Day of Pigs OR This Day and Age

It feels good to once more prefer one type of pen to another.

We all have to exercise restraint.
It's a part of being human.
"I'll take my boot knife to the club, but I'll leave the Deringer at home."
"I'll have sex with my buddy's wife, but I won't record it like I did when I banged his sister."
"I'll get the fries as my side, but I'll throw them up right after the meal."
Like when Kyle brought home that girl he brought home.
And, while i'm waking up and she's leaving, I overhear:
Nervously, with a laugh, "I don't know when I'll see you again."
"Never!" That's what I want to yell. So badly.
But I restrain.

It's whatever day it is and I'm in some café where everyone speaks a different language than me.
Makes me feel exotic.
I'm writing jokes for the upcoming Roast of Peter White.
Get your tickets!
I guess they're okay.
It's an odd situation for me because a roast of some fat guy is really a roast for the other roasters.
And I haven't known these people nearly as long as they have known each other.
I'm the only one with his nose to the glass, here.
Can I make fun of a woman for having a baby and ruining her life when I don't know the father, baby, or mother, really?
One way to find out.

If you're asking how to eat a porkchop wrapped in foil (no utensils) while looking cool, I'm here to tell you that I'm not sure it's possible.
Not outside of Shopper's Drug Mart, anyway.
This was my day today. I'm telling you about my day.
Speaking of my days, my birthday is rapidly approaching.
Again.
If you're concerned about my turning 30, how I'm taking it, I urge you not to worry.
I'm going to begin keeping a scrapbook of all my friends' babies and accomplishments.
I also bought a nice bowl.
I'm going to eventually purchase some sparkly foam balls, shaped vaguely like fruit, and put those in the bowl.
And I think I'm going to start saving up for a motorcycle, just to be safe.
I'll be sure to keep you abreast of all of these precautions.
Which I'll also be doing on my new eHarmony account.
I'll be launching the accoount as soon as I can get a good photo of myself next to the bowl balls.
Yes, I'm ready for 30.
Is it ready for me?

30 is the same as 29 and 31.
We just put special emphasis on years that end with 0 and 5, that's all.
Of course, ask me about all of this in a year (if I haven't died in a motorcycle accident).
I wonder what I'll say...
(I don't really. I'll say the same thing).  

Watch for Falling Fortunes

Written yesterday, the day before today:

Today has been strange.

You open a fortune cookie.
Got me so far?
And the cookie innards say:
You will have an anvil fall on your head today.
Do you stay inside?
Or do you live your life and spend the entire day pretending you're not terrified?
Personally, I'd find an umbrella stand.

Ever wish you had the nerve to yell what you want to in public?
In the local coffee tavern yesterday I overhear:
"His real name is Theta, but the vet couldn't pronounce that, so he called him Banjo.
It sort of stuck.
He really likes being called Banjo."
"Because Theta is a stupid name for a dog or anything else!"
But you can't do that.
Technically.
Cats and dogs are the only animals that can be jailed.
"What about zoos, dick!"
Excellent point.
I'd agree that the setup is similar.
But those animals were sort of kidnapped.
Therefore, a zoo is more reminiscent to the basement of a dilapodated apartment building.
Or, at best, zoos are more like homes with bars around them.
Like a giraffe living in The Bronx.
I'm talking jail. Jailed.
Getting picked up for breaking some vague law.
"I told him that I was just taking a nap on the bench."
...
"Well, I told him I left my tags at home, but he didn't buy it.
Shone his goodamn flashlight in my face the entire time."
Cell mates.
One common piss mat.
Hoping some family member will bail them out.
That's an animal with human problems.
That's Banjo getting fucked by the man.

An ad campaign is not a culture.
The World's Largest Frying Pan is not a monument.

