xixx - Day 29 – Your favourite foods/drinks, in great detail

Wow do I ever love pizza.  It's not a healthy romance, I know, but I can't help myself.  I swear.

What's not to love about this most perfect of culinary creations?  A sublime marriage of carbohydrates, warm, doughy, perfectly baked crispy starchy goodness and fats... melted cheese - need I say more?  Sandwich in or stack on whatever toppings suit your desires.

Perfection.

If I were ever given the choice of a single food I had to eat for the rest of my life, hands down, it would be a basic with extra cheese from Colonnade Pizza on Gilmour.  It wouldn't be a long life, extinguished early by massive coronary disease, but it would be a happy couple of months, no doubt. 

I'm going to stop there, because going on would lead me to having to order a pizza, and at nearly midnight on a Sunday, that's probably not the best idea.  Besides, the next entry is a much longer one, so I don't feel too bad about scrimping on this one.

xxviii - Day 28 – Something that you miss, in great detail

I miss the days when I didn't think or feel that my own body was an obstacle.

I grew up as part of the first wave of kids to have video games, at a time when having both parents at the office was increasingly common (or necessary, depending on your perspective) and the accompanying rise of TV as a parenting aid.  Despite this, activity was still a big part of my childhood, and it constituted a sizable portion of my play time growing up.  I guess the timing worked out pretty good in that respect.  Had I been born ten or fifteen years later, chances are I wouldn't have had any real exercise as part of my routine.

But, whatever the cultural or social factors that put me where I was, physical activities have always been enjoyable.  It's probably a bit of a chicken and egg game.  I never got picked first (we never played soccer and I wasn't enough of a standout in the games we did play to warrant special attention), but never got picked last either, and with the exception of Tennis and Baseball*, managed to acquit myself appropriately of my sporting duties.  So not being the object of scorn or ridicule, and being able to contribute to the team undoubtedly contributed to whatever inclination I had to participate in the first place.

Unfortunately physical activity has always been a very social activity for me, and let's face it, we're not exactly living in a society that goes out of its way to promote a healthy lifestyle.  My main circle of friends in high school went from skateboarding around town causing trouble to just sitting around causing trouble by the time I was in senior year, and apart from the occasional game of touch football at lunch (which never seemed like such a good idea in the afternoon, sitting in class all sweaty and uncomfortable), there weren't many opportunities to get a game of, well, anything, going with anyone I knew.

Such is life, I suppose.  Like any tool that's not maintained or used, my body has been getting progressively more rickety as time marches on.  Age, of course, doesn't help in this equation.  Each time I tried to pick up soccer again over the last decade and a half, it was a progressively harder fight against my body.  I joined a gym for about a year a while back, in an earnest effort to get healthier, but working out alone is mind numbing.  I have no doubt I'll get back into the habit eventually, when the aches and stiffness reach a point I can no longer endure.

For now, though, I'll go on missing the days when I could grab a ball and a few friends and just...go.
 
* I was apparently good enough at Basketball at one point to make the school team, a fact that would be mind boggling for anyone watching me try to play now.  I haven't been able to reliably sink a basket in about twenty years.  It's actually quite embarrassing.

xxvii - Day 27 – Your favourite place, in great detail

So named because it was discovered by a Dutch explorer on Easter Sunday 1722, Easter Island is a small island (63 square miles) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  It is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands, with its nearest populated neighbours located over a thousand miles away, and the only regular air traffic coming in from Santiago, Chile, which is over two thousand miles to the East.

Though the origins of its first inhabitants are a topic for debate  - they were initially thought to have arrived in the 4th century AD, but it's been suggested through carbon dating that it might have been as late as the 12th century.  Either way, it had to have been a very long (estimated at 19 days) trip for those first settlers, who would most likely have made a 1,500-2,000 mile journey in canoes and/or catamarans.  I can't even imagine.

Since then, the Island has had a remarkable history, as the native population eventually outgrew the island's ability to sustain its inhabitants.  By the time the first Europeans arrived, it had already seen the dramatic results of severe overpopulation, war and famine, and there are rumors that cannibalism might have been practised, too.  The arrival of Europeans had terrible results, as well, and the inhabitants had to endure slavers, and outbreaks of smallpox (deliberately planted by slavers forced to repatriate their captives) and tuberculosis (introduced unwittingly by whalers).  Of a population that was once estimated to number higher than 3,000, there were only 111 left in 1871.  In 1888, Chile annexed the Island, and today it exists as a special territory.

Easter Island is, of course, most famous for its statues, called Moai.  There were nearly a thousand of these on the island, carved in the 12th to 17th centuries.  Though perhaps best known as the "Easter Island Heads", the statues actually depict a full body, kneeling with its hands over the stomach.  Over the years, many of the heavy statues have sunk into the soil, leaving only the uppermost parts visible above ground.  These statues were erected as tributes to dead ancestors, and another interesting fact is that they all faced inward, away from the ocean, which was thought to be the gateway to the spirit world by the native residents.

xxvi - Day 26 – Your fears, in great detail

I have three great fears. They range from acute with a clear focus yet infrequently experienced, to a much more diffuse, pervasive and enduring aversion that's difficult to pin down. At the former end of the spectrum, we have a phobia, of bugs to be precise. In the middle, a hazy sort of distress at the thought of physical pain, and the latter would probably be defined as a fear of success.

