Sunday, August 22, 2010

Seinfeld Moment

Okay, so I had to relate this to someone. I can’t tell whether is really funny or just embarrassing.

Last night I went to a club with the express intention of meeting a woman I’ve known about for months, but never spoken to or met. I had heard she might be going to this metal show, (and for the record, I’m not a big fan of the music – it’s just noise to me), so I went in the off chance I could finally meet her. So that alone is embarrassing enough. We have a number of common friends, but we’ve never met. I just happen to think she’s reasonably attractive and has all kinds of things in common with me. Anyway, this entry isn’t really about her, because she wasn’t there. Evidently, she didn’t think the cover charge was worth it.

I did though, and I met another friend of the groups’ instead, a makeup artist in the movies. I can’t call her Makeup Girl since I used that name already two years ago, but for now I think it’s fitting enough to call her Mulva.

See, throughout the night, it was clear that we liked each other, and that we didn’t like the music, so we tried to get as far from the stage as possible. There were some nice couches by the back. We figured out that we’d even worked with the same people in the industry, when I mentioned an ancient makeup artist with a little yappy dog that used to make my life difficult. She was like “Oh, you know MJ! I hate her!”

So we left the club together and I drove her home. We knew it was a bad idea to go up to her apartment, but she didn’t want to leave the car. So we made out in the car for the better part of an hour. When she finally left, the entire car was fogged up. I wasn’t aware this was possible in the middle of summer. Well, I suppose it’s the end of summer now…

We made tentative plans to do something today, like maybe dog walk together. She hasn’t called yet though. Maybe it’s the rain. Or maybe she won’t call. The more they don’t call, I find, the less I care. When she put my name into her phone, she spelled it right the first time and everything. Even my ridiculous last name.

Here’s the embarrassing part though. I can’t for the life of me remember her name. Ever during that hour in the car, I was thinking, I don’t know this woman’s name. So if she does call, which doesn’t seem likely, and asks if I know who she is, I’ll say “Mulva?”

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Stupid Arguments that Irk Me #1: Smoking Does Not Cause Cancer

Every now and again I am met with an argument that is so profoundly stupid, yet clung to by the arguer with such fervent devotion, that I lose my temper and refuse to speak with the arguer any further. Usually, this is after I’ve given them the chance to scrutinize their own logical fallacies, after which they once again repeat their stupid argument, as if it were I who did not understand. The champion of these arguments is of course, the existence of god in the absence of anything that proves otherwise, but as I bored of that one long ago, I will instead begin with a rather pig-headed argument I was accosted by last night, involving smoking and cancer.

I was at Social Girl’s home, you see, with her roommate and our friends, Muscles and Wheels. Muscles, (who is skinny as a twig – I can’t take credit for the ironic name – that honor belongs to Social Girl), argued against someone’s (?) assertion that smoking is linked with cancer, something I had hitherto expected could be accepted as fact, was wrong. Muscles argued that smoking cigarettes did not cause cancer, because if it did, smoking one cigarette would cause cancer. “That’s what causation means. Look it up in a dictionary,” he said, which is about when I lost my temper. While I agreed with him that causation did not equal correlation, the only decent rational point he made all night, I could not concede that the rest of what he had to say was anything less than the baldest of bullshit.

So I gave up on the argument in favour of playing some Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo instead, but I mulled it over in my mind, and drafted a proper response, which isn’t necessarily meant for him to read, but a means of sorting my thoughts out properly into words. The result is as follows.

Your argument contains two logical fallacies. The first is your assertion that something is not true, simply because the negative cannot be proven to be false. For instance, you cannot go claiming that there is no god, much to my chagrin, simply because we cannot prove that there is one. There may be no reason to prove that he exists, but that’s as far as you can go.

In the case of smoking, I will grant that we cannot prove the exact mechanism that leads to cancer, and thus, the most compelling evidence that we have at present are studies and statistics. While these studies do not prove causation, they do prove correlation, which is reason enough to examine further before we can confirm the positive. However, to say that this therefore proves the negative is just stupid. It is just as stupid as a priest saying that because I can’t prove that god does not exist, he therefore does, or that I cannot prove how the universe came to be, and that therefore the existing stupid theory is better than no theory.

Allow me to illustrate your fallacy with another analogy. For years, patients were dying on operating tables because of something invisible that we cannot see. We did know what was killing roughly half of our patients, but we theorized that something was indeed causing it, and we found later that proper sterilization of instruments and wounds reduced the number of these deaths to these invisible killers drastically. We call these invisible little monsters “germs” now, and even though we didn’t know then what we know now, we were not wrong in thinking they were killing our patients. They were indeed causing deaths. Just because we didn’t know how or why our patients were dying, didn’t mean that they weren’t. Lack of knowledge of fact does not equal lack of fact.

Your second logical fallacy is your assertion that, if smoking causes cancer, (and again, I think it is a well-known and well-documented fact that it does, but we can leave that for now), one cigarette would cause cancer. That is like saying that a minor laceration to your face will kill you, regardless of size, severity or number. If I cut you in the face, and then left you alone, it would heal, and you would be fine. You would be marred, but fine. If I keep cutting you, however, you will eventually die from your injuries. It is like the proverbial straw breaking the camel’s back. One straw will probably go completely unnoticed, but if you keep piling on straw, at a certain point, you will pile on the last straw, and kill your camel. An excess of something causing death does not equal the mere presence of something causing death. The name for this fallacy, which you’ve made twice in your argument, is “equivocation.” You can look that up on your own time.

So, I’m sorry Muscles, (well, no I’m not – you’re wrong, and I’m trying to help you out so that you don’t keep saying this and sounding so stupid in future, and more importantly, annoying me), but your argument is flawed, and you are wrong.

And that concludes my first rant, about stupid arguments.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Misery Date

My first mistake was nicknaming her “Princess.” She told me that she refuses to get her license, and that when she gets her man, he’ll drive her around like a princess. So as a joke, I started calling her “Princess.” I was going to call her “Princess” on the blog too, but “Misery” took the win. In numerous consequent e-mails, she told me that she loves being called princess, and that it makes her feel special. This was the first sign that I was in real trouble.

By the time she started e-mailing five times between replies, I’d already asked her out. I figure it’s better to just ask women out right away rather than to develop feelings for lines of text. This didn’t stop her from building everything up into monumental proportions, telling me how nervous she was, how much she was looking forward to it, and how I was the nicest guy to grace this green earth. Me! Anyone who actually knows me, knows I’m actually kind of a jerk. She actually told me that I was going to be her “whole new world.” I guess she’s a Little Mermaid fan.

I arrived ten minutes early because, after all, I wouldn’t want to keep my princess waiting. I ordered a mango bubble milk, (yes, I like sissy drinks), sat down, and waited. By 3:00, I started thinking I’d been stood up, which was a surprise, given that she says she looked at several maps and bus schedules so that she could get there early. It was that very minute that I realized I was actually relieved, and quite happy to just sit there by myself enjoying my bubble milk.

At 3:01, Misery showed up. I made sure to sit near the front, so I could get a good look at the people coming in. I always do this on first dates. It gives me an edge. But this was a double-edged date.

I only had the one very obscured photograph to go on, and even from that, I could tell she wouldn’t be terribly attractive, but I’m all for giving everyone a chance. But I did not predict the creature I saw before me.

To describe her as looking like a shaved gorilla in an oversized moo-moo, would be an understatement. The scowl on her face, I can only describe as that of an ogre. I mean she was like a frowning, pink Shrek! And she hunched as she walked, and she lurched furtively back and forth, her eyes scanning through the restaurant and then back into the street, as if she was expecting the police to bust her for crack possession.

And I was mere feet away from her.

“Fuck me,” I muttered to myself, going back to my bubble milk, trying to act natural.

And then she was gone.

I looked back towards the glass door. No Misery.

“Well maybe it wasn’t her,” I lied, to myself. I hoped it wasn’t her, but deep down, I knew that it was.

Five minutes later, she was back, and the pattern repeated, and it was at this moment that I realized she was literally so crazy that it never occurred to her to step inside the building. I thought of helping her out and stepping outside to invite her in, but I mean, come on! What is she, a vampire? I decided that this was the final IQ test. If she can’t figure out that all she has to do is come inside, she fails.

So she left again, and five minutes later, she was back. Same furtive, nervous movement, and then she was gone again.

When she returned for a forth time, five minutes later, I knew I was done there. I waited for her to leave, paid for my drink, and left.

When I got outside, I looked around carefully to see if I could spot her. I checked all the bus stops. No Misery. Like a banshee, she was gone.

When I recounted this story to my sister, she called me on it.

“And then she was gone,” I said to her. “She was like a banshee.”

“You used three different animal terms to describe this woman.”

“A banshee is not an animal.”

