So Last Week...

Where are all the Canadians?

Last week marked the first time I neglected to post a weekly blog since December, 2010.  How can this be?  What could I possibly have been distracted by?

Two words - Team Canada.

I'm in good company.  The photograph above is a shot of HWY 401, the busiest highway in Canada, during the Team Canada Gold Medal game.  For true!

I could have posted something last week regardless.  I forgot all about it last Thursday and on Friday I had no time, what with the Canada/USA game to determine who got to play for the Gold, and the festivities that resulted as Canada, of course, won.

On Saturday I could have snuck in before the deadline with something.  Anything...But I didn't. 

I made a conscious decision not to bother.  Coming up this Spring I'll be gone for 2 weeks and I won't be able to post at that time.  And again I'll be incommunicado come June/July.  Plus probably for some time next January.  You may have noticed that I broke tradition this year by not writing a "mission statement" or any resolutions this January.  In other words, I made no promises.  Much like my writing for  Fruitless Pursuits, I would still like to contribute occasionally, but my priorities have shifted and a weekly column is no longer in the cards. 

It's more than just scheduling, however.  Lately, a lot of the times I feel like I am just calling in these posts.  I don't have much of anything to say and so I'm just posting for the sake of posting.  Just because I have momentum on my side. 

One of the original reasons for this blog was to give me a sense of continuity in my life...allow a way for me to look back and see how I was feeling and thinking on any given week in the distant murky past.  It's still an important consideration and of course I'm not thinking about abandoning it completely.

Maybe I can just relax a bit though?  Maybe I should only open my "mouth" when I actually have something to say? 

We are going to try that for a while and see how it goes.  Yeah.  So I'll be around....but maybe just not EVERY week....

Oh by the way...here are all the Canadians! 

Well of COURSE we won the hockey game...it's CANADA!

Go Canada 2014!

Was it only 4 years ago that I couldn't care less about hockey?  It must be...for back during the 2010 Olympics my friends bribed me to watch Team Canada play hockey with the judicious use of Chicken Wings and pitchers of BEER! 

Just that Christmas, my parents had also bought me NHL 10 for my Xbox 360...the first hockey game I'd played since good old NHL '94 back in the day.

The two events combined to make me a HOCKEY FAN!

Consequently, today's blog would be longer, but Team Canada is playing a game against Austria at noon and I want to make sure my laundry is put away before puck drop. 

Go Canada Go!

Oh, speaking of meaningless things...it's also Valentine's day.  Or as I like to remember it, the anniversary of the day that the judge officially granted my divorce!  In hindsight we all agree that the wedding was a mistake to begin with, but it still amuses me that so many celebrate with hearts, flowers, chocolate...and here I didn't think you cared!

Procrastination

I have to face the fact that I have nothing to say today. 

I've been sitting here procrastinating for about half an hour now.

It's okay.  It's February and it's been a long week.  What's to say? 

I think maybe I'll go have a nap.

Have a nice week! :)

Nuts

It's true that I'm a Nut.

It's also true that I have retreated lately into a shell.

Some might say "He just needs to come out of his shell more."

However I have noticed that Nuts which come out of shells around here are immediately devoured.

IT'S A TRAP!!!

Impressions.

1.  The sunlight streams like mercury, thin silver lines pouring through fast moving clouds.  It shines a spotlight down along the icy surface of Lake Ontario, changing colour and feel with each passing moment.

2.  In my dream I remember wrestling with him for the pistol.  A cheap, tacky looking thing, entirely chromed silver.  You could see how the shine was ruined where the serial number had been filed off. 

We grapple.  He has the gun in his hand but I have my hand over his.  I have been training for this for years, and am much stronger than he.  I force his hand to move, I force the barrel of the gun up to his face.  I make him look into the eye of his own gun. 

She lies in the corner on too many pills, unaware or else indifferent.  Her lips are blue.  

The police will never discover that I was there.  They will call this a suicide.  Who am I to disagree?  I am not worried.  It's not the first time I've dreamt of murder.

 3.  If I can finish this thought I can take my very last pain pill.  Wash all the redness away in a blur of cottony white.  Actually, I like the pills a lot less than I thought I would and am quite grateful about the fact.  It will be nice if next week can just go back to business-as-usual.

Ice Sculpture

I was walking along this morning through the ice and wind and sun and cloud and, as per usual, my mind wandered.  I keep thinking about tomorrow's wisdom tooth surgery...I'm not worried about it at all, but it seems so strange to me to think that part of my body will be removed and left behind. 

It made me think about what is really "me".  Obviously not my teeth.

I sat on a bench in the park and looked out over the abandoned baseball diamond.  It is absolutely coated in ice...you could strap on skates and go for a spin (or a flop, if you have my skill levels).  The sun came out from behind a cloud and lit the whole field up...it was so brilliant it hurt my eyes.  A whole new reason to call it a "diamond".

