Saturday, Feb. 19 

I came home in a hurry. I had only an hour to get from work, to my house and then down to union station for a pickering train for my nephew’s baptism. And I can’t stand religious types. 

Sarah and Stu were in the kitchen making themselves veggie chili for dinner and to look at the two off them in that old house made me think I’d fallen into the book I’m reading. It’s the story of beat poets and writers in the middle of the last century, when everyone was living off each other and having a grand old time making meals and talking all night. Must have been fun. 

Stu was sitting at the kitchen table, short but aged very well and no doubt stinking of cigarettes as he often was. He had a tan collared shirt on over some darker pattern and a brown engishman’s cap, like gangsters used to wear back when you rode boxcars to find work, instead of just for fun. 

Sarah herself looked like a relic of the past as well. He tall jewish good looks and curly mouse-brown hair tied back gave her an acceptably librarian appearance, but since she got new lenses in that ancient pair of cat’s eye spectacles she found in a junk shop it’s been nigh impossible to call her anything but “ma’am” 

“Hey Matt,” she said, “were you gone yesterday?” 
(No ma’am) “No, but I will be gone now. I was at work all day” 
“Oh. What were you doing last night?” 
“Nothing. Worked till nine,” and I bounded up the stairs to trade the coat I was wearing for the less warm, but much nicer, overcoat that would go with my suit at the baptism, “then I came back here. And didn’t do much.” Yelled from the closet upstairs, “Oh, but Jason called just about as soon as I got home, so I talked with him for a while.” 

Sarah nodded and kept chopping up vegetables for their chili. I went into my room and packed up my computer, some clothes and books and went back downstairs again. 

I’ve been reading the exploits of Jack Kerouac as written in On The Road and he’s in California now, trying not to hit on his friend’s girl, then falling madly in love, for a month or so, with a little Mexican girl he meets on the bus to Los Angelos. I’d spent the whole subway ride home looking for pretty girls to fall in love with, but didn’t have any luck. 

“So,” asked Sarah, “Do you think you’ll get to see Dorothy before she leaves?” 
“Not if I can help it” I said, “I’m not going to call her.” 
“So, like, only if she calls begging you?” 
“Ya, something like that. Ah, but on that note,” I went over to the whiteboard on the fridge door and found the blue marker to write with, “if she does happen to call, tell her to call my parent’s place. Here’s the number.” 

Sarah laughed, “Okay, if she calls while I’m home, and I happen to answer the phone I’ll give her your parent’s number.” 
“Great. Gotta go. Got a train to catch.” And I’m out the door. 

Stu didn’t do much except sit there and smile at the funny bits, but I don’t really know him. He’s a musician. Sarah’s a musician. Our roommate Signe is a musician. Seems like nobody writes anything but songs any more. It baffles me. Pens are so cheap and guitars are so expensive. 

The subway pulled into Bathurst station just after I settled on a spot on the platform to wait on. As it slowed I noticed a redheaded girl in a dark pink coat sitting in the car in front of me. I only had two stops to go before my transfer and the doors were going to open on the opposite side of the car when we pulled into St. George, so I simply walked through the doors as they opened and stood dumbly in front of the opposite set of doors. I stood there like I was expecting them to open in a second. 

I wanted so dearly to turn and look at the redhead but we were traveling to my right and she was on my left. Who looks backwards on a subway?  Small secret excuses for looking at girls are my only rationalizations when I’m being a letch. 

I looked casually to my right. I looked absent mindedly over the other faces in the car. I don’t remember them now, except the old man with the scraggly beard trying to sleep, but they hardly mattered. It was just an excuse; I was looking at EVERYONE on the subway. I’m interested in people you see. I’m a concerned citizen and probably a writer. That’s what she was thinking. Right. 

I turned to my left and dropped my sights directly into the eyes of the redheaded girl. And she was looking directly at me. Right into my eyes! Our eyes did not break contact until my heart had doubled its efforts, my breath came up short and I felt my face begin to blush. I casually, coolly I’m sure, moved my gaze on to the other passengers on the subway. But of course I didn’t look any of them in the eyes. What for? 

My eyes passed over her for another split second as I return to staring at the doors in front of me, but I think she kept looking at me. I could just see her reflection in my peripheral vision and it was a few moments after our moment that she seemed to shift her position and looked away from me, or away from my direction anyway. 

I got off the train without a second look at the redheaded girl and it wasn’t until I was standing on the upstairs platform, looking for someone else to fall in love with, that I realized I should have stayed on for two more stops and got off at Yonge. I could have still caught a southbound subway from there, and probably still would have made it for my train to Pickering. What’s more I could have possibly gotten the guts to look at that redheaded girl again and say “Hello.” With a charming smile. 

Kerouac says to himself in On The Road, as he sits across the aisle from that lovely Mexican girl on the bus to LA: 

“You gotta. You gotta or you’ll die! Damn fool, talk to her! What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you tired enough of yourself by now? And before I knew what I was doing I leaned across the aisle to her (she was trying to sleep on the seat) and said, “Miss, would you like to use my raincoat for a pillow?” 
She looked up with a smile and said, “No, thank you very much.” 

But it does work out, at least for a little while. And though she’s damaged emotionally, and she leads him to squander the last of his money and chase after ghost jobs hauling manure they still get to be totally in love with each other for about a month. It’s a lovely inspiration. 
 

Tuesday, February 15, 2005 

I had a free weekend ahead of me and I wasn’t about to waste it. In fact, this was the first weekend in a long time where I would have two days off in a row, followed by only five days of work. The Saturday/Sunday I had off for the Brampton Indie Arts Fest didn’t count because I made it up by working six days in a row. Ah, but now I’ve got a new work schedule which gives me Sunday and Monday off, instead of Sunday and Tuesday, and I’ll be damned if I don’t use that time to my advantage. 

Saturday night Dorothy and I went to see Final Fantasy and Jon-Rae and the Super River at the Music Gallery. It was one of the Wavelength Fifth Anniversary shows and the church was packed, and everyone was there. Even Jenny Mitchell was there and I hadn’t seen her in a long time. Apparently “same old same old” is what’s new with her, but then I read today that The Barmitzvah Brothers have a new album! I haven’t seen them play in a long time. They’d better start playing some shows soon dammit. 

There were a couple of fine, okay, opening bands, but then everyone jammed themselves into the front of the church for Owen Pallet and his Final Fantasy music. He was glorious, as usual, but did less percussion with his violin. Which was fine, since he asked someone to play drums for him on one song and it made all the difference. It was chilling and incredible, and particularly enjoyable thanks to some overhead projections on the sheet  suspended behind Owen. A shadowy hand drew raindrops in blue, and once the field of view was filled with the downpour, added a second transparency with even more falling drops.  Other projections included childlike drawings of houses, which were coloured in on the fly, and finally a lines only drawing of a blonde boy stuck up a tree, threatened by the gnashing jaws of a pair of dogs, and kept company in the branches by a long tailed rooster. It all came together beautifully and everyone loved it. When Owen supposedly messed up in the middle of one song he stopped and apologized and the crowd cheered him on to “Keep Going!!!” (really at least three exclamations worth of encouragement). 

I was exhausted and tired but I was rocking back and forth on my heels through the whole set (the closest I get to dancing). By the time Jon-Rae, the River and the choir of 18 or twenty back up singers got on stage though, I had to sit down. There wasn’t much to see besides the backs of audience members and this music wasn’t quite as exciting. 

Instead it was merely beautiful and gorgeous, and floating above the pews just as the sound of voices in unison should in a Church. They opened the set with a few traditional gospel songs, including “Does anyone here love my jesus” and “Down by the riverside”. And though those songs were written for a chorus of many voices, it was “Come Back” which seemed to make the best use of the choir. It was written by a former guitarist in The River back when Jon-Rae was in B.C. It’s a simple love song but so beautifully arranged and soulfully performed that it literally made me swoon.  

Dorothy was watching her watch as she planned to be in bed by midnight so she could get a good night’s sleep before a day of skiing. Thankfully, the show ended just in time and we headed off without missing anything. 
I expected to get up early on Sunday as well, but I still would have stayed up another four hours if Dorothy had been up to it. Ho hum. My parents were probably going to be coming into Toronto to see my brother Tom and his family. I’d meet them there and then they’d take me back with them to Courtice and I’d spend the rest of my weekend there. 

I had a nice time on my way to Tom and Patti’s place. I walked from my house at Bathurst and Harbord, west on Bloor and north on Ossington up to their place just below Dupont. On the way I picked up three cute, stuffed animals for my nieces and nephew, for I knew I’d see them each, and I’d only gotten them books for Christmas. 

The bunny I got for Tom’s daughter Maggie had a little bell inside it and when I gave it to her she did exactly what I’d hoped she would: She shook it madly! She’s less than a year old and she held onto it with both hands and immediately began shaking it like a martini, nearly bashing my mother in the face as she held her in her arms. 

We had a nice time, but it was a little late in coming. By the time we left it was already 3:30pm, and I’d hoped to spend the afternoon and evening with Steve and Kelly in my parent’s basement, plotting against the world. 

