I caught Dolly daintily dabbing her paw in her water bowl and licking her paw today. I think she just likes drinking without sticking her head in something.
Aaron’s Birthday ’04
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On Saturday we ended up at the Highlander Pub, apparently the only place in the city to get good haggis, as a belated birthday celebration for Aaron. We convinced the manager, a black man in a kilt with a brow bar, to give us three tables. We took part in the homeland toast, in which the waitresses hand out free shots of scotch every day at nine and everyone drinks to the ring of a bell.
Trolley, Nick, and Aaron participated in some speed drinking competitions. None of us are heavy drinkers; rather, we’re on the heavy side of casual drinkers, so being able to down a mug as quickly as this was worthy of a OMGDIDYOUSEETHATWHERESMYPROPS?!?
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16% Win Ratio
I ended up losing all my matches yesterday. Out of 18 games, I won three. Two matches should have been easy wins, and one was tied at 2 games, 12 points. I get too nervous when I’m playing new people. I’m not quite used to the entire idea of competing, especially for rank, especially with other people depending on me. My teammates told me that it was noticeably affecting my performance because it seemed as if my shoulders were stiff and I was trying too hard. I’ll be accustomed to everything eventually.
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A Good Experience, I Tell Myself
I have another five hour league meet today. My team is matched up against two other teams of intermediate players. When I first played in the league at the beginning of the year I had no hope of beating these people, but now I’m not sure. I think that if I can concentrate well enough, and play smart enough, I’ll have a good chance. The problem is that being nervous always puts me at a disadvantage; I usually only win when I’m calm and focused. I’ve only played two of the seven players, so there’ll definitely be some styles that I’m not used to, and that’s what scares me. Either way, it’ll be good experience.
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The Zarathustra Sessions, Prologue: The Slightest Form of Egocentricity
There was this one time I was on the phone with John, when I walked through the basement hallway on Daly, past Jonathan’s drum kit, and paused at the frame of his door.
“You’re so megalomaniACal”, I told him.
“No, no, Jeff, it’s megalomaNIacal”, he curtly responded.
And I knew. And John knew. And I knew that John knew that I had simply thrown more fuel on the fire, I had somehow added to his limitless ego. I could see the smirk on his face through the phone, as if Anderson himself was there with one of his close ups in my brain.
When approaching anything new, as a human, aside from bias, there is always the danger of relating even the furthest idea to the self. Everything is subject to interpretation, of course, and I’ve always strongly believed in the importance of interpretation. However, when interpretation stretches too far, the entire learning process can become perverted, an understanding based on nothing.
An example: after the Nietzsche’s death, his sister secured the rights to his publications. She later married a leader of the german anti-Semitic movement, and made distorted publications of his works. The Nazi’s welcomed his ideas, eventually building a monument for him. Yet Nietzsche himself wrote about his strong opposition to racism, and his contrast with the German Nationalistic movement.
And such is how we, as humans, see ourselves in almost everything. I admit that at times I’m guilty of such a thing myself, when I see my life in the characters of movies, when I read my stories in other peoples books. So I start Thus Spoke Zarathustra with trepidation, with the hopeful awareness that I will be able to be open-minded in what I learn.
It’s ironic that Nietzsche had paresis when he wrote his book, and was most likely suffering from delusions of grandeur at the time, although how much it actually affected him is debatable.
Perhaps the best that one can do is to keep a work in mind as inspiration, and not as an influence.
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The Snake That Swallows Its Tail
Soul Mountain ends with the narrator convinced that God is communicating to him in the form of a frogs’ blinking eye, and that’s become my favourite part of the whole book. I always read the introduction both before I start the book and after I finish the book, and this time the introduction tied everything together in the end. I finally understood the big picture in what was a motley, slow-starting novel. I wanted to read Soul Mountain again, almost immediately after I finished it, but I decided to start on Thus Spoke Zarathustra, even though both are relevant right now.
