Just a quick note to suggest that you all take a look at yesterday's Something Awful update. It's about dinosaurs.
status.mood(I'm not actually sure);
status.music(You Speak My Language, Morphine);
February 27, 2004
the tragic ending
First, before we delve into anything, I insist that you check this out. Seriously, this is some of the most amazing artwork I've seen in quite a while, and I think it's going to haunt my dreams now.
Next on the agenda: this update requires a disclaimer due to the personal nature of the content. Some of you may decide that this update is designed as a ploy to get sympathy and create ill feelings towards Meghan. I assure you that nothing could be farther from the truth. This post is designed as a way for me to put my feelings down and maybe try to figure out what happens next. Does this post belong in the public eye? I don't see why not. I'm as transparent in real life as possible, and nothing I write here would be anything that I wouldn't tell you if I were sitting down over a pot of tea and chatting. Do I even care about hurting Meghan with what I'm writing? Of course I do, but my understanding of the situation is that she doesn't even read this blog anymore. Once again, this isn't a slight against her, and, in fact, I encourage you to empathise with how hard this whole ordeal must have been on her. With that out of the way, let's get started.
I am extremely sad. What could have been the most beautiful of stories has come to a tragic end. No doubt has been left about the finality of the situation. This is the "horrible" I was refering to in my previous update. It began in innocence. It ended in emails and tears.
I could tell this whole saga, but I don't think I will. Those of you who know it don't need to be told, and for those of you who don't, it would take volumes. Instead, I will focus on the last, saddest, chapter.
November eleventh. Rememberence Day. A day that I will likely remember for years to come. It was on this day that I broke down and, in a fit of insecurity and haste, which I have come to regret with ever fibre of my being, sent the fateful email to Meghan. I told her about how I felt led on and used and I told her that I could never see her again. I sent the email and cried. I cried the whole evening. A few days later I already regretted my decision and realized that I should have waited a couple days longer. I tried writing a weblog entry about what I'd done and how I felt about it, but a couple people suggested that it would be more advisable to take that and just send it to Meghan directly without posting it on the internet. That seemed like a really reasonable thing to do because what I had to say was really between her and me. So I sent off what I thought was a huge apology, telling her that I hoped she could find it in her heart to forgive me my grave indiscression.. I never received any reply to either of those emails.
It was around this time that I had been particularly plagued with depression and movement towards suicide. It was around this time that I started my medication and it was around this time that I started seeing the shrink. As time progressed and my medication started kicking in and I started kind of working through some of these horrible emotions, Meghan's friends were becomming increasingly hostile towards me. As you probably already know, I had made a habit of talking about how I was feeling with respect to the situation on this very weblog. Meghan had apparently decided to continue reading my weblog, and, as such, was having great difficulty dealing with the situation. As I worked through various emotions, my feelings about (and wishes for) our relationship changed a lot. I worked through sorrow, anger, apathy, all the while consumed with a tremendous guilt that has yet to pass. I suppose this was giving her so many "mixed signals" and it hurt her to try to accept the way things were, only to have that change every couple days - if that made any sense.
At any rate, her friends were getting really mad at me and I was actually starting to genuinely fear for my safety because of it. Not only that, but I had to pretty much turn down any social gathering where she would be present, so I didn't really get to go out with anyone, ever. The majority of my female friends had decided that they were going to side with Meghan for all intents and purposes (despite claiming to be basically neutral). I had done a horrible horrible thing to one of their friends, and regardless of how I felt about it, it was she who clearly needed the friends. Apparently.
So I built up my resolve and wrote a couple things down and finally managed to pick up the phone to call her. I wanted so much to get together with her to talk and set things right. I told myself that if we couldn't work things out, at least we could try to end things better. Of course, I had absolutely no intention of trying to end things better. All I wanted was to get back into her life and have her back in mine. I picked up the phone and tried calling her and had no luck with it. I tried back a few times and failed in a variety of ways. Either the answering machine picked up (this isn't the sort of thing you can really leave a message about) or one of her parents picked up and indicated that she was either busy or not home or anything. One could really tell that they were doing their best to keep from yelling at me or giving them a piece of their mind, as Meghan had just recently informed them of her side of the situation.
I tried calling her again the next day, and that didn't work, so I figured I'd give her cell phone a shot. I caught her in the middle of North Hill mall, and gave her my speech in petition of getting together to try to deal with all these things that had gotten so out of hand. We made plans for me to meet her at her house a couple hours later, and that's precisely what I did. I thought that the talk we had was really good and a really useful first step. I knew that we didn't really conclude any issues or anything, but I thought that it was a first step and that we'd be able to get together again in the future to continue working on things. I left her house with my head in the clouds because it looked like things were looking up.
Apparently they weren't. Apparently I just made a tremendous ass of myself, yet again. As I understand it, she took what I had to say as being something to the effect of, "Well, Meghan, I'm sorry you ruined my life!" How horrible I felt. No no no! That wasn't what was supposed to happen! Not in the least! That was my one opportunity to move things towards being alright again. That was my one opportunity and I completely blew it.
So, we didn't talk again for another while. This brings us to Nawaaz's christmas party. I was really worried about attending it because Meghan would be there, but I figured that we could probably at least be civil to each other, and besides, Nawaaz really wanted me at the party, even if it meant telling Meghan she wasn't allowed to come. Well, that just wouldn't do at all, and it would just have antagonized everyone except for Nawaaz, so, what choice did I have. I went to the party and so did Meghan. With the exception of feeling a tremendous longing to be close to her (especially during the movie) but only being able to look at her from across the room, it was actually a really pleasant evening. I thought (again, mistakenly) that we were getting along quite well, and a couple days after the party I emailed her again asking if she'd be interested in maybe seeing that Matrix movie before it left the theatres. We'd planned, once upon a time to see it, and nobody else was willing to go watch it with me, Lindsay having "forgotten" about it when she was out for the Christmas holidays. So I thought that, because things seemed alright at the party, she might be willing to do something with me.
She wasn't, of course. She wrote back saying that she didn't think that she was ready to do a movie with me. It was disheartening. I told myself that I'd give her time and wait for her, no matter what.
I waited as long as I possibly could, and that ended up being a month and a half. I was starting to go crazy and I couldn't think straight at all because I missed her so much that it was consuming me entirely. I'd long for her presence all day long, and then I'd have dreams about her rejecting me. I couldn't take it anymore, so I broke down on this past Sunday and sent her another email. I asked her if she'd be willing to meet me to take tea and chat about life, the universe, and everything. I thought it was fairly reasonable, and I thought that it had been long enough that she'd be willing to at least consider this. I went and got a candle holder and put a tealight in it and did my best to keep it lit (as long as I was around - fire hazard and all, otherwise). It was the best I could do to keep the candle lit for her and hope with all my heart for a miracle to bring her back. Over the past four months I've worked through a lot of stuff and I've broken through a tremendous portion of my depression. There's still lots to go, but I'm so much better at being alive than I was before.
This only adds to the misery of the situation, though. If I would have waited a month before leaving her, I probably never would have. I had become notably less co-dependant, and, especially at the point of writing her that email on Sunday, she was no longer my only reason to live. I could "live" without her, so it would have been far less of a burden to impose on her. It's not easy for anyone to be dating someone who's depressed. It's not really fair to expect them to take on the responsibility for your very life. But that's the sort of weight I was forcing her to carry before I left her. It's only logical that she wouldn't be too awfully comfortable with that, and that certainly explains some of the distance she was putting between us. Combine that with my insecurity about everything, and that's the reason I thought I had to leave her. It tears me to pieces to know that irrational depression was such a big part of why I'm alone now. It tears me to pieces to know that I could have taken care of that earlier. It tears me to pieces to know that I could have started counselling and gotten on medication years ago when Lindsay and Meghan first suggested that I look into it.
This time things would be different, I thought. This time we've both learned so much about ourselves in dealing with all this stuff. This time we'd be better equipped to deal with anything that came up. And we would deal with anything that came up because it's so much more than worth it. All she had to do was be willing to meet with me. We could have started putting the broken pieces back together and be so happy with each other. You could wait an entire lifetime and never find something so beautiful.
So, last night she sent me her answer. I thought that she was taking the better part of a week to think about what she wanted to do. I thought for sure that she'd be willing to meet with me, and my hopes were so high. I'd get my miracle. There's always hope. I'd get my miracle eventually. She could take her time and think about it and she'd certainly realize how wonderful things could be.
I was just walking into my room (after getting a drink or the like) and I saw the little alert in the bottom right corner of my computer to tell me that I'd just received an email from Meghan. I was brimming with anticipation as I clicked the alert and waited for the message to load. I had my fingers crossed and my eyes shut tight. This was it - this was going to be the answer I was looking for.
