Category: Scraps

I was a new kid in a new school in a new town in Central Ontario. I was in Grade 9, my first year of high school. I’d started attending more than a few days after all the other students, so I didn’t get a locker assessment near anyone in my homeroom class—not that it mattered much. I didn’t know anyone at the school.

After a couple of weeks a student I only ever saw when he was using his locker beside me started leaving his locker open in a way which would block access to mine. Previously understood proper locker etiquette had taught me it was perfectly acceptable in that scenario to move his locker door silently and politely out of the way. As long as I didn’t push the encroaching door past the midpoint this allowed us both unimpeded and simultaneous access to our lockers. Or at least, that’s how it worked where I was from. I’d learned how to use a locker in another province, but I observed other students doing just as much without issue at my new school. It all went without saying.

This pattern of me having to move his locker door continued. I thought nothing of it as he was always at his locker first since I had longer to walk to get to mine. I assumed he was just opening up his locker with gusto and was either perfectly fine with me moving the door after the fact or oblivious to the entire situation. Either way, everything seemed fine.

Then he started pushing his locker door back toward my locker, blocking it after I’d gotten it open. The first few times I initially thought it was an accident because it would coincide with him moving things in and out of his locker. I’d give his door a little nudge if I needed to, but then he would push it back. And again, I thought it was all accidental. It was getting into heavier coat weather, and I assumed it was the locker door being brushed by bulkier material. But no—it was becoming a regular occurrence. Even though there was clearly enough space for both our lockers to be used at the same time, he was making it clear there was only space for him to use his locker on his time.

To reinforce this he started standing closer to my locker while his was open. He’d move a bit out of the way when he noticed I was there, just enough so I could still get to mine. But then the next day he’d move closer. And then a little closer the day after that. He’d also started moving a little bit less out of my way as well, all while continuing to push his locker door back toward me whenever he could. I would keep returning his door to the midpoint, as per proper locker etiquette, but it was all or whatever he could get as far as he was concerned. There was no midpoint to be had.

This went on and on, day after day. And I said nothing. But I told myself I didn’t really need to. Aside from the bizarre back and forth with his locker door and peculiar personal space power play, I could still get what I needed in and out of my locker. And besides, previous experiences with school administrations and difficult students had taught me not to waste my time by talking about it—the schools I went to generally didn’t give a shit about stuff like that, and I wasn’t stupid enough to out myself at this school by saying something and expect the result to be any different.

However, I broke my silence the day I found him standing directly in front of my locker.

“‘Scuse me,” I said. “Gotta get to my locker.”

I gestured in a pointing a manner, as if he might have been unaware my locker was beside his after all this time. He slowly moved out the way, but only after pausing just long enough for me to think he wasn’t going to. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at me as he kept talking with his friends.

He repeated this new behaviour over the next few days—but each time he took just that much longer to start moving, and moved just that much slower once he did. I knew what was coming by this point. One day he wasn’t going to move.

That day arrived with a twist. He’d opened his locker, blocking mine with the door as before, but instead of standing in my way, he was leaning on my locker with his back against the open door of his. I walked up to him as he posed. His legs were crossed at his ankles, his arms folded at his chest.

“Hey—gotta get to my locker. If you could… please,” I said, pointing pointlessly.

Nothing.

“Come on, man. I just wanna grab my lunch.”

He stared through me. Silence.

I stared back at him. My eyes made the request one more time, with a subtextual I’ve had enough thrown in as a warning. This had now been going in some form or another for almost two months.

No motion.

I moved fast. Without breaking my gaze I grabbed him by his collar and twisted the fabric up in my hand, yanking him by his shirt toward me as I stepped back. He lost his balance as I pulled us together. Using my other hand I flung his locker door out of my way. It crashed shut just before I used my entire body to slam him back up against the row of lockers. I broke eye contact as his head bounced off the metal doors with a thud.

He said nothing. He did nothing. And no one else in the hall seemed to notice.

I let go of his shirt, opened my locker, emptied its contents into my backpack, took my lock, and left.

I walked to the office to request a new locker. There was one available near the library, convenient as I would spend all my free time there. It was a locker at the end of a row as well—with plenty of room to share between me and my new locker neighbour, a neighbour who understood proper locker etiquette.

I never saw the other student again.

I’m about half‐way through entering the paper notes I’d mentioned in a previous post into my computer. It’s taken longer than I’d hoped because I’m really good at finding other projects I’m equally interested in doing—but I’m also being kinder to myself when it comes to indulging in those projects: it’s all going to get done in the end, so I might as well enjoy my varied interests and not lament them.

Two themes have emerged so far: one is I’m certain it’s possible to talk to our own language through itself with us playing the parts of metaphor, and two—I’m certain as a result there is a battle taking place within English—and other languages I’m betting—as whatever part in our respective metaphor we’re playing struggles to be understood, acknowledged, nurtured, or destroyed… It’ll make for a compelling whatever it will end up being whenever it ends up being it. At this rate it might be years before I’m done. Or maybe one day I’ll sit down and bang it out in a few weeks.

