The Rudolph Red-Nosed Rap

It is the night before Christmas, and I swear to whatever you hold holy that I'm not writing a ripoff holiday poem.  It literally is the night before Christmas.

I spent the day thusly:
- A haircut was procured, largely as a present to my mother.  I'm looking good.
- Drinks and Jenga were had/played for several hours.  My father was new to the game, but plays like a champion dick.
- Food.  Food, food, more food, then food mixed with food to make other food.
- Cleanup and drinks.
- New fleece pyjama pants (it's a tradition.  My sister is in head-to-toe reindeers.  Rudolph is her bitch.).
- Terrible tv xmas specials.

Christmas is kind of awesome this year.  Just sayin.'

Fro fro

Hello, Internet. 


It's been a while, how are you?  I'm fine, been taking exams.  Say hi to your mother for me.


I've just had the strangest dream.  At least, the end of it was something strange, that's really all I remember. Here goes:

In my high school gymnasium, and through the healing power of dodgeball:  I, a black kung-fu-master-gym-teacher just helped a flamboyantly gay kid and a little black kid with a semi-progressive physical handicap come to terms with themselves and deal with their anger at the world.

Oh, and it was 1969.  Racial overtones were definitely part of the dream.  Should have seen the afro I was rockin'.

I woke up cry-laughing because the disabled kid and I had just had a serious heart -to-heart and I, in the process of showing him the brighter side, cracked a joke about how he'd have an edge when it came to picking up girls because he was going to have wheels way before his brother and his friends.  

That's right.  In my dream, I made a wheelchair joke to a little handicapped boy.   Luckily, it went over well.

Everyone Loves Their Own Brand

My brother and I are currently involved in a heated discussion over text message (this is in and of itself rather amusing, given how many years he held out against text messaging as something completely unnecessary).  The discussion revolves around wether or not he ever locked the windows in our old Honda Accord and farted, then giggled his butt off as we attempted to vacate the premises or ventilate the area, all the while moving at highway speeds.  

He texted me to ascertain if, in fact, the car even had a master control switch for the windows.  It did.  It was a child-safety button on the driver door, grouped in with the rest of the window controls, mirror controls and door locks.  I confirmed that yes, it did have this device, and then volunteered the fact that he used to think it was hilarious to push it, break ass, and then laugh at our pitiful struggles to escape the stench.  

Not only did he deny having done this on any occasion, ever, he accused me of colluding with my younger sister to make up stories about the shit he used to do to us in his role as eldest sibling.  This, to put it mildly, blew my fragile little mind.  Him not remembering it?  That's perfectly understandable, I can see how it would be a far more memorable experience on the receiving end.  Him not being immediately proud of his cleverness?  Very unusual, to say the least.  Him actually getting angry and resentful and accusing me of taking the time to fabricate new events from our adolescence?  Twilight zone.

I don't NEED to make up stuff like this.  We were all clever children and had a relatively normal sibling dynamic, ergo, we often used each other as sources of amusement.  

So odd.

Badger Burgers (Mushroom Mushroom)

While perusing the Internet recently, I came across an interesting recipe for burgers.  Interesting, yes, but not quite interesting enough.  I took it and ran.  The result was Badger Burgers.  Makes 8 patties.

0.5 kg Ground Bison

0.5 kg Ground Turkey thigh

4 strips of bacon

2 tsp fresh rosemary

2 tsp fresh sage

2 tsp fresh oregano

1 tsp salt

8 Portobello mushroom caps

Olive oil

Pretty simple.  Mix the meat and herbs, form into patties, cook with grilling method of choice.  There being a blizzard outside, I used my George Foreman Grill. 

Brush the mushroom caps with olive oil, maybe a little salt (or garlic salt... next time).  Again, grill using method of choice.

Stick it on a bun with some greenery.  Bam.  

BurgerTime (tm)

Goddamn, I want a hamburger.  

I've been living gluten free for two years now, give or take a few months in either direction.  This is a necessary thing.  When you put wheat gluten, or that of barley and rye (and to a lesser extent, oats) in my body, a curious thing happens:  I get dumb.  Very dumb.  I lose access to my long term memory, have a difficult time processing new information, my reflexes slow dramatically and, perhaps most oddly, my eyes stop tearing.  This lasts for anywhere from two hours to a day.  Somewhere in the nature of 7% of celiacs suffer these same symptoms, rather than get "the poops."  While I have yet to be formally diagnosed as such, I have reproduced these symptoms often enough that it simply makes sense to behave as if I were a celiac.

This has further necessitated a radical alteration of my diet.  I know, I'm only removing one foodstuff; you wouldn't think that would be so complicated, yet...  Everything deep-fried is breaded.  Candy manufacturers dust rollers with wheat flour to prevent sticking of products, particularly chocolate.  Restaurants thicken their soups with flour.  Most pernicious is modified corn starch, which is a ubiquitous thickener of sauces, yogurts, creams, and everything low fat.  Modified cornstarch is not always, but usually, modified in such a way that includes the addition of wheat gluten.  This prompts a less severe response from my body, but it's there all the same.  

What this means for me is that it is very difficult to eat at restaurants, and that certain things are off limits unless I make them myself, or feel willing to pay three or four times as much for an equivalent product that lacks the offending ingredients.  The first two months of this were pure torture.  Constant food cravings, watching my friends eat things I loved, never really feeling full, and a significant lack of convenience.   These feelings have largely subsided, as one should logically expect.  However, I do occasionally keenly miss certain items of food, most notably variations on the sandwich.  

Yes, I know that gluten free bread abounds in variety at health and organic food stores, and even to a lesser extent at mainstream supermarkets; but this bread is expensive and, quite frankly, a poor facsimile.  It is brittle and usually of lesser dimensions, making for smaller and harder to eat items that are, because of these traits, generally less enjoyable.  These facts make it much easier to cut wheat and its related cultivars out of my life entirely, though I must admit that the temptation to eat what I want and just be stupid for a day rears its head every so often.

Today is one of those days.  I will not succumb, but I sharply crave a hamburger.  Specifically, I am craving a Wendy's classic triple, an Everest-like mountain of beef and bread.  I want to make a base camp in the lee of the second patty, and would risk losing a few other climbers on the way to the top.  Luckily for me, there's a 3g network there now, so if things get to hairy we can call for help.  

Or fries.  

May the Schwartz be with you

Note to self: There's always time for lubrication.
She Wore An: Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow-polka dot bikini.
Music: House of Pain - Jump Around
Mood: Yes. I.  Did.

Could not sleep last night.  Ordinarily, that would be annoying, even troubling.  Not last night.  I grabbed a book, made a martini and sipped and read until about four.  Woke up slightly tired four hours later, but feeling like a champion.  Oh.  Not some syrupy chick-tini.  Vodka Martini.  Although, the "Bond, James Bond"-ness of the experience was marred somewhat by our lack of olives.  I substituted a pickle instead, way more phallic.

*    *    *

We here at Aperture Science wish you a lovely die.  Day.  Did I say die?  How completely non-Freudian of me.

*    *    *

Surface tension affects mayonnaise emulsion.

*    *    *

That door is still there.  What has been seen cannot be unseen.

*    *    *

There are a bunch of chairs moving in the room next to mine.  It sounds oddly like a lightsaber battle and now I am thoroughly distracted.  Vmmmm.  Vmmmm.  Voo, twang, kirsch, kirsch, vum, kwash, I am your father, Nooooo that's impossible!  Messy bitch you are.  Choo-choo, choo-choo, WAAAAAAOWW.

*    *    *

I think my fluids prof is losing heart as lecture attendance drops off.  It's just the middle of the term, man, not your fault!  I want to give him a hug.

*    *    *

Suddenly, I want a fish taco.  All innuendo aside, that would be awesome.

I'm on the hunt, I'm after you.

Mood:   Phernerminal

Music:   Reel Big Fish - hungry like the wolf

Hair:   In my eyes like a highland steer.