Thirty seconds later I had fallen to my chair and tears were filling my eyes. I had my answer, alright. She couldn't take it anymore. She did not want to see me in the least. She hated that I wanted to spend time alone with her. She wanted me to leave her the hell alone and not bother her any longer. She couldn't take it anymore, she said. It was time for me to move on already.
So, that's the end. The last three years of my life are over. The chapter has the most tragic ending I could have ever imagined. She doesn't want to have anything to do with me. Ever. I'm not a part of her life, and I never will be. She will forget about me eventually and I'll just be "that horrible guy she dated for a while once upon a time." I may as well be dead to her. I doubt if she'd even care if I were.
Last night I dreamed I was at my funeral. I waited there from beginning to end, hoping that she'd show up to say goodbye. She never did. It breaks my heart to think that this probably isn't very far from reality.
Life is a tragedy. From beginning to end. I could die tomorrow. I could die tonight in my sleep. It wouldn't make a shred of difference.
Goodnight.
status.mood(see above);
status.music(Mystery and Misery, Rainer Maria);
February 26, 2004
later tonight
I'll maybe write a real post when I get back tonight, if I feel up to it. For now, here's a synopses of yesterday.
- Go to school
- Boring German
- Hand in proposal in Syntax
- Boring Syntax
- Go home
- Look for sources at the university library webpage
- Discover there isn't even enough info to write a bibliography, let alone an annotated one
- Decide to go back to the university later on that night
- Fail to make plans with Steph to get coffee and subsequently get yelled at
- Track down four fulltext papers online
- Receive the email
- Horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible
- Blow out candle
- Horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible horrible
- Go back to school
- Track down ten books about my topic, three of which are in German
- Go to student centre and call for a ride home
- Buy a grape juice and a pack of Camels
- Wait for my ride
- Go back home
- Chat with people online for a bit
- Print off the papers I found earlier
- Draw up a summary of the books I have
- Go to Denny's with Alex to try to feel better
- Have two orders of the sampler
- Add Alex's dinner price to his ongoing tab with me
- Come back home
- Start working on writing my proposal
- Proposal is a bit too short and rather shoddy
- Write bibliography
- Annotate bibliography
- Go to bed at around four in the morning
status.mood(don't even start);
status.music(0);
February 25, 2004
oh crap
Alright. My proposal took about an hour to write once I got started. Getting started involved coming up with just about as many excuses as I could for as long as I could. Then I helped Mandy go through hers until about three in the morning. I'm a little worried that the proposal isn't really much of a proposal and more of, well, not a proposal, but it doesn't really matter that much. What's a little more important right now is the child language acquisition paper that I have to write a proposal for. It's due tomorrow, and it's supposed to have an annotated bibliography of at least ten sources. After taking a bit of a peek at the University Library search engine I discovered that I'm pretty much going to need to go back up to school to get the stuff I need for that bibliography. I'm not too happy about that, but at least it's open for another six hours or so. I don't really need to spend a long time up there, and luckilly the majority of the books involving German seem to be not checked out. I found about ten results involving some manner of acquisition of the German language, and about twenty results for books about the particular grammatical aspect I'm looking at. What my hope is is that I'll be able to marry some theories about German language acquisition in general with a framework of general grammatical background. This shouldn't be too bad - I just need to get motivated enough to get back up there. I probably should have done this before I came home, but whatever. I kind of don't want to drive myself up there, so ideally father would come home in the next little while, I could get a ride, and then trick someone into coming to get me again when I'm finished. That would be ideal.
And, in case you didn't notice, I updated the picture of myself on the page once again. This is a cropping from a picture that Anne took of me in the spring. I think that it's really a great indication of how I actually look. Much moreso than that smug looking picture that I had up for the last few weeks. Let me know what you think!
status.mood(exasperated);
status.music((Past Due), The Weakerthans);
February 24, 2004
adventures and trackback enabled
This ought to be a pretty quick post on account of how it's half past nine right now and I have a syntax paper proposal for tomorrow that I need to start. The problem is: I don't exactly have a topic. I thought I had a topic for it, but as it turns out, I don't really have any problem to address or discuss. So I guess I'll have to come up with something pretty quick here, and then pretend that I know what I'm talking about for a couple pages. I figure if I throw in a tree or two I should be able to flesh that out pretty nicely. And I'm hoping that she'll take pity on me because I'm not using English as my language of study - rather, German.
At any rate, I drove the motorcycle to school again this morning, and it was seriously cold. I was considering taking the bus, but then I hit snooze too many times (again) and the only way to get to school on time and have a shower (necessary) was to drive, and drive I did. It wasn't even really worth attending that first class, but I guess it got me out of bed/the house. Then I met up with Steph in the atrium and Mandy caught up with me there shortly thereafter. Steph decided she really likes Mandy. I think that's cool.
So, I figured that, seeing as I didn't even know if I had any homework for later in the afternoon, I figured I might as well just go with Steph to Kensington so she'd have some company on her way to her back appointment. While she was in the appointment I went to Higher Ground and had a cup of the Monk's Blend tea. Then I went outside and had a smoke and figured I may as well go give the panhandler a smoke. So I did that and he suggested I could sit down with him for a while, which I did. We chatted for a while as I waited for Steph to arrive. She seemed to think it was interesting that I was out there smoking and chatting with the panhandler fellow, and, after I counted his money for him, Steph and I headed back to the University.
Once back there, we wandered around for a bit, didn't find a place to sit in the atrium, looked at my motorcycle, and then Steph decided she'd go home. I decided I'd go eat a chocolate bar while sitting on the floor outside of my two o'clock class, and eat a chocolate bar while sitting on the floor outside of my two o'clock class I did. (I apologise for that stupid sentence construction, but we were looking at it in syntax a couple weeks ago and it just popped back into my head.)
Then I went into the classroom and sat down and flopped over the table. Then Care pet my head as she walked past, saying that she just had to do that. God is teasing me, I swear. I base that on the extended-feature dream I had last night, additionally. It's not funny, God. Cut it out. I'm going to leave it at that degree of vagueness in the interest of not upsetting anyone too much.
In the last class of the day, I discovered that I had, in fact, neglected to do some homework. It was a stupid thing anyhow. I had completely forgotten about that assignment over reading week, and I didn't read the due-date correctly, so I didn't have a diagram drawn, and I didn't have the last two questions answered. I hope the good Dr. isn't to harsh on me for being such a dumb and clumsy oaf.
Then I drove home (because I had failed to convince Steph to go for cajun fries at the Den with me) and had some pasta and then took a nice nap. The reason it was so nice was because I didn't dream! I'm getting so tired of dreaming all the time. The dreams just depress me to no end, and last night's dream was wonderful, but after waking up from it, I was completely let down and heartbroken. So it was a really pleasant change of pace to sleep. To sleep, perchance not to dream.
Anyhow... the only real news for yesterday was that mother and I went back to Sears and put that mattress on order, so I'll hopefully have a new device to sleep on by monday or tuesday of next week. Four hundred and fifty bloody dollars. Ugh, these things are so expensive, but I guess it'll be worth it. Maybe my back will stop hurting so much all the time. Probably not, but maybe.
And, finally, any nerds out there might be interested to know that Haloscan has just recently added support for trackbacks. I discovered this just tonight because I was tired of not understanding what trackbacks are. I'm still a little confused about how they work, but it seems like a clever idea. I won't bother trying to explain what trackbacks are. If you don't know, go find out for yourself. It can be like a nerd-quest. At any rate, I'm not really expecting to ever get any trackbacks, but, hey, you never know. The important thing is that if I feel so inclined, I can leave trackbacks on other people's pages. That word has lost ALL meaning at this point.
Update: So, instead of working on my syntax paper proposal, I seem to have gone on a shopping trip to amazon.ca. I just bought the soundtrack to Blade Runner because one of the songs that was playing on iTunes reminded me of that movie. Then I bought another CD by Vangelis or whoever wrote that soundtrack because the internet told me I'd like it. I really really like getting parcels in the mail, and I bought these used so it's a big mystery if they'll even work/arrive. That's really the best way to shop online - it makes it so much more thrilling when your parcels finally do arrive, as I learned with the big book of jerkcity. It sure is easy to spend your money without leaving the chair, though. This seems like a somewhat dangerous idea if you're not careful. Maybe I should just get a seller's account at ebay or something and buy/resell crap as my job. Actually, scratch that. It's a terrible idea.
status.mood(procrastinative);
status.music(this could be love, alkaline trio);
February 22, 2004
would you do the same for me ?
