November 21–23, 2001 — Living an empty life

I had more or less finished the new message board by Wednesday afternoon. I still had to setup links to the new script and write the initial messages in each forum, but the actual coding was finished with. I decided to read a bit of the fourth Harry Potter book before I made the message board live, though. I figured I deserved a bit of a break.

I read almost constantly for the rest of the day, finishing the book at around midnight. I really should’ve expected as much after staying up until 6:00 am to read the last book through, but it didn’t occur to me that it might happen again. (I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer.)

In any case, I got back to the computer to finish the message board once and for all at around midnight. Then I had one of the most bizarre AIM conversations I’ve ever had. I didn’t really feel like finishing the message board after that. It was so surreal that I’d already (mostly) stopped thinking about it by the next day; I just threw my hands in the air and moved on. But losing a friend, even an online one, is generally distracting enough to make sleep seem a better option than sitting up with message boards for company.

Before I went to sleep, though, I noticed that the garbage needed to be taken out. Someone had already removed it from the garbage can in the kitchen and tied it shut, so I just had to haul it downstairs, find a garbage can, and carry it to the curb. We’d forgotten to take out the garbage the week before, so there was two weeks’ worth sitting in the kitchen.

I picked up the bag and started on my way to the stairs. I was halfway down the hall before I noticed that the bag had torn and a liquid was leaking out of the bottom of the bag.

I cursed a lot, got another garbage bag, double-bagged the garbage to keep the leaks in, and hauled it to the curb. I was rather glad to make a trip outside at this point, as the stench of liquefied, two-week-old garbage had been making me gag.

Back inside, the fun of cleaning the floor began. Lacking things like mops or buckets, I ended up cleaning the floor with paper towels and dish soap. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that dish soap is less than ideal for cleaning garbage drippings off of hardwood floors, but it was 3:00 am, I’d had a shitty day, and I was rather keen on unconsciousness.

If Andrew or Johnston noticed anything wrong with the floor the next day, they didn’t mention it to me. A job well done, as far as I’m concerned.

A quick digression brought on by memories of excessive swearing in the wake of leaking garbage bags: if I were Harry Potter, I’d be swearing a hell of a lot more than he ever does. I know it’s a children’s book, but the bad luck that kid has would have me cursing up a storm. I was swearing on his behalf on and off throughout the fourth book. It was especially bad because I’d been told by multiple people to expect “a major character” to die in the fourth book. So whenever one of the characters that I’d become attached to looked to be in trouble, I would begin muttering obscenities at any characters that might be endangering them.

Luckily, it all worked out in the end, as far as I’m concerned. I’m looking forward to the fifth book and will be buying it as soon as it comes out. And since I don’t get the newspaper, watch TV, or read online news sites all that much anymore, I’m completely out of the loop as far as any excessive hyping of Harry Potter goes. This way, I don’t feel like quite as much of a sellout for enjoying the books this much.

So Thursday, then. Instead of finishing the message board as soon as I woke up, I went downtown to see (wait for it...) the Harry Potter movie. Student discount only applies Monday through Thursday at the Paramount, and I really didn’t want to wait until the following Monday to finally see it.

When I arrived, I was told that the student discount applied to every movie except for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I sighed, walked to a bank, and returned with more money. I asked the fellow working the cash how I might be able to tell in the future which movies the student discount does and doesn’t apply to. “Everything except for Harry Potter,” he said. I asked again, emphasizing the “in the future” part of the question. He shrugged and repeated his original answer. While a bit skeptical that this answer will hold up when the Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Spider-Man movies are released, I gave up and found my way to the proper theatre.

The movie itself was wonderful. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it stuck closely enough to the plot of the book that I was willing to overlook a lot of other flaws. I’d still recommend reading the book before seeing the movie, mind you.

I arrived home at around 6:00 pm feeling rather sick. I ended up sleeping with the lights on until 9:00 pm. I’d’ve slept through the entire night if I could, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep even after turning off the lights. I ended up (finally) linking to the message board. So it’s now online. There are probably countless bugs still to be worked out, so you’re encouraged to let me know about them as you find them.

And today I did laundry. I’ve enough laundry for five or six loads, but I only did two today. It’ll be nice to have clean clothes again.

I didn’t bother bringing a book to the laundromat. After the last few days, I was more than happy to just listen to music and watch my clothes tumble about in the drier for an hour or so.

With my laundry done, I borrowed a bus pass and headed downtown to buy a large-format, hardcover edition of Gray’s Anatomy that I’d seen at Chapters the day before. It came to $28.00 CDN after tax and is absolutely massive with rather impressive reproductions of all of the original drawings. Now if only Chapters would hire me so that I could keep an even closer eye on the discount section...

I also talked to my parents on the phone for awhile today. It seems that my dad’s ongoing quest to keep up with any and all Tears For Fears side projects has trickled down to me — I’ve been instructed to track down a copy of Roland Orzabal’s new album for him as a Christmas gift. My mom asked me what I’d like for Christmas, too, which is a question I’ve never been very good at answering. I hate telling people what to buy me. I asked for a couple of books by Charles Bukowski, but I couldn’t think of anything else.

I learned that my sister got another job, at Ikea this time. My ongoing joblessness is getting less and less excusable. I’m going to print out more résumés next week, I think.

I’m going to Buffalo tomorrow with Johnston, Amy, Jeff, and Bri tomorrow. We’re going to see Converge. I’m worried about injuring myself in Buffalo and being forced to cross the border with a broken arm, attempting to make it back to Canada before seeking treatment.

But I’m sure we’ll be just fine.

I still haven’t rewritten my journal submission script to automatically post a thread in the message board for journal replies. I’ll have to get on that. The easier I make it for myself to post journals, the more often I’ll write them, I figure.

In a lot of ways, it feels better now to have so many fewer distractions.

I think I’ll go and clean my room.