Note to self:   Sex with blow-up doll not as good as advertised.

Productivity:   Is a smurf.

All the lights were green; I'm actually wearing a sock over my entire left foot (kind of a big deal, boy-I-tell-you-what); a cute girl in class laughed a little too much at a joke that didn't deserve it and then smiled at me, if she's actually older than The Lion King, maybe I'll pursue.  Simba.... *smear*.  

*    *    *

After classes in this room spread out over five years, minus two consecutive years of medical hiatus, I have just now noticed that there is a door tucked behind the screen for the overhead/projector.  Five.  Years.  In my defence, it is only this year that I have begun sitting immediately opposite the screen, as opposed to middle-rear of the room, and there is usually a media cart occupying the space directly in front of the screen, obscuring my vision.

*    *    *

Engagement rings are like "dibs."

*    *    *

Christ evenly distributed on a platter of crackers, my thermodynamics professor is funny today.  He's cracked five or six actual, chuckle-worthy, jokes.  And then he moved our midterm back two weeks.   He's doped up or dying or something.

*    *    *

Jack's sundae shack, you want nuts with that?

Just... wow.

A friend of mine who runs a home for troubled teenage girls just rainchecked me on supper plans because she needed to rush back to the house to take care of a crisis.

Naturally, being a bit of an ass, I replied, "They'd better be knife fighting over cheez whiz, but okay. THIS TIME."

To which she responded, "You're actually closer than you'd think. More like pistol whipping with a BB gun over bagels and shampoo."

Me: "Christnuggets. That's just as ludicrous as what I proposed. Have fun with that."

Her: "I love my job. Endless entertainment."

Butt out, baby.

Just had an interesting conversation with my roommate about smoking coming full circle - from cool to uncool (even disgusting) to kind of cool again.  I'm not sure how widespread that attitude is, but in our little city, it definitely seems to be happening.  I think that, here, it's because of a legislation that passed some time ago, banning smoking in any public building.

 Now that it's not in your face all of the time, literally, the acquired dislike that my contemporaries found concerning smoking has not been picked up by the new breed.  Such is my surmise.

Before the ban, when you went out for a night of drinking, to say nothing of being in a restaurant, you came back saturated, inundated, permeated, perforated with essence of smoke and sweat.  The clothes that you wore last night could not in any way be considered being worn again.  They were disgusting, they reeked.  There was a palpable aura of filth to them.  When you stepped into the shower, the moment the water hit your hair, you had to pray your stomach would handle the smell, because fuck. I mean, fuck.

When the ban was upcoming, people bitched.  People moaned, whined, cried, wailed and railed against the "injustice" of it all.  Even I thought it was needless establishment meddling.  Bar owners thought it would destroy their business.  Personally, I wondered how Bingo halls would survive, since, having worked several bingos in high school while raising money for our football team, I learned that a Bingo hall was secondhand smoke.  You went to a Bingo hall to sit, and smoke, and maybe, maybe win some money.  Mostly the first two.

 But that first night back from pubs, clubs and bars, no one complained.  Our hangovers were so less, and we smelled so much better, that the "inconvenience" of having to go outside to smoke paled by comparison.  All of my smoker friends agreed.  They also found that being limited to a small area outside while smoking made them a lot of new friends.

Bars lost no business.  In fact, business picked up.

The only thing I regretted about the smoking ban was the closure of a really cool little cigar bar some friends had introduced me to, only months before.  We'd made the decision to cultivate properly adult, properly refined vices.  Scotch, cigars, port, all that shit.  And so, they took me to this twenty-by-twenty, one room bar in one of the hotels here in town.  We dressed up a little, and enjoyed the hell out of ourselves.  But this was an enclosed room with amazing ventilation, built for the express purpose of enjoying a cigar.  And sadly, it had to close.  No loophole could be built into a legislation that banned smoking indoors, or everyone would take advantage of it.

I still think cigarettes are unappealing, though.  In fact, that's one of my personal dating rules - no smokers.  I don't like the smell, I don't like the taste in someone's mouth, and the money could be better wasted, if not better spent.

The Rules: Installment #1

Let us now discuss The Rules.

The Rules are not a system to pick up women. The Rules are not a system to pick up men. The Rules are simply what a referee would use when assigning penalties in the game of love. This is the first installment, more to follow as I think of them.

In no particular order:

Asking out someone at their job:

It shall be considered bad form for a man to ask any woman in a service industry job for her phone number. It is her job to be charming and friendly, the odds are not in your favour, son.

If said woman is interested in you, it shall hereby be the accepted practice for her to write her phone number on your receipt or a business card, preferably with a little heart somewhere. If you are married or have a girlfriend and this happens, it shall be accepted practice for you to feel a little flattered, not to call, and keep it to your fucking self. Your wife or girlfriend will not be impressed that the cute waitress gave you her number.

The corollary is true concerning women asking out male employees: go right ahead, it doesn't happen as often to us. Men shouldn't randomly hand out their phone numbers, like asking out your waitress, the number usually comes across as creepy. If you're the kind of guy that she's going to be hoping for a number from, you're probably not the kind of guy who needs this advice, gnome sayne?

This definitely also applies to receptionists.

The End of Date kiss:

Men, if she hasn't laughed at a joke all night; has been texting the whole time; or pulled her hand away when you tried to hold it - don't move in for the kiss, dumbass. She's not interested and you'll look like a tool. And not a manly tool, like a pneumatic torque wrench, no, you'll look more like an eggcup. Who needs an egg cup, really?

Ladies. The date was fun, but it's just not there for you? It shall henceforth be the policy to offer a preemptive handshake. Men are often bad at picking up subtle clues, woman are often bad at giving subtle clues, no matter what either gender thinks of their respective skills. The handshake will be the accepted way to end the date without drawing out the awkward kiss attempt.

Further, if you do not like to kiss on the first date, but wish to see someone again, be clear about both things.

How to handle an unwanted suitor:

Let's be honest, this mostly applies for women, although I've had to deal with this a time or two myself.

Be blunt, and be blunt soon.

If someone is asking you out and you feel no attraction to them whatsoever (to say nothing of revulsion, which is also completely relevant here), most people will try to let them down easy, so as to avoid bruising feelings. Most of the time, this will be enough. A second attempt by the same suitor must be crushed decisively.

You read that right: crushed.

Any repeated attempt must be answered in a clear, concise and brutally honest manner. Do not waver, do not let them down easy, and do not, under any circumstances, offer excuses for specific evenings or events or end your explanation with the words, "right now." Either of these infractions will leave your pursuer with some fucking hope, keeping them coming back for more.

You are not "being mean." You are saving yourself untold amounts of annoyance and avoiding a potentially major scene down the road.

Back to school, back to school, to prove to dad I'm not a fool

It's 8:36am, and I am back on campus for my first day of classes. I am happy about this. I have been waking up with no obligations beyond my medical requirements for the last four months. It feels surprisingly good to have goals again. Of course, I still have to fulfill said medical obligations, but now I have school to distract me instead of nothing.

My first class isn't even until ten, I just carpooled in with my roommate using my newly acquired gibble pass. Sorry, my handicapped parking permit. Two more months of crutches, so I deserve the fucker. Gibble. Gibble gibble gibble. Gibble.

I am in the library, and I was the first one here by a long shot. It's freaking quiet. I 'm excited for class, but a little bit scared about today's lecturers. One of them is very ESL, and one of them has his own equation in the textbook and is slightly soul-destroying. Also, combover.

An aside:
As I was standing in the kitchen this morning, (well, more tripodding, what with the aluminum legs and all) my roommate walked in holding a cereal bowl, and he looked so unhappy. Granola clusters + balkan yogurt = sad face, apparently.

More to follow. Hell, probably more to follow today. I'm overstimulated.

I Know How You Wasted Your Time This Summer

Oh me oh my oh me oh stuff.