“Well, mythical creatures then.”

“Fair enough. But you know, I think she must have been some kind of mythical creature, because she moved much more quickly than you might expect, given her physique.”

I had given up on trying to find her and was on my way home, when we passed each other on the street. Much to my amazement, she did not recognize me. In fact, she made no eye contact with anyone. (It was really crowded.) I thought one last time that I might say something to her, but then I realized I’d just been given a get out of jail free card.

Or so I thought, until I got home.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Cornball Justice

I’m sure you’ve heard that justice is blind. Well, apparently, it’s also stupid.

Today, I want to talk about the trial of a man who was sentenced to life in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit. I’m sure you’ve all heard these kinds of stories before, and no I’m not directly involved in this affair, but I’ve taken a special interest in this particular case since I first heard about it five years ago, mainly because of how badly the whole case reeked of police corruption. You can read the article here, in the Cornwall Standard Freeholder:

http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2662223

The first thing you should all note is that this entire case is based entirely on the testimony of one lying psychopath named Roger Belair, infamous for being “one of Cornwall’s worst criminals.” The police knew that he is a pathological liar, having constantly lied to them about literally everything in this case, changing his story several times, and having being caught in a lie about not having attempted to murder his accomplice, Andy Paul. (Belair shot Paul in the head, leaving him with a slew of health problems, including “permanent hearing loss, loss of equilibrium, migraines and brain fluid leakages.”)

The police had ample evidence that Belair and Paul were present at both crime scenes. (The first is the double homicide of the Benedicts. The second is the attempted murder of Paul, whose blood was understandably at the scene.) There is no evidence that any other person, (other than the two victims of course), had ever been there. So the question is: Why did two other men get charged with the murders?

The first accused man, Jason Maestrello, was sentenced yesterday to a minimum of 25 years in prison. The second, Michael Boyle, will stand trial in September. I’m hoping that his trial goes better than Maestrello’s, but also bear in mind that these two men have already been incarcerated five years, with no concrete evidence to justify keeping them there. The police lied (yes, LIED) about having DNA evidence placing them at the crime scenes, which they were never able to produce. I’m trying to imagine why in the world the police would WANT to lie about something like this, and I can’t. They would have to be convinced of their guilt, but without any evidence, I don’t see how they possibly could be. All they have is the testimony of a lying psychopath, who’s obviously trying to cover his own ass.

Here’s a paraphrase of what Belair told the police, and what the jury was presented with:

“Yeah, I shot Andy Paul. Right in the head. And yes, I admit that I lied about it afterwards, but I mean, come on! How was I supposed to know he’d survive? I’m telling the truth this time though, I promise. And yeah, I was there during the two murderers, but Boyle and Maestrello made me watch. Those two killed the Benedicts, not me. Yeah, I know I didn’t tell you about their involvement right away, but I forgot, alright? Alright, so I forgot twice, when we went over it a second time. Can we get past this? Oh, and yes, I got rid of the weapons, but they made me do that too. Yes, they made me do a lot of things that night. They were the masterminds. Yes, both of them. So can I make a deal and plead to a lesser charge for turning them in, or what?”

This, in a nutshell, is Belair’s bullshit story. Would you buy it? I sure wouldn’t. But apparently, the police did, and consequently, the jury did too. I don’t understand it. It violates the principle of Occam’s razor, and it’s littered with inconsistencies. Generally, I find when you’re looking for the real mastermind behind any crime, you look and at where the money goes. The motive behind this double-murder was to steal 160 grand, which Belair got, by the way. The whole case stinks.

Now Maestrello has to appeal this bullshit case in front of yet another jury. Do you call that a good use of our tax dollars? I sure don’t.

It is painfully obvious that something has gone horribly wrong here. Belair, a known and feared psychopath, who obviously lied about everything, and masterminded the double-homicide (which was actually meant to be triple-homicide) from the very beginning, and who GOT THE MONEY, was sentenced to 3 years. Maestrello, who can’t even be placed at either crime scene by anything other than the testimony of a known liar and psychopath, and who (understandably) maintains his innocence, gets 25-to-life. Does that seem right to you? Unless someone stops Belair, he’ll kill again. Mark my words. Belair should be serving the life sentence, not Maestrello. More importantly, all of the police involved in this case should be investigated for gross incompetence, not to say downright corruption. This is an abomination of justice, and the police should not be making deals with known psychopaths. The fact that the police built their entire case on Belair’s bullshit story, and stuck to it for five years, lacking any actual evidence, suggests that they’re trying to cover up a bigger problem. Wouldn’t you like to know exactly what that is?

Friday, July 2, 2010

What I like about Canada Day

What I like about Canada Day is: Most people behave the way they should behave every day. Well, not exactly. What I mean is, on Canada Day, everyone smiles, is friendly, and is willing to talk to strangers in a way that is open, accepting, and jovial. I don’t mean the people who smash beer bottles, tip over newspaper boxes and call people “faggots” for dressing nicely and wanting to be friendly. Those butt-smears should continue to keep their hands to themselves and their mouths shut. But I think people should feel comfortable talking to their brother and sister people every day. After all, it’s not the strangers who talk to you that you should be worried about; it’s the psychos who don’t talk to you that you should be weary of.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Kiss and Miss

I don't understand you. You'll kiss me in my car, but now you won't have coffee with me. How do I go from the guy you're attracted to to the creepy guy you avoid, without the exchange of a single word?

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Rejection, After Rejection, After Rejection


The excuse I get from people is always essentially the same. “It’s hard.” You know what’s hard? Going through life without anyone saying “yes” to you. I am tired of being rejected. I’m tired of applying for jobs I never get, sometimes because I’m “overqualified.” I’m tired women ignoring me. I’m tired of waiting for people to get back to me who never do, so I just feel like I’m waiting for Godot. I’m tired of writing about it. I’m tired of being tired of it. I’m certainly tired of talking about it, because people just say the same damn thing like they don’t know any better. “Cheer up, things will get better.” No they won’t. “You just need to lower your expectations.” To what? I’ve already come to expect nothing now. Isn’t that fuck up? I don’t know why I keep trying when I just expect to fail. I don’t WANT to fail, but I expect to. Or they say “you’re trying to hard,” or “you’re not trying hard enough,” or “you expect too much” or “you don’t have enough confidence.”

The theatre I was volunteering for kicked me out for no reason. They’ve made a ton of excuses, none of which have anything to do with me, but I’m the one who gets rejected. That girl that kissed me ignored me all week-end. I haven’t been with a woman since 2007, and that woman rejected me after a one-night-stand. I got laid off from my last actual job.

I suppose I’m not being entirely fair. I was accepted into a grad program. Unfortunately, that doesn’t start for two more months, so it isn’t much of a distraction.

I lost count of how many new messages I’ve composed to women various dating sites over the last 3 or 4 days, and I’m usually careful to consider that I’d be what THEY want. How fucked up is that? That I don’t even think what I want is relevant anymore. And they just ignore me. Even though I know some of them have been logging in every day for years. Obviously Mr. Darcy isn’t coming along.

Two women got back to me, and one of them won’t even be living in Ottawa for another month. The other one gave me a one-line response to a question about her own interests. I was reminded of a crappy response I asked Scrapbook Girl when I asked her what she was working on these days. “Lots of things.” What kind of an answer is that? It’s a blatant I-don’t-want-to-talk-to-you answer. Which is baffling, really – a poet who doesn’t want to talk about her own poetry. So I told this other girl sorry for asking her a dead-end question. But what the fuck does she want to talk about? I asked her what she made of the G20 summit. If people can’t talk about what they like, get them to talk about what they hate. She said she’s been down ever since a bad break-up, and now she hates her job. No we’re getting somewhere. So I asked what cheers her up, and she says, “singing.” Then she asks what makes me happy. And you know what I did? I agonized over what to say to her until I passed out from exhaustion. Because you know what I’ve realized. I don’t know what makes me happy. Nothing really does. Every now and then I see a spark of something that would make me happy in a woman I know, but she’s usually pretty quick to put that fire out. I meet so many people who want something, and they have this sense as to what it is. A dream, if you will. Some people want to go on a dream trip, some want to write the perfect song. Me, I get discouraged from writing my own screenplays and poems, and from my other obsessions because I just don’t see anything happening anymore. I start asking “even if I succeed, what good is that going to do me?” In five years, I could really be somebody, in some field, or I could not, but by the end of my life, it still isn’t going to matter. Nothing really matters. And the know this from the outset, well, it kind of makes the whole journey seem pointless.