The entomophobia is the easiest to outline. I'm afraid of several types of bug. Anything that can sting, actually, with the exception of mosquitoes. Wasps are the worst for this, they're the closest I've ever come to losing panicking and losing self-control. I've had a fair number of real crisis situations, and something in the back of my mind always seems to kick in to guide me through. Medical emergencies, when I worked at the hospital? No problem, know your part, do your job. Witnessing a stabbing? Follow the guy at a safe distance until the cops can get there. Big, vicious animals? Whatever. Accidentally sever a gas line? Get ticked off because of the dirt flying into my mouth and jump out of the hole. A wasp? Feel the terror rise, constricting my chest and virtually losing the ability to move.

This first fear ties into the second fear, but gets compounded by my inability to track the object of the fear. Creepy crawlies are uncontrollable and hard or impossible to stay focused on. So I guess this fear lies at the intersection of the normal human fears of the unknown and of experiencing pain.

Speaking of which, my second fear, my aversion to pain, is quite pedestrian and common to most of us. Aging helps this one, along, too. For whatever reason, the cost/benefit of tobogganing down that particular set of stairs starts to weigh more heavily towards "don't do it" the more days I have behind me.  It's like I'm valuing the ones I have left more highly or something.

This particular fear is interesting, in my case, because of my relationship with pain. Which is to say, in a lot of cases, I hardly notice it. I had a broken elbow once, and had no idea for four months. It hurt a bit when I slept on it, but had managed to move all my stuff to a new city, um, 4 days after it broke. The 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th fractures in my fingers? The doctors pointed them out to me when I went in to have #2, #4, and #7 looked at, and have no idea, to this day, how any of those mystery fractures happened.  This isn't to say I'm immune to pain. My wisdom teeth coming out has to have been one of the worst experiences of my life. But at the end of the day, when I'm standing at the top of that icy hill with my cafeteria tray, it doesn't really matter if I break my arm, because I probably won't have a clue it happened anyway.  Which makes the aforementioned cost/benefit a bit of a moot point, but for some reason it's still quite prominent in my mind...

I won't delve too much into my third fear. Suffice it to say that it is quite pervasive, very deeply embedded in my psyche, and extremely difficult to pinpoint and attribute to any one influence or cause. Through a combination of factors it has always been difficult for me to deal with the notion of being successful. As you can imagine, this feeling is a constant source of nourishment for the regret I detailed on Day 19, and it is a big part of the reason I started this blog.

xxv - Day 25 – Your sleeping habits, in great detail

My first thought when I read the topic for today was, "hahahahahaha".  You see, in describing my sleeping habits, terms that one would usually look to in painting a picture - peaceful, deep, restful, etc. - just aren't appropriate.

In fact, if there were an "appropriate" center of the universe, anyone insinuating that my sleep habits resemble anything close to rest would be on the planet that it's farthest from.

The term I think probably fits best, as you might have guessed from my graphic for the day, is "greco-roman wrestling".  You'll have to take my word for it, because I'm sure you have no idea how those two concepts could possibly be connected.

Rest assured (and pardon the pun), I'm so unbelievably bad at getting a quiet night's sleep, that if you were to take a time-lapse recording of me in bed overnight and speed it up, it would look remarkably like I was wrestling some unseen opponent.  I wake up in the morning twisted into the strangest and most uncomfortable positions, with the blankets knotted tightly around me.

I don't know why, but I don't ever recall having a good night sleep.  Well, that's a lie.  I know why I don't recall having a good night sleep - it's because I don't think I've ever had one, at least not in the last two decades.  What I don't know are the reasons why.  I probably get it from my dad.  My earliest "sleep" related memories are of him watching TV well into the night (he's an insomniac, too).  

It doesn't help that left to my own devices, my circadian rhythm goes completely insane.  I tried an experiment in my twenties where I just let it go, and in the span of one calendar week I experienced a few four hour cycles, some twelve hour cycles, and one that was thirty six hours long, all randomly scattered through the week.

xiv - Day 24 – Something that makes you cry, in great detail

I'm not too proud to admit I get misty eyed easily.  Yeah, I said it.  Wait, you don't seem surprised.  Huh.

Anyway, I don't get moved to outright tears that easily, but the most - effective?  I guess - way is to play certain pieces of music.  Well, you could also just whack me on the nose, but a reflexive welling of tears isn't quite the same as an emotional one, is it?

So, what music does the trick, so to speak?  The pieces are typically instrumentals, usually orchestral, or incorporating an orchestra, and also quite often part of a movie soundtrack, a movie I've connected with on its own merits.

I've already mentioned "Inama Nushif" from the Children of Dune soundtrack, a beautiful piece in its own right, with the added dimensions of being associated with my favourite book of all time, and have come around when we lost Harley.

A few stand outs would be pieces from Gattaca, Memento, and Inception.  Each one has, in its own way, a theme of struggle against the self that reverberates with me, and an underlying sadness related to some loss experienced along the way.  So, the music I would have liked anyway takes on another meaning as I'm able to mesh it with particular facets of myself.