First, I must apologize for the lack of updates this summer. Frankly, I've lacked inspiration in all but the barest forms. Being stuck on the couch with no forward progress in any medical conditions, let alone monetary ones, will do that to you. To write, what I really need is an obscure combination of overstimulation and severe boredom; to whit, what is found during school. I need caffeine, esoterics and the screaming need for an outlet. Catastrophic indolence is no recipe for originality.

This summer, I have played many video games. I have seen many movies. I have read many books. What I have not done is worked or really challenged myself, because the new drugs and the new treatments and my fucking foot have been enough of an obstacle all by their lonesome.

What I have garnered is essentially a series of reviews. 3D-dot game heroes is amazing. Scott Pilgrim in all of its forms is worth your time. The Expendables is so terrible that I would honestly rather watch New Moon again over it (there's a girl, okay?). In exchange for her reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I have agreed to suffer the egregious slings and arrows of the Twlight quote-unquote saga. It's crap in a hat, but worth it to expose someone who would have otherwise never touched the works of Douglas Adams to his inspiring brilliance. The man knows how to turn a phrase. Stephanie Meyers, on the other hand, reads so poorly that it impinges upon the freedom of the mind and the ephemeral nature of the soul to consume it. The very fact that she is now wealthy beyond all need by nature of what passes for her talent is a thing that chafes my very existence.

Back to the reviews, though:

- Ip Man is an entertaining romp through wing chun.

- The Star Wars prequels are still pretty, and still shitty.

- The first season of Fringe is spellbinding.

- True Blood is better than The Vampire Diaries, but that's not saying much; HBO/showtime's penchant for tits and ass mitigates much sub-par writing.

- Futurama is excellent in all of its forms; the new season being no exception.

- The Rockband Network has added much needed popular songs to the genre; the music nerds who choose the tunes need to face the fact that they're forcing people to kareoke obscure music, and that that makes it harder to introduce new people to the game. Seriously, one popular song for every great-but-unheard-of song. What are you, "differently abled"? Anywho, Rockband is still Rockband. Can't wait for v3.0 Keytar? Yes, please.

- DeathSpank is literally nothing but hack and slash fetch quests tied together by amazing dialogue and yet is completely worth your time.

- Earthworm Jim HD doesn't quite play like the SNES version of the game, but is close enough for crotch-based appreciation.

- Heroman is fun, yet.. still anime, which means that it bears little resemblance to North American culture, let alone reality. I still like it. It's no Cowboy Bebop, but hell, what is?

Oh hey, books!

- Hood is a great take on Robin Hood; much better than the new Russel Crowe flick.

- Battle Royale will leave you enraptured (which is worthy of awe, for a translation).

- Crooked Little Vein, like all Warren Ellis material, is perverted and dirty, disgusting yet facinating, full of cynically worthwhile appraisals of government and culture, and utterly spellbinding.

- Jesus or the Non-Religious is spiritually affirming, yet at the same time reassuring to the rational minded that not all dedicated Christians have their cranial space lodged up the nearest fecal-oriented orifice.

- Pygmy takes getting used to, but entertains on many levels, as does Rant, Snuff, Survivor and, of course, Fight Club. I like Chuck Pahlaniuk. His brand of dark-yet-informative lights my fire.

- Hitler's Scientists is dry, yet full of cool tidbits about the science of the 3rd reich.

- Shi Long Pang is an amazing webcomic, and the 1st hardcover volume is well worth your money.

- The NSFW crowd should check out Oglaf.com.

There is literally too much music to properly discuss. I must utterly recommend everything by Vampire Weekend. Just go, you'll thank me.

Twilight really is crap in a hat, though. I mean, I get the appeal: the books are written for any woman who has ever felt like an outcast, or at least not entirely accepted, for any reason whatsoever - and then several of the HOTTEST PEOPLE EVER fall head heels over for you, waiting for you to make a choice. The fact that Bella, the main character, is utterly unlikeable, coupled with the obviously high-school-abusive-relationship-you-put-up-with-because-you-don't-know-any-better nature of her romance with the male lead is irrelevant in the face of the fact that all the pretty people love her whiny ass because she is literally crack for their senses. Frankly, it fails on every level except consistent, lengthy narrative; which has led me to read shittier stuff. It is terrible, though.

Menh, I've been bored for four months in many ways, despite the company I've had and the work done on my motorcycle. School and tea/coffee will prompt many more updates. Stay Tuned.

Just Hook it to my Veins!

Hello little fishies.

I must apologize for my absence. And maybe for my last couple of entries. I've been sick, you see. The motivation just wasn't there while I wasn't well. But now I've got the words in me. They wiggle. It feels neat.

Moo hoo ha ha.

I have been reading entirely too many graphic novels. At first I really liked it, then I was worried that they were making me stupid, and now I think I've come full circle. I'm stupid and I like it.

I'm on crutches. There was a complication that in no way has given me a cool story. Mostly I get to look sad and say, in my best hangdog-defeated expression, "It's not a cool story. I had a cut on my foot. It got infected. That's it." Because people ask what happened to you when you crutch by them. They also ask what happened to you when you have a devilishly stylish medical grade blue stretchy thing on your foot instead of a cast. The stylish stretchy blue thing goes over the bandage. It keeps me clean. Pure. We wouldn't want to be unclean. Impure. IMPURE.

Crutches. Right. Still on those, after roughly a month's time. That's not changing any time soon. The cut was on the sole of the foot, see. And then the heel became crusty bits. Crusty bits are bad. There was a neat thing called a shunt in my arm. Well, I called it a shunt. Shunt, shunt, shunt, shunty-shunt, shunt. Try it. Fun.

Shunty-McShuntShunt was in my arm-bits for the express purpose of delivering antibiotic goodies from the nice nurse people. That was an interesting experience. I could feel the juices spreading out through my blood pipes. It was handy during the unseasonable ambient thermal energy, since the goodies had to be kept in the re-fridge-er-ate-TOR, right next the mustard and the leftover pork. No, not bacon. I've never, ever, ever, had leftover bacon. What is wrong with you? Okay, one time, but I had specifically cooked more than I needed so that there would be bacon later when I was drunk. Alcohol and furious, spattering grease are best left uncombined. Praise my foresight. PRAISE IT.

Back to the goodies. The goodies were chilled. I was supposed to let them warm up, but it was much nicer to shoot up some vein-centric A/C.

Wish me luck, fish sticks. I'm going to cram my headspace into the modern literary sensation known as Twilight. I do this to properly understand a pop-culture phenomenon, not because I am sympathetic to the struggle of one pampered middle-class girl to choose between necrophilia and bestiality. I am also not an adolescent human with ovaries. I distinctly lack ovaries.

See you soon.

GET IN DE CHOPPA

I've been reading the Vertigo Comics series DMZ, which is about a photojournalist who is documenting the effects of a modern American civil war on Manhattan Island. The Island is caught in the middle of a stand off between the two factions fighting the war, and still has a population of about a half-million people. There is a protracted and uneasy cease-fire in place, that is broken occasionally. It's been like this for years. The city has changed. I felt like writing like I was a resident there, so I did. Here it is:

Staccato bursts of automatic weapon fire echoes faint and hollow in the distance. I barely look up from my salad. What? You're surprised? After ten years of this shit, you stop perking up to listen to every conversation held with chattering M16s. They never have anything worthwhile to say, just hate with a direction.

This war is whatever it is, and the people who are still on Manhattan Island and still passing for some sort of sane, we live our lives as best as we can. I like my life better like this, actually. I've always hated the illusion of the nine-to-five and here, it no longer exists. Oh, sure, on the days the war is happening, you learn how much humanity there is packed around you by the smell of people shitting their pants; but mostly, the war is in different neighbourhoods and so is the smell of shit. My days are spent tending my gardens and trading for what I need. My nights are spent with people, making and taking in our own culture. With half a million people still on the island, believe me, we have our own culture.

