January 29, 2004

Pay it no mind


Words. random words. shaped words. Words giving rise to a shape. Words without the proper shape. Grammar that offends, missed capitalization. Insuffereble spellings. Words here for no reason but their shape. Testing the limits of a blan spave. A blank space. A keyvoard. The typing doesn't matter.

Everybody gotta get help. Everybody need help. No? I don't know what to make of that no. I'm pretty much only happy when either I'm making someone else feel good or when life is just ridiculously, stupidly, grandly and obscenely wonderful on its own. Either of those. And now it's winter when I feel like a big part of myself is sleeping all the time, deep in a great big cave on a mountain, which obviously puts it pretty far away. And just because of the nature of that part that's in hibernation, this tends to preclude the second path to happiness.

For a long time nothing happened.

Then it all got laid out, like the order was something that got careful attention, like it was that way just for me, though of course it was that way for everyone, just for everyone. Why do we make stuff about us? I have no compelling reason to think the cross-sectional perimeter of my chest and back is 40.16", and in fact I think it probably isn't. But so what, I wear t-shirts. It's only personal information if it tells other people something about me. Here's a tidbit: they're size S t-shirts to display both my self-diminishing tendencies and the tightness with which I wear my personality, not to mention the self-aggrandizing tendencies showcased by my appearing only in clothes that fit me perfectly and set me apart as one who knows himself and doesn't worry about fashion.

Funny how you realize it's been said and that the empty white space that flattens the rest of the page is filled up in all of our minds. My way of believing is that it's filled up the same in all of us. My way of seeing tells me different, but I need glasses anyway so hey.

Sometimes you are and sometimes you ain't, and when you aren't in the middle of things the wind is blowing but there isn't any sky, and when you are you know where the weather comes from, at least roughly.

Some to my left, some to my right, some way up ahead who are afraid I'm gone, and some lots behind. And in the middle of that is where I can can, in other words where can is an option, where timshel, if John Steinbeck will allow.

January 26, 2004

Dammit, Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! Part One

I found Court in the bathroom standing in front of the hand dryer this morning with his forehead against the wall and his hands resting on the little shelf on the bottom of the unit. It's a light-activated one that senses when your hands are inside, and for some reason there's a little ledge on the bottom that's just big enough for your hands to rest. Court's eyes were closed and his mouth was open with his teeth showing. With his neck jutting out towards the wall like that, he looked like a mannequin trying to take a bite of the wall.

I've never seen a man sleeping standing up before. I wanted to take a picture, but I never had any film, so I woke him up. He must have somehow found a mysterious balance against the hand dryer that was disturbed the moment he started to move. Used to waking up lying down, he almost toppled over, but the door to one of the shower stalls was there to catch him and he just whacked his elbow against the corner.

"Ow!" was the first thing he said. Actually, it was much more of a noise than that, like a coma victim waking up screaming at an impact that landed three weeks ago. I think he must've been embarrased at how loud it was, but he was tired and mad enough to ignore that.

"Was I here all night?"

His real name isn't anything even like Court, it's Logan. What the hell?

He shook his arm and flexed his hands, once, fast, again, very slowly. He made another noise because this hurt him a lot. His hands were like he'd spent a night out in the cold. The skin between his fingers and down his hand broke up into rough scales, and when he closed his fist I could see red between the cracks on his knuckles.

If Court weren't so lazy he could probably be a jackass.

"Fuck, I think I killed my hand. Fuck. Do you have any like cream for this?" This seemed to represent his awareness of my presence, and like everything else so far, was a stupid thing to say. I'm lucky I even have toothpaste, the way I take care of myself.

Josephine walked in then, passed by us and made for the other wall of sinks. She had a basketful of squeeze tubes and a washcloth in one hand and some sort of feeling showing on her face that I guess was supposed to mean 'good morning, don't talk to me.' She's nice in the afternoon. Court pulled himself away from the stall door to saunter towards her.

"Hey, do you have any hand cream I can use?" he asked, blinking at his reflection in the long mirror.