There are more, both soundtracks (examples being Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain) or more traditional three to five minute "pop" songs (Dazzle, Push, A Warm Place) but the gist of it is that some pieces seem to bypass my defences and strike to the squishiest heart of me.

xxiii - Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better, in great detail

Sometimes I get completely swept up in my own problems, to the point that they expand and multiply to occupy every corner of my mind.  It's not overwhelming, nor am I subject to panic or anxiety attacks because of it. But, like a house strewn with worn clothes, it creates a mental clutter that gets tiring to have to wade through.

Fortunately one of the remedies I have at my disposal is readily available, and though I'm not sure why it works, it seems to do the trick often enough.  Looking at the sky, especially when a sunset streaming through the atmosphere creates dazzling colours in the clouds, settles my mind almost immediately.

It only tends to work when I'm not actively ruminating on any one thing.  If I'm genuinely upset over something, the trick won't work.  If I'm bogged down by the mundane, though, staring up for a while lifts me right out of it in a hurry.

It's probably related to my fascination with space.  The thought that we're incredibly small pieces in an unfathomably large picture, which I can understand is distressing to some, actually makes me feel like my problems aren't that big, after all.  When my day-to-day is tinged in one way or another by whatever is running through my mind, the great expanse of sky above me serves as a reminder that there is so much out there beyond the scope of my worries.

xxii - Day 22 – Something that upsets you, in great detail

This entry, I will warn you, is pretty quirky.  I'm not considered completely normal by folks that know me, but then again I'm not exactly known as the totally flaky guy, either.  But yeah, this one is one of my stranger personality traits.  Fortunately this is the only one I have that would qualify under the "don't let him go outside" column of crazy traits. On we go!

To our left is an image of the human skeleton.

Other than hair, it's the only part of the human anatomy that doesn't upset me on some level.  Thinking about anything else beyond a very basic, "hey yeah, that exists, let's move on," sort of appreciation makes me extremely uncomfortable in my own skin.

Which is really weird, because I have a decent understanding about how everything comes together and a healthy respect for science and medicine, even if I do believe doctors, being human, are as fallible as the rest of us.  This is perhaps the most acute case of cognitive dissonance I see in my own personality.  The rational, thinking part of my brain understands how it works, but the emotional, instinctual side of me doesn't really accept that it's a stable situation and is half-expecting all the blood in my body to pool in my feet.  And  the more I think about it, the worse it gets.

So yeah, the human body.  Bones are hard and hair is on the outside (so, who cares, right?) but all the rest of it is squishy, slimy, semi-permeable membranes and tissues.  Who thought that was a good idea?

Any time I think about it too hard, as I've said, I get uncomfortable.  The weirdest manifestation is probably the blood pooling in the feet thing, which I'm actually feeling at this very moment.  Sometimes it's disquieting to the point of me having to lift my feet off the ground.  Right now, though, it's not that bad but I'm entirely too aware of the sensation of the pads of my heels being pushed aside ever so slightly by the calcaneus bone as the weight of my foot presses down into the floor.  The irrational part of my brain is anxiously waiting for everything to fall into a floppy mess (sorry for the visual), and meanwhile the thinking part of my brain is yelling at it to shut up, everything is fine.

Internal organs are the worst for this.  I had liver problems (it turns out I was overdosing on legitimately prescribed allergy medications) a few years ago and thinking about what was going on in my liver was making me feel worse than what was actually wrong with my liver.  Oh, there go my feet again.  Ok, I'll stop.

Even curiouser, it's just my own bodythat makes me feel this way.  Other people's internal organs?  No problem.  Just as long as I don't think too hard about how my skin manages to keep my insides on the inside.

Weird, huh?  

xxi - Day 21 – Your job and/or schooling, in great detail

This one is probably going to be tougher than it should be.  There's the entry I wish I could be making, and the entry that I will be giving you instead.

First, the reality:

High school, well, it was high school.  I've already mentioned I had a rough time of it, and apart from the tremendous angst I feel about that time in my life, it was a pretty straight forward high school experience.  I won't make any special claims to my experience, as I'm sure others have had plenty of square peg/round hole experiences.

In a particularly nifty bit of irony, I gave up on my math classes in grade 12, successfully talking myself, my teachers, guidance counselors, and parents into believing that "I would never need this stuff".  I'll get back to this later, and you'll understand*.

I did the clichéd year of "finding myself" before enrolling in university.  In that time I participated in a government program which partnered with independent businesses to train kids in their late teens and early twenties in various disciplines.  The company I was with was in the video production business, and it was a really good experience, if not useful in a practical skills kind of way.

I slipped into university as part of a new program offered to young adults who'd been out of school for more than a year and who'd accumulated "life experience".  The requirement was to do one year of a liberal arts program to prove yourself before moving into another discipline, if you so desired.

Thus it was that I found myself in one of the great catch-all programs: psychology.  English classes, with just one exception, were my favourites in that time, even more than bio-psych, but I never really saw them leading to a place where I could afford to feed myself.  Which is too bad, because I think those would have been the classes I could have taken with enough passion to follow through with a long academic life.  I could handle being a (self) tortured artist, but a starving artist?  I can't bring myself to do it.  So, university itself was a forgettable experience, all in all.

