hello, Kitten

The other day, while I was walking to the bus stop to go to work, a little black kitten appeared. It ran in front of me and then stopped, and stood a few feet ahead of me. I walked past it, and then it darted up in front of me and stopped again. Is this kitten following me? But pretending to lead? I decided to turn around and walk in the opposite direction, and see what kitten would do then. Kitten did the same thing when I walked in the opposite direction. I petted him a bit. But I had to go to work, so I turned again and continued to the bus stop. After a certain point, about thirty or so meters ahead of a main road, kitten stopped following me, but mewed loudly over and over again, until I was too far to hear kitten.

On the way to work, I thought, what if kitten followed me home? I could keep it, and get cat food from Price Chopper, and maybe put an old sweater in a shoebox and that could be kitten's bed, and maybe I could name him Sebastian if kitten is a boy, or Morgan if kitten is a girl, so wouldn't have to keep calling him or her 'kitten' like a retard, and oh I would need a litter box, and maybe a little tub for when kitten needs a bath eventually.

I've been making excuses to walk down that street where kitten followed me, when I have had no reason to go there, in case I might see it again, but I haven't yet. He probably belongs to somebody, but I liked his company very much.

In conclusion, I want a kitten.

My mom is having a karaoke party downstairs with her sisters and brother.
There are more people in the basement playing Mahjong.
It is super Chinesey in my house RIGHT NOW.

I saw a large black man on the bus, wearing a t-shirt that said, "DON'T HOLLA," in huge letters, and below this, "I'm not your boy."

See you in a while, ponytail!

Serial

In my cupboard, there are boxes of Reese Puffs, Cap'n Crunch, Post Selects, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, and Sugar Crisp cereals. They aren't really getting eaten. My grandma just buys things that are on sale sometimes, so now we have a whole lot of breakfast cereals.

My sister Alison says she won't ever get kids' cereals for her kids.

Not even Lucky Charms? I said. Come on.

So when she has kids, I think I'm going to sneak them some fun cereal now and then. Sneaky Uncle Owen.

I fucking love M. Ward. I was embarrassed to say this before, but a couple of weeks ago, I had a dream about M. Ward. We went to the bar, and he gave me hugs. It was a good, manly time.

In the waking world, I was at the She & Him show tonight, and people cheered every time M. Ward sang. That made my night.

This god damn kids' book, Bridge to Terabithia, has really upset me, and I'm embarrassed to admit just how much.
I am emotionally immature.

Lots of parentheses today

On Sunday, May helped me sign up for open mic at Supermarket, which was really very awesome of her to take the time to do that - it was apparently a more complex process than I had first thought. It was cool, people were actually watching/listening, even though it was about 2 a.m. by the time I actually got on. I thought I was too tired to be nervous but I was wrong haha. Still fun!

Prior to playing, a pretty drunk ('pretty' here can describe her appearance or her drunkenness - both are accurate) British girl began playing with my ponytail (this is not a euphemism for something else) and running her hands through my hair. So we spoke a bit but I had a hard time understanding her due to the volume of the music and her thick English accent. Later, while drunkenly putting her arms around me (I know, right? HELLO!), she said something like, "I feel safe," which, for a moment, made me feel like The Man, but when she repeated herself, I realised that I had misheard her: "I feel sick." God damn it. The moral of this story is, when drunk lady starts getting all up on ya, be prepared to dodge projectile vomit.
No, I'm kidding - I wasn't sprayed, but I suspect that some puking did take place later.

I'm currently in my second week of semester 2 of television. There are a lot of projects up ahead, and it is somewhat daunting. I'm doing a children's literature class as an elective, so I have to read kids' novels. I feel a little embarrassed on the bus, reading this book intended for 12 year olds. I'm actually really enjoying it too, but the back cover already told me something tragic is going to happen, and it's obviously coming up soon so I'm dreading it. Kind of lame. What if your life had a back cover synopsis that spoiled all the major events? Jeez.

