What glorious accidental foresight that my friends Chad and Erin happen to find themselves with. They are coming to visit me, because they empathize with my complete inability to locate and lugubriously latch onto friendly human beings in my immediate vicinity. So they are coming to keep me company.

And!

Little do they know, Burlington has wreaked a havoc on its waterfront, where truck-sized barbecues have been staked into the ground, and approximately two acres of the park lawns have been rightfully dominated by injection-molded plastic patio furniture. The types of Americans who live between Appalachia and Texas have begun to lay claim to the area.

Awww yeah, brah! It’s Ribfest weekend!

I have picked a spot yonder round the bend in the shoreline, just off the beach, where only a very few choice lads will find themselves, stuffed with pigmeats and having a sort of identity crisis. This is where i will place the boar’s head on a sharp stick, hence known as The Lord of the Flies. It is practically non-negotiable, to have The Lord of the Flies present. It is going hand-in-hand with these sorts of civilized displays of excess. It is also the least i could do for Simon, who is one of my favourites. It is Simon on my left shoulder, Holden Caufield on my right. Maybe. When i’m not being a phony, anyways.

But all of this digression leads me right back to the point, which is why digression is cooler than you will ever be. Four pubs, a martini bar, and seventeen metric tonnes of pigmeats all within a few blocks of my front door? Who needs to ever get laid, with weekends like this?

Worlds are largely finite. Only this is correct. Forget every word that i said, that you heard, OH.

A Silver Mount Zion exists because your life might be okay, but that is no reason to listen to happy music, and believe that the world will be okay, because the world will definitely not be okay, and it is getting less and less okay by the second. If you would rather not think about it, then i will not blame you.

In November 1999 Efrim made songs with his piano. I used a paper check and a stamped envelope and i sent these things to Quebec, and a little later i got the songs. The songs extinguished any pathetic hopes that i had about the world ever being an okay place. That’s pretty impressive for a musics to do.

The first song had dirge instrumentals interwoven with a preacher talking about doomsday, and how world peace will set the stage for complete destruction of civilizations by civilizations which secretly have no tolerance for one another. That is my favorite one, most days.

The last song is not about any lofty hopeless ideas. It is just dedicated to Efrim’s dog, who had died a few weeks before. You can taste things in your mouth from when you were five, sometimes, listening to that one. It has field recordings of ghostly fireworks and people laughing. It is dedicated to a dead dog, is all. It is called For Wanda, you should never ever listen to it, because it is sadder than Górecki.

They were never supposed to really do anything else or play live in front of people, but that is what ended up happening anyway. Tonight i am going to see them for the first time. Maybe i will die of sadness part way through, except that they do not play their piano on tour, because pianos are heavy. I bet that they are not half as hopeless without a piano.

Don’t worry i will see a band who is not tragically sad, eventually. Maybe Led Zeppelin will stop through.

Yesterday the Canadian National Tower was shrouded in mists. I pluralized, because there were a lot of them. At first, the mists were only shrouding the toppy tip antenna, but by the time dusk was settling, the mists had moved their front lines to just below the Sky Pod, which is where you can eat and rotate, if that’s really how you want to go around spending your coin.

By late evening, i was swinging on a very rigidized swingset, and i was breaking all previous personal records, for height and velocity, because my ability to achieve ridiculous momentum has improved maybe twofold since i was a very young weakling. But then i began to become nauseous, and i will blame it on caffeine, even though it is probably more due to being tipsy and full of mexican food, and also a pansy. And old. Too.

I was even able to find the swingset on google. I did not even take this picture, it is just that for big cities, there are lots of other people doing the same things, and taking the pictures for you, so you do not have to, which is amazing. I was on the second swing from the left, and i was locomoting it for all it was worth.

I don’t think the picnic table was there in my version, though.

There was also a culmination of my Reading of the Biography of Woody Guthrie, in the form of a long-playing record, discovered for me, by a girl who i was on a date with. It looks like this, even after i bought it:

This will allow for a conclusion. Here is a song from the record. It is good that there is a conclusion and that i will stop mentioning Woody Guthrie, because i am too busy listening to New Order anymore.

