Progress

I finally concluded that some degree of my reluctance to surrender important writing projects to a sleep-deprived brain, was edging into the overly-cautious realm. I won’t say paranoid. And so in my fair-to-middling condition I pushed forward and finished the rewrite of Mom’s Spring is Coming kids’ story and sent it off to her.

Relatively content with that endeavor I summoned the gumption to make my way to the Cat House (home of the Scooterville Tigers) where the Scooterville Stingers junior hockey club currently reigns, and caught a game.

But first I slipped in the home team door where I was met with a hallway full of stampeding husky young hockey players. Like some kind of fat Indiana Jones I scurried head-on and ducked into an alcove just in time to let the pack pass. They then about-faced and regarded the route back. I turned to the stragglers, now at the pole position. “Do you know where I can find Ken the Reporter or Chris the Marketing Dude?”

“Never heard of them.”

“Really? They’re part of your organization. Are there any execs here at all at this time?”

“Yeah. End of the hall on your left.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s a long way. If I head there now are you guys gonna trample me to death?”

“Yes,” he stated flatly.

I made the leap that he was prodigiously gifted in the art of irony and not a young psychopath and made the trek without tragedy. I finally tracked down their VP.

“Hi. I’m with the Tigers,” I said, “The guys who stink up your dressing room in your off season.” I offered a lightning-round summary of our shared concerns and opportunities as I saw them. “I’m hoping we can have a proper chat some time.” I then accepted an invitation to attend one of their exec meetings. Primarily I hope to land them as a partner in an ongoing trivia night fund-raising enterprise I’ve been putting together.

Okay. Were getting somewhere.

Going East

“I think of it as going east,” said Cat Man. “when I choose which direction to step in any moment; which frame to enter next, knowing that as I turn the world the world turns me.”

“Nice.”

“Because for me East represents the source of my… guiding forces… according to my culture. You would give it a label that suits your own views.”

“No I like that. I’m more directly attuned to Buddhism and Hinduism then the other… philosophies. So yeah. And also the most inspiring thing that’s going on right now is following my friend, the Eloquent Potter on his journey in Cambodia and Vietnam. It’s actually one of the few motivators for me right now. I want to lose enough weight that I could travel there. I want to spend some time away from here… with people who don’t speak my language. I want to communicate primitively and not be shown a person’s menu of insanities so easily. So yeah. Going east.” 

X is for eXpress window

I pulled ahead with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching my coupon and cash.

The youth in the window wore a swoopy golf shirt, a golden arches baseball cap and a big smile. "Hey is that a Chrysler Intrepid?" he says.

"Sure is."

"My dad LOVED his Intrepid. He still talks about it."

"Yeah I know." I handed him my papers.

"Oh wait; I talked to you before about this didn't I?"

"Yep!"

"Sorry!"

"No problem. It's nice to see the same employee twice in this place for a change!" said I. "I guess things are going really well for you here."

"Ah..." he gave me an awkward grin.

"Or should I say really not well? That you're still here?"

He glanced over his shoulder before whispering "Exactly."

W is for Wavelengths

I met with Video Kid for the first time in months. We started making plans for a series of promotional videos with Scooterville Tigers players in pairs interviewing each other. I aim to provide all the necessary props and environments where they can just have fun with each other and bring out some humour. The idea is based on the Leaf to Leaf videos on youtube. I believe that potential fans need more than just a great product on the floor. We have a great team (and a strong organization to guarantee future great teams), and lacrosse by any criteria is a fast and fascinating sport but that’s not enough. Besides making Scooterville’s half-million-plus population (with pro and semi-pro teams in football, hockey, basketball, soccer and field lacrosse all competing against me) aware of us, let alone convincing them to come out and put their asses in a seat, I believe that fans need the opportunity to get to know the players as people, or at least feel that they are, in order to really build a solid fan base.

Video Kid has excellent equipment and shooting and editing skills but I don’t yet know about vision. We talked about the telling of stories, whether written or on film. I talked about their complex structures, in terms of novels, how multiple types of rhythms interact like wavelengths: writing flow; emotional resonance, the pattern of tensions building and dissipating…

I know that similar structures must exist in video but I am not experienced enough in this realm to view the accounting. Or am I? Have I actually tried?

We agree that there is too much video work worth doing for him to handle alone, and he is only ours for free for a limited time, and that I need to acquire some good equipment and get in the game.

I have put some lo-fi artsy fartsy little vids on youtube but this format won’t cut it in the realm of sports journalism.

Introducing: The Adventures of Meth Lab Mike

Chapter One: The Final Adventure!

This concludes the adventures of Meth Lab Mike.

I fucking hope.

V is for Veil

I was talking to the Eloquent Potter about issues of the mind and revealed to him one of my rather unpopular understandings which I rarely reveal: That the human race is deeply insane. And that the term "human nature" is largely a construct of flattery. It's a category of mental illnesses which are so ubiquitous we label them as something "normal" so as to preserve our illusion of collective sanity.

