For Grandpa

I found this in an old online journal. The original date on it was July 18, 2004. He passed away a few years after that, which seemingly makes this resonate a bit more.  I’m putting it up here so that if that journal disappears, it’ll always be somewhere.

Grandfather, your truck has seen better days, and so have you. You are much like this vehicle. Everyone just assumes because it looks old that it’s ready to crack and fall apart, but it doesn’t. My grandmother told me a story once, about how even though you don’t start it all through the winter and it gets buried in about four feet of snow, when you go out mid-summer to start it to drive far enough to pick up essentials for a bit of building, it revs and starts as if it were 20 years ago and you drove it every day. And though you tell me about the rust stains that seep through the floorboard, and the visible ones on the outsides, you, like it still have alot of heart left.

I love you, and you’ll never see this.

2000 – 2009: A decade of music favorites.

Every time a 0 is involved with the turning year, people tend to go crazy over “the best _____ of the decade”. Lists come out about music and movies and tv shows and whatever. Well, I decided to do that. Because I’m a dork. What I ended up doing is a list of things for every year since the year 2000. I will talk about some of them and leave links to others that I think are fantastical and that I belive you (whoever you are) might enjoy. So. Here we go. Expect to see some bands that repeat, and some that you know I like, if you like me:

2000
Does anyone remember how fantastically catchy ‘Bohemian Like You’ was? The silly video with the karaoke-thing, etcetera? There was a lot of decent music coming out around this time, and I remember being consistently barraged by good albums. This wouldn’t continue through the rest of the decade. Californication would be the last time I would enjoy RHCP as a band.

Dandy Warhols (song – Bohemian Like You); Red Hot Chili Peppers (album – Californication); Smashing Pumpkins/Foo Fighters/A Perfect Circle(show – Summersault – Winnipeg Stadium); Nine Inch Nails (video – Into the Void)

2001
In 2001 I succumbed to sexy pop for a favorite song. Seriously. That song is awesome. Frusciante’s album was magical, and I think my video of the year is really the only choice.

Kylie Minogue (song – Can’t get you out of my head); John Frusciante (album – To Record only Water for Ten Days); Tragically Hip (show – Winnipeg Arena); Fatboy Slim (video – Weapon of Choice)

2002
Dave Grohl makes the list twice as a drummer in this year, and probably would have taken the album too, but from out of nowhere came what would change my mind about Canadian music in that I ended up following almost every project that Broken Social Scene had outside of it’s main band after hearing the album and seeing them live.

Queens Of The Stone Age (song – Go With the Flow); Broken Social Scene (album – You Forgot it in people); Broken Social Scene – (show – Pyramid Cabaret); Tenacious D (video – Tribute)

2003
I remember the moment I fell in love with Sit down Stand up. It was on the eve of the album coming out, and Radiohead played a live show that was broadcasted to Silver City theatres in Canada. When that song reached the crescendo into the fast ‘raindrops’ part, I was almost on the edge of my seat. Which I could also say about the Metric show. They were second on a bill of three that featured Hot Hot Heat as the main act, and were still relatively new, but downright sexy and exciting to watch. I’ve since seen them six more times.

Radiohead (song – Sit Down, Stand Up); Mars Volta (album – De-Loused in the Comatorium); Metric (show – Pyramid Cabaret); Buck 65 (video – Wicked and Weird)

2004
The second time a John Frusciante album makes my favorite albums. This album is widely regarded as his most ‘mainstream’ and is a fantastic, great-amazing thing, just like the Bowie concert, which was the last concert I ever saw at the ol’ Winnipeg arena.

Secret Machines (song – Nowhere Again); John Frusciante (album – Shadows Collide with People); David Bowie (show – Winnipeg Arena); DFA 1979 (video – Black History Month)

2005
I’ll never forget how many phone calls I got when Nine Inch Nails annouced that they’d be coming here. It was the first time I was going to see them, after being a fan since 1994. My phone rang off the hook, and for one song during that show, so did my emotions. I kinda quietly, completely lost it, and felt like a dummy. Ha! By the way, that Esthero video’s freakin’ hot, and I agree with every sentiment in it.

Sufjan Stevens (song – Come On! Feel the Illinoise!); Fantomas (album – Suspended Animation); Nine Inch Nails (show – MTS Centre) Esthero (video – We R in Need of a Musical Revolution)

2006
I saw Wintersleep by myself in front of about 30 people, and skipped work to get there. When I talked to the singer about this, he dedicated a song to me. How nice. As far as Nausea goes, I don’t know what it is about that song, but something in it drives me nuts. It’s way too good and it doesn’t even realize it.

Beck (song – Nausea); Regina Spektor (album – Begin To Hope); Wintersleep (show – The Collective); Eagles of Death Metal (video – Boy’s Bad News)

2007
National Anthem of Nowhere has become my most listened to track on last.fm, and I think the Wintersleep album has since become one of my most listened to albums. They will both continue to rise in numbers. If I did a song by song and album by album breakdown, these two would make somewhere within the top three. And it’s pretty cool that I got to see Mike Patton in any of his 34i83902439024 bands, but Peeping Tom blew me away.

Apostle of Hustle (song – National Anthem of nowhere); Wintersleep (album – Welcome to the Night Sky); Peeping Tom (show – Trocadero); Feist (video – 1234)

2008
God, In Rainbows is great. And Secret Machines live, that’s something so completely underrated, I don’t even know how to describe it to you. The power that they have to get an audience going, is a sight to behold and yet there were so few people there that I was kind of disappointed in the turnout. Oh, and yes, I realize that Feist gets the video 2 years running for the same album, but they’re both great videos.

Kaki King (song – Montreal); Radiohead (album – In Rainbows); Secret Machines (show – Pyramid); Feist (video – I feel it all)

2009
I know, it hasn’t been that long, but Them Crooked Vultures was exactly the album I wanted it to be. So there.  And as far as Spookey’s song goes, this is the second time I’ve talked about it in my blog. Previously appeared in my “songs you won’t see in Guitar Hero or Rock band“, and it’s just something to behold. Metric’s video was perfect, it was the video that I wanted them to have. Something sweet and cute instead of overtly dorky like all of their other videos. As far as Leonard Cohen’s concert goes, I hadn’t been a huge fan beforehand, but was introduced, and BECAME a large fan because of how amazing that concert was. Everything he did was perfect. The singing, the sounds, the engagement with the audience was fantastic. Top five concerts in my life, that one.

