here’s the thing

I’m just not comfortable with people know so much about my life, or anything about my life for that matter, without at least talking to me a little bit.

I tried being honest, but creepers creeped me out, and I was losing things to talk about when not behind this stupid glow of this terrible machine.

I tried outright lying and giving half truths, but that line between real and fake had even me confused and I started to lose my mind (Just a little). I felt like that asshole who cried wolf too many times, without all the nice flute and clarinet accompaniment.

The only thing left to try is to try doing nothing.

I thought this blog would be a nice way to collect and organize my thoughts, but now it only seems like a chore that is alienating me from them.

Goodbye blog, maybe I will see you again sometime.

it’s a goddamn roller coaster

Life is just some stupid fucking rollercoaster. It will have it’s ups for sure. Then the downs that make your gut wrench. And the loop d’ loops that just mess everything up. You have nothing to do but realise all you can do is know it’s going to go back up, and scream like fucking crazy and have a hell of a time doing it.

With that said, roller coasters scare the shit out of me.

random recent thoughts

I wonder how the hard working people who stand outside in the cold and sometimes rain every morning handing out the free Metro papers, that you can get from the containers on every corner, feel when they see that literally every newspaper recycling can is overflowing with unread papers. I imagine they feel like that Italian native fellow who sees all the garbage on the road. I do my part and ignore the crap out of them.

A great thing about having a great beard is having other people recognize you have a great beard. The worst part is how it’s the only thing people ever want to talk about.

I’ve been working out a bit. Lifting weights and crap. Now a slight rash is starting to show up on my left arm. I think I’m allergic to muscle.

It’s odd how people keep coming to me for relationship advice. I suck at relationships, any advice I have to give will probably make you suck at relationships.

I need more apple juice.

This blog sucks lately. Call it a sophomore slump.

dogear villian

Early morning on the train, a book in my hand opened to the first dogeared, a song about wild hearts playing softly in my ear and my body gently swaying with the tram and throng of half awake, commuters mostly indifferent to their surroundings. The light was barely peaking over the downtown skyline, so the dim luminescent lighting provided by the shaky train had to make do.

A passage in the book read:

Finally, he spoke: “In a garden,” he said, “growth has its season. There are spring and summer, but there are also fall and winter. And then spring an summer again. As long as the roots are not severed, all is well and all will be well.”

And I chuckled to myself, or at least, I thought I chuckled to myself. Apparently it escaped my lips and drew momentary life before being snuffed out by the grinding of the train wheels against a slow turn into a tunnel. The chuckle brought attention toward me, I glanced up and saw looks that seemed to say “Who does he think he is? Enjoying the morning?” These mild and perplexed looks I was able to shrug off easily as most mornings my pre-caffeinated brain shares a similar bluntness. One look I couldn’t shrug off though. An older lady, shooting daggers as if I had just burst out laughing while reading the book of revelations, sitting only a few feet away with a cane I’m sure she would have gladly traded for a switch wouldn’t turn her gaze away. I shifted uncomfortably around the metal pole I held in one hand for balance so that my back faced the lady. It’s much easier to ignore a threat from behind, but not easy enough. I could feel her watching me. Judging me from the outside in, and if I had to guess, she didn’t like what she saw. Still I pressed on, reading about honest garden stories mistaken for metaphors.

Finally, my stop came. I quickly finished the paragraph I was on, knowing I would have to reread it lately and gently folded the pages corner into a triangle to mark my progress. Walking down the street off the train, I thought about lighting a smoke, but the unappreciative glares on the train filled me up on public disdain for the day, when I heard a voice over my headphones.

“Young man!” It snarled.

The voice belonged to the old lady on the train. Evidently she had been trying for some steps to get my attention.

I was not looking forward to whatever was coming next. I faked a smile, a glorious one with teeth and charm. It did no good. No good.

“I was watching you from the moment you got on the train. I find it so rare for young men to be reading this days. But how you treated that book was disgusting. You pulled it out of your back pocket, unmarked you dogeared page and folded it in half as if it were a newspaper. You laughed at the words inside like they meant nothing, and when done, you dogeared another page before sticking it in your back pocket to walk away proudly to show off to everyone you can read and disrespect someones hard work all at the same time.”

I had no time to defend myself after the unexpected shock. She was mad at me because I didn’t read right. Upset because I found humour in the pages that someone had worked so hard on to inspire, but mostly to entertain. Furious because I treated my (friends) property with what I consider to be the highest form of respect. It’s my opinion that books are not posters. They are not some ornament to be carefully dissected with needle-nose pliers and a jewelers eye. Respect is given not by being read, but being devoured. Keeping them close to you so you never lose an opportunity to make a mark on the book, as it has done on you, by folding pages instead of cramming some foreign object, separate from anything to neatly mark the page.

