I was feeling really out of sorts yesterday. I hadn't been getting enough sleep (it's 3:52 am right now), my pols classes had been really boring, my philosophy class that I had waited on campus for hours for was cancelled, I was having trouble finishing "Don't Waste Your Life" (it's finished now), and the time spent waiting for my philosophy class was spent watching a really stupid movie (Saved). So I sat down and poured out my frustration onto the page. It's pretty dark and strange, so be forewarned.
Drowning Out the Demons
vampire, you are drowning out the demons
stay your hand
stop your unadulterated sidewalk signage
they are whores
but you are breaking up their broken homes
vampire, you refuse to look in a mirror
so look at me
so tell me you have white hands
vampire, you are burning witches every day
so burn me
just tell me that you feel the fire
vampire, it's just you now
the last suspect has just been stoned
se tell me that it's me
so roll out your guillotine
or just a kiss of death
one on either cheek
fool sitting here typing
Wednesday, 1 October 2008
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Aldergrove Rockstar Sangiovese '08
listening to Sam Roberts - Love at the End of the World (album)
I've come to a point where it's not worth my money to keep X. There's a certain amount of insurance money that I could get back and taking the bus is cheaper than paying for gas. The only problem is that I can't seem to part with X. I feel like a father who's going to sell his child because he can't afford to keep him. That just feels heartless, you have no idea.
Last week I emailed in one of the best pieces I've ever written. It was Monday night and I decided that I was going to pull an all-nighter and finish it, because I was already late. I went out and bought a 12 pack of Rockstar for the fridge and plowed my way through it. If any of you know the way that I study, you'll know that it's the worst possible way. Before I actually write a word I will do everything else that it's possible to do, and then, if I'm still awake, I'll buckle down and do what I need to do. Well, it turns out you can do a lot in one night (have you ever heard of the band Cibo Matto). Eventually, however, I started typing. I actually had a really good story lined up to write, that any other day i would have enjoyed typing, but the fact that i had to do it made it really hard. I only drank 4 of the Rockstars (I found out later that it was about double the amount that an adult can usually consume without feeling the side effects (I don't think I was doing that bad (then again, I was shaking all over on my way to school))), but at 6:15 in the morning, right before I left, I emailed in my short story. And it was brilliant. I don't like to brag about my stuff, but this was straight up good. Anyways, the point is that I am living proof that all-nighters work (although the next day I didn't wake up until both my classes were over).
Park Ranger
I've come to a point where it's not worth my money to keep X. There's a certain amount of insurance money that I could get back and taking the bus is cheaper than paying for gas. The only problem is that I can't seem to part with X. I feel like a father who's going to sell his child because he can't afford to keep him. That just feels heartless, you have no idea.
Last week I emailed in one of the best pieces I've ever written. It was Monday night and I decided that I was going to pull an all-nighter and finish it, because I was already late. I went out and bought a 12 pack of Rockstar for the fridge and plowed my way through it. If any of you know the way that I study, you'll know that it's the worst possible way. Before I actually write a word I will do everything else that it's possible to do, and then, if I'm still awake, I'll buckle down and do what I need to do. Well, it turns out you can do a lot in one night (have you ever heard of the band Cibo Matto). Eventually, however, I started typing. I actually had a really good story lined up to write, that any other day i would have enjoyed typing, but the fact that i had to do it made it really hard. I only drank 4 of the Rockstars (I found out later that it was about double the amount that an adult can usually consume without feeling the side effects (I don't think I was doing that bad (then again, I was shaking all over on my way to school))), but at 6:15 in the morning, right before I left, I emailed in my short story. And it was brilliant. I don't like to brag about my stuff, but this was straight up good. Anyways, the point is that I am living proof that all-nighters work (although the next day I didn't wake up until both my classes were over).
