Thanks, Mike

Everybody know the feeling of wanting to express in words something that they feel, something that they know, but at the same time, no matter how hard they try, the proper language escapes them.
I can't properly express how it felt to put my hands into the Atlantic Ocean. That moment changed my life. Or looking down on Ottawa from the peak of the Peace Tower. I can tell you it was impressive, that emotions welled up in me, that I felt so blessed just to be there! that I nearly wept, but the old saying holds true: words escape me.
But every once in a while, you manage to hit the nail on the head. Well, I put my finger on it today. It's not a major, cataclysmic life-changer like traveling to another part of the country or sharing a once-in-a-lifetime conversation with a stranger on a completely different walk of life than you. It's more of a river eroding a rock type of change. Slow. Intentional without being aware.
I know why I like listening to podcasts. Some reading this will be disappointed that that's all I've got, that's my whole revelation. A long life of being a disappointment has prepared me to not care.
I was simply sitting in a food court, listening to an awful show, and I realised why it was that I was such a fan, even of the bad stuff: because it's new. And on the back of that happy discovery came a dawning realisation, one much grimmer. Sometimes, alas!, music can stagnate.
How many bands do I like? A fair number. But I want more. I want to be touched by more bands, I want to discover new music, I want to find another band that speaks to me the way Coheed does, or The Mars Volta, or mewithoutYou. I know it's out there, that music. The sheer law of averages commands it. So while I wait for that music to come my way, and believe me, I want to start making advances into more and new music, podcasts afford me the ability to listen to something that I haven't heard before. I get to know the people sitting on the other end of the process, and I've been lucky enough to even participate a couple of times in the creation of said.
It feels like, and is, a case of me knowing so much about the person on the podcast and them not knowing a thing about me, much the same as a fan of a band can tell you the lead singer's first high school band and what their EP was called. How well do I know Sanchez? Pretty well, I would say. Of course there are blank spots, but look at it relatively. How well does she know me?
Podcasts offer me a look into someone's life, I hear stories about how they were raised, and by whom, and trouble they got into, or didn't get into when they ought to have, or the music they like (which is great) or the sex they've had, the places they've camped, the cars they've driven, the conversations they've had. I hear highs and lows. And I know that as much as I am One Among The Fence, being part of a band's fanbase is nothing compared to being part of the Whorde.
I don't want to belittle music. Music is one of the most important things to me in my entire life, and I would hate for that to change. Even writing this, I can recall seeing bands live, sweating in a pit, screaming at the top of my lungs for hours on end, and let me tell you, God, there is nothing, NOTHING like that. But when you're stuck in a bit of a rut, new music-wise, as I seem to be, you strive for something new.
I want new music. I love the feeling of getting absolutely lost in 'Day Of The Baphomets' or 'Cassandra Gemenni' or 'The Willing Well' or 'The End Complete' or 'King Beetle On A Coconut Estate'. But it doesn't happen everyday.
Now, listening to a story teller stringing one hell of a yarn? Yeah, I can do that every day.

Better People

I get that I come across wrong. I want to.
I don't want to be understood, anticipated, or expected. I don't want to be predictable.
I am easygoing. I see the big picture.
So when I give advice, it's know it's hard to not come across as condescending. Honestly, when I give advice, it's usually to condescend to someone.
Which leaves me in a difficult position. I want people to take what I say as the gospel truth. Fact is, I know better than you. However, I want people to be as easygoing as I am, to have the freedom to tell a person to fuck off.
I think the best case scenario for those situations is that a person will listen to what I have to say. I may be condescending, but I'm right.
Second best case scenario is that the person just laughs me off and says "Buh, whatever. Don't care." That way, even though you're not listening to me, you're seeing the big picture, which is that a person should live their life for themselves. That's not a selfish thing to do, not if you're me. Some people will associate a person living their life for themselves as being inconsiderate of others. Those people are shallow, misguided, and probably a little bit retarded. Have you ever given gifts to someone? Christmas time? Birthday? Just because? And doesn't that feel good? Don't you want to keep giving yourself the pleasure of pleasing other people?
I'm getting away from myself.
What I most certainly do not want a person to do is fly off the handle and get offended. Listen, if I didn't like you, I just wouldn't talk to you. So if I'm talking to you, we're friends. I want you to be better.
I will never stop correcting people when they say or spell something incorrectly. I know a couple of people, jacks of all trades, master of none. I'm a 6, 7 tops, at the best thing I know, which is language, so I am going to hold on to that with all my might. I realise I misspeak, I misspell, I use improper syntax. But when push comes to shove, and I'm sober, I can be one eloquent son of a bitch. I can write like a man possessed (when so possessed).
So get off your fucking high horse and either listen to me, because I have your best interests at heart, you ungrateful sniveling masses, or just laugh me off, tell me to fuck off, because what I'm saying is just going in one ear and out the other, water off a duck's back, and you're not going to change because you don't care to.