Manual Labour

I sort of wrote stuff for you yesterday, readership.
I just didn't get around to putting it online.
All written by hand these days.
That's how I've been doing the posts.
Don't ask me why.
I told you not to ask me!
I miss the tactility of it.
Spell check says it's a word.
I used to write everything by hand.
First draft!
Then I eventually stopped.
Around the time that my first real-life relationship ended, I guess.
There are three planks of wood immediately adjacent my little computer desk.
I've never noticed them before.
Not sure how long they've been there.
I'll snag a photo for you.
That should liven this place up.
Speaking of which, I really need to change the look of this blog.
I have no idea how I'm going to do that.
After fucking up my first attempt, I'm less inclined to try again.
"Quit soon. Quit often."
That's what I always say.
I don't always say it; sometimes I'm sleeping.
I walked to the Dalhousie library yesterday.
I've been trying to find a nice writing place to go to.
I hate writing anything in my home (excuse), so I like to search for places to go.
And I'm sick of places that I have to buy coffees to sit in.
That's a toll.
That's a writing toll.
But by the time I got there and sat down, I just felt like going home again.
I watched the lady janitor mop for a little bit and tried to live inside her head.
Please excuse the flashy title:

Thoughts of A Woman With A Mop at A University Library

I wouldn't mind mopping their insides once they're out, if they'd just invite me to some of their parties.
I'm more than these abrasive cleaners.
I own halter tops.
Who says a janitor can't clean up? (didn't even notice this pun until now)
Janitors are as close as an employed person can be to a homeless person.
Everyone feels sorry for me.
No one makes eye contact with me.
Everyone assumes I only eat food out of cans.
Y'know. A janitor.
Where was I?
Ah yes! The parties.
I thought a campus would turn things around for me.
Why did I even bother learning to shuffle?
I guess this is still better than sweeping up chicken innards and beaks.
But I thought this would be more entertaining.
Like the janitor on animal house.

Then I stopped because I wasn't sure if there was a janitor on Animal House.

Sow the Till

Well-being costs a lot.
So-Bey's has a well-being wall.
A whole wall.
Fish oil this and omega that.
My grandmother was well until she was 94.
She wouldn't know what the fuck an amino anything was.
Buy one of each bottle to get your life started.
Get hit by a truck driven by a fat guy in the parking lot.
Then you're taking all of your pills through tubes.
Until someone accidentally pulls your plug while searching for an outlet for their iPod charger.
Well-being is a matter of perspective.

While we're on the tirade, "organic" is a word that no longer has its original meaning.
Sort of like "airport fee."
Organic is a well-being tax.
Legitimate "organic" is growing cabbages and beets in your back yard.
Rhubarb jam, anyone?

"Miss Opportunity, I Presume"

At Acadia, I'm in line for the soy sauce.
Never tasted right, meal hall soy sauce.
Especially the time I confused the giant plastic container of soy sauce for the giant plastic container of maple syrup.
I would have noticed the difference in consistency if there had been one.
Anyway!
The petite blond woman I'd seen around is behind me.
She mentions, "You're in my Psych whatever class."
She was very pleasant to look at.
Remember what's her face from Two Guys, A Girl and A Pizza Place?
She was like a less confident version of that woman.
That woman's second cousin, maybe.
I say, "Oh really? I hadn't noticed."
Charlie (Chaz), my future roommate, happens to overhear this.
Impatiently, "Fuck, Screech. Don't tell a woman you don't remember her."
I was just being honest.
This one wasn't like that:
Saturday I'm in a booth with Brian Aylward at Brewster's.
Brewster's, side bar, is Canada's bastion for attractive women over forty.
It really is.
So, we're waiting to get onstage.
We'd been on the night before (with an additional 150 extra human beings in the audience).
I've done a few other weekends there.
Waitress takes our drink order.
Brian says she's from Newfoundland.
I ask if she's told him this, or...
He can just tell, he says.
I want to prove him right rather than wrong, really. I assume he's correct.
She comes back with our Mint Juleps.
I say, with my arm arched back across the booth-
You know, the way I sit in booths when I'm trying to seem confident?
I tried to find a picture of me doing this, which I figured would be easy, but I couldn't.
It doesn't matter. You know what I mean.
I say, "Pardon me for being intrusive, but are you from Newfoundland?"
"Yeah, we talked about it before."
Derailed.
"We did?"
"Yeah, while you were on stage."
She goes off to another table while Brian points out that I'm not going to have sex with her.
One down.
I later regale Kyle Hickey (my current roommate) with the story.
"Paul, you act like you remember them."
Sometimes I worry that my capital P problem-
Not just with women-
Is that I don't learn from my mistakes.