Yet again I was too clumsy to remember to take my camera with me when I left the house, so, yet again, no pictures for you. Ten seconds before I left the house, I was down in my room and I reminded myself to grab the camera before I left, but do you think I did? Of course not.
Regardless, mother came home from work about when I finished taking my shower, and then she, father, and I went up to Sears and Sleep Country to search for a mattress. I kind of liked the clerk at Sears and I think we'll be spending about $450 on a mattress from them. The folks at Sleep Country were really sleazy and tried to confuse me with various displays and mattress-jargon. I didn't really realize there was so much mattress-jargon, but apparently so. And apparently everyone has their own mattress-jargon. What we need is a committee to standardize the mattress-jargon. It doesn't really matter much, though. Really, anything would be more comfortable than the horrible fifty year-old mattress I'm currently sleeping on. We figured we may as well get something nice for a change. Otherwise we'd just get one from the thrift store (again). Long story short, it was really comfy, and I suppose it's probably worth it.
After that, we went to Walmart briefly, then dropped father off at home. Mother and I went to Safeway and picked out a bunch of food. We shouldn't go shopping when we're hungry. We came home with a dozen bagels, about four pounds of chocolate in various forms, and a lot of four-cheese tortellini, half of which we threw in the freezer. Dinner was good, and the pre-dinner bagel was also quite good. I've been eating those Cadbury mini-eggs all night while avoiding my paper proposals. I suppose I should consider doing them at some point in time. Right now, however, I should probably fill out that survey for the experiment that I'm participating in tomorrow. Apparently I have to read a bunch of German words so my German phonetics professor can get data for one of her papers or the like.
Okay, I'm too distracted by life and everything right now to really put much thought into this post. Sorry.
the only reason you are here now is a reminder of what I'll never have.
I'll never have... I'll never...
Standing so close knowing that it kills me to breathe you in,
standing so close knowing that it kills me to breathe you in.
But this table for one has become bearable.
I now take comfort in this, and for this, I cherish you.
Did you ever look, did you ever see that one person
and the subtle way that they do these things and it hurts so much?
- from "Short Stories with Tragic Endings"
status.mood(hopeful / losing hope);
status.music(short stories with tragic endings, from autumn to ashes);
February 20, 2004
i'd give you all my love if you would only say...
As is par for the course, it's half past nine and I'm lonely and sulking in front of my computer with sad music going on. It's not like today was a bad day, or anything - quite the contrary, in fact. It's just, well... you know perfectly well what the matter is.
I'm kicking myself because I told myself I was going to bring the webcam out with me on my adventures today so that I'd have some pictures to go with tonight's post and then promptly forgot as I left the house. So, the long and the short of that is: there aren't any pictures, so just use your imagination.
At noon, I left the house and caught the bus downtown, where I met Tasnuva at the HMV. We went to International Pipe & Cigar and I bought some cigar from Belgium, I believe. It was dark, and rich, and took about 20 minutes. Tas bought a pack of Phillipes Sweet, or whatever they're called. We enjoyed our smokes in the comfort of the smoking room there, while the television was displaying some golf and the police officer sitting opposite us was telling stories about homicides and how nobody seems to get in fights anymore; they just knife each other right off the bat.
After that, we went to the Falafel King so that Tas could skip the line to buy a piece of baklava and then we hiked to 17
Apparently he intended on being a little late so that he wouldn't have to wait for us, but his plan seemed to backfire and he ended up being a good half hour late instead. Regardless, we had tea and chatted for a couple hours, then, guess what. We went to the Kilkenny. I had chicken tenders and fries and cheese toast and a pint o' Guinness. Then Tas took the city transit back to her house and Adil drove me home and I had a nap because, quite frankly, I was exhausted.
I know that this entry didn't go into quite as much detail as I'm usually want to make them, but I'm tired, somewhat uninspired, and, honestly, rather sick of staring at this blog window. I just spent the past two hours going through the January and some of the December archives updating stuff to make it look better. There's a Christ of a lot more to put those paragraph tags on, and I'm in no mood to finish it right now. I'm working backwards through time, and I'm at Christmas right now. I also did one day out of November just 'cause. The thing is, I'm getting to the point in my reformatting the posts where the material is getting kind of painful and really saddening to read. As if I needed extra help remembering things and thinking about stuff that I'm absolutely helpless to change.
status.mood(alone);
status.music(I Want You, Holly Cole);
very fun
If you're bored, go visit DAVID AND GOLIATH and try out their games. I just spent the past fifteen minutes throwing rocks at boys. I suppose I should probably get dressed on account of how I have to leave the house in half an hour to go meet up with Tasnuva. I usually like to get confirmation on the "day-of", but I'm sure it'll all be good. The only thing I'm worried about is Adil getting my email telling him when I'll be at Steeps (i.e. 1400h. today) with Tas. Oh well - even if he doesn't show up it ought to be fun. Well, off to get dressed and take my fistful of pills, then!
And I've decided that I might go back through my archives and see about formatting the paragraphs to be friendly to the new archive format. That means about ten hours of sticking in <p> tags. Fun fun.
Update: Upon further review, I've discovered that, thankfully, the line breaks in my archives are actually preserved, so that makes my job INFINITELY easier. .::phew::.
status.mood(sore, amused);
status.music(One of Your Tears, Prince);
February 19, 2004
mandy and adil
Mandy came on the intarweb at about ten minutes before eight and made sure I was around and available to see her. I thought that was nice, and about twenty minutes later she showed up and I was a little confused because she seemed to be under the impression that we were going somewhere. Well, I had her come downstairs for a little bit while we figured out what exactly was going on. I think she might have been dreaming it, but she was convinced that we had plans for her to take me out and buy me beer and wings. I was convinced that the only plans we had even remotely like that were to go have a beer after working out the day before, which I never did. So I assumed that I had forfeited that, and that we were basically just going to work on syntax and listen to music or something last night.
Well, eventually we decided that we'd go to the Kilkenny for dinner. I had a pint o' Guinness and chicken tenders and fries; she had the spud skins and a pint o' something. She flat our refused me to pay for any of it, and then we bought a menthol cigarette from some lady, enjoyed that, and then I convinced her to go to Madison's for dessert. I figured that it was only fair that I buy her dessert in exchange for the dinner she bought me. So, I had a chocolate shake and some blueberry cheese-cake, while she had the turtle pie. Then she glared at me and flat out refused to let me pay for my dessert either. So, super-thank-you again, Mandy! Yippie!
After dessert, Mandy and I came back to my place where I lounged with her on my bed and we listened to some music (eg. Prince) and I gave her a lecture about how to turn her ideas into a paper proposal for syntax. She went home at twenty minutes past midnight.
Today I woke up in a sweat from stressful vivid dreams at about eight thirty and turned on the computer. Caitlin was there and she cancelled our plans to go see the Lord of the Rings and all. I was really sad about that and went back to bed for a while. At half past one I got up and chatted with Adil for a bit and we decided that, seeing as we were probably going to just otherwise spend the day sulking, we may as well get together for tea at Steeps and sulk together. So he came over some time later.
I was out on the sidewalk practicing free mounting my unicycle when he arrived, and then we went to the thrift store to try to look at a coat that mother thought I'd like. It had apparently been sold already, however. So we looked around the thrift store and came back and then headed out to Steeps. Despite what Anne and Alex say, I like it there. And Sarah was working there - gosh she's cute!
Adil had a green tea, and I had the reported favourite tea of Sherlock Holmes. We had our tea and chitted and chatted and then after we were finished there we went to the Kilkenny. I know, I know, the Kilkenny! Twice in as many days! We both had a pint o' Guinness and the fish and chips and chitted further, with a good deal less chatting. Really, Adil mostly spent the day ranting and telling big long stories while I sat and listened intently. I enjoy listening. The food was pretty good, and at ten minutes before eight, we left the pub and Adil drove me home. When we got to my place, he gave me the burned copy of his "The Notwist" CD, which we were listening to in the car. This is the second time since I've gotten home that I've listened to it, and I'm quite fond of it. It's very pleasant to listen to.
Otherwise, I haven't really done much since then - I took a bit of a lay-down for a while, and now I'm working on crafting some plans with Tasnuva for tomorrow. Ideally we'll meet Adil for tea at Steeps again, somehow, and I'd really like to get a cigar. I love cigars.
status.mood(lonely sadly);
status.music(This Room, The Notwist);
February 18, 2004
last night's dream
I just went to lay down and started remembering all of my crazy dreams last night. So I guess I'll subject you to them for want of actually being able to fall asleep.