As it turned out Steve was asleep at his place in Peterborough until about 5 anyway so things didn’t get started until after 6. Kelly and I spent about a half hour looking at his sketches for the Robin Hood riff he and Steve have been joking about for the last couple of years.  This Robin Hood story is full of all kinds of wonderful new ideas and shocking character transformations, so I won’t bother ruining the surprise for you, but we had a good time discussing the drawings and talking about a couple of vampire stories I’ve been thinking about for a while. 

Steve called when his bus dropped him off in Oshawa at around 6:30. He was waiting for us in front of a video store in the K-mart plaza just off the 401. Coincidentally he had just found a VHS copy of a terrible looking Robin Hood adaptation that involved Robin’s adventures in ridding the world of evil. It seemed to be slightly supernatural and thoroughly ridiculous, but like even the lowest budget films of the 70s it had fantastic cover artwork. 

We headed up Simcoe to north Oshawa and the old highschool-time hangout Wally’s World; a well lit, but rather unpleasant greasy spoon decorated in greens. The food isn’t great, the music is terrible, the service is fine, but really there’s no reason to go there. Maybe it’s their terrible soup that draws so many patrons. 

Anyway, I just ordered fries and gravy and a coke and hoped that we could get back down into my parent’s basement soon. We’ve been talking about putting together a comic book anthology called Tales of Outrage, and this was to be a brainstorming session to fill in some of the blanks. The Robin Hood story would be the feature story, but what else would be in there? I had a vampire story, but no artist, and Steve thought he’d do all right drawing his own story, but he didn’t know what he’d write yet. We also didn’t know what to put on the cover. 

One of the drawings Kelly brought with him was a close up of a Unicorn with flared, steaming nostrils and sharp menacing teeth and a chainsaw instead of a horn. The discussion over the cover went from wanting to represent one story from inside the book, to perhaps not representing anything in the book, or anything at all besides a cool image, to perhaps featuring a character, like Alfred E. Newman, who would appear only on the cover for each issue.  We decided that the Chainsaw unicorn would be that character, and the first scenario would be a portrait of him just after clear cutting a forest, destroying the homes of Elf families and other woodland creatures. It was unanimous. When we decided on finding a character that would represent the spirit of the comic it was clear that the Chainsaw Unicorn was exactly what we were all about. 

It was a highly productive meeting and went long into the night. Kelly left at around 1:30am, but Steve and I stayed up and discussed our respective love lives. It was an appropriate subject for the wee hours of Valentine’s Day.  Steve’s love life seems to be going just fine. He’s got a girlfriend. He sees a lot of her. They’re not in love, but they’re content and they help each other with different things they’re working on. I’ve almost got a girlfriend, but I knew I wouldn’t be seeing her on Valentine’s Day due to other complications, which I explained to Steve in detail while we sipped (well, I gulped) scotch and ginger ale. There wasn’t enough to get drunk though. I’d done that the night before and hadn’t left enough for two people. 

Steve was unable to fall asleep on the Futon on my old bedroom floor, but I slept really well on my old bed in the guest room. I was warm and comfortable and dreamed some interesting dreams, but I can’t remember any now. I rolled out of bed at 11:30am to find Steve watching tv in the living room, severely sleep deprived. We didn’t really leave the living room after that, and spent the afternoon watching Shaun of the Dead, Interview with a Vampire and then bits of a few shows including Navy SEALs, Walker Texas Ranger and The Hunger. After such a productive night I felt awful for such an unproductive day, but we enjoyed ourselves. 

Hopefully this new schedule will allow me to spend more weekends with Steve and Kelly, although it’s likely to really cut back my time with Phil. His school schedule this semester allowed him a period of about 6 hours of free time between classes on Tuesdays, but Mondays aren’t half as good. We’re going to have to be more focused when we get together now. 

Still though, 2005 is beginning to feel like a very fertile year. Maybe I’ve still got too many projects on the go but none of them are very expensive. I just have to cut out a couple of uncreative, unproductive distractions from my life. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do. 
 

Monday, February 7, 2005 

I had a hard time getting to sleep at Becky's parent's place. I was tired enough, but my stubble kept scratching the material of the green sleeping bag i was wrapped up in. 

Becky and I took a cab from the Heritage Theatre in downtown Brampton and rode through the thick, thick fog unsure if it was the windows or the atmosphere that was clouding our vision of that grey, dull town. 

We squiggled through the subdivision like we were seeking out a minotaur. There were two cars in the driveway, which perplexed Becky since her parents were supposedly at someone else's house for some birthday poker. We could hear music through the front door, and Becky groaned; the party had apparently changed location. 

Becky's parents, Jane and Mike, were hosting a few of their overweight, middle aged, white-trash suburban friends, drinking scotch and smoking pot over some good, clean gambling. I hate to make comments like that, not knowing these people at all, but that's what they were; low browed pothead boors. They were friendly enough, I'm sure, but even with his tattoos, wife-beater shirt, cigarette, goatee and permanent scowl, I could tell that Mike was considerably more sophisticated than his guests. Myself excluded, of course. 

He frightened me at first. He looked like a grown up, mean version of the kid you knew in highschool who smoked pot at lunch and spent all his time in class, as rare as that was, absent mindedly scratching things into the desk top. Chances are though, that rather than just carving "cunt" or "fucking shit" into the desk, Mike would have been quoting Vonnegut with a phrase such as "So it goes" during History class. Millions slaughtered, "so it goes". 

Becky has referred to her father as a dick quite often, and possibly even as an asshole. In fact, that morning she had even told me about how he very nearly ditched her mother when he found out she was pregnant. He only stuck around, so the story goes, because he realized twins would just be too much for Jane to handle alone. 

I'd never met the man before, and I'd never seen a picture, but when I came up into the kitchen of the split level home and saw him coldly counting his poker winnings under a cigarette at the kitchen table I knew it was him. He just looked exactly as I'd pictured him. 

Jane, on the other hand, I had seen a picture of, but that couldn't have prepared me for her shocking resemblance to Becky. Even Becky couldn't have prepared me for that, and he had tried. Jane was like an older, less aware, but more eccentric version of Becky. She smiles like a kid who just farted a well timed fart each time she says something revelatory. It's a thin, long smile with mischievous eyes. It's not a terribly friendly smile, and if you're not smiling too it can feel very intimidating. Becky's smile is only friendlier because of the way her cheeks contribute. 

The poker game was over and the guests, minus me, soon left. Becky was hungry and wanted to order a pizza but needed money. Mike asked her where she was going to get the pizza from. Her favourite pizza in town, Piazoli or something, was her natural response, "Fuck that. If I'm paying for it we'll get what I want. And I don't want that greasy shit." 
"It's great!" says Becky. 
"It's greasy as hell. I hate it." says Mike. 
"She comes all the way from Toronto. It's the least you can do." says Jane. 
The got the pizza Becky wanted and Mike ate it, but he complained that it was too salty and greasy. It was a little salty, and certainly greasy, but the pepperonis were cute and little and it was really good. 

We sat around talking about all sorts of things for a while and i was exhausted, but didn't want to say anything. Becky showed her parents the cute brown cards she made with white lace hearts, but her mom only said, "They're brown!" and her dad said, "yeah, I understand the idea, but maybe you should make them, you know, nicer." To which Jane responded, "Positive Michael, be positive!" 

Jane pulled out the sofa bed in the rec room at the back of the house and made it up with some sheets and a sleeping bag. She suggested that I take the guest room, but Becky said i could take the sofabed. I don't hold it against her, it was comfortable enough, but like I said, my stubble scratched against the material of the sleeping bag and made it hard to sleep. 

The sleeping bag was green on the outside and slippery like silk, and every time I rolled over my stubble made a terrible scratching, scraping sound against the material. Becky was in the guest room and her parents were watching tv in the living room at the top of the stairs, but i was sure they could hear it as well as i could. Jane got mike to turn down the volume of the tv, but i could still hear it pretty well. It didn't bother me much though, nd i slept quite well. 

The kettle woke me up in the morning and the whistling gave way to the voice of Margaret Atwood in conversation with Daniel Richler and a room full of fans. But that didn't bother me too much either. The only thing that concerned me was: "Where is Becky?! How can she still be asleep?! It must be two o'clock in the afternoon!!" I drifted in and out of sleep for what seemed like hours. I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself in case Jane offered to make me breakfast , which would force me to interact with the folks. As it turned out, it was only 11 when Becky came out of the guest room and asked me if I was awake yet. 

We split the leftover pizza and a loose plan to hit the Value Village and Golden Griddle was suggested, but we didn't end up leaving the house until quarter to two, and by then the bargain hunting had been stricken from the itinerary and the next bus was about to leave for Toronto in 15 minutes. So Jane was to drop us off at the bus stop across from Taxo Bell and we were to just head on homeward, me without a proper sampling of the city. 

Jane seemed to be generally hyper, but Becky didn't seem to think it was odd, so maybe it didn't have anything to do with having a guest in the house, as I had originally though. Perhaps she's really just hyper all the time. 

The drive to Taco Bell was boring as shit. Like a real easy shit that takes up a few minutes but without any real satisfaction in it. We drove down a long, straight stretch of road lined on either side by subdivisions walled in with beige noise barriers. Four lanes of 60 km/h highway with nothing good on it. There were few pedestrian entrances through the walls and crossing the street looked like a game of frogger. 