You know what I spent my week-end doing? Moving old furniture around and watching my grandmother Depressia potter around with old garbage that she should just throw away. Even she said she wanted to just throw it all away, so I insisted that she do so. And I drove all the way out to our cottage with my dad and auntie Flo, just so we could move an old, ugly piece of furnature into storage there, instead of just throwing it away. My dad has this hope that his uncle, now 82, is going to come and take it, because he says he wants it. He lives in another province; it’s never gonna happen. What we should have done is leave it on the curb. Let some poor student take it. Fuck!

So right now, I feel like my purpose is to wait around for all my relatives to die, one by one, so I can help them move around all their junk into less and less space. I don’t get to start a family or career of my own, because no one wants me, but my family wants me, because I can drive them all around. (My dad can’t drive anymore, because of his eye problems.) My grandmother even want to give me money towards a car – but I know it’s just so I’ll visit her more often, which I wish she’d thought of before moving to that lodge on the other-ass end of the city. My life until 30 has been a series of school, volunteering for people who just use my good-naturedness, babysitting other people’s kids, helping make their family life easier, and moving old garbage around when I should just throw it away! That girl, (or should I say woman of 27), asked me what makes me happy, a question I asked myself 8 years ago when Karma Chameleon dumped me. And I still don’t fucking know. All I can think of is either all the bullshit that I have but don’t want – the endless about of clutter in the warehouse that is my (parents’) house, and on top of old relatives dying or moving to smaller rooms, my father and sister continue to buy assloads of junk. And yes sis, you know it’s junk. I know you do – or the things that I want but don’t have – namely a girlfriend and paid work, inching towards the whole family and career goal. And why would I even want either of these? Well how should I know? I barely remember what they feel like. So I can’t even answer that.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

I Kissed a Girl / Awkward Moments

I can’t decide whether I had a shitty week, or an uneventful week. I feel like I lost a hero. For nostalgic reasons, let’s call him Big Daddy. Big Daddy was my hero in my teens and twenties, because he was a sort of city hero, filming crappy movies, but funny crappy movies, and he rapidly rose to stardom as a cult hero in the Capital City. Well, recently Big Daddy came down on Ema Nymton and me for reasons I already covered in a previous entry. We volunteered for him because he was our hero, and he and his little henchman the Hambuglar just spat in our faces. Yesterday I saw a made-for-tv horror he directed, and I must say, it was great. I would tell him what a magnificent job he did, and what a great movie it truly was, (I mean, I loved this movie!) if I didn’t think so little of him right now. The way he treated us has made him look callous, cheap, petty and small. But I’m not writing at this hour to report on that. He’s the loser in this situation, after all, which I’ll tell him when I’m good and ready.

Tonight I went to a party I’ve been looking forward to all week. It was a cast party for a short called “Spoon” that a pair of competitors from the 72-hour film challenge made. It’s about an awkward accountant who hires a first-time hooker, and their awkward outing to a diner the next morning. We all dressed up for the party too (I was an awkward accountant), the hostess was an awkward hooker and the host was a Shakespearean hobo. To see the significance of the costumes, you’d have to see the film. I’d love to show it to all of you, so I will when I get their permission.

It was a great evening and I made some nice contacts. I told my two former competitors about a sketch comedy group I want to put together. I think the host is perhaps the only man I know with the technical skill to pull off a David Lynch spoof. I met an actor who also looks just like Kyle MacLachlan, and both these guys completely LOVE Twin Peaks, so we went about the show for awhile, and we will talk more about it in the future.

As the party quieted down a little, we watched a movie called “The Room.” I must tell you, this movie is a great bonding experience, because it is absolute shit. It is easily the worst movie I have ever seen, and that includes “Decoys.” Do not watch this movie alone, and preferably not sober. Otherwise, this shitty movie could drive you completely insane. It’s that bad.

Anyway, the reason I’m blogging at this crazy hour is, as the title suggests, I kissed a girl. So what, you ask? Why bother telling you something so insignificant? Well, I don’t know if you noticed, but there hasn’t been much going on in my life romantically since 2007. Well, not outside my own messed-up head, anyway. That’s before I started this damn blog, which has, of course, been nothing but trouble on that front anyway. But this girl, or woman of 27 I suppose I should say, seemed to like me from the beginning of the party. We just had a very easy time talking to each other, even though we’d never met before. We sat next to each other through the whole movie, and, as she’d been drinking, she didn’t want to drive home, so she wanted to bus. I offered to drive her wherever she needed to go, so she happily obliged and stayed for the rest of the movie. Then I drove her to an all-night diner where she meant to meet some friends. I might also mention that throughout the evening, she kept mentioning how tired she was of this guy she kept breaking up with. Cliched, I know, but I found it endearing. After dating a girl like Karma Chameleon, I can certainly relate. Anyway, as I drove her home, we both discovered we were cat lovers, among other things, and then when I parked by the ESD to let her out she leaned in to thanks me, and I tried to hug her, but I realized her lips were coming towards me, and she said “kiss me.” So I did. And as I kissed her, I thought to myself, when is the last time I kissed a girl? What does this mean? Is it just the alcohol kissing me? How drunk am I going to get off this kiss? And then she smiled and said “I like you” as she got out. I’m not sure what I said as she got out, but I’m pretty sure it was something stupid like “I’m gonna definitely add you on facebook.” Talk about your awkward moment. I felt great, and like an idiot at the same time.

I really did feel a little drunk on the way home. Whether it was from the kiss itself, or the alcohol on her lips, I don't know. I asked myself how this happened. I suppose I invited it, but I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t expect it. But I think I wanted it. I think the trick is to make her feel completely comfortable with me. Something I completely failed at with, say Nurse Betty or Scrapbook Girl, or any of those other losers I met on the internet. She was certainly comfortable enough to get into a car with me, even knowing I only have a G2. She’s gorgeous, by the way. Just gorgeous. I just hope she remembers this in the morning. At this point in my life, I’m prepared for anything though. I’ve certainly been conditioned not to expect much.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Swapping Body Parts

Sometimes I wish we just swap body parts. Then if you met a racist guy, you could just steal his arms and replace them with two different colors. Then you could steal his memory so he can't remember what color he started out as. And then you could finally steal his nose and say "got your nose!" And he would laugh, because that gag never stops being funny.

Men Are Stronger, Women Go Longer!

Men are stronger than women by far. Yet women are the ones who have to give birth. That doesn’t seem very fair, does it? Then again, women do get to live 4.5 years longer on average. Then again, if a woman has 6 kids, those 4.5 years are spent pregnant. All things considered, I guess I’d rather spend those years dead.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Grad’s Cool!

I went to speak with my grad supervisor today about what I’m going to be doing for grad school in the fall. He started by asking me my areas of interest, and I told him American literature and Diasporic lit were of particular interest to me. Then he asked what I’d like to do with my teacher’s assistantship, and repeated again, probably American literature, but then I realized that of course, half of us probably wind up teaching the 1000-level class, which is mainly a survey course of all kinds of periods and places in literature. That’s probably by first choice, but he also asked if I’d be interested in being a TA for the writer’s workshops. He says he only puts TAs in those for whom it’s their first choice, so I told him I’d think about it. Now that I’ve thought about it, I should probably follow-up by asking him what this might entail. Still, I think I might greatly prefer teaching literature and theory than grammar and essay structure.

Then he asked me about what classes I want to take, and I told him the one I was most excited about was a class on King Arthur. He remarked that this deviated somewhat from my areas of interest, but then I told him it was a book that I’ve been working on, using the Arthur legend. I’ve been reading a number of books around the legend, but what I’d really wanted up until now was a chance to study it with an actual professor, and this opportunity just sort of sprung up. I told him I wanted to renew the legend with a code that today’s generations could get into – I didn’t really explain this properly at the time, but I really wanted to layer it with gender and racial tolerance, with the main character (alongside Arthur and Gawain) as a female, “ethnic” knight. It sounds weird, I know, and it’s not even the selling point of the book, but it’s part of my whole vision. The selling point is the zombies part. I told him I wanted to put zombies in Camelot, given the appropriate background I’d have in both the Arthur legend and zombie movies. He asked my favourite zombie movie, and I told him, easily, Shaun of the Dead. Because Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright – everything they make is a brilliant all-encompassing send-up of a different genre. And then we got to talking about how that’s what people like – modern revisions of the old ideas, like the Arthur legend, which is constantly coming up in literature, movies, and other forms of art. He said that after 12 Harlequin Romance novels, people get a bit tired of it, and I laughed and admitted that I’m essentially writing the movie equivalent, a MOW, with an actress friend. It’s generic, I know, but dammit, networks buy them, people watch them, and they generate revenue. And I need my foot in the door. We’re hoping to sell this script in the fall.

Anyway, so far I’m having a great day. Unfortunately, right when I got home, Ema Nymton delivered some rather interesting news involving a certain movie theatre that shall for now remain nameless. Apparently the Hamburglar wants to permanently get rid of us both. However, like an unwilling prostitute, I’m not going down without a fight!

