You just won't know until it comes to get you.
I found something out about myself: I write best when I'm supposed to be doing something else. Setting aside time to work on an essay doesn't work, at least not for the first draft. I need to book something that I don't want to do, then work on my essay instead of doing that thing.
It's not just for white-collar professionals, bar scum, and homeless people any more.
Today is the last day of classes, also referred to as "bermuda shorts day" which is code for "drink yourself blind in public day." The space underneath my seat in Linguistics (an 11am class) was littered with several Kokanee cans and a small entourage of Black Label. A girl in the back row ran out of class suddenly to puke in the garbage can outside and the police (city police, not campus security) had to come because she blacked out after a minute of puking. When class ended she was conscious again, but was still throwing up intermittently into the garbage can while the police talked to her. A girl getting off the train had a bag from the local liquor store in one hand, shoes and an extra bra in the other.
Hot damn, I'm glad my day ends at noon.
So, here's my idea for this summer as was briefly mentioned a few days ago. I'd like to organize a write-in. We'll have a location set up in the city where people can show up during the day for the express purpose of writing a letter or two or twenty to the members of Parliament, the Prime Minister, and the Governor General. The subject of all these letters will be a petition to have the salary of government officials lowered to the range of 20-30k/year. The goal is that by the end of the day every MP will have received at least one letter, if not several. The reason for this has some obvious ties to money flow, but more importantly to the motivation to political office. Too many people go into politics as a career, seeing it as a mer alternative to working in the private sector as a lawyer or consultant or business professional. This is not acceptable if we are to call ourselves any kind of democracy. Politics is not a job, its a stewardship.
So, this bug refuses to pack its bags and leave. It has more than worn out its welcome, I must say. I find it funny how I'll have trouble getting to sleep at night, but when morning comes around I have no problem sleeping in until noon. So, I'm making today the "act like you're healthy" day, doing all the things that I would normally do if I were healthy, regardless of how dizzy it makes me.
You will come back within yourself
You can be art when we melt
And I will know what you were for
I say we’re leaving
There ain’t nothing here at all
Another day, a week, the mall
And baby if I was in demand
You would be mind
Someday this place it going to burn
Is your whole life in there waiting?
Someday your head is going to turn and you’ll realize
I’m missing, do you realize?
You will come back
Convince yourself you can stay alive
And wait for me
And I will know what this was for
And I’ll say we’re leaving
There ain’t nothing here at all
Another month, a year that’s all
So you can tell them I’m coming
And hell’s coming with me
Someday this place is going to burn
Is your whole life in the waiting
Someday their heads are going to turn and they’ll realize
You’re missing
We are there
It's the perfect time of year
Somewhere far away from here
I feel fine enough, I guess
Considering everything's a mess
There's a restaurant down the street
Where hungry people like to eat
I could walk but I'll just drive
It's colder than it looks outside
It's like a dream you try to remember
But it's gone
Then you try to scream
But it only comes out as a yawn
When you try to see the world
Beyond your front door
Take your time, is the way I rhyme gonna make you smile
When you realize that a guy my size might take a while
Just to try to figure out what all this is for
It's the perfect time of day
To throw all your cares away
Put the sprinkler on the lawn
And run through with my gym shorts on
Take a drink right from the hose
And change into some drier clothes
Climb the stairs up to my room
Sleep away the afternoon
Like a dream you try to remember
But it's gone
Then you try to scream
But it only comes out as a yawn
When you try to see the world
Beyond your front door
Take your time is the way I rhyme gonna make you smile
When you realize that a guy my size might take a while
Just to try to figure out what all this is for
Pinch me, pinch me, cause I'm still asleep
Please God tell me that I'm still asleep
On an evening such as this
It's hard to tell if I exist
If I pack the car and leave this town
You'll notice that I'm not around
I could hide out under there
I just made you say "underwear"
I could leave but I'll just stay
All my stuff's here anyway
Like a dream you try to remember
But it's gone
Then you try to scream
But it only comes out as a yawn
When you try to see the world
Beyond your front door
Take your time is the way I rhyme gonna make you smile
When you realize that a guy my size might take a while
Just to try to figure out what all this is for
Pinch me
Try to figure out what all this is for
Pinch me
Try to see the world beyond your front door
Pinch me
Try to figure out what all this is for
I'm quite thoroughly sick right now. I'm dizzy, somewhat nauseous, feverish, tired, sore, yet unable to really get some good sleep. The neat thing about the hallucinations that you have while you're feverish is that you have no real way of gauging how much is fact, fiction, or alternate reality. Earlier today I watched myself go form being a confused teenager (a redundancy, I still say) to being a drug dealer.
Made some minor changes. Finally got rid of the annoying bullets. Have a big idea for the summer that I'll talk about later when I have something drawn up.
