lashings of the old ultra-violence or: the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry...

I found myself this past weekend, after a fairly heavy conversation, wandering the streets of my neighbourhood in what felt like a search for some lashings of the old ultra-violence. All I needed was a bowler hat and a cane and some poor unexpected louse to give a good lashing. Why I was filled with such thoughts, I don't know. I listened to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" over and over again until I thought my brain would burst. I walked with purpose and agitation. I clutched everything I passed in my hands. I was immensely frustrated and hugely perplexed at a very unexpected situation.

Then the sky got very dark and it started to rain so hard that the old lashings of ultra-violence were turned back at me and I took several pieces of hail to the face. I laughed at myself and finally decided to change the song. I let my mind wander and tried to think things through. Surely none of the ideas proposed had been bad ones, that was true. In fact, most of them had been good ones. But then the doubt set in. But what if it's a Steinbeck novel and our best laid plans leave me killing a mouse and then a lady and we're run out of town before we buy the farm of our dreams? What if it's the Jeffrey Eugenides Virgin Suicides version where my head's already in the oven while you're out warming the car for our getaway?

The hail stopped and the sun came out and I made it home in one piece. My inklings towards the old ultra-violence had passed and I had quelled my Steinbeckian fears momentarily. I was beginning to like the sound of saying "yes" to you, which came as a pleasant surprise, indeed.

if i had a million dollars...

I would buy a van and drive to Mexico and fill it with catrinas. Especially these ones. These are the most beautiful I've ever seen. Anyone looking to drop $800 on me? Pretty, pretty please?

good burns worth writing down...

I would just like to point out that calling someone a "dirt bag" or "dirt sandwich" is way funnier than I remembered. As is giving someone a "knuckle sandwich". Anything in a sandwich is pretty funny, well almost anything. I remember going to Mabel Lake with my dad when I was six and my dad threatened to give his shady friend Barry a knuckle sandwich after Barry cut his thumb off with the axe in a drunken attempt to chop wood. Even at five I thought that shit was pretty funny.

Just like I think toilet papering cars is funny. Sometimes I'm reminded that I'm actually only 13. Or drive-by mooning people. That's pretty funny, too. It's pretty crazy what sorts of inventive shit you can come up with being a youth in Vernon when you were underage and the only liquor stores out there were government owned meaning that you had to plan weeks in advance to get any booze.

Those were the days.

I'll bet you think this post is about you...

Well, it probably is. My mind is still reeling, so how about that?

don't ask me again...

I just gave someone the most selfless advice ever. It took everything I had to do it. Even though it was contrary to every feeling and intention in both my heart and my head. Even though the thought of it makes me want to die.

Don't ask me again, okay? Because I don't think I could tell you the truth again. I don't think I could tell you to do what feels right despite all my selfish delusions.

Et comme le vent il s’en allait. Et moi je suis réveillée. J'étais seule encore.

thank you for the music...

What can I say? Mamma Mia was everything I had hoped for and more! Cheesy "everything in Greece is perfect all the time" set. Check. Soundtrack from my gestation. Check. About ten martinis too many. Check. Mild hangover. Check. Check.

After my parents saw Mamma Mia, my life was not complete according to them, until I had seen it. I put off seeing it in London, knowing that it was coming to Calgary and I knew that if I couldn't see it with my own mother, the next best person, Glenda Ducharme, would gladly accompany me. We had a fabulous time. Anyone who thinks music can't change the world obviously hasn't seen standing room only at the Jubilee, blonde hairs, blue hairs, cell phones, oxygen tanks, all dancing in the aisles, innumerable Dancing Queens thanking ABBA for the music that surprisingly we've all grown to know and love.

An aside, well two asides actually.
1. I have a new found appreciation for my mom and her bookclub aged crew. It takes a will far far stronger than the one I currently possess to be able to sip more than one dry vodka martini without making a face and running for the toilet.
2. Waking up at 7:30am at a mom-aged sleep over to Ray Charles crooning all throughout the house, fresh squeezed juice and croissants for breakfast. This is bliss, people.