I sold one Zombie! Book for ten bucks, one CD for five and one card for fifty cents and after that spent ten bucks on the cab home and eleven on mine and Becky's bus tickets home. She'll pay me back for her ticket eventually, and then I'll have broken even. Or, not quite, considering the bus ticket there. Crud.  

As always the bus ride home seemed shorter than the one away and I was home by 4:30pm. I'd just moved into a house with three other people on the previous Tuesday and didn't yet know what everyone's schedules were like. The house was empty. My new roommates were nowhere to be found. But with everyone significantly settled into their own rooms, including myself, there really wasn't anything different about the place except a strange quietness hanging over the building. And there wasn't really anything for me to do outside of my bedroom either. I could have housemates, or I could not, neither seemed to have much affect on my life. 

So i stayed in my room for the rest of the evening. I watched the Mr. Plow episode, then Law & Order: Criminal Intent, checked some email and headed down to Sneaky Dee's for Wavelength. What a life. 

Monday, January 3, 10:48pm 

Tonight I managed to catch a specimen of that rarest of cultural critters, the Canadian Sitcom. How many Canadian sitcoms can you recall? How many would you care to recall? Have you ever laughed during an episode of King of Kensington? I saw one episode of a sitcom starring Albert Schultz and Camilla Scott which I guess was the CBC's last attempt at making an American-style sitcom. 

It was called "Jake and Jill" and it seemed to be about a young professional married couple who never leave their well lit, open concept apartment. All I remember from it were one-sided telephone conversations with parents, jokes that sounded like they might have been lifted from an evening of "Comedy at Club 54" ("Does my butt look fat in this?" says she, "No, your skirt looks tight." says he.) I think there was a laugh track too, which was at least as thin as the bond between the two main characters. There was zero chemistry between the two stars, and the couple didn't seem to love each other at all. This doesn't seem to be a problem for "Everybody Loves Raymond", it's successful enough, but this was even worse than that. 

Since then I don't think Canadian sitcoms have even really been sitcoms. They've been more like darkly funny dramas lately. "The Newsroom" and "Made in Canada" and "Twitch City", and "Trailer Park Boys" don't make you laugh as much as they make you cringe. How badly can things go? How much more awkward can it get? 

I've been watching "Freaks and Geeks" on dvd and it struck me that I remembered the show as being funny, but in fact it's sad, and harsh and really heavy. That's what Canadian sitcoms do, no wonder I liked the show so much. 

Ah, but now, this year, as in right now, there's a new batch of CBC produced sitcoms on the air. There's "The Tournament", "Ciao Bella", "Getting Along Famously" and "Walter Ego". 

From the commercials "Walter Ego" looked the most promising. Peter Keleghan was the best thing in The Newsroom and Made in Canada, and in Walter Ego he plays a comic artist living in Toronto. That's all I got out of the commercial, and a couple of snappy lines of dialogue. Not much to go on, but I had hope. 

I still have hope, it might work out to be all right, but so far... it's a "Caroline in the City" rip off. And who the hell would want to rip off that show? Somehow my hopeful mind expected Keleghan's character to be more Joe Matt than Matt Blackett, but I guess that wouldn't be quite ready for prime time. Why are we waiting for HBO to make a Canadian comic (albeit created by an american-born cartoonist) into a television show that we won't be airing until it's into it's third season, even though we'll show it on broadcast television uncensored? Why isn't the CBC taking any risks with Walter Ego? 

Sure, Walter's mother likes to cruise around and check out hookers with her son, and she has a hilarious "paradoxical reaction" to sleeping pills which cause her to become more manic when she takes them, but as long as the main character is boring and it's just the supporting characters who are interesting, the show will be boring. 

There were two episodes on back to back this evening and I can't really recall the plotlines. Someone on CBC radio described the show as a cross between Caroline in the City and Seinfeld. Maybe because they sensed a "show about nothing" element to it, but that was a misnomer anyway, Seinfeld always had a conflict of some kind and emotional content. 

The greatest thing about Walter Ego (besides the title being a great, but subtle pun) is the production value. It looks fantastic! There are lots of exterior scenes, shot on location in Little Italy in Toronto and on realistic looking studio sets. Walter's apartment looks much more lived in than anything on The Newsroom or Made in Canada (but nothing could compare to Twitch City) and they actually drive real cars on real streets! It's amazing. A revolutionary move for a rather dull sitcom. 

Shit, I haven't written a critical journal entry in such a long fucking time. And I've got a lot to say about Canadian television. For instance, "Degrassi: TNG" is fantastic. And Omni has done great job with "Metropia". i don't really understand the setting, but the characters seem really natural and it's multi-cultural without being full of fake accents. It's gay without being "Queer as Folk", it's soapy without being "Coronation Street" or "Liberty Street", and it's funny without being a comedy. AND pot is a pleasant way to unwind at the end of a stressful weekend, not some devil weed that leads to jail or cliched attacks of the munchies. 

Hmm, in closing: Give "Walter Ego" a chance to grow into its own skin. And watch more Canadian television in general. Now that we've got a whole generation of tv-makers who've cut their teeth on American productions we know how to make the stuff so let's support our stories. -11:27pm- 

Saturday, January 1st, 2005 3:49pm 

I'm writing a book. I'm quitting my job. I'm leaving this dumpy apartment. I'm eating well and I've got great friends. Could this year have ended any better? Only slightly. 

As miserable as I have been at times throughout 2004, the lows were only so low, but the highs were higher than anything before. The sadness was all just the same sort of sadness I've always felt, with girls not loving me back (or maybe they do), and projects not getting finished, success having to be defined in qualified, emotional terms, etc. Yeah, yeah, the whole year was a "learning experience" 

Pud, i've got noting to say in response to the end of 2004, except that 2005 is starting out very tentatively. I've got a lot of options, and new information revealed last night is making me rethink some things. Awgh, but how CAN I? 

I must quit this job. I must leave this apartment. I must visit Jay in Japan. I must finish one book and start another. But I NEED to be here, with people I care about. I'm afraid that if I move home to save money and give myself time to work on these books, that i won't be able to keep up these relationships I've worked so hard to build this year. It's not so much that I'm afraid that Becky, and Dorothy and Jason and Phil (though he's in Acton) will slowly lose contact with me, but that I'll lose contact with them. What if I withdraw? What if i become a hermit? I can't do that, I need love! 

At the same time there are new projects in the works with Steve and Kelly, who i think feel that same kind of panicked need to create something for the ages and make a mark on the land. Fuck! I need to be everywhere, NOW and FOREVER!! 

Last night at the Sadies show was like a sitcom without any jokes. What I mean is, you know how shows like Friends and Cheers are thought of as being really funny, fun, funny tv shows, but then the season finale cliff-hangers are always tear-jerking mushy love stories and big, heavy dilemmas? They're soap operas really, but usually there's a lot of jokes and funnny situations thrown in. There weren't a lot of jokes last night, but there was a bit of a cliffhanger, and it seemed like all was lost just as midnight struck, but I think it worked out all right. 

I'm being very vague, because I don't like to tell stories i don't know the endings to. I plan on writing a book over the next long while called The Love of a Young Man, about all the girls who've driven me crazy. It'll be a collection of short stories. Som only a page long, others as many as 50 pages long. Who knows, maybe the closer will be the story of meeting my wife. How sweet. 

Anyway, I'm optimistic about 2005, but I'm going to have to work hard to get what I want this year. I won't be getting any $4000 income tax return, and any success I may have will be the result of tireless effort. 

Okay, so I have learned something from this year: Hesitation is for suckers. God, I've known it all along, and it's all anybody's told me whenever I've moaned "woe is me". Self-doubt is for suckers too. And Depression is a fucking bitch and needs to be slapped hard whenever she shows her face, because she's full of shit, and all that she speaks are lies. -4:26pm- 

Monday, December 20th, 12:24am (sunday night) 

(this entry originally posted on 20hz.ca) 
I was at my friend Becky's place one night and we couldn't decide what to eat. There was very little in the pantry besides the ubiquitous Kraft dinner and Becky suggest we make a batch of that. I turned it down due to a gross phlegmy condition I was in, and she mentioned that a friend of hers likes to mix in tuna with the Kraft dinner. Everyone present thought that sounded disgusting. 

We ended up cooking up some frozen perogies. 

Becky and I had vague plans to get together tonight, but she ended up having to work until 9, and it's really fucking freezing out anyway, so we cancelled. I haven't done any grocery shopping since last week and have very little food in the apartment. I'd gone out for lunch with my friend Jason at around noon, but hadn't eaten anything between then and when Becky cancelled at 8:30pm so I was starving. 

I braved the weather and went to the (aptly-named) convenience store across the street because I thought I'd just munch on potato chips and watch Freaks and Geeks tonight. 

I was browsing the aisles of the store and noticed a few boxes of Kraft dinner. buck sixty-nine. That's four more than Buck 65, but worth every penny. 

I got home and boiled some water, dumped the pasta into the pot and was looking in my cabinets for something, ANYTHING, to have as a side dish. The thought of scooping an entire box of plain kraft dinner into my mouth with no more than a glass of fruit punch to wash it down was making my tongue feel gucky already. 

