Hi David.

Thank you for your interest and I'm sure we can work out something. I
don't do phone interviews and email interviews feel like the worst
sort of homework assignment so ...we could do something in person.
I'm based out of Vancouver but travel frequently, so things would have
to be scheduled in advance. Life is always busy, so I can't say that
one time is better than another. Your call.
Give me a shout any time at this email address,
Doug

So I didn't dream it. Good.

Yesterday I read Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians, a pretty violent and emotional book that seems almost ripped from space and time given its hesitance to identify where and when the events are taking place. I need to plow through Othello today and get some shorter essays read. My parents' shower is being re-grouted so I have to take a bath. Thankfully they have one that shoots jetstreams.

I made it out to Chumleigh's and picked up a copy of Hot Fuzz along with Pure's Feverish and a Matthew Jay single. After dinner I went out for a drink with my siblings at Mexicali Rosa's for some hangout time. My brother told me this huge plan he has to "financially stabilize a country" by the time he's in his 60's. He has some big ideas, which is good for a young guy like him to have. He just needs to apply himself and finally take the step to go to school.

I stayed up late finishing off Coetzee while watching Offbeat Cinema, which was screening The Wild Ride with Jack Nicholson. I finished the book a little after 3:30 and couldn't bring myself to stay up and see how the movie ended, though I imagine there was probably a car crash and hep language.

The weather in Toronto exploded today. There is snow everywhere with plenty of wind spreading it around. I left the house once to pick up some groceries and that was more than enough.

I did walk home from Matt's place last night, which wasn't that bad, and even nice at some points - stepping into newly fallen snow at 3 o'clock in the morning. It was a fun night in celebration of Adam's 30th birthday spent at a bar called Raq n' Waq on Queen Street for some pool, then over to the Laugh Resort for some stand-up comedy. One of the guys in the group I was hanging with was a comedian and called ahead to do the first set of the night. The headliner was Tim Steeves, a former writer on This Hour Has 22 Minutes and one of the current writers for the Rick Mercer Report. There was a group in the crowd that was part of a guy's bachelor party, and one loud scarf-wearing arse in particular who the comedians ripped on all night. Really funny stuff with four acts in all. After that, a bunch of us headed back to Matt and Kim's apartment for beers and food where we sat around shooting the shit. I'd hung out with most of the people before and they're all older and funny, especially after sipping a little weed. I've learned my lesson about weed and booze, however, and chose not to partake. At the end of the night, Adam, Matt and I faced off with some Mario Party on the Wii until Matt abruptly passed on the couch. I beat the guy senseless with a pillow but he wouldn't wake up. After enough prodding, though, he sent us on our way.

Not being much of a drinker these days, I woke up with a hangover, aggravated in part due to one of the two idiots on this floor who blare techno at full volume at 1 PM when I assume most people are still in bed. Jay ended up sticking around this weekend, so I spent most of the day in my room doing nothing. I downloaded the original Legend of Zelda and played around with it for a bit. And watched the new Dark Knight trailer, which looks AWESOME.

Tomorrow I'll finish my last Bibliography assignment and get over to Future Shop to pick up some more gifts. On Tuesday I'll head to campus to collect some research materials for my African-Canadian essay. I've resolved that I'm heading back to Peterborough on Wednesday at all costs. I needed a deadline in place, if not for my own sake then for everyone who keeps asking for one.

The chief design for my Touch of Evil final project is done, with the first two video clips in place. It actually looks pretty much like I'd envisioned. Tomorrow night I'll come up with some stuff to say about it for the presentation on Tuesday. You can literally, if you time it correctly, play both versions of the opening sequence at the same time, side by side with each other.

There is snow everywhere. I found out that my brother was ALSO in a car accident the other night when a truck hit the cab he was in. He's okay but kind of banged up. My family shouldn't leave the house for the rest of the winter. I'm looking forward to getting home for Christmas. It's just about time to break out some Christmas movies. It's a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, Die Hard...

God, I should be more careful about visiting old journals to double check on information. I always get pulled in and end up reading for an hour. I really used to be a pretty emotionally distraught guy, it would seem. I'm glad I've kept this blog up. Even at only a little over three months and almost 100 entries, it's been the diary I've been the most consistent at keeping, and the tone is certainly worlds different.

Looking back, it seems clear that I was deeply upset that I wasn't in love. I've had a bunch of relationships over the past ten years or so, but no matter how frequently I was with someone I would always eventually fall under the impression that I was going to be alone. This coincided with my creative side kicking at me, and all I wanted to do was write out the insecurities that kept me awake at night. I wrote more than anyone else I knew, and sometimes that made the isolation even harder to deal with. I wanted my words to stab at people's hearts and minds. I wanted them to break apart formalities and structures that I felt kept me at a distance from other people. What I perceived as bare honesty was my only weapon against being ignored and forgotten by everyone. And if my words didn't provoke a response, I felt that I was unsuccessful at being alive.