Music, art, fashion, writing, it's all here. Me? I'm a writer. Pre-war, I'd been struggling with a terminal case of writer's block. But now? The zest I feel for life, the gift that each day feels like? The words come easily. Even better, is the way that no one is trying to make any money with anything. We're all just putting our best work out there for people to appreciate and maybe argue with a little. Pure, it's pure.

I know this can't last forever. I know that at any time, decisions beyond my control may send bombs and bullets into my life. I know that people are hurt and dying here every day. I know that there is a black market supplied by thieves and protected by violence. I know all of this, but I tell you that I am more alive that I have ever been, here and now.

Another Suffering Bastard, Please, Bartender.

It is a beautiful, sunny and warm Saturday afternoon.

I am laid up, somewhat, and am sitting in a big easy chair with my foot up, as per my doctors' instructions. There was an incident with some Staph A bacteria and I now have an IV in my arm that I periodically pump antibiotics through.

Sitting here, I can hear several children playing outside, and I noticed something interesting. When kids are shouting over each other, trying to get their interpretation of the rules of a game heard, they sound just like drunk people. They sound like hammered adults, stammering and repeating themselves and getting louder and louder until the group acknowledges their input.

The idea that kids are tiny drunk people amuses me mightily.

deja view askew

Had an interesting idea last night while half asleep.

In my late teens and early twenties, I had deja vu at least once a day. These days it happens perhaps once every few months, and it got me thinking:

Suppose deja vu is a quantum tunneling phenomenon, happening when our future selves are remembering the events we are currently experiencing.

Hey, I know what you're thinking, and no, I was not tripping balls. You shut your mouth when you're talking to me.

Tales From the Offsale - April 16th, 2010

My first friday at the offsale in quite some time has come and gone.

People were cheerful, I was friendly and funny, and the tips were good.

I didn't see a single fight or even a punch thrown, and on my side of the building nobody was too drunk to walk themselves out.

I did, however, see a couple break up rather noisily in the offsale. A tall, pretty, stylish brunette came in, a little upset, and talked to me for a few minutes. During this time, she made several disparaging remarks about my gender, the character of her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, accused him of trying to leave with another girl and accused this other girl of having a sexually transmitted disease. Sorry, a sexually transmitted infection, or STI. When did herpes become a Subaru?

She asked me if she could lay in wait for him in the store and I said yes (she may not have used those exact words). There was no way I was going to miss it when, normally, drama like this only happens on television. We actually chatted a little bit, and I had her almost happy again when The Other Girl walked out of bar and through the offsale. TOG smiled at me and said a chipper goodnight on her way out. It must be said that she was quite attractive, whatever the infectious status of her vajayjay may have actually been (I'm guessing fairly clean, based on what was said later). I was not made aware of the fact that this lovely lady was TOG until she had actually left, and then it was with a harsh whisper. "That's her. She has a disease. What kind of man leaves someone as hot as me for someone with a disease? Isn't that fucked up?"

I could only make vocalizations in assent with her right in front of me, but her charm was wearing thin; crazy showing through the more threadbare patches. It must also be noted that TOG was hotter than her, say an eight to her seven. With TOG out of the picture, she looked around for a good spot to stand where she would not be seen from the bar entrance and could launch her verbal assault utilizing stealth and the element of surprise.

Her ears pricked up like those of a cat to the sound of his voice. He was being pursued by one of Her friends, who was berating him verbally all the while, and when he saw her, he exclaimed, "[a]re you fucking kidding me?" And then, my friends, It Was On.

His blond, 6'1", clearly steroid-driven muscular frame was caught in a hellish, no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned crossfire. Volleys of venomous vituperation verbally vivisected him violently. When he tried to leave, his suddenly ex-girlfriend barred his path, threatened him with assault charges and resumed lacing into him. He told her she wouldn't be able to call anyone to press charges if she was dead, and that was when I sent my co-worker to get one of the bouncers. He called her crazy, said it was over and told her to get out of his way.

By the time one of the big boys got there, they'd both left, after a protracted period in which he made as if to go back into the bar, but instead hid behind a section of wall and peeked out when he thought she was gone. She wasn't. There was more yelling, then she stormed out. A few minutes later, he left by way of the same door.

Now, I'm inclined to side with her - cheating is bullshit and should never be tolerated. But though he was leaving with another woman, conversational evidence would seem to imply that dating this girl was a roller coaster ride of stress and emotional trauma. She's nuts, and he's a cheater; I don't know who was "right" in this particular situation, but I do know that they won't be procreating with each other and that, my friends, is a clear win for the rest of us.

Public Service Announcement 01

It's 4am.

This is not in any way unusual for me, except that it's almost summer now and I can hear birds chirping.

Fuck off, winged harbingers of daylight, you're ruining the illusion of the night for me.

That is all.

BEANBEANBEANBEAN *twitch*

No matter what I may or may not have written in a poem about caffeine, I have completely and utterly caved in to it for the duration of finals. It was clearly necessary for days of mental exertion in studying calculus.

I felt the first sip of coffee in my tingly bits.

Welcome home, Juan Valdez. Let me get your coat for you. The burro will to have to wait outside, I'm afraid.

Stairs, My and Charles Xavier's One Weakness

When I was really little, my mother made a Superman cape for my older brother. He loved that cape. He wore it constantly for about a year, and then was rather suddenly required to stop doing so, for reasons upon which I shall expound. I'm going to drop some nostalgia on it, son.

Since Superman wore a cape, and could fly, one can hardly fault my bro for the logical leap that lead to local leaping. Big brother was convinced that he had acquired the power of flight. He would demonstrate this new ability by taking running leaps over chairs, bounding over ottomans, and jumping onto couches.

Credit where it's due, his hang time was rather impressive.

Now, where it gets complicated is the plane of the intersection of my older brother liking to teach me life skills and him believing he could fly. He'd met with some other successes in imparting wisdom, notably mining for nose gold and my introduction to cursing, so you can forgive him for wanting to share his mastery of the aether with me.

Draping the precious cape over my shoulders and firmly tying the strings, he set me about my lessons, hopping over furniture. After some time had passed, and I had yet to demonstrate the capacity for leaping tall chesterfields in a single bound, frustration and desperation set in, and drastic measures were undertaken.

He stood me at the top of our basement steps, and pushed.

Well, shoved, really.

Heaved, maybe.

One might argue that at this point, I did surpass his previous airborne exploits, as I cleared an entire flight of steps on the way down. Man, I'm so glad that vacuum was there to break my fall.

Mother happened to be downstairs and not far from where I landed. I recovered fine, didn't even break a bone. Toddlers are resilient that way. My sibling senior got his butt paddled pink and that cape got put away.

True story.

Gee, I'm glad it's raining.

Rain.

The streets glisten with it. It falls, gently; the soft pat each drop makes upon impact blending into a subtle cacophony that fills the senses of hearing and touch. On my jacket, I feel each individual hit as time balloons and expands until the drops no longer fall, they float. Gently, gently, they float, and I with them.

Life moves in slow motion as the moment lasts and lasts, drowning my cares in awe.

I turn, quickly as I can, yet slow, slow. I see an oak tree, old even by the standards of oak. It is vibrant with life, even in its age, its colours seeming to brighten the more I stare. The rain kisses the leaves, the bark, and each solitary drop, hitting, makes a basso rumble as sound slows, like everything else. Everything is still now, except my mind. It seems to race ever faster, practically shaking with the effort of recording, of taking in.

The oak tree is no longer just an oak tree. It is somehow me, now, and my body is strong. I am firm in the earth and my roots feed me, richly, from the soil. My branches reach for the sky and my leaves trade with the air. The rain is a blessing, and I am calm, filled with the satisfaction of being; satisfaction that does not fade, cannot fade.

I see everything around me in minute, precise detail. I see the park around me, lush and green with tended life. I see cars, parked and, on the streets, beginning to move again as the moment contracts. I see the streetlights and the buildings they illuminate. I see an old man on his side, lying on the sidewalk; a brown paper bag lying next to him, spilling brightly coloured vegetables. Carrots, lettuce, and radishes. A bag of frozen peas has burst, little green spheres rolling this way and that. Among them, on her knees is a young girl, no more than eleven years old, face twisted into a grimace of loss. The young girl reaches her hand out to the old man's face.