This past summer I made myself a tuna sandwhich for lunch every single day I went to work. I got into the habit of buying a couple of cans of tuna every time I went shopping. The last time I bought tuna i decided to get the shrink wrapped six pack. The next day I decided I was sick of tuna and I've had the remaining five cans in my cupboard since then (now I'm eating ham sandwiches, which is what i was eating before I switched to tuna). 

I thought it was about time to knock another can off that stack of tuna in my cupboard and I thought briefly about how one might prepare Kraft Dinner with Tuna. It seemed to me that anyone who would decide to add tuna to their kraft dinner would probably be pretty lazy, so i decided to just dump it into the pot when I added the cheese sauce powder. I strained the fluid from the can and spooned the fish meat into the pot. 

It mixed together quite seamlessly. The tuna broke up as i stirred it into the pot and was distributed evenly throughout. The cheese powder sauce covered the tuna perfectly and all together it almost looked like the Spiral noodle kraft dinner. 

I spooned the mixture into a pasta dish and sat down on the couch with my fruit punch and watched the brilliant "Boyfriends and Girlfriends" episode of Freaks and Geeks. 

The tuna made the kraft dinner less gunky. It helped to change up the texture of the stuff somewhat, but more importantly the fish juice seemed to cut down the thick, almost paste-like, sauce. it went down much more easily than the last time I had Kraft dinner. In fact, I even managed to eat nearly the whole thing in one sitting. And once my dinner had settled a little I even managed to finish off the left overs before they went totally hard. 

The Kraft Dinner with Tuna experiment was quite a success. I really won't be repeating it again soon, and if I ever do I'll be sure to have something else as a side dish, and hopefully someone to share the whole concoction with so I don't have to eat it all, but it was pretty tasty. 

Sunday, December 5th, 10:21am 

For about three days last week my shit ran like I was vomiting out my ass. 

I'd painted my kitchen on Tuesday and Wednesday, and perhaps leaving my window open wasn't quite enough ventilation. Wednesday morning I didn't pull myself out of bed until it was already time for me to start work. And then I didn't start getting ready until Gus called me to see where I was, at 11:40. My energy was completely gone and I desperately wanted to just call in sick. 

I had a bit of a headache through most of Wednesday, but by the evening i felt fine. I'd done the primer on tuesday, and decided to paint on the blue that night. I don't think i even bother to open the window that time though. Never occurred to me.  

I woke up Thursday morning feeling fine I was as unexcited as ever to go to work, but I did get there on time and worked through the day feeling fine. Becky called me to see if I wanted to go over to her place to make Christmas cards. Well sure. 

She made perogies for us and we set to work on drawing patterns to print onto cardstock and so on, but my head was just throbbing and I felt awful. 

By the time I got home I felt like I had a concussion and i was cold. I got dressed for bed in sweatpants, a t-shirt and a sweatshirt, then bundled up in bed with two comforters. I began to sweat, but I still felt cold and every time I moved a chill would go through my body. 

I didn't sleep longer than two hours at a time that night, and on Friday morning at ten or so I called work to say i couldn't come in. I said i had a headache, maybe a migraine. My boss said, "well can't you take an aspirin?"  
"Maybe, but I'm not coming in to work today." 
There was less concern in her voice than discomfort. Without me to work the 1pm to 9pm shift at the store she would have to do it. Boo hoo. 

So with that I went back to bed, sweating and shivering with a throbbing headache. Every time i tilted my head above the horizon it felt like someone was smashing me on the top of my head with a frying pan. 

Several minutes after I got off the phone with my boss, enough time had elapsed that I was fairly comfortable again, my phone rang it's harsh electronic alarm and scared the shit out of me. it was my coworker Gus, a self-appointed "migraine expert" He gave me some advice: Throw up. Vomit. That was his advice. "Yeah, whenever I get a migraine i just throw up and you know  ow, it feels awful, and it's gonna hurt, but it just takes so much out of you that you have to sleep, and then when you wake up, you're fine." 
"Great. I'll keep that in mind" Fucking asshole. Because he's less interested in hearing that I'm feeling better, and more interested in hearing that I did what he told me to do to make me feel better. Especially if it's something horrible like throwing up. 

But i never had to throw up. The nausea never got that bad. My bowels, however, were putting me through all kinds of interesting gurgles and swishes. 

Finally, a few hours after calling in sick I decided to get up and have a shower nd maybe get dressed and see if i could make the most out of my day off. i thought about watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which is what I usually do when I'm home sick, but I never did. 

I walked to the bathroom with my head hung low so i wouldn't get hit with that frying pan again, and by the time I made it there i had to sit on the toilet immediately. I dropped my sweatpants to the ground and squeezed with caution. I didn't want the diarrhea to splash into the toilet water, sprinkling my ass and balls with brown, watery shit. So I let it out in little pulses. It started out the way a long bout of urination ends, only in this case I wasn't milking the last of what little was left, I was holding closed the floodgates. 

My asshole burned as though this fluid shit of mine were boiling. i couldn't keep up the cautious pulsing though, I just didn't have the energy, and after the initial few squirts i just let it all go. The shit spilled out of my bowels as from a garden hose and it was awful. 

I looked down between my legs at one point to see what I'd expelled, but I couldn't see anything through the murky ass-water. I'm not sure if there were any solids in there at all. 

I had a long, hot shower. My ass still felt shredded, and I was sure I'd spew another stream of hot liquid shit while I sat at the bottom of my shower hoping the hot water hitting my head would somehow cook my brain into something more manageable. But my ass behaved itself, and my head kept on pounding. 

After the shower I redressed in my pajamas and got back into bed. I still couldn't sleep longer than an hour at a time, and my phone kept ringing! A telephone surveyor called. Then my dad called, because he had called my work and they said i was home. Then two more telephone surveys and VISA trying to sell me on a service e that would guarantee my wages if I ever became ill for an extended period of time. I didn't sign up. 

Eventually I felt well enough to get out of bed, get dressed and go to the drug store for some Advil. But my hair felt funny. I looked in the mirror and saw that my thick, wet hair had dried while I was curled up beneath the covers and was now enormous and uncombatable. There was no way for me to coax it down to less than three or four inches in height. So i wetted it and patted it down as much as I could and bundled up to head off into the darkness. It was about 6 pm by then, and I hadn't seen daylight all day. 

I needed q-tips too. 

I went back home, had an advil on an empty stomach, changed back into my pajamas, made some chicken noodle cup of soup and sat on the couch to watch tv. I was curled in a semi-fetal position watching the news or something, when I felt a little fart coming on. I lifted half my ass off the couch and tried to squeeze the little bugger out. But instead of a "poop" sound, i got a "squelch" and an unpleasant wet feeling in my ass crack. 

I got up and went to the washroom to find a big, wet, yellow spot on the inside of my sweatpants. And it stunk like rotten, soggy cheese or something. It was the second worst my shit has ever stunk. So i sat on the toilet and drained more fluid from my bowels. With a splash. 

By saturday morning I was feeling okay, but not great. I went to work though, and by mid afternoon I felt nearly a hundred percent again. I had some lunch, and some ginger ale, and then, well, it was like the food just went into a black hole on the way to my stomach. I got nothing out of it. I didn't even have to shit, it just went nowhere, and I began to feel queasy again. 

So i called my parents and asked if I could come home for the weekend. Of course that was no problem, and my dad came to pick me up at my place. I had a nice long, hot bath, but that didn't cure my headache, and the Advil would only work for so long. My parents fed me, and kept me hydrated and by Sunday night I was feeling pretty all right. I left my kitchen window open, with a fan blowing in that direction and slept soundly. 

I had my first solid poo for nearly a week on Tuesday afternoon. It was really soft and pale coloured, and it oozed out of me with a greater ease than I'd ever felt before. It seemed to have the consistency of peanut butter, extruded through an icing bag (I could tell by the way it coiled in my toilet) and it felt GREAT! 

Saturday, November 13th, 7:14pm 

I haven't done this in a long while. I don't neccessarily mean write on this page, but rather, write where I'm writing right now. I am on the GO Train, and I haven't been able to do this since my battery all but died. For the last while I've only been able to use my laptop if it's plugged in. Well, this hasn't changed, but now I've plugged my laptop in, and am on the train at the same time. I know what you're thinking: That extension cord is going to run out very soon. You silly fool, I've plugged my computer into an outlet ON the train. Haw haw haw . Stupid. 

I'm on my way to Oshawa/Courtice. Kat Burns is playing at the Velvet Elvis and I haven't seen her play since Bedsprings. I'm also going back in order to take inventory of my comic books and get them ready to be sold. i think i'll sell my Coca Cola and Star Trek stuff too. In fact, maybe I'll try to sell all my collectables of purely marketing value. Not that comics are without merit, but the Coke and Star Trek stuff is crap. Kelly Forbes is to be my mentor in this pursuit, but Ihaven't been able to get a hold of him, so probing his brain may have to wait until next week. No matter, there are other things to do at my parent's house as well.  

I still have a few Bedsprings CDs I'd like to assemble, so I'll be printing booklets for that and maybe I'll put together a kind of registration card for a new project I've got in mind. 

