they can make it?
Fuck, and I thought I had something there .. for a split second. The thing with these situations, at least the way I see it, is that the solid facts - what you truly believe - that's what fluctuates the most.. everything else is static, fixed, unwavering. What you really want - need - to believe is what is the most uncertain of all -
how do they feel
where will they be in two years
do they even know you're alive
no, probably not. I don't want this journey to keep going but there really isn't anything I can do about it. It's out of my hands. it's a marathon I'm running, raggedly, and I think I'm losing.
If I've ever said a wise word in my whole life, let it be this: "I know this will not work out". I do. Don't get me wrong, I may be a romantic and a wishy-washy drunk but I am not naive,
I only wish I knew how.
20040905
I just signed up for one of those internet scams where they make believe that you won an x-box. Except that I read through it and it doesn't seem totally horrendous. I signed up for netflix, which I think was a wonderful idea. Dude, it's a great idea. It's especially a great idea if you do it with friends, because, frankly, how many movies am I going to see?
I thought I would post my list, because it's interesting to me which movies I remembered I had been wanting to see for a long time. Some of them were suggested from movies that I remembered.
The Barbarian Invasions
Miller's Crossing
Adaptation
Lost in Translation
The Kids in the Hall: Season 1: Disc 1
Blood Simple
Chungking Express
BASEketball
Monster
Brazil
Jacob's Ladder
The Deer Hunter
Mystic River
The Game
Dead Man Walking
Cinema Paradiso: Director's Cut
Das Boot
Desperado/El Mariachi
The Station Agent
Breathless
Rashomon
Throne of Blood
Anyway, I signed up for that, and a credit card. If I get approved, I should get a free x-box. how awesome would that be. Then I would just need a TV. Apropos, the lack of TV and DVD player will definitely hamper my movie watching ability, but it will be a good excuse to watch it at someone else's house.
I've done a lot of work today!
My brain is jello.
I had five people on a conference call today. How awesome is that. 2x Durham, Miami, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles. My phone rules. We discussed buying x-boxes to play halo online together. You're my only halo connection, but I imagine it's fun. Bond is killer fun, and I hear it's even better.
So, I get a burned CD with no label, and it turns out months later to be among my favorite 5 albums, but I have no idea who the fuck it is. No lyrics. Windows media doesn't help. What do I do?
20040904
Damn. That was intense! It's kind of sad sometimes. A little piece of me (or in this case a large quantity of LD) is gone. The gas remains, but should have a much easier time getting out now.
That is all.
20040903
Hooray for me.
I also bought my lab a few of those ergonomic typing things, so that they would be more comfortable. I hope that you have those, asshole. They're amazingly comfortable, and make all the difference in the world in comfort, and even in typing speed. Damn. It's true; I can type about twice as fast with this thing!
Toper.
Dipso.
Fucking foul mouth Sloot!
Why so much Gas, bowels? FACK! Just get out of there! Damn it. My smoking experience will be no fun if I'm writhing in pain because of my plugged up colon.
Better sort this shit out.
20040902
Asshole. Who's blog is this?
Fucking turdwad. I have half a mind to go over to my friend's house and get high. That'd show you.
It's interesting, actually, how in this time of listless angst and finally settling in to some work, how quickly my mind says "just smoke a little!" Just a teensy puff to start your day off right! Incidentally, I'm down to about once a week, probably because of this.
when work is imminent . . . ?
Dude. I'm sorry. There is no excuse for that.
I'm going to have to start posting the pictures of my block designs. They're pretty fun. And by 'pretty fun' I mean 'totally genius.' Sharon left me a bunch of yuppi-styler architecture blocks, and I've been having a grand ol' time.
You know who's cool? Sarah Hoibak. It's her birthday soon. 30, dude. You should look her up.
Mother of Fuck. Can't believe that we're getting so fucking old.
This is the girl that I fell in love with a few girls ago. She's in north cal now. I just got meeself a buzznet account to post my genius designs. Now I need a camera. Dude, you're gonna be pissed when I start posting all the time. My posts are going to be so interesting . . . Will this not create tension between us? What ever will we do.
You can start by blowing yourself. (And you probably could. Amazing that this has never come up!) Then shit in your hat and pull it over your ears.
By the way, I like the interesting dialogue between "I just don't answer my phone," and "you wouldn't ignore someone at your screen door." I myself am all about just not answering my phone, and I seldom have this moral dilemma; I very infrequently answer my phone at all. I like to see who called, so I leave it on, and sometimes it's convenient for me to pick up. But most of the time, it buzzes, I'm doing something else, and I simply let it buzz or decline from within my pocket. It's nothing personal, I was just too busy. And because it doesn't ring, it doesn't interrupt the flow of whatever I was doing at the time. I can see you walking down this road, my friend, and I have two words for you, besides the words of welcome: Phantom Buzz. It's freaky, man. That's fucking freaky, man . . .