Somewhere very far away, so distant now, I seem to feel an urgent touch, but I see no one near me. It's not important. I am an oak tree, and though I am ancient, I need only to be. I am so, so happy to be.

Somewhere, still very far away, a voice whispers, "grandpa." For a moment the sorrow in the voice touches me, but it is only a moment, brief and fleeting. It passes and again I am a tree, and it is enough. It has always been enough.

The rain falls, but it will stop. When it is finished, I will see the sun.

Stuff I wish someone had bothered to tell me when I was 17

People like to talk a lot about high school being the best years of your life, or college being the best years of your life, or the time you spend travelling, or your first new town and new job, but what they're really saying is this:

The best years of your young life are the ones in which you start to finally become your own person. When you start to try new ideas instead of the ones the authority figures in your life tell you you should. It is the time when you make your own mistakes, learn your own lessons and make your own discoveries. it is the time in which you really start to learn your body and your sexuality. It is when you learn the limits of what you will do in the search for a good time. You will never again be as outgoing and fearless in your life as you will during this time, and that's usually because life hasn't had a chance to shit on your head and teach you fear, humility and respect, but that doesn't change what it is - your coming of age.

This is what people mean when they talk about the power and beauty of youth. This is what old people mean when they say that youth is wasted on the young. This is a truth that most people won't learn, let alone be aware of, even as they go through it in their own way.

It is different for us all, and the same. This is the time when you learn who you are, what you are and why you are those things. This is when you will try to make yourself into a completely new person, and yet, in the end, probably still become one or both of your parents. It happens.

Try everything you want to and at least a few things that scare the living shit out of you. Pay close attention to the consequences, not only of your choices, but of the choices of everyone around you. Learn why things go wrong, and why things sometimes go right. Learn that most of the time, things will work out if you let them and that most of the rest of the time, things will work out if you put in the effort. Learn that sometimes there is nothing you can do. Learn that money is necessary, but not important. Learn that not all friendships last forever, and that the ones that last forever aren't necessarily the best ones, or the ones that will define you.

Some nicknames never go away.

Public speaking is a lot easier than it seems. It's still scary as fuck for most people.

When you're twenty, you think you'll be able to think that way forever. You can't. Everyone gets old eventually. Fight it and keep an open mind.

People who have done the same thing - the same job, the same friends, the same hobbies, the same sex - their whole lives are usually afraid of new things. They don't think they are, but they are. That's why sudden changes in clothing, hair, music and acceptable sexuality offend them so much. Jesus doesn't hate fags, they do.

The less you learn, the harder it becomes to learn.

You are not the first person to have the feelings you are having. You're not even the only one having them right now. Your life will not work out the way you think it will, and even if you think you have no idea how it will work out, you're still wrong. You are a beautiful and unique snowflake with beautiful and unique experiences, just like everyone else.

A relationship without trust is not worth having. Some people will stay together because they don't know any different. Actually, lots of people stay together because they don't know any different. Love isn't possession. Love is a best friend who wants to play with your naughty bits as much as you want to play with theirs.

chicken tikka marsellus wallace

Time can move awfully quickly when you aren't paying attention to it.

Another slow night at the offsale has come and gone; I find myself on the couch at 4:07am, central time, with every reason in the world to go downstairs and get into bed. Yet, here I am. Of course, I let it slip that I had a blog today, which led to me taking a gander at it myself when I got home and being confronted with the fact that I just haven't updated in a while.

This will be more of a journal entry than an exercise in creative writing, simply something to get the words flowing.

Having had a recent consultation with my physician, it would seem my medical condition is no better nor worse than it was four months ago, which is both good and bad. I have some new meds to try out, but the fundamental core of my treatment remains the same: a pillow case over my head, a sock over my junk (just like the Red Hot Chili Peppers used to do), a UVA booth and about an hour of my time twice a week. Once again, he used me and my complicated condition as a pop quiz for a couple of gorgeous medical interns. The first time he did that, I was actually quite nonplussed and more than a little self-conscious. Now, of course, I'm so used to being scantily clad in front of the range of women that largely constitute medical personnel that I felt no traces of my previous discomfort. I am fine with my body. It wasn't exactly the way I would have wanted to meet those med students, but that's the way the stethoscope HOLY DOODLES COLD.

Well, of course I was attracted to them. They were comely, charming and intelligent. I like women who can hold their own in a conversation. Stupid is not attractive. But being nigh-nude and getting used as a conundrum, a query, a dilly of a pickle, if you will, is not conducive to romance. "Say there, sweet thang, you want to continue this diagnosis back at my place? Lay your healing hands on me, baby." Oh yeah, smooooooth. I had to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

I've been to some live music. Bought their t-shirt and was largely deaf for two days, but man, what a great show.

School, of course. Midterms went well, assignments are doing well; I had to give a five minute speech in my rhetorical communications class, and while it didn't go as well as I'd hoped, it was certainly better than it could have been. I now have to write an essay based on the topic I used for my speech, which I'll probably post here when I am finished. It's something I find quite interesting: alternative medicine.

More to follow tomorrow, I think. It's 4:30 now and I my bed has become more eloquent and persuasive in its arguments.

I wish my wife was this dirty

Ah spring.

The sun is out, the streets are covered in slush and cars everywhere sport poorly scrawled cocks and "wash me" jokes in the ubiquitous layers of dirt. Also, since this is Canada, lost civilizations of extension cords that once powered the block heaters of our fleet of automobiles begin to peek through the rapidly thinning snow cover.

I like getting my extension cords back.

On Climate Change and the Irresponsible Use of Science

I see a major part of the problem being that opinion seems to be considered just as valid as research. Yes, our understanding of the effects of greenhouse gasses has changed since the 1970s. Yes, new conclusions have been drawn. This is how science works.

To quote Dara O'Briain, "[s]cience knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise, it'd stop."

I, personally, find it an obvious conclusion that human industry, including agriculture (and by extension, cattle), can and have had a significant measurable effect on climate. I'm starting to hate that word. Let's say weather instead. Our species is changing the weather.

This is not the first time we have demonstrated our capability to alter global systems, nor will it be the last. Fishing industries around the world have devastated what once seemed an infinite resource. The need for cheap beef has sundered the rain forests. Strip mines and clear cutting left great swaths of land naked and scarred. There is a lake in Russia that is so radioactive it kills anything near it in minutes. Our people have done these things. Why does it seem so far-fetched that we could affect the atmosphere? Especially since we already have, notably the ozone layer, which is now full of holes due to the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

Looking at the advances in our understanding of the global climate over the last fifty years, and focusing specifically on the staggering increases in computing power and hence our ability to build more accurate models of the world, we should expect that recommendations will change. It was a decade ago already that more powerful computers finally allowed scientists to begin to accurately model the sun. Previously, they had been unable to simply have enough particles interacting. Similar problems have plagued climatologists.

Unfortunately, there is a great deal of money and power at stake, not only for the industries who are affected by attempts to moderate their unintended side effects. Naturally, the men who run these industries will be skeptical and just as naturally, they will put their money and power to work on efforts to prove the opposite.

With carefully chosen data, you can subtly skew the results of a study to say just about anything you damn well please. Big tobacco has demonstrated mastery of this. This is pernicious, wrong, and evil. Corrupting science reduces trust in it, and trust in the leaders who make decisions based on it. What we are left with, now, is a legacy of confusion where clarity is badly needed. Worse, we are left with little hope that clarity will ever be found.

The worst part is that the most fundamental truth of the situation is being ignored. That truth is this:

Whenever possible, we should strive for efficiency and a lack of toxic byproducts. In industry, in society, globally. It is irresponsible, ignorant and idiotic to do otherwise, no matter what you believe.

derivative humour

Today, in math class, my professor humped the podium unconsciously for about two minutes while telling a story. He did it in a completely nonsexual way, like a five year old might. The story he told was also slightly humorous.