For some reason, my mind turned to the creation of sculpture...how an artist will tell you that the sculpture was always there, and that by chipping away at the stone, all they are doing is revealing it. 

In some ways, I feel like that is what my life is about.  Chipping away at everything that isn't me, until finally I reveal the core of myself...as close as I can make it...

On the other hand, the ice field, while beautiful, is not what's really there.  It's a facade, a shiny cold cover to conceal what really lies beneath. 

In what strikes me as something of a contradiction, I find that I can relate.

I wonder if, while I am trying to chip away at my fallacies and reveal my true self, I am also setting myself apart from humanity.  Creating space.  Protecting myself.  Building walls?  Am I also coated in ice, showing the form of a man but concealing whatever truth may lie beneath the shiny surface? 

Layers within layers within layers.

I am warmed to find, upon announcing my pending surgery, that I have a lot of people that care about me.  People that I tend to keep at arm's length these days.  I tend to keep all people at arm's length these days.

Maybe the two thoughts are not a contradiction.  Perhaps I'll chip away at the rock underneath the ice until I find my true self and then the sun will come out and the ice facade will melt and I will be left, cold and naked and revealed...as raw and green and new as the first blades of spring grass...

Until some baseball team comes along and tramples me and we start the whole process anew.

Toronto the GOOD.

 

This morning I woke up early and took the subway all the way to Leslie Station to visit a dental surgeon and schedule an appointment to have my wisdom teeth removed! 

I touched on needing to do this in an earlier blog - I just thought it was noteworthy that I am actually going through with it!  My appointment is next Friday...

Anyway that isn't the main point of today's blog...after the dentist this morning I decided to head downtown to walk around and maybe buy myself a late birthday present or two...so I took the train down to Ossington Station and then walked from there all the way back to Yonge and Bloor.  On the way I stopped for breakfast and then at various little comic book stores and whatnot...

As I walked along Queen I spent quite some time watching the folks skate about in front of City Hall and it really made me start thinking about this city.  I often get irritated by the people of Toronto because we all so frequently exhibit what I think is just a bad attitude.  Hockey fans in T.O. might recognize it as Blue & White disease, but it doesn't JUST apply to the Leafs!  It's that mix of entitlement and lazy apathy and impatience and dissatisfaction that we Torontonians so often exhibit and it drives me nuts, ESPECIALLY since I often find myself with this very affliction.  It's nothing but negativity, plain and simple.

Well, I did not feel that way this morning!  From watching the ice skating in front of our awesome and ridiculous city hall, to shopping and people-watching while walking along Yonge street, I was filled with happiness and a real sense of pride in my city!

You know, I was born here in Toronto 37 years ago.  I have been employed by the T.T.C. in this city for nearly a decade, and I've made this city my home for over 27 years.  I was literally BRED to be a Torontonian...I have family ties going back at least 8 generations here.  Yet just today I remembered something that it's all too easy to forget in the daily grind of life in T-Dot.  Toronto is a GOOD PLACE to be.  We have a nice city here, and sometimes it's good to just walk around and notice it.  Feel some pride in the place!  It's clean and nice and beautiful and the people are mostly friendly and helpful.  

I am really happy to be here in Toronto!  From now on I'm going to try and make sure that it shows!

THIRTY-SEVEN?!?

Today is my 37th birthday.  Mike v.5.2.

Wow.  It's hard to believe.  I'm not really sure how I feel about that.

37 years old. 

I'm not doing anything today.  I had some plans, but for the last week I've been fighting off a wickedly tenacious virus and even as I type this I still feel dizzy and sluggish and not-quite-here.  Usually once I start taking anti-biotics I start to feel better within 48 hours, but in this case it's been 96 hours and...wellll.....

Although I have to admit I feel better so far today than I did yesterday....and yesterday was better than the days before it.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll be fine, because either way Saturday it's back-to-work and enough of this lying around!

SO...37.

This has been a strange year for me.  I've never had a year where I've felt more in-between.  All of 2013 was about trying to deal with the emotional fall-out of what came before and trying to gather my resources and prepare my universe for whatever happens next.  Very little actually HAPPENED to me in 2013.

I spent a lot of time in my apartment and as a result I made my apartment a much nicer place to spend a lot of time in.

I spent a lot of time both up North at the cottage and here in the city sitting by myself next to a lake with a guitar.

I spent alot of time alone and a lot of time just walking around, thinking about myself, my life, who I am and what I want...annnd I came up with as many questions as I did answers.  Mostly I learned that I really like spending time by myself, even if it's lonely.

But what about the future?  What will 2014 hold?  What of...37?

I think that there are big changes coming in the future.  Not just in my life, but in the whole world.  It seems like things are ripe for change and though no-one really knows what that change will be, there's an air of quiet expectation.  Things are going to be different in the future...

Better?  Worse?  I dunno.  But different.

37.  Who woulda thought?