And I Awoke To The Bluest Of Skies

More Adventurous – Rilo Kiley

This post is going to be about the Kingston trip. Some other stuff, but mostly the trip. Since about 95% of the readers of this site were actually there and Jess is going to hear all about it on Saturday, I guess this post is just for Will’s, and posterity’s, sake. Seems worth it.

I should start by talking about Friday. Annia and I were going to watch March Of The Penguins. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a documentary. About pengins. I was hesitant. Don’t get me wrong, I like documentaries (sort of) and I love nature (love it), but this seemed like the kind of flick that people who pretend to be cultured go out and see. I can already imagine asking someone if they saw any good movies this summer and having them respond, “The usual pap. Caught that March Of The Penguins though. Breathtaking.” Then I’ll be all like, “I saw Batman Begins three fucking times! Slammage dude! Hurt!” Add in the fact that we had to go to Kennedy Commons to catch it and the whole thing seemed ill-advised. I realize now that ill-fated is probably more accurate.

First, we ended up just missing a bus. As you know, the weather on Friday was balls crazy. Instead of waiting inside the station like intelligent human beings, we decided to stand outside and watch as the storm tossed debris here and there. Annia was compelled to record the whole thing on her digital camera. Documenting our “last moments” as she so nicely put it. Eventually the bus came, understandably a bit late. As we rode to Kennedy Commons, Annia fidgeted with the shutter speeds on her camera and I watched the world get flooded. Cars and people were desperately trying to push through enormous puddles. Annia couldn’t help but take a picture of this poor bastard who was up to his waste in muddy water. As the bus struggled along, we decided we weren’t going to catch our show, so Annia said we should head back to Scarborough Town and catch Red Eye instead. Here’s my brief review in Rorschach-ian style:

Cillian Murphy. Soft C. Rachel McAdams. Good. Little thought necessary. I enjoyed it. Hrm.

The third strike came after we got out of Red Eye. Annia called the theatre at Kennedy Commons to get the next showtime for March Of The Penguins and they told her they were closed for the day due to flooding. Rather than speculate over what might have happened to us had we ACTUALLY caught our original showtime, I realized that maybe God just did not want us to watch this film. Sorry Annia.

*****

The Kingston trip went off without a hitch. Ha ha ha, yeah right. Hrm.

It started off with Gary, Max and myself not being able to board the bus due to a lack of space. We ended up having to wait a little over an hour for the next one. Gary went to talk to some old guy who was travelling with his family and when he came back to us I asked him if he found out the age of the guy’s daughter. He didn’t. The second bus came and we were on our way! Hottie count so far: At least 3. Hottie count that I won’t get arrested for eye-fucking so far: At least 2.

Gary and I slept for most of the ride. Max says he listened to the new Kanye West during the ride, but I’m pretty sure he was listening to Good Times by Tommy Lee for two straight hours.

When we arrived at Brian’s place, we found he had mutated into a bizarre creature that can only be described as the lovechild of Howard Hughes and Tom Hanks in Castaway: Freakishly long nails, skin covered in spots, hair growing wildly, all that. After boiling him in a vat of acid and beating him with a sock full of pennies, he was the old Brian again. In other words, no improvement. His parents were nice enough to drop by that night and treat us all to dinner at Swiss Chalet. Don’t even begin to try and figure out the logistics of their driving about 6 hours back and forth to spend about 3 hours with their son. I guess they love him or something.

Showing traces of his father’s generosity, Brian also treated Max and I to a unique experience the next day: A 3 hour experiment! Yay!!! Without getting into too much detail, the experiment was composed of Brian attaching sticky things to our heads, tossing us into a dark room and having us stare at six lights as they blinked on and off. There’s probably more to it, but no amount of description is going to make it anymore interesting. I went first and Max went second, so yes, that was six hours of our day gone right there. On the positive side, we were given cookies, juice and thirty dollars for our troubles. I have also developed a nasty case of optic blasts.