But I can deal with him later. In the meantime – GRAD SCHOOL! Yay! I’m excited!

Sunday, June 20, 2010

E-Mails You Should Never Send #2

Ever get an e-mail from someone, and just think, “bitch, think before you send hate to people.” Well my auntie Flo does that to me every now and again. I thought she was the only bitch in my life until Ema showed me an e-mail from The Hamburglar. (It was a toss-up between Hamburglar and Clambuglar, but I chose the former because I can’t imagine this douche ever getting laid, even by Grimace’s ailing grandma.) Anyway, he’s the manager at the cinema I work for. He noticed that my friends all seemed to have one free movie pass. When he said those passes were for the businesses in my district, I told him I always give them to these businesses. When he asked how my friends got them, I told him I gave them to them. He told me not to do that, and I was fine with it. I was under the impression the actual owner told me they were to be given to the employees at these businesses, and then any extra can go to anyone else I want to recommend this theatre to. Anyway, he told me to bring the extras back to him when I’m done distributing for the month, and I was fine with that.

Ema Nymton, however, was not. You see, when The Hamburglar took me aside to speak to me, he also included Ema, his girlfriend, and another friend we often go with. I thought The Hamburglar’s behaviour was fine, and I thought he brought up an important point, assuming good faith on my part, as a good manager ought to. I’d never have thought this a problem, but apparently I’m very naïve. Ema sent him an e-mail about it, because he found the whole system of free passes a little confusing too. Here’s the exchange: (with Ema’s permission of course!) The names have been changes to protect the innocent (and the asshole)

------------

Hey HB,
After you spoke to Malice this evening about not giving out the free passes to our friends, it occurred to me that no official policy has ever been given as to who we can and can't give the passes to. After I gave one of my passes to [my friend], Lee did tell me that I should make sure to give them out to people around [campus], but he never really specified who (as I mentioned, I've just been giving them to the work study students in the Audio Visual Resource Centre). Maybe it would be beneficial to you guys (and us guide distributors) if you made a clear list of who should get the free passes, if only to reduce any confusion as to what groups are a-o-k and which are off-limits. I know that you have also mentioned in the past that ideally the passes should be given out to non-members, but Mayfair membership isn't something that one can tell at a glance. I think that the free passes are a great way to market the Mayfair, but since they cost you guys in terms of ticket sales, maybe there should be clearer (or just more) restrictions surrounding them. Maybe only you guys should be able to give them out? I'm just spitballing here.
Anyway, it was a thought I had. Kick-Ass was great! I look forward to the secret VHS sunday movie!

Cheers,
Ema Nymton

------------

dude - i'm sorry, but your email is bullshit.

malice lied to my face tonight right in front of you, if you care to remember or not. in one breath, he says to me (and i quote) "i only give the passes to the stores where i drop off guides"... and then i say, "well, how did your friends get these passes?"... and then he says "i gave them to 'em".

so, if malice already knows our policy and you already know our policy (after lee spoke to you in the past), could you please explain the point to your passive aggressive email... you know... beside pissing me off?

------------

I keep rereading this email over, and every time there’s something new about it that strikes me as odd. Let’s see how long this list gets.

1. I think Ema was nothing but polite, and if only he’d simply ignored the e-mail, it probably would have been fine. As it stands, he’s declared a fuck you to two people in one e-mail, and sign that, much to the contrary of my initial impression, he did not assume good faith on anyone’s part, even though.
2. My initial thought was “misdirected anger”
3. When he says “(and i quote),” he’s simply lying and completely misquoting me, to make it sound like I’m the liar. That’s personal, buddy. If I wanted to lie to you, I could have, and I’m deeply insulted that you would insinuate that I would even need to bother lying to the likes of you.
4. I think another sign of mental illness is never using capitals. Yes, even in an e-mail, but I admit am a bit of a grammar-Nazi. At least it wasn’t ALL CAPS.
5. When he says “if malice already knows our policy and you already know our policy” he insinuates that either one of us has any idea what his policy is, when by the way, isn’t really his policy, and at this point, is convoluded as all hell, because not only am I getting mixed messages from different higher-ups, but I’m getting mixed messages from him. In person, I had no idea how hateful The Hamburglar really was.
6. He called my friend “passive aggressive” for expressing genuine concern.
7. He’s basically saying ‘shut-up. You know the rules. No giving passes to friends. Designated people only.’ Except it isn’t all clear who is or isn’t designated – for instance, a number of my friends actually do, in fact, work for these designated business, and I do, in fact, sometimes show up together with them. It didn’t even occur to him that these friends of mine might work at some of these places. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was a liar and a cheat.
8. Any response that starts with the word “dude” proves you’re being an asshole, especially when the last word of the first line is “bullshit”

That’s eight things already, and it’s only eight lines long. I honestly feel like a loser for dwelling on it so long. Next time I see him, I’m going to ask the Hamburglar if he has anything he’d like to say to me. Because I don’t like being called a liar, especially by someone who doesn’t have the courage to say it to my face. I thought everything was fine when I left! He’s the liar, pretending like everything is cool! Now I’m half expecting to see him lurking in the shadows outside my house. This is psychopath behaviour.

I also noticed, after I left the Mayfair, that he’d obviously waited through the entire movie just to ask me that on my way out. It wasn’t just an afterthought. He was waiting there for me. That did, in fact, set off a silent alarm in my head. I just didn’t know what it meant. Now I do.

The problem with this sort of, (dare I say it?), “passive aggressive” behaviour, is that, well, first of all, I had no problem with this guy before that night. Even when he took me aside and told me to bring the extra passes back to him, I was fine with that. But then he later showed his true colors to Ema, and I think they’re as ugly as all the colors of the puke rainbow. (Sorry if that analogy doesn’t quite work, but I made it up for just this instance.)

I think he owes my friend an apology, don’t you agree?

Stuff

George Carlin once said “why is it that everyone else’s stuff is shit, but your shit is stuff?” Collecting “stuff” has become somewhat of a mental illness in western culture. My parents’ house is so filled with junk now, that some rooms, once meant for living, like the “living room,” for instance, are now just storage areas. This includes the basement recreation room. Now if you watch TV there, you wonder if you’re going to be crushed to death by a random box avalanche. I can’t seem to get anyone to admit that this stuff is junk with no value. It’s just a fake attachment my family has created for themselves, and it goes back generations. All my grandparents’ stuff is there now too. We’ve been “emptying” their houses for years now, unable to sell them because of all the stuff! My parents and uncles keep trying to figure out who it should go to, like it’s some kind of fucking heirloom! It’s just junk, and nobody else wants it. On top of that, you know my dad actually saves all our old newspapers? It’s like living in a rat’s nest! People need to stop chaining themselves to shit they don’t need. So fuck stuff. Go put on a backpack, fill it with a few essentials – some clothes, some water, some granola bars, and some porn if you need it, and go out and hug a fucking tree. Amen.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

E-Mails You Should Never Send #1

It has come to my attention that there are a lot of people who don’t use their friggin head and think before they send e-mails to people. This blog I have, while it has humiliated the hell out of me for the past two years, it has also functioned as a means of venting my frustration without hurting anyone’s feelings, except when they find my blog. In this first installment of my “E-Mails You Should Never Send” series, you’ll see me write stuff to this girl I like that I should absolutely not say. In future, I’m going to focus on shitheads who’ve sent nasty e-mails to me and my friends, and then analyze. Sound like your thing? No? Then fuck off.

Well, my woman woes never cease. That’s why you’re all reading this, right? If I’d known when I started this blog how much trouble getting a girlfriend would be, I’d have called this blog “Can Malice Blackheart Get the Girl? Probably Not. He should Go Gay.”

Remember Vampirella? She’s my current female frustration. I’m going with alliterations today. (Probably because I’m concurrently working on a superhero script). I’ve been talking to her on msn for the past few weeks, constantly trying to make arrangement to “hang out” with her, and having her constantly break them, but with stupid little happy faces and frowny faces so she can act like she doesn’t like that she has to postpone. I’m just not sure I buy it.

The worst part is, I’m also not sure I even care. I mean, I keep working by butt off trying to get her to laugh, and come out of her shell, and say something about herself that demonstrates some actual insight, you know? She simply doesn’t talk much, but I’m not sure what it is – maybe it’s because she said she’s never had a boyfriend and I find myself attracted to a challenge – maybe I’m in desperate need of a distraction from the other women that I want but can’t have – maybe she’s simply the modestly hot girl that I read too much into – I don’t know, but I’m convinced she’s got something in there worth getting to know. She wants to direct. I want to write! We like the same kinds of shows, and in a way, we have the same ambition – to one day be making one of them. Granted, it’s a pipe dream that’ll likely burst, or at least be rerouted several times though sewage until getting dumped in the ocean (what is with my analogies today?), but you’d think shared dreams could spark something. I feel no spark. But I’m sure it should be there. I’ve only met her once. ONCE! Why should I care? Am I really this bored?