"Shut up, Court," she said in a voice like she was singing mezzo. Court sounded the way his hand looked. He also seemed to think himself a victim of circumstance.

"What the hell? Come on, I fell asleep at the hand dryer. I think I burned off a whole layer of skin." For emphasis, he thrust his dry and bleeding hands underneath her face, which she had just moistened and was rubbing her creamy stuff onto.

"Ew, fuck off! Alright, just wait a second." The rest of what she said was spoken through the washcloth scrubbing her face. "How do you fall asleep at the dryer, anyway?"

"I was working on a stupid essay and I just came in here to take a piss, and I dunno."

"You're an idiot."

"Yeah, thanks." He managed. Then his whole body suddenly tensed up and his eyes widened, and he seemed more awake than he'd been in weeks. "Oh fuck, I bet I left my door open."

Then he ran out of the room. Josephine dunked her head in the sink, which surprised me. I don't think they cleaned the sink bowls.

From in the hallway, Court yelled "shit!" loud enough to wake the floor, which made me laugh and then yawn. I dried my hands off and left, happy.

- - - - -


Bloggin': My group sucks but my movie's awesome. I'll try to post a web version of it so's youse can have a look. Byron and me spent 4 solid days editing and burning that bastard. Actually, it was more like 3 hours editing it on his sweet li''le computer, during which we loved Macs with all the sunny goodness of our hearts, and then 3 3/4 days trying to get the fucking G4 to burn the goddam disc, during which we hated Mac and all things Apple Computers witht he abiding passion of a thousand white giant suns.

When the G4 works, it's like sweet lovely. When it suddenly doesn't, you're in a whole other world. A world of hurt.

Now, this is an aside, but while I was living in Byron's basement, Leora remarked that I was starting to look like Byron, wif my long nappy hair.

In honor and recognition of this, she suggested we form a band with Caedmon and call ourselves the Three Jesuses. The coincidence is that only moments before, Byron and me had decided on a different, perhaps equally genius name for our band (which I don't recall Caedmon ever having been interested in joining): The Ascending Wowtones.

Later, though, Byron started to seriously warm up to The Three Jesuses. And by seriously, I mean the idea of us forming a band is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. His idea was for us to be some kinda metal band, and the three Jesuses are the Dead one (Caedmon), and the Living and Resurrected ones, which me and Byron would alternate being, 'cause both of them have their own advantages. But it Jesuses grammatically correct? Should it be the three Jesi?

About that band, my idea is that no one in it except Byron will be any damn good with their instrument, and Byron's on bass. No one else with any ability to play in a band, except maybe Dave, will be allowed in. So basically, if you're reading, you can probably join our band. Why not Sign Up in the "Guestbook," also known as the autumn graveyard of broken dreams.

Bloggin2, the Legend Continues: This time a' year it seems everyone's lonely and sucks. What the hell is wrong with you? Oh wait, I'm lonely and I suck too. Fuck.

Know what we need? Disco bowling at the bowlerama across from the Peek Freans cookie factory. Yeeah boooy.

Or something, anyway. I live in a freaking box. And there's snow outside. I demand you come to me. Or have me over at your house. Or come sledding.

January 22, 2004

2 1/2 Thoughts

Your average sympathetic person only really feels anything for people they get along with and thinks that everyone would like, if they got to know them. As for the people smart enough and fringe enough to think, quite reasonably, that no one particularly cares and it's a bit more awkward for people to feel sorry for them than to politely ignore them, they're pretty much left to stew in their own (if they're lucky) blog.

Wanna case in point? Go feel sad for a bum. Tell them so. Fill up their life with the transcendental light of your humanism. Cheer them the fuck up.

This is just an example, of course, and not really what I'm basing my opinion on.

And mind you I'm talking averages.

The end


Got time? Here's the script of The Matrix. I think someone likes William Gibson a little too much. I dare you to read the whole thing.

A tantalizing taste: the Wachowski Bros.' favorite word is 'electric.'

What a piece of ass. I didn't realize how much the studio made that movie. They're pretty much solely responsible for anything good. Really.