It’s probably good that we didn’t do anything crazy during the day because later that night we went clubbing! Yeah, baby! Gary stayed at home to study for his music exam the next day (he passed y’all, whoo!), so Max, Brian and myself were free to hit the dance floor without that old maid holding us back. We thought we’d be cool and stop by the club around 11:00. You know, give the place some time to fill out before we roll up on ’em. When we showed up, there was noone there. Besides the hot bartenders…bartendras…bartenderesses…drink saleswomen and the hired muscle, it was just three skinny chinks. Suffice to say, the drinking began immediately. By 11:45, the place had filled up nicely. Unfortunately, by about midnight, I’d already hit my limit. Max and I got up for Rihanna’s Pon De Replay, Brian got lei’d by this chick who lives a floor below him, and I went from “just fine” to openly dry heaving in a span of about thirty seconds. I actually felt okay, but I knew as soon as I stood I was going to puke. We left the joint, the boys escorted me over to a bush and I let it out. As with all vomit-related experiences, it was oddly liberating.

I awoke the next day with nary an ill effect and, like clockwork, affirmed that I was never going to drink again. Brian offered me a glass of scotch to start the day, which I quickly drank and then I threw myself out the window splattering my brains out on the street below. We ate lunch with Gary, who had to leave in the afternoon to take care of some business back in Markham. As Max and I waited for Brian to come back from work, we watched Closer on his computer. A devestating work. I’m still reeling.

A quick scan of this blog reveals that there is a lot of time unaccounted for. I’ll tell you what we did. We played Magic a lot. A LOT. In all fairness, I mostly watched while Max, Brian and Gary, these men of iron, played their hearts out. All in all, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that there was about 15-20 hours of Magic playing in there. No exaggerations. The boys were nice enough to let me DJ while they played, not that their non-Magic related senses were registering anything anyway. I hit ’em up with Old World Underground, Where Are You? by Metric, More Adventurous by Rilo Kiley (thank you, Annia) and Rumors by Fleetwood Mac.

Tuesday night we caught the The 40-Year-Old Virgin. No spoilers here if you haven’t seen it yet. Go watch it, it’s awesome. I should note that we got last on the way to the theatre if you hadn’t assumed that already. We were already late so we were running up and down the streets like a bunch of jagoffs. One girl who we passed by a couple of times noted to her friend that it looked like we were doing laps.

On Wednesday, the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a sky so blue and so clear. I didn’t want to move and I didn’t for about two or three hours. I saw Brian as he was leaving and then I dozed off again. When he came back for lunch, I was like, “Didn’t you just leave 2 minutes ago?” Not much happened that day as Max and I prepared to leave our friend’s house. I had work on Thursday, but I probably would have left anyway since we already drank all of Brian’s orange juice and ate his Nutrigrain bars. Not much left to do, really. We unexpectedly ran into Eileen as we were going out for lunch. I was unprepared for such an encounter so I could only offer sarcasm and cynicism which is a shame since things are actually going well lately. Eileen, if you read this, I’m actually doing real good these days. Pardon the bad jokes.

On the bus ride home, Max and I played gay jukebox as we took turns picking out tunes from his iPod. I kept playing Good Times over and over again to see if I could break both of our minds. Finally, the song seemed to have no effect, but as we got off the bus I could hear the weak-ass guitar riff as if off in the distance. The song was no longer in my head, but burrowed in my marrow. On a completely unrelated note, if one looks up at the clouds and sees nothing but penises, does that make one gay? A strictly hypothetical query of course.

I know I’m leaving out all sorts of shit, but I’m tired and I’m going to go to bed. It was a great trip and much thanks to Brian and Gary for letting us be.

*****

Will, if you could pick me up some ruby quartz while you’re digging around the caves of Europe that would be great. Peace out, brotha.

The air grows too warm, too quickly. I want very much for a beautiful woman to hand me a glass of very cold beer. All the atoms in the test chamber are screaming at once. The light…the light is taking me to pieces.