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The Weight Barrier
Somehow, I’m at an all-time high of 117 lb. In the last three years I’ve been fluctuating between 114–115, no matter how much or how little I ate. I never even imagined that I’d break the 115 barrier, so suddenly finding out that I was this…“heavy” came as a huge surprise. I’m guessing that it’s my metabolism adjusting to being on a regular schedule of three meals a day now, on top of the extra exercise that causes me to eat like a BEAST.
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Melt In Your Mouth
Man, have I missed steak for dinner. I brought back a nice hunk of strip loin from home, seasoned it with Montreal steak spice, and pan fried it to perfection. I’ve been living off chicken and pork for the last two years, so the red meat is a nice change. I think I’ll start doing steak nights on Fridays. It’ll certainly make deciding what to have for dinner a lot easier.
A nicely cut T-bone, cooked to medium, served with potatoes and a glass of red wine. Ugh. Heaven.
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My Cat Misses Me
Ever since I came back on the weekend, when Dolly was home all alone, she’s been especially affectionate to me. Before she would sleep on my chair at night, but now she tries to sleep on my pillow by leaning on my head, or crawl under the covers to sleep on my chest. Even though I keep getting woken up, I hope she keeps it up.
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A Few Movies…
School of Rock was very well done and very enjoyable.
Lost in Translation was great. Everything about the film was successful, but I especially enjoyed the subtleness. The direction was perfect, in how underplayed and minimalistic it made everything seem. I wasn’t truly impressed though until I found out that Sophia Coppola wrote the script as well. Bill Murray was made for the part, but everyone else was satisfactory. The entire movie felt to me like a simple glimpse into the chance interaction of two people, and it began as gently as it ended. The audience is left as an observer, which made everything all the more believable to me. I interpreted the story as the interaction of two people, who are at two completely different points in their lives. As a result, their communication becomes jumbled. Lost in translation. They discuss the same things, but they’re not quite saying the same things. The resolution came from the end, when both people recognized the relationship they had, and it was as far as it should have gone. Anything else would have seemed ridiculous. I think it was an overrated movie, but definitely one that deserves a healthy, generous amount of praise.
As for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind…
I’m at a loss for words. The entire experience was almost completely ineffable. I laughed. I cried. I got goosebumps. I melted. A complete masterpiece, and the one of the most poignant films I’ve ever seen, although I’m partially biased due to my current circumstances. Where the Gondry/Kaufman duo failed in Human Nature due to an unsupportive script and resulting superfluous directing, this film has completely succeeded. A movie I will be buying. A movie I will be watching over and over again. A movie that would have changed my life had I not already come to the same conclusion a few months earlier.
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Anti-Kosher
So I’m having dim sum with John and a cart with pigs red comes along. My father explains to him that it’s a soup made from the blood of a pig, with added onions and other vegetables. With a nonchalant look of surprise, he says, “Essence of pig. That’s definitely not kosher.”
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Bus Buddy
Met someone on the bus back who has some odd coincidences with me. Both of us are Scorpios, and reading books written by authors who won Nobel Prizes in Literature within two years of each other. The person who started at her work around the same time I started at my work ended up being the person I replaced at my current job. Our fathers also both went through their midlife crises in the last two years. Both bought Japanese motorcycles, then bought Porches. Both were Boxters and silver.
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Salt And Pepper
I keep finding new white hairs on my head. I’m starting to go slightly grey on the sides like my father, although he started at 15. My hair is still very thick though, while his has thinned significantly. Some see the thick hair as a good thing, but I see it mostly as a hassle. If I don’t condition, it turns coarse. Aaron jokes that it’s my mane, as if girls grab onto it to control me during sex.
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Quick Weekend Trip
I’ve decided to take a trip home today. It’ll just be for the weekend since I have to work on Monday. John has said that I get to decide on plans for the two days we’ll be hanging out. The only sure thing so far is that we’ll be watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Jim Carrey in the starring role, Kate Winslet as his attractive girlfriend, written by Charlie Kaufman, how can we not see it
I’ll be taking a single change of clothes home with me, and hopefully bringing back a few more. Ahh, the luxuries of money.
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