A Shot In The Arm

So let's all get a look at this before I show you a dozen times later.
Great to get a picture of your tattoo as soon as possible so it looks like a gross, bloody sunburn to everybody.
First of many, probably.
Oh! There's a horse going down the road!
There's a police officer riding him--it's not some animal that got over the fence or anything.
Anyway, what are we talking about?
Sarah's dead! Yes. Right you are.
I'm going to add other notes of hers that I have found, over time.
Her written word entices me more than everything else, and I'm always scanning her home, looking for stray greeting cards or grocery lists (they all just say 'avacado').
I was originally going to get an image of her face on me somewhere, like a dead dog, but they were gonna charge more to do her nose, so I changed my mind.
Man, these jokes were way more fun to make when she was around to read them.
Now there are just folks who will read them and think, "I don't know about that...you shouldn't laugh at a dead person's nose."
You should, though. As well as their feet and gait and whatever other physical faults they had.
Because we're still here, and we have the luxury of doing things like laughing and eating yogurt.
Why not enjoy both today?


*I have in fact added many notes to my bicep, just as I said I would.
There's a certain satisfaction to the process; the indelibility of it, maybe. Amidst the chaos and change that Sarah's death has brought about, I can have these million little punctures set aside where I please, and know that no matter what else happens, they'll be there.  I sport them like a badge of honor and shave my upper arm every now and then, for the sake of presentation (I feel ridiculous when I do it).
The only tricky aspect of it is that people inevitably ask what they all mean, and I can only respond by telling them that my friend went and died, so now I'm one of those guys who gets tattoos about it. Then they inevitably feel compelled to gush on about how sorry they are and that sort of thing. It's all understandable, but there's no need to apologize. None of you invented cancer. Bill Gates caused it, didn't he? Didn't he develop it in a lab somewhere? I heard that once. Whether it's true or not, if I ever meet him I'm giving that guy a piece of my mind.
This feels like I'm shoehorning content a little bit, but I'm gonna mention Belling again. Near the beginning of her paper, she mentions this: "The medium that carries and communicates the burdens and lessons of past suffering is narrative. Suffering must be constituted within a story told be a narrator who can inhabit and convey the experience of the sufferer." I don't know why, but I feel as though this is the place where I should bring this up. I mean, these notes were all first-hand markings that we shared at one time--specifically, during our Education degree, when we were supposed to be paying attention in class. Again, it seems like I'm just reaching to bridge my blogging (my ink; my tats) with my assignment, but who knows? Maybe I stick them all to plain-sight-parts of the body on purpose. Maybe I'm trying to structure the tiniest hint of narrative onto myself. Maybe I want people to ask about the tattoos. Maybe I want to get right into people's faces about it. Maybe I feel as though I'm responsible for getting her name out there, and for getting her name in people's heads.
I've been trying to come up with a stock response for anyone who says, "I'm so sorry" after asking about the tattoos--stock responses were a sort of interest for Sarah and I. I'd like to come up with one that is genuine and funny that Sarah would have appreciated. Maybe something like, "Oh, your friend passed away? I'm so sorry!"
And then I can say, "Not as sorry as her insurance salesman!" or something like that.
 
The tricky thing is that  even though I'm maybe more suited to be her narrator than anyone else, I can't "convey the experience of the sufferer." So far as I know, I don't have cancer. 

The Princess Is In Another Dimension

The stupid royal baby was born.
Royal witchdoctors claim there are no mutations of any kind, so they've decided to name her.
They're going with Princess Glenda.
I always caution parents: Name your daughter Glenda and she might end up marrying a Barry.
Duke Barry of the Gas Station, maybe.
Lord Barry of the Moors.
Anyway, you all know my thoughts on the royal family.

If I might discuss we peons for a moment, I did a thing the other night.
Turpin's school held their first annual Talent For Turpin talent show.
This is designed to make children feel sad while bilking parents out of donation money.
It's a good thing.
They asked me to be - not a judge, exactly - but like, a talent-advice-coach-guy.
It was pretty neat for the most part.
A lot of kids from the play were involved, so that was cool.
The entire time I wrote stuff for Turpin in the margins of my program. The sort of notes (insults, mostly) we'd write to one another if we were watching something like this and she was alive.
It made the boring performances a little more fun.

Another Day...

Another Day...