It's a real shame that Zombie! wasn't a financial success. I feel really bad that none of the artists will be making very much money from this. I'm pretty sure all of the artwork was produced specifically for the Zombie show. They will each get a portion of the sale from the book, but it won't add up to much I'm afraid.  

For myself I'm not so regretful. I don't need money, I've got a regular job and I live within my means (when I'm not putting on Zombie art shows), but it's for Bedsprings, Ontario that I'm most regretful. The artists, though they will not beneit much financially, had a room packed full of people looking at their artwork, enjoying their Zombieatic explorations and appreciating their fantastic artistry. besides the opening, plenty of peoplle made their way to the Zombie show throughout the week, and though no one bought anything, everyone was at least intrigued, and at best throughly delighted by what they saw. 

But Bedsprings... well, if Bedsprings wouldn't have made any money if the artists hadn't made money, and if Bedsprings had made money, then Bedsprings would have spent that money on making more money for more artists of different kinds.  

As you may, or may not, know Bedsprings, Ontario is much more than just the Talent Show. Zombie! was just the first non-talent show project for Bedsprings, Ontario. There are other plans in the works. 

I thought that after Zombie I'd take a break and just focus on personal projects such as the book I'm working on with Jason, and the novel about giants that's been in my head for the last two years. Alas, just as i was collecting the unsold zombie books and stacking up the unused Zombie postcards a new money-losing project came to mind: The Toronto Arts Yearbook. 

The Toronto Arts Yearbook will be an annual publication of photographs and stories about the various cultural events which have taken place in Toronto over the course of the previous year, with a focus on independent and significant events. In addition to personal essays telling of specific events (such as great concerts, art openings, plays, protests, festivals, fairs and other fun things) there will also be photographs and illustrations of such events and small shot-gun reviews to give a few perspectives on the same thing. These accounts will be bumpered by Yearbook-style portraits of the people who make up the various cultural scenes in Toronto. There will also be group photos for bands, theatre groups, art collectives, co-ops, comedy teams and other multiples of creatives. 

Is this something you'd like to see? 
Is this something you would like to be in? 
Is this something you would like to help create? 
Is this something you would buy? 
PLEASE email me at bedsprings@email.com if the Toronto Arts Yearbook tickles your fancy in even the smallest way. 

How will it be made? I mentioned registration cards. I would print up these registration cards and pass them out to as many people as I can. The cards would have all the promotional information that needs to known about the Toronto Arts Yearbook on one side, and on the other side will be a questionaire. The questionaire will ask the information which will be printed alongside the portraits in the Yearbook. 

Anyone can have their protrait taken for the Toronto Arts Yearbook. Each person in Toronto is either a Creator or a Supporter and is therefore essential to the Arts Communities in Toronto. There will be a small sitting fee charged (something like $2 or $5), and the option of paying for a book right off the bat. More money will be raised through advertising by local businesses. 

I'd like to see this get made. i don't mind if the first one is skinny, and severely limited, just so long as we keep doing it, and it keeps getting bigger. -7:48pm- 

Monday, October 25, 10:22pm 

Last time I mentioned that I would be very sad if something didn't happen on Saturday. Well, it didn't not happen, but that's not to say that it did happen. I shouldn't have put it that way in the first place. I was hoping for something to happen, but what I was most concerned with was a certain result happening from that. So really, I was hoping that something specific would NOT happen, and it didn't. So that's good. 

As it is now the Zombie! show is on and I have been feeling remarkably good since Sunday morning. I've been feeling so good in fact that it feels more like Tuesday or Wednesday than Monday. That is, it feels to me like more than just two days have passed since the opening night of Zombie! An Art Exhumation. The opening went quite well by the way. All my best friends were there, plus my brothers, their wives and my parents. Plus one niece, who totally stole the show because she was wearing a pumpkin costume and is less than two years old and obviously quite adorable. 

But good people aren't all an art opening needs to be a hit, no food and drink are also quite essential and I didn't even lift one tiny finger to that effort. All the refreshments happened entirely because of Laurie and Ross, my bosses and the owners of the Queen street Store and the Bloor street store. Everyone ate and everyone drank. In fact, it was the most intoxicated I'd ever been in front of my family. 

So it was all very exciting, and the place was packed. And what's more I couldn't sit still for a second because one person or another was talking at me constantly. That sort of distraction made it very difficult for me to do things which I should have done days, or weeks, in advance. A quite just punishment for  procrastination I'd say. Although the true victims of my laziness were the artists, whose work went without title or credit for most of the night. I'm really sorry about that. 

And now I feel a tremendous sense of relief. I really feel fantastic. I'm not overly jubilant, or hyper or excited or anything like that, and I'm not even feeling "relaxed" the way images of "relaxed" people look. I feel more like I've been reset. I feel like I'd just completed a challenging level in a video game with no "continues points along the way. But now that it's completed, and I'm beginning the bonus round, I know that no matter what I won't have to do that level again. There's a new start point and I'm fresh and ready to go. 

But not before I'm through with this bonus round. 

I've been sleeping in guiltlessly these past two days. This morning my dishes still needed to be washed. Groceries still needed to be bought and half of my floor still needed to be cleaned and though I wasn't that happy to have to put these things off for at least another day, I didn't not feel the rage and torment of letting myself down the way I have every day since, oh, September or so. Since then, until Sunday morning, if I didn't get out of bed before 10am I felt like a horrible failure. Many great things could have been done on those mornings; great things which would mean less of a debt on my part at the end of this Zombie show. But that hardly bothers me at the moment. 

I've been watching television. Not a lot, but a little, and that's healthy enough. I've been going to bed fairly early, and though I've slept in, I've slept soundly. My heart no longer beats more rapidly than it should at the thought of tomorrow. 

Now, i do have some vague, and some specific, plans for the future. I have some short range plans (and this entry is a part of those), and I have some medium range plans (which will not begin to take shape until the end of the month). 

I thought the Zombie show would be a very exciting time for me, and I suppose it has been, but i stretched it out so far (first motions of organization began in April I think) that it's felt more like a career than a project, especially considering that the only thing I did that you can see or hold is the book. Which can be purchased at The Blue House by the way. I used to be very excited by the Zombie show, but for the past couple of weeks I was dreading it and just waiting for it to be over.  

Now I'm starting to get excited about other things on the horizon. 

On Saturday my parents came into Toronto for the Zombie opening, but the came early in the day so they could bring Kelly's Sign for the store and since I hadn't framed everything for the show yet I got them to come to the Bloor St. store so they could take everything down to Queen st. They insisted on taking me to lunch (which took an hour), and while waiting for our food at The Sunset Grill I mentioned to them my idea to cut my hours at work in half so that I an write a book. My mom asked if I'd be able to afford my apartment on half the hours. I certainly could not. So I said if the Zombie show does well I might be able to live off that for a couple of months while working half the hours, but that wasn't really what I had in mind either. I'm thinking of taking a hiatus from Toronto. The idea is that I sublet my apartment for six months. That way I can move back home to Courtice without moving all my furniture, which would be a hassle. I'd be returning to Toronto for the summer anyway, and even if I don't keep this place it'd still be easier to move my stuff somewhere else in Toronto than to move from Toronto to Courtice and back to Toronto again. That exhausting just to type it. 

So from January to April or so I'd work part time at the store while living in Courtice and commuting on the train. If i needed to stay in Toronto for something I would hope that one of my good friends would allow me to crash at their place, but otherwise i would remain in Courtice. To be more specific i would remain in my room probably. Drinking tea, typing, listening to music and thinking deep thoughts. Bedsprings, obviously, would be on hiatus as well during that time, although I would LOVE to host a talent show at my parent's house, but not in the winter because I'd want it to be on the front lawn. 

By April I will have done a serious amount of work on the Giant book, if I haven't in fact finished a first draft of it, and then I will count the money I will have saved by NOT paying rent, by NOT going out for dinner, by NOT even buying groceries, by NOT hosting talent shows every two months, by NOT going to concerts, by NOT paying a phone bill, but NOT paying for internet access, by drinking CHEAP beer at the Velvet Elvis if anywhere at all, and by continuing to work for people who love me. With luck I will also be sending out some short stories and things as well and wouldn't it be nice if a couple of them got published? 

Anyway, at that point I should have enough money to go on a trip. Golly, that'd be nice. So i think I'd quit the job completely and take a real god-damn break from responsibility for a month or two. Then I'll find a different job in Toronto, take back my apartment or find a better place to live (windows and sunlight would be nice) and have another great summer in Toronto. 

That's the plan. And all it requires is some backbone, which we all know I lack in many ways. But we'll still. I'm optimistic. -11:12pm- 

Friday, October 22, 3:06am (thursday night) 

I am printing. 

I am not actually printing, but apparently Jason Grebski is sick of loading this page and reading that line. Or sure, it's only been 11 days, but you know, it's Jason. 

I finished work this evening with the deepest, most furious rage of my life. At 7:30, after watching some people squeeze their cars in the tiny gap left by a mini van driver who chose to park in the middle of the driveway behind the store, I spotted a familiar face walking towards me through the darkness. 

His name is Andrew and he is the second most aggravating customer in the world. He speaks like one of those stupid little kids who thinks they know everything, and who apologize for their idiosyncratic behavior in a way that isn't apologizing at all. 