So, there I was, in Queen Elizabeth High School with a bit of money in my hand. I went down to the band room and figured I'd go spend my money at the teacher's lounge on some hot chocolate or the like. I went outside and the hot chocolate turned out to be a cigarette, so I smoked it by the teacher's parking lot and the sidewalk was damp because it had just finished raining. It always seems to have just finished raining when I dream about being at that school. So, I finished up the cigarette and went in one of the back doors and climbed the stairs to this crazy part of the school that only actually exists inside my dream world. It's up in the math wing and it seems to be quite dark and kind of crazy, so I wandered around up there for a bit, and I'm sure I did some other stuff, but I can't quite remember what it was. Eventually I found myself just on the second floor near where we had our Humanities class. Suddenly I discovered a whole bunch of paper money. Like, a whole bunch of money. So I tried putting it in my backpack and then there was way too much so I carried it all down the stairs all sort of tied to my back, and when I got downstairs I was in the foodcourt of Market Mall.
So, I was pretty exhausted from carrying all that money, and I put my backpack down and when I looked behind me the pile was about fifteen feet high and about thirty feet across so I went to the bathroom. When I came back, a security guard was there trying to arrest me because someone had apparently stolen some of the money from my pile. I don't understand why he wanted to arrest me because somebody stole my money, but he seemed pretty intent on doing so until he got a call on his radio. Apparently there was a robber from another dimension who had teleported into the mall and was looking for some jewelry. So he let me go and then the mall was deserted and I figured I may as well just leave.
So, I left and the next thing I knew I was in Red Deer and I had to make some money to pay for lunch. So I went to work at the bank and they'd apparently renovated the office. Instead of being secured with gates and locks, they decided to just run with the honour system and turned the interior into a big maze. When you came in there were a whole bunch of chairs arranged like at the airport so people could hang around. And then they decided that employees might want to read, so they set up a really nice library on a carpeted area.
Beyond the carpeted area there was a series of complicated narrow corridors that you had to find your way through, and then it opened up into a tiny little room with round tables and computers. About half the terminals had people working at them, and there didn't really seem to be much to do, so I didn't really bother. One of the tall tables had a laptop and a mouse on it, so I thought that I'd take a look at the internet for a bit. When I touched the mouse I discovered that the table was really wobbly and didn't stand up straight. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that each of the four legs of the base of the table had a big spring on it, and through the spring was a screwed-on adjustment foot. One of the legs, however seemed to be missing the adjustment foot. So I kept losing the mouse when I let it go because it would just slide off of the table. Once, the laptop slid off the table too, so I had someone hold on to everything while I found the adjustment foot (which had just rolled out of the room) and I screwed it back into place and then I could use the computer.
So I looked at the computer and discovered that the last person to be on it was using MSN Messenger. One of the little buttons at the bottom of the screen was flashing so I looked at it and it was a conversation window labelled "Meghan - Conversation". According to the window, it was a conversation between her and Pearl, so I didn't really want to read it in the office. Instead, I pasted it into a Hotmail window and was going to email it to myself to read through later. Unfortunately, being so completely clumsy, I accidentally clicked the button that caused it to send the email out to all of the people in my address book - including Meghan. Of course, I felt really really horrible about that and I tried getting an email out to everyone telling them to please just delete that message and it was a big mistake in the first place. But I couldn't get Hotmail to open back up again. Eventually I just ended up giving up and decided I'd have to deal with it later.
About that time, a lot of work started coming in, and our supervisors appeared in the little work-room with about fifty other people. They gave a big presentation about how it was just after the long weekend and they were glad to have all the help that they could, but that they weren't going to meet their targets for the first time in fifteen years today, no matter how hard they tried. They introduced all the new people, and asked for a show of hands to see how many of us had ever worked here before. I put up my hand and they sat me down at a terminal to get me to work as quickly as possible. I worked for a few hours, and then the day was over so I left and went to the hospital.
At the hospital, I was wandering around in a well lit white hallway with a window on the right side, and there were birds outside the window. I carried on through the hallway, feeling really bad about what I'd done with the conversation I happened upon. Suddenly, off to the left there was another computer with Hotmail just running on it, so I got on it and managed to get rid of the email I'd sent out - to everyone except for Meghan, of course. So, that really didn't make much of a difference.
I left the hospital and was walking down a boardwalk through Varsity and came out at a really nice multi-level house. It was Meghan's house, so Lindsay invited me inside and I had a glass of water and then Meghan started coming in the front door so I had to get out of there really quickly. I ran out the back door and ended up in the garage where she was parking her car. I told her that I was really sorry and I needed to tell her about something horrible I'd done. She turned into Little Anne and I told her about reading the conversation and emailing it out by accident. She hugged me and then broke my nose and I woke up.
When I woke up, I discovered that the spring was really poking into me, so I stuck a pillow over top of it and went back to sleep, and things picked up pretty much from there.
I left the garage and was in front of Mike's old house in Varsity and it was kind of dark out at this point. I wandered around a bit and discovered Adil and Alex. We walked around the neighbourhood for a little while and came out at a big school-shaped theatre in Mount Royal. Adil and Alex had to go to the bathroom, so I stood outside by the gargoyles and waited for them for a bit before getting bored and going inside to see what was going on.
Inside, it was like a confusing movie theatre maze, and there were lots of displays and advertisements and a big long line. Alex and Adil came out of the bathroom and saw the line and I suggested that it was a Rush concert and we should probably go see it. So we waited in the line and pushed our way to the front when the doors opened. We already happened to have our tickets, so we climbed the chain-link fence, which promptly vanished behind us. We went to our seats and about fifteen minutes later the concert started.
It was a really big let-down because the stage wasn't actually in front of us. Instead, we had to look through some doors that had been propped open on the right side of the room so we could see about a third of the stage. Even more of a let-down was the fact that it wasn't actually Rush playing. Instead, it was a big screen with Rush's last concert being displayed on that. To make matters worse, a bunch of SAIT art students were dancing around on stage as part of the performance and a couple of them were playing an electric drum kit over top of the music. I turned to my father, who was sitting beside me by that time, and said that this was absolute shit and that I didn't play eighty dollars to see a movie of Rush. I suggested that if I wanted to do that, I'd just go home and watch my Rush DVD. I told him we should get our money back and leave, so we went up to the counter and got the manager to come out.
Apparently, getting our money back involved going behind the counter and watching the register for a couple minutes. Then the guy came and gave us our money back and we told him he should take the tickets so we couldn't scalp them. He said it didn't matter and sent us on our way.
status.mood(tired);
status.music(California, Rufus Wainwright);
pictures and a quick trip
 |
| That hook shaped thing is the point of the sharp spring that's been poking into my hip for the past two days. |
Alright, so there are the pictures. Now, you'll have to forgive me for a few posts with images included because I need to get a feel for how they're going to incorporate themselves with this new style. There's enough room for me to stagger them as before at 1024x728 resolution, but at 800x600 it's really kind of horrible. My solution "for now" has been to just stick them all at the top with a size that fits a maximized browser window at 800x600 without looking terrible. I'll figure something out in the next few posts, though. I just don't feel like dealing with it right at the moment. I'm thinking I'll probably just end up going back to the standard staggered pictures and hoping that it just isn't too terrible at 800x600. As always, you can click on the above pictures to see the full-sized image.
 |
| For any of you who don't quite believe me when I say I was riding my unicycle around the block yesterday, here's my unicycle. |
With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, there's really only one thing that I've done so far today that's worth mentioning. It was such a beautiful day today when I got the mail (in my housecoat, of course) that I figured I should probably at least start the motorcycle. So it started just like that and I grabbed some snow and a rag and cleaned it off a bit, picked a couple leaves out of the engine area. Then I figured that I may as well go fill up the tyres and gas tank. While I was at it, I thought, why not take the bike out for a ride. A few blocks down the road I thought, "Hmm, maybe I'll go visit Gramma and Grandpa." So, that's what I did. And I had some toast and dough-naughts and played them a couple songs on the guitar, then figured I should probably come home before the sun came down and rush hour really started up.
 |
| My little cousin, Corrina, gave me this valentine and I just thought that I had to post it because it really doesn't make a lot of sense. |
So, I hopped on the bike and set off and had to get onto the Crowchild bridge over the river. So I got onto the bridge from the 10th street area and then after discovering that the bridge was somewhat busy I said, "You know what, screw it!" and made up my mind that I wasn't even going to try to change lanes to get across the bridge. I figured that I might as well just take the extra couple minutes out of my day and go drive down to the lights and execute a safe left turn there. It's just seriously not worth the stress and hassle to get across that stupid bridge. So I'm in one piece and so is the motorcycle. I got home and my hands were prettty cold and that's pretty much all of the excitement that I've had today. Oh - I smell like gasoline now. I hope Mandy doesn't mind.