Spookey Ruben (song – Mechanical Royalty); Them Crooked Vultures (album – Them Crooked Vultures); Leonard Cohen (show – MTS Centre); Metric (video – Gimme Sympathy)

Shows that needed one more season: Quantum Leap

Last night, I was watching an episode of ‘Sit Down, Shut Up’, and was partially enjoying the idea that one of the teachers created a Meth Lab instead of a Math Lab. The character’s voice was done by Will Forte, who also did the voice of Abe Lincoln in Clone High. That got me to thinking about something. A lot of television shows get canceled too fast. A lot of really good ones. Some of them come back (Okay, just Family Guy), some of them go to other channels, and some are just forgotten in this day and age of insane amounts of reality television. Fox is especially bad for this one (insert Family Guy link to Peter naming all of the shows it had cancelled), but whatever. I’m not going to pick on networks or what-have-you, I’m going to say why I think it would have been great to have one more season

We begin with:

 

QUANTUM LEAP

 

Yes, that is a spelling mistake. No, I didn’t make that up. That’s a screenshot of the end of the series. Originally, it was to be the end of season five, all cliffhanger-like, but it was canceled for the second time (also cut after season three, but a letter-petition had it renewed for season four). There are several hints throughout the episode that this leap might have all been in Sam’s imagination, but it never really pans out, and having it end with a happy ending still doesn’t make much sense. For those that don’t remember, here’s what happened (a true wiki reference. how odd!):

In the series’ final episode, Sam encounters a mysterious bartender who insinuates detailed knowledge of Sam’s “mission” and his true identity. Sam comes to believe the bartender might actually be that higher power, though the man neither confirms nor explicitly denies this. The bartender helps Sam remember that he built Project Quantum Leap because he wanted to put right what once went wrong, and makes him realize that he himself has control over his leaps. He then asks Sam where he wishes to leap to next. Sam replies by saying he wishes to return home, but he cannot as he still has a wrong to put right for Al, by letting his first wife Beth know that Al is still alive. Sam then promptly leaps out and does so. The show’s epilogue states that Sam never returned home, after showing a picture on the mantle of Al, turning into one of Al, Beth, and their daughters.

I actually had to edit that wikipedia paragraph because it was poorly written, and parts were roundabout. That’s wikipedia for you. Anyway, the point of it is all to hack-job for me. This show was a rather consistently fantastic one, in that it never got terrible, it had great character development, and in it’s final season, had a bit of fun with it’s (so they call it) “kisses with history”. But it was terminated before it could ever have a climax, or an actual ending that someone could remember fondly. I didn’t get into the show until it had already been cancelled for some time. Around 2001, I had lost my job and was moping around the house and ended up catching every episode in a row on Space reruns, and almost got excruciatingly mad at my television when I saw the ending that was put together. I felt like I had put so much time into a show that I adored, and to have it’s lasting legacy one of anger, well, that kind of sucks. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to see it on television when it aired originally. It could almost compare to the horror I felt when I watched the American “Life On Mars” finale, which, well, I don’t know. There was nothing redeeming about that.

Anyway, there’s a lot of un-resolved issues in Quantum Leap. Rumors were abound for a while that there was to be another show based on Sam Beckett’s daughter going to find him (he had a daughter in a three-episode arc in season four, probably some of the best episodes), which seems like it would have been kind of short, but at least it would have been resolved. People don’t like to be cheated at the end of movies or television shows, especially if it’s done in a sub-par way, and I feel that the ending to this not only leaves much to the imagination, but for a show that’s still watched in rerun form, and still talked about enough, it’s hard to determine why there aren’t a lot more people who talk about how upsetting it is. Sure, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just got too attached to the show and I should hide out somewhere on the internerds to talk about it with other super-fans. But I really feel that a show that was so consistent with it’s writing should have had one final go at it.

This is a good time to mention that somebody out there made A fanfic movie. It’s about Sam Beckett being ordered by the President to have something to do with Princess Di’s death. Which doesn’t make sense, considering the fact that we never did find out how Sam was leaping into people; was it “God”? Was Sam doing it himself? We’ll never know, because some douche decided to end it too soon. Anger stoppage alert. Onward!

Throughout the show, Al was a womanizingly hilarious jerk, who at one point even thought a woman Sam leapt into was hot. His womary knew no bounds, until a scene in season Two, where Sam has leapt into a man who is somewhere near Al’s first wife. His attitude completely changes, and you can see that the womanizing bastardry has been put on solely to make up for what he lost. If the end of season four is any indication, and if Back-to-The-Future-movie-ethics serves correct, we would have a completely different Al Calavicci, right? I mean, he’s still married to the woman he loves. He’s no longer dating random chicks with random names. Isn’t that a complete change of four years of character development? And if Sam never does come home, well then, how close does he get? The series continually reminded us that sometimes his brain has the “swiss cheese” effect, in that he can’t remember specific things from his regular life, so who’s to say he even knows that he has a daughter? If she found him, how would she get him back to the “waiting room”, and out of his leaps? The only time I’d ever seen two people leap at once was because of a lightning strike (when there was some “evil leaper” people putting wrong what once went right). There are so many fantastic possibilites that could even be put together in a two hour movie, or one final season that would have Sam leaping into places that he would remember from points in his life again, so that he would begin to remember people, with the climax of the final episode showing his removal from the leaping place. All this can be done. It’s simple. Heck, maybe I’ll sit down and write it and pitch it to Donald P. Bellisario. I have ideas. But for now, when I sit and watch this show, and it’s continued fantastic writing, even by today’s standards, I’m sad knowing that somewhere out there, Sam continues to leap until his eventual death. Something’s unsettling about that.

I’ll let Dean Stockwell close this post for me:

If it ever were to come together, what would you want to see for Sam and Al in a movie version?
I think everyone would want Sam to make it back in time, and (I’d like to see) the story of how that is brought about. That would fulfill Al as well, bringing Sam back (home). He tried to do it for four and a half years.

The world needs another accident.

And I’m not talking about another 9-11, or another Vietnam, or WWIII. I’m talking about pop. Say it again, pop. The world needs another complete accident, freakshow, because we essentially haven’t had one since about, oh, say 1991.

What happened then? Some of you might be too young to remember and some of you have probably heard it so many times that it makes you want to vomit. When something goes stale and gets re-processed (or shall we say faceless?), when companies decide what’s best for the masses, we get what we have right now, or also what was happening in the late 80s early 90s with the big haired arena metal/rock (if you can even call it metal, I’d call it Glam on an off day), and then along came someone who didn’t want to be there, a bunch of kids who didn’t fit in, and accidentally took charge and never really wanted it. Sure, bands nowadays mention that they’re not concerned about record sales, yadda yadda, but to be honest, the singer of this band really didn’t. He wasn’t into that, but got thrust there anyway. He brought out the kids who agreed with him from underneath the bleachers and somehow started a trend of clothing (?) that was spoofed successfully on Monty Python years before (when they work all night and sleep all day). So what am I getting at? When you look at the top forty of pop, it’s all the same: Rap, Rap/Rock, Rock, Rock-Rap, Pop, etc. All names don’t mean anything, because we’re back under that facade of if you cover someone’s song or have one hit you’ll be fine and people will love you. That’s why mashups are, cough, “all the rage”.