Andrew always comes into the store at 8 o'clock, on Thursdays, with a photograph he had blown up to 8x10 at Blacks. He always wants it matted and framed and he always wants it done right then. He takes half an hour or more to chose the fucking mat, and then watches like a hawk as you frame it for him because he's a fucking impotent moron highschool teacher who gets no respect from his students because he mumbles and I can't imagine him commanding the attention of a security guard at Fort Knox, from within the vault. 

His photos are always of some distance locale and are always a gift for someone who he will only see that weekend, and he can't come to pick it up the next day because he lives too far away and he only drives on thursdays and sundays, and we're not open on sundays, and we should get Theresa back to work for us, oh he doesn't dislike me, I shouldn't be offended, she just knows him. 

The problem with getting 35mm negatives blown up to 8x10 prints is that the proportions don't match. So you always lose something, apparently. So he's always having this discussion with the folks at Blacks and so on and on and on. Fuck him.  

The last time he was in the store i nearly ran him through with a length of aluminum framing. This time, as we were picking out the mats I told myself that i would refuse to do the framing right then, no matter what. Well i managed to get him to wait until tomorrow, since we didn't have the mat that he wanted in stock. That's not usually a problem, we just have to spend another fifteen minutes finding the second best one. 

So he left at 8:30 and i still have three things to frame, plus cleaning up and boy wouldn't it have been nice if i could get some of the framing done for the fucking Zombie show. 

See, I've been a little tense about the Zombie show lately. 

Last night (that's Wednesday night) my boss insisted that I go to the Revue Cinema to see On The Waterfront. Said it's a great movie and is regarded as having Brando's finest performance, in fact, the finest acting ever!  I had come in an hour early to start framing for the Zombie show, and managed to get all of Ryan Snook's pieces done (and they look great I'd say). I had wanted to go see the movie, but decided on the day that i'd skip it and instead frame up Rebecca Chaperon's stuff. Maybe Chris Satchell too if i wasn't too tired.  

My boss told me I could open the store at ten and leave an hour earlier than usual in order to make it for the 7pm start time of the movie. So when she came into the store at 6 to relieve me i told her my plan, and she would not accept it. She told me there wasn't much to do the next day or friday, so i could frame the Zombie stuff then, and I didn't have to wait until after hours anyway. 

Of course the best reason for doing outside store hours is that there would be no distractions at all. motherfuckers. 

So i went to the movie and it was fucking amazing. It's a great, great film, and told perfectly well in the language of film. I don't know if I've seen such a perfect use of MOVING PICTURES in storytelling. And yes, the acting is incredible. But you know, I still would have gotten all of that out of a video or dvd of the thing. AND I would have gotten some framing done. 

Now look, I've got some serious motivation and priority issues. There are certain things which are not important at all, but which I do at least once a day, and often twice, which serve no purpose at all, bring no joy to my life whatsoever and really only eat up my time and make me depressed. And the less I want to do it the more time I spent on it. So nevermind what it is, but when i got home from the movie i spent the rest of my evening at that until i remember that I'd wanted to email a number of film production companies about the Zombie show. I specifically wanted the Ginger Snaps people to know about it, and George A. Romero, since he's shooting Land of the Dead in the area right about now. 

I also needed to do my laundry and wash my dishes and fucking eat something for christ's sake! But I didn't do any of that. I didn't even eat anything. I had a medium popcorn and a pepsi at the movie and that's all i had in my belly when I went to sleep that night. 

My bosses, plus gus, are going golfing tomorrow. Tee time is noon. Usually I don't start work until 1, but they asked that i start at 11 so that they could go golfing. Fine, but i'd still be working until 9. Great, at least there isn't much to do for tomorrow. Except Pria, the Do-it-yourselfer who will be fitting and finishing a dozen or more little pictures of hers for her own shitting art show. And then Andrew of course who wants me to wait for him before i cut the fucking mats, or put his picture together so that he can make sure that it's straight or something stupid like that. he's a fucking moron. 

So it'll be a ten hour day tomorrow. But Laurie doesn't like to have to work out my EI and other deductions from my pay, so in cases like this I just start later on another day to even out my hours for the week.  

So instead of start at 1 today, i started at 3.  

That would have been amazing. i set my alarm for 7am and hoped to have a full and productive morning promoting the Zombie show and running errands like, say, buying foods for the opening reception and maybe I'd do my laundry and wash the dishes, and have a big lunch and buy groceries and all the rest of it. But the trouble is, i didn't get to sleep until 1am the night before, and there was nothing in my stomach and I had some kind of sex dream so i just wanted to stay in bed because I had no energy, dream because nothing good like that happens outside of my dreams, and sleep because sleep is time-travel and I've been very tense lately. 

Last Saturday was a kind of Bedsprings Talent Show. But I was too lazy and too preoccupied with Zombie and Canzine to want to set up the bedstage and rearrange my apartment and everything else. Also, Mark Meeks might cancel on me and James Anderson had already canceled on me, though he didn't tell me himself, and Thom was too busy to record it, and another guy who offered to record it gave me the creeps. Add to all that apprehension the events of the previous Bedsprings, which included being terrorized by my friends and a botched recording of little use to anybody, and I wasn't really looking forward to this most recent talent show. 

Perhaps that came through in my emails about it and the lack of promotion I did. Phil brought his brother. Jason didn't come. Dorothy said she would, then got food poisoning, but didn't call because she worried about interrupting the performance, so i felt stood up. Mark did make it and his Zombie songs were amazing and he performed them wonderfully, but besides him and the Eddolls boys the only other guests were Jay's Exact Match band mates Chris and Tome and three of their friends/girlfriends and they didn't know what to do with themselves. Plus they had to leave at about ten for some other party. 

I drank a lot that night, but the worst thing that happened was that Phil threw a ball of tin foil which hit me between the eyes and caused my glasses to cut the bridge of my nose. 

i woke up miserably hung over with mere minutes to get my shit together and head down to the Gladstone for Canzine. it took me about three hours, a terribly stinky shit and a water vomit, before I could drag myself out the door. By then Canzine was underway and i was lucky to find a table halfway down an unheated dead-end hallway on the second floor. But Becky found me soon enough and we set up the Bedsprings table, plus he porno greeting cards. 

it was a long and freezing day, but I chatted with a few friends i hadn't spoken too in a while, and i sold about 15 Bedsprings CDs and one Zombie book. My confidence was somewhat renewed, but there was still much work to do. 

I went home and slept after canzine. 

I woke up at 9pm or so, had some perogies, i think, went online for a bit and went back to sleep. When i woke up on Monday morning I felt pretty good about things, but after work I'd be heading to Courtice in order to print the majority of the Zombie books, in order to be sold at the show. 

After Mark played his Zombie songs i thought it'd be great to have the lyrics in the Zombie book. But while at work on Monday I realized that I'd forgotten the lyric sheet at my place. It was a bit of a race to go from work, to home, to union station within an hour, with a heavy backpack on, but I made it. 

I started printing at 11pm, and didn't finish until 11:30 am the next day. I ran out of toner at about 8:30am, and my dad ran out to staples to buy more so i could finish printing the 50 books i was printing. Binding would come later, hopefully tomorrow night, but there are no guarantees. The problem is, the only Canadian suppliers of Thermal binding spines that I could find on the internet chose these two past weeks to revamp their website, which for some reason meant shutting down their old site. I wasn't able to order the spines until TODAY. Fuckers. 

Now, on tuesday my mom was babysitting my niece, and she was nappy in my old bedroom while i slept in the guest room in the afternoon. Then she woke up and started crying terribly. Either teething, or just terrified to have woken up in a strange place with no mom. i remember that. it's horrible. 

So I began the week with about four hours of sleep and nothing but uncertainty. The brightest light at the time was the enormous and amazing sign that Kelly Forbes at designed and built for the Zombie show, and which he had dropped off at my parent's house earlier on Monday. So he came by on tuesday to talk things over, check out the book and so on and on. 

You already know about wednesday. 

So that's how much sleep i'd had this week when I decided to go to bed with nothing in my belly and all my energy sapped by fruitless activity. And so, even though I didn't have to get to work until well into the afternoon I still managed to accomplish NOTHING because I slept, and slept and slept the day away. I hit snooze, snooze, snooze until tricking myself into thinking I would get out of bed. Then i hit off. And then I went back to sleep. And i don't even get any daylight in this dungeon of mine, so that was dead simple. 

I didn't get up until noon, which left me nowhere near the amount of time needed to do all the things I'd told myself i would do the night before. And so, facing defeat, I admitted defeat and do what i do best, which is nothing good at all and doesn't do anybody any good, least of all me, and i fucking hate it, but i can't stop it. Only Joe Matt truly understands, but I'm not going to talk to him about it. 

I checked Eye and Now magazine and saw that Zombie is indeed in each of their art opening listings, but that's all. i guess I'm still a nobody. 

So i was hating myself miserably from noon on. And then i got to work and Gus immediately began talking to himself, which he only does for attention because he's a little child. 