I wanted to tell her all this, to make her understand that I am a devourer of books, because it is what the books want. “It’s not enough to just read!” I wanted to say, grasping her by the shoulders as if in some trance. I wanted to plead to her that it’s what books want, what they need!

But instead I lit a smoke and walked away, mumbling an apology, and when I was sure I was out of earshot, chuckled again at the passage, and thought about the roots of my opinions and how no season, no matter how severe, could ever sever them.

dear sleep

I understand your need to be elusive, and I appreciate the fact that most things worthwhile you need to work for. I do, I really do and I even respect you for it. But. This is starting to get a little ridiculous.

I’m going to start a sleep log, and if I don’t end up sleeping enough hours per week, let’s say 36 which, let’s be honest, is giving you a lot of leeway, I will thrash you.

I will thrash you so hard in the face.

pints of guinness make us stronger

Hungover a bit. Not enough to prevent me from finishing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance today. Good book, highly recommended. As I told a girl I work with, half sincerely, “it changed my life.”

She told me to shut up.

I didn’t listen and blabbered on about mountains and recited my favourite quote from the book. “Now is always nothing less than the totality of everything there is.”

Sure. Sounds good, but I’d kind of like to turn my brain off for awhile and actually get a Quality rest. I decided I would start in on a beat up novel picked up from a second hand book store on the weekend. Some solid fiction will get my thoughts off high gear.

Within the first 30 pages a squirrel has been burnt alive, an old lady who never washes died in her rocking chair, and then was subjected to an accidental funeral pyre as her shack burned to the ground, a young boy was savagely beaten by a mob of ignorant and scared townsfolk, buried up to his neck in the cold ground for a night, and sent down a river, by the same friendly townsfolk, on a giant catfish bladder.

I’m getting the idea that this isn’t light fiction.

Maybe I should have went with a second reading of the Shatner autobiography.

what the hell is happening to me

I think I’m at a point in life where I want some answers, and life just keeps getting stranger the more I search for answers. Nothing makes any sense. And I’m talking about all this crap way to much. I probably sound like a damn philosophy major who has never opened a philosophy text book. It has to stop. I want to get back to writing about the dumb crap in my life. And there is plenty. Like, just the other week I had drinks with friends, we talked about nothing but design, books, music and video games, and then proceeded to get way too many free drinks at a certain bar. But no, I’d rather talk about the rotten feeling I get whenever I see one of those dumb lulu lemon bags with the “inspirational” sayings I always see. My favourite is “the search for happiness is the cause of all unhappiness.” Complete bullshit by the way. What, you just want people to wallow on their couches watching reruns of E.R and just wait for happiness to magically appear in their laps. No way, you gotta work for that, but of course it’s not in the destination…

Fuck it. I’m doing it again.

I think I’m broken, and all this lulu lemon talk is making me want to do some downward facing dogs.

fathers of our fathers of our fathers, etc

This world saved,
by the blood of enemies to a thought

Handing it down
our fathers fathers said,
“Look! Freedom! Future! Beauty!”

We took one look and said,
“We hope you got a gift receipt.”

And checked our e-mail.

Tags: genealogy, ingrates, poetry, sass, technology, war

that guy part 2: that girl

Quiznos again. Those poor bastards who work there, never saw the angst ridden teenage girl coming.

“Um. Excuse me, I would like MY sandwich please”
“Oh. Alright.”
“Yeah. I ordered the so and so, which doesn’t come with lettuce. This HAS lettuce. Retards”

A bit later:
“fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck blah blah blah”

Later still:
“Ugh, and now we have to wait behind all of THESE people again.”

I couldn’t handle it. Who thinks it’s okay to talk to people like this? Other than me apparently,

“I’m sorry little girl, pardon me for asking, but does your father not give you enough attention at home?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, it’s just that in my experience, girls such as yourself, who poke holes in odd places in their face which is caked on with ugly whore make-up usually don’t get enough attention at home.”
“WHAT”
“It’s just that, well adjusted people don’t take out petty problems, like getting a wrong sandwich, which by the way, happens to everyone at some point, out on people who are trying their hardest to make an honest living. I mean, look at this kid who is making the sandwiches. Sure, he is looking a little lost, but it’s clearly his first shift ever. Cut him some slack.”
“I got the wrong fucking sandwich, these retards couldn’t…”
“Yes yes, I know. Massive injustice. Everything is wrong in the world. Everyone is out to get you. Make them pay. Go get more dumb piercings and clown make up. All that fun stuff. Tell you what, grow the fuck up.”
“Whatever freak, this shit isn’t worth it.”

