five deadly everythings...

This Time, Amazingly, Neither Marathon Event Ended With Me in a Migraine-Induced Fetal Position

The other day I smoked the most weed I've ever smoked in a single day. I'm not much of a regular drug-user though I will smoke once in awhile just cause and I have done shrooms quite a few times. I met up with Adriel at around 6pm and we kept ourselves high until about midnight, when we had one more joint (this time with Dex as well) and then parted ways for the evening.

It's fun and it feels good but I don't know how potheads can stay high all the time. I guess they build up a tolerance for it, but for me it's like living your life constantly happy. It sounds good but in reality it would just be annoying after awhile. Plus every conversation you have with a sober person makes you feel like an imposter trying to pull off an impression of the real you. I gave up being a professional spy a long time ago in like Grade 2.



The stag-and-doe fundraiser came and went and I spent a few days thinking about it. A week later I still have nothing to blog about it. It was a lot of fun and I got to see a bunch of people I haven't seen in years. My event (a Mario Kart tournament with tickets to The Roots and Floetry/Goapele as first and second prizes) didn't make as much money as it should have but on the average our take was pretty decent.

Soliguin crashed at my place afterwards. I woke up the next morning and he was still fast asleep, passed out. I made myself breakfast and read the newspaper. When I came back downstairs an hour later he was still splayed out over the couch with a blanket over his face. To kill time, I turned on his moded XBox and browsed through his games. I settled on Def Jam: Fight for New York, and designed my own character - a skinny white dude who dressed gangster but talked like a, well...like a skinny white dude.

Chris woke up after my first loss and groggily mumbled, "Let me try."

I passed him the controller and he fought a round.

"My turn," I said, sticking my arm out while staring at the screen.

We did this back-and-forth until 14 hours later, when we triumphantly finished the game and went back to sleep.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 1:17:00 a.m. | Permalink

Early Birds and Their Worms

I woke up early this morning so I could truck down to the REMG offices to pick up a pair of Roots tickets and still make it home in time to have a full day ahead of me. The tickets are giveaway prizes for the stag-and-doe party on Saturday. I got there a few minutes before 10am and ran into Phil on the sidewalk. He was standing by the mailbox with a kids juice from McDonalds, smoking the short end of a cigarette, hiding underneath the hood of a green camo jacket.

We caught up on work stuff and compared stories about how tired we were. I folded my arms over the top of a mailbox and rested my head in the nest of my biceps. Phil was unshaved and the sun was shining and it was one of those fuzzy early morning conversations, like we just came from a long party and the sun was out now and he wanted one more nasty smoke before passing out. He ashed his cig and we took the elevator upstairs.

"So how's your other stuff? You do a lot of shit on the side, right?" I asked.

"Yeah, I manage a producer right? And recently he's on some new medication and he's just been grinding lately, it's hard to keep up with him."

"No, really?"

"Yeah man. He was like a little depressed before but now he's just...all over the place."

"Does it change the music at all?"

"Naw, it hasn't changed his music at all, but...his grind is just on another level now."



I've often wondered about how different my output would be if I went on meds all those years ago. Recently I've agonized over reading the works of people my age who have been published all over the place, freelancing their faces off. If I had gone on the meds, how many scripts would I have under my belt by now? How many issues deep in the comic book? I might have finished a novel by now. Stranger things have happened by the age of 24.

In anticipation of being shirtless on a beach, I've been slowly getting my health straight. When I worked at the gym, I had unlimited access to the facilities and I was teaching classes and I was active enough that I could eat pretty much anything I wanted. Fast food was my diet and still I was in the best shape of my life. Since I've stopped training and gone all sedentary, my diet habits haven't changed and my health has been in steady decline. I know I'm reaching that age where if I'm not in the shape I want to be in, by then, I'll never be. It's about more than Cuba. I gotta get my lifestyle in order.

And so recently with the eating right and the lifting heavy things up and putting them back down and the sweating and stuff, there's been an increase in my general energy and output. Plus the sun is out and that helps.



But still. How much more further along in my goals and my productivity would I be if I started up on the meds?

A few days back I printed more copies of my poetry book because some heads have been asking for it. Today I pulled out the pages and read some poetry out loud, like I used to do when rehearsing for the poetry readings that never happened. I wrote a lot about depression, and I really like the shit I wrote, which complicates my feelings towards the pills.

But I know I can't dwell on the past like that. I just gotta get my shit together and start working for real. I know I make this post every six months but this one is different I swear.

I passed Phil a bag full of Starbucks cookies as he was signing off for my promotional tickets. "Cooookies," he said, while I grabbed some flyers and the latest issue of Pound.

"Alright, I'm out," I said. "Say what's up to everyone for me."

