step one - acceptance

the cyclic nature of my mind is always kicking me in the face
friction is my greatest enemy
or so I thought
until I met its addictive cousin
momentum
now I want nothing but something
something to slow me down
to take me and hold me and stick me somewhere that I fit
somewhere warm and sunny that smells nice
and has a twenty-four hour ice cream parlour
where the waitresses are all pretty in some way or another
and have nothing to offer but everything I’ve always wanted
in the form of smiles and banana splits

an hour late now

Picking up the pieces has never been so hard to do.
It’s tough when you don’t even know what hit you.
It’s harder when you realize you’ve forgotten.
It’s worse when you never do.

Walking down streets you thought you’d never been down.
Waking up and seeing a piece of yourself lying in the gutter.
Wondering why you didn’t notice it was missing.

Might as well finish this off.






Yes, it did rather bother me.

It’s time I started writing about things that make me happy again.

just peachy

Today when I awoke, the lingering lights still weighed heavily on my mind.
A different set, not a line, but a pair;
unblinking yellow, propelled through the air.

On the morrow
yesterday’s sorrow
shall be revealed
with photographic regret




On another note, Samuel L Jackson died well.

Goodnight indeed my dear friends.

outside

I took the Grange to St. Andrews,
then fled north until only members were allowed.
I climbed their wall of stones and stood upon the hill,
lighting my path with ones and zeros.
I listened to howling in the dark,
a counter-balance to the unreal tranquility of the moon,
while the stars drew pictures of memories I’d once had.
I hadn’t seen them for so very long.
I forgot they were there, just beyond the haze I’ve grown so accustomed to.
Shining jewels have no place in the city.
I want to play here too.




This line of lights is my city.
This line of lights is my home.
This line I’ve crossed, a thousand times over.


It's four-thirty in the morning, and I'm on my way back again.

summer knights

I thought we’d been over all of this. I thought we’d decided it would be for the better if we just let it die. Didn’t it all disgust you?
Or did you get infantry confused with infamy and start all over again?

I’m not perfect.
Look, now you’ve made me laugh.
I’m not perfect and I never plan to be.
I’m not perfect and I never will be.
I’m not perfect and I never want to be.

My ideal is so far removed from yours and yours and yours.
The difference is that I’ve accepted it and taken myself out of the race.
I’m not perfect, but I won’t stand in your way.
Just stop fucking around.

I thought we were past all of this. I thought we’d decided that it was a waste of time. Didn’t we say it wasn’t about pretending anymore?
Or did you get summer nights confused with nuclear winter?

Flash. Bang. Done.

sideswiped by the city lights

I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I fell in love with a girl the other day.
She was wearing a massive blonde wig that was two sizes too big, and a pair of sunglasses at night.
She caught my eye as she moved to the music.
She might have been wearing fishnet stockings, and she might have been pretty.
All that counted was that she stood out from the crowd.

I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I fell in love with a girl on the weekend.
She looked the way a girl should look; all decked out like a crazy blind man who couldn’t decide what to wear.
She caught my eye as the music moved to her.
She was doing everything that everyone else wouldn’t, and she was loving every second of it.

I wasn’t going to tell you this, but I fell in love with a girl on Saturday night.
Those aviators were all I needed. I was hers, and I didn’t even want to know her name.
She caught my eye and I caught her hand.
I said “Thank you for being you.”, and then I walked away. She stared at me as I went, and I turned to see her lips move. Her reply was lost to the music, and so was I.





To whom do I owe
these eyes and whispers
To whom do I show
what I found out there
How could I know
your voice from theirs
when memories
are so far away




.

is that tree ringing?

I’m sitting in my room with my ear to the window, and the outside feels cold and muted.
Everything enters my brain as a buzz.

I turned off all the lights so I could see the stars, but the city just keeps on glowing.
The more I yell, the brighter it seems to get.

My life is divided into piles. Every once in a while I take inventory and straighten myself out because the piles tend get really big and blend into one another, so that when I try to live around them, I trip up, and knock them around so that in the end, my life is just a mountain of collapsed junk where there was once a kind of semi-order that I at least mostly understood.
I desperately need to be sorted out and categorized.
My bedroom is my real-time metaphor for my life.
I wish I could just hire a maid.


On a side note, Zed is perfectly happy with our current arrangement. There is so much crap lying around that my room has become his own personal amusement park. There are tons of things to climb on, and random plants all over the place for him to sleep in. My blinds never close, so the sun we’ve been having has done a good job of heating the place up for him. Goodbye semi-order, hello semi-tropical.