With that she stormed off and I couldn’t help but feel the freak comment was directed at me. Or my beard.

Meanwhile, back at the stand, the workers were staring at me with confusion and wonder. I wasn’t sure if they viewed me as some kind of god like savior, or a jackass who just chased away a customer. I had to say something.

“Angry teenage girls. They are civilizations versions of sharks, quick to show their teeth, but once you punch them in the face they will back off for good.”

More blank stares.

“Um. Metaphorically speaking… of course…”

I quickly took my sandwich and left. I guess it was wrong of me to think they would congratulate me on a job well done, and give me a secret stash of coupons entitling me to free and delicious toasted subs. I was already working on the line I would have said, “Huh, I guess this is what it feels like to be a superhero.”

99 fears but a bitch ain’t one

I’ll never admit it, and if anyone asks, this post never happened, or else, but a lot of crap scares me. You have the basics that at the end of the day mean nothing, crowded elevators and spaces in general, heights, clowns, male nipples, the film that builds up on tomato soup if left too long, unkempt beards, girls, tornados, mutant creatures living in the sewer, Sylvester Stallone, and the fact that one day the world will suddenly end before I get the chance to ruin it for my children. But, like I said, those are small fries, I got real ones as well. You know the kind. The ones that keep you awake at night and confine you to your bed in the morning.

But I decided today to stop being such a little bitch about it all. Even if all my crushing fears do come to pass, I figure I still got a few good years left in me before I let them completely ruin and devastate me, leaving me a broken and bitter shell of a man who’s only happy thoughts come from outdated memories of times thinking of a better future.

Which is really what growing old is all about.

Which is really what my fears are all about.

The future is the scariest thing. You have uncertainty, mixed with hopes and the nagging suspicion that all these various hopes are just a rouse to make you crash even harder when everything fails.

Which is really what this is all about.

In an effort to fight these fears I’ve been telling myself nice things at night to get to sleep. Like religion. I’ve been telling myself about religion. Not the starting wars religion. Not even the helping neighbours religion. Just my religion. It started when I heard some hippy asshole tell some girl he desperately wanted to “be one with” that he believed in God, but not the God in the sense of some all knowing bearded gentlemen in the sky, but rather as some unseen force that moves through everything all at once, meaning everything is part of everything else. Him, her, the sidewalk and the slumbering bees. Even me. It was all a load of shit, so I said to them, ever the cynic, “That’s a load of shit.”
“It’s okay man, I forgive you.”
“Your ideas are stupid.”
“No worries.”
“Oh, there are some worries alright.”
I’m still not sure what I was trying to accomplish, but at least I can walk away knowing that I finally put an end to that stupid phrase. But, since then I’ve been thinking about what the unwashed man was saying. And it’s nice. Nice in the way that joining a club that shares your passions is nice. Nice in the way that seeing family for the first time in months feels, before spending too much time with them. Nice in the sense of community. To belong, to be a part of something. It took me a while believe a word of it, but it was always a pleasant thought to think about when I find fears creeping up on me. But it’s not enough. Sure, now when I walk along the street, I imagine some invisible energy taking steps with me, while cushioning the sidewalk against my feet. Sure, I see a bus in the distance and I picture myself already sitting down, but it’s not enough. I still have a nagging question pulling at my head. “What’s the point though?” There is all this energy, all this connection and community, but what does it all mean?

I found a solution to this that I like to think about as well. There is no hippy playing hackey sack story to explain how I came up with this. In fact, I didn’t even come up with it. I stumbled across it recently while hitting random links on wikipedia on a night with nothing better to do. It was the theory of absurdism. I can’t remember the whole thing verbatim, and I don’t want to. After reading through it once, I came upon an understanding that made sense to me. The end doesn’t matter and to think that it does is absurd. The point behind the energy in the sidewalk has no relevance. There is no meaning in it. It is just there. I guess, when not fully explained, this seems bleak and could give rise to a thought like, “well, why the hell have a point, if the point doesn’t matter?”

It doesn’t say there is no point however. Just that there is no point in the end. The point comes in the journey for the end. There is meaning on the search for the message.

The meaning isn’t that there is electricity in the way I walk, in the way everyone walks. It isn’t in the fact that we are all one. The meaning is that I believe this.

It’s like searching for the meaning of life. There will never be an answer to this. Any answer would be absurd at any rate. But, the search itself will have meaning and capable of finding answers to questions never even asked and eventually just a speculation about why we are here. I have a speculation about this myself.

The meaning of life is to live.

Which kind of makes my fears that really mean something pointless.

Meaningless.