Let's tie our ties together and trudge off to our jobs

Best we tow the line, lest we're labeled 'slobs'

I'll swing the hammer, break the rocks

With my other chain gang chums

We'll breathe in shoveled coal, ignore our aching lungs

What's mine is mine, so get your own

It's just the way of things

Once we lived on what was grown

Now it's what we bring

To the table let us sit and dine 

On what truly brings us down

We'll feed the giants table scraps

And starve our little towns

So wipe your brow and say your prayers

And marvel what you've got

When sun shines on our ashen soil

We'll gloat from 'neath our plots

"That's The Way (Uh Huh Uh Huh...)"

Hey, check it out!
Facefuck Like button at the bottom of all posts.
Now, instead of shouting at passerby that you enjoyed one of my pieces when you finish reading it, you can just click the button instead.
Try it now, puppets!

As I Recall

It's a touch embarrassing that I have played pool casually/competitively for fifteen years or so, but I can still only fit a maximum of one billiard ball in my mouth.
One!

Hello there.
Good to see you again.

Grieving has become this weird pass time, kind of like a hobby that you want to spend more time at.
"Yeah, I bought the dongles, beads and hemp last summer, but so far I've only made two friendship bracelets.
Maybe this summer I'll make some more..."
It's a damning thing; choosing between obsessive, destructive misery or slowly forgetting...everything.
I try my best to remember her laugh each day, which was always jarring.
I try to picture her face (too long), and whenever I do she's wearing the expression she used to make when I cracked a joke that she didn't want to give me the satisfaction of laughing at, even though she found it funny. She'd put her tongue in her cheek at those.
I remember her eyes because they were green and that's a statistically less likely colour.
I try to remember her voice, but it only comes out in the tone she would use when she was talking like a stupid man, which is kinda fine, I suppose.
Otherwise, things have been fading already, much like the passport photo of her that I carry in my wallet.
I took it out the other day to see that she looks like an albino in it, and only those who know her would be able to look at it and say, "Oh yeah, it kinda looks like her."
When I noticed this, I threw it in the garbage, but then I took it out again and put it back in my wallet.
I have Peter White's passport photo in my wallet too, so I'm ready for him to die at a moment's notice.
I look at all of the photos of her staring out at me in her family home and get mad that most of them are airbrushed.
I think about the stupid gap in her upper row of teeth sometimes, but I tend to forget which side it was on - the left? It's easy enough to figure out, but it's more dramatic to leave me uncertain about it.
I've begun to read her blog, finally. I mean, I was reading it long before now, when she was in the habit of living, but even then I didn't keep up on it as well as she did mine.
I tended to be just a touch more self-centered than her. This distance grew as we aged.
I look at posts about her dilations and hospital trips and iron injections and keep asking myself, "Where was I?" 
Thankfully, I've thought of some stupid tattoos to get in her honour, which she'd be all about.
As I said a few months back (I think), she loved my stupid tattoos. She especially liked telling the women I was interested in about them before they had a chance to learn about them themselves.
She was there for my first. I can only remember how embarrassing she was acting in front of the biker guys.
She didn't care.
I sometimes tell myself that I am her conduit now, and if I concentrate really hard on her being in the room with me, I can fill in the blanks for those things she may have said, but I can't.
I haven't completely given up on the concept either, though. 
Some of the posts are hard to read (click 'older post' once at the bottom), but those get balanced out by any that I'm mentioned in.
I guess I just lament how few of those there are during the most important time of her life, as it would turn out.

A Sudden Shift

Did you survive a plane crash recently?
With your tie askew and your waist purple and bruised from the plane's seatbelt that you thought you'd never need, did you sit amongst the gasping and crying, your oxygen mask bobbing in front of your sudden stillness?
If so, did you immediately think, "I should be fucking women besides my wife," or did that come later?
That's the shock talking; she's the best thing to ever happen to you. 
You should be fucking other women, but that's an experience to be shared and discussed with her, in a trusting, openly-communicated environment.
They call it "swinging", and a lot of people who survived plane crashes are practicing it right now, this minute, in hot tubs all over the world.
This could be you.
Here's hoping you all get to where you're going safely.

Stand By Your Mixtapes

I make no apologies for my musical tastes or history.
You shouldn't either.
I've heard several people with arts degrees rationalize to one another why it's "okay" to be into Taylor Swift, or Perry or whoever.
I miss the era that none of us lived through when you listened to music because you yourself thought it sounded good.
Don't let the fans force you to shelter your playlist under a blanket with the lights out as if you're hiding smokes from your parents.
Even if 99% of an artist's fans are hard-ons, that doesn't mean that you are.
Even if the artist is a hard-on and you enjoy their sound, that doesn't mean you have anything to be embarrassed about.
It's just music. That's separate from all of the bullshit that comes with musicians.
I really love Flashing Lights, but I think that Kanye would benefit (actually benefit) from being horribly disfigured somehow. Like, if he lost an eye or something. Here's a dope MC who just doesn't have his head on right.
Death Cab For Cutie is one of my favourite bands, and I know that they're all card-carrying, hardcore vegans.
I love their music, however that doesn't mean I have to like them too, or stand by "where they're coming from."
Frankly, I'm not sure I'd want to share a bus ride with them. 