Finally, how do I post my dictations? This three minute audio blog has been pissing me off, so I just use the lab's dicataphone instead. Last friday's pooched post is sitting dormant. It's also 20 minutes long, contains personal and damning information, and totally moronic. But in the hypothetical, I might want to post it. How would this be achieved . . . ?
Since I've finally gotten around to getting my old password for the university's computer system I thought I'd give this "wireless" thing a try. Wow, it works, who knew? After a few years of unwired roaming in my apartment you'd think the wow factor would be all but dead but, no, it still puts a smile on my face. I'm sitting outside on the grass with the sun on my legs and my torso in the shade (hard to see the screen in the sun) and I'm happily typing away because, well, because I don't have class right now - that's the real happy part - but cripes, the free internet ain't too shabby either.
In fact, I am writing this post from the very spot that I was in yesterday when I took those tree photos that are posted below.. I think I'm going to try and do something interesting with that.. I've another plan, m'friends.. another plan. I am sneaky like that, me and my plans. I just need to try and follow through.
So this is the official first post from meandering-mike. Welcome.
But that becomes painfully aparent when you take a look at some of my buzznet photos. If there is a portrait, chances are something seems just a little off. If there are a few people in the photo than I probably look the odd man out - the guy that seems a little lumpy, not quite shaped right. If it's a huge group photo? - well than that's me, the complete freak.
And what can I do about that?
Nothing you can do about certain things in life but grin and bear it and one of these awful awful things, to me, is grinning and bearing her - the quickly-becoming-bane of my existence - the end-all-be-all-of-why-i-live - the what-if-i-decide-it's-over-i-should-kill-myself girl. Goddamn she's a thorn in my supple side like a knife to butter she cuts without the idea of the wound, she does not realize the damage done.
Fuck.
I hate her in the same breath that I speak her name with love and, well, I just have to ask how long it's worth it before, no, I won't take it anymore. I see from here the disrespect, the disinterest, and you know I'd like to say I don't have the time for this but... let us all be quite honest... I have all the time in the world.
Met some interesting people tonight at YUblog. You know, as if I were trying to spread my roots out from the tiny pot it lives in. Met some interesting people and yammered with Nika about some nonsense and honestly, it was all a bit surreal. Had to run out on them early because I had a show to catch up the street and even there it was a bit strange - people I know in a setting I didn't which made the whole night like a big dream sequence. And as if that weren't enough the icing on the cake was the lineup at my door - at my door - for the bar right below me. I had to go to the front of the line and tell him "Hey man, I'm heading up to the fourth floor". He didn't question me, luckily, and I got right in but a line - at my door. I don't know what I think of that. I don't know how surreal that is. I don't know where that puts me in the big scheme of things, I don't know if she is even thinking about me tonight at all, if even a single thought has flittered across her mind that maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe I mean something to her.
From a long ways away it looks like any other infatuation.. any other person recording their ridiculus crush on the web for strangers to read and sure, maybe, but I can't help but try to believe it means something, like I know this isn't the last or the first but it's important - so important that the way things fall, it could be the last. It could be the one..
But she doesn't want it. That's the bottom line. I gotta ask myself how long I keep myself hogtied into submission before I realize she will never want it. I gotta sit here and think about it.
I gotta sit here and think about it. I gotta sit here and think about it. I gotta sit here and think about it. I gotta sit here and think about it. I gotta sit her and think about it. I gotta sit here and think about it. I gotta sit here and think about it. I gotta sit here and think about it. I gfottsas it hereand thinkg about it. I gotta sitg here and think about it. I tgoatta ait here and think about it. I togbastta sit here and think about it . Igothta sit here and think about it.
God damn.
And the real crisis - I know, you thought it was the girl.. you thought she ruled my life with an iron fist - the real crisis here is that I'm finally taking pictures, real pictures, fun ones that I want to take.. and I just don't have the time to get them up here, frankly. I'd like to but you know, I'm a busy guy. This ain't all for you. I think for myself,
Every once in awhile.
20040901
Went to a BBQ tonight at my friends house. Makes me immensly pleased when I do something like BBQ in the city. Nice to know semi-normal lives can be lead in the city...
But unfortunately we got into a debate. Isn't that what happens at BBQs? It's all friends and fun so people start to let their guard down. The food makes them a little sleepy and the beer makes 'em a little boisterous and the dangerous combination leads to a Bush/Kerry rumble or a flat tax debate or a which-webmail-is-better battle. This debate was none of those, thank god, but I don't think it was really any better. It was the technology debate. It was, *sigh*, the cell phone debate.
"I derno," I said, "the cell phone is nice and all but I hate being so connected. I hate being sewn into society like that."
"Yah, but you can turn it off.." someone replied.
