Blogging at Life

Where I do this little dance….

Inside says “believe me, you’re not broken”……  Outside says you’re mad broken.

Again, it’s purely experimental,

but outside thinks I’m broken.

Inside is convincing, with broken ideas about the outside insanity

(seratonin?)

Someone asked me “is it really a pattern if you know it’s going to happen every time?”

You know, change the pattern.

40 91045857 … 36….

Someone told me I’m suicidal.

Someone keeps telling me I’m suicidal.

The problem is, I’m not suicidal.

(I even quit smoking last week.  Sorry to disappoint you)

And, when someone wants to believe so badly that I’m suicidal, it’s much easier to prove that person right than it is to prove them wrong.

I may not be suicidal, but I certainly enjoy a good cup of soup.

Or a day at the beach

Or 52 ounces of Crown Royal, served on ice

Butterflies…

Scratch the butterflies.

I heard this new restaurant opened up that serves a $20 mug of soup.

Mama Cass….

A friend of mine died this weekend.  He wasn’t a close friend, but he had lived in the house next door for close to a year.  Actually, when we first met, we weren’t the best of friends at all; i had covered his face in birthday cake at a party when he had passed out.

We were preparing for our annual double-house Canada Day party; testing out the slip and slide.  He was sticking his head out of the bathroom window so that he could laugh at us fumbling around in the backyard.  Later that day, he hopped on his motorcycle to go run some errands.  A few hours passed, and we were wondering where he was.  Some friends of his showed up [early] for the party, and I asked if they worked with him… we made small talk and thought “oh what could he be up to?!?! that guy is still not here!”

But this is someone who lived an an[to be cliche, since this word is overused) impressively rich life. To be late from running an errand would really not surprise me, because who knows what else he might have sporadically decided to to?

At around 7 or 8, two cops showed up.  At first we thought they were busting our party before it had even started… but they went inside Garry’s house, and kicked everyone else out… Everyone got this really sick feeling, and kind of knew what had happened.

It’s sad.  It’s fucked up.  He was sober and wearing a helmet.  He was one of the most interesting characters I had ever met. He was 26.

I’ll start with some current events:

NY Times Article on the banning of executions on child rapists

The rape of a young, helpless child is seen by many as a crime more horrific than premeditated murder. Now, I don’t know if it is really possibly to do a proper quantitative analysis on trauma, pain, suffering, outrage, and other reactions to violent crimes, but I am pretty sure that a consensus will always be found among adults that the rape of a child [in the case being discussed, an eight year old] is absolutely wrong. With murder or assault, on the other hand, there can sometimes be some leeway for a rational argument as to why the outcome wasn’t unacceptable.

On a completely different story, here is David Suzuki reminding us all to be skeptical, especially in a society replete with “information”

“Today, thanks to computers and the Internet, and television, radio, and print media, we have access to more information than humanity has ever had. To my surprise, this access has not equipped us to make better decisions about such matters as climate change, peak oil, marine depletion, species extinction, and global pollution. That’s largely because we now have access to so much information that we can find support for any prejudice or opinion.”

So there you have it. I considered putting a far more subjective article about the rape ruling than the New York Times article as the first posting, because David Suzuki’s article would have made more of a contrast.

As for my life:

- Criminal Injuries Compensation Board can continue to eat dick. I have my hearing on July 21st, which is quite exciting. You know, almost five and a half years after something rather unpleasant and beyond my control occurred, it is nice to kiss the bureaucratic and administrative bullshit goodbye (I hope)

-Porn Fridge is now gone, and for that, I am sad.

- We are having a kegger this weekend. There will be 130 litres of beer, a two lane slip and slide, and more

-My final mark in summer school was an A+. Though I will never have a GPA of 4.0 again after not scoring perfectly in the fall, I am inching as close to 4.0 as I possibly can.

- My new roommate managed to get me out of my shell. I jammed with him last night, and it was pretty fun. I’m going to start playing bass again.

-Byron and me are talking again.

END

Across the alley from where I live, there sits a refrigerator covered (tastefully) in pornography and peppered with a few pictures of Queen Elizabeth and PETA stuff.

Needs:
1 Fridge being left out in an alleyway for pick up by BC Hydro
1 Playboy magazine
various other magazines with non-nude photos
1) sponge
1) one bottle of school children’s glue
1) pan to mix water/glue solution
1) one sponge
1) one pair of scissors
1) black outfits
1) Jagermeister

It was great fun, and I can’t wait to have the pictures.