If I could, I'd retire today.

barking up the wrong tree...

Where to begin? I'm sure there's lots of necessary preamble here, but I'd much rather get straight to the point for a change. So, lately in this Beatles class I've been writing down my thoughts and questions as I go along in hopes of later discussing them with someone else who sees their relevance and resolving my numerous conundrums. The first person I asked is my go-to person. He is the person I take anything that I ponder to. I always just assume I guess that he has all the answers. Combine this unrealistic expectation with my unspeakable fear of being found out that I'm actually secretly a complete ignoramus about everything, and what do you get? You get me wound up about nothing before bed unable to sleep, persisting to some unwritten breaking point that this irrelevant issue must get resolved, and RIGHT NOW.

Then Megan came home. I asked her one simple question, to which she replied quite simply, "Well, if that had happened, the world would be a completely different place." We continued to debate the issue back and forth for a half hour or so and then I started talking about painting and her face glazed over (hopefully from lack of sleep as opposed to my grueling conversation) and something struck me.

All the cliche bullshit for the most part is true. You can't please all the people all of the time, despite my desperate attempts to do so. One cannot be expected to be well versed/even remotely interested in exactly the same things as someone else. The best we can do is find some common ground where a forum for responsible, informed waxing poetic is encouraged and very much appreciated but also where unsure but eager spectators can gain their footing and become participants in whatever capacity possible. This is the ideal set-up.

Why I didn't look to Megan for the answer to the John/Paul question from the onset is beyond me. It's questions like those that she absolutely adores from me. It's her shared passion for music that makes us such a right-on duo. She didn't even pause when she answered. She came out with both dukes up and socked me right in the eye and I liked it.

bats in the belfry...

It's a tricky question, this notion of ego-stroking. I'm not adverse to doing it, in fact quite the opposite, but it comes as such a shock when the person you'd least expect it from, fishes for it. The appropriate response would be a simple "yes" but instead, good ol' L-diggs with the proverbial foot-in-mouth disease, stammers and makes a mess of it.

Once again, I, the Queen of Verbose, was at a loss for words. What I should have said, wanted to say but couldn't was: of course, without a doubt, absolutely. I would have followed that with a "you're amazing" or a "your brilliance astounds me" but I can't say these things in person, let alone over a phone or internet connection. Does that make me mean them any less?

Do you remember when we shared tea and you told me your dreams and I had nothing to say? I was trying to remember the day as exactly and as perfectly as I could. I wanted to remember how the sunshine hit your face and how your eyes crinkle when you laugh because when would I see them again? I wanted to hide the feelings of awe and pride that must have been written all over my face. I must have appeared a fool but it doesn't matter because I will remember that day forever.

I wish I could have responded appropriately but I was too stunned. Sometimes humility just takes me by surprise and it was only upon heavier footing based in feigned modesty that I was again able to catch my breath.

wednesday malaise...

Here we are, Wednesday, the proverbial hump of the week and it feels like it. For the first time in a while I realize that the guise of "Summer" does not always mean what we build it up to mean. Yes, don't get me wrong, there is dancing the light fantastic and socializing more than one does during the school year, but the weekdays are still the weekdays and the weekend still can't come soon enough and though September is a cruel mistress, I miss her all the same. And so, where does that leave me? Work wise, interviewing and recruitment has almost come to a close, reference checks are underway (and are undoubtedly the bane of my existence), training is done (for now) and the real test comes this weekend when my program starts in realtime and the children all come out to play. So, what's with the malaise? I suppose it's just a case of the Wednesdays. I just got my pre-trip package for Spain and travel is all I can really think about right now. I hate that three month calm before the storm. Inevitable though it may be. It makes me wonder how much time is spent preparing to live versus time spent actually living. Don't feel sorry for this louse though. Wednesday precedes Thursday which in Universityland is the first day of the unofficial weekend celebrations. I think I might go somewhere exotic this weekend. Maybe the spa (too broke, scratch that) or maybe to fish with my dad. I would actually really like that last option. Fishing. With. My. Dad. I know. It must still be Wednesday.

ummm, gross or: my house looks like fear and loathing...

