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.

All Set (For Home)

Written Friday, DecemberYesterday

I saw a man hold his breath for over two minutes last night.
Not in person.
It was on a documentary.
It's probably something that you should see.
Some might say his effort outweighs his reward (don't worry; he doesn't die).
What we can push ourselves to do is remarkable if we just meditate and eat enough peyote.

Speaking of trips, I did my first feature spot last night.
It felt great, which feels even better.
The second is tonight.
Today is far less uncomfortable now that yesterday is over.
Do you ever contemplate what you might contemplate if there was no opposite sex?
We'd be thinking whatever it is snails are thinking, probably.
"Man, I wish I had more direction in my life."
I ended on a Newfie joke during the show.
Which is 100% shameful.
But they really talked me into it.
I explicitly told them that they were receiving special treatment.
It was my biggest laugh of the night, which is much more embarrassing.
Now I see how Buddy Wassisname gets the dollars.
Of course, they do Sarah.
I could never do Sarah.

Speaking of which, Turpin still hasn't ejected her baby yet.
But we're all crossing our fingers that it will grow into its giant head.

Snails do screw other snails.
It looks like this:

New Heights

Written Thursday, December 29th:

Tea is the new coffee.
Which is funny, since coffee was originally the new tea.
I think I'm a lifetime behind on my multivitamins.

I'm acting like I'm not thinking about my show tonight.
And you have to do that with me, okay?
Do you ever feel like shouting stuff from mountaintops?
Who here got laid for the first time and then wanted to tell everyone?
If you were on a mountaintop right now, what would you-
Scratch that.
You are on a mountaintop right now.
Oh sure, it looks like you're in a shitty cubicle or office.
But if you pay attention, you'll notice that the ground feels jutted and indecisive beneath your soles.
You know that it's not going anywhere.
But you feel unsteady just the same.
The panorama is almost as good as TV.
It yawns all around you, leaving agape the staggering view.
Dry ice made from real snow whispers from the distant peaks that surround you.
The gaping maw of some prehistoric sea creature.
As far as the crags are, they seem even farther.
The silence whistles.
Then falls quiet.
Noise is something you brought with you to this place.
When you leave, the ambiance will go with you.
You can't look down because of the clouds.
They look as soft and plush as so many glued-on cotton balls to childhood sheets of construction paper.
You close your eyes and you can swear you're in an office somewhere.
What do you shout out?
No one's around.
Now's your chance.
"I hate my roommate!"
"I enjoy shoplifting!"
"I'm cold!"
Meanwhile your pack mule is thinking, "Can we get on with this?"
I didn't mention him before.
He would have ruined the mood.
It doesn't hurt to isolate yourself sometimes.

Let's cook up another paragraph without much of a point.
I'm in the coffee shop across from the coffee shop.
I'm still pretending I'm not thinking of the show.
One day these shows will be long past and this writing will be embarrassing.
Y'know, that's the shittiest thing about writing.
Particularly personal writing.
Sure, a journal is a great way for your mom to discover that you smoke weed.
But otherwise, no matter your age, they are a growing pain.
The more the years go by, the more embarrassing the process becomes in the present.
Maybe people believed in sea monsters centuries ago because someone kept drawing them on all the maps.

Ditto for mermaids.
You know why men were so attracted to the concept of mermaids?
An exotic woman who isn't looking for a commitment.

Not What I Had In Mind

You think your blog is a real hot tamale.
16 page views yesterday, thank you very much.
Until you go into the statistics section and check the keyword searches that brought about those page views.
Wanna know the top three?
Ahem:

dog caskets for foxhounds
pregnant piss
pregnant orgy

Yes, there are a lot of dissapointed fans out there.
Sounds like I've found my target audience.
Maybe it's you...