To find the real heartfelt music you have to stop staring at Teen Beat, Tiger Beat, Tiger Bop, Bippidy Doo, etc. You have to search. And for some of us (hi), it’s common ground that when people are looking through your cds/ipod they don’t know half of what’s there. But I digress:

We need another of these Nirvana types to wipe this stale, boring pop out. I know, there’s always exceptions to the rule, but I really do think that it’s time for the whole music industry to get a swift kick in the crotch. Remember all of the one hit wonders of the eighties? Notice that that’s sort of happening again? The reason? People aren’t listening to albums for sentimental value anymore, like when music had hit it’s complete peak (or so i think) in the late 60s, early 70s when storytellers were standing up for things and writing some of the most memorable, beautiful things in existence. It can happen again! I believe it can! But there’s a lot of work that needs to be involved.

We need to completely wipe out the charts right now and start over. I can’t even listen to the radio anymore because everything sounds the same, either a hyper-extension of a band that once was, or a recreation of someone else’s songs. That’s how Creed got to be popular, no? Come on, people who missed basic Pearl Jam and liked a little Jesus with their rock ran straight to the easy answer.

And what’s with covering old songs that don’t need to be redone? Jesus Christ. Sure, every thing’s been done before, I get it. The bases have been covered, all topics have been done, etc. I’m all for re-workings, if they work. If they bring something to a song that you see differently, like Cash’s “Hurt”. It adds a different kind of feeling to the song, without wavering. And it’s a good cover. It’s something that the original artist is proud of, and is not a carbon copy of the original. That’s what I hate. Why cover something if you’re not going to bring something new to it? Sure, it might end up like P. Diddy’s shit “Roxanne” rework, but at least he tried to change something to it. He is another story though. I’m still surprised that he could get even semi popular by just adding vocals and new parts onto old songs, and just having it looped as if he was doing his own mashups. That’s not fuckin’ cool. I could do that.

Anyway, where were we? Right. Here we go: in every shape and form, I have to ask: when did music get so faceless? Why does everything equal everything? We need something to come along to ensure that 2+2=5 again, that people digging in the trenches for good things and challenging their minds with good music can believe that music can make you feel, because it’s doing it for a lot of people less and less.

At the same time, I do have other issues with it as well, you see, sometimes I blame myself and everyone else for the state of the music industry. It’s my fault that I listen to those things. Heck, it’s mostly your fault because you do it more than me but I’ll agree that sometimes I get trapped. I like finding my way out of the trap more, you know. Even some artists who find that they’re trapped do new things. Some people try to develop their own trends, like the whole “Radiohead says you decide what to pay and you pay them direct” thing, or the “Trent Reznor gives away his new album because he hates labels” deal. Which is fine. But that’s not going to shift anything insane in any direction. It’ll become easier for people to find the crazy music because of torrents and itunes and freebies. But it’s something. It’s putting the power back into the hands of the artist. It’ll take a lot to keep it going, but they’re trying.

And yet, the mass exodus of people don’t really give a shit. They just want their carbon copy radio stations with two guys and a girl in the morning (alas, no pizza place) who lay out mediocre jokes and even more mediocrier (I made up a word) music. So what do we do? We keep doing what we feel good about doing. The stuff we think is real is probably real. The fake stuff, you should be able to see that. Everybody can see that. They would just rather choose to put on their blinders and leave it screaming out of their car stereos at 3am, because they’d rather use what short time they have on one song and be done with it, instead of investing an hour and listening to the whole album.

The end result is that there’s someone out there now, just learning an instrument, or toiling in the fucking bottom barrel in backwood towns in front of 20 people on a stage at a bar that seems empty. But that’s where it’ll start.  That band, or singer  will come along sometime in the next few years and make music exciting again. Right now, I’m going to hide my head in the sand.

Five songs you won’t see in Rock Band or Guitar Hero

I was walking home today from somewhere and was listening to a song on my ipod and thought to myself, “man that’d be fun to play on a video game thing”. And then I realized that logically speaking, it probably couldn’t be done. That song is on this list by the way. I rocked to it all the way home because it was quite long, and walked right into trying to find 5 awesome songs that probably won’t show up in Rock band or Guitar Hero.

5. Kaki King – Playing with Pink noise
She is the kind of artist where it would be rather difficult to find a song from her whole catalog that you could put into a video-music-game. I guess Pull me out alive would probably be the easiest pick. But honestly, this would be the kind of case wherein you’d have to have a person using both sets of buttons on a Rock Band guitar in order to even think of hitting the same amount of things that she’s doing. Don’t even think about doing Close your eyes and burst into flames. I think that’s on a level higher than that Dragonforce song everyone was all happy about seeing at the end of GH3. I wonder if she plays RB/GH. And if so, can she hit the buttons as fast on a plastic guitar as she can play a real one?

4. Led Zeppelin – Bonzo’s Montreux
I imagine it’d be difficult to get the folks at LZ incorporated to agree to put a bunch of songs in RB/GH in the first place, but as a test to how great he was, Bonzo’s Montreux would also be nearly impossible to transcribe into those drum buttons, especially when those crazy effects kick in. Because there’s a drum track with them, how does one play both? Does the singer hit those notes? Do you get two people drumming at the same time? Anyway, it’d be rather rough for anyone to play, seeing as how great the fills are, nevermind the amount of bass drum usage. I like how in the live version, everyone walks off stage. Thats great right there.

3. Spookey Ruben – Mechanical Royalty
In order to hear this song you’re going to have to find it on his myspace because unfortunately, Spookey isn’t as popular as I’d like him to be. But that doesn’t make this song any less of a difficult one to imagine in a video-music-game. It’s fifteen minutes of consistently changing things. The song is broken down into seven different parts, tracks that could essentially be their own and yet work as one large cohesive unit, some of which (especially the parts around 6:40) would be difficult to transcribe into wee little colored buttons. Also, who would play a fifteen minute song in a game and not get tired? Our attention spans are not the way they used to be. Everyone’s insane about Beatles Rock band and I think part of the reason why (besides the obvious) is because 95% of those songs clock in under 4 minutes. Opus-like tracks are probably frowned upon, but shit this would just kick ass to play all the way through. That first riff that invites you to come in, and that salsa-like weird tempo part around 7:30, if that doesn’t make you want to pick up a plastic guitar and rock out, then what the hell is wrong with you?

2. Fantômas – Page 27
I really could have put any Fantômas track here, because the pure logic behind having people play the insanely crazy stuff that they do is well, crazy. People would lose their voices and hands would fall off. Also, because of how short most of the tracks are, they’d most likely have to merge a few songs together, right? Imagine playing six songs where you have absolutely no idea what’s coming next, no matter how many times you play it. Imagine having a friend come over who wants to sing, and have him sing parts that include yelping, and just straight abrasive yelling. What neighbor wants to hear that besides me? I know I’d have a blast trying to find a friend to drum some of those parts too, by the way. As a matter of fact, out of all of the other ones, I’d want a downloadable Fantômas pack the most, just because it’d be freaking hilarious.