(The poor fellow doing vocals here, Tony Sly, died in 2012).



edit: This should go without saying, but to avoid potential lawsuits, please remember that if you are in fact hiding smokes from your parents, never light them under a blanket.
Otherwise, enjoy!

Played Out

It's today now.

So, we did the play.
Incredibly.
Seven weeks. Everyone memorized what they needed to memorize (I myself could recite the play for you, if you'd like, inflecting every student's inflection), painted what they had to paint, and did what they had to do.
The lighting guy did our lights, even though he didn't come to any practices and decided two weeks from showtime that he was going to go to a hockey tournament instead.
He changed his mind of his own accord. I told him to do what he wanted.
He won best lighting at the awards ceremony on Saturday afternoon.
That wasn't all, either.
We actually did pretty well.
Max won best lighting, which I went up to receive after coming back from the bathroom, having no idea what I was receiving.
"We won something? What did we win?"
When I found out, I made him come up onstage. I'd been calling him my 'man on the lights' from the moment he said he wanted to do the lighting.
Lauren won best supporting actress (junior), which she didn't expect because she covered her mouth the way girls do when they win something they weren't expecting.
Sebastian was nominated for best supporting for playing the main character's dad and that was awesome because he only had about five lines or so.
Cameron was nominated for best actor.
We were nominated for best junior play, which was pretty sweet, and even yours truly managed to go home with 'best original script', which I told myself I didn't care about winning, even though I did.
Here's a picture from the after-party:

Sarah also won something (post-humus!), an award that recognizes teachers/volunteers who contribute to drama on the whole.
I nominated her, telling everyone that she was a 'shoe-in' because she's dead (relax, she would have laughed at that), which proved to be true.
I left the theater and looked at my shitty little award in the passenger seat, welling up a bit.
Despite my best efforts, I actually managed to do something I said I was going to do.
I affected people.

I elicited change. I honored my friend.
And I left it all way too late, which she also probably would have done.
Someone asked me what's next after this project.
I have no idea, but perhaps I'll say that I'll do something else and then actually do it.
Who knows?
In the meantime, we'll perform the play again for the parents next month some time.
I'm looking forward to it.
All this effort, it's about time I get the opportunity to flirt with some moms...

Air Force Hole-In-One

How exciting was this round of golf that happened for some lucky rubes in California?
Imagine having a vintage World War II plane crash-land on the green, only to see Harrison Ford climb out of it, all bruised up and confused.
"Well, if a fuckin' plane lands on the course, I'm sure I'm supposed to get a mulligan.
Yes I am! Check the rules, I'm sure that's in the ru - holy shit, it's Harrison Ford!"

In other, less glamorous news, the kids perform their play for the festival tomorrow morning.
Which is incredible. It's incredible that this day actually showed up and that it's tomorrow.
I have no idea how we'll do.
The kids know the play, but did the writer write one that's long enough?
And did the director design an efficient set?
In this case, both of those people are me.

Pressed For Success

Artistic grads shuffle stools
Scratch their ass and wrack their brains
Try their damndest not to try at all
Not at all
Pot smoke wafts from the war memorial
Games simple soldiers never got to play
Could fill our city's hall

It's Saturday and the records are on sale.
I feel as though I don't have much to add to that, really.
I'm in the coffee shop I didn't plan to be in and everyone's dressed like they're bicycling.
It's February, so hopefully these people are just making a statement, which says:
"I want my pants to fit just tightly enough."
I had no idea what Norah Jones looked like.
Turns out she looks like someone I would undress.
That's not hard to do:

My own success has never been a preoccupation of mine.
That's not your fault.
Presumably, it's mine.
Y'know, I never get tired of walking into a place only to feel completely out of place there.
Fitting in is for HR representatives.
I thought about becoming an HR person, once.
However, that would have strictly been for the free 'recruiting' trips to Australia.
I don't know how much recruiting can be done while drunk and/or asphyxiated from a jellyfish sting.

We're Engaged

You heard it here first, folks!
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