October 9-10, 2001 — People who don't care if I live or die

With some people I know, I've been increasingly getting the feeling that while the occasional efforts on my behalf to talk to them are appreciated, it would be all the same to them if I just left them alone. And so, despite my current overabundance of time for harassing people with only the vaguest of interests in talking to me, I'm going to try to move on. All the more time for journals and Web site design, I figure.

Speaking of having more time for the Internet, it's looking like the new message board will be online sometime next week. And thank goodness for that, because the current one just gets more and more embarrassing with each passing day.

Anyway. Tuesday and Wednesday: a show each night and little progress on much of anything during the daylight hours that preceded them.

On Tuesday night, I went with Jeff and Amy to see Beulah. I thought the Mates of State, the opening band, were actually better than Beulah, and because Jeff and Amy were leaving early anyway, I didn't end up staying until the end of Beulah's set. Beulah's CDs were far too expensive at the show, but they had very nice stickers, which sort of made up for it. I wish I'd bought the CD by the opening band, too.

(It's strange that all of a sudden opening bands should begin to redeem themselves...)

And then, on Wednesday night, there was another Cuff The Duke show to attend, less than a week after my last Cuff The Duke experience. They opened for another Oshawa band that I'd already seen, so I didn't stay around until the end. For the second night in a row.

There was a much larger audience than on Saturday, though, and everyone seemed far more into it, band included. Work continues with Brad on getting their design finished and printed, and there were plenty of requests for XcuffthedukeX pins after I made a couple of joke ones for Jeff and Johnston. I'll have to get on that one of these days.

Other than that, it's been a boring couple of days. I managed to find another flaw in Makeoutclub's setup when I couldn't sleep last night. Hopefully they'll fix it soon. I've changed my password to one that I don't use for anything else, just in case other people start figuring these things out.

The Weakerthans have announced shows in Ontario during November, but none in Toronto just yet. There's one in Peterborough that might be worth traveling to, though. And Saves The Day have a tour that takes them to Buffalo, but they haven't announced Canadian dates yet. They're touring with Hey Mercedes. I would really like to go to that show. And it would be the week of my birthday. It would be wonderful, and, needless to say, almost certainly won't happen.

This article is one of the best that I've read about the state of international affairs these days.

Over Thanksgiving, one of my uncles was telling me that while he was answering phones at the office of a member of parliament, people kept calling in, infuriated with the Prime Minister. They said that they were embarrassed to be Canadian with Chrétien being so slow to sign on to bomb whoever it is that America decides ought to be bombed, for better or for worse. My uncle told one caller that he had always been proud to be Canadian and that that wouldn't change. The woman on the phone said that he was "just sick."

I know that nothing I say or do will have an effect on this war or conflict (or whichever euphemism it's going by today). I just wish I had enough faith in the people whose decisions to have an effect to not have to worry quite so much.

I was talking to a friend on ICQ today, and she told me that one of the paragraphs in a journal entry of mine from last month made her want to write more. (So maybe this isn't all for naught after all, even if I still don't have much impact on international politics.) She picked a good paragraph, too, since it was one that I'd spent at least an hour or two writing and rewriting over the course of two days. Now I at least know that I made the right decision in posting it -- it's so tempting to delete the journal entries that actually say something about me.

I don't think this entry is in much danger of falling victim to that urge, though.