The end


This is Andra's favorite love song.

January 21, 2004

The Tiger

Once upon a time a
little boy stood next
to a pink frog in the
land of Ompf. The
frog was a princess.
Her name was
Toadabeth.
"Clean my room," she
told the little boy,
"you are bothering
me." He did not
clean her room.
Then the Tiger came.
He was strong and
hungry.
"Give me some food!"
he told Toadabeth.
"You always tell me
to give you food,"
she said to him, "why
don't you go
shopping?" So he
did.
He came back just
when the little boy
was starting to get
tired from standing
still all day. He
stood staring at the
horizon that never
lived, with eyes of
the same color, that
soaked in it. He
thought the wind was
just a shiver he felt
on his skin. The sky
went in forever.
Then the Tiger came
back with chicken.
"Don't eat me don't
cut me open and pull
me out, I am
chicken," she said,
but the Tiger was too
hunggry.
He cut her open and
pulled her out and
squished her squishy
parts in his teeth and
picked her stringy
parts from between his
teeth before he
swallowed them.
The little boy stood
there but the food
smelled so good he
had to have some.
Toadabeth jumped into
the river and paddled
away underwater. The
little boy chased
her.

I wrote that story for a teleprompter. It was a little application, you downloaded it, it turned your computer into a teleprompter. So how could I resist? And I had to test it out by writing it some lines to prompt telematically. Only now that it's a teleprompter, it's not as much fun. I miss the days when it was a computer, before the metamorphosis. I have to write all my work by hand now, and I can't play games or chat. I just sit here, getting teleprompted. Which is still pretty sweet, but it lacks something. Right now I'm blogging the old fashioned way, without the electric thrill of digital technologie. I wonder how long it takes to update by mail.

In response to Leora's INCESSANT HARRANGUING (I'll probably change that when I realize it's not nice, but you should get used to the fact that this page is bloated with lies), I got a Livejournal. I'm not gonna use it. Originally, the intent was to create it just so my's Livejournal buddies can link to this page through their Friends page, but my journal turned out so bad that I think I'll be forced to euthanize it shortly. I'll keep it up for a little while for your viewing pleasure, here.

In the meantime, I gotta learn to just go to bed like normal people, instead of doing all this crap.

January 18, 2004

He's Like The Flash!

Wow, Byron responded to that last post in under a minute. Like, he practically went back in time to answer it.

January 17, 2004

It's Like You've Known Me My Whole Life!

Does it say when you have to rotate their tires?

It is as though the entirety of Andreiety is all right here, an open book for you to judge. Here is my life, my big messy life all here, what a mess. For there is only one of me, and the contents of my heart are all right here. It is like I have posted my heart on the internet. It is not my blog you are reading. No no no. It is my heart. Kathump kathump. That was my heart beating, pulsing with the life that is my soul. Pulse, little soulful heart, for you are on the internet. Indeed.

Well I don't know what that was a reaction against, let's chalk it up to, er, suppressed rage. Cause Michael Jackson just makes me so darn angry.

So I've been trying for a couple of days now to ask Byron for a favor, but it just ain't happening. May surprise those of you in whose experience I'll say just about fuckin anything, but I hate asking for favors. Canna do it. Not things that actually really are favors, as opposed to tiny little services like bringing an extra something or buying me a slice of pizza.*

So, Byron, favor number one, could you teach me how to ask for favors?

*And if ANYone gripes that I don't appreciate pizza-slice-buying, shame on you. I accidentally wrote shane on you. So Shane on you too. Big n hairy greasy Shane.




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January 15, 2004

Aw Man, I'm Sick of Gettin Hassled

Now all these heroin detox ads keep showing up at the top of my page. "Heroin Hurts You, your loved ones, finances, Life . . call us." "Help for Heroin Addiction"

You people gotta stop saying heroin on my site, you're giving me a bad rap. yo.

- Heroin
I Was Just Coincidentally The 2004th View of My Blog!

