When I see the price you pay...

In the past few weeks there have been car attacks, two babies born, gadgetry won, new jobs and rumours of new jobs. All of these rapid changes are off-putting. Furthermore, all of these changes seem to be happening mostly to my friends on the distaff side. It's starting to make me think. Unfortunately, my capacity for deep thought was violently removed sometime during University and Retail. I'll do the best I can.

We're growing old. It doesn't frighten me. I wouldn't know how to characterize the emotion it invokes exactly. At times, adulthood seems like a really simple answer to what I thought was an incredibly complex and distressing question. As a child, I differed from a lot of my friends in one important respect: I didn't want to grow up. While the other boys would talk excitedly about what they would be when they reached maturity; I had a different answer. Instead of wanting to be a lawyer or a doctor, I had something different in mind. I wanted to be a ten year old boy.

Of course there were certain jobs I wanted. Comic book artist, writer, musician. But that desire that my friends had, the overriding desire for adulthood, that I never had. I never understood my friends either who wanted it. With my preferred jobs, it seemed like I could do them and still somehow be a child. I felt it was obvious there wasn't a great deal to be gained by being an adult, and a great deal to lose. From what I observed from the adults I knew, being an adult didn't really recommend itself well. It seemed like a punishment for some undefined sin. They seemed so unhappy. I promised myself that I would somehow-magically-remain the same age. Even if my body grew, even if I learned more, I would still somehow maintain my innocence.

I still don't think that adulthood has much to recommend itself. Giving up that capacity for wonder and joy for paying taxes, failed relationships, sex and mundane jobs seem to me to be a ludicrously cruel and unbalanced exchange. The few consolations there do seem to be in the renewal and affirmation of youth; either through the maintenance of friendships or through the actual bearing of children. One of my few consolations is the deep and increasingly sophisticated friendships that I've been allowed to maintain. On certain nights I look around my apartment and think So it happened to me anyway. It's a bittersweet realization. I imagine it's how Esau must of felt five minutes after he got the pottage. You're tired, exhausted, and confused. Then someone somehow cheats you out of something precious.

None of this means that I'm not proud and happy of what everyone has accomplished. It just surprises me that the regular cycles of life-Marriages, jobs, children-had to happen to us too. I thought we were exempt. For some reason, I though we would be different.

I said no "no comment!"

I'm not quite sure why, but for some reason my blog hasn't been showing the "post comment" option. After alternately screaming, crying, begging and threatening, comments can now be posted again. Go nuts.

Yesterday is the shadow of today

While I've been on hiatus from books, I've decided on attempting some life-affirming activities; such as buying garbage bags and cleaning out the chthulian madness that is my closet. I've come across a lot of garbage, some old essays, and one gem. I found actual, handwritten, detailed notes on an old girlfriend's favorite authors, interests, habits and music. The following is transcribed for your delectation. I've crossed out her name for obvious reasons. Namely, if she ever came across this she'd probably laugh herself into a coma. Or be creeped out.

Things xxxx likes:
-Jazz/Blues (Ella Fitzgerald, Screaming Jay Hawkins)
-Opera- Verdi(?)
-Italian horror films (D'argento)
-Simpsons, Family Guy (?)
-Zizek (Read more of him)
-Deleuze (Read more of him)
-Bataille (Ditto)
-Sade (Get some other stuff)

Share common interests,
music, film , philosophy

-Lobby hero(?), Look up art galleries, jazz clubs

-Preferred coffee: Milk, no sugar
-Likes martinis
-What kind of food does she like?

Ask her about:
Thesis proposal
Meeting w/ prof

Find out her last name!!!
(Idiot)
xxxx

So what does everyone think? Is it sweet-but-naive, creepy-and-weird, or simple-but-brilliant? I favor the latter. With that in mind, I make this promise to all future girlfriends: I will keep extensive, detailed notes of all your likes, dislikes, and habits. In addition to this, I will also make detailed plans of action of how I can be a better boyfriend and a list of things we can do together. Sound good?
Wait, where you going baby?

You can take the books away from the boy...

In a rare instance of consistent resolve, I've actually managed to go a few days without reading. I'm beginning to learn that there's a world outside the printed page, even if that world is often scary or confusing. Usually both.
Case in point, my participation in that old, revered institution-SNDC (Sunday Night Drinking Club). Fully realizing that I had to be at work at eight-thirty this morning, I decided to stay out until three.
For those not in the know, SNDC was initiated three years ago by our very own Susannah. It was originally conceived as a work project which had the end goal of knocking boots with Toronto's own Ron Sexsmith. While that end was never realized (As far as I know. Susannah?), little did she know that this modest gathering would eventually give birth to one of the grandest recurring social events of the twenty-first century, beloved by at least ten to fifteen people. In times of difficulty and confusion, wars and rumors of war, in my darkest hours, I know I can always hold fast to its time hallowed traditions. Traditions that exhaustively include meeting up with people, and drinking till we can barely afford a cab to bring us home. This week's SNDC included an impression of yours truly by our very own Andrew, which I modestly absented myself for.
I'm not sure if it was the adrenaline from the lack of sleep, or the coffee and sugar, or some unholy combination thereof, but today was one of the best days at work on record. While I can't susbtantiate this in any way, I'm pretty sure that the caffeine plus the adrenaline brought on by exhaustion allowed me to obtain Buddha consciousness. This allowed me to perform my various tasks with eerie precision while in a blissful state of indifference. While the blissful state of indifference was unsurprising, I was so unnerved by my efficient completion of tasks that I would often run to the bathroom and huddle in one of the stalls, shaking and crying and wondering what went wrong.
In completely unrelated news: the Booker Prize is upon us. While I've heard of a few of the authors, I'll admit that for a few I have absolutely no idea who they are. Could someone tell me who they are? I mean, am I that out of the loop or do they just usually pad the list with a bunch of unknowns? I notice with mild irritation that quirky-hipster favorite David Mitchell is on the list, and I notice with maddening rage that Peter Carey is yet again on the list. I don't understand his appeal. Has anyone ever read My Life As A Fake? I've never read a book that would be so improved by a small, judicious use of fire. I've been told to read the Kelly Gang, but I've become cynical about books written entirely in dialect. I'm starting to suspect that writers use dialect as a literary smoke bomb, allowing the writer to escape out the window with character development, well crafted ideas and my hard earned twenty-two fifty. But that's a rant for another time.

Vow of chastity

I'm thinking about giving up reading for a little while, yet I'm panic stricken by the idea of having all that free time. Mervyn Peake has really taken it out of me. Any suggestions? Remember, T.V isn't an option as I have no cable. Neither is spending vast amounts of money, as my vast amounts of money are currently located on the dark side of the moon, which I can only reach by flying in my invisible spaceship.

Now then, my gipsy child; death or glory

While I don't have Susannah's excuse of being screamingly happy for not updating-I have something almost as good. Mervyn Peake.

When he came to the Tower of Flints his mare was waiting. He mounted, shook the reins, and moved away at once through the inky shadows that lay beneath the walls.
After a long while he came out into the brilliant light of the hunter's moon and sometime later he realized that unless he turned about in his saddle there was no cause for him to see his home again. At the back the castle climbed into the night. Before him there was spread a great terrain.
He brushed a few strands of his hair away from his eyes, and jogged the grey mare to a trot and then into a canter, and finally with a moonlit wilderness before him, to a gallop.
And so, exulting as the moonlit rocks fled by him, exulting as the tears streamed over his face - with his eyes fixed excitedly upon the blurred horizon - and the battering of the hoofbeats loud in his ears, Titus rode out of his world.

Now do you understand?