As far as my working life is concerned, I'm doing pretty much what anyone in my position does: finds a general work type job in an office.  I've crafted a bit of a niche for myself as someone who makes things work, be it a set of numbers (*my job for 4 of the last five years involved the creation of statistical analyses and the development of equations/formulas, sometimes quite complex, in order to measure business practices) or a process, I've got a knack for making point A connect to point B in meaningful ways.  It's not a huge thing, but I get a kick out of knowing I can make things work better, faster, more efficiently.  My specialty is forcing MS Access, a tool that almost every business has ... uh ... access to, to fit into the spaces that invariably form between units of work that need doing.

Then, the fictional:

University: PhD in English Literature
Work Experience: Self-supporting novelist

It's good to dream, isn't it?

xx - Day 20 – Your morning routine, in great detail

Somewhere in the distance, through a hazy fog, there is the sound of...something irritating.  Disentangling his upper body from the mess of sheets and pillows he's created in his sleep, he flops an arm over and awkwardly hits the snooze button on his alarm clock.

Minutes later, the carefully timed alarm on his mobile phone rings its distinctly digital chime, and it too is silenced for the time being.  He slips into a semi-conscious doze until the alarm clock launches back into its cacophony.

He squints and tries to focus on the blurry red symbols he can see near the tips of his fingers, their meaning lost on him though their importance is not.  He recognizes the sound coming from the clock, now, the tinny, raspy sound of a radio station tuned just a fraction off its proper frequency.  In his current state the sound is the only thing that can cut through the haze, and like the sound of a baby crying, it demands attention on a primal level.

He begins to understand where he is, though not why he's awake, when the phone alarm rings again, and he is able to muster the clarity of thought to swipe his finger across the cold touchscreen and key in his personal password, thereby deactivating it.

The mess of bed linens, though freed of his upper body, is still wound tightly around his lower body and legs.  It takes an unpleasantly acrobatic twist to free himself and in the process swing himself over the edge of the bed, sitting with his arms to either side of him.  Now that the moment of truth no behind him, it is just a moment before he is able to stand and slowly make his way down the hall to the washroom.

He is still not fully functional, but he's been able through countless repetitions to imprint in his mind an important number in his mind: three.  There are three things he needs to do here, the thought a gleaming truth to grasp onto as he gazes, groggy, into his half-open eyes the mirror.

Teeth.  A toothbrush comes out of the cabinet next to the sink.  Toothpaste is applied, mouth opened, scrubbing begins.  His actions are haphazard and seem devoid of purpose, steps in a ritual without any knowable purpose.  The mint of the toothpaste registers sensory input.  He feels slightly more awake than before, but he's not quite awake yet.  One.

Deodorant.  Simple enough, he barely registers what he's doing before it's over.  Two.

Three.  He pauses, looking himself in the eyes again for a moment, trying to remember the third thing.  Ah, a light goes on somewhere in the back of his mind.  The faucet is still running, and this helps him remember.  A splash of cold water and suddenly his consciousness breaks free of the mist.  He washes his face and fixes his hair.  Three.  Not really, he thinks to himself, but somehow three is what sticks in his mind, and it works, even if it's really four.

From there, it's a quick trip back to the bedroom to change into his work clothes, a stop at the dining room table to pick up his keys, watch, and wallet, and then he's out the door into the morning sunlight.

xix - Day 19 – Something you regret, in great detail

You can never win or lose if you don't run the race.

By and large the things I regret most are things I didn't do.  I survived my youth with all my extremities more or less intact, and managed not to burn any major social bridges.  Even though there have been some less than stellar decisions in my past, in the end my forays into the inadvisable have all been good for a laugh or a life lesson.

My default option always seems to be "d) none of the above" in the great multiple choice questions of my life.  I can't complain too hard because I'm a pretty lucky guy.  What I have with my wife defies my ability to comprehend.  I have enough to eat, I'm capable (though not always lucky enough to be able to find) satisfaction from my work, have a safe place to live, and people that love and respect me.

It's not like I've led a completely boring or sheltered life, either.  Some friends and I threw a rave in the garage of the co-op type place (it's a complicated story) where we lived when I was in university.  I've had music played on the radio and in local clubs, made TV pilots, moved to cities hours away from home, broken bones I could never spell.

Still, there are some pretty big "what ifs" in my back story, adventures both great and small that for whatever reason I didn't choose to pursue.  On the surface, one could easily attribute these untapped opportunities to laziness, lack of discipline, timidity, or indecision, and in some cases I'm sure they've played a factor, but the reality, I think, is that I've never been ready, like I've been falling through life backwards.

So, having said all that, my biggest regret is that for a great deal of my adult life I've felt more like a spectator than a participant.

xviii - Day 18 – Your favourite birthday, in great detail

So I've skirted around some of these, for whatever reason, but I think for this one I might go ahaead and just ignore the directive. Not completely, mind you, but rather than try to find a way to fit my response into a box I can convince myself to slap the "favourite birthday" label on, I'll instead go in the opposite direction and present to you instead, my "least favourite birthday".

It was the summer of 2004, and my grandmother on my dad's side had spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital over the last year. She'd developed a strain of leukemia and the disease had progressed to the point where the predominant question was no longer "if?", and had become "when?".

