Hey, internet

The first assignment in my first design class was to make an 8.5 x 11 bio of myself with a photo. Look!

 

Some random things I thought about while cleaning and organizing my new bedroom

(a) The new retractable Sharpie is, hands down, the best kind of Sharpie. Classic Sharpie (that is, the Sharpie you are used to) is second, and a bright orange mini Sharpie is numero trois.

(b) Sharpie is the American Apparel of markers.

(c) How is it possible than I landed a bedroom with more natural light than my bedroom at my place on Saint Paul Street?

(d) I never liked how the popular spelling of Saint Paul Street (a street in St. Catharines, the lovely city I called my home for two or three years) has two abbreviations in it and they were both the same. Thus, I often end up spelling it out completely.

(e) I want to learn to skateboard.

(f) This seemingly sudden interest in skateboard is not actually a sudden interest. I have been thinking about it for a while, but I am confident that I completely and absolutely lack the agility and ability to fall that skateboarders require. Also, very much of it has to do with the fun kinds of things you could draw on a skateboard.

(g) The drapes that came with my room are very long, velvet and chocolate brown. I make a comment about stitching them into a fine sweatsuit which was met with surprising laughter. Yet, these drapes do not look ridiculous. If I were to paint my room, I would do so as follows: the big wall on my side would be a perfect white and so would the wall with the windows. The wall that has built-in closets would be neon orange on the small section and on the inside of the closets would be black. The only remaining wall would be the same blue as the fabric of a T-shirt I own where a squid is eating a plane. The ceiling beam would be painted white or orange, I haven’t decided, but for sure I will not paint over the wood that adorns my ceilings. (Photos to follow, eventually, promise.)

(h) The carpet doesn’t match the drapes. Also, the carpets are shag carpets. (Turn this into any innuendo you please.)

(i) If I were to paint the place I just moved from, I’d probably do something with bright orange and make the rest sub-dued. Seeing as I lived with someone who likes colours more than any hipster appreciates irony, I pretty much came to the conclusion that there is not an executive decision I’d be able to make regarding that. Had that paint job actually taken place, there simply would’ve been far too much discussion and too many ideas to possibly come to a single conclusion.

(j) Had Kait and I actually painted the Sutherland Manor (that is what I am now calling it* **), my best bet is that there would be a lot of primary colours, phrases (see: insults and innuendo) painted onto the wall which would be promptly painted over when the other party noticed them, me covered in paint, and one wall left unfinished for matters of pure laziness.

(k) For a really, really long time I have wanted the ability to do two things when instant messaging people: use italics, and make the letters really huge on occasion. It’s not that I stay awake at night thinking about, but really, I could have a lot of fun with something like that. We’re 99.9% there! We have the computers made, the global network networked, all the software to send, receive, distribute and create messages at our disposal but has no one thought to give me the option to italicize something? C’mon!

(l) The last song played in the Sutherland Manor was “Do the D.A.N.C.E.” by Justice. The first song I played when I hooked up my stereo in my new place is “Bodysnatchers” by Radiohead. The next song that was played was “The Distance” by Cake.

(m) Those first two were conscious decisions. The last one was just because my iTunes was on shuffle. Great song, though.

(n) Ummm… what else?

(o) Really, now, I’m just trying to think of stuff so I make it to zed.

(p) “Zed” is way better than “zee”.

(q) Basically, when I’m trying to be funny, most of the time I am conjuring up scenarios where the phrase “wouldn’t that be crazy/odd/weird/something if that were actually true” could be put at the end of whatever I am saying, but instead it’s implied that I think that.

(r) Just like before, I now have a separate closet for my T-shirts. Everything with a collar, long sleeves or isn’t cotton goes in its own closet.

(s) The truth of the situation is that I stopped cleaning and organizing my new bedroom a long time ago. Now I’m just dicking around on my laptop listening to music, blogging/writing and talking to people on the internet. I have spent a large portion of my doing just that. I hooked up the speakers, but there are cords everywhere and the actual stereo unit is sitting on my bed. I don’t have a single poster up yet, but I do have sheets on my bed. That’s a C+ plus for effort.

(t) B-, actually. I’m a pretty easy marker.

(u) Beat this, MySpace!

(v) Today, on the bus, there was a big delay at one of the stops while someone was getting off. Or something happened, I don’t know. When I took out my earbuds to actually hear what was going on, all I heard was some lady say that she just lost her faith in humanity. I’m fine that I missed whatever I missed, but I have the feeling she is over-reacting to the situation.

(w) If you get the chance to witness a hipster brawl, by all means go witness it. Hilarious.

(x) In a perfect world, every so often you’ll hear some scraggily-voiced youth scream “Hiiiipster fiiiiiiiiiight!” and the whole town will come running. People will cheer and revel while two sauced, skinny-jeansed douches with fluffy chest hair flail their limbs around, hop (not jump) over things, almost fall down, and immediately run to their cell phone after being consoled (see: bear hug) by a friend. In a perfect world, a hipster fight would last way longer than one I saw lasted (which was about 25 seconds).

