April 4-5, 2001 — It's my turn to feel fine

Wednesday

I woke up this morning to find an email from my popular culture professor saying that while the Web site states that our paper is due the final Friday of the term, the spirit of this statement has the paper being due on the final day of the semester. Which means that my research project is due next Thursday, not this Friday. Which means that I immediately decided to give myself the rest of the week off -- taking another page from my ever-popular guide to time management.

Given that it was a beautiful day, I started senselessly walking around the city a couple of hours after lunch. I walked for around three hours, and at some point in the middle of walking, I took a break to see a movie.

The amusing part in all this was that Johnston had left an hour or two before me and hadn't told me where he was going. I had decided to go to see "Memento" while I was downtown, and I was one of the first people in the theatre. Then, around ten minutes before the movie began, Johnston walked into the same theatre. He'd actually tried to make the earlier show, but, having shown up ten minutes too late, he ended up wandering the streets of Toronto for several hours while waiting for the later matinee to begin. In either case, it was an interesting coincidence.

As for the movie... I definitely encourage you to see it. I must admit that I was so worked up for the ending that the truth ended up disappointing me at least a tiny bit. But I don't think that there was any ending that could've been better than the one shown while still making sense in the context of everything that had happened. The nature of the movie had you so trapped in expecting something huge to happen that it was less shocking when it did.

You're not reading my journal for movie reviews, though, so I may as well move on. Just see the movie. Don't read any real reviews and don't let your friends tell you the ending or anything else about it; just go.

After the movie, Nathan came over to play Risk with Johnston and me. I already knew that Erika had a calculus test on Thursday to study for, so this made sure that I wouldn't distract her too much as she tried to study.

We didn't end up finishing the game, although I at one point had a commanding hold of North America, Asia, and Australia. Even though Risk doesn't seem like a game in which a huge amount of strategy can be used, I'm picking up on mistakes that other people are consistently making and am trying to do a better job of minimizing my borders. Now if only it were similar to Scrabble and there was a list of two-letter words for me to memorize...

No more Wednesday

And when that feeling hits you,
I hope you wake up from your dream with bruises.
And I hope you think of me,
Because I'm thinking about hurting you.

Thursday

I was in a particularly vindictive mood for the earlier parts of today. The feeling wasn't directed at anyone in Toronto, or even at anyone that I've spoken to recently in Ottawa. It was more a general thirst for revenge with a couple of highlighted targets that I knew I would never talk to again. I hate thinking this way, and I was glad to find that the feeling subsided fairly quickly. I'm generally not a very vengeful person, so I'm not at all comfortable with wanting to hurt people for what they've done to me. I did get revenge once, but I felt so horrible afterward that I never wanted to do it again. It's still an interesting story to tell simply because it was so elaborate an act, but I feel a tinge of guilt each and every time it comes up.

Meanwhile, I didn't know that today was the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death until Erika mentioned it in an email. But somehow, earlier in the day, I had "Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle" bouncing around in my mind. Perhaps my subconscious was well aware of what today was but just didn't want to let the rest of me in on the news. Or maybe it was all part of my brief interest in all things revenge-related. In either case, all of this faded away when it became clear how beautiful a day it was and how many people there were in the quad for Jeff to yell at using our megaphone.

I wish things were more complicated than that, but they weren't: Jeff, already busy showing off his new Anthrax belt buckle, took to the balcony and started to provide colour commentary regarding the people playing Frisbee in the quad while making fun of the extreme college-ness of the afternoon. Speakers had been carried outside and Q107 was blaring, so Jeff would turn on the megaphone and an accent while saying things along the lines of, "Hi, my name's Irene, and I'd like to hear "Money" by Pink Floyd," followed by a switch to his DJ voice and, "Thanks Irene. Here's your request on the mighty Q; more wattage for your cottage!"

In the end, fun was had by all. That'll teach Middle House for waking me up on so many a pub night... (Okay, so maybe that vindictive feeling has lingered a bit.)

I got an email from my sister at some point in the afternoon saying that her boyfriend had offered to give me an old deck of his to facilitate my breaking my wrists while skateboarding; I thought this was rather nice of him. My sister also told me that our mother has been frequenting antigreg as of late. So with this in mind, I encourage everyone to start posting the many reasons for which I should get an allowance next year even though I won't be going to university. Get to it; I'm counting on you guys. (Editor's note: after reading this paragraph again, I suspect that someone, probably Nathan, will register an account on the message board as "Greg's mom" to start posting with. I'm too lazy to remove this paragraph outright, but rest assured that this idea isn't as funny as you think it is. Good? Good.)

And as I count the hours to "Greg's mom" appearing on the discussion board, I'm sending emails back and forth with Erika in our ongoing discussions of Nirvana and septum piercings. Luckily, her calculus test was canceled because of striking support workers, but she still has to be at her job for 2:00PM tomorrow, and if we keep this up, she won't get enough sleep tonight even without school to attend tomorrow. I really have to learn to avoid inflicting these deplorable sleep habits of mine onto others...

I think that's about it. This is quite possibly the longest journal I've ever written. Pretend you liked it.

No more journal