Park Ranger
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
RADIANT
I am radiant
a lone beacon in a dirty underground
I am radiant
white heat on the road to nowhere
flashbulb underwater
a torch in a room full of stale air
let it shine
burning bush in the desert night
I am radiant
cold reflection of shiny and bright
I am radiant
warm fire at the top of the mountain climb
lonely lighthouse
not going away with the summertime
swampwater firefly
this little light aint a candle, but I flicker and burn
I twist when the wind blows, in the tunnels I turn
runnning out of control on a highway, my high beams
slow down traffic, like burning matches slow my heartbeat
a little slow tonight for my daydreams,
but little do I know I'm like a mirror
or a nickle on the pavement
reflecting what you're saying
I am radiant
pipe smoking professor
a lone beacon in a dirty underground
I am radiant
white heat on the road to nowhere
flashbulb underwater
a torch in a room full of stale air
let it shine
burning bush in the desert night
I am radiant
cold reflection of shiny and bright
I am radiant
warm fire at the top of the mountain climb
lonely lighthouse
not going away with the summertime
swampwater firefly
this little light aint a candle, but I flicker and burn
I twist when the wind blows, in the tunnels I turn
runnning out of control on a highway, my high beams
slow down traffic, like burning matches slow my heartbeat
a little slow tonight for my daydreams,
but little do I know I'm like a mirror
or a nickle on the pavement
reflecting what you're saying
I am radiant
pipe smoking professor
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
X bites the dust
So the day before yesterday Sam f-books me about paintballing, and he asks me about the X-tra Cab. I take a day to respond, and yesterday morning I reply that it's doing well and there are no problems with it. Nice Will, real nice. So after my last class of the day I start it up and everything is tickety-boo. I notice that I've traveled a ridiculous amount on $20 worth of fuel, so I decide to tank up. When I'm at the pump, however, my resolve weakens at the thought of paying $1.47/litre and I decide to put only $20 in again. Good thing. I sit in the parking lot for a while, eating my disgusting white spot burger and fries, and when I pull out there is a strong scent of gas. However, I'm in a gas station and I just put gas in X, so it makes sense. A ways down the road, X just isn't driving quite right, the smell of gas is still present, and i have a bad feeling. However, I somehow made it all the way to the Kwantlen campus in Langley. I stop to buy a textbook at the bookstore there and when I get back to X I realize that there's a trail of gas running behind it and a little puddle sitting under the passenger side. Not good. I don't have any mechanical skills, or even any tools, so I do my best to try and find out where the leak is coming from. I can't really find it. This sucks. From there it's only 22 km to my house so I figure I can make it back and find out what's wrong once I'm there. Not true. I make it about as far as 216th and Fraser Highway before my plans really collapse. X is having serious trouble so I stop at the gas station to see what's wrong with it. I put some oil in, even though there's an 'acceptable' amount already in there. Still the same. Then I decide that there's really nothing for it but to try and make it home in any shape. I make it as far as the gas station across the street. X is having problems with throttle control, and those are problems I'm not qualified to treat. Fortunately I have the number of Clover Towing in my wallet from my last adventure in Langley. X gets towed. I am sad. I have to take the bus this morning and turn up half an hour late for class. It's like my life has been a constant downward spiral ever since Sam asked me how X was doing. People say I'm lucky, I say 'if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all'.
Park Ranger
Park Ranger
Friday, 5 September 2008
Irregularily Published News Edition Presented in Glorious Monotone
You know what the first thing I felt when I got my cast off was? Relieved... and then scared. Of course I felt relieved because I had put up with the stupid thing for a good month at least and I was finally free, but I felt scared because I felt powerless. The lower half of my leg and my foot were so weak that it was hard walking on them, my heel had lost most of its flesh so I was stepping directly on the bone which made it painful to walk. Running was out of the question and is still pretty hard. As I walked to the highway to hitchhike back to Summerland I realized that I had just lost the ability to do a whole catalogue of things associated with youthful athleticism, I felt destined to grow into a bitter old man well before my time. It was completely irrational, but it scared me.
It took me a while and I went through a series of misadventures, but I've finally made it to the coast. Driving down in the X-tra Cab proved more difficult than I thought. It was the first time I had really driven standard, I had only driven around the block a couple of times a few months back, so it felt like I was jumping into the deep end making the trip. I'm pretty sure that I've stalled it a few thousand times already, trying to get it into first. The other problem with coming down in the x-tra cab was that the alternator doesn't really work that well (I wouldn't say it's completely fried because so far it hasn't died while driving during the day). The battery died about 13 km outside of Princeton so I stood by the side of the road with my hazards on in the middle of the night and waited for about half an hour before someone stopped. It turns out they were a transmission mechanic and had a shop in town so they loaned me an extra battery and put my dead battery on charge. I spent the night in the ridiculously expensive Deers Head motel. I guess I may be spoiled having stayed in hostels, but $60 seemed pretty expensive for just one night. I should have just stayed in the truck. In the morning I bought an extra battery from the transmission mechanic and completed the trip with relatively few incidents.