So, buh bye.
Under Pressure

Four cups of beige coffe, cut in half with milk and then blended with enough instant cocoa to kill a four year-old child. Or four one year-old children. That's what kept me awake for the first half of last night's essaystravaganza. After that I relied on froot loops. I went through many a froot loop. After I got tired of that I just kept telling myself I hate myself, so staying up all night writing an essay on some poems was fun. But I didn't believe me.

At one point early on I did a word count, and I was up to 667. Know what the last word was, the one that pushed it over? God.

Okay.

Last night didn't just suck for me though, last night Toronto was colder than Pluto. I heard at least five ambulances drive past. It was very distracting. They should turn off their sirens when they go by my window.

I've been up all night though, with a two-hour nap this morning, so I'm gonna keep this short because I no doubt cannot write anything worth reading in my current state. Except this: Well Max, I forgot to say it on tuesday, and then yesterday an essay tried to kill me (it pulled a knife on me when I thought I had it pinned), but now I'm gonna say what's gotta get said.

Postmaster? I'm the Postmaster GENERAL!

- the end

. . . But for how long?

January 14, 2004

Sledding 101

Alright, the first thing everyone should know about "Sledding" is that that's just the vulgar common name for the activity. As of last Sunday its new scientific name is "pain beyond reckoning." And there's an interesting story behind that name.

Sledding is like normal pain, but much, much faster. I was out with Andra and her brother Victor at a big hill that forms part of the western slope of the Don Valley. Victor is in Engineering Science at U of T, which means two main things. First of all, for the purposes of any activity involving numbers, he is smarter than you. Mind you, this doesn't rule out the possibility of him jaywalking in front of a speeding bus and being squished to a Prego-like goo. That activity does not involve any numbers.

The second thing is that, paradoxically, even though as I've said, I wouldn't necessarily trust him to operate a traffic light, he's good at eyeballing things. They teach whole courses on making educated guesses, because engineers often need to do that when they're building bridges and airplane wings and whatnot, and it's a very bad thing to guess wrong in those circumstances.

Well, Victor looked at the distance Andra travelled and the time it took, and after doing a couple metric conversions in his head he concluded she was going at an average speed of sixty kilometers per hour. And that's the average speed, keeping in mind that she starts from zero, so her final speed is actually a fair bit higher than that. Well I hope you can see where this is going. The hint is, I'm the one complaining about pain.

So Andra and Victor, both of whom were skeptical at the sight of my 1950s era Flexible Flyer wooden sled, really came around to it once they realized that its bare stainless steel runners, worn smooth by half a century of proper use, made it go faster than you can legally drive a car on residential streets. And bear in mind that this slope was crowded with dumb little kids trotting around all over the place in their snowsuits which, albeit puffy, were hardly sufficient protection against a mass of wood, steel, and flesh barrelling down the hill with unstoppable momentum.

We also had some crazy carpets, and me and Andra were having fun with those when Vic announced he wanted to trade the sled for something slower. I should have understood from his bone-white face and uncontrollable trembling that something was not quite right, but I guess I figured it was just the cold.

Once on the sled, I was down the hill in a flash. Well, more of a blur. I barely had time to think "hey, this is faster than I thought . . . " before I hit the mother of all bumps. Actually, I don't know if "bump" gives you as clear an idea as "rock-hard ice outcropping the size of a small bear" might.

The actual collision occured at such high speed that I could not capture any detail. All I knew was that suddenly there was no sled beneath me, I was in midair, and my ass really really hurt. Hurled by the impact, I was in midair long enough to organize my thoughts and conclude that I'd hit the giant bump square-on with my tailbone. Or in other words, Owwwwwwwwch, Fuck! The sled kept going without me - I still don't know how I got thrown off of it but it managed to keep sliding. It travelled about 20m further than I did. The impact with the bump was hard enough to bend one of the steel runners, which is now sort of s-shaped. But it still goes just as fast. It just doesn't steer as well.

So basically, sledding is fun. Basically is my word. I invented basically.

I also found this when I was looking for sled pictures. Basically, I think it's pretty hilarious.