This was just over a year after I'd left for Toronto, and one weekend my family decided it was time to visit her in the hospital. There had been a few close calls in the recent weeks, and the sense I got was that my father felt she was in the last stretch. "Be aware her condition could deteriorate at any moment" made the slight shift to "Be ready to leave because the call might come tomorrow".

The call came early in the week. I remember being at work, getting the call and then booking a train ticket. I travelled the following day, but the days all sort of blend together after that. Like a detective I can start at the end, and working my way through the hard facts I can piece together what happened that week. Trying harder, I could probably place every detail in its spot, but it's hard to sift through those memories, even to this day.

Anyway, I got there the day after getting the dreaded call, and whether my timing was good, or she had held on long enough to see me one last time, she knew I had come. I still remember her last words, before she let go. Then, there were a painful few days as we sat by her bedside in shifts, watching and waiting for the inevitable. It came overnight on what must have been the Thursday/Friday.

Apparently by tradition, her funeral should have been held the following Monday, which also happened to be my birthday. Thankfully we were able to bend tradition, and though there were some questions, once given an explanation everyone seemed to understand why the funeral was on Saturday instead.

On Sunday my family made a valiant attempt at a birthday celebration, which was undoubtedly the right thing to do, but we failed miserably.

xvii - Day 17 – Your favourite memory, in great detail

It was a clear, but cold, winter night. On the outskirts of the small Quebec town of Valcourt stood an indistinct lowrise apartment building. Inside, a father and his two teenaged children were visiting his mother and step-father.

The day's visit was winding down, and as his grandmother and father prepared the cozy apartment for the guests to stay the night, the grandson got ready to take the family dog out for a walk. He pulled his boots on, one by one, and then put on his coat. Before zipping it, he carefully wrapped his neck in his favourite scarf, the pattern, tan and brown argyle, contrasting against the monochrome black and grey of his pants and coat.

When he was ready he dug out a long leash, which resulted in a great deal of excitement on the part of the dog. Over the years the boy had developed a number of "tricks" that generally consisted of praising the happy puppy for doing things he would have otherwise enjoyed doing anyway, nevermind that a senior packmate seemed to get excited about them too. "Wag your tail!" was always fun, and quite easy to play, with surprisingly satisfying results for both parties.

Of all these shared little rituals, a long walk in the snow was one of his favourites. The dog loved fresh snow like nobody's business, and for the boy it was a chance to escape the world of teenaged angst for a time.

In a moment the dog's leash was on, and excited, he pulled against it, leading the boy down the short flight of stairs to ground level and out the front door. Then it was the boy's turn to lead, and he brought them around back. There in front of them a vast field of untouched snow splayed out in every direction, as far as the eye could see, interrupted only by a line of fence, or hedge, or trees, every few hundred yards. Together, they made their way through foot-deep snow, down the hill.

They were out there for a long time, the dog exploring, digging holes, searching out hidden quarry under the pristine blanket of white, his companion content to just follow along as the adventure unfolded.  Eventually, though, the chill crept into hands and feet, and it was time to head back to the warmth of the apartment.

xvi - Day 16 – Your first kiss, in great detail

Sentimentalist that I am, I don't remember my first kiss.  Neither my puppy-love grade-school version of romance first kiss which happened probably sometime in grade 5, nor the wanting-to-be-adult teenaged version of romance first kiss which would have been sometime during the summer between grades 9 and 10.

Instead, I'll offer you a tale of the night I of the first kiss that really mattered.

It was November 10th, 2001, and a long series of coincidences led me to a friend's birthday party.  This particular friend has a tendency to pop in and out of people's lives and looking back, the universe really went out of its way to get me to go to that party.  My night started at a regular haunt at the time, The Honest Lawyer, which was an odd marriage of sports bar and arcade.  Imagine, if you will, a Chuck-E-Cheese for twenty-somethings.  I had met my sister and a couple friends there for a bit of a warmup drink and to debate whether I wanted to head over to a party where I was only sure of knowing one person.

I decided to go (the alcohol helped that decision along, no doubt), and as luck would have it, there were a few other friends there, so I eased right into the party.  A friend from out of town, whom I hadn't seen since being a member of her wedding party earlier that summer, was there, and she had brought along a mutual friend of hers and the birthday girl's.  I'd met this mutual friend a few times before, the last being the aforementioned wedding, and we seemed to get along pretty well.

Anyway, before long I was recounting my eventful summer (a breakup!  new job!  new apartment!) to the two of them, and I have to admit, I may have played up the "wounded soldier" role just a bit.  I'd feel bad about this if it wasn't later brought to my attention that I was set up and never really stood a chance, anyway.  After we were all caught up, we went back to the action in the kitchen and I proceeded to have a good time with some other folks I hadn't seen in a while.

At one point, the acquaintaince got up from her chair, and it was then that I decided to make my move.  My feet were sore and I was - just maybe - feeling a little tipsy, so I decided to steal her seat.  I know, I'm a true ladies' man.  She came back and I vaguely recall shrugging and giving her a look that said, "Yeah, so?  What are you going to do about it?"

Sit in my lap is what she was going to do about it.