I've already registered for all my courses, but I've missed the first week of classes. Not a good start, but it's not too serious of a blow and I should get back into the swing of things fairly quickly. The house is pretty cool, it's just a basement suite and my room is pretty small, but I've got enough room, it's pretty clean, fairly new, and so far I get along pretty well with my house mate.
That's pretty much the news edition of this blog, presented in glorious monotone (I never realized it was possible to type in monotone, but apparently it is). Tune in next time for more exciting adventures in the life of the
pipe smoking professor
It took me a while and I went through a series of misadventures, but I've finally made it to the coast. Driving down in the X-tra Cab proved more difficult than I thought. It was the first time I had really driven standard, I had only driven around the block a couple of times a few months back, so it felt like I was jumping into the deep end making the trip. I'm pretty sure that I've stalled it a few thousand times already, trying to get it into first. The other problem with coming down in the x-tra cab was that the alternator doesn't really work that well (I wouldn't say it's completely fried because so far it hasn't died while driving during the day). The battery died about 13 km outside of Princeton so I stood by the side of the road with my hazards on in the middle of the night and waited for about half an hour before someone stopped. It turns out they were a transmission mechanic and had a shop in town so they loaned me an extra battery and put my dead battery on charge. I spent the night in the ridiculously expensive Deers Head motel. I guess I may be spoiled having stayed in hostels, but $60 seemed pretty expensive for just one night. I should have just stayed in the truck. In the morning I bought an extra battery from the transmission mechanic and completed the trip with relatively few incidents.
I've already registered for all my courses, but I've missed the first week of classes. Not a good start, but it's not too serious of a blow and I should get back into the swing of things fairly quickly. The house is pretty cool, it's just a basement suite and my room is pretty small, but I've got enough room, it's pretty clean, fairly new, and so far I get along pretty well with my house mate.
That's pretty much the news edition of this blog, presented in glorious monotone (I never realized it was possible to type in monotone, but apparently it is). Tune in next time for more exciting adventures in the life of the
pipe smoking professor
Saturday, 23 August 2008
The Smell of Autumn
Went for a walk the other day and as soon as I got out of the door I smelled Autumn. It's just a subtle smell, but it's one of my favorites. It was overcast, but down the road there were still men out in their yards, mowing or trimming hedges. It's as though they knew what was coming and were trying to push it back, filling the air with the smell of freshly mown grass to cover the deadly scent of fall.
I do love the summer, but in the same way I like the winter, because it's a fun season. Autumn, however, is something special. In Autumn the leaves turn, you start smelling woodsmoke, there's a crispness in the air, everything is dying in the fall, but it's in passing that nature is its most beautiful. I don't subscribe to the season of spring. It's still pretty decent, especially at the end of a long cold winter, but there's not the same mystery as the Autumn.
The other part of the fall is that November is the saddest month of the entire year. September is back to school, new beginnings, a new year. October is color and fire and the joie de vivre is in everything. But November is like purgatory, everything dies in November, but we're still left waiting for the winter. It rains in November, not a warm spring rain, but a bitter rain. In the spring it's tears of joy, but in November it's tear of sadness.
So I welcome the smell of Autumn. I won't fight against it like the yardmen and lawnmowers. I'll embrace it.
smell it in the air
all the yardmen push it back
but fall is coming
I do love the summer, but in the same way I like the winter, because it's a fun season. Autumn, however, is something special. In Autumn the leaves turn, you start smelling woodsmoke, there's a crispness in the air, everything is dying in the fall, but it's in passing that nature is its most beautiful. I don't subscribe to the season of spring. It's still pretty decent, especially at the end of a long cold winter, but there's not the same mystery as the Autumn.
The other part of the fall is that November is the saddest month of the entire year. September is back to school, new beginnings, a new year. October is color and fire and the joie de vivre is in everything. But November is like purgatory, everything dies in November, but we're still left waiting for the winter. It rains in November, not a warm spring rain, but a bitter rain. In the spring it's tears of joy, but in November it's tear of sadness.