"Well of course," he replied. He then explained that the origin of the word nature fit with that entirely. Someone who was severely mentally handicapped was said to be "natural."

U is for Unappetizing

The last two times I purchased the pre-made panini sandwiches at Metro grocery store the bread was stale, hard, unenjoyable. Useless. The last three times I purchased the prepared roasted pork loin with rosemary they were overcooked, tough as hell, dry as a bone, practically inedible.

Yeah I know; maybe I should cook for myself. Well things are tough at our house right now and using the wreckage that was once a kitchen is not an option. I'm working on a kitchenette deal down in my lair but meanwhile...

I'm not one to complain to vendors but I'm starting to resolve to change all that. I feel like there is a disease in our society where we use our absurd privileges and wealth, not to produce greater quality but to assemble systems to fuck each other over for profit. And the result is less quality. And I feel sometimes like we allow this because we're so fucking artificial we're satisfied with the appearance of quality. Like the transactions alone are enough for us. It seems like as long as we can stick our experience on facebook (the eye of the other) it doesn't matter if the experience was solid.

I've been watching too much Kitchen Nightmares with the dual hero/anti-hero Gordon Ramsay. Every time I eat now I want to say "This is disgusting! You're not even trying! You don't even care!! You've lost your passion!!"

Oh well.

T is for Thigh

In the last couple months there have been a few brief occasions where my right thigh goes on vacation. It just seems to disengage; almost like a partially separated shoulder but really not very painful at all. It usually happens right after standing up and if I’ve already walked a stride or two it threatens to make me fall down. So far I have been lucky and had things to grab on to.

A few days ago I had several attacks the same day and they each lasted for ten to twenty minutes.

And then… Friday night on the night shift: It went on me again, this time lasting for six and a half hours. I could not leave my chair in that time. Had I needed the washroom I’d have had to roll there on my wheeled desk chair.

After five hours of this I sent an email to my bosses and the director of operations and the H.R. manager. I told them that it looked like the end of the road for me with this client. It has been a couple month since declining mobility hasn’t made my work weekends an awkward and sometimes painful ordeal.

Maybe they can offer me a different less-mobile assignment, once my leg problem is resolved. I think it may be a nerve damage or pinched nerve issue.

I’m aware I might end up on disability. I do not want this, of course, but my seven day shifts per month at the social assistance office, through new employer Poseidon Security, does not yield enough income to get by on.

Big changes may be coming. 

S is for Support

The Flaming Liberal has had a very rough go of things. Diabetes has crippled him, temporarily we believe, and knocked him out of the workforce. Christmas morning we went to the street mission for their holiday breakfast.

Pancakes with real butter and real Aunt Jemima’s Syrup, real bacon, sausages, eggs and yogurt. I think there was more but I had topped out at that point. The food was plentiful and surprisingly excellent; of better quality, quite frankly than the breakfast offerings of many Hamilton restaurants, many of which have very little business being in business.

The staff and volunteers were so sweet and gregarious and adept at meeting such a motley crew of marginalized benefactors at whatever mental landscapes they each presented; some certainly more difficult than others.

I could imagine myself among their ranks. It would be challenging. I don’t know if my physical limitations would rule me out. Certainly I am overextended enough as it is. I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

R is for Restaurant

Here’s one of my Christmas gifts to my folks this year. I love giving these. They’re creative - though this one is on the simple side. And I get something out of it too!

As for the recipients they can’t lose. They get a free meal and they also get to watch me eat. It’s like dinner and a show.

Q is for Quest

From my late teens until the current decade I was strongly motivated by instinctive desires. Overlapping that in the new millennium I was strongly motivated by very noble desires.

And now, for the first time, basically, in memory, there are no strong motivations in me. And I strongly feel that vacancy. How do I take less compelling goals and make them feel urgent enough to motivate me?

One such goal is to become travel-ready. That means weight loss. The Eloquent Potter is off now to Cambodia and Vietnam on his own five-month quest. We both need to find ourselves in various manners of speaking. I fully expect he will move there permanently before long. I will want to visit him there. The idea of a more natural environment and a language gap are so very appealing these days. And I will want to visit India. I may require a long break from this society as a last-ditch effort to maybe learn to love it again. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I have a lot of contempt to get over.

P is for Pyramid

Lately when pals ask me how I’m doing I have been a little stumped to answer this over-simple question which is understandably appropriate to ask. I ask it myself very often.

But I like to speak truthfully and thoughtfully and the truth is that things are good and other things are not so good, so… how to answer?

I think like this:

I am standing on the second or third lowest step of a great pyramid. There are many steps to get to the top. None of them are particularly easy but most are not particularly hard either. And every step is either one that I know how to climb or one that I will know how when the time comes.

At the top of the pyramid is improved health and improved productivity and the accumulation of accomplishment goals. The next few steps feel daunting though I know for sure I am capable. Inertia has been a beast but of late I have a little momentum. The main hurdle I think, through all of this, is that when I look around from down here on step two-or-three, I see nothing particularly worth looking at. And I am not convinced the view will be any better from the top.