Either way, I’m keeping at it.

Today’s featured image is a cameraphone shot from where I work. It’s the end of the night so the main lights are off, and for the moment the only illumination of the warehouse is spilling out from a motion‐activated light kept on a different circuit. It will be off in about fifteen minutes once we’ve left.

What I like about this picture is how ripe it is for interpretation: a sea of black darkness with an oasis of pure light off in the distance… salvation awaits, just head to the light… it’ll be okay, just head to the light… Straight out of myth: the catch‐all solution for when things are going off the rails.

And that’s all fine and good, but in this case, that light leads you to one of the warehouse’s bathrooms, where the only way out is through the pipes. What you actually want is the shadowy door to the left of the light—yes it’s still in the darkness, but it’s also clearly marked EXIT and is the only way out of the building pictured in this photograph. Sometimes the way out feels off the beaten path, but that is the power of misguided myth: head to the light—yes. But don’t forget to read the signs as well.

What I also like about this picture is it’s now an impossible picture. Taken months ago at work, this view no longer exists as renovations within the warehouse have placed a wall between where I was standing when I took the photo and the other side of the building.

There would be only darkness if I were to take this picture again today.

As the battle within our language and culture and selves plays out, we must be aware of the changing world around us as well. It is the main event, and our now clearly marked exits from the darkness may not be there again tomorrow if we remain motionless.

I’ve been trying to post a few posts now for a few weeks, and what happens is I start them, get interrupted—usually by having to go to work—and then they sit unfinished because I’ve started a new day, with a new train of thought, and truth be told, I’ve usually dreamt out the remainder of the post while I was sleeping, so I’m not really left with any real desire to finish writing it because I’ve just finished living it. I have to force myself to write, and that’s not good, because this is supposed to be what I want to do. And I can’t keep writing about how I’m not writing because that’s boring for the reader and self‐serving for the writer.

What I’ve concluded is I’ve managed to write myself into a corner—the expectation I’ve placed on my larger writing project eventually coming together from the chaotic mess of my smaller ones seeming less and less like reality and more and more like a rehearsed explanation to myself about why I’m not finished.

That doesn’t sound like you. Or me.

No—I can see right through it. I doubt myself. I see my own doubt, it sickens me, and I turn away.

That’s a biggie. Not to seem like we’re doing just that, but what if we tried talking about something else… The title and featured image for this post—What’s that about?

It’s the name of an online world where you can walk around and build stuff and chat with your fellow onliners. It’s sort of like an unending multi‐player game but without the game portion. It’s supposed to be a place where anything and everything is possible because you build anything and everything you see yourself using graphics and code. I used to play around with it from time to time, and the other week I found a screen shot from around ten years ago on my computer of myself as an anthropomorphic blue husky resting peacefully in a hammock.

I liked the idea of Second Life, but when I looked a little closer at this world where anything and everything is possible, I found it’s only actually possible if you follow the same rules we have out here in reality, whatever that is, with regard to land, ownership, and money. There’s an in‐game currency which you can trade American dollars for. As a result there’s an entire little economy running inside the game. That land my hammock is on was given to me by a friend of mine who’d bought some land in the game and let me use some of it to do whatever on. He used what land was left to build a house with a couch and a big TV in it for himself. Sometimes I would see him in the house watching TV—actual TV streamed into the game.

Just like in real life.

Yeah, well that’s what I didn’t get. He already had a TV and a house and a job and a pile of money. Why have a world where anything is possible and use it to build things you already have and then do things things you already do? Why would you have a world in there where anything is possible and end up having to go through all the same rigmarole you do out here? It reminded me of jobs I’d work at where I’d be asked to think outside the box, I’d do just that, and they’d freak out—I only realized after the fact what they really wanted was the same box that was already for sale dressed up as a new box to sell.

Some people are comfortable in their boxes.

I get that—I do. I totally get that. What I don’t get is… I understand why some people like their boxes. I’m not trying to do anything to them. What I don’t get is why those same people then get freaked out when I’m happy with another one. Or none at all. I may as well have set up a real hammock in a real field because the reaction I got in the game was the same as I’d imagine I’d get in real life: What’s wrong with you?

What is wrong with you?

Nothing—except maybe for always being aware there’s going to be people wondering if anything’s wrong with me.

Sounds cyclical.

It does make me a little cynical.

No—cyclical.

Say again?

Cyclical. It sounds cyclical, and—

Heh…

You’re just supposed to write. This space isn’t a book. There are no rules. It’s just your words. Make it into the second life you wished Second Life could have been. It’s your world to play in, to play with words and language and concepts. You don’t have to polish anything. It’s just you here. You and a very few others.

A very few? Is it that few?