Well, I know that some of my family members read this, and apparently some of them specifically like to see what I write certain times of the year, so you are possibly reading this.

I don’t have a whole lot to say, except I wish that I did not have to write a midterm tomorrow

You know, it’s been five years and I sometimes forget that my dad was a real person.

Enter stage left, a young DEBUTANTE.  She is moderately under the influence of alcohol, and shoveling a mixture of saladesque materials into her mouth, rabidly, on the transit platform.  DEBUTANTE is not actually a real debutante, however her widow of a mother is a witty and articulate playwright, while her late father was a failed politician and a prominent master of the post-production industry.

DEBUTANTE sits on a broken bench and sinks into the inhospitable plastic contour, and munches away sloppily.

Enter stage right, a WOMAN in her early thirties, marching in a stumbled gait.  Following this woman is a YOUNG MAN, dressed in a pleasant attempt at business-casual-casual.

WOMAN (mid conversation): You know, the cheapest condo is a one-bedroom and it costs $273,000.  It costs more than that to insure my car!

YOUNG MAN (sweating, slightly): My brother has a 4 bedroom duplex in Montréal! It cost him about $273,000! In Sainte-Geneviève, where all those mansions are.

WOMAN: That’s unheard of here!

YOUNG MAN: He bought it five years ago, though… when housing was cheap.

DEBUTANTE continues to munch sloppily, not noticing a blob of salad land on her jacket.  DEBUTANTE snorts and rolls her eyes (very subtly), as she listens to these blatant suburban house-renters discuss the virtues of a buyer’s market.

YOUNG MAN: And with the employee pay plan at work, I save thirteen dollars per month on transit!

WOMAN: Oh, but I TOTALLY park my car at King George Station.  Hey! I can give you a ride!

(After drinking two double mojitos, WOMAN is seriously considering planting a kiss on YOUNG MAN’s lips.)

YOUNG MAN (distantly): Oh, yeah. (awkward “heh heh”) That’s not bad.

WOMAN (alcohol starting to kick in stronger than when she first entered the station): I could give you a ride home! Royal okay isn’t too far out of the way.

WOMAN debates whether giving YOUNG MAN a ride home, by way of a major detour, is really cheating while her husband is looking after the children and the salamander

YOUNG MAN: Oh, but that’s like 8 stops past mine; I’ll take a cab. Those “sex on the beaches” are really kicking in.

(YOUNG MAN wants to smack himself in the face for referring to the amusingly-named beverage that he was introduced to early in the evening)

WOMAN: Oh, it’s not problem.  I have to pick up milk on the way home anyway.

YOUNG MAN (thinking to himself): WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?

YOUNG MAN: I love milk!

DEBUTANTE finishes her food and looks around for a place to dispose of the plastic container.  While shifting her head around, a piece of dried cranberry becomes lodged in her throat; debutante turns cranberry red, then blue.

WOMAN:  Fucking crackhead. FUCK.

Sometimes I have the pleasure of being reminded that there are truly dense people in this world.

For the summer semester, I am taking a business administration course.  I am taking this course only because it is the only course which is in my year AND fits my work schedule.  Actually, if I can get off work early on Mondays in July and August, I can take Criminology if the course doesn’t fill up before I get paid on the 15th. SWEET.
I had my first day of Business Management class.  YES.  BUSINESS FUCKING MANAGEMENT. Business Management SOMEHOW is a university course.

I figured it would be an easy 3 degrees, but  it looks like it will be painful.  This is what we did today:

Wrote down our favourite colour, sport, type of music, “type of book” (type of book?!?!? does that mean “hardcover of softcover???”), favourite GADGET, and other stuff.

Afterwards, we were to go around the classroom and introduce ourselves to our classmates.  We would then try to find someone who shared a favourite.  I did this in Grade 4, in Monsieur Hoy’s class.  I helped contribute to his nervous breakdown.

I assumed “favourite kind of book” meant “preferred type of literature”, or something of that nature, so I chose “modern and post-modern fiction”.  One woman wrote down “non-fiction”, and she announced “that’s pretty close!!! We match!!!”  My brain exploded a little bit.