Pork, the one you love.

Today continues my time off, but with a crucial difference: this is reading week, “spring break” if you will. I'm neither healthy nor wealthy enough to be travelling anywhere, so what I'm doing is just catching up on the work and the people that I missed last week.

I cooked today. Brilliantly, from what I was told by those who partook. There was a pork tenderloin roast, marinated in garlic sauteed in olive oil, with paprika, cumin, thyme and white wine. Baked tomatoes stuffed with bay leaf in basil, garlic and balsamic vinegar. And finally, a mixed green salad with radish, cucumber, cilantro and apple, with a sauce made from lime juice, olive oil and tahini.

It met with rave reviews. My favourite being, and I quote, “If you ever decide to give up women, I would go gay for you. Mmmmmm, gooooood.”

Apparently, I cook so well it'll make you rethink your sexuality.

Capital, simply capital!

I need some more mineral oil. I use it on my skin after showering, its a godsend. But today is St. Valentine's Day. Can you imagine a man going to a pharmacy by himself, today, and buying a large bottle of what is essentially an all-purpose self lubricant?

Naturally, the cashier would say something like, "And how are you today, sir? Any plans for Valentine's day?"

To which I might reply, offhandedly, "Oh certainly, certainly. I've a long evening planned of stroking myself while listening to The Ride of the Valkyries loud enough that the vibrations traveling through the sofa are actually my primary impetus to orgasm."

or perhaps,

"The missus and I were just settling down for a lovely bout of anal intercourse, but when we reached for some lubricant - very important, you see - we were fresh out. Quickly now, I must hurry back."

Both of which seem to be in the accent of those two warner brothers' chipmunks, "Capital, simply capital!"

I think I'll wait until tomorrow.

Sushi.

I had sushi last night. I love sushi.

There's something about the texture of the rice, the way the seaweed wrap tears under your teeth, the creamy-squish of raw fish and the pop and crunch of raw vegetables: carrots and cucumber. Of a certainty, the person who made the decision to put avocado in sushi for the first time was a human of higher order intelligence.

I love the accoutrements of sushi. The chopsticks, the varied and many little plates and rectangular dishes. The salty tang of good soya sauce and the rush through the sinuses of real wasabi, not that horseradish facsimile found everywhere. The burst of flavour from the pickled ginger.

Sushi is a food that refreshes and invigorates. It is light, but satisfying.

I especially love that last part. It is light. Which means that when the opportunity arises for an all-you-can-eat experience, you can cram yourself silly and enjoy every second of it.

Ah yes. Sushi.

Stream of consciousness

I left the house this morning for the first time since Tuesday. Which Tuesday is not important. Pay attention. There will be A Test.

With a head full of fog, steel wool, cotton candy and all manner of obfuscating material, I rose from bed against a panoply of better instincts, all of which were screaming at me in No Uncertain Terms that I should go back to bed and stay there. I politely told my better instincts to fuck themselves lightly and with tenderness, then I put on pants.

In the kitchen, our cramped kitchen, all in white and unwashed dishes, I took my Little Pink Pill and drank my wake-up juice. I'm not sure the wake-up juice is working anymore, it's been so long since I started taking it, but I remember it used to make a big difference, so I keep taking it Just In Case. The pills are for my skin. Actually, the pills are for a medical condition I don't have, but the side effects are pleasant, so down my gullet they go, chased by a glass of berry coloured froth. The pills were prescribed for their side effects, I should point out.

I hate the way my head felt.

I had a very strange dream in which I lived in a house where I did not actually have a bedroom, instead dragging my mattress around to wherever there happened to be space for it. My roommates where Unseen, for the most part. Conceptually, I was aware that they were men that I worked with. My grandfather was the seen roommate, and he was an unpleasant drunk who was in the process of acquiring a Gross of alcohol through unspecified means. From what mom says, this might be an accurate portrayal of him. I remember him as a man in blue coveralls with a nose that would strike fear in God's bowels, who would smile at me and pack an ice cream cone to the very bottom with Blue Boy Vanilla. I like that memory.

Aside from the weird place In My Head where I spent part of the night, sleep was as elusive as innocence and virginity in a university dorm. The ability to form complete sentences gradually returned in time for the walk to campus with my roommate. Not entirely, but I could at least pretend to take part in an honest-to-goodness conversation.

Suburbia, in winter. This is what greeted my nonfunctional cranial space past the hermetic seal of the front door. Every picture of generic suburbs in winter that you've ever seen, resplendent with hoarfrost and just enough chill and snowfall to casually turn down the volume of the world, like things are happening just down the hall. It was pretty. It was also mostly wasted on me.

Phototherapy beckoned, the mistress I'd been neglecting. I really must pay her more attention. After all, she keeps the fucking cancer at bay. My life for the last week has been something that would have made a pretty good vacation, if it'd all been my idea. I spent it sleeping twelve hours out of every twenty-four, and most of the rest sitting watching Television and playing video games, until I felt like sleep would accept me again. But of course it wouldn't.

I was having complications with my body.

This happens from time to time. After I've been doing well for a while, I get cocky and try to do the things I used to do. My body then rejects my reality and substitutes its own. Fuck You, my epidermal layers say, We had a Good Thing here, why are you doing this to yourself. Time to learn you a Lesson. I wonder how many times I'll have to pay for the same information in minor organ failure before the lesson becomes a lesson learned.

Probably a few more, but it would be nice to think that I'm smarter than that.

I had my phototherapy, and I clawed against the sleep that I craved to make it to class. An Assignment was due, and I needed to explain my absenteeism to my Professor. He's a good man. “I have cancer.” That was pretty much all it took for him let me off the hook, he didn't even want a Doctor's note. It occurs to me that I don't trust people enough anymore. I did not expect him to be quite so agreeable. I think I'm turning into an asshole.

Then I came home through that Winter Wonderland. It looked prettier this time around.

I ate, I slept, I awoke with the proverbial new lease on life.

Oh, I'm still knackered, but my outlook is very much better. I'm happy.

Also, I've been reading things that affect my writing style. I should know better, but I've been lacking inspiration and they certainly do have the effect of spurring on this sort of verbal expunging of the bits and pieces that are clogging up my word stream.

mmmm.... sweet sweet sorrow....

Caffeine, steadfast companion of many days,
The time has come to part our ways.
It seems you make me sick, you see:
The want of you is misery.

My head is fog'd, my will is weak,
I know you'd give me what I seek.
Vim and vigour, zip and zest,
With you I'm truly at my best.

Except.. I'm not, no, not for long.
Though at first you make me strong,
In time I crest and then I fall.
No, you make me not so strong at all.

I'll miss you always, anyhow,
though to myself I must avow:
No more caffeine, not as my crutch.
Not on a date, not going dutch.
Neither doing math, nor working early,
Beware my friends, I will be surly!

Something New

An aside:

I work part-time in a small liquor store while going to school. It's part of a restaurant-bar combo, pays alright, gets me free food and most importantly, on slow nights, gives me a place to do a lot of homework. The job is not without the occasional peril, however, and tonight was a night that had some peril.

The largest part of the night passed without incident. Today was a Monday. Mondays are slow. I studied for a test, updated a formula sheet for a quiz, and then I watched a couple of movies with my coworker to pass the time. This is not a particularly demanding occupation, perfect for a student. Unfortunately, at about twenty-past-two on the Tuesday morning side of the shift, things got a little belligerent. Two men came in to make a purchase, but they were already well pickled. Not only were they drunk, but, if I'm honest, they were coked out of their fucking minds.

The altercation concerned one of the two men and it began with him pushing my friend and coworker. He apologized profusely. This sort of thing comes our way from time to time and the usual way we deal with it is to simply brush off some behaviour, let them make their purchase and get them the hell out of our store. But after the pushing and the apologizing, he repeatedly threw his keys down on the floor, threw a package of cigarettes at me, crashed into the rack with the bags of potato chips and alternated between threatening us and telling us how much he respected us for doing our jobs.