1. Focus – Hocus Pocus
Okay, so the actual “recorded song” on that one starts at about 50 seconds. But the point here is that it would not only be hell for most drummers that are pretty decent about hitting the buttons in a game when they practice enough, but this one defies all logic for vocal parts. All. There is no way in the world I can imagine someone singing eight minutes of that over and over again of random…..  How do you describe that? It is however, an extremely fantastic song. The whole put together of it is perfect. I don’t know that that band ever had as big a hit as this, either, by the way. I actually bought this album specifically to hear what the rest of the songs are, and they’re all somewhat crazy like this, so I don’t understand why they weren’t more popular. I guess a lot of people considered them a novelty act, or something. But you can tell how talented they are, right? So where was the problem? Maybe putting this hilariously fantastic song in a game will make them more popular.

This post is about wrestling.

I’ve been trying to determine exactly what kind of blog post I would follow up with, and I’ve been working at it for a few ideas and decided that finally, I wanted to address the fact that I’m still, after all these years, a wrestling fan. Sure, my attention has dipped and swayed in peaks and valleys over the years, but the thing is, it’s been clotheslined into my head so much that it may never go away. I’m still a fan after the Screwjob. I’m still a fan after the Mark Henry “birthing” thing. I’m still a fan after the Fingerpoke of Doom, and the Shockmaster. The Goldberg/Lesnar match, The Wrestlemania Hogan/Savage match, the Austin/Pillman Gun incident, Jeff Jarrett laying down for Hogan, shall I keep going? Maybe a few more. Bastion Booger, David Arquette: WCW champion, okay, okay, you get the idea. I won’t even get to the Gobbledy gooker or Doink the clown. There’s a lot of reasons over the years to give up on wrestling. But with all of the terribly bad ideas, there are a lot of terribly good things. The people below, those are the good things, for me anyway. They’re the reasons I’ve kept watching. So, let’s get into my favorite wrestlers of all time.

6. Owen Hart
Owen wasn’t the most popular guy in the WWE. But he had a work ethic that wouldn’t quit. He was the original high-flying type that’s led to a lot of the smaller, skinnier guys that are in the industry today. You just didn’t see guys doing stuff like this back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. Around that time it was centered a lot around big guys who could talk a decent game, but were boring wrestlers. Hulk Hogan anyone? When Owen found his way to the WWE as a member of the “New Hart Foundation”, it really gave him all the room in the world to showcase his talent, like Bret had before him. Eventually, when it came time to have matches with his older brother, they were really what set me as a fan of that type of wrestling. It was like watching them put on some kind of clinic. The Wrestlemania X match between the two of them will forever be somewhere in my top five matches of all time. And yet, as great as he was in the ring, his characterization of the two time Slammy award winning jerk was the perfect balance to how nice and good his older brother was. People would go nuts for Bret, but when Owen came out, the boo-birds were loud, and it suited him perfectly. I liked how he also used the sharpshooter, by the way. I liked that he seemed to be the ‘bad’ Hart, and Bret was the ‘good’ one. Anyway, People always talk about how sweet he was, and how all he ever wanted to do was provide for his family so that one day he could retire and live the family life. With his tragic end, he was never able to see that through, but what he did leave behind was a legacy of matches and a persona that everyone who has ever been a fan of wrestling will love and remember for all eternity. When I think of Owen Hart, I don’t think of the bad. I think of the fantastic moves, his quick wit, and that no matter how “bad” he got, he was always fun to watch.

5. Kurt Angle
Though I don’t get to see much of Angle in TNA these days (can never find it on!), I have caught him there a few times, and it seems as if he’s still at least doing some of the moves that he had back when he wasn’t as bald, and was on top of the milk-drinking world in the WWE. He was the perfect comedic fodder back then. He could really do anything anyone else could, on the microphone, and was better than most in the ring. His ankle-lock submission and suplex insanity is one thing, but he seemingly could find his way out of any move that he was in, and counter it with something. It didn’t matter if you had him locked into something, Kurt would find a way. He is a FORCE inside of that squared circle. It didn’t matter who he worked with. Somehow, he’d find a way to make it a good match. I’ve heard that in TNA he’s basically the same, only has ramped up his intensity. Going from a somewhat angry, yet somewhat hilarious mama’s boy, to an intense crazy man actually isn’t that much of a stretch for him. It seems like the next logical step for that kind of a character. As if he’d had enough of what he was doing and just wanted to let it all out. Before he seemed like you could walk up to him and give him a hug. Now it looks like you should probably keep your distance. Anyway, Kurt is and has always been a favorite of mine, no matter how lame his WWE period got. I’m sure if I was able to get TNA here I’d watch his matches and would love them just as much, because I’m kinda missing the Angle slam right now.

4. Steve Austin
What? Sorry, had to put that in there. I know, I know. You’re thinking to yourself, “Hey, he wasn’t a great wrestler! Not compared to these others!” Well, you would be sort of right. But you would also sort of be wrong. Austin had a lot of great matches, even though he was kind of your basic bread and butter type of wrestler. Sure, so was Hogan and a lot of others, but the thing that separates Austin from the rest of them is his in-match storytelling, probably at it’s greatest height during the I quit match vs Bret Hart (crappy song-montage video alert!). Never in my life do I remember such a good consistent, back and forth match where the guy they boo coming in is cheered for his effort on the way out. That match made Steve Austin more of a fan favorite than he had been. He had already had some fans cheering him here and there, but was still getting a chorus more of boos than cheers. This match was part one in the first real “bad guy cheered by the fans” deal. Part two was an interview at King of the Ring. Any one person in WWE would kill for either of those and yet, Austin was in the right place in the right time and EXPLODED as one of the most popular characters in WWE history. I’ve heard the loud cheers on DVDs of when Hogan was in his prime (7:09), but compare that to this. It’s insane. Even when you look at some of his comebacks in later years, it never dwindled. The vignettes he did outside the ring were all over the place. Funny, weird, insane, or you know, just plain awesome. The fact however, is that no matter how LOUD it got, he could actually put on a decent match. And he was tough as nails, insert Owen Hart accident here. I think I’ve said enough. Everyone knows about him. They just forget that he was actually a pretty decent wrestler, besides all of the other insane stuff he did.

3. Chris Jericho
Maybe it’s because I’m from Winnipeg. Maybe it’s because at one point, I’d call him the most hilarious guy I’ve ever watched. Nobody did stuff like this anywhere else. For a long period of time he could find humor in just about anything. But, again. He is a great technical wrestler. Before I get into that, I just want to say that I remember where I was when Chris Jericho became the Undisputed champion. I was in a pool hall watching the Pay Per View. Everyone who was there stopped what they were doing for his first match. Nobody thought he’d win. We erupted. And then against Austin, again, nobody thought he’d win. We got even louder. It was like watching the home team win the championship. I’ve never been so loud before. Okay, so where was I? Right. Well, throughout his whole career, he was consistent with one thing: He could have a great match with anybody. He had the charisma, and he had the talent. But a lot of times, both in WCW and his early career in WWE, he seemed extremely under-used. Kind of like how Santino Marella is now. Right place, right time for the joke, but not in the ring enough. People loved his stuff with Christian, his big deal with Stephanie, his jabs with the rock. But he didn’t have a lot of major championships to show for it. Heck, it’s great to say that he’s got the most Intercontinental championships in WWE history, but you’re nowhere if you’re not the WWE champ eventually. On his return, he eventually had enough and turned on the fans, right? So now he’s Mr. Evil. But I seem to think that he’s better in his second time around than the first. He’s calmer. His skills are better. He’s sharp on the microphone, and in the ring, he’s not playing the pansy-ish role he’d played in the past, hes serious. That’s what I like about him now. He’s a step ahead of everyone else inside and outside of the ring, and that means he’s going to last a long while.