This morning I bought a chocolate bunny left over from Easter for 75% off. The sucker is over 400g and cost a little over a dollar, but I was still finding myself debating wether or not it was worth it. It's funny, just the sense of perspective. Even though the thing weighs more than four times as much as a normal chocolate bar and costs only cents more, because it's sitting next to bunnies that are in the range of 25-75 cents. Eventually I realized the absurdity of the situation and bought it, along with a copy of Saved that I found in the video department for just under 9$ and a comb to replace the dozen or so I've lost. Afterwards I shoved my monstrous bunny in my backpack and went to see Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. As I was walking to the theatre form the truck I found a dollar on the ground. I love the early movie because they're so slack about security. I brought my big backpack right past several signs explicitly prohibiting such actions, not to mention the contraband rabbit.
While waiting for the movie to start an ad ran for a local lending agency that lauded the fact that they'll give you a loan regardless of your credit rating and that "you don't even need a job." The initial portion of the ad featured a man bragging to his wife about getting the loan in spite of his bad credit and jobless situation. I find it ridiculous that we're coming to rapidly accept the "something for nothing" society. It's a byproduct and reflexive offspring of the "gotta have it all" mentality. Every time something swings to an extreme, the opposite end of the spectrum breeds its own version. We see it in politics, the extremity of Rumsfeld re-bred in Michael Moore, and in religion, the bizarre antics of the Born Again's duplicated in the fatalism of Secularism. Excessive, pointless industry, the grind to have everything no matter what the cost has produced a faction of laze and indolence best represented by the lottery ticket. The New Dream is waking up to no job and a Ferrari in the driveway.
The worst part about going to concerts easily has to be the fact that you get home smelling like a bar. Of course, the clothes you wear to a concert are often, by definition, some of your favorites. Even though you know you're going to smell like crap afterwards, and you're going to sweat a lot, and probably get tossed around a bit, if not had some vile liquid spilled/tossed/vomited on you, you want to look cool in case you run into someone else cool who isn't with another person who looks cooler than you. Even if you have no intention of picking someone up, this is still a concern (it's all about potential futures, not about realities). As part of the cool, you also want to be declaring to the band your allegiance to their sphere of sub-culture. You don't go to Jann Arden wearing Slayer, or anyone wearing Rush, it's strange and insulting in a way. So you dress your coolest, then come home smelling like a construction worker, a smell that's fine if you're in your construction worker clothes, but isn't something you want permeating you cool clothes which you may need to attract cool people, or cool employers.
I realize that the smell is probably the least of tobacco's evils, but I forgot to do my laundry. Where'd I leave the Fabreeze, or whatever they call that stuff...
So, made some modifications to the template on account of Tim's complaints about readability. I rarely ever see it on any monitor but my iBook, so i've been largely unawares of how bad it was to read on other peoples' monitors. So I did some tweaking and arrived at the current blueberry scheme. which I am liking.
I watched the Juno awards last night, though "watched" is misleading and "had it on the TV while I did other things in the same room" is more accurate. The fact that Billy Talent was awarded Best _________ is a sad commentary on the state of Canadian music, the running in-line advertisements were depressing ("this award is sponsored by Doritos" was honestly one of them), but most of their performances were decent, Feist caught my attention with her one-girl-and-an-electric-guitar thing, and the Tragically Hip were at their strangest. That's really why I didn't turn it off in the first place: The Hip. I really am a massive fan of this band. Well, not to the point of stalkerdom, but I certainly geek out over their music and performances. Incidentally (though really directly related) my favorite part of the (all around amazing) Wil concert I attended to Friday night was their homage to The Tragically hip and their induction into the Canadian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a rendition of "Grace Too." The Hip's Performance last night, coincidentally, was one of their signature mash-together-medlies fusing "Fully, Completely" with "Grace Too" including several segues of Gord Downy threatening his microphone. There's something about live music that has the potential to exceed anything recorded. No album can carry the same quantity-for-quality of entertainment as watching Tegan and Sara insult each other for 10 minutes in-between songs. Wil's record bears only passing resemblance to his live act. Even the Wild Strawberries' most mediocre songs are fused with an inescapable energy on stage. You don't even need to have heard of the band before to have one of the best nights of your life of watching Wide Mouth Mason. Matt Good's alterations to old material often reach levels of brilliance that ought to be captured in the studio, but may very well escape the capacity of those machines (I'm thinking of the slow version of "Hello Time Bomb" in specific).
Then there's The Hip. Existence demands that you stand up and squeal with glee, hoot, holler, and cheer as the guitar solo in the middle of "Fully, Completely" winds down to a gentle throbbing while Gord Downy dances across the stage for a few second before piercing the room with "She says I'm tragically hip..."
Or maybe it's just me.