I've been doing way more reading in general lately, but mostly not for school stuff. Actually I've been starting books and not finishing them, which is probably a bad thing. I've been working on Life of Pi on and off for like half a year. All I hear is good things about it, so I feel ashamed for being unable to get into it.
I just finished a book entitled Life With Billy, which was not particularly well-written, but details a really interesting case from the 1980s in which a Canadian woman, after suffering years of unbelievable spousal abuse (seriously, this guy was a monster), blows her husband's head off with a shotgun. It exploded, literally. Rad. But it sure didn't fix her life, poor lady. Check out this book if you get a chance, but feel free to skip the boring parts.

I just accidentally napped for three hours, from 7 to 10, and I am a little sad about it.

How to win an election

I wanted to play open mic at Supermarket tonight, but I found out that they start sign-up at 5:00 p.m. and you can only sign up in person, so since I work every Sunday until 6:30, there's no way for me to ever get a timeslot before like, 1:30 at night or so. Boo. I'm more than a little disappointed.

I went anyway, and saw/heard some pretty cool stuff. And um... one pretty lame thing. An Asian boy and girl went up and like, I don't know, I think they hooked their iPod up to the speakers and basically sang karaoke? Whatever. The girl also did her own thing where she played her keytar and sang, which was ok.

This is common knowledge, but keytars get people really EXCITED. Like, if you're ever running for office, seriously, bust out a keytar during the debate or press conference or whatever. You will win. You don't even have to play it. Just wear it, and you will be the fucking mayor, no contest.

I feel like I've gotten mosquito bites in the past half hour. And I've been only in my bedroom. I really hope I'm wrong.

I just found some old Pez dispensers in my room. One of them, Darth Vader, still had Pez in it. I did not know that Pez could get moldy. Fucking gross!

Deleted Scenes, Part 2

Continued from earlier post:

• Jan.8 2010: "My brother-in-law recently told me that he has a friend who is dating a girl, and her identical twin sister is dating the guy's best friend. THAT IS NUTS. I would watch this if it was a show. But actually no. It would probably be one of those crappy ones that gets cancelled after half a season, never mind."
• Feb. 21 2010: "...some ladies were totally into my dance moves tonight. I hadn't even gotten to my Russian jig yet at this point, either. They may have been completely messing with me..." Protip: I was also wearing my Star Trek uniform shirt. Ladies love that shit, obvs.
  
• Feb. 24 2010: On this day, a friend asked me, out of the blue, if I thought she was "overly emotional." Honest answer was yes. After hesitating a moment, I told her so, which - surprise - resulted in an irrational response: "I AM emotional, but I am also reasonable." I was then told not to respond to this self-appraisal unless I agreed with it. Point proven?
• March 19 2010: "This ice cream is supposed to have brownie bits and cookie dough, but I am not finding any brownie." Was still really good. My favourite ice cream, I think.
  
• March 29 2010: "There's this awesome girl who was in my class in winter semester of last year, and I still have her on Facebook, and every time she makes a status update, I'm more convinced she was like, MY FRIGGEN..." the next words were going to be 'soul mate', and then I thought, I feel super fucking creepy, and closed the browser. Rad girl moved back to London, ON.
  

My teacher called Mao Zedong's wife a bitch

Besides exams, today I am finished with semester 1 of Broadcast Television.

My final project was a short documentary about my father and his experiences in China in the 60s. I didn't want to dub over his Cantonese, so it was a lot of subtitles, ha ha ha. It was screened this morning in class, and I was a little afraid that my dad would look ridiculous, because he can be kind of loud and obnoxious when he is speaking, but it was very well received. I saw at least one person stand up to applaud afterward. He was probably half-kidding, but it was still great to get that kind of reaction.
I realised later that I am a bit of a narcissist. I loved the applause and compliments, but had little to say about the other projects, except for the ones that were really funny, or had exceptionally pretty shots.