I wasn't having any of it and felt the appropriate response was to kiss her.  She didn't slap me, and the next few minutes are a little blurry thanks to a bit of shock and a haze of "THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER".

I must've done something right, too, because she decided to stick around.

xv - Day 15 – Your childhood, in great detail

Somewhere in North America, 1978

All was quiet in the camping grounds nestled somewhere in the Canadian countryside, in the heart of a part of the country called the Eastern Townships.  It was a balmy summer day, and a slight breeze blew through the air, carrying the invigorating scent of the great outdoors along with it.  The sun shone, hanging high in a bright blue cloudless sky.  The only perceptible sounds were those of the wilderness; an insect buzzing by or the breeze, as it picked up momentum, rustling the leaves.

That is, all was quiet, except in one corner of the campground, where an extended family had gathered for their yearly reunion.  Once again, three generations had taken up residence in this section of the grounds, sheltering themselves amongst the trees in a haphazard collection of tents and trailers.  Young and old gathered together in an informal celebration of family and togetherness.

Little did they know of the presence amongst them, a heretofore unassuming preschool boy with a light brown bowl haircut and deep sometimes-green, sometimes-hazel eyes.  Little did they know, perhaps, but wise Uncle Vud suspected, and he watched.  He watched the child who would go on to be a champion of young boys' causes: unexpected bursts of language, both fair and foul; deeds as spectacular as they were unwise; and a tireless, restless energy that would have been exhausting for his parents if this particular boy weren't also fiercely independent and strangely self-sufficient for one so young.

But one day, Uncle Vud had seen enough, and spoke, instead.  His words rang clear in the afternoon air, and all those around recognised their wit and their wisdom.  "Dangerman!," he exclaimed, "put that stick down and step away from the fire!"

And all was well with the world.

xiv - Day 14 – Where you live, in great detail

One could probably argue, from a metaphysical perspective, that because every one of our experiences is filtered by our perceptions, and that experiences are inherently devoid of meaning without an audience to assign them meaning (e.g. if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear, does it make a sound?), we all live in our own heads.  I feel, however, that I bring it to a whole other level.

Yes, I'm an introvert.  You're all shocked, I can tell.

It's not like I display any of the hallmarks or anything, right?  Hey, Wikipedia, care to back me up on this?

Introverts are people whose energy tends to expand through reflection and dwindle during interaction.

Um, ok, well, you've got me on that one.  What else?

Introverts tend to be more reserved and less outspoken in large groups.

Ok, now that does sound like me a little bit, I guess.

They often take pleasure in solitary activities such as reading, writing, drawing, tinkering, playing video games, watching movies and plays, and using computers, along with some more reserved outdoor activities such as fishing.

Uh.  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes...but!  Aha!  I don't like fishing, not even a little bit!  See, this is sounding less and less like me by the second, right?  (Hmm, my wife is giving me that look again).  Oh, all right, fine.

At least there's this:

The archetypal artist, writer, sculptor, engineer, composer, and inventor are all generally highly introverted.

So we've established that I've got the physique and the personality of a writer, this is a good start.  Now as far as I can tell, I just need the...uh...talent and discipline.  Hmm.   There isn't anything in there about introverts being inherently hard workers or naturally talented with languages.  I guess I'll just have to work on one and hope there's something to work with for the other.

Anyway, you were to pop the top of my head off, like in the old school cartoons where the top would hinge open, and sunbeams and rainbows and flowers would come streaming out, this is the scene you'd see. 

A small guy, in a comfortable and not particularly stylish suit is sitting at a desk in a richly decorated room.  Opulent isn't quite the right word, because it's not showy, but the room has a definite air of comfort and quality.  There's a thick, soft persian rug, predominantly a deep red, over the hardwood floor, the tone matching the drapery in the room, which appears to be velvet.  There are two windows in the front of the room and a pass-through opening (like you'd see in a diner) in the back, just behind the desk.  The window curtains are drawn, allowing light to stream in, but the curtains are closed over the pass-through.  The furniture in the room, a large desk, a chair and two book shelves, constructed in a simple, yet elegant style, is made of a dark red-brown mahogany.

Every once in a while a bell rings and one of two things happens.  A high pitched chime indicates a pneumatic tube cannister emerging from one of the outlets next to the desk clearly labelled "vision", "touch", "sound", "scent", or "taste".  The man at the desk has a moment to read the description on the cannister, before it is quickly whisked away by another tube which feeds into the wall behind the desk.  Alternatively, a low-pitched ringing signifies a bundle appearing on the ledge of the pass-through.  The man will turn, pick up the bundle and place it on the desk in front of him, and inspect its contents, carrying out any instructions that might be contained therein.

Appendix - Posting Schedule

November 1st is approaching fast, so with the dual purpose of getting used to writing every day and making sure the meme is done before I start in on the novel challenge, I will be posting one entry per day (including weekends) over the next two weeks.

I haven't decided on a posting schedule for November yet.  My plan is one post per day at first.  November is going to be more about cranking out straight-up word count rather than quality, so I figure you guys may as well have ringside seats.  It may settle into posts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays as we go along, depending.  If this is going to be a long term project, I'd like to try to improve on the quality, and having some time to breathe between posts is definitely in order.