We clasped palms. "Peace man," he said, turning his back as I reached the stairs. "Don't work too hard," he called out.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 1:03:00 a.m. | Permalink

Two Years Later

Mad fuckery. I just read the One Year Later issue of Teen Titans, and it gave away a huge chunk of the ending to Infinite Crisis. I know it's probably my fault for reading a series called "One Year Later" without expecting to run into any spoilers, but so far all the installments I've read have kept the reveals down to hints and vague references. I thought building a mystery was the whole point.

Why are the One Year Later issues dropping already anyways, when the Crisis is still two months from wrapping up? Is this a huge scheduling gaffe that they're passing off as an exercise in narrative? It takes away from the impact IC's ending should carry. As one of the preptimers pointed out, the whole series from now on just feels like a bad flashback.



But speaking of flashbacks, I got my Humber acceptance package the other day. I was immediately brought back to five years ago when I got my package from York. You know what they say - size matters. I found a fat York-stamped envelope stuffed into our mailbox and assumed it meant entrance into the film program. I jumped up and down and did a cartwheel and little anime squiggly lines flew haphazard from my head. I called for my parents and did a square dance with them, perfectly in step on some Drew Lachey shit. Then I opened the package and realized I didn't get into the film program, merely into the Arts Deparment in general. I could go into social science or cultural studies or english, but not film. (I later weasled my way into the film department, but that's another story.)

This time I kept my wits about me. The fat package could have been anything other than an acceptance letter. It could have been a treatise on how I'm not cut out for journalism but maybe I'd like to pursue my obvious aptitude for basket weaving, or advanced juggling. It could have been a pillow, or maybe an envelope within and envelope within an evelope... anything was game.

When I opened it I had to read it a couple times just to make sure. You never know when your cognitive functions might crap out on you. But yeah son, I'm going back to school. I got accepted to both the journalism and advanced journalism programs. (Do I even have to say which one I accepted?) It's a much different feeling this time to be going to school. It feels fun, like I won a contest or something. Let's just hope I don't fuck it up this time.

John, Adriel and Melissa took me out after work yesterday for drinks in celebration. Everybody had good shit going on, John finishing up the year, Melissa on her new internship, Adriel for a good week in poker. We got way faded.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 12:35:00 p.m. | Permalink

Bear Share

On Sunday, after Vlada (aka Flava Flav, aka Vlada the Impaler, aka V for Vladetta) entered herself into the prestigious ranks of baristas who've stood me up for opens, the groomsmen and I went to get ourselves fitted for barongs. This is the first time I've ever had a piece of clothing tailored for myself. Who would have thought it would be a barong, a piece of clothing that usually looks one-size-fits-all anyways, and that is usually ill-fitting at that?

I rode with Paul whom I haven't seen in years who is now a cop and drives like one. Mike was doing the usual bad-driving thing, in and out of lanes, speeding, driving too slow, switching directions and weaving through parking lots in shortcuts that were actually longer. Paul was on his ass with ease, able to hold an intelligent conversation at the same time about SWAT training and exploding Tim Horton's shops on Young Street. Paul's one of the few officers who actually joined the force because they're nice people and want to help the community, and not because they're assholes with no other skills.

Prime Minister Harper yesterday announced his plans to increase the police force, build more jails and toughen up criminal sentences, and all I can say in response is that hopefully they at least hire more cops like Paul. I'm really starting to hate Harper, man.



I didn't sleep much the previous night, plus we had to switch our clocks back, so by the end of my shift I was tres fatigue and more than that, I was starving. Mrs. Shah had dropped off some samosas for the baristas to snack on, and Vlada and I hoarded about 90% of the precious confections for ourselves. After Paul picked me up and we drove to Markham, we separated from the group and did a covert McDonalds run. I ate 8 McNuggets in about 5 seconds. I went in for my fitting with sticky fingers that smelled of cheap, delicious sauce, with faint traces of Mrs. Shah's samosas wafting from their tips and my lips. I didn't smell very good, and my waist measurements were probably a little exaggerated by that point.

After the fitting the groomsmen decided they were hungry and we all went to Kelsey's, where I had the bbq burger with fries and coke. Mike ordered appetizers for everyone, crisp carbohydrates slathered in salt dipped in lipids. By this point I was ready to hibernate for four whole winters, each bite bringing me closer and closer to comatose bliss. We vowed at that point to get in shape before Cuba, which isn't so hard for Diego because he already looks like Bruce Lee. I lethargically shook my head in agreement and finished off my third fucking lunch of the day, french fries dangling from my mouth like people from a doomed burning building.

peace.

Posted by Scene -- at 7:47:00 p.m. | Permalink