Category: Introspection

There are things you have to do in life. Things you don’t want to do, but you just bite the bullet and push on through. Things like…oh you know, interacting with people. Especially people with whom you have little to nothing in common. I have to do this at work, and this week I had to do it at Marlo’s work. Marlo asked me to come to her office Christmas party. I pretty much knew what it would be like, and it lived up to my expectations. At the best of times I have troubles with crowds. I wouldn’t say that I’m ochlophobic, I don’t really fear crowds, I just get tense and quiet and close up in large groups. Or even small groups. I’m much better one on one, generally speaking.

I don’t know what to do with myself in social situations. This is why I suck at schmoozing and will probably only get so far in the entertainment industry (if I haven’t already peaked). I was 15 minutes early for the party, and the first thing I did after I showed up and was greeted by Marlo was grabbed a candy cane, so that I would have something to do with my hands and my mouth. I pretty much spent the entire party eating, until I started to feel sick. We mostly spent the party at Marlo’s work area or moving from room to room quickly and with purpose. When I went to the bathroom, I felt a tremendous pressure temporarily relieved, and I don’t mean from my bladder. I have to imagine most people have felt the the same way at some time or another – leaving a crowded, noisy room, closing the door behind you into this quiet, intimate space – leaning against the wall and breathing out a massive sigh. I know Marlo feels the same way. If she didn’t have to be there, she wouldn’t have been. I didn’t have to be there, but the fact is I care deeply for Marlo and in the big picture it’s a minor inconvenience. Like I say, it’s something we all have to do. I would certainly support her in more ways than to weather a few hours of discomfort at a party with lots of free food, and be happy to do it.

The irony is, of all parties, that’s probably the kind of party that I most enjoy – the subdued, adult, hors d’oeuvred party where you can sit down and chit chat, rather than a raucous beerfest with music so loud you can’t hear anything. The problem was, I didn’t know anyone there (with the obvious exception) and I didn’t have any great motivation to get to know any of them. There were a few people that I did not find outwardly …uninviting. There were maybe a handful of people with whom I imagined I could have a conversation without trying to find the first opportunity to squirm away, but even better than following through on that was keeping to myself and to Marlo and nibbling away at chocolate and cheese until other people started to leave so that it was not indecorous that we do likewise.

Marlo says she’s socially retarded. That’s one more thing that we have in common. Solidarity!

On Friday Marlo & I had a turkey dinner at Marlo’s parents. I had written this big paragraph about how much I feel at ease with Marlo’s folks, but I must have done something when I was looking at the calendar trying to figure out what I did 4 days ago, because when I turned back everything I had written was gone. Suffice it to say that in the past I have felt uncomfortable around anyone’s parents (especially girlfriend’s) and older people in general, so it’s refreshing and wunderbar that that’s not the case with Keith and K. I also met Graeme and Amber (Marlo’s brother and his girlfriend) and they were also very nice. We discussed toilet training foibles during dinner. The food was fantastic and I sure look forward to Christmas!

We slept over on the Haida bed in the basement after watching Prisoner of Azkaban on the huge-normous TV. They have the kind of house that makes me want to sneak into the kitchen late and night and eat something forbidden. We got a ride back on Saturday and spent some time in a pet store near Marlo’s place, and I got some of that cat litter that is biodegradable. But I left it at Marlo’s because, well…ask me later. Then we came back to my place and Marlo cut my hair and dyed it black (with a hint of blue). It turned out swell and is the talk of the town. We watched Kill Bill and Enterprise and some ghost show that Stewie is taping for someone. The ghost show was terrible but Stewie was too polite to tell Marlo and me to stop constantly making fun of it.

Sunday we went for a delightful walk around the richie area south of here. We also checked out the pet stores for a new litterbox for the monster because…well, ask me later. Then Marlo went home and I drew and had an online VGG meeting to facilitate the successful organization of our gaming con Weathertop 2005!

All in all a superfun weekend. This week: gaming @ Stephane & Sheri’s!

Friends I’ve already spent time with this week:
Marlo (natch)
Stewie (natch)
Mike
Palle
Don
Pauline
Darcey (kind of)
Jamie (kind of)
Taylor

Friends I plan on spending time with this week:
Yvonne
Stephane
Sheri
Michelle
Paul
Kelly

Next week:
Kate
Theo
Jeff
Other Mike
Other Chris
Shawn
Kathryn
Adrian
Jon
Warren

Plus random or yet-to-be-planned stuff

Also people at my work thought Taylor was my brother.

Three finished drawings per day for two days is… a lot of work. Walking Marlo to the bus stop this evening is the first time I’ve been outside since Sunday.