But I really, really like editing movies and stuff.

So, except for exams, I'm off of school until May 11.
I think I want to write and record songs, and maybe play some open mic (if I can get rid of this god damn cold!), and read, and watch movies, and get some shirts.

And get drunk with YOU!
Is that possible?

Deleted Scenes

I was just looking through my list of entries on this blog, and there is a surprising number of "drafts," where I just started writing and didn't end up publishing the entry. Here are some of them:

• January 18/09 - "Charles Horse," in which I describe a couple of really bad mornings when I woke up to my leg seizing up in pain (I still think the title is funny)
• January 24/09 - "I think I might have dreamt that I killed my mother."
• January 25/09 - "Breast Milk," in which I describe an incident where Dorian was laughing and barfing at the same time
• April 7/09 - I describe waiting TWO HOURS (literally) for a bus. If you know a bus is coming in two hours, it's ok, but waiting and not knowing where the fuck it is for two hours is infuriating. Especially if it's past midnight in St. Catharines and you are trying to get home to Scarborough.
  
• September 15/09 - "I don't have time to be upset about Patrick Swayze, I'm still dwelling on Heath Ledger. YEAH, I know it was almost two years ago, just let me deal with it. OK? GOD." STILL TRUE.
• January 15/10 - I describe an incident at work where one of my bosses, a Chinese gynecologist, needed me to help her test out her new colposcope, an instrument that kinda looks like a telescope that is for examining the vagina. I was asked to hold a cardboard tube up to the colposcope in order to vaguely simulate the vaginal opening. My other boss, an English gynecologist, walks in and sees what we are doing, and asks, "Oh, is Owen being the vagina?" with her English accent. "Owen is the vagina!"
• February 22/10 - "When I was little, I thought that Will Smith was saying 'In West Philadelphia, born IN RAGE' in the Fresh Prince theme song."

There's actually more, but this is all for now.

Funny Boy

Dorian is funny. He is not talking yet, but you can ask him, "Dorian, where is your head?" and he will look at you and put his hand on his head, or you can ask him, "Dorian, where is your belly?" and he will pull up his shirt and show you his stomach.

BONJOUR, voici les thoughts of the jour garcon, mettez your bras dans le air.

I'd like to state for the record that the previous blog was about Carey Mulligan. I have seen none of her work, and I only know she is cute as hell. I do not have a crush on Shia LaBeouf or fantasies about fighting him naked on a mountainside.

During the winter, I always get sick of the cold and the grey, and I get all excited for the warm weather to come back. Every year, I somehow manage to forget that it isn't all sunshine and unicorn farts, and it gets grey and rainy and dull and depressing in springtime too. Arghghhrhh.

After seeing Emma Stone in Superbad and Zombieland, I thought she was super hot, and checked out her IMDB page to make sure that she was, you know, an appropriate age for me to be having inappropriate thoughts about (yup I'm sleazy, deal with it). Turns out she is. But after examining numerous photographs of her, I've concluded that it's unfortunately entirely possible that she'll kind of look like Fergie once she reaches Fergie's age. So even though 68 is a long way off for Ms. Stone, it does kind of ruin everything.

I don't like being around high levels of cynicism and negativity, if I can help it. I usually can. It doesn't even make me feel sad anymore; it's just really tiresome. Above all else, I hate being bored. I think most people do.

Tonight, a man on the subway projectile vomited, spewed all over the wall and some seats. His buddies leapt up in order to dodge. It was only about 9:40 pm. My first instinct was to glare at him for being GROSS, but then I realised, I have been there. I have been the gross subway guy. Except not at 9:40 pm, and I'm fairly certain that my friends took care of me. I don't remember if they had to dodge my friendly fire.

Somebody left some Babybels in my fridge. I love Somebody.

So, the list of actresses I want to get with has increased yet again. Shia LaBeouf, I will fight you.

Flying solo

I had a really awesome night.