–

Here is a high-resolution photograph of a seldom-considered continent. If i were to have opinions, i would say that it is a pretty photograph, somehow.

God willing, and Satan too i guess because why not?, i will turn thirty on top of a mountain. I do not normally like to care about birthdays, because usually they are tragic or else completely unrewarding and devoid of happenstance. But i will make an exception for decade-marks, which only seem to come round every ten years or so.

Also, i do not remember anything at all from the days that i turned ten and twenty. Chances are that i was tying a snowsled to the back rail of an all-terrain vehicle for the first, and maybe making out with a cheerleader for the other. But there are no crispy clear memries, and so for thirty, i think i should be on top of an Ande, in the farthest tips of Patagonia, with the stolen femurs of Jemmy Button lodged in my backpack, chanting or intoning secret foreign spells up into the clouds, because i think that all of this would be certain to be rememberable, which is something that i am not good at, usually.

And even though my birthday is still a long ways off, it probably takes paperwork and vaccines and other things that require a lack of procrastination, in order to navigate successfuly to Patagonia, and so i should get started. I have already booked vacation time for late December and early January, and i am hoping to be far away by Christmas, which might be depressing, which in turn would make me content, probably. You know me. Besides, Christmas is less fun and more pointless every year. Plus, i am not a christian, which probably matters.

In Tierra del Fuego, there are three and only three types of trees that grow. Did you know that? I didn’t know that.

It is more possible to be as weird as i prefer with youngsters around.

Dave S. is seventeen, and is working with us for the summer. He goes on the lunchwalks with us highly-paid pillars of careerism.

Yesterday Dave was speaking of how he had broken up with a girlfriend, but that he felt that his prospects for procuring a new girlfriend were vast and plentifull.

Dave: “The world is my oyster, Tim..”

Tim: “I know that a lot of people like to say ‘The world is my oyster’, but actually the world is much more like a clam.”

Dave: “Oh, really?”

Tim: “Yes. The world is like a clam. And the clam is inside of a whale.”

Dave: “A Whale?”

Tim: “Yes. The world is more like a clam inside of a whale, than it is like an oyster. And also, the whale is beached, and is dying.”

Dave: “So the world is like a clam inside of a beached, rotting whale?”

Tim: “I did not say rotting, i said dying. And children are poking it with sticks, and its breath is more and more shallow. Oh and also, there is a leaking oil tanker offshore, and the captain’s mother wishes that he were never born.”

Dave: “You’re weird.”

Tim: “THAT is what the world is like, young Dave. I know it all seems very melodramatic, but it is true. Oh also, the world is not your clam unless you are willing to tear through the flesh of the dying whale to claim it. You heartless fucking bastard.”

I did not consider that Dave would be one to have vast and plentifull dating prospects, because he is very seventeen, and also momentarily ruined with acne. But i could be wrong about this sort of thing.

Jane: Maybe I will have a fucking drink. Just for sociability’s sake. And because I’m a fuckin’ drunk.

Joanie: Well, what’s your preference?

Jane: That it ain’t been previously swallowed.

Anxieties are becoming a big big verybig problem for me once again, for not any particular reason whatsoever, perhaps. Or i think that i am much healthier when i am having some social interaction everyday, even though i have never considered myself very social. But without the social interaction, i will get extremely restless. The restlessness can get to be excrutiating, and i absolutely have no idea what the fuck to do with myself. Reading books is no match for it. Deadwood on dvd is, but there are only so many of those.

So today i decided to go into Toronto, to sort of stroll around aimlessly and give myself a parade of stimuli to offer distraction. It was a good day for it, because today it was sort of chilly (for August) and overcast, and breezy, and the whole city and everyone in it was seeming pensive.