2. Randy Savage
Where do I start with this guy? He’s near perfection to me, for his complete WWE run. I don’t remember a single bad moment. His wrestling skills, top notch. While Hogan and Andre were blowing half of the people away at Wrestlemania III, Macho Man vs. Ricky Steamboat was for me, just a step higher on the list. That match is a technical wonder. It’s just awe inspiring, and I can see that match doing more for a lot of kids who want to be wrestlers than Hogan slamming Andre. Maybe they’re equal, fifty-fifty. Who knows. But it wasn’t just the wrestling. It was the insane interviews, the awesome interviews, the funny interviews. I’m not going to bring up Elizabeth outside of this sentence because as the first real wrestling diva, she should have her own category. Randy on his own or with crazy women, was a class act in the ring. The one time that I couldn’t bear to watch a match he was in? The tradgedy of Wrestlemania 5. Oh, terrible. He basically had the whole match. He WAS the whole match. Save three moves. One of them a clothesline and another a legdrop. I read somewhere that Savage only ever lost his titles to two people: Hogan and Flair. Which essentially would then I guess put him in third place, but for me, Savage had something those two didn’t. He was technical, which Hogan wasn’t. He didn’t have a limited database of skills inside that ring, like Flair seemed to have. Savage was the whole package for much of his career, and it’s sad to think that there’s something between him and Vince keeping him from being in the Hall of Fame. Randy was the only wrestler on this whole list that had me at the edge of my seat for EVERY MATCH. He was smart. He knew what he was doing, and he was consistently one of the most entertaining people in wrestling history. When I was a kid, I could do the perfect impression. So, I think that’s enough on that.

1. Bret Hart
The closest to wrestling perfection. This match is probably my favorite of all time. All but Kurt Angle on my list have had history with Bret. He could wrestle anyone. From his brother (mentioned before) to Yokozuna. You name it. He has so many fantastic qualities and matches that it’s kind of tedious to list here. Then again, he’s also had enough weird crap to happen to him in his wrestling history that I don’t have to put it here either. Bret’s matches were perfection. When I was a kid I wanted to be two people when I grew up. Bret Hart and Dale Hawerchuk. I’m neither, but damnit if I still can’t put in his DVD and watch five matches in a row. He was a better in-ring storyteller than anyone I’ve ever seen. He’s launched or propelled the careers of more wrestlers that I can name. He’s never injured an opponent. He was loved all over the world, most especially Europe and overseas, even when he was supposed to be a “bad guy” in the US. His feuds to note are numerous. HBK, Steve Austin, Mr. Perfect, Yokozuna, Owen Hart, Roddy Piper, Diesel, The Undertaker. Some wrestlers are lucky to have one or two good feuds in their career. Bret could wrestle a pillow and make it interesting. His match putting over Davey Boy at Summerslam (why the music?) shows that at his best, he could make a not-so-great wrestler look pristine. What more could you ask from a wrestler? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. All his tragedies both personal and professional aside, there is not a wrestler in history that can measure up to the perfection that was Bret Hart. Say what you want, I’ll never change my mind.

What Winnipeg means

In my working novel thing, I’ve been able to complete what happens to my person in all of the major cities from Western Canada to Eastern Canada, and the most thorough is what happens in Winnipeg, which makes sense. I’d like to leave the Winnipeg section out here so that you can read it, and um. Yes. Read it, tell me what you think, or something. The basis is a man who is going across the country to find the woman of his dreams. It’s actually a bit more in depth than that, but you know. I don’t want to give it ALL away, anyway. Here is what happens when he arrives in the city.

—————————

I was greeted at the local coffee place by my cousin. I hadn’t seen Christine for about five years. She was the cute teenaged cousin any guy would want, because you could rot her brain with music and movies she’d never heard of. We didn’t stay in contact that much after I’d moved, because Christine thought the internet was either a big waste of time, or something she wanted no part in, and I can’t exactly remember what it was that had spurned her on it, but as far as I knew, she still felt that way. Christine was taller than I remember, sporting a thick, long haircut, a darker shade of red than I’d ever seen. After a good, two minute hug, we sat down, and she gulped at her coffee, waiting for me to tell her everything that’d been going on since I left. I got into the whole trip in little detail. The woman in Saskatchewan, and the ordeal of getting a new car in Calgary after the first rental broke down was about all I had time to cover before she cut me off.
“So, you probably have a bunch more to tell me, but I want to wait, because I need to ask you something,” she spoke as if it were a life and death situation, and yet she casually sipped at her fifth cup of coffee. “I want you to escort me to a party tonight. It’s nothing weird, just a bunch of people that I work with. I’ve told them all about your little escape across the country, and they’re dying to meet you.”

Great, I thought. A bunch of people expecting some fantastically popular, muscle toned, well spoken thug. Instead they’ll be getting a bearded, skinny guy who looks like he needs to have a three hour shower. What’s even worse is that it’s a formal party, and Christine was low enough in money that I ended up paying for the rented suit and dress that we were both going to wear to this thing. I made sure to get myself the strangest colour of suit jackets, and so to match, she picked out a dark purple dress. We looked either like brother and sister, or one of those couples that make you want to throw up, with their matching glory. We sat in our hotel room that had been paid for by her company, drank rum with random mixers, and had delightful conversation with people whose names I’d forgotten, but it didn’t matter. After getting through the formal dinner that included food that would have not had any taste to it without alcohol, we made our way back to the hotel room. I had prepared myself by buying a flask and filling it with tequila, just so that if I needed to, I could crash on the bed as quickly as possible, just to dodge some kind of rotten situation with people I didn’t know. What I wasn’t expecting though, was Christine’s happy drunk. She always seemed to be the type to pick up some guy and run off with him, or talk dirty, show skin, and then pass out. Instead, our one-bed hotel room was treated as the designated party house, catering to a swarm of random people I’d never met. Just as I was about to start downing the tequila, someone started yelling in my ear. “I don’t act old,” someone said, “So why do people treat me like I don’t know what I’m talking about?”  He was standing by the window, barking at me.  It was as if I had somehow accidentally found myself in the middle of a life story.  ”Beats me man,” I yelled back at him.  This big white haired story telling-bastard was hugging the weed. As he spoke, it turned slowly into a haze.  The room had roughly fifteen people crammed into it, and yet Christine and I were the only two on the bed.  We sat staring at everyone as if the party was going in hyper-speed, and we were stuck in slow motion. The whole night walked like someone who’d had just a bit too much to drink, and I sat there with the biggest thump of an alone feeling I’ve had in my whole life. I didn’t give a shit about any of these people, but because Christine had put so many stories in their heads, I was told to smile and nod, and to share little details about my life. I gave them stories I’d make up on the spot, because what drunk cares about what a stranger’s telling them anyway?  The last thing I remember before waking up was eating pizza at three in the morning with Christine, watching some random show with nudity on a channel I’d never heard of. We had a knock at the door and were told to quiet down by a bellhop, or cleaner, who had said that we were being too loud, and he left us alone when I offered him a piece of pizza. After that, everything is a haze. I don’t remember falling asleep, or eating the rest of the pizza.

