Yearly Archives: 2003

The Summer Nights Alone

It’s night and I don’t feel like sleep­ing. My eyes tell me I’m tired, and my mus­cles empha­size the point. My cat is asleep under my bed, hud­dled behind the skirt, wait­ing for me to give her the chair. A night show is play­ing on the Aborigal Peoples Television Network, some small bud­get­ed pro­duc­tion host­ed by a pho­ny man with an imper­a­tive voice. The cur­rent act, a group of three women with ban­shee-like voic­es, bang on the sim­ple drums they hold as they sing quick mov­ing melod­ic lines. My room glows blue from a sin­gle Candela perched atop my desk.

I’m in an odd mood. Not quite con­tent, not quite lone­ly. I try to remain sto­ic nev­er­the­less. Sometimes it feels as if the night is the only thing that accepts, the only thing that under­stands. Can I express my mind to you, the silent ora­tor?

Perhaps I’ll fall asleep to some Portishead, a rem­nant of some pleas­ant mem­o­ries.

Unfamiliar pil­lows with unfa­mil­iar sheets.

Summer Parking Lots, Aaron's Cousins

It’s sum­mer. My favourite part may pos­si­bly be the gath­er­ing in park­ing lots as peo­ple decide where to go next before con­gre­gat­ing to their respec­tive cars. The cool night air is always refresh­ing com­pared to the bus­tle and chaos of a club, bar, or show as one steps out­side.

Colin and Elly are the nicest cou­ple ever. They’re going home in about a week, but hope­ful­ly I’ll be able to see them again when I vis­it Scotland. I had a chance to eat at Nana and Papa’s place with them yes­ter­day, and got a taste of the Scottish hos­pi­tal­i­ty, which just hap­pens to be the best I’ve ever expe­ri­enced. Nana even heats up the dish­es in the oven so that the food stays warm on ones plate. Colin and Elly tell me that the Scottish accents in the com­mer­cials here are ter­ri­bly dirty and unau­then­tic so I don’t feel so bad about the dis­gust­ing Cantonese accents peo­ple put in games now.

AFI Concert, Future Concerts, Etc.

I got back from the AFI con­cert about an hour ago, after see­ing Aaron and Wheaties off, and grab­bing a relax­ing show­er. The con­cert was decent, but that’s in com­par­i­son to see­ing my favourite band live. The light­ing was amaz­ing­ly done, with the cor­rect colours and spot­lights to match the music. Davey Havok was singing almost a semi-tone flat through most of the con­cert, so he must have been pret­ty tired. I only enjoy their last album, Sing the Sorrow, but at one point dur­ing the sum­mer I was lis­ten­ing to it to no end. Dina asked me if I thought there were any pret­ty girls walk­ing around between sets and all I could answer was “lots”.

There aren’t too many bands I feel as if I need to expe­ri­ence live. I’ve seen Tool, the Dwarves, and the Misfits live already, and those are the only bands I feel that I enjoy enough for me to attend. I would go to anoth­er Tool con­cert if they came around again, and def­i­nite­ly a Portishead show if they were ever doing one. I would be up for an Ellen Ten Damme con­cert with Darren, but unfor­tu­nate­ly she seems to only play in Europe and the UK with a few Japanese tour dates. I could go for a Dreamtheater con­cert, but I have the live DVD, so a per­son­al view­ing isn’t quite as imper­a­tive. The Dears is a pos­si­bil­i­ty, but I’d have to get more into their music before going.

I bought The Frozen Throne expan­sion for Warcraft III, and I’m impressed with it’s depth. It’s basi­cal­ly a com­plete­ly new game now, with dif­fer­ent units, heroes, and build­ings. I find that it’s much more strat­e­gy based and less focused on micro. Since I’m unem­ployed, I’ve been play­ing quite a bit with Artfag, and since she’s unem­ployed as well, there’s nev­er a chance to guilt the oth­er into look­ing for a job, which is some­thing that I’m find­ing hard to get moti­vat­ed about.

Speaking of which, I spent the last week send­ing out résumés to var­i­ous com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ment orga­ni­za­tions. I have a résumé that I’m pret­ty proud of right now, after Pat helped me fix it up. No phone calls so far.

Gag

If you could know what I know, what would you say?

Would you tell me that I’m crazy? That I think too much? That the world is upside down? Perhaps it’s all true.

Could you com­pre­hend how I feel or under­stand what I think? Would you tell me that you were sor­ry, or that I was sim­ply naive?

Sometimes it feels as if there is so much to say, so much to tell, so much to express. At what point does igno­rance become hap­pi­ness?

All I want is for you to know.