Anyway, the reason I’m making this entry, aside from need to vent a little as usual, is to write out a few responses to her last messages that I sort of mean, but should probably not send her, because they probably make me sound crazy or desperate. Oh, and let’s start with her message.

--

hey!
hate to do this but i'm going to have to postpone our hangout. My mom wants to throw me a grad lunch tomorrow so I wont be able to make it to the movie. Sorry! :(

--

Really? Last time you blamed germs. This time it’s your mom? Don’t you LIVE with your mom? You couldn’t maybe go out with her some other time? I mean, it could still be tomorrow. It could be brunch. It could be dinner. You’ve known about this for a week! Why couldn’t you just tell her we had plans? Wait – you’re not afraid of your mom, are you? Wait! Should I be afraid of your mom? Is she some kind of psycho. Oh wait – do you already have a boyfriend lined up, and you don’t want your family to find out about me?

--

You know what? Last summer, I put up with constant disappointment from a woman who kept insisting she wanted to see me, but can’t have really. And you know what? I eventually gave up and stopped talking to her. And she was much prettier than you!

(Okay, that’s a lie. Vampirella is gorgeous. I was talking about Rose, by the way. Fuck! She wasted so much of my time.)

--

All right, look. I’m trying really hard here. Too hard, in fact. If you have no interest in me, as I suspect, just say so. Honestly, honesty is all I want anyway, just tell me you don’t like me, and I’ll never bother you again.

--

You suck. :( It’s just excuse, after excuse with you. I offered to buy you food, I offered to take you to the movies for free, and I even offered to drive you here and back. What is it with you women? It’s like the more I do, the less you care. It’s idiotic. All you women seem to want is that douche who doesn’t give a shit. He will make you cry. I will not do that, and I refuse to waste my time with women who put up with it. You do not deserve me. Why should I even waste my time responding? Your excuse is bullshit, and I’m not very happy about it. :(

--

Whatever. You’re boring anyway. Bitch. ;)

(Oh, God! She’s so nice though! I can’t call her a bitch, even if it’s clearly a joke. She actually does make me smile when she talks to me. I just wish she’d come out of her shell a bit more.)

--

You’re sorry, huh? Well don’t be. You’ve made yourself abundantly clear. Have a nice life.

--

What? Are you shitting me? I have to go to the movies alone now, and I’m gonna eat some worms. That’s right: worms. They sell worms to losers who can’t get women to like them, even though all my “female friends” tell me “I don’t understand. You’re such a nice guy!” And then I’d tell them to put their money where their mouth is, and ask them out, but I want to keep my friends. The last time I asked a friend out, she stopped talking to me. She hasn’t really spoken to me in six months, and we had a class together, not to mention a lot of mutual friends. I still try being friendly to her, and she still ignores me.

(I’m talking about Scrapbook Girl now. Seriously, SBG, what is your beef with me? I was always nice to you. And we always had lots to talk about. And I still essentially like you. I just can’t talk to you anymore, because you have me almost convinced that you hate me. When you’re around I find myself wishing I was invisible. That’s fucked up. I hate feeling that way. You know you do too. There’s no reason for us not to be friends. Unless there is. But how can I know if you never talk to me?)

--

I give up. Sorry. If you were just hoping I’d chase you so you could see how much I care. Or maybe you’re just looking for validation.

(That’s all Scarlet the Spy wanted, I finally got her to admit. She just wanted to know she could have me if she wanted. That’s what psychopaths do. They also stalk people. Yeah, Scarlet, I know you’re still watching. Good luck with the baby. That’s right, I know about the baby. Now who’s watching who? Spy.)

--

That’s fine. Maybe I get just show up at your work sometime and you can beat me with something from the frozen meats section. Then you can dump me in the trash. That’s where this is going, right?

--

You amaze me. Is this the real reason you’ve never had a boyfriend? You keep blowing them off with some lame excuse? I know you told me that you want to avoid the drama, but I don’t think you seriously realize what you’re missing. I dated the girl from hell in high school, and then her mutated, more sinister form in college. You need experience with a shitty guy or two so you can appreciate the good ones. Should I sit back and wait while you date a few assholes first or what?

(I don’t know that I’ve ever talked about my first girlfriend on this blog, which is odd. N/A used to complain that I brought her up non-stop. Of course, she compared me to her exes all the time, but whatever; she’s a girl, so she’s entitled I guess. I’m not sure whether to call her Groinkicker or Hell Girl. She used to really love kicking men’s groins when she was angry. Or happy. Oddly enough, even when it was me she was mad at, it would usually be someone else’s groin. That’s a weird train of thought. She made me chase her for an hour through the snow once. She damn near froze to death. And so did I. Now that I remember why she stormed off like that – because one person was giving another person a handjob, neither of whom was either one of us, I’m so glad I’m no longer with her. That girl, Hell Girl, made me feel guilty for things I didn’t even do. She accused me of cheating on her with some other cheerleader. It turns out she was the cheater. I suppose it takes one to accuse one, or something like that. I can’t BELIEVE she would cheat on me with THAT loser. The evil mutant form in college was, of course, Karma Chameleon.)

Wow. So many useless memories. You know what, Vampirella? You are absolutely right. Just buy yourself a nice vibrator and forget all about men. We are all fucked, and so are all you women. We need to be kept apart. In futuristic domes.

--

You know how many false responses I’ve written you know? I’ve lost count. The short of it is, I’m pissed off that you don’t even seem to be trying. Instead you’re giving me just enough hope to keep trying, but if you’re not serious, quit jerking me around! This “drama” that you say you want to avoid with guys – you’re creating it!” Just do something with me, and if it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen.

(Of course, now I’ve come to never expect anything to happen. This isn’t good – I get depressed before I even get dumped/rejected now, in anticipation of it, as if it’s the only possible outcome anyway. If that’s all I seriously expect, it makes me wonder why I bother.)

--

I’m tired of rescheduling. You think of something.

--

Boo! I’m writing you a prescription for LAME! :b

--

I’d say that I understand – that moms are important, but so’s a sex life. Mom is who you’ll be getting to occasionally babysit and spoil your kids, and who you’ll eventually watch die. So why get too attached anyway? You can miss a lunch or two. I mean, god, people graduate all the time. I’ve graduated four times now.

(I have seriously graduated four times now. Two of which were four-year degrees and one of which was five. How old are you again, you ask? Ancient. Okay, only thirty. Now I’m on my fifth.)

--

Just admit you don’t wanna see me again! Get it over with so I can start getting over it. Because these games you play are just humiliating.

--

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re just trying to be nice and not tell me you think I’m a loser. And I don’t know any better.

--

Whew! Glad I got that out of my system. All right, time to compose the real one. Wish me luck. Or tell me I should give up. Say whatever the hell you want, actually. I mean, what’s stopping you?

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Slam Stories

Be it resolved that handcuff accessories are sexy! I found a pair of handcuff earrings on Social Girl’s table, and immediately guessed they belonged to her Goth-girl friend from out of town. Now that that’s out of my system, I want to talk about the slam finals.

I saw some of my favourite poets compete at Capital Slam last night. One of them in particular performed a poem about his Chinese grandfather surviving an assault in 1937 by Japanese soldiers. It inspired me to gather more details about what happened to my own grandmother, whom I lovingly/jokingly call Depressia. You see, on a number of occasions, I have asked her about how she got out of Poland just in time to avoid the Holocaust. I know that she had to make a deal with someone, but she can’t talk about it without crying, still, after over 70 years. I want her story to be told, but in a way that doesn’t have to break her heart.

She wants to get me a car now, apparently. Last night, I drove totally by myself for the first time. It took me half an hour to figure out where I wanted to park. The city planning that went into this city was… not ideal. I can’t think of another city for instance that has this many one-way streets, or this many forbidden left turn. Or forbidden RIGHT turns. I mean, seriously, it isn’t hard to turn right. But I had fun driving around, and playing chauffeur for Social Girl, and later some of her friends, visiting from her hometown.

Scrapbook girl was there at the slam finals, and I think for the first time, I realized that it may not just be her avoiding me, because I seem be avoiding her now too. A few months ago, I thought she was trying to maintain this awkwardness, giving me hateful looks when I tried to say something nice, or just avoiding eye contact altogether. Now I’d just as soon forget the whole damn thing, because it brings the whole experience of the slam scene down. Sometimes I don’t even go if I think she’ll be there. I am tired of feeling like there’s a woman out there who hates me for no good reason. The thing is, I see her everywhere, and as far as I’m concerned, we should still be friends. There is no reason we should not be – that I know of, anyway. For all I know, maybe she has a really good reason, but she never talks to me, so how the hell should I know? We have tons of things in common. We have tons of friends in common. You know I actually waited for her to go to the ladies room before heading towards one of my friends to commend him on his performance? Then she came back out, and I felt I needed an excuse to fuck off. I felt like an idiot, but I didn’t know what else to do.