I like trying new things. A lot of people don’t like the risk. When it comes to food – the risk is acceptable to me. I got a flyer for a new Chinese restaurant called the Varsity Grill. There were coupons on the back and the menu seemed good so I suggested to Marlo that we have it for dinner tonight, delivery-wise. It may not be the worst Chinese food I’ve ever had, but it was in the bottom five. A lot of the egg fu yung has been egg fu flung to Kodos.

I’ve tried the peanut butter Kit Kat. I’ve tried the Latte Coffee Crisp and the Caramel Coffee Crisp. All were disappointments, but I’ll keep on trying these new culinary experiments. I won’t try the “inside out” Reese Peanut Butter cups and I’ll tell you why: a regular pack contains 3 cups – the new pack contains 2 cups for the same price. Sorry Reese. There’s so many stupid new candy bar variations now – I’ve lost track of all the different Kit Kats. Oh wait – I found the website: check this out:

1931 The KIT KAT wafer bar is introduced.
2000 The KIT KAT BIG KAT/CHUNK wafer bar is introduced.
2002 KIT KAT Limited Edition White Chocolate and Dark Chocolate wafer bars are introduced.
2003 KIT KAT expands its limited edition line to include mint and orange flavors.
2004 KIT KAT BIG KAT Limited Edition White Chocolate and KIT KAT Triple Chocolate wafer bars are introduced.

Wow, look at that big gap between 1931 and 2000. How did the product manage to survive without all the gimmicky varieties for three score years and change? I don’t even see the peanut butter variety on the list, and I bet there’s a caramel one too.

They’re doing the same thing to Reese’s cups, Aero bar (I do like the orange flavoured Aero, I know Yvonne will balk), and now Coffee Crisp. I shouldn’t complain about having more variety to choose from in my snacks, but Smarties* in a bar form with white chocolate? It seems like they could be working on something better. That said, good job on the sundae flavoured Smarties, Nestle.

My American readers – our Smarties are different than yours – see here: http://www.bewarethecheese.com/smartiepants.htm

While I’ve been drawing I’ve been:

Dubbing Clone High for Jordan & Tara.
Finishing off mixed tapes.
Listening to a lot of my old tapes made years ago, including tapes of “Laugh Tracks” recorded from the radio in the mid ’80s, and the Shuffle Demons.

I’ve said it before. Having too much work to do is troublesome. It’s causing problems. I feel like I’ve been neglecting my friends. Since I got my new day job shortly after I started dating Marlo, it’s probably pretty easy for the other people in my life to think that I’m spending all my time with my new girlfriend at the expense of my other friendships. The truth is, the reason Marlo gets so much time with me is because she comes over and sits on the couch watching TV while I basically ignore her – plugging away at (what I like to call) my first job: drawing. This is not the optimum way to spend time with one’s sweetheart, and I feel bad about it.

But…
It is amazing to think that at any time I can go up to Marlo and touch her hand or steal a kiss. I never want to take that for granted. I have always cared for Marlo, and with each passing day I love her more than ever before. Which is lots. At my day job, every day, I write a letter to her during my breaks. We talked for hours last night. Marlo makes my depressing day job sufferable, and every day that I know I’m going to see her later puts a spring in my step. The longest relationship I’ve had was 2 years. I hope Marlo stays with me until I die. And I hope we die at exactly the same time. But I hope it’s not tomorrow.

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
– George Bernard Shaw

One of the many many many books I see on a daily basis is “How to be a Canadian.” My cynicism meter shot right up and the first thing I answered (yes, I talk to the books) is – “be born in Canada, or immigrate.” Of course the book isn’t how to become a citizen of Canada, but about Canadian culture. My problem is with Canadian stereotypes, in the same way I have problems with any cultural or country stereotypes. I don’t drink beer, I dislike hockey. I spend more time looking at American politics than I do Canadian. But I’m a still a Canadian. There are peace-loving, hippie Canadians, there are warmongering naziesque Canadians. There are nice Canadians, there are asshole Canadians. There are Canadians out there in third world countries who are healing the sick and feeding the hungry. There are also Canadians that blow things and people up in the name of religion or whathaveyou. There are good things and there are bad things about every individual who is by definition Canadian. I think identifying yourself with a group of people because you were born in the same country is silly, and outdated. The race to a peaceful future is not a team sport. Nobody wins by wearing matching jerseys and waving flags around. That serves to alienate everyone who isn’t wearing your jersey and waving your flag, and it brings out the worst kind of competitiveness – the global kind; the 1980’s America vs Russia kind. There are more positive, useful things to pride yourself in other than the flag you share with X million people whom you do not know. If you need to be proud of something – be proud of the good things* that you yourself do that make this world a better place; of the happiness you bring to your friends and family*; of healing the sick, teaching the young, bringing art and literature into the world, etc.

See how I turned that negative cynicism into something warm and mushy? I planned that.

* where applicable.

Have I mentioned this already?