One classmate was too busy trading diamonds online to take part in our group work; she runs a jewelry business in Dubai.

I am not going to entertain myself further by recounting today’s experience, so instead I will leave you with this picture I drew on the whiteboard in class.  We were asked to draw what the “ideal manager” would look like.  I was surprised to see that I was the only person who incorporated a “female” image into their  drawing.

One more note about the rising cost of staples, or “AGFLATION”.

Check this link out and scroll your mouse over the map.

How sensationalist.

Moderately interesting.

I am glad that Firefox considers “agflation” to not be a word.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4656395

The above link is ABC’s story about how the “humble potato” is once again being appreciated as a cheap, nutritious source of food; the price of rice and wheat has gone up an assload.

As I was reading the article, my eyes came across the following:

Even though the potato emerged in Peru 8,000 years ago near Lake Titicaca, Peruvians eat fewer potatoes than people in Europe: Belarus leads the world in potato consumption, with each inhabitant of the eastern European state devouring an average of 376 pounds (171 kg) a year

Perhaps my fondness for french fries, perogies, vodka and a nicely baked potato has been passed down to me from my ancestors like a diamond ring passed down from mother to daughter!

Oh, potatoes.  You come from Peru.  In a perfect world, I’d live in Peru, snorting coke and chomping on potatoes all day long.

Now, to be perfectly serious for a moment, potatoes are quite a powerful resource in light of the Staples Theory (thanks, Harold Innis)

Of course there is the backward and final demands for said potato, but where the potato truly shines through in a troubled economy is in regards to the forward linkage of the potato.  What a lucky potato farmer!  Potatoes are extremely high-value added resources.  How much does it cost to buy a small bag of potato chips, and how much is that one potato (if that) actually worth in all its high-bulk, low-value glory?

Anyway, I don’t care to write anymore about potatoes while I attempt to remember studying resource management….

Life is not.

I want to go for a walk in the park.

I moved back into my mom’s house four months ago, apparently.

I found myself sitting at a baseball game — not a Blue Jay’s game, or even an East Toronto baseball game. It looked more like the AAA stadium in Albuquerque, but I had a jacket on, and there was a Canadian flag flying across the field.  I was not eating candy.

I got home and took a shower — a two-hour long shower; I was wearing my housecoat in the shower.  I had a world atlas in the shower, and it wasn’t getting wet, but neither was my hair or my housecoat.  I had a collection of toothbrushes scattered on the floor, and I was having a conversation with my brother, somehow.

An hour or so into the shower, I could hear my mom speaking to Casey about some people staying at the house.  Some young couple would be staying in the basement, and “oh, Leora won’t be pleased about that”.  I certainly was not pleased, but I pretended I didn’t hear, waiting for the two hours to pass before confronting my mom.

I wouldn’t have been so annoyed that there was to be a couple staying at my house, except there was already a family of ten Vietnamese illegal immigrants stuffed into one of the bedrooms.  They never left the room; they milled about all quietly.  They never paid a cent to live there, but were bringing the utility bills to bankrupt-inducing levels.

Yes, mother was about to go bankrupt.  I came downstairs from my two-hour long shower to find my mom writing away a cheque for $2,145.00.  “There goes the last of my money… I flipped the fuck out.

I seriously flipped the fuck out.  When I say “flipped the fuck out”, I mean that I couldn’t stop screaming, and couldn’t stop saying “fuck” in the process.  Mom told me that saying “fuck” wasn’t helping; it wasn’t, but I didn’t fucking care. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.  Get those fucking Vietnamese illegal immigrants to start paying rent, or I’m going to kick them the fuck out.

Did I mention that my dad came back from the dead? Even though I had apparently been living at my mom’s for the past several months, it was like I had just re-joined the family.  There was Casey, my mom, my dad and me.  That’s strange.  No Byron existed in this dream.

I asked my mom if Dad lived at the house, now that he was alive again and she told me “no”.  What the fuck?  This was his house.  His death paid off the mortgage.

“Dad has his own apartment”.

“Well, are you guys at least back together?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve moved on.”

“But you didn’t break up.  He died”

I tried to convince my mom that she should get back with my dad, but she wouldn’t listen.  Just like she wouldn’t kick those immigrants out, or at least charge them rent.  Just like how she wasted her savings away buying shoddy commodities that those stupid “tenants” were producing and selling from the bedroom.