We'll see.

xiii - Day 13 – Your mode of transportation, in great detail

When I need to get somewhere, I'll typically use two methods.  First I'll put on my shoes, and then I'll walk myself to public transit.

Though I'm a firm proponent of the latter, I have to admit I probably don't do enough of the former.  Not that I want it to take a lot longer for me to get places, but I could probably use more exercise.  Who knows if I've got the chops to be a good writer, but I've definitely got the physique.  At any rate, before I moved here, I was a bit spoiled by the fact that, well let's face it, I lived in a fairly small city.  A five minute walk to work, my folks lived one block over, my best friend lived literally down the hall, a main shopping strip was a 10 minute walk away.  It was pretty convenient.  Not that I got enough exercise then either, but anyway...

Here, though, it would take hours to make the daily commute on foot, which I'm not keen to do, so I ride the "better way".  My wife and I made a conscious decision to buy very near to a subway line and I have to say I don't regret the premium we paid for that convenience.  Service outages are irritating when they happen, but fortunately they're infrequent and there's enough to do at either end of my typical trips to keep me occupied while things return to normal.  I've heard tons of horror stories about short-turning streetcars, far too long delays for buses, having to wait outside forever, etc, so there are no illusions there that our system is perfect.  It is nice, though, to have a 10 minute walk either side of a 10 minute train ride into work, with an average wait of about 2-3 minutes on the platform.

Of course, my perception of what is acceptable was forged in the suburbs of the nation's capital.  You could catch an express bus every 10-15 minutes during rush hours if you were going into town in the morning or leaving town in the evening, and could expect a 30 minute wait for local service otherwise, with 2-3 transfers before you made it to your destination.  It was a bit like a wheel.  Travelling along the spokes - from the rim to the middle - was relatively painless, if sometimes long, but trying to cut across was horrible.  Oh, and let's not forget Sunday service, with a bus every 60 minutes, so kiss your afternoon goodbye if your connection is even a minute late.  In light of all this, you can understand how a 5-10 minute delay doesn't really phase me.

So, my feet and our public transit do me just fine most of the time, and for those occasions where a bit more carrying capacity or versatility is needed, we'll rent a vehicle to lug a large haul of groceries or new pieces of furniture a couple times a year.  

In the "studies in human nature" file, I still haven't been able to reconcile the $60 or so dollars it costs to rent for a weekend, which feels extravagant, against the much bigger cost of owning and maintaining our own car.  Take a step back, and sure, the hundred or so bucks we spend on a rental every year is much less than the thousand-plus it would cost to own/lease, but ohmygod, sixty bucks for the weekend, that's just too much at once.  Ahhh people-thinking.  Gotta love it.

xii - Day 12 – What’s in your bag, in great detail

And on to our next installment of "Tales of the Mundane".  

First, the bag itself: a black satchel, made of some synthetic weave with a waterproof lining, with a main compartment and a separate pocket on the front, which is emblazoned with the American School Counselor Association logo, which is actually kind of neat.  I'm quite happy with the size and shape of it - perfect for carrying a notepad (an actual paper notepad, though empty it could handle a laptop...without offering any protection).

I've sometimes heard this kind of bag called a carryall, and though I'm not sure that's actually the proper term for it, it sure is a good fit descriptively.  I've stuffed all kinds of crap in here.  It's become the de-facto, sometimes temporary, sometimes not, storage solution for anything I can fit into it when I need to get my junk off the dining room table in a hurry.  Subsequently, I've taken a lot of really weird stuff into the office with me by accident.

Now for the content.  In the main pocket of my bag right now:

• 10 utility bills (paid in full, and on time) and the associated recycling-bin fodder that comes with theim,
• various notes on well worn paper; one sheet with the 7 base open-string guitar chords arranged into typical chord progressions (like the classic I-IV-V), one list of songs, a half dozen work "to do today" checklists,
• a letter from an old friend who now lives in Japan,
• a wooden ruler, inches on one side and centimeters on the flip side, with a metal edge
• a sheet of 9" by 12" masonite, which is great as an impromptu writing board and helps the bag keep its shape,
• four months worth of expired transit passes (June, grey background; July, red-orange background; August, lavender background and September, fuschia background)
• a spare iPhone cord with AC adapter,
• four small (1" or smaller) worn scraps of paper,
• one dime,
• and one 1/2" binder clip.

In the front pocket:

• one Best Buy gift card worth $25, a gift from my work colleagues,
• a bag of squishy in-ear earphone covers for a pair of earphones that stopped working over a month ago,
• two pens lifted from the WWF CN tower climb that I would feel a lot worse for nicking had they ever worked, even a little bit,
• and the broken, battered remains of two hair elastics that I haven't bothered to throw away yet.

The most remarkable thing, to me at least, in all this isn't so much that my bag has a ton of random stuff in it that I've been carting to and from work for no apparent reason.  I mean, putting it down in here and looking at that list of stuff, I have no idea why I feel the need to carry it around with me.  Or, really, why I didn't toss any of the stuff on the list that rightfully constitutes garbage, opting instead to cram it back in there.  I hope it appreciates the trip in to work tomorrow!

xi - Day 11 – Your siblings, in great detail

My sister with, apparently, Al Jourgensen

 I was four years old when my sister was born. Looking back, I don't think I had any idea anything was going on until the day she was born, when suddenly, a bunch of people descended upon our house and I got to spend the day hanging off my grandmother's arm. My memories of that day all consist of trying to maneuver my way through the lower half of a crowd of adults. Oh, and cake. There was a McCain deep and delicious cake.