There was one other poet who really inspired me last night – the one I had to avoid Scrapbook Girl to talk to – I’m going to call him White Jesus. I’ve always found the concept of a white depiction of Jesus a bit odd, not to say offensive, or at least self-indulgent on the part of Roman Catholicism. This poet, however, standing on stage with his long flowing hair and his shirt undone, really does look that Jesus, or possibly Jim Morrison, but with straighter hair. He didn’t make the final slam team, but he is one of my favourite poets. Like Jesus, he preaches, calling for people to wake the hell up and start changing this world for the better. Like Jesus, he’s not about following the law of the land, but following your heart. He has a son, and part of his rhetorical style is to ask how he’s going to explain to his son why things are the way they are, why rich politicians feel they don’t have the budget send medicine and food to those who need it, yet have loads of money for hotels, private jets and buffets. He’s not the only poet who did this last night – I just find him the most inspiring. Another poet, (let’s just call him Prufrock because that’s what he calls himself), recited a slam about getting medical advice from his cab driver. His point was, despite having a shortage of doctors, when our doctors come here from Nigeria, or Iran, or wherever, they wind up driving cabs. Some of the doctors we have born and trained here are already callous shit-head psychos. It’s not like it could get any worse. His slam called for standardized education. We have the same anatomy everywhere. Kenyans don’t have a completely different set of arteries – it’s the same the whole world over. At the very least, they should be allowed to intern when they get here. People don’t necessarily have the time or money to repeat 4 years of pre-med and then 4 years of medical school, and THEN intern. Again.

Damn. I need to finish more of my poems. That seems to be the hardest part for me.

Monday, May 31, 2010

A Bite with Vampirella

I had a lunch date today – yet another date brought on by the clusterfuck that is internet dating. I think it went well, so let me tell y’all about her. I’m calling her Vampirella, because she’s quite fair skinned, and a fan of the show “True Blood”. She’s also gorgeous, but that’s just a bonus. Anyway, aren’t they all?

She took TV broadcasting in college, and even did a collaboration with the scriptwriting program, to make a film project. She wound up with a real bitch for a screenwriter though. Yes, some of us can be really uptight about our work. We talked a fair bit about the film industry, and it turns out she had seen Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, and she met the director when he came to speak to her class. I told her I’ve known him since high school. I thought she was so cool for having seen this movie. No doubt so did Lee – she was the only girl in her class who’d seen it. We like the same kinds of shows – things like Dexter, True Blood, etc. I have tentatively invited her out to see some shitty movies at the Mayfair – which, for those of you who don’t know, is the best damned movie theatre in town!

We had sushi for lunch and then wandered around Parliament Hill. Overall, the date was two hours, which is shorter than usual, but she actually had to work afterwards, so we planned it this way. She told me at one point that she’d never been in a relationship. I found it difficult to believe – I mean, she seems so well-adjusted. Then again, maybe that’s why. She says she saw all of her friends dealing with a lot of drama. She says she didn’t want to face the same. She left the dating site after a few months. She claimed she was getting too many messages. I explained as I usually do that the guys send out too many messages because the other guys send out too many, and if they don’t send them too, they won’t get noticed.

At the end of our date, I said I had fun, and she said “Me too. Thanks for not being creepy.” That meant a lot to me. I tried extra hard this time not to do or say anything to frighten her away, which is to say that at no point during our date did I admit to having any feelings one way or the other. I’m working on the assumption that girls are only interested in the guys who aren’t interested. Girls are stupid like that. For now, I’m playing it cool, and we will probably “hang out” again.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Movie Planning

A man collapsed in front of me today, on the Capital City University Campus. He just fell off his bike for no apparent reason and lay on the ground bleeding from his face and mouth. The first thought that went thru my mind as I approached him was, “great, yet another problem for me to deal with.” There were other people around, but somehow everyone treated me like Jack from Lost. Why do people always assume I should be the leader, even when they don’t know me? Can people not handle this sort of thing – a situation where someone might be hurt, but probably isn’t? I figured he must have been drunk, or maybe he passed out from heat stroke. I asked one young woman to call 911, but she said she wanted me to actually make the call, so I proceeded to talk to the emergency response man, giving him directions for the ambulance, even though I clearly wasn’t from the area. All the while I was also talking to him to try to get his brain working. Eventually he was able to tell me his age, (he was 42, and pretty gruff-looking), and ask what the hell happened. I told him. When the response team got there, I asked if they actually needed me, and when they said they didn’t, I told him I hoped he’d feel better, and then took off. I had a busy day after all.

I met with a lawyer friend of mine who wants to make a short movie about trees manipulating people with spores. She looked at the notes I’d made on it over the last month, and she told me what she wanted me to focus on.

I then met with an actress who wants to collaborate on a movie of the week, potentially to sell to a local producer she has an in with. It turns out I know this producer too. I was a production assistant on another MOW he shot 7 years ago. As I recall, he was a real grouch on the set. I have a clear recollection of him throwing a tantrum when his fridge wasn't stalked with Perrier, and most of my coworkers seemed to think he was some kind of ogre. Mostly I found his antics entertaining. At one point we were missing a walky-talky and my department thought his girlfriend took it. Of course, no one had the courage to confront him – they wanted ME to do it, (it has to be you, Jack), and as expected, I got a blast from him - he insisted he didn't have it or have time for my stupid bullshit and stormed out in a huff. Then I went through his desk and found it. Problem solved. That’s what I do. This is the man I’m going to be pitching our MOW to. Let’s just hope he’s mellowed with a bit of age. Anyway, she clearly has an in with him. She’s super-gorgeous, and he wants her to audition for an upcoming movie.

As the actress and I talked about our various writing projects, I became conscious of just how much of the subtext of my work is my regret of leaving N/A. My actress friend told me about how her ex wrote her a long letter telling her he had feelings for her, long after the fact. He was engaged by then in fact. She gathered he wanted to get it off his chest. She told me he was glad he did, because she always wanted them to be friends in the end. I miss N/A, the friend. Of course, I miss the lover too, but really, she was by best friend in Toronto. She told me I should write her a letter. I told her that I have, in fact, written her many things that I could never bring myself to send, and poetry too. I’m even working on a slam poem to her, one that I may post later. I told her that every time I sent N/A a message in the past, I got short answers. I felt like she was using the fewest words possible – to be polite, but dismiss the conversation as quickly as possible, but now I’m not so sure. The actress told me that if she doesn’t want to talk to someone, she tells them. There’s no reason to assume someone doesn’t want to talk to you when they don’t say anything of the sort. Maybe I read too much into things. She suggested I make this into a screenplay. I just don’t know how it would end… yet. She says I should talk to her, but at this point, I don’t know. I’m afraid. If I message her, I’ll want her back for sure, and I’m convinced she’s dating the bass player from her band. I don’t want to come crawling out of the woodwork now, because if she’s happy with him, I want her to stay that way. I also don’t want to know, you know? Haha… I have a date on Monday anyway. If it goes well, I’ll tell y’all about her.

You know what? It’s the end of a long day, and I’m in a generous mood, so I’m going to confess something that actually might reach the right person, but I suppose only if she cares enough to check back here every so often. A few weeks ago, a friend of hers posted an update about Nurse Betty on one of my 2009 entries.

My actress friend says she wishes more guys would just let their feelings out. Far too often, she says, guys pretend not to care. Personally, I’ve found that letting all my feelings out has tended to backfire in the past, creating tension and distance between whomever I wanted to get closer too, (an unfortunate self-destructive tendency of the “nice guy” – which is part of why women wind up dating jerks – and ladies, they act this way because they know they can get away with it, so this men are entirely your own fault, just so you know), but at this point, I’ve nothing left to lose, so I just thought I’d admit this.

When I got that message from your friend, I cried. I almost never cry, but I cried when I thought about how much I regret everything. I thought I’d finally forgotten you, but one mention of you, and all my regret came flooding back – my regret that I upset you with my blog, and my regret that I could never make up for what happened to you. I thought I didn’t still care about you, but I clearly do, and I probably always will. As long as I’m alive, anyway.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Progress

I went on a date last week that I think went I rather well. I say this because we are still talking, which is good sign number one. I can’t say for sure how I feel about her, but she is fun to be with. We went for food, and then because I liked her company I asked her to the pub. I even paid for her drinks. I actually felt like it. I had believed until recently that I was a bad idea to pay for a woman’s food etc. on a first date, but lately a number of women have told me I’m wrong. At first, it had been my mother and grandma Depressia telling me this, but now women in my program have been advising me the same way. Perhaps they just want free stuff – I don’t know. I’m sure women have enough of they demons to fight. A wise friend of mine recently said you should be nice to everyone because everyone is fighting some kind of battle.