Oh, and I guess to go along with the first picture... I've gotten seriously sick of dealing with my poor hip being stabbed all night long. Last night I ended up having to put a pillow in the hole so that I couldn't feel the pointy spring anymore. When I got back from my trip, I got mother downstairs and we turned the mattress upside down. This is actually the second time that we've turned it upside down. The first time was because the springs were getting too weak and it was all droopy in the middle and hurting my back. I think it's getting to be just about time to go to the store and buy a nice new mattress. Unfortunately, those are expensive. Anyone wanna buy me a nice new mattress?
Update: Okay, those pictures looked completely terrible the way they were, so I'm gonna give this old method a shot and see just how awful it really is at the poorer resolution. Don't forget - they're still clickable!
Update #2: After checking this out at 800x600, I've decided that it looks perfectly fine, so I'm really happy about that and I don't need to deal with it much anymore. Hooray!
status.mood(alright);
status.music(The Walk, The Cure);
infrequent updates
I'm sorry I haven't been updating too regularly these days. It's kind of a shame, too, because I've been at least somewhat busier over my reading week than otherwise. At least, with more socialization. I could say that I just don't have time to update right now, but that would be a lie. So, I'll try to bring you up to day as quickly as possible - I'm tired and I want to go bed.
Alright, not really much to say about Monday. I slept until the early afternoon and then spent most of the day trying desperately to find a game that I felt like playing. I played some Earth & Beyond, but the areas I wanted to go to were lagging really badly so I gave up on that for a while. Among some of the attempts to amuse me were Diablo II and Neverwinter Nights. Both of those lasted about five minutes and I gave up on them before I even really got started with the gameplay. Adil came online and we chatted for a while about various crap, and then I got invited to wings night. I could have probably gone, but by the time it was starting, I'd gotten myself interested in playing Earth & Beyond again. I'm really probably going to just cancel my subscription to it in about a week, so I should play as much as I can before then. I was gaming with that until about two in the morning and then I believe I more or less went to bed.
Which brings us to Tuesday. Standard sleeping in, with the exception that my mattress is broken all of a sudden. I discovered that this morning when I caught one of my leg-tendons on a protruding bit of a spring. Stupid bed - I really just need to get around to getting a new mattress already. Looking behind me at my bed, it would appear that there's also something of a crater in the bed near where the broken spring is. Obviously, I'll be sleeping on that pointy metal bit again tonight because I don't really care enough to do anything about it. If I weren't so lazy, you'd have a picture of my bed to look at. But I am so you don't. Suck it up.
This afternoon I had some cheesecake and chips for breakfast, then ate some gummi worms for dessert. Mandy tried convincing me to go with her to the gym. I was really close to going with her. But then I started getting a big anxiety issue and all panicky just thinking about it. Besides, I took my unicycle out and refilled the tyre and rode that around the block. If you don't think riding the unicycle around the block is a work-out, I'd like to see you try it. Regardless, eventually I convinced Mandy that it wasn't going to happen today.
At about eight o'clock, I got a ride to the Roasterie in Kensington where Lindsay told me that she was going to be meeting Little Anne. When I got there, I saw Lindsay and Big Anne and some other person sitting on the bench outside the Roasterie. They told me that they would be getting ice cream with Meghan beforehand, and then she'd have to take off. So, I got there and Lindsay gave me a "you're... here?" look. So, because I couldn't see who the other person was, the first thing I thought was, "Oh no, Meghan's here and they're all waiting for Little Anne to show up! What am I going to do?!?" I got all panicky again and thought about running away but instead skulked a little closer and as it turned out it was just Little Anne there between them. Who needs to go to the gym for a cardio workout when you're as nervous and panicky as I apparently am.
Well, we caught the bus to Little Anne's house - she's living with her big sister now - and watched "Don Juan de Marco", played with the ferret, made popcorn in a pot the ol' fashioned way, and played some timed word-guessing game, "Catch Phrase". We played two rounds, and switched teams in between rounds, and the team I was on lost miserably both times. Maybe I'm a smart guy, but I cannot think quickly to save my life. So, these sort of quick-thinking games are really not my real strength. Anyhow, at about eleven or shortly thereafter Big Anne, Lindsay, and I left Little Anne's house so we could catch the bus back to Kensington. Originally I was just going to hop on the "number one" and take that home, but I decided (as we pulled into Kensington) that I'd just accompany the girls on the "number nine". Eventually it came and took Anne home, and I got of with Lindsay. Walked her home and used her bathroom. It was a nice night and she apparently didn't know where the keys to the van were, so I hugged her goodbye for another couple months and made the half-hour journey back to my place. When I got here my thighs were really cold and I chatted with Tasnuva on the MSN machine for a while. Mother came downstairs with a scowl after having been woken up by father's snoring.
Tomorrow I hope to get around to taking a couple pictures for you to look at. I intend to getting a picture of my unicycle and a picture of that spring poking out of my bed (if there's even anything to see there). My thighs are suddenly mildly sore from, I'd guess, the unicycle. Mandy is supposed to be coming over in about eighteen hours and I'm sleepy, so, goodnight.
status.mood(could be worse, sleepy);
status.music(Mayonaise [live], Smashing Pumpkins);
February 16, 2004
diversions
Alright, I suppose I should get caught up again after the post I left on Friday morning. I kind of didn't want to post anything right after that because it's really been the theme song for how I've been feeling the past while. But I'm getting ahead of myself, so, back to school on Friday:
I got to school half an hour early, as planned, and I had a little gift all ready for Caitlin for Valentine's. She suggested that I should come early so she could give me a surprise, which I suspect was going to be some CDs to borrow. I found Anne upstairs in her plaid skirt, but no Caitlin. So I chatted with Anne for a bit and then went and wrote a German test. I was pretty uninspired and didn't bother studying vocabulary or anything for it, and this time it was actually a pretty short test. Instead of madly scribbling the whole hour, I finished in half that time and strutted out, as per usual, ahead of everyone else. Then I wandered off to the Science Theatres where I found Mandy and we chit chatted and then went to syntax.
In syntax we got our first assignment back. I got an A. One other person got an A, and one person got an A+. She said that anyone in the "A range" is pretty much competent enough to write a good paper already. So I guess that means I should end up doing pretty well in the course. Unfortunately, that also means that I probably won't take too much away from the course either. That doesn't mean I'm going to have trouble getting this stupid paper proposal done by the twenty-third or whenever it's due.
After that class, Tasnuva and I took care of a couple things and then met up with My-an near the Den. After having a smoke and waiting around for a bit, I discovered that someone had apparently told Tas that he'd pay for her to play DDR, so she had to do that. This all killed an hour that we would have otherwise spent bored in Kensington. Once they finished their game, we hopped on the C-Train and headed off to Higher Ground.
I had myself a cup of "Monk's Blend" tea and they each had some sugary coffee-beverage. A little while later Alex showed up and we finished off my Gauloises cigarettes. Once we got bored of the coffee shop and waiting for Mandy or Caitlin to arrive we went down the street to the Kensington Pub. I had pineapple juice and smoked a lot. I was sad that I never got to see Cate that day, and then she didn't appear on the internet except to say a couple words the next day and then run off again. After an hour and a half or so we got tired of being at the pub and My-an went home and Tasnuva and Alex and I came back to my place to play snakes and ladders and super nintendo and listen to music. I think Tas had fun and may be interested in coming over again, despite the lack of excitement in my room. So, they all left around eight and that was pretty much the end of the excitement for that day, but for some reason I was up until four in the morning anyhow.
Which brings us to the almost entirely pointless existence during Valentine's Day. I woke up at about half past eleven, showered and all that, then decided that it just wasn't fucking worth it at all and I put my pyjamas back on and went back to bed. Eventually I gave up trying to really sleep and powered up the laptop and dragged it over beside the bed so I could MSN from there. Basically I mostly just sulked at Anne about how miserable I was and mixed that with drifting off for a couple minutes and looking at the clock to see how much of the day had gone by. Lindsay was supposed to come over to watch movies, and at around two I was starting to think that she'd either forgotten or changed her mind, and I wasn't in any sort of mood to call her and find out. She appeared online a while later and I didn't feel like I was really in the mood for company, despite being lonely, if that makes any sense. So I suggested that, seeing as she was already going out with the girls for Valentine's dinner, she may as well just continue hanging out with them for the rest of the night too. I figured I'd hedge my bets, though and have her call me when they were finished dinner to see what was going on.