"Yes, but that's just the point. I don't want to - out of politeness."
"That's not impolite at all." someone insisted.
I talked about how shutting one's phone off was really just an extension of what caller id is and caller id is really what the answering machine did a long time ago and the answering machine was really a rudimentary way of screening calls, right? Sure, it had other purposes like leaving a message.. but in the end we are talking about avoiding people.
"So, if I left a message and you never called me back - even though I said hey, it's mike, I need you to give me a call back, it's really important - is that rude," I asked.
"Well, yah if they know you but that's different than.." they rambled till I was able to cut them off.
"That's just it.. there really is no difference. Step back, far enough from the specifics here - farther away than cell phones and email - farther away from rotary dial - farther than even the car.. get away from the technology of the thing - I'm talking social technology" I insisted.
"No, but people will learn after awhile that you don't have your cell phone on during the day and that will be fine." they exclaimed, exasperated.
"NO!" I yelled, "You're completely missing the point! I'm drawing a connection between ignoring a call, not returning a message, turning your phone off - with the idea of someone coming to your house, seeing you through the screen door washing your dishes, and you completely ignoring them as if they weren't talking to you ten feet away - is that rude?!."
"I don't feel like that is a very valid comparison," they complained.
They couldn't see the angle I was coming from. They didn't realize the degradation of our social fabric. They saw these tools, this technology, as a way to connect people when in fact it hasn't been connecting us at all. It's been disconnecting us. We're growing in numbers every second of every day. We're living in larger groups, millions of people crammed into cities, but are we socially any closer?
Ask anyone you know about small towns - real small towns - and everyone will tell you about their experience growing up or how they had a cousin in a place that wasn't even a town, it was a union - and they all tell stories about the man down the street, the crazy neighbour, the old mild delivery man, the pastor, the police chief, the banker.. they'll tell you stories as if these people were people.
Ask anyone you know about big cities - ask about people's neighbours. Ask who lives across the hall. Ask what they do for a living or where their parents live or..
Sure, it's a lot to handle. Bigger city, more people, you only have so much to fit in your head.. but I'm not talking about fitting more people in your head, I'm just talking about giving the people who are already in your head real space. Giving the people you interact with in your life actual meaning, as if they were an actual person.
I'm talking about giving people their identity back.
"Technology is making us more interconnected!" someone piped up as if that weren't the most obvious answer you could retort.
"Yes, maybe it connects each little world we live in - for, truly, we all live in our own little worlds - but those worlds are drifting farther and farther apart. We're all tiny space ships floating around in space and, although we can speak with one another, it is taking longer and longer to actually reach people."
Our spaceships are drifting along dimensions we can't see, maybe the 23rd dimension in string theory (joke) or something, I don't know - one so small that it's as if it's wrapped in on itself and we have no perception, no reality of that dimension.. we can't see ourselves moving, drifting, floating apart because we can only see how much more wired we are to one another."
So I don't want to turn off my cell phone out of respect for everyone - anyone - who might call it. I, by purchasing and using a cellphone, am taking on a responsibility with that phone, as I did when I got my first email account and started replying to my friend's emails because I respect that they are real, live, human beings, and I don't want to take that away from them - or me. I don't want to drift farther in on myself. I don't want to be so wired, so connected, so inundated with technology that all I see in the world is me, me, me, what do I want?
I dunno. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm seeing it all from an upside down angle. Maybe I've twisted my dimensions on themselves and I don't see how amazing it is that people are using this technology to "bring people together". You see, this isn't a rant on technology.. technology is coming ready-or-not. Technology won't stop to let us cross the street, it will plow us right over.. but technology is not who I'm talking about here.
I'm talking about you. I'm talking about people. I'm talking about individual persons and I'm talking about the responsibility we have to use technology wisely or become a race of horrid horrid overly self-indulgent ingrown-mindfucks.
And that is all, frankly.
Bitch.
Fuck.
I hate this place. Fuck sun dude. Every chick I get interested is leaving. It's karma for being such a pussy with chicks in 3rd year. Fuck.
Fcuk.
Fkcu.
Hope you're fucking taking advantage of Le Swimming. Dude, we're so weak. I also, am just patient. What the fuck? I've decided that I'm going to try and get the fuck out of here when I finish and either go to Miami or Mtl. Perhaps in Miami I'll meet latina chicks, which is really what I'm looking for. Someone has already made the oedipal comment.
My grandma and I had dinner with my uncle, who's funny as fuck. He hasn't seen my grandma in years. It was interesting.
I know; my audio blogs are ass. So don't listen to them. No one is forcing you.
Dude. I am mightily impressed with your fohtie hands, if indeed your photos are undoctored originals, and in chronological order. Did you photoshop the puke out of the phone one?
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the guys: philogynist jaime tony - the gals:raymi raspil