I told him to get out.

He did not take this well.

He postured and threatened and I pulled out Uncle Smashy, the two-foot long steel tool under the counter. Think blunt machete and you'll be on the right track. Bashing the counter top for effect, I reiterated that he should get out. He came up to the counter and reached for me, I pushed him back by the neck. He came back again and I slapped him twice on the right cheek with the flat side of Uncle Smashy. In immediate retrospect, that was probably a poor choice, but it did help us skip over the rest of the process and get him to come at me, which was when the bouncers, who had been sitting at the bar enjoying a drink on a night off, rushed in, grabbed him and, eventually, got him outside. This was compounded by the fact that they knew the guy and were trying to avoid beating him into a pulp, and by the fact that one of the bouncers... lacks tact and may have made the situation much worse. Several times.

Coke boy came back about ten minutes later to apologize, but then the bouncer-sans-tact came back in and things got slightly violent again, and the cocaine cowboy had to be ejected again. At this point we made the decision to lock the door and shut down for the night, as it was almost closing time anyway. Instead of riding off into the sunset, Chief Hell-Of-A-Drug decided to bang on our windows for a while. I called the police and they sent a car around, but I don't know if anything came of it.

Afterwards, I sat with the bouncers and had a drink with them. I needed it.

Here's the thing: I really wanted to hurt that man. He was belligerent, mean, rude and outright stupid. He pushed my friend and threatened us. I'm something of a martial artist. I say this not to brag, but instead to put in context what I mean when I say that I have demonstrated in the past the ability to not only hold my own in an altercation, but to be downright dangerous. I really wanted to hurt him, but at the same time, I really didn't want to fight him. He was about my size, clearly in good physical condition and COKED OUT OF HIS SKULL. I would have had to either choke him out or seriously injure him to put him down, and there's a great deal of danger in a fight when rapid incapacitation is necessary, but not in the sense that you might be thinking. The problem lies in the fact that the line between incapacitation and killing can be awfully fine, and this is made far more complicated by severe inebriation and drug induced states.

I feel guilty about how much I wanted to smash him, thankful it didn't actually come to that, but a little disappointed at the same time. I'm very grateful that the bouncers happened to be at the bar tonight, because without them there things would have gotten messy. Man, what if Cocaine Katie had pulled a knife, or if he was a skilled fighter?




Ugh. Now I'm all post-adrenal.

something old

Whisper me a gown of winter,
Sing for me a mask of spring.
Laugh aloud gloves of autumn,
Speak of summer in a ring.

For you I wear my garb of seasons,
Made of voice, with lines so bright.
Take me to the ball of reasons,
Dance with me all through the night.


(thanks again to Kleph. he knows why.)

My Head A'splode

I just wrote a devilish thing that was supposed to be a math quiz. It was much harder than the equivalent quizzes from the math class last term, which was taught by the same profs, so they know this to be true. On the way home, I rattled rather quickly through the stages of the Kubler Ross model of grief

1) denial - This is clearly an error on their part that will be corrected on the next quiz.
2) bargaining - I will stand up in class tomorrow when our prof asks if we have any questions and sway him with my potent rhetoric.
3) anger - Those dirty, crotch abrading, closely inbred, hydrocephalic, trisomy 21 afflicted, pedophilic trash baskets. How many times does the math department have to get shit on by the university to understand that they are, to use the vernacular, being a bag of dicks?
4) depression - oh god, I'm going to fail.

and finally

5) acceptance. - well, really, this isn't so bad, i just need to change how I study for my quizzes to focus more on theory and less on the application. I'll be okay.

Not bad for minor introspection on the failing of a quiz in the span of the ten minute walk from school.

It's going to be a busy year.

3 of ?

The brake lights flared as my brother guided his hand-me-down '85 civic to a sure halt, more or less even with the half-assed parkjobs all around us. The four doors opened nigh simultaneously and the five of us stepped out of the car. Gravel crunched and grass rustled as shoes made contact with the ground and twisted so we could hoist our torsos off the seat of the car that had once been my mother's. The vanity plate still read, "Pani D," pani being Ukranian for Mrs. and D being the first letter of her name. It wasn't until later, while playing host to some extended-extended family from the Old Country that we would learn that Pani D was Ukie slang for "fat ass". No, in the predominantly German town we lived in, it was simply the Panty Mobile. Perhaps not so simply. Hmm.

The door to an old farm house swung open hard and John Mellencamp's The Authority Song blared out so loud that you could feel Middle America reach out and tweak your nipples. People spilled out after the sound; some looking for a quick breath of air on the porch; some looking to deposit what would become nitrogenous fertilizer in a few months with the help of some handy soil microbiology; some were heading to cars for music, to fool around, or simply more beer. In a word - shenanigans. Like the restaurant, less crap on the walls. Although, come to think of it, the inside of that house was smattered and smeared with all the stolen and pilfered signage we could get our grubby, underage drinking, hands on.

It was an ancient two-story farm house, with a veranda over the porch on two sides of it. Whatever colour it had once been had long since surrendered to time and the elements. It was the grey of years and erosion, the way driftwood looks toward the end. It was hemmed in by brush and tall trees and was a couple hundred meters back from the highway nestled into a big copse of trees. That copse made the house unobtrusive and kept the cops away. The history of the place was obliterated when the friend who's family farm it was on decided to get the power hooked back up, wrangle up some discarded couches and turn it into a party shack extraordinaire. There were multiple ways in an out, a few empty rooms upstairs for furtive heavy petting and loads of space on the main level for outright, but still small-town, debauchery.

This wasn't the first time my older brother had basically grabbed me by the scruff of my antisocial neck and dragged me to a party, but I think this was actually the last. After this party, I didn't really need more coercion to want to come out and play. So much random shit would go down at this house, but this was the night it was christened. This was the night we caught a goat. This was the origin of The Goathouse.

The trunk was popped, we grabbed our cases of beer, or in this instance the eighteen I was sharing with others, and meandered towards dilapidation and depredation. The autumn air was cool and crisp, a sharp contrast to the heavy, wet, thick and vibrating air that sucked you in and held you in place inside those walls. The atmosphere pulsated with youth, hormones, alcohol and the ten-years-behind-the-times music you find in small towns everywhere. Shouts of greeting and general profanity erupted at the infusion of familiar faces that were fresh to the floor show. Adolescence sat in dense clusters on the couches and floor of the living room, it stood in the open spaces in what used to be the dining room and kitchen, and around the kitchen table, it cheered and trash talked in the way that can only exist between drunk teens who've spent their entire lives around each other and who are engaged in contests of skill to get other people drunk. You know: generally bored people who still think they're invincible looking for a good time. Oooh, look, quarterbounce.

I liked quarterbounce. I was a fucking quarterbounce sniper. I sucked at talking to girls. Actually, I sucked at getting action, girls I could talk to. I just was really terrible at reading body language and picking up on subtle hints to how I was being received, hence no touch the heinie. But quarterbounce? That had rules that were easy. Aim, bounce, point, drink, repeat. For the uninitiated, quarterbounce, or quarters, as I've heard it called elsewhere, is a game with many variations, but the basics of it require you to bounce a quarter off a tabletop into an empty cup and assign a drink to whomsoever you choose, as long as they are also seated at the table and playing the game. You keep playing until you miss, at which point, you drink and then pass the tools to the person to your left.