I also acquired my G2 level on my driver’s license, which means I can drive on my own, which means my mother is now training me to become Depressia’s new chauffeur. She just turned 91 this month. She is the matriarch and oldest member of my family.

I haven’t made much mention of this here, but for medical reasons, my father doesn’t drive very often anymore. More an more I’m going to be taking over that responsibility. So you know how I made “the list” in May of ‘08, of my regrets. Well, now I can cross off #5. Looking back at the list, I realize how silly most of them are, but I’d still like to make up for them all. Some day.

Also, accepted a scholarship, and a teaching assistant position for grad school in the fall. Until then, I guess I’ll just keep on doing what I do.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Women!

New Rule! From now on, no woman that I’m actively interested in may ever read this blog. I’ll never tell her, and you won’t either. If you do, I’ll find you. >:D

(Note to self: Insert diabolical laughter here.)

I’ve been good thus far. I haven’t told anyone since Scrapbook Girl. Even in her case, I’m not really convinced she ever gave enough of a shit to read this damn thing anyway. I can’t say for sure though, since anytime I tried to talk to her, she just ignored me. Even in front of our own friends, as if she somehow didn’t hear me. Sometimes she’d act like she couldn’t even see me, and I’d have to holler her name just to get her attention. Sometimes she shot me the dirtiest looks. I was never anything but friendly to her, and honest with her, and I never harassed her or anything like that. That didn’t matter. I’ve since decided she must have some rare form of mental illness, one that is triggered specifically by me for some reason, and moved on.

One thing that still nags at me though; we were friends before I told her. Now, after so many attempts to reach out to her, and get past the whole awkwardness of a rejection, she’s useless to me. We’re in the same program, have some of the same friends, (some of whom are literally my neighbours and ask me about her. Why they think I know anything more than they do about what she’s doing, I don’t know), and we were even in the same class last term. A class I actually had to take! Otherwise I might have just switched out of it. The first time I tried to hang out with her and another classmate after class, she couldn’t make eye-contact with me, and looked like she was couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

At first I thought maybe Scrapbook Girl was trying to spare my feelings, but then I guess I came to realize she just couldn’t see things from anyone’s perspective other than her own. She was presumably miffed at me for putting her on the spot like that. But the words “sorry, I don’t like you that way,” would have been a stellar diffuse the situation. Or “lets just be friends for awhile and see.” Or hell, “fuck off” – I mean, saying ANYTHING would have been an improvement. I had the courage to say something to her. I was the one who would have to feel rejected, right? RIGHT?

Why she then decided that ignoring me completely was the most appropriate response I deserved, I will never know. I think she’s such a coward for it. All she had to do was talk to me, and she’d realize how easily I could forgive the rejection. Hell, I half-expected it in the first place! I get so much rejection that I barely care anymore. That’s as a lover though. She was my friend, and I felt there was value there. There’s usually only one boyfriend slot in a woman’s life, but there’s a virtually limitless supply of slots in one’s life for friends. You have to really hate someone to feel the need to friend-break-up with them.

I had to reject a girl of my own recently, a little under a month ago. Somehow, over the course of the last school term, she managed to develop a crush on me. I’m calling her “Treasure Hunter” because she used to play this repetitive facebook applet with digging and treasure in it during one of our English classes, instead of listening. She is, in fact, also a slam poet, and she was, in fact, in the same class I shared with Scrapbook Girl, but that’s just a coincidence. There were a lot of girls in that class – even Parasite Eve and Bright Eyes were in it. My goodness, do the girls ever love crushing after our pretty-boy professor. Even I think he’s kind of hot – the bastard totally knows how pretty he is – but I digress.

The point is, Treasure Hunter had the courage to tell me she was interested in me, so I, in turn, made a point of showing the courtesy of suggesting we spend some time together doing something, so we could see if there was anything to that. She told me she thought we were similar, which I found a remarkably odd observation, since I couldn’t see it. I arranged a date for us the week after our final exam, during which she spent most of her time babbling about her stupid job that she hates, but, without being interesting about it. I tried asking her about any of my interests she might like, and she generally didn’t even know what I was talking about, which in some cases, was amazing. I finally asked her to tell me about her interests, and all she could come up with was “facebook.” I joked that we’re all a little guilty of spending a little too much there, and then she added that she liked writing poetry. I’ve seen her perform some of it – it’s what I might describe as teen-angsty, which is fine I guess, if you’re still in high school. At the end of the night, I told said “I don’t know how to say this, but I don’t really think we have anything in common. Did you kinda get that feeling too?” She agreed. I knew she wasn’t quite satisfied, but I figured this was the nicest way to tell her – and show a little bit of courage and actually fucking tell her! So, at worst, I had pho and played a few games of pool with a girl I’ve no interest in. At best, I might have been wrong, in which case we might have hit it off that night. It’s amazing how just a little exposure can tell you what you need to know about someone. This is, again, why I think Scrapbook Girl is a total coward. But that’s another rant I needed to get past to talk about what’s really bothering me.

What’s bothering me is the precedent set by these rejections from friends. I like another one of my female friends, you see. I have for awhile actually, and even some other slam poets have asked if we were dating. I can’t say for sure how she feels about me though, not without explicitly asking. (And if I do that, the cat is sort of out of the bag, isn’t it?) As it was with Scrapbook Girl and Nurse Betty, I have every reason to believe she should like me, and I’d treat her like a queen. She makes me smile, which not a lot of people can really do. (Ema always can, but I somehow don’t think that I’m his type. Anyway, he just celebrated his 4-year anniversary with his girlfriend.) Maybe part of it is that I’m doomed to fall for wounded women – I think I suffer from Florence Nightingale effect – falling for women because I feel sorry for them, and think I can heal them. This has, in fact, been what caused me to fall for all of these women – N/A, Karma Chameleon, Nurse Betty, Scrapbook Girl, Diary Girl, Ballet Girl, and the list goes on, but you get the idea. I fall for these women because I feel sorry for them. I feel like I can heal them. For each and every one of the aforementioned women, I felt I needed to prove to them they could be loved by a man who would always treat them with respect, always come up with new ways to make them smile, and who would love them for who they really were, and not who they felt they had to pretend to be. (Scrapbook Girl, for instance, had noted at one point that she had to downplay her intellect to keep guys’ attention. I always thought her intellect was the best part.) I wanted to prove that I could always be there when they needed me. I’d even be there for them if any of them needed me now. That’s just my nature, but as far as relationships go, I can’t afford any more charity cases. Sorry ladies, but if you’re going to continue to get used an abused by assholes, it’s your own fault. Those men continue to behave that way because they know it gets them laid, and they never have to deal with the consequences, you do. I know you’re all intelligent enough to get past it.

Anyway, the reason I even bother to mention all this is that I like another one of my friends now, but after Nurse Betty, and Scrapbook Girl, and Lilith, etc, I’m tired. I’m tired of losing friends because I develop feelings for them. It’s the weirdest thing. It’s like falling in love with them was the biggest insult to them, and they all seem to just hate me for it. Who could have ever thought such positive feelings could have such negative effects with such disgusted reactions. Often I think I must be missing something obvious, but when none of them are willing to talk about it, it is difficult to discern.

I do not want to tell my friend I love her because I do not want to lose my friend. As it stands now, when it’s just the two of us, I feel like I can tell her anything, particularly when it comes to dating, and I can get the woman’s perspective on things. She, in turn, can get my perspective on the guys she and her friends are seeing. Typically, as you might imagine, I think she can do much better than the assbags that harass and text her constantly, but she never has the heart to get rid of them either. I try to encourage her to tell them she’s not interested, because that is exactly what I would want to know, were I the guy. And also, I wonder what will happen when it is my turn. The very thought tires and depresses me.

For now, and in fact, as usual, I have a few other prospective women lined up. I have two dates scheduled this week, both of whom I met online, but who nonetheless can carry on a relatively unstupid conversation. I don’t have terribly high hopes for either of them yet, as the internet is a terrible place to meet women, but you never know for sure, and anyway, the longer I’m distracted from trying to convey to my friend I love her, the better off I’ll be.

It occurs to me at this point that this friend deserves a name. I’m going to call her Social Girl, because she goes to tons of social events, particularly concerts and poetry slams, so we know a lot of the same people. She’s also really fond of Broken Social Scene.

That about wraps up my dating situation these days. I’ve other more exciting news, but for now, I’d like to limit this entry to one “broad” topic. (There’s a little pun there. Did you miss it?)