I'm bad with money

I have bills. Phone bills. Internet bills. But I don't have an income. And I'm shitty with my money.
When I get money, yes, I'm good about paying my bills. But in my perfect world, I'd spend all my money on my friends.
I don't give a shit about money. It ruins people. I hate when people say they can't go out and do something because it costs too much. Especially when it's a person I know has a good job. I have no job, and I'll do everything in my power to make sure I can go out and have a good time with my friends. And if it costs me my last dollar, so be it.
Telus is expecting $90 dollars from me tomorrow. Guess what. Last time I checked, I had 52 cents in my bank account. Sorry, Telus, looks like you're going to have to shut off my phone.
I always have this perfect scenario play out in my head, one that I am determined to make happen, but one that leaves me with no money for an extended amount of time. See, I'm taking a trip in the middle of November. I justify not going out to look for a job before then because it wouldn't make sense, nor would it be appealing to an employer, for me to say, "Hey, hire me! Oh, and by the way, I'm going to need two weeks off right away." So my plan is to wait until I get back, make an effort to find a job, once I have that job to begin my TESOL course, work to pay off my approximately $6000 debt (which is peanuts compared to a lot of people I know), and by the time I'm done my course, I've paid my debt, maybe saved up some coin, and I can fuck off to another part of the world. God didn't put me on this earth to work a boring job just so I can save up to buy a house to work to afford my car to drive to work to pay for my house and car.
Listen: I do not want a house.
Listen: I do not want a wife.
Listen: I do not want children.
What I want is to go out and teach, make a person's life better, grow as a person, learn, experience different cultures, eat weird foods, expand my horizons, make new friends, look at a different set of stars. I was put on this earth to make a difference, and I've done a piss poor job of doing it here, so I might as well try my luck across the world.

Clean Up

So, as part of my job, I have to make sure that when people move out of their apartments, they clean up after themselves. Typically, it's not so bad. People want their damage deposit back, and they know that I'm a bit of a hard ass, so they do a decent job of making sure that the scuffs on the walls and the skrim in the tub gets cleaned off.
Sometimes, however, I run across some son of a bitch who thinks that using their foot to push a bunch of shit into the corner of the living room is a suitable excuse for cleaning up.
Such was the case today.
It's the last of the month. I have people moving in tomorrow. I already spent about 4 hours today cleaning up after people who had already 'cleaned' their apartment before they left. They don't realise that there's a floor under their fridge, that there's dust on the mantle, that if you're a bastard, and smoke like a fucking chimney in your apartment, every fucking surface will be coated in a yellow scum.
They take off, thinking, "Yeah, that deposit can just be mailed to my new address, this one's in the bag." Nope. I got news for you. If I don't say your place is spotless, you don't get your deposit back. If you don't spend several hours making sure your apartment is in the exact same condition it was when you got it, which, for many of my tenants, is brand fucking new, because we had our building renovated, then don't expect that cheque in the mail.
So late this evening, I had a guy from downstairs hire someone to come do his cleaning for him. "Great," I thought, "this will make my job easy." Wrong. After this clown was done 'cleaning',  I realised that the walls were damaged, the floors were dirty, none of the drawers had been wiped out, and there was an unknown, sticky film on most everything. I'm having a couple move into that apartment tomorrow morning at ten o'clock at the latest. What the fuck am I supposed to tell them? "Oh, sorry about your fucked up walls. Sorry about all the dirt and shit in your new home. Welcome to the building." Fuck.
So now I have to wake up at, like, seven o'clock tomorrow so I can try to get at least some semblance of cleanliness into this apartment. But there's only so much I'll be able to do; the walls need replacing (and they're feature walls, too, not just some cheap plaster shit). Some blinds are totally wrecked, I'll need to get those replaced.It's exactly the last thing I want to have to do. Not because it's a bitch to clean. I don't mind the cleaning part, I'll blast some music and sweat buckets, but I'm a fucking champ and I'll get it done. No, what bothers me is that people have a duty, as tenants, to respect both the property, and their caretaker. Don't leave the job in the hands of some incompetent asshole who will sell you up shit creek.
Poor people moving into that place are going to have a lot of shit to deal with right off the bat, and that's just plain unfair.

