Only thoughts, dont' worry, only thoughts
Been a rough few days, my grandma had a stroke and I spent some time with her in the hospital. She’s 50/50 I’d say and no clue on a full recovery or not.
She told me she didn’t think she would make it but asked if I could turn on some music. So we sat and listened. It made me really sad to think, I would want to do the exact same thing if I were about to die. Music is so important to my whole family that it only seemed fitting, and then it became even sadder as I realised how similar we are and the threat of losing her became all the more painful.
It was like we were going through the same thing, just minus the physical pain for me. Mutually losing memories. Orchestral music that sounded like a soundtrack to calm meadows, like the ones she used to summer at by the lake as a child, like the ones we used to cross to pick and press flowers when I was one.
My mom said that when I was a kid I didn’t cry when I found out that my parents would die, but I did when I found out my grandma would.
Who Knew?
This weekend I went to the Grey Cup tailgate parties in Toronto. Now if you’re from Toronto you’d never expect it, but the Grey Cup is actually a really big deal. We arrived at the Edmonton Eskimos suite and found our drunken friends dancing around a pyramid of empty beer cans. Red faced and spitting, they had been building it since noon. Cheerleaders stopped to take photos beside it and middle age men with watermelons on their heads chugged beer just to see it grow faster.
It was a sight to behold. I guess the best part was it was all western Canadians and I felt like I was out in Saskatchewan again. We saw Glass Tiger play and I must have been one of 100 people who brought their girlfriend, you’d be hard pressed to find women that weren’t paid to dance. So there I was at Canada’s Biggest Sausage Fest (besides UCC) with beer suds running down my sleeve as I held a can in the air to Spirit of the West.
I’m definitely gonna do it next year. And congrats to all my “Wheat Heads” or what ever the fuck they call them selves on the Rough Riders win!
I think its fairly obvious that I'm still drunk right now
I guess the greatest thing about snow in Ottawa is how it illuminates those ghosts that follow me everywhere. Not even they can escape the all punishing snow of Ottawa. I first saw it last night, a romantic fabric being woven across the city, my blurred vision made all the more terrible by the gentle yet incessant falling of the snow. At least I was able to slink away without being noticed after a particularly offensive bout of karaoke. Everyone just looks at their feet to shield themselves from the ever present onslaught.
At first people humour it, like it’s a fun little game. Perhaps a reality TV show that puts them in hilarious situations and they laugh at how absurd it is as they weather it like it is a temporary phenomenon. I caught many eyes on the way to work, people studying others faces trying to find someone to share in their joy. Never mind the fact that they are unprepared and their boots are full, and not only does that umbrella look stupid, it’s useless. Yet they cheerfully trudge through the virginal snow like its some sort of exercise that will exorcise their demons because how can they not be pure when everyday life all of a sudden resembles heaven?
That’s where they’re wrong. Whereas some people welcome the snow at first as some sort of evil suppressant that bats about their persecutors, I know that it only serves to illuminate them. Some people feel shielded by the snow, but quickly that wears off, look at peoples faces come January. Clearly molested, obviously downtrodden, it isn’t temperature getting them down, it’s the realization they weren’t in fact insulated from a mean and punishing world, they just let their guard down and now are all the more vulnerable to that which they feared in the first place.
That’s why its so much fun to hold your tongue out and allow plump flakes to melt in your mouth….because we all know that sin is delicious!
A few days old, but still good
She was beautiful, propped up on stage her trembling fingers flexing on the weighted keys of her instrument. I, on the other hand, was disheveled and nursing a swollen ankle in the corner, wanting to suck the music off of her delicate fingers.
I watched as she hunched over her piano and stared at the music she was making. She looked astonished at the sounds she was able to massage out of thin air as if captivate by the twitching of her own hand. Her mouth hung open just slightly, inhaling the notes as they rose from the speakers. I remember just wanting to lick her eyeballs. They were the first to watch the pure and sensual sounds being created as they seeped from her piano, I wanted to taste them. I could imagine the taste, the thick and creamy eye shadow that she applied so liberally that gave her a smoky and mysterious look. Her plump eyelashes swaying like palm fronds in ancient courts. I knew exactly what they saw and I knew exactly what she was thinking.
You should have seen me when she played "hurt", she sung it right to me. It was one of those situation where time slows down and every fanciful clique comes splashing across your crotch.
Thats as romantic as I get!
Fumbling toward entropy
I drove the open road across endless prairies. I watched the dirt rise behind me and pretended it was my tail and that I was a giant monster that skulked across the land. I sat still and held my breath as I watched wild horses lick the ice of frozen slews; I curled my long and slender finger around a broadcast tower and let the hum of interstellar transmissions tickle my scales.