I began recognizing the shopfronts and sidewalk nuances as i walked down College street. Chad and i had conquered a vast rectangle’s worth of the downtown area many years ago, when we spent a weekend in Toronto, watching Sarah Slean perform by night, walking around endlessly during the days. We were with Adam L., who was an acquaintance of an internet friend. Chad and i tormented him relentlessly the entire time, feigning homosexuality, which we were quick to discover made him very uncomfortable. And i say it was our relentlessness which is directly responsible for making Adam L. the happy, laid-back bisexual that he is today. Hooray for teenage psychology!

So my strolling today was only an adequate distraction, the record store i found was slightly better, but oh so much bad news for my wallet. There is a big difference between dusty dirty old records for three dollars, and brand new shrinkwrapped records for twenty-five. As it turns out. So.

It was probably also my anxieties which had prompted me to take the shameful way out of aloneness and put an ad up on craigslist. The ad was promptly ignored by 99.999% of the Toronto readership, which i sort of expected, because i am weird, but i think it was clever enough to fetch one or two potentially good friends, which i am happy about, and so all hope is not lost, as far as searching for people on similar wavelengths. I am supposed to have a low-key coffee date next saturday, and so i can count on saturday as a low-anxiety day, i think, because i will be able to interact with another human being for at least a little while. And then we are going to go record shopping. I think the wallet will still be a bit sore, but i will buck up like a good chap..

–

I have found that i enjoy, to a great degree, the application of Queen Helene’s Mint Julep face concoction. So fucking what?? It makes my skin feel very taught, and also baby smooth.

..

Okay, i might be concerningly feminine, but at least i have a good sense of humour about it.

–

My last news is that yesterday i saw the absolute best movie i have seen in a very very very long time, and it is called “Little Miss Sunshine”. Everyone NEEDS to see it. It is hilarious and also touching. It is about an irreparably damaged american family, which is cliche, except that this american family has an adventure which results in redemptions. Lasso your significant others, and go to the movie theatre, or go by yourself, because it is excellent for avoiding aloneness anxiety. True dat.

–

Anxieties are also probably good for losing flesh mass, since i have only had a muffin, a bag of popcorn, a small breakfast plate from Dickens, and five crackers, over the past two days, and i don’t think i have the energy to ingest anything more.

–

Why do all of my very good friends live so fucking far away?

Here are things for remembering:

1. The way you could feel the sharp tips of nails through the carpet, as you walked barefoot or in socks, up the stairs to the attic of gramma and grampa’s knowlesville house.

2. The rock that had the fossil that resembled a demon’s head, that was split into two with a hammer and chisel, down the middle of the face, by me at thirteen or fourteen, maybe, and one was cast into the weeds behind the house, and one was cast into the lake, i think, though i do not remember which lake. Nor do i remember the point of casting the mating rock pieces into different locations, but it felt like something that i should do because i might have read it in a fantasy novel.

3. That “why don’t you talk to me??” song by pink floyd which was popular at the time, playing on the radio as i drove april home, who i could not talk to even though i wanted to. Ultimately i ended up saying “bye” as she left the car. Earlier, i had said “hello.” But that was about it. The song was just a metaphoric punch in the face, and also maybe Ironic.

4. Being lost in the vines, panicking, calling out “help!”, answered by buffy, who barked, whose bark i followed, forty feet away to salvation. I was six or maybe seven.

5. The potion called “Grahs”, in a small plastic bottle normally used for trumpet valve oil. 90% of the concoction was derived from a controlled and unabated nosebleed. After three months, blood smells an awful lot like diarrhea. Perfect for dousing the woolly interiors of rivals’ instrument cases.

6. Herman, whose whiskers i sheared, to make him more more pulchritudinous. Who never came back after that night, causing me to realize: cat whiskers have some degree of importance.

My american money is back on the endtable. Adam poses the question “why don’t you Live in richmond?” and i say it was a bad idea to leave, even though i am not so sure. Dynamics was always my best subject. That means: we know how things move, and sometimes exactly where they will be ending up. If you never leave, how can you ever be having some sort of glorious return, worthy of parades and fanfares and fireworks and liquor?

Things I have managed to make collected, more.

Matt had handed the Simply Saucer to me, sensing in a keen sense, inside ancient tribal musics that are former new awakenings to frontiers unexisting. I added it to my pile, only later to find out that its entirety begins and ends in hamilton ontario, its formulation fermenting the decades until it is dubbed “the best canadian LP that ever was.”