On A Strange Woman, Over Coffee

How'd you get your eyebrows so thin?

What other lies have you managed to spin?

Paint up yourself and paint up your life

Paint up your husband like his hand-crafted wife

Spew nothing true if it makes you feel sound

When you search for your meaning, none will be found

A Little Less of Me

I'm single again.
Let's get that out of the way.
Pretty fucked.
I guess it's not that fucked, really.
It's just an adjustment.
New glasses are an adjustment also.
But this one involves more crying and explanation to family members.
Damien Rice.
I guess I'm okay.
It makes me feel a little old, somehow.
Which is a new feeling for me, since I make it a point to never feel old.
That's why I own so many hoodies and refuse to get a job.

Carnival Cruise Lines?!
More like Horizontal Cruise Lines!
If you think that the boat ran aground, wait until you see what they do to the captain.
If there's one thing you can't get away with, it's fucking up a rich person's vacation.
Skipper's not going to be seeing a lot of shore leave once the trial is finished.

I have lost weight.
It's mildly frightening.
My weight hasn't fluctuated more than five pounds in a little over a decade.
Until now.
At first I couldn't figure out why it is that I'm thus emaciated.
But, really, it's probably because I've been surviving on peanut butter for a few months.
I'm kidding. I eat.
I am freaked out though.
If my fingernails start falling off, you'll be the first to know.

Home Sweet Airport

Written on the Yesterday:

I spent a lot of time in an airport today.
An airport seems like it'd be a neat place to stow away.
You know what I mean by 'stow away.'
Because you've probably read a book or two by now.
It's much like the rats on the merchant ships, or Leonardo DiCaprio on the Titanic.
You live there.
You eat whatever food you can scavenge.
You swim around in the casks of beer and molasses.
I often fantasized about stowing away in buildings.
Hide and go seek in the school, for example.
An insight into the stretches of my imagination.
I'd fantasize about hiding out in a building I spent 30 hours a week in already.
Did you guys ever do this?
Maybe not.
Maybe that was just an activity for the weird, youngest-of-the-family children.
Anyway, I thought about stowing away at the airport.
Seemed cool at first:
Playing dress-up with clothing discovered in the Lost & Found bin.
Taking naps on the luggage carousel.
Getting loaded with your buddies on booze from the Duty Free shop ("No tax!") and then throwing stuff through the security gates to see what sets them off.
"Hey, let's try a toaster next!
Where can we find a toaster in this place?"
"No, Doug's watch! I say we throw Doug's watch through there!"
 But now I'm not so sure the airport would be that fun.
First of all, you have to contend with constant strangers dirtying your floors and touching your stuff.
Mummers are one thing, but come on...
Also, besides the planes and the taxidermy'd Leopard, the airport is rather boring.
After checking out Sara Rostoski's portrait display, and watching SpongeBob in the sunken ship, there isn't much to do.
I had a former lover tell me that she didn't wish to be my current lover in that sunken ship once.
Lastly, baggage guys swear a lot.
Which I learned while I was seated adjacent a table of them.
Now it just doesn't seem like a healthy place to one day raise a family.

So it's today now.
I'm at my parents' house.
It's the same as it was for those two years that I recently spent here.
Except that there are more chips now.
Because I haven't eaten them all yet.
Robert's going to Christan his baby soon.
Victoria Mary Elizabeth Shandera.
Peter is going to be the godfather.
My job is to make sure no one parks in front of the priest's van, blocking him in.
On the day of his daughter's wedding, I'm going to ask Peter the godfather for a favour:
That he jam an orange slice in his mouth and chase me around the yard.

Progress Comes Calling

I just left my gloves on the bus.
But at least I managed to return my library books.
Only cost me bus fare plus whatever it costs to buy gloves.
Didn't read a word of them, by the way.
The library is a great place to go when you feel like pretending to turn your life around.
"I'm gonna read some books.
I'm going to better myself.
The Creation of the Media?
Sounds like a nice, light read.
We'll start there."
Instead I just kept the books on my shelf for two months and then lost my gloves while returning them.
Maybe next time.