(y) At my new place there is a sign on our (big, spacious) deck that says “Warning: Bears Seen Frequently in this Area”. The beauty of the situation is that it’s half-ironic and half-informative.

(z) I started school today.

Done.

 
 
 
* Deal with it, Kribs.
** Unless you can think of something better. Personally, I didn’t put any time into coming up with that name whatsoever.

 

I am not packing up the house, I am blogging

Okay, so I went to see Radiohead (who are, apparently, fans of Helvetica).

AWESOME. Also, AWESOME.

Next,

I like the above photo. I think it’s pretty optimistic.

Also, I very much enjoy the stage of this Justice concert. They’ve got Marshalls stacked to the ceiling, an absolute fucking mess of cables and what looks to be every piece of their and their friends’ equipment, a giant glowing cross adorns the center, and their music sounds like someone plugged an amp into the clouds of heaven and blew it the fuck up. (In the interests of full disclosure: I found it via a search of “daft punk” on flickr, which will provide with a good amount of visuals.)

Furthermore, some overly-simplified things about my life:

Some more later.

 

Yes, I know.

I should post more. I have been neglecting both my blogs even though, perhaps more than ever, there are a million things I could blog about. Instead of taking 3 minutes out of my head to actually the blog post that’s been lingering in my head all day, what I have been deciding to do all summer is to skip the process of blogging altogether. And then, to top it off, I let my domain expire.

Okay, time to bring this puppy back from the dead.

Here’s hopin’.

 

This dog’s nipples are bothering me

I can’t even think right now.

I am sitting in my favourite coffee shop, in my favourite spot right beside the huge window that looks at the street, and I attempting to do various illustrations of fruit (see! I work!). Outside the window, tied nicely to a sturdy tree, is a dog with most erect nipples in the world. About 8 of them. They look like they’re about to break off, and all this dog is doing is laying on its back showing me them, basking in the sunlight with the saddest eyes in the entire world.

I am trying to distract myself with anything. Not happening. I haven’t even really been able to pay proper attention to my coffee, or my work, or even the soul crushingly attractive girl sitting to my left. All I can do is look at this stupid dog lying in the stupid sun with its stupid nipples ready to take off and leave the ridiculous confines of Earth’s atmosphere.

 

Missed connections and missed business prospects

The Niagara Region missed connections on Craigslist are something I read on occasion to keep myself mildly entertained. This one, for example, is about needles drugs and quotes what I believe to be the chorus of a George Thoroughgood song.

The really funny thing, though, is this friendly reminder: “it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests”. Although my first reaction after reading this was to contact the poster and offering to wash their car or ask if they had $10,000 to invest in my new start-up, I read this notice and realized that maybe it wouldn’t be the best idea to ask the people using needle drugs to be partially responsible for my economic well-being.

 

The last 5 years of my life in 1,755 words

From July 2003 to July 2008 (which is right now), here is a summation of my life:

In July 2003 I was preparing to quit McDonald’s and start school. In my head I wanted to, in one way or another, start a new. Already shifting from being someone I was bored with to someone I thought was pretty cool, I made some fun decisions, made a small new group of friends and started doing things I thought was a good time. The loss of a good friend amplifies all these decisions, and I head into university with a head full of steam. Here was a string of missed chances and mild regret that things couldn’t have happened another way, but now I don’t really care much about that at all.

September 2003. After about a week I realized I wanted to do something else entirely than what I thought I had gone to school for, so I adjusted and started thinking of new options. I got bored and excited at the same time. School quickly turned into something I didn’t really wanted at all, but this university deal is pretty easy, interesting, and it’s bound to be more fun sooner or later. I planned to figure it out later. I finished first year with few memories worth preserving, but there was some alright ones and some pretty fun ones. I worked in the summer, dogged around when I got home, went out, drove along the water with windows open and the stereo on, sat at the beach, lost someone else close to me, hung out with dudes in their forties, and waited for school to start.

September 2004.I move in on my own, and for a while it’s just as boring as residence - but with a shittier internet connection. I worked my ass off at school, got really into making comics, opened up, wisened up. New friends quickly hopped on board, and for the next few months it’s my first crack at living in my twenties: drinks, parties, Friday nights, Saturday mornings, long walks from weird parts of town. That night on the bus. That night after that exam. I remember taking the gross 104 bus in St. Catharines a lot. Also, I decided that I’d be going to Scotland. Then I got in. So, I worked again, hung out with the old dudes, spent less money on crap only to wait a few months and spend it all on beer months later. For the third summer in a row, I lose someone else close to me. Always in the summer.

September 2005. I land in Glasgow, Scotland, and I begin 8 months of partying, travelling and revelry. I don’t remember the end of September or any of October, for the most part. No specifics, anyway. I go to London, then back home, back to Glasgow, then to Amsterdam and Edinburgh and the Isle of Skye. In the midst of all this travel are some piss poor decisions, some really good stories, lots of good friends, and various instances where I tell myself that I should’ve known better. I come home broken and beaten, worse for wear, but I am enthusiastic yet again for school, for Niagara, and for a sweet place to live. Summer flies by and, except for some serious beach time, leisure time, driving in a car with the windows open and the stereo blasting, and Tuesday night volleyball, summer couldn’t be over quicker.