Dramatic, I know, but that's the way it was. I can be hot-headed and rash. Sometimes I think back to the period when Andrea and I started dating, and I mark it as one of the early stages in which I experienced great, positive changes in my personality. It was around the time I moved to Centretown. I had a group of friends I enjoyed hanging out with, going to the bars to drink and dance. I was able to live and not really worry too much about the future, because I knew I'd get around to it eventually. Towards the end it felt as if things were starting to fall apart. I'm hoping that when I get back, I'll be able to rediscover all of those things that made me fall for the city, in whatever new contexts they might present themselves.

More to say on that point, but I'm tired. Tomorrow the long-gestating Opera presentation finally sees delivery. I'm nervous, but I'll be glad to see it go.

I crawled out of bed after noon and watched The Deer Hunter, which is widely considered a classic, though I found it pretty average and even overlong. De Niro and Christopher Walken play a couple of friend who leave their jobs as steel workers to fight in Vietnam, where they're confronted with completely horrific circumstances that ensure the loss of their old lives. It has incredibly intense, powerful moments, but they don't resonate correctly throughout the last third of the movie. I think it's because that while the characters are given a chance to develop, we don't find out that much about them aside from the fact that they start out relatively sane and are then pushed to lose (or make desparate attempts to hold on to) their sanity. I much preferred Platoon as far as 'Nam movies go, though I will admit that I have yet to see Apocalypse Now.

I went to Adam's and got ahold of the footage I'll need for my final Touch of Evil project. Thank goodness. I walked to his apartment and back, so I definitely fulfilled my exercise quotient of the day. It's getting colder outside and I've been less inclined to walk home lately. After I got back, I finished off a Bibliography assignment. It feels as though this semester has been over for a week, but the actual schedule hasn't caught up with it.

Bedtime.

As I briefly mentioned rather drunkenly in last night's post, I went to C'est What with Adam, Ren and Matt, ate the shepherd's pie, had four pints and shot some pool. A fine night out with some fine folks. Matt and Ren are probably the two people in my life that I can most naturally and freely converse with, and hanging out with them together is always twice the good time. I called my mother when I got home, as she'd left a message on my machine, and an email that said:

"I hope you had a great birthday. My thoughts and all my love are yours. WAIT UNTIL YOU SEE YOUR PRESENT!!!!!!! YOU WILL FRIGGEN CRAP!!"

Must be some gift. I hope it's a new pair of pants.

I'm heading home for the weekend tomorrow after class. I finished my annotation work and gave it to Tristan, who put himself in charge of getting everything assembled, but he sent out an email late in the evening sounding very stressed out over losing internet access, having to travel to campus and work on a seminar at the same time. He sounded pissed because Eileen didn't hand over her annotations until pretty late in the day. We'll see what shit goes down tomorrow.

I watched a movie I'd been curious about for awhile entitled Picnic at Hanging Rock, which was apparently a huge hit for Australia in the 1970's. Spoiler Alert: It's about these students of an all-girl school who go on a field trip of sorts to the forests around a formerly active volcano called Hanging Rock. Four of the girls explore the mountain. Only one of them comes back, and one of the supervising teachers goes missing. A week later, one of the girls is found but has no memory of what happened. The movie is famous for two things: it's incredibly atmospheric and surrealistically creepy, and there is no resolution to the narrative's events. I quite enjoyed the first 3/4 of the film, and I was willing to accept that I wouldn't find out what happened to the girls. But what is a narrative supposed to do if it can't close itself? It's left to simply hang there, passing time until an end is finally imposed upon it. And that's a feeling not incredibly akin to quality. Still, I think I'd like to watch it again, because I get the impression there's a level to the film that I don't think one can grasp in a single sitting.

I also watched Fellini's 8 1/2, which was enormously enjoyable even though I couldn't get through it in one piece. Some amazing visual work, really some of the more inventive concepts I've seen, and very self-referential without being arrogant. It's a great movie about directors, and relationships for that matter.

I read Oni's Ghettostocracy and sent off some questions for her perusal. I really have to get started on my final papers and presentations as soon as I get back to Toronto. I applied for a job as a TA for a course in Canadian Short Stories, which would be up my alley and pay well if they find me qualified. I also signed up for a seminar on publishing Canadian journals online; it's taking place at Robarts next Wednesday.

I talked to Andrea yesterday. She's coming home in January. It was a hard decision for her to make. She put together a swell package for me that I received in the mail today, and it contained some great words about simple things she misses about being with me. I miss them, too.

Today was tiring, but it was a perfect example that every day has the potential to be something you least expect.

After finally rolling out of bed at around 10:30, I showered and got my shit together, determined to start tackling this passport business. I went downtown and found the office building. I went to the little camera shop on the ground floor and had my picture taken. I had to put baby powder on my forehead because there was too much of a glare (I'm that white). After positioning me like a Whose Line Is It Anyway? actor the photographer plucked at my hair - I had gelled it, and since my curls are a "defining feature" he had to accentuate them for the shot. The photographer may have simply been acting coy underneath that Russian accent and gruff exterior.