I'm afraid that I don't have a lot to give you people.
I was sick for a number of days.
Then I just kinda stayed indoors to be sure that I milked the most down time from the cold as possible.
So I don't have many sexy encounters to tell you about.

Everyone has a baby now.
And everyone who rides the bus with their baby doesn't want their baby.
You can tell.
Funny thing is that a lot of the bus babies don't seem to want their parents either.
I hope my friends don't end up taking their babies on the bus.
Metaphorically speaking.

I wish we still used land lines.
These are phones I'm talking about.
I've dumped on cell phones before, despite the fact that I use one every day.
And despite the fact that I text and send photos of my genitals to well-wishers, I still hate it.
This and other hypocritical statements!
Seriously, though.
Sometimes it's good to not be home.
Or not be out.
To be not around. Unavailable.
Sometimes I see people in distant, remote places in BBC documentaries.
And I ask myself, "Who's happier - them or me?"
It's an important thing to ask yourself from time to time.
I know I've been kind of "deep" lately, and I guess I (grudgingly) apologize for that.
It must be all of those library books I've been checking out lately.
But if we evolved this far past the cave man, shouldn't we be happier than the cave man?
We probably are; we have matches and lighters.
But happier than the turn-of-the-twentieth-century homestead owner?
I'm not so sure.
Not because we have cell phones and they didn't.
That's stupid.
But perhaps because they had everything they needed.
And now we can never need enough.
How can you feel good when you have a looming sense of obligation that never goes away?
"What other movie have I seen him in?"
...
"No, I know I've seen him in something.
Now I've gotta look it up!"
...
"Money Talks! I knew it! I knew he did something besides Rush Hour."
He's gotta look it up.
He's just gotta.

Slim Pickin's

Hey. Hi.
I've been sick as a dog so I've been using that as an excuse to be blog lazy.
As lazy as a dog...
Lazy as a blog dog, with a blog dog's blog...
I'll stop. 
Anyway, I'm back now.
But my cough is still pretty vigorous, so you only get a short post and then I'll do another tomorrow.
Depending on how I'm feeling.
I've been ingesting whole oranges for the past few days now, so I should be better soon.
This is great.
Well, it's an article about two missing children, so I guess it's not great.
Did you read it?
You have to act quickly on this because Yahoo! only posts articles for a few months and then drops them.
Which is too bad because their stuff is often good for a chuckle.
They describe the builds of the children.
"Kara Johnson is described as two-feet tall, petite build, blah blah..."
Kara Johnson is one year old.
Of course she has a petite build.
"Sir, we've had another call for a civilian i.d. of the Johnson girl, sir.
We thought we had her, but this unattended one-year old turned out to be a little husky."
"Dammit, Walters, come to me when  you have some results!
I don't want to hear about every fat and stocky one-year old in this city!
Now find me these rich, well maintained children, or it's your ass!"
Yahoo! News says that they issued an Amber Alert for these missing children.
I didn't even know we could get those.
I guess it's for the sake of the parents.
They didn't keep the receipt for the Baby Einstein DVDs.
So, if they don't find the kids, they're fucked.
Petite.
"She's under 50 pounds, and she wears a size 2 at Baby Gap.
She's petite."
Maybe it's just funny to me.
Which technically still makes this blog post worthwhile.

It Can Be A Girl's Name, Too

Turpin's baby was born before 2011 went into the archives.
Her name is Rowan and she's a baby.
Unfortunately, Rowan found the process of being born a little tricky.
We're all worried about her, but I know that she has the tenacity of her father.
And the blind luck of her mother.

My resolution?
I'm going to buy some new t-shirts and underwear this year, I think.
I'm sick of all of my shirts that I own.
Going to focus more on colour and less on, y'know, these profane words and obscure pictures.
The underwear is all beginning to slowly break down and return to dust.
A man's stable of underwear tends to do this simultaneously.
Or mine does, anyway.
That's all I've resolved so far.
That's enough, really.
And who needs a change in the ones place just to make a decision for themselves anyway?
Who says I can't make a resolution in the middle of June?
The calendar already says when you are and are not allowed to grow certain facial hair.
Make some of your own decisions.
In fact, that sounds like a pretty good resolution.
Let's all just use that one.