Our childhood was pretty normal, in a classic sitcom kind of way. Which is to say, we got on each others nerves a lot but we could dial it back if we needed to. Like the time I decked a guy who was swinging an umbrella at her. Only I was allowed to push my siter around!

In the early years, I remember her having a fondness for using my stuff. Which I guess was fine because I'm sure most of the time I had no idea. Sometimes, though, I'd get pretty upset, like the time she used a paper-craft haunted house I'd spent hours working on as a chair. Yeah, I was kind of mad. She was, like, four, though, so in retrospect maybe I should have eased up on the kid. I mean, never mind that I myself still do things that don't make any sense from time to time, like play "hide the Haagen Dasz, but not in the freezer" (it's a timed game for those of you who are curious). Anyway, my eight-year old self was pretty angry.

We got older and by the time high school came around we essentially left each other alone. That is, except to get in each other's way or participate in my family's weekly ritual of sitting in the car, parked in our driveway and arguing about where to get dinner until dad got pissed off enough to just drive somewhere, anywhere. I don't know what other older brother/younger sister relationships are usually like, but there wasn't a whole lot of intersecting interests there for the high school years.

We became pretty good friends in the university years, and I'm glad we've still got a great relationship. We've got enough in common to be able to be in the same room (not the least of which is our warped sense of humour). On top of that, we're different enough that I think our respective perspectives help shed light on things when we're in a bind and need advice or someone to talk things out with. At least I feel that way, and hopefully she doesn't mind when older brother tries to help by figuratively extend his protective arm. It's been a long time since anyone swung an umbrella at her.

x - Day 10 – What you wore today, in great detail

Today, I wore black slacks.

There is, in my estimation, a 99% chance that if you were to pick a single day, at random, out of the last...several thousand...that I would have been wearing black slacks at one point or another that day.  The odds are greater if I had to participate in any sort of gathering of people requiring some level of decorum.  And some that don't.

This information is terribly, and burningly, fascinating, I know.  But really, you can't go wrong with a decent pair of black pants.  Much like certain short hairstyles which aren't particularly stylish, I have yet to look at a photo of myself in the last decade or more and think, "what was I thinking when I got dressed that day?" 

Unfortunately I've had a ton of terrible hairdos, both my fault and that of horrible barbers.  I've found a simple solution to one of my morning dilemmas (see a future entry for more on this) - just pick out a clean pair of pants - but I suck at haircuts.  Not at tangents, though.  I'm pretty good at those.

Anyway, back to pants.  Specifically the pair of pants I wore today.

These are my favourite pants.  Normally, that would be a bit of a hedged statement, because as some of you know, wearing pants is not my natural state.  I think I get that from my dad, who has been known to go out and run errands in the middle of winter wearing shorts and dock shoes.  However, these pants are very comfortable, and unlike far too many of my other clothes, these pants fit extremely well.  They're made of a nice fabric that has just the right weight and pliability to it, and last but not least, the fabric feels nice against the skin.

Also, lest you all think I went to work today all romance-cover like (bare chested astride the bow of a pirate ship, sabre in one hand and rose in the other), I wore a slate blue button-down shirt and a pair of sensible black shoes.  Once again, I can feel the waves of interest as they flow in from the far reaches of the internet.  

ix - Day 09 – Your beliefs, in great detail

I believe the term for my Beliefs would be “Apathetic Agnosticism.”

Apathetic agnosticism (also called pragmatic agnosticism) is the view that thousands of years of debate have neither proved, nor disproved, the existence of one or more deities (gods). This view concludes that even if one or more deities exist, they do not appear to be concerned about the fate of humans. Therefore, their existence has little impact on personal human affairs and should be of little theological interest. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

I prefer "Pragmatic Agnosticism", but... whatever.  Haha.

There isn’t anywhere to go from there, really. Besides, discussing religion on the Internet is never a good idea.

The only potentially contentious* belief I hold is that there exists, somewhere in the boundless expanse of space, other civilizations.  There are just too many stars out there. From a mathematical perspective unless humans are truly unique, a thought requiring far more hubris than I can manage, the odds are good that there are other life-bearing planets.  Not only that, but that those planets harbour life forms both more advanced and less advanced than our own. (A page out of the “there’s always someone bigger, or smarter, or prettier than you are” book, if you will).

So, am I open to the possibility of more advanced beings out there? Sure. I figure humans know little enough about how everything works, that much the way my iPhone would scare the crap out of a first century Roman, there could be things out there that border on the god-like from our perspective. At the moment, though, they don’t seem to be paying us much attention.  Which is, again, probably for the best.  Stephen Hawking points out that first contact would probably play out more like Columbus visiting the Americas (and no, we're not the Europeans in this scenario) than it did in Star Trek.  

Other than that, I have my inclinations, but at the end of the day I'd like to believe I'm open to accepting the facts if it turns out they're wrong.


* That I'm willing to discuss in a completely open forum, anyway.