The prints were ready in half an hour. I look like a Sears catalogue model; one of my shoulders is hunched and turned slightly towards the camera as if to say "I was about to leave the room, but I was too captivated by your beauty, gorgeous creature whom I've just met." There's one errant curl sticking straight up off my head. I'm worried they'll be rejected because of the angle of my one shoulder. I've heard the passport office is extremely finicky about the photos.

I didn't find out for sure. I went to the office and told them I didn't have a lieu of guarantor form. They sent me to an employee who told me that starting Monday, anyone with a passport who's known me for two years is qualified to be my guarantor. If I wait until Monday, I can get Jay to fill in his info on the application and not have to pay a lawyer for it.

I headed over to the Eaton's Center, where I picked up a camera case, blank CDs, some envelopes, and the new Foo Fighters record. I passed by Indigo and noticed that Kevin Smith was doing a signing for his new book "My Boring-ass Life" at 7.

Usually when I become privy to such information, I try my best to disregard it. It doesn't matter what it is. I'm not a very spontaneous guy because I think about things too much. When I wake up in the morning (or early afternoon) I have or create a general idea of how my day is going to go. I'll usually make decisions later on in the day, but they're either very small or decisions I see coming on the basis of what I know I'll be up to. If I'm forced into doing something that I have little control over, or if my plans drastically change, I worry that I'll be very uncomfortable with the results. It's easier to stay at home and hide and eat and watch TV, and that way I know exactly what I'm in for. When I lived in the west end of Ottawa, I'd rarely go downtown to hang out because the bus ride was too long, or I would worry that I wouldn't have anyone to talk to, or that no one would pay me any attention, or that a show would suck and I'd have a miserable night and still end up having to get on yet another bus for a half-hour return trip home. When I lived downtown things were a bit different because I could make it home on foot from pretty much anywhere I hung out. I also felt more secure having people around me, being able to provide them with a place to gather. I'm a born facilitator; I don't respond well to being told what to do in social situations.

I'm a huge fan of Kevin Smith. Massive. And when I see an advertisement for an appearance he's making, a part of me thinks I'm expected to see him, as if it's natural. Now, if I were given a few days notice, I'd probably be all over it, and start making plans to attend. But having it thrown in my lap like that, I constrict. My immediate thought is "I'm not going to go. It won't be what I expect. I'll never be able to make an impression on him." As if that's really the point behind meeting someone you admire.

I had more time than I originally wagered I'd have, so I went to get my health card renewed. After waiting for about a half an hour I handed over my forms and received a bit of a lecture from the employee about my tardiness in obtaining a new card. I told him it wouldn't happen again, no sir. From now on I'll be punctual Pete.

After I took care of the health card business, I finally decided, fuck it. I'll go see Kevin Smith. I've seen him speak in person, but I've never met the dude. If I don't do it, I'll regret it. That's the feeling I wish I could carry around with me at all times - if I don't do it, I'll regret it. I have to loosen that spring inside me more often. So I marched back to Indigo (after putting a muffin and chocolate milk in my belly; one can't change their day's fate on an empty stomach). It was around 3:30 by this point, and there didn't seem to be a lineup, so I browsed for about half an hour. By then a line had started winding its way through the cooking and craft sections, so I bought a copy of the book and joined the queue. I spent three and a half hours in that line, reading Kevin's book, thinking about what I should say to him, shifting my weight from foot to foot, beating sensation back into my legs. Finally, at around 7:15, Kevin came out and delivered a short Q&A session. He was tired and had been up since 6 AM doing press work, and really wanted to try and get to as many people as possible by 9 PM. The line started moving.

By this point I had already decided what I was going to say. I was thinking of the biggest Kevin Smith fans out of everyone I know, and it hit me: my brother. His birthday is next week. It would be cool to get him a signed book, but I couldn't leave the line. So I called home to see if he was there. He was at a friend's, so I told my dad to have him call me back if he arrived home within the hour. He returned my call, and I told him to keep by his phone. When there were about three people in line ahead of me, I dialed him up. I climbed onto the stage, gave Kevin a "Hello Sir!", and handed him the book. I asked him if he'd mind wishing my brother a happy birthday. He said sure and took my phone. He said hello, told him happy birthday and that he'd talk to him longer if he could. In my excitement I said, "Say you're Kevin Smith!" and he said, "I think he knows." He returned my phone and I thanked him, patted him on the shoulder and walked away.

I still had my brother on the line. I asked, "Did you know who that was?" He said that he didn't. I told him it was Kevin Smith and he freaked. He laughed in a way I've never heard him laugh before. He told me that if he could do anything for me, to ask away. I don't get to do many cool things for my brother. We're not as close as we could be. But I knew he'd get a righteous kick out of that.

I came home, absolutely exhausted after waiting all that time, and crashed on the couch to watch some X-Files and listen to some SModcast. Sam emailed me, telling me I'd have his reference letter tomorrow.

Not entirely a bad day, simply because it was so unexpected. I can't be afraid of the things I can't foresee. I have to remember how positive the out-of-the-blue can feel.