I asked my dad why my mom and him weren’t together.  While my dad was back from the dead, he no longer could speak.  He could only communicate in a non-verbal manner, so he tapped my foot with his, and bowed his head.  It was pretty ominous.

It got weirder.

I’ve got nothing left to say.
Oh, wait, you know it already, so I’m not going to say it…

I feel alright, and stoked, but kind of sad… Not aimless.

I also wish I still had a twin brother, but I’ll pretend I didn’t say that, so as not to be the weaker party.

You know, there really isn’t anyone who takes the place of a twin, at least I didn’t think so.  Maybe I’m the only one.  The other day I started talking about Byron and stopped myself mid-sentence, surprised at him coming up in conversation, even if briefly.

Daffodils, or something….. Jellyfish full of daffodils, stinging my ankles when I walk through puddles on the way to work.  That’s right.

I’d like to go back.

.

The very first entry on this website was a story I wrote called “Musings of a Pharmaceutical Company Janitor”; it is a run-on sentence.  I was re-reading it and realized that it was not actually a true run-on sentence, because I had failed to edit it.  I edited it, and believe it is truly a run-on sentence now, but I still could be mistaken.  There are some grey areas in the world of semi-colons and what not.

Here is the reprise:

Carson and me decided to each write a story that only contained one sentence, a long run-on sentence.  If anyone else wants to write one so that we can have an antholoy of run-on sentence stories.  I am quite pleased with mine.  I wrote it in 5 minutes so it isn’t GREAT and the grammar is not great either considering the whole point of the story is that it is made out of a terrible grammar error, but please… READ MY CRAPPY STORY:<br><br>Musings of a Pharmaceutical Company Janitor<br><br><br>..You know, I was cleaning the stock room the other night when I came across a bottle of pills I had never seen before that I think was called “Extract of Rhododendron Nectar”, or it could have been extract of rhododendron pollen but I can’t remember if for the life of me because I took it, and maybe you could tell me if you are familiar with this type of pill; I had never seen it before as I said, but you know, it was the craziest trip ever, so crazy that I almost blew my load all over the stock room, and that would have been horribly embarrassing, even more embarrassing than the time I took a bunch of Quaaludes and passed out in the janitor’s lunch room with my mop bucket on my head, with foam coming out of my mouth (which had a very bizarre scent permeating from it), almost as though something had died inside of me, except nothing died inside of me at all when I took those Quaaludes; they were unlike anything I had ever taken, not even huffing gas, and I would go so far as to say that Quaaludes were the best shit ever until I discovered this crazy rhododendron witchcraft hootenanny when I was cleaning the stock room the other night and came across that bottle of pills which I had never seen before as I was mopping the room with the same mop and bucket that had been on my head when I took all those ‘luudes , and ‘luudes are pretty intense shit, I must say, but not as intense as the rhododendron stuff, only because the rhododendron stuff makes your pupils dilate to the point that you would think your eyes were the circle pollen thingy, or whatever you call that flower circle stuff in a rhododendron; (I can never remember because I didn’t graduate junior high and that is what resulted in me being a goddamn motherfucking pill popping janitor for a pharmaceutical company), causing me to just pop these pills, which are the company’s property, while I mop the goddamn floor and all these goddamn fucking pills aren’t making it any easier for me, because I think they are making me delusional, because every time I look at my hands they look like flowers; they look like rhododendrons and I can’t for the life of me explain it, but I think maybe the rhododendron extract is turning me into a flower and FLOWERS CANNOT BE JANITORS, BECAUSE ONLY HUMANS CAN BE JANITORS, OR MAYBE A WELL TRAINED CHIMPANZEE,  BUT I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT BECAUSE OF ALL THESE PILLS, so I may need to even excuse myself to pop some more, but not before I tell you just how beautiful the trip was when I took the rhododendrons that night, when I was mopping the floor and found that bottle of pills, which has clearly turned me insane like a madman when the full moon peaks out from behind a cloud, or Dr. Jekyll when he drank that potion in that movie I saw back in ‘62, long before I ever became a janitor at a pharmaceutical company, but the point of this is for me to tell you all about those pills I took the other night, because it was such a crazy trip and I don’t know, I don’t think I can actually tell you about the trip, because to truly understand the trip, you need to take those pills and then you will understand what it’s all about, but you will also be as crazy as me, except I won’t be a lonely janitor anymore and you will not be a human anymore and we will both be beautiful, stocky red-blooded flowers stalking the halls of this pharmaceutical company at night, popping pills to keep us alive… because being a janitor is nothing worth living for anymore with these demons in my veins…

Jesus didn’t want to say goodbye, but he threw the torch atop the dipstick

Salem roundup, motherfucker get your glocks and your stakes .