Oh definitely. I’ve pulled the stats for this thing many times. There’s like—very little traffic. If it were an intersection a yield sign would be plenty.

I see…

All the more reason to not care how things look—it’s what you wanted. It’s where you’re going—a place where it doesn’t matter what things look like. Remember?

I was headed to a place where appearance mattered above all else—I broke free. Hey—this does remind me of the early version of this thing, where we’d talk back and forth to each other trying to figure out who was who. Did we ever figure it out?

If I remember correctly, you’re me, and I’m you—but we’re from different times.

I came back for you.

And I went forward to you.

Ah—time travel.

You’ve done this before. You’ll do it again. And don’t forget—when you get to Iceland at 4 in the morning—look up. Write about it.

Today is special—I have it off. It’s my first day off in months, and so far I’ve celebrated by enjoying a beautiful mid‐autumn afternoon walk through my neighbourhood to look at all the many colours of the leaves up in the trees and to listen to the swooshing and crunching underfoot of the ones down on the ground—so that’s why leaves are leaves, because trees stay.

I have the day off today because tomorrow I’ll be getting up even before the crack of dawn to go out on delivery with one of the drivers from work—it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now, and that’s see what it’s like on the other side of the pack, what the drivers encounter when they are making deliveries, and how what the pack team does the night before plays out for the drivers the next morning. It’s a fact‐finding mission, and I love those. They’re so… logistical.

It’s strange for me to be up and about during the day. The city is so busy by comparison to how I’ve been seeing it since spring time—and that’s mostly at night. The long autumn shadows are here. Light is changing colour. Winter is coming—one of my favourite seasons. A lot of people complain about it, and I find it strange as this is a country known around the world as a winter place. I used to be upset to hear all the negativity about winter—and I get it: cold, snow, slush, grey, darkness, it’s all there, and it’s all unpleasant, but to me it’s all the more reason to find the beauty of the season, to find those moments of perfection—the sound of a cold night, the shape and sparkle of a snowdrift, the warmth of the right coat.

After my walk I find myself back at my place with the rest of the afternoon and evening before me, the only constraint on my time being the early night I’ll need to have to be up at 5AM tomorrow morning—I don’t have to do anything, and suddenly I get why some people cannot stand the idea of not working or doing something. It’s intimidating. It’s easy to not do something when you don’t have the time. It’s actually the easiest thing in the world, to be busy that is. It’s a comfy little cocoon of rational—can’t do it! Too busy! But time to try, to attempt, to fail or succeed—terrifying.

Yet this is exactly where I wanted to be, in a place where I had some time to spend with my own personal projects. My bills are paid. There’s food in the fridge. And I’m even making some small progress in paying off debt. Fantastic, right? Yes—literally fantastic, i.e. ducking terrifying.

You’re accustomed to not having the time to succeed—you’ve been too busy surviving… But it’s okay now. You’re okay. You’ve worked hard, so now you get to be okay. And you can be more than okay—just get through the terror of it all, of looking down at the scribbles of notes in piles and having them start to make sense. You don’t have to think anymore. Just do. Take the picture. Write the words.

Our progress is limited by our ability to dispose of our waste. I'm not sure on the numbers for it all just yet, but what it boils down to is we might be able to get on with things if we stopped making so much shit.

There’s more on that page.

Why are some keyboard shortcuts the same across some applications but not others?

Why indeed—Keep going. What’s on the back of the page?

It’s a recipe for a peameal bacon split pea soup.

Yum… Write it.

But I…

Write it!

Soak overnight two cups of dried yellow split peas in six cups of water. Discard soaking water, place peas in a large pot, cover with an inch or so of fresh water, place on medium heat, and cover.

Rough chop a large sweet onion, a few celery stalks, and a couple of carrots. Sweat each in a skillet with avocado oil on medium heat and add to pot of now lightly simmering split peas. Add half a bulb of chopped garlic. Then add two to three diced potatoes.

Cube one to one and a half pounds of peameal bacon and fry until just about done, then add to soup, including all drippings.

Bring to a rapid simmer (do not ever boil soup) and reduce heat, uncover, and stir occasionally. Soup is finished when the split peas begin to break apart as you stir.

Remove one third of soup from the pot and purée remaining soup with an immersion blender. Return removed soup to pot. And add salt and pepper to taste.

Sounds delicious. Now—scrap the page. Recycle or shred or burn it. Object impermanence! On to the next page…

It's always the same shit.

Defeatist rhetoric—and unoriginal. Trash it. Next!

This is a list of the Skype accounts I can remember using.

Fascinating. Do you use Skype now?

No—I know. Trash…

What else?

People try to change the properties of light all the time—what would it feel like, for example, to be a reflection?

Curious.

It all goes on like this—little notes about bigness.

Navigate concepts in language like objects in spacetime.

See—endless…

But you’ve started. It’s less endless now.