So I welcome the smell of Autumn. I won't fight against it like the yardmen and lawnmowers. I'll embrace it.
smell it in the air
all the yardmen push it back
but fall is coming
Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Dropping the Bomb
listening to K-os - Love Song
today is the anniversary of Hiroshima's destruction, nuclear style. How does one celebrate such an auspicious occasion? How indeed, one may set of fireworks or burn a mock-city, Guy Fawkes style. One might take some time, have a moment of silence. Reading Watchmen again a few days ago and realize how hard it is for me to take a position on it. We grew up taught that destroying Hiroshima was the only way to end a bloody war, that it was neccessary. It's true in a way, if Hiroshima hadn't been bombed, and Nagasaki a couple of days later, the resulting casualties from the invasion of japan would have been greater than the loss of life in both cities.
listening to Nirvana - The Man Who Sold the World
That's not all we have to consider. You might call into account the deaths from radiation poisoning after the fact, you might call into account that we introduced the single worst weapon of mass destruction in history. We introduced mustard gas in the first world war and changed the face of warfare. Splitting the atom changed it again, just as radically. There's no real defence from nukes, and we're making more and better/worse ones all the time. If a nuclear war started now, at this late stage, we'd be looking at the collapse of civilization as we know it, literally a man-made doomsday. We unleashed something we didn't fully understand.
listening to Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
If we hadn't dropped the bomb we would still have nuclear weapons today, they still would have been developed, even if the Americans hadn't done it. If the war had have gone on, where would we be today, I don't know. It may have been another Vietnam. What would we have to become to win the war, what did we become? The people that would have died, would have been mostly soldiers, they knew what they were getting into. The people that did die were civilians, they were "innocent". But really, what's the difference? They're all people. We mourn them all the same. I've never really been able to fully come to terms with whether it was right or wrong, and there's always been something nagging me that says I should know. That we all should know. That if the time comes again to make that decision, that we would make the right decision. It's something we really have to understand, but it takes knowing ourselves for what we really are. It takes looking at who we are (our history defines us) and facing the fact that we may have been wrong. That we may have done something profoundly wrong. I don't know how I should celebrate, or if I should, maybe the only way to honor its history would be to search it out, to find out for ourselves if we were right or if we were wrong.
pipesmokingprofessor
today is the anniversary of Hiroshima's destruction, nuclear style. How does one celebrate such an auspicious occasion? How indeed, one may set of fireworks or burn a mock-city, Guy Fawkes style. One might take some time, have a moment of silence. Reading Watchmen again a few days ago and realize how hard it is for me to take a position on it. We grew up taught that destroying Hiroshima was the only way to end a bloody war, that it was neccessary. It's true in a way, if Hiroshima hadn't been bombed, and Nagasaki a couple of days later, the resulting casualties from the invasion of japan would have been greater than the loss of life in both cities.
listening to Nirvana - The Man Who Sold the World
That's not all we have to consider. You might call into account the deaths from radiation poisoning after the fact, you might call into account that we introduced the single worst weapon of mass destruction in history. We introduced mustard gas in the first world war and changed the face of warfare. Splitting the atom changed it again, just as radically. There's no real defence from nukes, and we're making more and better/worse ones all the time. If a nuclear war started now, at this late stage, we'd be looking at the collapse of civilization as we know it, literally a man-made doomsday. We unleashed something we didn't fully understand.
listening to Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
If we hadn't dropped the bomb we would still have nuclear weapons today, they still would have been developed, even if the Americans hadn't done it. If the war had have gone on, where would we be today, I don't know. It may have been another Vietnam. What would we have to become to win the war, what did we become? The people that would have died, would have been mostly soldiers, they knew what they were getting into. The people that did die were civilians, they were "innocent". But really, what's the difference? They're all people. We mourn them all the same. I've never really been able to fully come to terms with whether it was right or wrong, and there's always been something nagging me that says I should know. That we all should know. That if the time comes again to make that decision, that we would make the right decision. It's something we really have to understand, but it takes knowing ourselves for what we really are. It takes looking at who we are (our history defines us) and facing the fact that we may have been wrong. That we may have done something profoundly wrong. I don't know how I should celebrate, or if I should, maybe the only way to honor its history would be to search it out, to find out for ourselves if we were right or if we were wrong.
pipesmokingprofessor
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