Temporary Release

Pain – Jimmy Eat World

It was a good day on Friday. It seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve started a post like that, though I’m sure that anyone who bothers to look it up would find that I’ve started plenty of posts in that fashion. But it has been a while.

To recap why I’ve been so down lately:

1) School sucks.
2) My job sucks.
3) I have no life.
4) Fuck Jay-Z.
5) Too much Garden State.
6) Not only is there no girlfriend, but the prospects look bleak. Now I know how the Toronto Raptors feel.
7) All my friends are gay.

That list could have been a lot longer, but I think that’ll do. Now here’s the part where I write, “But everything changed one day…”

Well, it didn’t, but Friday was still one of my better days. It didn’t start off too well. My friend Leanna was being such a bull-dyke. I was telling her not to go to Short Story class, because I hate the professor and because his class is meaningless. If I found out that I had 24 hours to live, one of the things I would do is interrupt his class and just say this:

Professor Odozor, this entire curriculum is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent lectures were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this course is now dumber for having listened to you. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Back to my dyke friend. Her reason for going was that she was staying around campus to wait for a friend anyway (fine) and that she wanted to make sure she could sign the attendance sheet (fuck you). Why should I be offended? To be honest, I was hoping that we were good enough friends that she’d take my advice especially since it was in her best interests. Secondly, being on my “school is shit” riff, I can’t stand people doing stuff that they don’t want to do because they feel some inexplicable obligation. Like signing some stupid sheet. Pisses me off to no end.

So I gave up and decided that she could burn in hell for all I care. Besides, she did me a favour. Her attitude inspired me to skip the rest of my classes for the day and hang out with Jess instead. I needed to read That Yellow Bastard to prepare for Sin City later. I was going to wait inside New College, but since it was a nice day I decided to chill out on some steps outside instead.

I used to think my friend Pui Yu was a bit odd. Let me explain. Every now and then, when I was hanging out with the guy, if no one was talking to him he’d just close his eyes and meditate. Now I thought, “He’s just blocking the rest of us out or something”, because I don’t understand how meditating works. Maybe he doesn’t either, I don’t know. I like to think that I now understand what he was doing though. He was just…feeling. Taking it all in. Aligning himself with the universe. Shit, I have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure he could explain it much better. All I know is sometimes you’ve got to shut up, close your eyes and feel. (Thanks Pui Yu).

Wind. Passing cars. Idle chatter. A hint of sun. A song you can’t get out of your head. A kid running because he’s late for class. People on street corners handing out flyers. A voice inside you that you’re trying to keep quiet. A moment of peace.

Jess came along and ruined the whole thing. I kid. My “meditation” left me feeling limp, so she sat down next to me and offered me some music. We talked a little, about things I can only tell her, but we mostly just sat there. Spent time, which we don’t have much of these days. I don’t know if it was a moment, but it felt like one.

We met up with Will and Max, watched Sin City, had a circle jerk over it, blah blah blah.

The real highlight was the Vietnamese dinner. I ordered fried noodles. The yellow ones. Seems like I haven’t eaten them in a long time. With shrimp no less. It was good.

After bumming a ride off Will (I owe you a Coke), Max and I went to go ball with my cousin Derek, his friends, and Mr. Dan Hocking. I had one of my best games since…well, maybe ever. It’s not like I dominated necessarily, but I was having fun. I hadn’t gone in a few weeks, so my muscles started aching after about 10 minutes but damn it, that’s part of it, you know? By the third game, I knew that the next step could be the one that was going to pull my calf muscle, but I didn’t care. When the muscle popped I thought, “Finally.” I used to end up writhing on the floor in agony all the time, but lately I’d been dogging it out there so I’d be fine the every night but I wasn’t enjoying myself. This time, it was like my body telling me, “That’s enough, old boy.”

That’s what I’m talking about. A day of free will. Telling Leanna to screw off (or was it the other way around?). Chilling with Jess. Skipping class. Ordering a favourite meal. Leaving it all on the court.

Oh, by the way, Frank Miller is a pimp. But then again, you knew that already. How crazy is it that he spends most of his time fending off the affections of comic book geeks at conventions and there he is at the Sin City premiere with Jaime King and Rosario Dawson hanging off of him. This is the world we live in folks. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. For the man who gave us Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, and an amazing Daredevil run, this is the way his life should have been all along. I hope he had sex with ’em all.

PQ:
Your mom still charge a nickel for head?
Nah. It’s been a dime since I kicked all her teeth out.
All I got’s a nickel…
Nickel gets you my da.
Then I’ll stick to my sister–