January 13, 2004

Aargh.

I'm fucking tired. I was just treated to a blog soap opera between two people I know, meanwhile someone else is pissed in my general direction, and all the while I'm just sort of in between and off to one side.

Stupid internet. Go away, internet.

I have to seriously consider doing either more, or much, much less with my time.
Shoot Up, It's Good for the Flu

The first sample's free . . .

Byron is cool. Finbar is cool.

Finbar is a lobster who plays drums. Byron is not. He plays keyboards. He's still not a lobster, though. He wrote this, and if that baseline doesn't qualify him for a bad ass name like Papa Groove Skank, I don't know what does.

Update: Yeah I know he only wrote the baseline. Now you know too. Now quit complaining and admit it's good.

Meanways, a sketchy, quasi-reliable source informs me that the word "heroin" was originally a trademark of the Bayer corporation, the people who make aspirin. And it turns out the drug they were calling heroin was - heroin. Though you probably know it by the "street" name diacetylmorphine, or the completely self-explanatory C21H23NO5. Seems that from 1898 to 1910 it was an over-the-counter medicine marketted as "non-addictive morphine substitute and cough medicine for children."

And speaking of bullshit, my essay's comin along fine. It's about poems.

If it hadn't been for the Heroin Act of 1924, the pharmaceutical version might still be around. Extra-strength Heroin. Heroin for Kids. Non-Drowsy Heroin.

Maybe it would be the itchy sneezing scratchy coughing swollen bloated bleeding spasm shock and headache so you can shut up and go to sleep medicine, instead of that other stuff.

Speaking of which, good night.

Yes, the address on that ad is on Stone St.

January 10, 2004

And How!

Well, Luke finally wrote something new on his blog, and now I'm writing something new on mine. First of all, you still all suck for not sending me your christmas lists.

Leora knows about my blog now, having heard about it from Finbar, who I like to call Finbarbarian cause Finbar makes him sound like an elf or something. And Finbar ain't no elf. He's a composer. That's not his best song, but it's what I got. It's still a good song.

And speaking of Byron, who, due to his job prospect as the Apple IT tech at an all-girls school, I now call the Mac Daddy, he's told his Very Last Anecdote.

Yeah Right. He'll probably be back to work at 9 tomorrow. Nah, I'm just razzing him. I mean, ya gotta have a sense of humor. Right?

People hear about me every once in a while. I don't know where they hear it. For me, pepper I put it on my plate. I don't blogvertise, but I do make up dumb words every once in a while.

Like Typonese. Or asimiular. I wonder what Kate's up to. Last I heard, she hates the cold, and was gonna write a fantasy novel about a computer science student. Which sounds like a nerdy version of The Longest Journey. Which I never played, but god was the demo annoying.

This is what I'm doing instead of a two-thousand word essay. Two thousand words is a lot.

One. Two, three four five six. Seven - eight nine ten eleven twelve - thirteen fourteen, fifteen sixteen, seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty. The higher you go, the longer the words take to type. Eighteen-hundred sixty-two.

Well, I've been away from the blog for a while, and it was nice to keep my distance and relax a bit, but that's enough of that. It's time to move back in. Willy just asked me a coupla days ago if I was still in California.

Only in spirit, Will, only in spirit. Well, actually, it feels like I never left. Someone is going to Alberta or something. I forget who, but she said she'd bring me back a cowboy hat. I hope so.

I want a cowboy hat. I will wear it with my shirt and pants and shoes. Howdy.

Boot camp got cancelled. Now the kids go to jail.

Nn ts Nn ts Nn ts then end.

January 06, 2004

This Blog is a Fraud!

Heh, I'm like Homestarruner, in that the last two entries weren't funny and I haven't updated in a while. But now with all that annoying Christmas whatnot taken care of, I can get back on the old blog horse.

First off, the whole send me your christmas list idea turned out to not work at all, for which I can only blame myself for trying. Second of all, well, there is no second of all, until I come up with something new.

Which I will.

Later.