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Putting Words Together

I’ve been putting off blogging for the past little while, because I’ve been thinking of permanently putting it down. I’ve put up with it long enough to realize that it puts off the very women I might have hoped would someday put out. Now the only thing I find myself putting out are the fires I started years ago when I first put this up.

Maybe I thought I was putting on a show for people anonymously, but gradually, I put together a list of readers who knew me.

This blog is me. My blog of dirty secrets. My blog of successes. My blog of excesses.

I was recently reminded of all of this – of a woman I put off with this blog, because she felt the stories I chose to put up were all about putting her down. I had wanted to put things right, but she was never willing to put away our differences, so she put me on her block list instead.

I had wanted to put this blog down for good, but for now, I guess that the blog can stay put.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

The entry in which I declare that I am now officially a slam poet, the founder of an upcoming poetry magazine, and a prize-winning screenwriter!

I make no apologies for being a negligent blogger. Anyway, I’m back now, aren’t I?

Managing a magazine is a lot of work! Here’s the scoop on that project: I’m basically in charge of ten people now, and that doesn’t even count contributors, so I’ve got a lot of delegating to do. BUT – I think it’s worth it, particularly since I’ve put together a web team. So now, not only are we going to produce a poetry mag, but a complementary website too. I can barely contain my excitement. We’re even going to include videos of slam poets. (I’ve a few slam poets in mind I’d like to ask for submissions from. Two have already agreed. We’re even going to have illustrations and music.)

This brings me to another thing I’ve neglected to mention, having been gone so long – I am now officially a slam poet! At least, I am, in the sense that I’ve participated in one poetry slam. I’m performing at a second open slam this Saturday. As such, I am no longer a poet hiding in the attic, writing in the dark. (Well, I do still write in the dark sometimes, but you get the idea.) I am now a poet who speaks out, on stage, in front of real people. It’s pretty thrilling, I must say. Thrilling and terrifying. It’s terrifying because, for those of you unfamiliar with slam, it is essentially a spoken word competition, with judges.

Incidentally, Scrapbook Girl was one of my judges, as if things needed to get any more terrifying. She’s a slam poet too now. That’s about all I can say on the subject though, as we haven’t really talked since I wrote her that poem three months ago.

Finally, you remember that 72-hour film challenge I entered? Well, my film WON! I’ll post a link to it soon, if there’s some demand. That’s it! Those are the highlights of the last five weeks. I’ll try to post some of the poems I’ve been working on later too.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Time Flies Like an Update

(Pictured above are (respectively) the star, cinematographer, and director of the film I wrote for the 72-hour challenge. Sorry there aren't any shots of me at the typewriter, pulling out my hair and cursing myself for losing scene six, but our star is almost as pretty as me, so this should do.)


“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” – Groucho Marx


Sorry I haven’t had much time to blog this month, but I’ve made some progress since the last post.

  1. I’ve managed to write my statement of purpose for grad school, as well as get letters of reference from three profs. In the end, I got them from my old favourite prof, (whom I’ve known since 2001 – she knows my sister too and claims to be quite fond, though I gather my sister does not return the sentiment), my fresh-from-Ph.D. Theory prof (who thought his word wouldn’t be worth what another profs was, so I had to convince him he was an equal to them, not only as far as I was concerned, but frankly, as far as credentials are concerned. At least that’s what the faculty supervisor had told me late last year.) And also, the guest professor from Ghana. This is all due by Monday, and after that, it’s out of my hands.
  2. The poetry presentation on Roberts was a huge success. We got an A.
  3. The group for the Anthology is getting pretty big. I think there are 7 of us now to put the magazine together, and more students have already submitted poems.
  4. The 72-Hour film challenge is over! I wound up writing two screenplays. I wound up having to trash the script for “Cock Talk” when we got our challenge worksheet. There was simply no way the script would have worked, so that night we all brainstormed, and then I went home and wrote the script instead of sleeping. This way, the team was able to start planning and shooting the next day. I haven’t seen the finished film yet, but the production stills look awesome. I won’t say much about it now, but it’s chalk-full of Back to the Future references.
  5. I haven’t written a slam poem yet. Not one that I intend to memorize and perform, anyway. I did go to a workshop though, and did some slam exercises. I even still have the poems written out on scrap paper. I’ll transcribe them and post them shortly.
  6. Still gotta write a poem for Goblin Fruit, unless the "Sir Gawain" poem is good enough. But I dunno; it’s kinda short.
  7. Zombies in Camelot – Have not done this one, as feared. I’ll give myself another month, because I’m cool and I can do that.


Monday, January 11, 2010

So Little Time

Oh my freaking hell! I had no idea January would be throwing so many projects my way so quickly! I barely have time to blog (and should not be, in fact, as I have a presentation to give tomorrow, worth 30%!)


So this entry may read more like a shopping list, but I need to work through all this somehow, as I’ve got to finish it all sometime this month.


Major Project to complete:

  1. Grad School Application – I need to find three profs who will vouch for me, and write me a good letter of recommendation. I should also see my guidance counsellor stat! If I don’t get this in by February 1st, I can’t be considered for funding as a teaching assistant.
  2. Poetry Presentation (30%) – This is tomorrow. I signed up for it because I like to get presentations out of the way. The downside is I’ve had little time to prepare. I’m actually pretty excited about it though, as I have a great group comprised of girl who started her own sorority, (making her month arguably busier than mine), a cancer survivor, a really nice handicapped girl I took notes for last term. These ladies love the poet we got too – Sir Charles G. D. Roberts – because he loved nature, and he had many torrid love affairs in his day.
  3. Poetry Anthology (60% at end-of-term, but I’d better start now.) This is actually in the same poetry class, and I’m pretty excited about this. You see, our prof is rather liberal in the way she marks her students, in that she’ll let you do just about anything as long as it involves poetry, and you’re passionate about it. So this other girl and I have started collecting submissions from the rest of the class, and our project is to get them all published with the help of our prof! How cool is that?
  4. 72-Hour Film Challenge – I just found out about this. Two weeks from now, I’m entered into a contest to write, shoot and edit a film in 3 days. I’m the team screenwriter, so it actually starts with me. I told them I’d send them some malleable ideas so they can start securing locations for that week-end. I have this idea about a man with a talking penis… I’m tentatively calling it “Cock Talk.”
  5. Write a Slam – It’s over a year now since I started writing and reciting poems. I think it’s about time to compete, and I’ve started befriending some really awesome poets.
  6. Write a poem for Goblin Fruit – Ema mentioned this to me, and really, I should be starting to get my stuff published elsewhere other than my own blog.
  7. Zombies in Camelot Outline – I already talked about this a few posts ago, but I haven’t worked on it since, and I’m starting to worry that I may not find the time.

Anyway, wish me luck on my presentation tomorrow!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Gawain the Demon Knight

Up from Hell
came Gawain
with the blade of evil’s bane.
Half still well,
half insane,
he clove the undead lord in twain.

Friday, January 1, 2010

New Year’s Vow in 2010: Publish a Book

“Twenty-Ten!” I just love the way that sounds! It’s like being in a sci-fi novel.

I have a new project for 2010, a fantasy novel, which I’ve given the tentative title “Zombies in Camelot.” The title pretty much describes the book. My niche genre(s) at this point are Dark Fantasy / Arthurian Romance Satire. Ideally, anybody who likes fantasy, (particularly dark fantasy), or horror, (particularly zombies), or comic fantasy, particularly with Arthurian characters should like this book.

I have been developing a bible for the main plot, characters, creatures for several weeks now. I never know how long the blueprints for a writing project will take me, but when it is done, I should be able to write the book in 30 days. (Roughly 2 chapters per day). However, since I only have experience writing screenplays this length, my estimation might be off.

I also still have more reading to do. Thus far I’ve read some of William Morris’ Arthurian Poems, (which deviate from every known text, so they’re confusing), Culhwch and Olwen, (which is a great way to frame Arthurian tales, though the frame story itself had a very arrogant, selfish and whiny protagonist, whom Arthur should really have had dragged off to his dungeon and had beaten), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, (a translation, which I disliked at first, but its rich symbolism is growing on me, now that I’m reading some criticism), and I’m currently working through Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. Next on my list is T. H. White’s series.

So, in a nutshell, here’s my plan:

January: Finish research and outline

February: Write the first draft (I’ll aim to have some overlap in January, to give me a full 30 days, at 2 chapters per day.)

March: I anticipate I’ll have lots of papers due this month, but hopefully I can edit it (polishing 2 chapters per day.)

April: Show it to some friends and try to get as much criticism as I can, then polish it again.

May: Send cover letters and a small sample to publishers.

That’s it. That’s as far ahead as I can plan. Anyone else have an interesting resolution? Oh, and happy new year!