When I woke up in the morning, the room was a horrible mess. Christine and I had made a disaster of the place, but I didn’t want to deal with it. The floor was littered with empty cups, the tables had half finished cigarettes and bottles of alcohol,  a complete disaster. I made it a point to leave a five dollar bill on the nightstand, and wrote “MAID MONEY” on it, because those people are going to have to earn their money on this room. It was seven in the morning when I got up to take a shower, and after disrobing to my underwear, I walked into the equally dirty bathroom that had a sink resembling a makeshift fridge. I pulled the shower curtain back and found a woman lying in the tub with no top on, still clutching a cup with brown liquid. Her hair was in wet clumps, as if someone had tried to wake her up but had failed. I didn’t want to wake Christine, so I closed the bathroom door after finding my clothes and some extra towels. I kneeled at the tub, drying this woman’s face off softly, covering her in towels, not only to warm her, but also to make sure that she didn’t feel like she’d just completely gone nuts with the drink the night before. Five minutes or so later, just after I’d made a pillow and blanket with most of the hotel’s towels, she sat up and looked at me in confusion. It wasn’t until that point that I realized who she was.

Claire stared at me and waited for a minute before she spoke. I don’t remember her being in the room at all last night, which means that I’d either had more to drink than originally thought, or that she’d been hiding in the bathroom.  She looked terrible, but so would anyone after the night she probably had. There were a few things that didn’t make sense to me, like how she’d found out where I was, right down to the hotel room, or why she followed me here, after breaking up with me a few months ago. I hadn’t seen a single solitary second of sadness in her at work, she never seemed to have to put on a brave face like I had, but here she was, lying in a bathtub, missing a shirt and a few extra brain cells. “I’ve been looking for you,” she said, finally sitting up, throwing some of my carefully placed towels onto the bathroom floor. “And you’ve been on this stupid fucking quest for something I don’t understand. Why did you leave me?” She was obviously still drunk, or severely affected by the alcohol to be thinking that she hadn’t left me standing in the rain wondering what the hell I’d done to end up being the dump-ee. “I didn’t leave you,” I replied, washing my face in the makeshift fridge’s clean water, just to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. “You left me, remember? You told me that I had no feelings, that I was, how did you say it? ‘Like a robot. A robot without the capacity to love’. What are you doing here?” As she listened to me, she stood up shakily, and put her drink on the edge of the tub. She sat down on the toilet and started to sob quietly, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t about to comfort her, because I had started this trip partially to spite her, so to have her come at me now with this kind of attitude wasn’t going to break me down. “Listen, I don’t care how you found out that I’m here. I’m going to assume it’s Christine’s doing, but it doesn’t matter now. I’m finishing this quest thing, or whatever you want to call it, because I’ve come too far to turn back now.” She looked at me with eyes that I haven’t seen in a long time. The kind of eyes a loved one has when you’ve said something out of anger and didn’t really mean it, comparable to yelling at a child who doesn’t know any better, but this was the first time I really did have that robotic sensation she’d dumped me for, and I knew what was coming. “Let me come with you. I want to change your mind. I want you back. Let’s fix the mistake.” Instead of leaving her there like I should have, I gave her the spare t-shirt from my suitcase and had to partially carry her out to the car. She was in bad shape, but something told me that having her with me was the right thing to do for now. I don’t know what that something was, but I knew I was going to regret it.

“Wait here,” I said, closing the door and easing the window open a crack. “I have to tell Christine I’m leaving.” She nodded and closed her eyes leaning the seat back as if she was finally going to get some rest. I took my time walking back upstairs, because I didn’t really want to believe that my favourite cousin would do something like this to me. Even if she had, I was going to pretend that it wasn’t true, and completely ignore it. As I opened the door with the room key, she had already been awake and was sort of trying to clean up the terrible mess that had been made of the room. I smiled and took her in my arms for a brief hug. “I’m leaving. I’ve got some things to do before I get back out there, and I just wanted to thank you for the interesting evening.” She apologized to me originally, because she thought I’d been upset, but I was really trying to play down the fact that I wasn’t, if only to leave on good terms. After a few minutes of soft conversation and plan-making for the future, I sort of half forced her out with me so that she wouldn’t clean after the party mess, and we parted ways. As I made my way back to the car, I noticed Claire completely passed out in the front seat, with her mouth wide open, probably snoring. I laughed at the situation as I jumped in and started the car, and turned on some mellow music, to keep me attentive, and hit the gas.

Unfinished Phobias

The last few weeks have been interesting. I’ve been finding a lot of old, unfinished things that don’t suck, and this is one of them. It’s a story I had planned about a group of people with phobias who have meetings sort of like AA. The main character’s phobia wasn’t going to be figured out until the end of the story. This is the first scene from that.

ROOM SCENE

FADE IN

Getting away from home and into the hands of a professional

Camera shot pans of person in bed. White sheets so you can see his outline underneath. The sun is out, lighting the room, pillows all over the place, strange position. Noise coming from kitchen of someone making food, alarm goes off: 10:30am. Droned.

Next scene walking out of house with Cigarette. Shot in side angle closeup to door. Chest up. Takes drag from cigarette and walks off the shot with ragged hair and unkempt facial features. Springtime setting, midday walking. Cars drive down the shot just on the outside. One honks at the other and MC is taken aback by the sudden noise, leaning against a fence for support. Closeup on face, breathing noise takes over the shot. Eyes wandering around, grasping at chest, taking deep breaths and wipes his hair from his face.

Cut to MC walking down street, one side of the street a vacant lot (or full of trees). Tiptoe-ing along the sidewalk edge, toe in front of toe. Camera setup a block or so away. Bright colors, possibly mid-day shot. Catching a bus. Quick scene, man steps out to side of the road. A close-up of the facial expression as it comes to a stop for the red light, and not for him.

A short chase to catch it, driver didn’t see him. Smacks the side of the bus in anger before bus stops. Same expression when the door opens, as when the bus was driving by. Side view, closeup. Head fills screen, bit of bus off to the right, capture doors opening. Cut to behind, watching the character walk on the bus. Driver shrugs shoulders, person acts as if nothing happened. End scene when MC finds a place on the bus as it’s driving away.