I came home today to find that my house looked like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. There was shit everywhere, wine glasses, hooka pipes, ash all over the floor and everything smelled skunky. Megan was nowhere to be found to throw the grapefruit in the bathtub when White Rabbit peaked.

It wasn't even a ruckus night. It was low-key. I'm reminded that it's summer and this is how we do in summer time. So, why am I so spooked about the whole thing? Why am I getting all neurotic and needy? I'm over the post-vacay "where is this all going? why are we all here? the grass is always greener" routine and now it is time to embrace full-heartedly the gong that awaits. No more neurosis. No thinking about Spain until July. No waxing poetic about days of old, of loves lost or absent members of flavours of weeks gone by.

It's time to get obliterated, as Towers would say, on whatever we can get our hands on. Time to drink in the sunshine, play in the grass, paint all the pictures I keep in my head and move on from the past year's hang-ups. This sounds like New Year's Resolutions to me. Perhaps the calendar year really starts with the June Monsoon...

No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastard will see them soon enough.

the dumbo sessions...

If Marco is out there somewhere in Cyberspace-Landia, reading blogs while avoiding work, Marco: This one is for you.

I'm sorry I passed out during Dumbo. I was zonked and thank you for just telling me what happens so that I don't have to google it or watch it again. Also, sorry about the brick/marble-filled pillow. I should already know better than to offer it to guests but the reaction still cracks me up every time. I needed the Dumbo sessions, and I needed a quasi-objective male perspective on the shambles that are my life right now. Well, that's a little dramatic, it's not really in shambles but you know what I mean. I also apologize for the chalky/ashy sheesha. Not a great first impression to make with sheesha but you get the gist.

I am so happily surprised that the Mexi-crew still reunites every so often. It's really good to have made an unexpected crew and that we haven't "killed eachother" as Voldemort would say. All in all, though it took us a year to get it together, the Dumbo sessions were a huge success. Low-key, relatively good clean fun (well, not really but who's going to tell?) and another episode at Denny's for the books.

Who's down for Robin Hood, say, this time next year?

Ticket to ride...

Why do I feel like this song is so sad? Sad lyrics but no so sad music. I'm confused but I like it. I had a ticket to ride... Was I sad? Yes, for portions of the trip, I was. Was living with you bringing me down? A little bit, yes.

And Day Tripper. Sunday driver, oh yes! To Cochrane for icecream? Check. One-way ticket, yeah! What a solid guitar riff and the tambourine is a nice touch! It took you so long to find out!

Going to nail the midterm!

why the bridge is often the best part...

Mostly because it has more variety, musically and lyrically, than the verses. This isn't always the case and we can't make stark generalizations like that, so we won't. But, on "No Reply" off "Beatles for Sale," the bridge is wicked good and guaranteed it's on the exam. Key change, check! Unexpected additional D phrase, check! More noise, check! This reminds me of a riddle that Paul used tell me about what a nose, a guitar and song have in common: all have a bridge. Silly, I know. But it took me a while.

Speaking of bridges... Riding home on my bike from the universidad after school/work I can smell summer under the bridges. When you're on a bike you go fast enough that you can only smell the scent of the river on the air, not the urine that you'd smell under the bridge if you were just standing there. Being under the bridge creates a pocket where the air blows and can't escape and the smell is just as incredible as one's first time to the ocean or the overwhelming smell of chlorine at a Las Vegas pool. This city is exquisite right now. Sunny, 31 degrees without a cloud in the sky. The river is all shades of green and blue and the city skyline takes my breath away. The geese just chill and shit wherever they feel like it. People are out and about which is a trait that I usually don't associate with this city. Cans glint in the air in peoples' rafts as they crack their river beers.

Summer came just like that. I admit that I'm getting dumber everyday that passes without some sort of academic class to attend (the Beatles doesn't really count) but the air is fresh and relatively clean. I'm going to miss Calgary. I admit it. It's been a surprisingly quick 4 year courtship. I didn't think the breakup would be bad but it might be. Ask me again when it snows in like, a week.