I hate a microwave pasta thing for lunch, and went to Mr. Sub for dinner. I've been having Mr. Sub for lunch at work for about two weeks straight and I'm fucking sick of it. I hate spending the money and I hate the food. Tonight i decided to try something new, so i got a Seafood and Crab wrap, though that was still at Mr. Sub. The seafood tasted fishy, and i don't know why I thought it's be anything else. It's exactly the same seafood crap that my dad used to put in a swiss cheese pasta sauce he liked to make and i refused to eat it. i didn't finish it and as usual Gus kept yapping away while i tried to read.  

And then that fucking moron Andrew came into the store. Tall, soft spoken, goatee, highschool teacher. Loathed and despised by all students, no doubt reeks of coffee during the day. 

But, before heading to work I went to the bank, then checked my mail (visa bill featuring the printing cost for one thousand postcard ads for Zombie, RRSP statement, advertising from the National Ballet of Canada), then bought a pumpkin. i thought it'd be cool to have a jack-o-lantern for the Zombie show which said "Zombie!" on it. 

So when i got home tonight I did my usual internet things and  ate a dinner of nachos with cheese and salsa while watching Powaqatsi (which is amazing). By then it was 11:45pm. I hadn't yet been awake for twelve hours and i had two big glasses of coke in me. There was no way I'd be falling asleep anytime soon, and I'd been feeling bad about doing terrible things instead of carving the pumpkin, so i started carving the pumpkin. i finished at about 2am. I carved the pumpkin while watching the special features on Powaqatsi and Big Fish (bother borrowed). it wasn't until I got ready for bed that I realized that I'd felt no hatred, or anger, or rage, or fury, or madness, so screaming madness or any of the angst that I'd been seething with while at work.  I had become totally immersed in the act of carving that beautiful pumpkin, and it was so much better than sleeping, or trying to sleep. My mind was clear and my actions made sense. 

But then, as i was lying in bed certain thins began floating through my mind because i was still impossible for me to fall asleep.  

You see, there are still a number of problem that must be dealt with on the Zombie! front as well as in my personal life, and so i was thinking about that. Then there's the matter of my job and all that angst. Then there's Bedsprings. 

After giving up on trying to sleep, and becoming bothered by the thoughts that were keeping my awake, i thought I'd put on a cd. So I grabbed something short and fantastic: Mike Doyle's EP The Great War. But the problem with that was that I had that CD because Mike wants to play Bedsprings, and I really want him to play Bedsprings, but Jason, Phil and Ruth had pretty much killed Bedsprings in August, and the resurrection party I had hoped to happen on Saturday was a failure. So what's the likelihood of another Bedsprings? Well, Wax Mannequin emailed me a little while ago and asked to play for us again in December. So I'm going to squeeze out one more in December, and hopefully Mike Doyle can make it to that. But now, in the lead up to this most recent Bedsprings Jason, rather than saying how much he looked forward to hearing Mark play again, or instead of coming up with a story to tell, or a skit or something like that, he chose to threaten me by telling me that I couldn't trust him, and by telling me about a bottle of red wine that he's saving just for Bedsprings.  

Now, recently he told me that he plans on bringing that bottle of Red wine to the zombie opening. That may not sound like a threat to you, but it's sure not friendly chatter to me, and frankly him and Phil have placed the notion of "The Bedsprings Talent Show" so far from the idea of "a really good time" in my head, that I have nothing but dread concerning the fucking thing. And so, listening to Mike Doyle, despite the lovely songs, returned me to a state of seething rage.  

I still need to wash my clothes, my dishes and half of the floor of my apartment. I still need to buy food, feed myself and sleep, and tomorrow I will be working for ten hours in a row with no other co-workers. i am guaranteed to have at least two needy and irritating customers, one of which will have to work very hard to prevent me from murdering him. I still have to frame every fucking piece (minus three) for the Zombie show, and i really only want one thing to go right on Saturday night, and if it doesn't you can expect to not hear from me for an extremely long time. In fact, for any of you who don't have my phone number, it may be a rather nervous-makingly long time. I can assure you however, that I would never take my own life. 

Right now, I just want to sleep and wake up when I'm happy. -4:20am- 

Monday, October 11, 5:10am (sunday night) 

I am printing. 

I'm at my parent's house for thanksgiving and to print off a few copies of the Zombie book before Bedsprings on Saturday, and canzine on sunday. 

I just finished laying everything out about two hours ago, but there are still a couple more details to add when i do the big printing for the show. I neglected to note the titles of Tony Walsh's sculptures, but they do have names, and they're kind of funny, so they need to be in the book. And also there are a couple of people who I'm not sure what kind of contact information they want to give out.  But that's actually not quite as important. 

Saturday night I was up until 6am sunday morning. Tonight (sunday night), I expect to be up beyond that. I'm on page 7. It's not that slow, but you know, everything takes time. 

So I'm writing this as the workhorse goes along. 

34 pages you know. 

There's a potential problem in all of this though. I've got two weeks before the show and I don't have anything framed yet, but that's not such a big deal. What I'm worried about it, I bought a thermal binding machine off ebay for 50 bucks. The guy was in Toronto. i figured I'd have it by now, but I don't. And I'm going to need supplies too. The contact i have for the supplies says next day delivery. So that's good, but I don't know exactly how much it'll all cost me yet. Also, i don't know exactly how much the binding material will cover on the spine of the book. So we're really just crossing out fingers and, if need be, stomping up and down proclaiming that only an idiot would allow binding tape to cover more than 3/8" - 1/2" on the front. "God dammit, I thought I was giving a reasonable allowance there, what the fuck is wrong with those people?!" I would rant. But I guess we'll just see. 

There's supposed to be a Minus Ball meet at 4pm today (monday), but I think it'd going to be a bit of a hassle to get back to Toronto in time. My parents are helping my brother and his wife to paint the room for their new kid (due in January). What they'll be doing today is clearing out the room. It's their former office. They've had to clear out the basement/rec room in order to move the office down there. Sounds like an ordeal. i don't want to get involved. 

You know, this thanksgiving was fine, but not very exciting. Sure, there were a couple of cute babies with us, friendly kids too, but boy, babies sure nullify the conversations that can take place eh? I'm not talking about language either. The kids are each too young for swear words to be a real concern, and we don't really swear too much anyway. No, all I mean is that young children totally monopolize everybody's attention. They do things unexpectedly, they're cute as hell, they say things, they require assistance with food, etc, etc.  And if a grown-up is having a conversation about something serious and suddenly the kid looks at them they have to change their intonation as they what they're talking about is adorable and they begin to address the kid. 

But that's if the conversation ever gets around to anything, you know, interesting. Rather, all adults can talk about while in the presence of babies, is babies. It's so fucking tedious. 

i like kids, i really do, even young ones who can't really do anything, and older ones as long as they aren't too grabby. But geez! "The kid's cute. Right, get over it!" 

And my brother wa totally insane to try to have another kid within two years of the first one being born. Bonkers! Totally bonkers! He's always exhausted as it is, and his wife does less and less the more pregnant she gets, which means he'll have to do all the house stuff AND chase after his little girl, who walks and runs just fine by the way. 

The first thing my brother said after slumping down into a chair in the kitchen was, "ugh. Tired". 

I can't wait for this Zombie show to be over. Whether it's profitable or not, just to have it done with will be marvelous. Then I'll give my notice and start looking for a job. Plus, it'll be November, so I'll be writing a novel for the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. Fun stuff. 1600+ words a day. I think it'll be about a Circus which gets overrun by Zombies. What's scarier, a zombie strong man, or a zombie elephant? 

What else have I got to do? I need to assemble a bunch more Bedsprings CD for Canzine THIS WEEK, as well as bind the Zombie books if i get the machine. Plus hand out flyers for the Zombie show, but I guess i could find a friend to do that for me. hmmmm. 

AND I'd like to see Dorothy again soon, Phil is coming to hangout on Tuesday morning, I've got to work from Wednesday to Saturday, which should include framing the artworks. guh. Tired. Tired already. Oh man, I've got to EAT several times a day too. Shit. That means, thinking of something to eat, making it AND eating it, and THEN cleaning up what i used to make it! 

Half way there. We're at page 16 now. 

Kelly told me to call him if i needed help collating or anything like that. i don't need the help because the machine prints slowly enough that I can do it as I go. But the company would be nice. Too bad it's six o'clock in the morning. Well, the other thing is I like to do this sort of thing alone because if i screw it up I don't lose any face. I can fudge a solution without letting on that I don't know what I'm doing. I can throw a temper tantrum if I have to and not worry that someone's going to think I'm insane or immature. 

Ah, insecurity: it really does bring out the best, most fun, parts of a person's personality, eh? 

my hair hurts. It aches like this when I've been up for a really long time. 

I wish I could do this kind of crap full time, for a living wage. Schedule my life 3 months at a time. Work on creative projects. Get people together, make amazing things. That'd be nice. I ought to work towards that. 

i notice that I often take on the ambitions of whatever major means of distraction i choose. Used to watch a lot of movies in highschool - wanted to make movies. Read a lot of books on the train in college - wanted to write books. listen to a lot of CBC Radio while at work - want to go into politics. 