It's a good thing I did, because by then (seven-thirtyish) I'd had breakfast and was a little more about and not feeling quite so bad. She called and said that they were just watching TV and a movie at her house, and that sounded like exactly the sort of thing that I would be up for, so I had mother drive me up there. It was pretty good and relaxing and nice, so I'm glad I went. Lins took us all home a little while after midnight, I guess, although her clock in the van claimed it was nearly two.
On a side-note, I think I'll probably just cancel my subscription to Earth & Beyond seeing as I haven't really played it for over a week and I'm not particularly interested in it anymore. Not only that, but I've become rather poor and that twenty dollars a month is just too much. Related to that, I'm not smoking over reading week. I can't afford to. I can't afford to smoke once school starts again either, so we'll see how that goes, I guess. I really really hate being poor like this. Not even so much because it means I have to go without buying things for myself, but rather because it means that I can't be as generous as I want to be. And it makes me feel really cheap and stingy and I really hate that. Like, Lindsay wanted a bag of chips today and it was only like a dollar and she had to pay for it on her debit card because she didn't have any cash on hand. I'd purposely left my change purse at home because I didn't want to have the option of buying anything, and I would have normally just grabbed a buck out of my pocket so save her the trouble of using her debit card. It pained me to not be able to do that. I know, I know, it's only a dollar, and that just makes it worse. I guess I need to get myself a job...
Today I crawled out of bed at some point in time in the early afternoon and had some cold waffle and cold bacon for breakfast. And then I suggested to mother that she get rid of the succulent ring. She then informed me that she's pretty sure that it wasn't the succulent ring's fault, but rather the bag of soil. Apparently she opened the bag of soil to plant some bonsai seeds and a swarm of flies poured out of it. She put the soil outside, and hopefully that was the only source of those horrible horrible bugs.
Shortly before four, Lindsay appeared online and I told her to just come on in when she got here. She arrived some twenty minutes later and then we watched part three of "The Terminator." What a bad movie, as expected. So, now we're done that set of movies, but it really looks like they were setting it up for a part four. Which means that we'll have to see that at some point if it comes out. Unfortunately. Well at least it will give me an excuse to spend some more time with her.
After that movie, Lins had a hankering for some potato chips because Arnold stole some from a gas station in the movie for not apparent reason. So we went to Mohawk and came back and figured we'd watch another movie. We picked Clerks out of my collection and surfed around on the internet for a while while waiting for the pizza to arrive. Little did we know, the pizza had arrived while we were at the Mohawk and it was just getting cold all that while. Eventually mother came down to see if we were, in fact, eating. I felt kind of silly, so we went upstairs and had the pepperoni and hawaiian pizza slices, some grape flavoured soda and headed back downstairs. I'm not sure whether Lindsay liked Clerks or not, and I was getting a little tired. After the movie we just listened to some music and played some Super Nintendo and watched some television with the closed captioning on. It was a really relaxing evening and I miss that sort of thing a lot.
Well, Lins and I may have a chance to see each other again on Tuesday before she takes off, but there are also plans to do something involving Meghan then. I seriously doubt that she's too interested in seeing me at all, and I really don't want to harass her in the slightest, so I'll keep my thumb out of that get-together.
status.mood(distant);
status.music(Tear, Smashing Pumpkins);
February 13, 2004
like tears in the rain
It's been three months now. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I have that line from Bladerunner going through my head. "All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain." But they're not. The scars on my arm are painful reminders of all that could have been. All that should have been. All I threw away. They're fading. Maybe one day they'll be gone altogether. But the memories? No. Vivid, clear, bright. Three hours... three months... three years, even? What difference does it make. It's just a Hallmark holiday. It doesn't mean anything. It shouldn't mean anything, but it does. It was a Hallmark holiday two years ago, too. So, I shave. I shower. I get dressed. Every day is another day. Every day is the same day. Every day I miss you.
Happy Valentine's Day.
status.mood(very alone);
status.music(my memories);
February 12, 2004
too lazy
Okay, even if I had wanted to accomplish anything today, I don't think it would have happened. Currently, everyone on my MSN contact list is either "away" or "busy", so that's not too thrilling. Also, these stupid gnats that have taken up residence in our house are really getting annoying as hell. We bought a fruit-fly-trap, but I doubt that it's actually doing anything. We suspect that it might be one of the plants that's housing all of these wretched insects, but instead of getting rid of it, mother has opted instead to keep it. It's not even a particularly nice plant, in my opinion, which just makes matters worse. Seriously, folks, I'm tired of these flies already.
Alright, a brief walk through my day: Got up, showered, caught the bus to school and went to the library session in my first class. Instead of a boring lecture about optimality theory, we had a boring session about how to search for things in the library. I would have probably skipped it, but he made attendence to the session worth four percent of the final mark. Then I went to the atrium where Steph found me and we chatted about horrible school and the like for an hour. Next, German class, where pretty much nothing happened. Then, back to the atrium where I found Lindsey and Caitlin. I tried to convince Cate that she should marry me if I were king of the moon and she could be queen of the moon and we could go swim in Billy Corgan's pool because he'd probably be pretty excited to have the king and queen of the moon over for drinks. Then it was off to watch a presentation in child language acquisition and barely pay attention to the subsequent lecture. Finally, a semi-interesting German phonology class and I was on my way back home.
When I got home and about five o'clock, mother had some kraft dinner all ready for me, so I ate that (as my breakfast, and it's looking like that's going to be my only food of the day) and then proceeded to go immediately back to bed. A couple hours ago I woke back up and was still pretty tired. Not really much more to say about my day, I don't think. I was going to write an essay to post on my blog just for something to do, but I'm rather uninspired to deal with that right now. I also searched the internet for one of those big long email "about me" survey things. The plan is to fill it out and link to it from the right side of the page there under my description. I figure it'll give you folks something to read when I finally get around to finishing it. The joke is how the only one I could find was at the webpage of someone called Meggers, who has a good friend named Lindsay and knows someone named Alex. What a lovely coincidence. Of course, deleting all of her answers took half an hour, and then it's going to take me more hours to finish filling it out. As you could probably guess, I'm not inspired to deal with that either.
Right, and there was one other big joke of the day. You remember me talking about that girl in linguistics who reminded me a lot of Meghan and was real pretty-like and phonetically clever and all that? Well, as it turns out, she's celebrating her eight-month anniversary on Valentine's Day. That's completely in keeping with the properties of the girls I find myself having some sort of crush on. Every single one of them has been taken already. At this point, I'm having trouble deciding whether I'm extremely sad about it or if I'm rather amused. Maybe it's both. I wonder if there are any good girls out there who aren't already taken, or if I've already missed the boat on that one...
Update: I've just taken a new picture of myself for the top right corner of the page. You can click on it for the full-sized picture if you're so inclined.
status.mood(still tired, uninspired);
status.music(the milkman of human kindness, billy bragg);
a nap, a quiz, some potato soup
That's right, people of the internet, I got home from school and promptly went to bed. I don't remember having any dreams, so maybe that means I slept well. I always seem to have better sleep in the afternoons than at night. Hah, I just remembered - this morning for breakfast I had a quarter of a double layer chocolate cake from Safeway. I love how I eat.
So, I got up earlier than usual this evening - around seven-thirty. I went upstairs to track down food and found a Mozza Burger from A&W in the fridge, so I microwaved that. Then mother re-heated some of the Safeway potato soup (made from a pouch of powder). That potato soup is actually really really good. Seriously, most instant soups are blah or mediocre at best, but this soup is quite yummy indeed, and I think we'll certainly be buying it again. I love cream of potato soup. Mmm.
After my soup, I came back downstairs and read through my list of blogs and what-not. Then I took the quiz you see at the end of this post. I was planning on putting a bit of a post above it about four hours ago now, but I've been distracted by stuff the whole evening and I'm only just writing it now. Caitlin came on the intarweb and we chatted it up and swooned/rocked out to Billy Corgan. What wonderful wonderful band the Smashing Pumpkins were, seriously. I let her watch my webcam for a couple hours and I did some phonetics homework. I like doing that homework because it makes me feel like a scientist, all looking at waveforms and taking readings and stuff. Eventually I got bored of that and decided I'd deal with it later.