Oh Snap! to Rush, Broken Social Scene, The Tragically Hip, et al and on and on.

I totally am buying into that line.

–

I have made a conscious decision to be at ease, to be at ease, to be at ease, to see the doctor and obtain antianxieties. Oh, to be at ease.

If only i had the patience to write things down first, i would be just another just another invisible folk singer. Nowadays i know seventeen chords, and switch between them at unawares.

I have not watched the news in what seems like months. My week seemed like a month. Friends mean so much, it’s such a shame to have a radius that is absent of them.

–

Woody Guthrie was sort of a terrible human being, even though he was a living monument of a person. I guess it is all of the weakness for the female, the absenteeism where children are concerned. But also great, the need to leave and never come back (until later), leave and join the conquered, leave and sleep in ditches, leave and ride on trains, leave and make songs for lesser people to sing. And tragic, the curse and disease, the scraping away of the personality and physical capacities, scraping away from the insides until there is just lungs and eyes.

Artist karma and leftism garners such penalties.

I was not ready to imagine myself helpless and thoughtless, motionsless in a wheelychair, head cocked to the left side, grunting for another spoonful of applesauce it makes me very very depressed. This will all happen someday and there is no stopping it.

–

Nobody covers for me at work. That will teach me to take time for myself.

Right now it is raining, which sets the mood allright, but is not lending itself to comfortably sitting in a parkesque scene and flipping through books. Instead I will borrow Matt’s computer and type emails to acquaintances who have long since written me off.

Also I will write this blog post, because those are things we all need to do more often.

I have managed to steal nighttimes on the couch downstairs, without too many people noticing. It works like this: you pay for the drinks, then drive them home. Then you follow them through their front door, tell them goodnight as they walk upstairs, then mosey on over to the sofa and make yourself comfortable.

I have found that I’ve been in a sort of depressive phase, which I like to think is stoic and hip and due entirely to my brain chemistry rather than any sort of real circumstances, therefore I cannot feel pity for myself, which is always being in bad taste. But I have been having at least a little success by medicating with drunkenness, at least 5 out of the last 8 evenings, and sometimes afternoons. Anything to kick away the social inhibitions that form gargantuan piles, blockading the door of my muses.

I reckon that girls are not good for my state of being, but maybe not good for anything else either. Ha ha? Outside of my reckonings, it is just that the girls I like do not like me back, so it is a simple matter of dismantling idealisms, settling for much lower standards, and then disappearing when there comes to be too much shopping and make-up to stomach.

Oh, psychology.

It is a hard rain’s, a-gonna fall. The sound of cat footsteps are being thoroughly drowned out by millions of drops upon the shingles, now.

All sorts of people have come out of the woodwork in a few days of wandering around town. There was Chelsea at the weird underground pub, there was Nora who was baffled as she glimpsed me as she drove by, there were Phil and Curt last night at Penny Lane, allowing this guy no dignity as he heroically rocked the open microphone. The cracking up laughter was certainly helped by the beers, but yes also by the embarrassing Jason Molina -like earnestness that becomes so comically overdone and out of place in such a setting. This is why I shall take all of my “art” to the grave, letting maybe a future generation get a good laugh of their own, between choking on fumes and dodging swarms of vehicles upon their asphalt planet.

There was a lyric I recognized as we were walking out of the joint last night, amidst the washes of inebriation, and it was “This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land.”

I am also reckoning (still in the midst of it) that having a very static home and very static places is probably the least healthy of all, for someone like me. I am only not stagnant when I am moving, in very literal ways. This makes me think that I should become a traveling engineer for the United Nations, or else quit careering altogether, sell my possessions and hit the road eternally. I will certainly never be content, so I may as well collect lots of displacement.

The jury is out. It is not likely that they will be back.

–

In approximately two weeks, I will have yet another nephew. I am guessing that the frequency will become hyperbolic, and so by this time next year, there will be forty-three children, all nephews.