Elongated circles leave lopsided grins,
like bicycle pedals, without any shoes.
Wires like vines, climb the mind's hesitations,
and reaching the sky, connect me via you.

interlude

Corey my friend, I apologize. Justine you crazy little fireball you, I don’t know what I was thinking. Jimmy should never have been “forthcoming”, Jimmy is here and now, and in each and every one of us. Jimmy, I salute you, and hope that this makes amends.






Upcoming shows where I expect to see you all…


System of a Down – May 13
Tickets go on sale the day before the show
(venue to be announced)
Toronto, On

The Dears – June 10
The Phoenix
Toronto, On

Matthew Good – July 16
Kee to Bala
Bala, On

Warped Tour – July 30
Molson Park
Barrie, On

an aging adventure

Another year of loud colours and bright noise has been added to my memories. Another notch in my metaphorical bedpost stands fresh and white against the grain of the wood, though I keep tabs on different occasions than the rest. It seems as though I’m two thirds of the way to the deadline.
Allow me to introduce you to a few friends of mine…



Meet Corey, Justine, and Ian, read and seen left to right. Then look down to see Mike and Sarah H.



Note the computer editing skill used to combine the best attributes of two shots where you both alternately ruined what would otherwise have been a nice couple photo. Not quite perfect, but I tried. Stripes are tricky.








Rob and Christy however, posed nicely.











If you’re the waitress from Dave and Buster’s, the salt just fell like this, I swear. Matty H had nothing to do with it. Also, e-mail me and I will hook you up with his phone number.

You all know Laura, and my drunken photographic skills didn’t do her justice, so I’m taking some artistic license on this one.



But wait, where’d Kev go?




Oh never mind, smoke-break, everyone put down your beers, we’re getting some air.








Now that we’re back, here’s Sanjeev, sitting to the right of your humble narrator. Wait, my right, your left. You’re not looking at the computer screen through a mirror by any chance, are you?

There’s a whole bunch of other fantastic people who I’d like to thank for coming out, namely Sarah H, Jenn, Melissa, and Kat. I don’t know how you managed to avoid my camera all night, but I’ll get you yet! And when I do, I’m Photoshop-ing you all to look like Santa Claus unless said photos resemble the aforementioned bikini models of my last post.

I think it’s about time that I brought out my second last companion of the night. My friends, I introduce the Dave and Buster’s Over/Under Shot.





The trick to this ingenious concoction, is the ability of the specially designed shot-glass to hold both the shot, and a chaser at the same time without the two mixing. Nothing to do but tip it back, take it down, and keep drinking ‘till it’s all gone. It’s hard liquor, without the burn.

Of all the drinks tossed my way throughout the night (which I thank everybody for most graciously), it was one of these that came out on top. A special order put in by Corey because he’s an amazing human being. He came over, wished me a happy birthday and said “Drink up my friend!”. What he failed to tell me was that the shot portion of the drink was Jägermeister. The chaser? Tequila.

Unfortunately, I must now take this time to say that we did not head out to a strip-club, as it was far too late when we left Dave and Busters. The ladies however, did not put on a show of their own either. Thus the many lap dances and skimpy bathing suits promised to me never arrived.

Fortunately, it turned out to be an insanely good time anyway. Plus, I take rain checks.

Besides, Christy won.



It’s getting rather late/early though, so I’m going to have to cut this short. I’d like to once again thank everybody for the birthday wishes; the culmination of my twentieth year couldn’t have gone better.

There’s just more friend I need to bring on out. They’re a little shy sometimes, but they’re also one of the best, which is why I saved them for last…

the colour white

Six days ago it was my birthday, and yesterday we went out to celebrate. Six minus one is five, and five times four is twenty. Twenty times three hundred sixty five and a quarter, is seven thousand three hundred and five. Seven thousand three hundred and five plus six is seven thousand three hundred and eleven. I am seven thousand three hundred and eleven days old today.

Seven three one one.

Thus we have created a seemingly meaningless set of four numbers that in actuality sums up the entirety of my life until this point.

But you wouldn’t know that without reading the paragraph above.

You would just see numbers.

How much do you want to see?

How bad do you want to see it?

What if I told you it was a hundred mile an hour race down a one-way street going the wrong way?

What if I said that this rabbit hole has no bottom, and no other side?

Would you still care to join me?