September 2006. I come into another fresh start with the same momentum as the last year, to terrible effect. An ass out of myself is made, but luckily everyone else seems to be making an ass out of themselves too. I did that one thing wrong, and that that other one, and I remember that when I said that other thing I shouldn’t have said that either. Everything went wrong, everything falls apart, but the pieces fall back in line. I confront the problem head on, I adjust, I prepare and I realize there was no need. On another end, I made her mad, and him mad, and them mad, but I thing I made other people happy, had that one party, wrote that thing, got a beer for writing that thing, got that trip for writing that thing, did some work, didn’t do more work, went to 7-11, Sheehans, Merchant. I go to the city I now call my home for the first time. I met people that I had to say goodbye to. I planned it out, figured out what I’d wanted, got involved over my head, got my job again, gained a head of steam, rushed, gained confidence, and then I just stewed, sat on my patio in the heat for a month, and, again, went to the beach. I lose someone else, gain a job, gain confidence, think clearly, do things that hurt some people, hopefully do more to help, and from this I gain more than I could have expected. I make plans for the future without knowing they will eventually happen, I go to the beach, I avoid the heat, I swim in waterfalls, I buy a camera, I house sit, I drive a car along the water, I sit at the edge of the water watching the waves crash and stare into water and whatever is out there in that scary lake, I dream, I sweat and I get excited for a good stretch.

September 2007.In a way that I could never have expected, I have an amazing 10 months. I find myself in what are by far some of the most honest and rewarding relationships of my life (the word “friendship” is frequently a term that I could use, but I don’t feel it adequately reflects anything about anything because it’s 2008 and the term is used so frequently and usually without any substance), I excelled in some things, did alright in some others, and generally did things that I didn’t expect I’d be doing even a day prior to doing them. I danced and I wrote and I watched and I moped and I dressed like a robot way too often. I stopped, started, re-started, stopped, stalled, idled and started again. I re-arranged my entire life. A few years after I thought I had, I became what I consider an adult. I ate pizza, I tie dyed and I smoked and I walked home in the middle of the night. However briefly, I went to Toronto, and to Ottawa. I got into school. I went on a picnic. I did what I consider excellent work. I planned to move. And then I moved, and said goodbye and packed my stuff and headed off. I took off, realized a new reality I was too sheepish to even want for myself and, at a particular peak that started to paint a really pretty picture for what the rest of my twenties could be, the worst possible news and the terrible loss of someone I consider to be one of my very best friends brought me down.

In a way, it looks like I reverted 5 years back.

As a list, it looks the same: I’ve yet again lost a friend, I prepare to go to a new school and here I am starting a life in a new place under new circumstances. I feel I’ve grown up more in the last 5 days than I have in the last 5 years, and that might be the case, but at least I can call myself an adult who knows what he wants in life, knows what he wants to do, and knows how he wants to do. I feel on the cusp of something that has its own momentum, which for years now hasn’t been the case.

A week or two ago, I mentioned to Kait that 18-year-old Travis would have really been impressed by 23-year-old Travis: I seem to be doing some pretty cool things, I live somewhere cool, and generally seem to do things I always saw myself doing 5 years back. But when I look back at these 5 years and think of the next 5 things, I still have no idea what to expect. Right now, as thoughts of the past and my good fortune in meeting a remarkable amount of talented, dedicated, intelligent and alarming individuals, every so often my mind shifts towards what 28-year-old Travis would think of me now.

It’s within the last year of my life that a lot of untapped happiness has been available to me and I have to say that if feels really good (even though it has never felt any worse). Surely, the next 5 years of my life looms in the ominous distance. But the future is soon to arrive, and whatever perfect or heartbreaking situation awaits, I expect the former. When I was 18-year-old I hadn’t yet experience the kind of happiness (nor the heartbreak) I now know I am capable of, but having held that overwhelming positivity in my hands and in my heart, I am motivated to live the only thing I think I’ve ever wanted. The remarkable thing about life, I am learning, is how fast things change, how quickly close bonds are formed and tragically taken away and that one person can be responsible for so much unfettered joy and laughs - even if that person was only a big part of your life for a short time. Is it possible that music sounds better just because of the person playing it? A snide or casual remark made by anyone else is just that, but coming from someone as honest and genuine as my great friend Nick Ring, even the most simple sentiments or bass lines speaks volumes more than a few words spoken on a couch or beats dropped three or four drinks into a Wednesday night. To have nothing but good memories of someone is a rarity, but I have that with my friend Nick and as I am full of sorrow that sorrow stems from an almost giddy happiness I felt every time Nick and I hung out, walked home, played video games in my apartment or talked about nonsense for hours. I have missed Nick for 2 months now and I will miss him for as long as I can imagine right now, but without specifying a belief in a single higher power, I know there is some kind of energy stemming from a great friend who forced me to bring out the best in myself that, somehow, motivates me.

May the Force be with brew.

 

 
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