Gangsta Jesus vs. The Gangsta Witches

he adjusted his lipstick?

fucking rollbacks, fucking jesus, wetback witch rollbacks

Setbacks

Backpacks

Pack rats

Pacman

Man purse

Murse

Murse

Murse

Walrus

Moose

Manatee

Man Purse

Pursed lips

Lips stick

Dipshit

And I’m still broke all the time,

but Jesus loves me, yes he do.

I thought that I had posted the lineup for Pemberton, but apparently copying and pasting a list with weird HTML in it does not bode well with Wordpress.

Let’s try this:

• Coldplay
• Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
• Nine Inch Nails
• Jay-Z
• Flaming Lips
• Interpol
• Death Cab For Cutie
• The Tragically Hip
• Serj Tankian
• My Morning Jacket
• Metric
• Sam Roberts Band
• Vampire Weekend
• Black Mountain
• Minus The Bear
• Wintersleep
• Buck 65
• Secret Machines
• MGMT
• Brazillian Girls
• SIA
• Fiery Furnaces
• Mates of State
• The Airborne Toxic Event
• Carolina Liar
• Grand Ole Party
• Monte Negro
• Low Vs Diamond
• Annie Stela
• The Crystal Method
• DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist
• Junkie XL
• David Seaman
• Booka Shade
• MSTRKRFT
• M.A.N.D.Y.
• Tommie Sunshine
• Chromeo
• Deadmau5
• 3 OH! 3
• Kevin Shiu
• Timeline
• Tony Pantages

Last week a couple of my roommates/friends and me bought our tickets to the first ever Pemberton Festival. This is exciting stuff.  Some of the acts I’m not really stoked about (Coldplay, Chromeo, for example…) but this is the lineup so far:

N.E.R.D, Minus the Bear and Matisyahu all were added as well.  And MGMT aren’t actually playing anymore.  I’m hoping some smaller bands will get added to the bill; I wouldn’t be surprised if there will be a focus on local bands.

It’s so expensive, but it’ll be fun.

It looks like people from all over the world are coming to check it out, and it’s funny reading other people’s blogs who have written “where the fuck is Pemberton?”

It’s a decent marketing plan, too, since the Olympics are coming up in two years.

P.S. HELLO AC/DC FANS.

You know when the speaker on stage talks about death?

And someone in the audience nods their head as if to say “he’s talking about me!”

Then the speaker says something about his alcoholic mom, and someone else nods.. And so on, and so on.

It’s the same response as “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree”.

I walked down Cambie Street last night, alone.

I forgot what day it was, and that it had been five years.

Something unsettling happened, but I kept on my way.  I turned around to check if he had gone, and was so terrified, that I thought the dumpster was following me, until I reminded myself that dumpsters are inanimate.

Swedish pop songs. P.S. to that.

I dreamt that I snorted a bunch of heroin.

I was pleased because it didn’t sting the way heroin is supposed to.

It didn’t make me high, but at least my nose didn’t sting…

There were windows — lots of windows, and ladybugs too.
It would have made more sense to squash the ladybugs with a newspaper, but I picked up my shoe instead and killed the ladybugs with it.
Too bad dead ladybugs can’t fix broken windows.

Here is something I would like you all to picture:

Yesterday evening, after work, I met up with Aaron to chat, have a few drinks, and have him witness the forms that I have to send to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.

We ended up going to bloody Malone’s.  At 6 PM, you get seated at a table by a server, unlike when you show up and it’s in “night club” mode.  The music was super loud, so we had to yell across our table.

The bar was full of lots of people drinking, doing shots, and having a splendid, drunkish time.

Well, the two of us are BOTH currently reading books about the brain and sociology.  We were sitting in this dark bar, with our books out, yelling out interesting quotes about brain function, and discussiing them, across the table, over the loud music.

It amused me.  Also, before the topic turned to our brain books, we were talking about zombies.