So I've been spending the rest of the evening relating tales to Adil and listening to the Smashing Pumpkins. I'll probably go have a smoke before heading off to bed in an hour or whenever. I kind of think that I feel like playing some games for a bit tonight. On the other hand, I kind of feel like I should try to be rested for the morrow. Of course, it makes absolutely no difference how much sleep I get - I'll still be exhausted all day tomorrow. But that begs the question, "What game shall I play?" I don't know if I'm particularly in the mood for Earth & Beyond, so maybe I'll just surf the 'net a bit and call it a night.
I took this quiz and the result, I think, was absolutely fantastic. Wooo, a vampire! I think I win!
You are Form 9, Vampire: The Undying.
"And The Vampire was all that remained on the blood drowned creation. She attempted to regrow life from the dead. But as she was about to give the breath of life, she was consumed in the flame of The Phoenix and the cycle began again."
Some examples of the Vampire Form are Hades (Greek) and Isis (Egyptian). The Vampire is associated with the concept of death, the number 9, and the element of fire. Her sign is the eclipsed moon.
As a member of Form 9, you are a very realistic individual. You may be a little idealistic, but you are very grounded and down to earth. You realize that not everything lasts, but you savor every minute of the good times. While you may sometimes find yourself lonely, you have strong ties with people that will never be broken. Vampires are the best friends to have because they are sensible.
brought to you by Quizilla
status.mood(fairly good);
status.music(obscured, smashing pumpkins);
February 11, 2004
noisy keyboard, weird dreams
I'm currently sitting in a computer lab at school with a keyboard that makes a hell of a lot of noise when I type on it, and the idea that I had to come here and write an update is going to be quite a noisy decision indeed. I worry that people will come up to me and tell me that I should stop typing because it's distracting their studies, or whatever, but hey, there was a free computer and I'm allowed to be here, so tough. Regardless, I realize I didn't post an entry last night, but I was really tired after I got home from school and decided that I just wanted to go to bed. I woke up again at around nine and spent a couple hours "rallying the troops" and basically just talking with a bunch of people over MSN, and that kept me pretty busy until a little after midnight, at which point in time I was, once again, too tired to blog, so I just went back to bed. Yes, I realize I sleep a lot, but that's what I do these days.
I probably shouldn't be sleeping as much as I am because I'm really having frighteningly vivid dreams and they're starting to get pretty crazy... I don't really remember exactly what happened last night, but there was this one scene that took place in the Market Mall Safeway, which I think I'll recount to you all.
So, for whatever reason, I was up at Market Mall and I needed to go to the Safeway there, and Steph was around for a little while. Eventually she ran off to do her own thing, and I figured that I needed some stuff to eat because I was pretty hungry. I went to the little bakery/butchery nook and found some crackers and some cheese and some other wafers of some unidentifyable sort. They only seemed to have brands that I wasn't familiar with, and I was really kind of suspicious of the whole thing. I then saw a slice of cervelat salami laying around and ate it and decided that I really wanted to get some cervelat to go with my bread and cheese. So I waited in the line and I grabbed a loaf of Co-op brand bread, which I promptly put back in favour of some miniature loafs of french bread that I had a bearded man throw to me from the back of the line. When I finally got to the front, I asked for some cervelat but the guy behind the counter said they didn't have any left. Apparently they had cervelat and turkey salami and they were both on sale, and they were the only salamis they had. I was really disappointed by that, and the guy could see that, so he offered me a slice of the turkey salami to try it out. As I was eating it, he told me that it was a wonderful combination of egg-salad and head-cheese, and I was completely disgusted by the whole thing and almost threw up.
Then I saw that there was, in fact, a lump of cervelat in the display window beside the turkey salami, so I asked him why he couldn't just sell me some of that. Well, it was a three day sale, I guess, so they'd already sold their quota of cervelat for the day and couldn't afford to sell anymore. It was then that I discovered a tray of the salami hiding under some bread, and it was all sliced up and everything, but one of the pieces was rusty brown. I grabbed the plate and showed it to him and he said that that was the pre-cut trimmings and he didn't think they still had it. He said that I could buy it if I wanted. I told him that I wanted a hundred grams, and he told me that the rules said that I had to take the whole pile, which he weighed in a frying pan and proclaimed it to be three hundred grams. I was really sad about that because it ended up costing fifteen dollars and I started crying because I couldn't afford that much. He told me that he'd see what he could do to lower the weight, and he proceeded to turn the frying pan on. Sure enough, he started boiling off some of the extra water and then suddenly it turned into bacon and I grabbed it and went to the kitchen to eat it.
The end.
That was the most congruous of my dreams last night. One of them involved a heap of chocolate bars in Blockbuster for twenty cents each, and another one of them involved my little cousin refusing to put on her seatbelt so we had to block traffic and make cars honk at us. Eventually I got fed up and grabbed her and put her on the sidewalk and told her she could just walk to gramma's house and be there in a week if she wanted. She started crying so she got back in the truck and put on her seatbelt. I'm really kind of getting a little tired of all these nutty dreams, but I suppose it beats being awake.
Well, getting onto the actual plot of my past two days, I suppose...
Yesterday was kind of a waste of time at school. My first class was spent struggling against all odds to keep from falling asleep. It was one of those classes where the prof makes his point in the first two minutes (I'm not kidding here) and then spends the rest of the hour and a half going over the same boring examples in a monotone voice. Then, the next three hours were really pleasant. I met up with Steph in the atrium and chatted with her for a while and then Caitlin showed up. I surprised Cate with the Smashing Pumpkins CD and we chatted (the three of us) for another hour or so until a group of campaigners for the Student's Union elections came in with guitars and terrible singing voices. Then we went to the student center where I bought a pepperoni stuffed bun and a banana chocolate chip muffin and eventually we split up and I headed to my second class of the day.
The second class was slightly less of a waste of time, but not by much, and then I went to my final class. There, we had an hour and a half to work on our German phonetics project in the computer lab, but I'd apparently forgotten my worksheets in the other binder, which was laying on my bedroom floor. The kind prof came and gave me another copy, and I did what I could for a while, then got distracted and just basically stared at the computer screen a while longer. I figure I'll probably just finish it up at home after I'm done here (and maybe after a good nap). So I came home and you know what happened from there.
Today, I woke up and showered and all that and headed to school, and our old German teacher was sitting in to observe class today. It was actually one of the better classes because I actually had an idea of what was going on and our table actually looked over some of the German grammar together and maybe pulled a couple ideas together as a result. Next, there was the syntax class, which was somewhat interesting, but not all that important - as usual. Sadly, Tasnuva wasn't in syntax today so we didn't get to follow through with our plans for after class, but there will be other days. I did what I could on my own, and learned a bit of stuff, but nothing too much. I may have a couple other people signed up for the cause now, though, so that's a good thing - the more the merrier.
Well, the plans now are to go upstairs and bid Mandy farewell until the morrow, hop on the buses and head home, and try my best to get something done for German phonetics tomorrow. If anything particularly interesting happens between now and when I go to bed, I'll give y'all another update.
status.mood(headachy, tired);
status.music(klackety clack, this noisy keyboard);
February 09, 2004
a great day
Today was really good. I was tired when I got up, but it was also before five in the PM, so that's understandable. I took care of the stuff that needed to be taken care of and hopped on the bus to get myself to school. I got there half an hour early, as planned, and did my German homework. Then, we pretty much just sat in German class the whole time being confused and chatting in English while the teacher just kind of wandered around and occasionally said something. It was such a tremendous waste of time that Katherine and I actually went down to visit our last semester's German professor to see if she could please help us somehow. She's so sweet, and she says that if things can't get turned around in that class really soon, she'll take it over and teach it herself. I don't think any of the students in the class would be opposed to that - the last time she dropped by to get people to sign up for her study, half the class wanted to run up and hug her.
At any rate, after our meeting, I had to run to my syntax class, for which I was seven minutes late. It's a matter of prioritizing, though, and that meeting was quite a bit more important than looking at the trees we drew last class, I think. The rest of syntax class went pretty well and, afterwards, Tasnuva and I disembarked on the quest that we had planned the previous night. It was an absolutely fantastic quest, and it worked out so well.
You see, we were questing for really nice cigarettes. Specifically, we were questing for Gauloises, the French cigarettes that make you feel like a dirty Frenchman when you smoke them. They're seriously wonderful, so we hopped on the C-Train after class. Navigating through the maze that is downtown, using a map, we managed to find our way to the Watermark Tower. It was there that I introduced Tasnuva to all the wonders that can be the tobacco leaf. It smells just so wonderful in that store, and the owner has the best job of anybody else. He just sits in the fantastically beautiful den the whole day smoking cigars and watching movies or golf or whatever, occasionally getting up to sell someone some variety of tobacco. Every now and again he just takes off and locks up the store so he can go to Penny Lane and get some lunch or something for forty five minutes. I'd really love his job.