My Last Grandfather

Last Wednesday, June 6, 2011, my last grandpa died.
I was out at the Winnipeg Folk Fest. I was minus a phone. My dad had to call my uncle to get my friend's number, who texted another friend who was with me, to let me know that I should phone home.
I was sitting at the Bird's Hill Beach when I called my dad. He asked how things were going. I told him great. Then he said, "Are you okay right now?" And I knew right then what had happened.
He told me that grandpa had gone outside into the back yard to do some gardening. When he didn't come back in, my grandma went to check on him, and when she saw him lying there, went to the neighbour's to get them to call an ambulance. It was from the earth that he was formed, and to the earth he did return. So it goes.
I will forever be grateful for the people that were with me when I found out. I have the very best friends.
My grandma will have to move into a home. There's no way she can stay in that house. She can't go up and down the stairs, she can't get in and out of the bathtub on her own, she's starting to get a little bit senile. She's deaf as a post.
I've been preparing myself for this for several months now. Ever since my grandpa started having a couple of strokes, I knew this day would come. I've been hoping that, now that my grandpa's dead, my grandma will die soon as well. Sounds terrible, but after being married for 63 years, you get to the point where you can't live without one another. My grandparents are/were stolid, practical Mennonites. Used to the idea of death. Not afraid of it. I'm not afraid for them. I'm afraid what it will do to my mom. Who knows, maybe grandma will adapt nicely to a new environment? (Doubt it. She's a crotchety old woman set in her ways.)
I've been coping fairly well. Using humour a lot. Joked that I was going to tell my grandma that I'd have to miss grandpa's funeral because I was going to go watch Hobo With A Shotgun instead. I've toyed with the idea of telling people that don't know me very well that he died of auto-erotic asphyxiation.
I guess some might see it as callous, but really, I'm saying these things because I'm not devastated by his death. A couple of months to mentally prepare will do that to you, I guess.
The funeral was on Monday. The first words my grandma said to me when I gave her a hug were, "Your grandfather is gone."
It was a fine funeral, I guess. As far as funerals go. Half in German. The pastor leading the service sounded like he didn't really know my grandpa that well, and yet, knew stuff about him that I didn't. His leadership roles in the church. Driving other seniors around for doctor's appointments. So on.
My grandma wanted me to say grace for the meal. I had absolutely nothing prepared when I stepped up to the pulpit. I thanked God for giving me the time with my grandpa that he had. I thanked him for giving me a grandfather that taught me the value of hard work, of patience, and of humility. There were times when I didn't know what I was going to say next, and I had to remind myself that I was allowed to take a few deep breaths to compose myself. Not a dry eye in the house.
My dad said I made him proud. My other grandma said I made her proud. I don't think my grandma whose husband just passed away heard a single word of the service.
Afterwards, we went to the cemetery. His casket was lowered down into a hole that was shored up with a steel box frame to keep the ground from caving in. There was another wooden frame around the casket. No bottom, the casket rested on earth. My dad and I climbed into the grave and laid 2x6's across the top of the wooden frame.
Placing that last plank down, the one that forever covered my grandpa's casket from view, was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. My dad and I stood on that box and cried and cried, and I told him that I loved him.
Who knows what will happen now? I'll miss my grandpa telling me about how the calculator was the downfall of my generation. I'll miss him beating the piss out of me at Anagrams. I'll miss him telling me about pickling, and working at Griffin Steel, I'll miss his shirts, I'll miss seeing a toothpick hanging out of the corner of his mouth. I'm going to miss his laugh like hell.
He's in a better place now. Guess I'm just being a bit selfish.

