November 8–9, 2001 — It’s good to bleed a little

Writing this journal will probably make up the vast majority of the time that I spend in front of a computer today. A good feeling, that.

And yesterday I spent most of my waking hours downtown, so I’ve been doing fairly well as far as taking some time off of computers goes. I visited a store specializing in rubber stamps to buy silver ink for Andrew’s ink pad, and then I went to place an order for my antigreg stamp. I’m trying to get one of those kits with lots of tiny rubber letters that you can move around to spell out different words with and then reuse. They had one at the stamp store, but the font was a bit (read: a lot) on the terrible side. After I’d left the building where I’d gone to have my custom stamp made, I noticed in their catalogue that they sell rubber alphabets and I decided that I would ask about them when I went to pick my stamp up the next day.

I still haven’t been able to find the paper that I want to use for the antigreg zine, but I’ve some time to find it yet. The people at the art store that I visited told me about a Japanese paper store on Queen Street, so I’m going to give that a try before I settle for paper that I’d prefer not to use.

I also spent the afternoon trying to get in touch with Jeff so that I could get the Cuff The Duke art to him, but that didn’t go so well. I guess the CD will have to wait until next Monday to go to print.

After briefly returning home to drop off some things, I went back downtown to the Bane show. I went alone but found Nathan pretty early on.

I only saw the last two or three songs that No Warning played, and I didn’t pay much attention through sets by Glasseater and by Reach The Sky. (I was so distracted by the presence of Treble Charger’s lead singer [who is also the manager of Sum 41] that I didn’t really snap out of it until Bane started playing. I’m still a bit curious as to why he was there. He was talking to No Warning’s lead singer at one point. Strange.)

Bane played a rather short set. There were plenty of other great songs that they could have played, but it was very nice to hear “Count Me Out” again (they played it at KrazyFest, too; Liam said that he thought that it was a rare occurrence for them to play it at all, so I guess I should be happy to’ve heard it every time that I’ve seen them play given that it’s the song that first got me into Bane), and “Can We Start Again” always makes for a good time as everyone tries to swarm the stage. I’d’ve been more than happy to see them play a set two or three times as long as the one they played.

And that was pretty much it for the show. I once again didn’t recognize Tracy, a friend of Mel’s that I first met at a show in Buffalo last spring, until it was too late to say hello. During the summer, I didn’t even make the connection that it was the same Tracy when I was introduced to her for a second time. Maybe I’m getting senile. The irony is that I might be doing a Web site for her and Mel depending on how things go...

Today I waited for Johnston to get home and then went downtown to pick up the rubber stamp that I’d ordered the day before. It turned out quite nicely, and I ordered a set of reusable rubber letters after bombarding the counter person for five or ten minutes with questions that he couldn’t answer. The start-up costs for this zine are starting to become rather intimidating when you consider that I’ve written less than two pages of the story so far...

I ran into Amy on the subway on my way back from the stamp-making place. When I arrived home, Andrew told me that Johnston was already at Jeff and Amy’s house and that I was invited. So I eventually headed over. Amy beat Johnston twice at cribbage and he won once. I remembered to bring the Cuff The Duke artwork, so I got that out of my hands. After an hour or two, Amy left for a girl’s night out, and Jeff, Johnston, and I sat around playing cards and listening to music until it was almost too late to catch the last train home.

Oh, and one final highlight from the Bane show that I forgot about: There was a boy wearing a backpack covered in vegan and straight edge patches that Johnston and I were both reading at the same time. When we each finished reading one of the patches, we turned to each other and I said, “I definitely approve.” Johnston laughed and said, “I figured you might.” The patch read:

EMPLOYMENT-FREE YOUTH
XXX
WORK IS POISON

All this to say that I’m still unemployed and that I still haven’t received a single call-back. I’m obviously not employment material. But maybe it’s better this way?