A little while ago I deleted my friendster account. I never liked friendster, really. Sometimes I hated it. It was novel at first. One thing that especially irked me was the people who have over 100 people on their ‘friends’ list. I guess different people use it for different things. I chose to take the ‘friends’ in frienster literally. I had a policy where if I didn’t actually see you regularly, or if you weren’t in Vancouver – basically if you weren’t actually my friend – I wouldn’t approve your ‘friendship’ request. To me friendster is mostly a thinly veiled dating service. Why would it be used for anything else, when any decent email program has an address book that you can just make a ‘friends’ entry for your bulk emails? When I did occasionally visit the friendster website, which was primarily when I got an email saying that I had a message (it would be too easy for friendster just to forward the actual message to me), sometimes I would check the ‘gallery’ to see if any of my friends had friends of friends who were single. Nothing ever came of it – I never emailed someone to say “hey – you don’t know me, but you do know John who knows Sally who knows me, so hey…how about a date, huh?”

I was a violent child. I pushed kids off bikes. I kicked a girl in the crotch. I used to get in bouts with my brother, though most of the time I was taunting him and then running away from him around the table or locking myself in the bathroom. I also tried to kiss a lot of kids – and that’s the worst violence of all. But now, post-puberty, I am a pacifist/coward. Violence scares me. Not movie violence – when it’s not gratuitous it’s fine, sometimes even cool; cartoon violence cool and funny. And I think that people who can’t tell the difference between fictional violence and real violence have something wrong with their respective brains. In D&D whenever a player character kills a monster, I am occasionally quite graphic with descriptions of, say, gore spraying across your face as the weight of your sword slices through the neck of your opponent.

I’m sure everyone has their own history of violence. Jon was telling me about how he used to go to bars in Surrey and get drunk and pick fights. The telling of the story was hilarious, the horror insulated by time. Looking back on my youth, I can both laugh and cringe at my own antics. I definitely took more lumps than I gave out, over the years, and my only scars are from animals and accidents with glass and nails. I can’t remember the last time I actually hit somebody on purpose, with meaning. It must have been elementary school – almost 20 years ago. I remember shoving my second girlfriend hard enough that she fell down (in a grocery store, no less – I was 19 or 20 at the time), but holy crap did I ever weep about that and beg for forgiveness shortly after (she forgave me easily and I’m thankful for that). I can’t imagine any circumstance in which I would want to inflict violence on another human being. I sometimes doubt if I’d be capable of it, but I think in certain stressful situations, I could surprise myself. I hope that if Marlo was being raped I wouldn’t just stand there yelping and throwing packing peanuts at the guy.

Personally, it boggles my mind that there is so much violence in the world; that there are people out there, right now, punching one another in the face, probably not that far from me. And worse that others are shooting and stabbing eachother. I would like to propose that that is wrong.

That is, according to Transformers the movie, the universal greeting.

Fahrenheit 9/11 is now out on DVD with 90 new minutes of footage. “These extras include never-before-seen footage outside Abu Ghraib prison, plus footage which we shot in Iraq just weeks before the invasion that clearly showed what we were in for (“Please tell America that Iraq will be their cemetery”), more words of truth from our soldiers in Iraq, and footage of Bush and Condoleezza Rice that is so frightening you will understand why the networks never showed it to you.”

Tonight is another round of free kung fu, this time downtown. If anyone is interested in coming out for our next bout, give me a shout out, lout.

Three things you may not know about the jobs I have had.

1. I worked for way too long at DeVry Greenhouses in Rosedale (Chilliwack). That’s where I learned how to say “may I please suck on your nipple” in Dutch. I think everyone I ever knew in Chilliwack worked there for at least a day. The menial labour was very rewarding. Oh no, wait – it wasn’t. What was rewarding was capturing the tree frogs that lived on the pointsettias and bringing them home to my aquarium, where I fed them crickets purchased at the pet store. They eventually all escaped, and I found one mummified behind the radiator. I kept it in a little plastic bubble for years, and I think I finally sold it at one of my birthday auctions.

2. Chris Woods and I got a job together painting a motel. Not the artistic kind of painting, the boring whitewash kind of painting. We both had long hair back then and the paint kept getting in my hair. We listened to a lot of Guns and Roses from the mechanics next door. The whole experience was dreadful beyond belief. We were there less than two weeks I believe when one day the boss didn’t show up. We never found out why, and we didn’t really care. But we did see his car outside the AA building shortly after that and we drew our own conclusions.

3. For a few weeks I had a job involving my two favourite things – liquid glue in squeeze bottles and burning plastic. We were in a warehouse with this makeshift operation constructing filters for (if I recall correctly) a sewage treatment plant. There were stacks and stacks of corrugated plastic sheets which we would pile on top of eachother and send through this furnace/grill which burned the sides so the sheets would melt together. If any spots didn’t stick, we would apply the glue and use clothes pegs to fasten the sheets together. I swear that job took 10 years off my life.