I love you, grandpa.

Verdant

Yesterday was a beautiful day. Just amazing. I decided to take a bit of advantage of it.
I dressed up and hopped on my bike. I rode to Assiniboine Park. It's been too long since I've been to the gym, so pushing my body very hard physically was a treat. It felt good.
I rode to the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden and went for a walk. Ran into a woman who lives on the east coast, and she told me that she used to live in Winnipeg, and remembered when Assiniboine Park used to be just one building with a bit of green space around it. Now, she said, she came back to experience the Park and how much it's grown and flourished.
I got some good pictures of the gardens. Some dragonflies. I love dragonflies. I think at one point, I could have had one land on the arm of my glasses; as it was, all I saw out of my peripheral vision was a large bug flitting directly towards my face, and I made a kind of panicked, seizing spasm. The dragonfly landed on a branch and I took some pictures of that too.

I went for a run, the first run in, again, too long. As I was running down the path, I ran past some bushes. There was such a green smell coming from them. Reminded me of picking berries right off the branch and eating them right then and there. Hot from the sun.

I call bullshit

Some background: the NHL is back in Winnipeg.

I don't think people that don't support an NHL team in this city have really thought out their reasons very clearly. There are some people, like Chris, who are kind of gay (sorry if you ever read this, Chris), who just don't care about sports. They'd rather post a million fucking pictures of their kids on twitter and talk about gardening. That's fine. You're excused.
But the people who are sports fans, and who look at the situation, and say, "Hm, no, don't think Winnipeg can support a team," I don't think those people are right.
At first, I wasn't crazy about getting an NHL team back in town. We had the Moose, whom I loved (still do, always will; they're going to be our farm team in St. John's). I was worried that ticket prices for crappy seats would be $70+. I worried the city couldn't afford it.
Now that I've spent some time thinking about it, I realise that I was wrong. Graeme made a good point when he said that it would be exciting to see current NHLers playing in our very own Phone Booth. I saw Sidney Crosby play for Team Canada in the World Juniors. It was great. Now I've got an opportunity to see players like Luongo, Foote, Iginla, Toews, Brodeur, Gretzky, Lemieux, Thomas... You get the idea. The Moose are great, but world class hockey they are not.
When the Jets left, there was no salary cap. The cost of keeping a team in a "small" market city was too unmanageable. Our dollar was weak, our team was losing money and losing money. A critic's argument that the same thing is bound to happen is bunk. Yes, the Thrashers are moving from a city of over 5 million to a city of 750, 000, but you'd be mad to say that ATL wants hockey more than Winnipeg. And where there's a will and all that. Plus, we've got a very strong dollar on our side, a province that has seemed impervious to the recession, and a salary cap that makes affording an NHL team a realistic endeavor for a city Winnipeg's size.
The only conclusion I can come to is that you heard Winnipeg was getting an NHL team, remembered that we lost the Jets 15 years ago, and responded with a knee-jerk reaction of "Oh, it'll happen again," and therefore just count out the team before they've even had a chance to win you over.
If you're any kind of sports fan, and you're saying this because you have 'good intentions' or whatever for Winnipeg, I call bullshit.
I say go to a game, any game, within the first five years of the NHL being back in Winnipeg. Sit in a seething, cheering crowd of people in the midst of a white-out, and then get back to me.
Tell me then that we can't support a team.