For the past several months, I've been wanting to play some songs at an open mic thing somewhere downtown. What kept happening was, evening would arrive, and I would find some reason to not go - it's raining, snowing, too cold, I am tired, I have school tomorrow. Tonight I kind of just forced myself to get down there and do it. I went, just myself, to Ein-Stein, which holds an open mic show every Wednesday. I am glad that I did.

I walked in feeling like a complete loser, not sure where to sit down, or what to drink, or where to set down my guitar. I walked up to the bar and the man behind it asked me what I wanted; a young guy beside me recommended the house brew, and introduced himself. He explained that he was an American ex-marine who had deserted because he didn't believe in the war he was being asked to fight, and sought asylum in Canada. I was skeptical at first, but he turned out to be a really nice guy, and actually sat and talked with me for most of the night. We played some pool and he asked me to be his wingman to chat up a couple of girls, but I told him that I didn't know how to do that. I wasn't drunk enough.

In between open mic acts, the host was asking trivia questions, and when the category shifted to Simpsons trivia, I was like, "I GOT THIS" in a rare moment of self-assured cockiness. And I was right! For knowing the Simpsons guest roles of Jon Lovitz, Danny DeVito, and ... a bunch of others I no longer remember, I won a fleece jacket with a Grolsch logo on it. Not too shabby!

After kicking Simpsons-trivia ass, it was my turn to play. My time on stage felt unremarkable, because mostly everyone was drinking, drunk, and/or not really paying attention, so there wasn't really much energy to feed off of. But it was my first time on stage in years (and the last time was like, one song with Matt, so that barely even counts really), and my first time ever playing on my own. I had fun, and my new friend told me he enjoyed my songs, and that he could see that I put a lot of heart into it. I hope he was being sincere. I choose to believe that he was.

My new friend then asked me to again accompany him in talking to a pair of girls. At this point, I had had a little more to drink so I went along with it. It was surprisingly fun! I met a psychology student from the States who came here for spring break. We talked about life and music (we actually had some favourites in common!) and travelling and ... look, I know this isn't that interesting, but seriously, I have never ever gone up to talk to a random girl before. It really was a big thing for me, and the fact that we actually connected was just the most wonderful feeling.

I really thought I was just going to be a loner tonight - walk in, play, have a pint and leave. Instead, I had an absolute blast. I still can't believe it. I think I feel better than I have felt in a long time.

Good night :)

If you ever find yourself thinking that it is a good idea to be having a mixture of plain yogurt, a slice of processed cheese, a can of 3-months-past-expiry refried beans, and a dollop of salsa...
You might just be drunk.

i penis huckabees

Until very recently, my sister Trudy did not know that when people typed less-than symbol with a 3, it was supposed to be a heart (I would type it out but the HTML apparently won't recognise it, which is really annoying). In fact, she was under the impression that less-than-3 was meant to be a penis and set of balls. Here are some choice Trudy quotations from a recent chat with her in which we discussed this misunderstanding:

"why the hell is everyone doing these penises ???"
"i REALLY thought it was a penis...doesn't it look like one ? like w balls"
"i was like, 'jeez people are getting really vulgar nowadays'"

Oh, Trudy. <3
(it works here for some reason)

I think I've maybe watched the Jimmy Kimmel show a grand total of 0.02 times. He might be really funny, I have no idea, but I've just never paid that much attention to his show.
That being said, the following clip makes my heart all warm and stuff.

I start school next week. What I don't like about my schedule is that I start at 8 on Wednesdays and Thursdays. HOWEVER, I really do like my schedule because I finish at 10:45 a.m. on Thursdays, and have Fridays off. Pretty sweet weekend deal.

I think my brain is getting stupid. Lately I find myself making bizarre typing errors. I'll start typing the word "notice" with a K and realise that that's completely wrong. This seems minor but I've been knoticing it more and more lately.

β-Carotene

I like this song because it is friendly. Also it kind of makes me think of Lenny for some reason, ha ha ha