I peered into the distance and saw smoke from a prairie fire. I tore off across the face of the earth towards it, never reaching the horizon it became an impossible tease. The imprint of my endeavor scourged the land in my wake as fields and wildlife and livestock all fell into its cavernous depths. Secrets and hopes and not a few regrets all tumbled down its steep banks and I reflected on the futility of my journey in the first place.
Having accomplished nothing I systematically destroyed everything that crossed my path. I barred my teeth in a twisted grimace at my own misfortune. Not that it mattered because I only become conscious of wrong doing long after its effects become irreversible. And so I sat, perhaps the world most powerful monster, stranded and alone and far from home, I gave up my mighty form in hope that my new body would grant me the ability to tread more lightly and not hurt those I loved.
From now on if I wanted to hurt people, I would have to use my mind and formulate complicated plans and possess the ability to execute them flawlessly rather than utilize recklessness or brute force. A possibility that no one should fear given then relative weakness of my
mind.
We used to be friends
Back at the scene of my first Saskatchewan pants wetting I felt an extreme sense of calm. Like a warm sort of peace that nuzzles against your neck as you lay your face on its soft belly. My body may be in a bit of shock, I did just have a rape party run on my ass for the last 28 days and it culminated in some very poor decision making.
So luckily my body and mind have been spared by some sort of chemical my brain is releasing to tranquilize me. If death is merciful then I’m mighty close because I’m having some serious grace bestowed upon me right now. Which isn’t necessarily a happy thought but I’ll take it rather than face a wall of regret.
When my grandpa’s sister died he kept forgetting because of his short term memory loss. We had to keep reminding him that she died and thankfully he would remember rather then experience the same shock over and over. Your mind can do funny things, but I fear its just a co conspirator to blunt the sting of consequence so I fuck up again.
Well off to drink....thats sure to help the situation.
I’d like to actively encourage even the toughest man to dance as hard as he can to this….
So here’s Saskatchewan by the numbers so far
75 Number of Tylenols this week
50 Number of coffees this week
3 Number of broken bones
1 Number of nose bleeds
5 Most liters of beer consumed in a night
3 Number of nights sleeping with another woman without actually having sex
6 Number of months older she is than my little brother…gross
10 Number of fingers with frost bite
0 Numbers of ghost sightings
1 Number of First Nations make out sessions
0 Number of cigarettes
All the fists in the world can’t save you now.
In the not so distant future Saskatoon edition
Long after humans had been over thrown, there emerged a small movement to try to restore elements of their life. Robots employed a weighted matrix of rational decision making until humans were extinct. The last one lay screaming in a pool of blood as the prisoners dilemma for a final time played out against her.
After attaining a human like level of sentience they were able to determine that it was humans that were the only obstacle to harmony on earth and they went about disposing of them. Some thought that along with enlightenment would come compassion akin to charity, however this was not the case as emotional considerations generally only served to further the self-destruction of humans in the first place.
And thus in the wake of all this carnage, after the blood was buffed from the cold metal exo-skeletons of robots, regret emerged. And in the place of a once industrious yet wayward species was a longing for the vitriol that started the decent into the “carbon based extinction”.
I got my drink and my two-step
Oh yeah, stereotypes abound as of late. Walking up to the Long Branch, which is a bar in an ally between a hotel and a golf dome, the street was strewn with puking cowboys. Their friends would laugh and say “ummm ya hungry?” as vomit splashed on our feet. Every urinal was stained with chewing tobacco and people actually wore shirts with flames on it. I loved every second.
This morning, which looked strangely like late afternoon, I got to do donuts behind a flour mill. I bounced around running a slalom between broken bottles and cautionary tales of unbridled displays of excitement.
I squinted into the sun as dust rose against a pale blue sky. I marveled at its vastness and behind the wheel I thought that if the sky goes on forever, then I could see it. As in I can see forever, not in some sort of linear progression or time line but as a massive all encompassing holistic view. I have infinite vision that falls on every blade of grass or every hair of your lovers head. And I not only see it all, but am part of some larger harmonized unifying theorem that in a weird way connects us all in more then just some sort of spatial relationship.
Then I gently blew my girlfriend a kiss across the prairie.
Idylwyldin'
Ah shit…I’ve started saying things with a certain twang. It’s only been a week or so and I sound like I’m straight outta Fargo. Which isn’t so bad.
I’ve been hanging out a lot on the corner of Idywlyd and 33rd. It’s pretty grimy. I found a bar that plays hip hop and everyone break dances. Only thing is the floors carpeted so people run around shocking each other everywhere they go. You can also order beer in 5 liter increments, its awesome.
I’m currently the champion in Buck Hunter: Elk Division. It pays off, after tripping a first nation’s girl, she kissed me. It was my first one. She wore too much Chap Stick and the menthol stung my lips.
I’m also nursing a swollen knee and twisted ankle because a kid tripped me.