That's what I've been thinking about a lot lately: A career in politics. Yep, some kind of progressive fascism, that's what I'd be into. No, I don't know. Politics looks like a lot of working at being phony. you have to make the right connections, and then maintain popularity, while at the same time doing what you want to do. 

Yeah, writing seems like the way to go. Solitary, simple, other people do the real work for you, and you get royalties off of old work. Not too shabby. Just have to write something people like, and keep liking. That's the only catch. 

I'm going to stop writing this now though. -6:35am- 

Thursday, October 7th, 10:44pm 

I'd like to write something about this month of October, 2004. i don't mean a journal entry though, i'd like to write a book, or a film about this month of my life. i can already tell that it'll be interesting. only thing is, i'd most like to write it right now, and dictate everything that will happen in the next thirty days. 

Everything seems to be up in the air at this point. 

On a national level we've got a brand new minority government that narrowly avoided a Confidence vote just this afternoon (a vote of no confidence would have forced the liberals to either relinquish power to the Conservatives or dissolve parliament and have yet another election). 

On an international level the American presidential election will take place on November 2nd (Super Tuesday!) and no one is entirely sure who's going to win, or what it will mean for soldiers and neighbours and friends and enemies. 

On a professional level I really, really want to quit my job at the framing store. And Bedsprings, Ontario feels like it's being swallowed by the river. The next Talent Show is on Oct. 16th and I have ZERO absolutely confirmed performers and Phil and I haven't practiced our routine even once. Plus I've been totally lax about gaining more attention for the Compendia, and always have been. Also, the Zombie! show feel like an enormous failure just waiting to be let out of the gates, but that's just uncertainty and nerves talking. PLUS i don't know what I would do with myself if i did quit my job. There are obviously a number of different options, and they'd all be a lot of work and would require much energy and dedicated time. 

On a personal level I continue to baffle myself and my friends. My parents don't know where I'm headed, if anywhere. And as always the more tense I become the less I seek the company of people I like. But I've got work to do, right? 

So the questions are: Will our government continue? Who will lead the United States for he next four years? Will Zombie! be anything of a success? Will Bedsprings gain more attention and pull itself up out of the muck? Is love within my grasp? 

This month has got everything. The next thirty days or so will learn the answers to all those questions. But god, I want to answer them myself dammit. 

Yeah, I guess it's all up to me anyway. make your own destiny. Fucken responsibility! Why couldn't I be religious?! Then I could just pray and leave it all in the hands of god. That'd make it so much easier to take the bad news. 

On the brighter side of things: Minus Ball continues to grow. 

Only two people showed up for the first Minus Ball meet; Mike and Mark, and mark was in no shape to play. At the second meet James showed up with two friends. So we played some two on two Minus Ball, which wasn't quite right, but fun nonetheless. At the third meet it was Me, James and two DIFFERENT friends of his. So we did some more two on two, uh, warm ups I guess. The next meet will be on Monday and hopefully we'll have more like 9 players, so we can play three on three on three, which would be amazing, and that'll make it the first true Minus Ball game. Though, it still wouldn't be totally complete. 

You might notice that James is the only one (including myself) who seems capable of bringing new players to the game. I noticed this as well. it's unfortunate, but who do i know who wants to run around playing sports? Hell, what am I doing running around throwing and kicking balls around a field?! I don't even really want to associate with athletes, but this Minus Ball could turn out to be something, so I guess I'll just have to. 

I just remembered something which makes me very angry. 

When i was a little kid, I don't remember what grade, my teacher took us all outside to have class in the grass. it was nice out. i was in a bad mood or something and wasn't paying attention to her. Instead I kept my head down and just sat there pulling grass out of the ground and dropping it next to me. I wasn't even throwing it at anybody.  

The teacher noticed, and i got in trouble for pulling out the grass. So i had to go al the way back to the school and stand against the wall. Well now i was really pissed off, and the more i thought about it, and thought about how i wasn't bothering anybody, and it's just stupid grass, and she's such a jerk, the more angry i got. So i started kicking the wall.  

It was just a little kick at first, but then i start doing these round-house type kicks against the wall. I was really mad. and not even thinking about getting in trouble for throwing my skinny little feet against an indestructible brick wall. So it took a few tries for the teacher to get my attention. She called my name and I came jogging back to the group. I thought I wasn't in trouble anymore, that my punishment was over.  

"I saw you doing your karate over there, would you like to show us some?" 
"What?" I was totally confused. What the hell was she talking about? 
"Show us some of your karate kicks. It looked like you were doing a pretty good job of knocking down he school over there." 

The kids were fucking laughing. She was intentionally humiliating me in front of the whole class for keeping to myself and pulling grass out of the ground that fucking bitch. 

"i don't know karate"  Where the fuck were my friends? My friends never seemed to be around when I was being destroyed. That fucking bitch. I should have kicked her in the head, it probably crossed my mind. 

She told me to sit down and keep my hands to myself or something like that. 

but I'd like to end on a happy note. The night before last I had a dream in which I held two beautiful, soft puppies. It was the greatest feeling in the world. 

but then, it was only a dream. So that's not so happy after all is it? 

Okay, how about this: Dorothy is back in Toronto. That's something to smile about. -11:19pm- 

Monday, September 13, 9:53pm 

I'd be a fall-down drunk if alcohol wasn't so fucking expensive. Instead my insides are being liquified by that foul black brew Coca-Cola. Sugar, Caffiene and bubbles. I've had most of a bowl of cereal, a microwaved pasta dinner, a bowl of blueberry yogurt and far too much Coca-Cola today.  

I set my alarm for 7am and rolled out of bed at 10. I had a terrible dream of my father hugging me tightly, and not letting go. It got to the point where I was becoming very pissed off and started kicking and hitting him. He was hugging me from behind and I'd claw at his face over my shoulder and kick him in the shins. I think it was all because of the massive piss I had to take. I think the paralyzing mechanism that kicks in when you dream was strengthened in response to the tension put on my bladder. 

My apartment seems so brighter at night. Even with the lights off, the darkness is more crisp, less fuzzy and grey. i can see better inside when it's dark outside. The fact that it can be sunny outside and positively nocturnal inside is very depressing to me, and it's my least favourite thing about the apartment. Even if they hadn't fixed the problem of water leaking it when it rained, I'd still rather have that then no sunlight. 

I have no reason to be depressed, but I'm depressed anyway. I saw both of my neices this weekend and was dazzled by a new colour laser printer my dad bought so that I could print the Zombie! book from home. 

But i didn't really eat anything on sunday either. And only two people showed up for the minus ball meet. Good people, but still, not enough for a game that uses three teams. 

The film festival is on and I've been going to movies, but they're fucking expensive and I was down to twelve dollars in the bank until I got some cash payment from my boss. 

I don't want to buy groceries because they cost money and I never want to eat anything anyway. 

I'd be a fall-down drunk if alcohol wasn't so fucking expensive. Whenever I try to work on something, write something, or anything i want that nice, loose feeling of being a little drunk. Everything comes more easily. Food doesn't do anything like that. I can barely even notice a rise in energy levels when I eat.  All i really notice when I eat is that the irritating gurgle in my belly goes away for a while. Then I get gassy. 

Grocery stores are depressing. I can't stand flourescent lights and I hate everyone else in the store. Especially the cashiers. 

I'm on Holiday by the way, so regular meals have been thrown out the window. I hate eating so much that the only way i get it done is through routine. Now my routine has been completely eliminated and all structure in my life has been collapsed until Friday the 24th. 

I'm not handling it very well. 

I've got an art show to put on and I feel like every second spent doing anything not related to the show is a complete waste of time. And yet I revel in it. I procrastinate and put off everything. 

The movies have been good so far. Childstar by Don McKellar is mostly funny, but slightly confusing and i think he wants to be the new Woody Allen (as in, the same, but different). I (heart) Huckabees from David O. Russell is brilliant. Jason Shwartzman gives his first real performance since Rushmore and Mark Wahlberg is perfect. Sideways is a mid-thirties crisis movie from Alexander Payne. Two buddies head off on a wine trip for one last adventure before the more handsome one gets married. Infidelity and wine-drunkeness ensues. It's funny, and Paul Giamatti is better than he was in American Splendor (which is overrated). Thomas Haden Church (the dumb guy from Wings) is the handsome friend, and Sandra Oh is in it too. 

That's what got me thinking about drinking. Or, well, I was thinking about drinking all day actually, but I wanted to save my money so I could go see the movie. I was expecting to pay 17 dollars to get in, but when I arrived at the Elgin I saw that there was no Rush line, though they were already letting in ticket holders. I asked someone near the doors if there were still tickets available and she said yes, "right through that door to the box office" Thank. Then another woman said, "how many do you need?" Just one. And she handed me one. She was wearing a headset and obviously working for the festival. Wow, thanks. it wasn't a free ticket either. i don't know what the story was there, but I thanked her muchly and got in line. 

I left the theatre starving with twenty dollars more than I expected to have, but I still haven't eaten anything. 

I've called friends to see if they want to get something to eat, but one has hurt her back and is in the tub, and the other wasn't home and lives out at Queen and Logan, which is a far way to go. Plus I'm fucking starving, so I'd end up spending a lot. 

And now it's too late to call anyone I don't know really well. 

I think I'll buy some chips. 

-10:37pm-