So, I bought myself a pack of Gauloises and Tasnuva bought herself a pack of menthol cigarettes, and then we each bought a small cigar to enjoy in the comfort of the aforementioned den. Afterwards, we walked down the road and I introduced Tas to the wonderful Falafel King. They have wonderful falafel, indeed. Even more wonderful than their falafel, however is their baklava. Tasnuva is apparently generally suspicious of baklava, but she was amazed at how great theirs was.
Finally, we went to A&B Sound. Tasnuva said she liked the Smashing Pumpkins, but didn't have any of their CDs. She asked me to recommend one to her, and my hand shot out and grabbed Mellon Collie and I told her, "This is fantastic, seriously, this is fantastic." I discovered that they were selling Earphoria for nearly ten dollars less than HMV was, so I decided I may as well just grab it. It's sure wonderful, though, and I'm planning on letting Cate borrow it tomorrow (seeing as it's ripped to iTunes now) if she ever decides to show up. It's supposed to be a surprise, but now that I've told the entire internet about it, we'll have to see just how much of a surprise it ends up being!
So, our quest was a brilliant success, and then, fagged and fed and with new CDs in hand, we disbanded the party and went our separate ways home. I got a seat near the back of the bus and then it packed right up. I was quite glad that I had a seat.
Eventually, about forty minutes later, I was home and there was more good news waiting for me. My latest Staples rebate (for an amazing ten dollars) had finally come, so I'll need to go cash that cheque at some point in time, I suppose. That helped to justify at least one of my purchases this afternoon. Following a brief appearance on MSN, I took out my contact lenses and went to have a nap, from which, at half past nine, I just awoke. Mother made me a fried egg sandwich because her and father finished all the lasagna without me. That brings us to now, and I'm planning on playing some Earth & Beyond for a couple hours while waiting for MSN to get its act together and let me sign back on.
Okay, so I didn't get as high a score as Steph, but I did get a picture of Drew Carey, for whetever that's worth. We got the same description, though, and isn't that what's really important? Anyhow, results of the quiz follow:
You are 63% geek
You are a geek. Good for you! Considering the endless complexity of the universe, as well as whatever discipline you happen to be most interested in, you'll never be bored as long as you have a good book store, a net connection, and thousands of dollars worth of expensive equipment. Assuming you're a technical geek, you'll be able to afford it, too. If you're not a technical geek, you're geek enough to mate with a technical geek and thereby get the needed dough. Dating tip: Don't date a geek of the same persuasion as you. You'll constantly try to out-geek the other.
status.mood(great);
status.music(watermark, weakerthans);
February 08, 2004
a night out and not enough money
Well, about fifteen minutes before Alex came over, I started watching "Run Lola Run" and then proceeded to restart it when Alex arrived. Normally he doesn't really like movies, but he actually really enjoyed this film, I believe. It's such a good movie - they have a really going point to make (whatever exactly it was we're not entirely sure) and they make it efficiently. As the movie was nearly over, Anne phoned from Pearl's house to see if "we still wanted" to go to the Night Gallery. Hah, as if we were going to change our minds. I think she was just too tired/uninterested in going out with us and probably would have rather just stayed with Meghan and Pearl and all her other friends. As it was, Anne didn't exactly have anything to drink, didn't really like the bands, and was interested in leaving quite a bit earlier than Alex was. To be fair, I was a little sulky and tired too, so maybe the atmosphär wasn't quite right for a night out. Maybe we just needed some more people. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.
After the Night Gallery, we went to Denny's, but I was too poor to be able to afford to eat anything so I sat staring sadly at the food of Anne and Alex. Then Alex took Anne home, followed by taking me home. I ate about eight cheese biscuits with a bunch of honey and then chatted with Alex for a while over the MSN Messenger and went to bed around three or something.
I had more biscuits this afternoon when I got up, played some Earth & Beyond for the first time this week, and then had a great absurd debate with Cate about whether Jesus could microwave a burrito so hot he couldn't eat it. I decided that God wouldn't; Jesus couldn't; and a gigantic pet sea turtle named God would be happy to. Why wouldn't God eat the burrito? He doesn't like Mexican.
status.mood(doing fine - a little bored);
status.music(cherry kiss, from autumn to ashes);
February 07, 2004
back in the groove
So, aside from the fact that Shaw is currently being a jerk and neither letting me use the internet nor letting anyone else get anything off of my Shaw webspace, this blog is pretty much the way it's supposed to look. I'll probably tweak with a bit of stuff now and again when problems come up or I decide I'm just not really happy with the way things look. But other than for a couple minor changes, this is the format you're going to be looking at.
I realized that I didn't get around to talking about my day yesterday, which is a shame because that was actually a day worth talking about! It basically started at about ten at night on Thursday, when I finally woke up after my nap so I could start working on my papers that were due the following day. I finished the syntax paper (which ended up being about eleven pages) at four in the morning, and the German writing project about an hour later. Then I went back to bed for a bit, woke up, and headed off to school. German was a fairly (read: extremely) useless class to attend, and syntax was roughly the same. I did, however, get a chance to use my newly-purchased overhead projector markers, so that was exciting. After class, Tasnuva and I caught up with Mandy and went to hand in her paper, then we dragged her to the Den, somewhat against her will. She was planning on going to work out, but instead we got her drinking and smoking, so that was great.
A little before three, Cate (do not confuse her with Kate, this is Caitlin) arrived. She found us having a smoke by the bar, and then we went to the table and ordered some cajun fries and onion rings and once the food was done Cate went to sit with some other drunk people for a while. About an hour later, Mandy and Tasnuva took off, I got Cate, and we saw a couple of her other friends. It's really amazing how many people that girl seems to know. I couldn't tell you their names, but it was a tall, cute Asian boy, and a somewhat shorter quiet girl. After chatting for a bit, the four of us went to Market Mall and had ice cream and wandered around for a while. We spent a bunch of time in HMV, and I purchased that DVD of Rush in Rio, and it's really amazing. Unfortuantely, three hours of Rush is kind of just too much Rush, but the drum solo just blew my mind! Regardless, when we were all finished, it was about six o'clock, and Cate took off with the other three to head home or wherever. I called my house and discovered that I couldn't get a ride, so I just walked home
Alex showed up some time later that evening and we went back to Market Mall so he could get something to eat and pick up his pants. He dropped me off here, I spent some time working on the blog, and went to bed earlier than I'd planned. I think I must have slept about fifteen or sixteen hours before I woke up today. Now I've got a couple hours to kill and then Alex and Anne will be showing up and we'll be going to the Night Gallery to see some cute girls play some music. I think I'll probably order a Corona so I can just nurse that the whole night - I can't really afford to spend much more money now. But, this ought to be fun!
status.mood(super);
status.music((manifest), weakerthans);
February 06, 2004
i have returned
After a week's hiatus, I've worked out everything that I need to work out to feel comfortable returning to the blogging scene. The people I actually care about upsetting with what I write have been consulted and everything seems to be alright with them, so I think we're pretty much back in business. People like God (or should I say Kate?) can take their attacks and criticisms and attempts to shut me up and bother someone else with them because I couldn't care less about anything any of them have to say. If you've got something to say to me, just come out and say it like a mature reasonable human being - don't bother hiding behind some ridiculous pseudonym. If you have a problem with me, that's fine, but you don't need to be silly about it.
Moving right along, as you can see, the grand re-opening has come with a change in layout and style. I moved (for the week) to scribblejournal and Alex and I modified the stylesheets for my page there until we came up with something similar to this. It's a lot of work porting it over to Blogger, and getting all the content just right, so we can consider this page to be "under construction" for the next few days until I get around to straightening everything out. But, the important thing is: I'm back!!!
Update: Okay, this is somewhat embarassing. I need to stop doing beta testing in Mozilla because everything works so nicely there, but nothing works at all in IE, the browser that almost everyone is using. I assure you the site is actually much prettier than it looks right now, and I'll probably look into fixing the formatting (again) tomorrow. Until then, I doubt anyone will really even bother to see if I've come back yet.
status.mood(quite good);
status.music(driven, rush);
February 01, 2004
maybe some other time
Now, some of you may feel that my openness on the blog makes for a good worthwhile read, but it's apparently coming at a rather high price. People are getting mad at me, and there's apparently quite a bit of hatred going around because of some of the mistakes I've made and gone on to write about. There isn't really much point in keeping a weblog if I'm not willing to write about some personal things, so I guess, for now at any rate, I'm going to have to just stop. I'm sorry, I just keep letting myself and everyone else down.
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