NEXT SHOT

Bus partially full with random people, young and old. MC sits down at random seat, but not before shooting an awkward glance to someone standing (and blocking a few seats) beside someone. Sits down facing the opposite way. Shot turns in front close up, standing person and another in a wheelchair sort of unfocused in background shot.

ROOM SCENE

FADE IN

Getting away from home and into the hands of a professional

Camera shot pans of person in bed. White sheets so you can see his outline underneath. The sun is out, lighting the room, pillows all over the place, strange position. Noise coming from kitchen of someone making food, alarm goes off: 10:30am. Droned.

Next scene walking out of house with Cigarette. Shot in side angle closeup to door. Chest up. Takes drag from cigarette and walks off the shot with ragged hair and unkempt facial features. Springtime setting, midday walking. Cars drive down the shot just on the outside. One honks at the other and MC is taken aback by the sudden noise, leaning against a fence for support. Closeup on face, breathing noise takes over the shot. Eyes wandering around, grasping at chest, taking deep breaths and wipes his hair from his face.

Cut to MC walking down street, one side of the street a vacant lot (or full of trees). Tiptoe-ing along the sidewalk edge, toe in front of toe. Camera setup a block or so away. Bright colors, possibly mid-day shot. Catching a bus. Quick scene, man steps out to side of the road. A close-up of the facial expression as it comes to a stop for the red light, and not for him.

A short chase to catch it, driver didn’t see him. Smacks the side of the bus in anger before bus stops. Same expression when the door opens, as when the bus was driving by. Side view, closeup. Head fills screen, bit of bus off to the right, capture doors opening. Cut to behind, watching the character walk on the bus. Driver shrugs shoulders, person acts as if nothing happened. End scene when MC finds a place on the bus as it’s driving away.

NEXT SHOT

Bus partially full with random people, young and old. MC sits down at random seat, but not before shooting an awkward glance to someone standing (and blocking a few seats) beside someone. Sits down facing the opposite way. Shot turns in front close up, standing person and another in a wheelchair sort of unfocused in background shot.

Other Old things I keep finding.

I don’t know how much this had behind it, but I’m sort of enjoying the idea of posting things that used to be here. I’ve found a few more random text and word files full of things that haven’t been completed. This is another one called “Blind leading the blind”, and I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it, but I like where it was heading, when it was written in 2001. The reason I’m posting all of these is twofold: I want to re-read some of the old things, and I want to ensure that they’re somewhere for the future, in case I need them for something.

Blind leading the blind

The time is 7:00am, but it always is, even when it’s not, really. I set my clock forty minutes ahead to get a head start on my own mind. It’s easier to think that I’m running late when I wake up than to wake up and roll around wondering if it’s even worth being awake on that specified day, and today is one of those days.

Everything about this morning seems just a little more awkward than normal. I blink repeatedly to get a fix on the ceiling’s cracks and lumps and scratch my pillow-laden hair.

And then when I sit up, everything changes. There are marks on the wall of violence, blood stained in a fashion that resembles someone getting thrown against it, kind of the same shape a wet sponge would take if you threw it at something hard. I don’t like this, and I’m not sure what to do.

Shaking.

I slide my dry fingers over the spots on the walls and look down at my body’s shape under the blanket, throwing it onto the floor ensuring that it wasn’t me that this is a part of, and everything seems intact.

What is this mess?

Is it a dream? My mind is playing a farce on me again, isn’t it? It’s just something completely offbeat and has nothing to do with me; it’s something that’s not really there. By the time I’ve convinced myself with my eyes closed that it isn’t there, I look around again and it’s disappeared.

I’ve been blind since I was six.

These are visions I get, possible recurring memories from childhood, who knows. I live my life like this every day and every single time it happens, I get twisted into a knot, whether it’s at home, or just in a daily travel. Once on a bus sitting patiently talking to my sister Claire, I started hyperventilating, because for a brief moment I could see her reaction to a joke. Dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes, a silly little grin on her face. It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen, and was like a small adventure and a curse all completely wrapped up into one little present.

Old to me, new to you

One of the things I really wanted to do with this blog was to bring old things from folders deep in the “creations” backlog, and paste them for general consumption.  Things that haven’t seen the light of day. Make it easier for me to come to terms with the idea that I’m a semi-decent writer who’s trying to tackle a big thing, etc. Seeing as how I’m seemingly running the gamut of subjects in this so far, it feels like the right thing to do. First, is something I sent in to a local newspaper. You know how they have those writing ideas, where you have to write so many words on a specific topic, and if you’re any good you can win a prize of some sort? Well, I tried that. Never did hear from the paper, but it was the first time I tried it, anyway. The subject was, “It Felt Like Forever.”  The word count was to be 1000+.

IT FELT LIKE FOREVER
10/26/2004

I can’t pretend like I can sit here and look at myself straightly in the mirror without wondering about the “could have been” that everyone experiences in the lifetime. Sometimes when the pieces go together in my head now, at a point where it shouldn’t bug me, pieces are missing. There are areas that seem unclear, just not there, as if the only way that I can remember the passing time where everything was together, that you found that last piece of blue sky in the puzzle you needed. I felt whole then, if only for a short while, and even when I’m old and the people who might be following in my steps will be at this age, I could tell them about that one “could have been” that stood out from every other one. But my mindset isn’t right, because where I’m at right now, I’m happy, or at least I should be. Everything’s come together and nothing’s falling off the sides.

So to escape back into that idea, it took a while of winding my clock, and spinning of my emotional wheels. You can do it too. A picture, an old album, a place to drive by and get lost in for a moment, all of the memories that you try to shatter to forget because what’s happening now is too nice.

I took a trip backwards, and remembered the first feeling of abandonment, and then it all came flooding back.

She and I had a connection, through the Internet. We met in a community online somewhere, and fell for each other’s words quickly. Off the cuff comments included ones for a special birthday present, for a week’s worth. More than a week beforehand I was already dusting off places inside that I hadn’t visited, if only to cling to the idea that I could fall for something for only nine days.

As time started to inch ever closer, the nervous bug came. The ideas that were floating in my head the first time started to turn into big squares that gave you headaches and cramps because it’s a family trait. You’d lie awake at night and wonder if it was all going to come true, and knew that the next time your head hit the pillow, you might not be alone in it anymore, and that’s all anyone wants.

All I wanted was to paint and frame a picture in the walls of my memory for all time of one short string of minutes and days that would feel like time could play tricks on you. Nervousness takes out all the fun of waiting because as soon as it’s there and gone again, the nervousness makes you wonder if it could all stay intact in your brain. That would be the test, to make sure it all went according to your plan.

The day wasn’t as far off as I’d thought. It got there faster than I’d ever expected in that they came in a flying sort of way. It was the few days before it that got slow, but the months leading up zoomed by as if my calendar had a page ripped out and we’d skipped a certain amount of days. Like nothing I was realizing that another human would be spending some glorious days in my room that was less than 12 feet by 12 feet, with a ceiling so low that if you sat up from the bed too fast you might hit your head.