The evening proceeded as such parties do: loud noises (I don't know what we're yelling about), loud music, new jokes, old jokes, a fair amount of physical comedy, people disappearing and reappearing in tandem with the opposite sex, that sort of thing. All well and normal until Jessie came back in from a piss and yelled, "THERE'S A GOAT OUTSIDE!" To which the general response was Holy Shit, form a search party, Go Go Go! And a lot of surprisingly co-ordinated crashing through the bush ensued. Running around in what amounts to a small forest at night is dangerous at the best of times, but drunk off your ass in the middle of the night, it somehow works out just fine as long as you avoid tree trunks when you bail, ass-over-teakettle, off a tree root. There are lots of tree roots. But to sum up what it looks like? Do you remember The Blair Witch, when they're handicamming it through the trees at speed? That's about right. The important thing, other than that I was wearing an onion on my belt, because it was the style, at the time, was that after fuck only knows how long, we caught a real-live, smelly as hell goat. (note: onion thing may or may not be a reference to the simpsons.)

The first thing you need to know about what to do if you catch a goat is that they don't like it. The second thing you need to know is THEY DON'T LIKE IT. Thirdly, bring some rope. As luck would have it, my brother's best friend was (still is) a human fucking swiss army knife and he had rope in his trunk just in case he ... um .... needed to tie something up, I guess. I swear he's not a sexual predator. Jessie, who had espied the verboten piece of stank in the first place, had actually been the one to tackle it, so he got the honour of hanging on to the rope as we hauled its cloven ass back to the house. That honour was dubious then and it's dubious now, but holy balls, we brought a goat into that ancient house and the smell of alcohol and hormones was cut with the unholy stench that is a goat.

Goats stink.

Goats also spend a lot of their time trying to headbutt people when they're angry. Just a heads up. Also, no matter how funny you think it is, don't try to drink from the udder of an angry, just-caught, goat. I wouldn't recommend standing behind a goat either, at least not in range of its hindquarters, and I mean that in terms of both getting kicked and shat upon, possibly at the same time.

Someone yelled, "Welcome to the Goathouse."

It stuck.

At this same house, my friend Mark self-circumcised himself through excessive dry-humping and an unfortunate zipper design. A douchebag named Lindsey tried really, really hard for a Darwin award, playing "stick the fork in the wall outlet" which was then compromised by an unnamed party holding a breaker closed on him. His hair smoked and he lost a toenail and he clearly deserved it. My good buddy Chris celebrated his 19th birthday by peeing in the kitchen because he thought he was still in the town bar. A lot of people got laid there, we paid for electricity by recycling alcohol-based receptacles, and I really only remember one or two fights. I have a surprising amount of fond memories of the place.

Oh, and I eventually learned how to talk to girls.

This is how my brain works.

so, we were doing line integrals in math today, and you break a square down into four sides, or lines, C1 though C4. it was a basic example and, as expected the sides of length one ended up having a line integral of length four. my only problem is that I'm pretty sure the integral of C4 is EXPLOSION.

Also, just got back from a movie. After the show, the lineup in the men's room was very long and I ended up peeing at the one kids' urinal. I felt like a giant, and that was fun.

i have bacon.

Dear, sweet bacon,

Were it not for the fact that our union would end swiftly in a case of terminal spousal deliciousness, I would marry you, and make an honest meat of you. Truly, you are the candy of meats.

2 of ?

Breakfast... Lunch... Some sort of unholy brunch-esque combination of the two was eventually achieved at our third choice, a burger joint that also does eggs, has good fries, non-stop pop and unlimited tartar sauce. If you've never had tartar sauce on your fries, you haven't lived. Our first choice was closed and the second had a forty five minute wait, which is what you would expect for the popular choice for the church crowd on a Sunday morning after the houses of the Lord disgorge their hymn-dulled contents. We blended in amazingly with the moms and pops and little buoys and gulls dressed in their Sunday best and that had nothing to do at all with out decision to go somewhere else. Nothing at all.

Most of the talk was very very small, with the exception of my buddy from down under who never seemed to get any hangover of any kind, no matter how much alcolol he consumed. Lucky prick. Also, alcolol is not a typo. While most of the table had their heads in their hands, desperately yearning for the infusion of bacon and coffee to begin, he chattered away merrily. I hated him every morning after. Every fucking time. This was getting to be a habit.

Yeah, I did this a lot more than I should really care to admit. I was a regular social butterfly. Of course, I wasn't always like this, just like I knew I wouldn't always be like this. Even as I was ramping up a life that split my time between academia and alcohol, I knew that it was a temporary thing. A lifestyle that could only exist for a scattered handful of years before I got too old, too jaded, too responsible or just too bored with it. I knew from the very beginning that these experiences would eventually blend into something same-y and tasteless unless I was willing to make a further leap into a dirtier world than I ever had any desire to sample, let alone make it my home. I still wanted them, though. I'd always had a sneaking suspicion that life was holding out on me, and I was determined to pin social interaction down and wring some edification out of it. You can't really judge something unless you've made the effort to understand it.

No, I wasn't always like this. For a long time, I was just a good kid with too much time on his hands and nothing to really fill it with. We moved around a lot when because of my dad's job, so in grade six, when we landed in a little piss-ant town five klicks from ten klicks from the middle of nowhere, I figured, "Hell, we probably won't be here for more than a couple of years," and decided not to bother making nice with the locals and to just do my own thing.

Then we lived there for eight years. Oh, and in case you're counting, that's fifteen klicks from the middle of nowhere.

I was a smart kid, clearly a nerd, stuck in a town that belonged to sports and I didn't want to play. Eventually, I caved, tried out for the football team and made it, started drinking with all the other kids bored senseless from small town suburbia and the farms scattered around it, and made some semblance of a social life out of the whole dirty mess. But if you don't know this, either because you haven't gone through it yet, or because you were never on the wrong side of popular, it takes a while to get a feel for how to talk to people. New people, that is. In a small enough town, on a long enough time scale, everyone gets to know you and your conversational quirks, and as long as you're a good person at heart, they'll overlook a lot. Small towns are actually pretty neat that way. I didn't understand that at the time, but eventually it came to me.

When it comes to talking to new people, there's a whole set of body language cues that you have to learn to both put out and be receptive to. If you start young enough and try hard enough to fit in, this isn't something you need to actively learn, but if you've been standing on the outside looking in for most of your life, then you need to practice this. Basically, just start talking to people, any people, on any convenient pretext and pay some fucking attention. Watch how they react to you and to not only what you're saying, but how you're saying it. It makes all the difference in the world.

People always tell you to be yourself, but what they really mean is that you should be relaxed and not pretend that you have experiences you don't. That doesn't mean that you start talking to the pretty girl next to you in line about video games and computers unless she does first, because the odds are good that she won't be interested in that. "Be yourself" doesn't mean advertise your interests all the time, it means be honest, look for some common ground and try not to get nervous. When it comes to the opposite sex, be yourself means don't try to impress people and leave the pickup lines at home because as it turns out, the kindergarten approach works just fine. "Hi, my name is (insert here), what's your name?" And from there, you keep her talking about herself. People like to talk about themselves. But you don't just blast away with non-stop questions, you actually need to listen to the answers and genuinely care about what she's trying to say, if for no other reason than to have something else to use to keep the conversation going.

I keep saying She, but this advice works in any social situation, on any gender or age group, I should point that out.

With enough practice and attention, you develop a feel for conversations, how to ask questions that lead to more than one word answers, how to slip just enough of yourself into the wordplay that you make the other party feel like they got to know you a little. You might even learn how to be funny. But the trick is that there is no trick, just experience. You know how to get to Carnegie hall? Practice, man, practice. It'll start off painful and awkward, but keep at it, that'll change.

Hell of a tangent there, I believe I was waxing historical. I would have said nostalgic, but that would imply that I enjoyed my time there. Let me be clear: I could not wait to get out of that town. When high school was over, I went to university and did not look back. That being said, I did, eventually, try to enjoy myself while I was stuck there, because why not make the best of a bad situation? Just because you wouldn't have chosen something for yourself is not a reason for you to bitch and moan about it the whole time. That's childish. You bide your time, make the best of it, and then get the fuck out when the opportunity presents itself.

Because hell, even fifteen klicks from the middle of nowhere, there's fun to be had if you bother to look for it.