There I was, sitting in the airport. Two friends came with as my ride, and I waited. Flight number? Check. It’s here. So what was I doing here for so long?

It’s strange thinking that I was waiting for someone in an airport and wondering as they’d announced the flight coming in, why 30 minutes later she hadn’t come out yet. And then the passengers started filing out. Every time they opened the door, you could see into the back, and I kept looking for her, over and over again, but still I got nothing.

And then my first sign that she was actually here: A woman in uniform called my name, and as I shakily walked over to her, she asked questions, where I knew her from, what she looks like, when I’d see her, where she was staying. After these questions, I was told again to sit back down and wait.

Not only did it feel like forever, I was almost ready to give up at this point. One big trick, I thought. This was probably just something to string me along to catch me in some freaky elaborate scheme. I was losing patience, and it’s been over two hours now.

And then she walked out. A nervous smile on her face, black hair, a dress and knee-high boots. Just the epitome of someone whose been massively messed up by the current events. Body and bag searching can be tedious to some, but others when it’s regarded as a serious threat, it can be terrible, hence the situation and it’s length. She didn’t seem as fazed though, after a quick hug and a departure from the strangeness.

It got silly after that. The ride home was reminiscent of the feeling you have when you’re two young kids who are partially obsessed with each other, giggling in the backseat of a car and holding hands under luggage so as not to tip off the driver/passenger in the front.

From the first moment into the door, you could feel it. You could just sense the admiration for one another after months and months of getting to know each other in text and voice form, but to see and touch and feel and smell and wake up beside someone now was different. It had this wave of ambient beauty surrounding it, as if time had decided to stop for these days just so that a pair of people could find a quick answer to the long story of love.

We’d wake up in the morning and lie there, just staring back and forth, not saying a word, trying to figure out what the other was thinking, and it would get us nowhere. We’d travel the streets during the day and take pictures of things, wandering around in no specific direction. We’d get out and drink with friends, and then we’d go home with each other and imagine what it’d be like to live like that every day, with a chip of love on our shoulders.

And as the nine days went by, every day was concluded and began with the same thing over and over, that for that time nothing existed in the outside world except the two of us. And whatever feelings came after, whatever heartbreak or unreasonable endings decided to tear us apart, for that time, for those days, they felt like the most blissful forever I’ll ever want to know.

I can’t pretend like I can sit here and look at myself straightly in the mirror without wondering about the “could have been” that everyone experiences in the lifetime. Sometimes when the pieces go together in my head now, at a point where it shouldn’t bug me, pieces are missing. There are areas that seem unclear, just not there, as if the only way that I can remember the passing time where everything was together, that you found that last piece of blue sky in the puzzle you needed. I felt whole then, if only for a short while, and even when I’m old and the people who might be following in my steps will be at this age, I could tell them about that one “could have been” that stood out from every other one. But my mindset isn’t right, because where I’m at right now, I’m happy, or at least I should be. Everything’s come together and nothing’s falling off the sides.

So to escape back into that idea, it took a while of winding my clock, and spinning of my emotional wheels. You can do it too. A picture, an old album, a place to drive by and get lost in for a moment, all of the memories that you try to shatter to forget because what’s happening now is too nice.

I took a trip backwards, and remembered the first feeling of abandonment, and then it all came flooding back.

She and I had a connection, through the Internet. We met in a community online somewhere, and fell for each other’s words quickly. Off the cuff comments included ones for a special birthday present, for a week’s worth. More than a week beforehand I was already dusting off places inside that I hadn’t visited, if only to cling to the idea that I could fall for something for only nine days.

As time started to inch ever closer, the nervous bug came. The ideas that were floating in my head the first time started to turn into big squares that gave you headaches and cramps because it’s a family trait. You’d lie awake at night and wonder if it was all going to come true, and knew that the next time your head hit the pillow, you might not be alone in it anymore, and that’s all anyone wants.

All I wanted was to paint and frame a picture in the walls of my memory for all time of one short string of minutes and days that would feel like time could play tricks on you. Nervousness takes out all the fun of waiting because as soon as it’s there and gone again, the nervousness makes you wonder if it could all stay intact in your brain. That would be the test, to make sure it all went according to your plan.

The day wasn’t as far off as I’d thought. It got there faster than I’d ever expected in that they came in a flying sort of way. It was the few days before it that got slow, but the months leading up zoomed by as if my calendar had a page ripped out and we’d skipped a certain amount of days. Like nothing I was realizing that another human would be spending some glorious days in my room that was less than 12 feet by 12 feet, with a ceiling so low that if you sat up from the bed too fast you might hit your head.

There I was, sitting in the airport. Two friends came with as my ride, and I waited. Flight number? Check. It’s here. So what was I doing here for so long?

It’s strange thinking that I was waiting for someone in an airport and wondering as they’d announced the flight coming in, why 30 minutes later she hadn’t come out yet. And then the passengers started filing out. Every time they opened the door, you could see into the back, and I kept looking for her, over and over again, but still I got nothing.

And then my first sign that she was actually here: A woman in uniform called my name, and as I shakily walked over to her, she asked questions, where I knew her from, what she looks like, when I’d see her, where she was staying. After these questions, I was told again to sit back down and wait.

Not only did it feel like forever, I was almost ready to give up at this point. One big trick, I thought. This was probably just something to string me along to catch me in some freaky elaborate scheme. I was losing patience, and it’s been over two hours now.

And then she walked out. A nervous smile on her face, black hair, a dress and knee-high boots. Just the epitome of someone whose been massively messed up by the current events. Body and bag searching can be tedious to some, but others when it’s regarded as a serious threat, it can be terrible, hence the situation and it’s length. She didn’t seem as fazed though, after a quick hug and a departure from the strangeness.

It got silly after that. The ride home was reminiscent of the feeling you have when you’re two young kids who are partially obsessed with each other, giggling in the backseat of a car and holding hands under luggage so as not to tip off the driver/passenger in the front.

From the first moment into the door, you could feel it. You could just sense the admiration for one another after months and months of getting to know each other in text and voice form, but to see and touch and feel and smell and wake up beside someone now was different. It had this wave of ambient beauty surrounding it, as if time had decided to stop for these days just so that a pair of people could find a quick answer to the long story of love.

We’d wake up in the morning and lie there, just staring back and forth, not saying a word, trying to figure out what the other was thinking, and it would get us nowhere. We’d travel the streets during the day and take pictures of things, wandering around in no specific direction. We’d get out and drink with friends, and then we’d go home with each other and imagine what it’d be like to live like that every day, with a chip of love on our shoulders.

And as the nine days went by, every day was concluded and began with the same thing over and over, that for that time nothing existed in the outside world except the two of us. And whatever feelings came after, whatever heartbreak or unreasonable endings decided to tear us apart, for that time, for those days, they felt like the most blissful forever I’ll ever want to know.