Bath + Photography = Natural Fit

This photo is way too narcissistic for Instagram, but this is MY effing blog, so I'm posting it here.

Good Trainer

(To the tune of "Good Mother" by Jann Arden)

I've got a weekly gig at a synagogue
I like the baldness of my head
I've got a friend that Skypes me twice a week
Got a rent-controlled apartment
I've got a transit pass

I've got a good trainer
And his squats are what keep me somewhat balanced
Feet not tripping on ground
No scrapes on hand
Or stumbling forward
Into stacking shelves

I....
I've never wanted rippled abs
No, I...no, I...
I've never wanted rippled abs
So bad...

He's bored while I'm masking just how emo I've been
Coming out, thanks to some disgusting, man-filled 'net pornography!
The he says, "We'll have to put that on hold;
We're out of time. Please show your Visa at the nurse's window."

I've got a good therapist
And his "mmm-hmmm"s are what make me sigh
Couch that's kinda round
Gross fake plant
Daddy issues confronting my inner self

I...
I've never wanted happy drugs
No, I...no, I...
I've never wanted happy drugs
So bad...

[musical break with key change]

[modulation back to original key. Bitch, make up yo mind.]

I've got rumblings in my stomach
I like that croissant over there
I've gotta mouth that loves pastry
Gotta choose
Chocolate or car(...mel)

I've got a good baker
And his carbs are what get me by
Gaining pounds
Heart attacks
From all the cream I shove in myself

I...
I've never wanted a glass of milk
No, I...no, I...
I've never wanted a glass of milk
So bad...

Gaining pounds...
Heart attacks...
Gaining pounds...
Heart attacks...

[outro, bows]

Today while on the streetcar I glanced out the window and saw a homeless man sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk with his shoes off beside him at the very top of Bay Street, which is like Canada's equivalent of Wall Street and given what is going on right now I just thought, "Oh my god, I like my feet to be cold when I'm sleeping too!"

Why I will never be in porn

This would be waaaaaay too much pressure:

A new bodily goo for me to swallow

Have you ever felt some tickling the inside of your nostril, presumably a booger in some form or another (fossilized, goo, etc.) and so you sniff really super hard but then that little flap separating your nasal passage from your throat doesn't have time to close so the booger passes through it and suddenly you're wondering what morsel of food just dislodged from your back molar and is drain-circling your throat when you realize that - omagad - it's the booger and so you hork it up really loudly and you taste it and then for a moment it reminds you of eating boogers as a kid and how much fun it was so you try to eat it but then you're all "Um, I'm eating a booger right now," but you can't really stop booger-eating so you just kind of swallow it?

*sigh*

Wow.


My promised ABBA-ductee reinterpretation is still being created. So far I've done 10 MS Paint drawings. I'm quickly coming to hate this project. But I will percevere for you people. Goes I'm a giver. Just not the Lois Lowry kind.

I need a new creative outlet

I know I just posted a month ago about getting a ballin' ticket to a concert and to do so again would make me a braggart. And a turd. But suck it, The World. Turd, I be.

So guess who just scored a front row ticket to MARGARET CHO.


Answer: Veteran character actor Charles Durning.*




Yellow Star: Me, fuckers.

Broken Yellow Lines: Sight Lines of Connection.

Green: People that are insanely jealous of me.

Blue: People that are pretending not to be jealous yet are secretly thinking, "Wow, these tickets are so not as good as they looked on the seating chart."

Purple: Mah new best frienjhz

Red: People that are so jealous that it's like they're burning in their own personal Hells. That's why it's red. Don't even talk to me about those assholes in the loges. They will be jealousy-suiciding themselves like whoa.




*Actually, it's me. Idiot.

I've now referenced Patrick Tillet several times in the past few months. For those of you who haven't clicked on my hyperlink to his blog, first of all, why didn't you click on my hyperlink to his blog? I don't hyperlink for my health, people! Kids in China have no hyperlinks! Hyperlinks don't grow on trees, you know!

Refocus.

Second of all, I'll explain that Patrick - Pat to his friends - Patrick is like a den father (is that a thing?) to a whole bunch of younger, stupider bloggers like me who all follow him like Charles Manson Deepak Chopra cause he's all wise and shiz. As one commenter recently stated, Patrick's blog is like a sequel to Running With Scissors with drugs, the law and mentally unbalanced relatives taking the forefront. In summation, there's some seriously good stuff there.

So that's Patrick.

Now why am I telling you this?

Well, as you probably know, the doling out of blogger "awards" has proliferated the interwebz. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a thing and we're gonna talk about it. Anyway, after receiving nearly every award on the planet by his followers (the fuck is a Blue Award?), he created one of his own called the White Russian Award:

The only reason that I am posting this here is because Pat is a nice guy and that's part of the stipulation of accepting it. I don't know how to embed them in the side bar cause I'm not all worldly and have given myself the HTML Fail Award on several occasions. I'm also posting it because it's fucking hilarious and makes no sense.

Preamble over.

My steady decrease in workload has meant a lot of scrounging for things to do for 37.5 hours of the week and so when I was listed along with about 30 other blogs, I was thrilled at the possibility of following some new ones. I went faithfully to each and every one of them and read a few posts from each and learned that I am truly a lone dickwolf in a sea of nice princes. I am at this moment giving myself the Mixed Metaphor Award.

Every one of them was just so... nice. They all had cute little stories or poems or posts on awards given to them by someone else who was really nice. This is fine. No judgey. I'm certainly not harping on an inundation of niceness, so no "To heck with you, gosh darnit!" comments. I suppose, as I've said in the past, people just have different reasons for blogging and based upon the 30 blogs I saw yesterday, it would seem like a lot of people do it so they'll have this nice little Precious Moments community. (Sidenote: has there ever been anything on this earth less Jewy than Precious Moments ?) I think recognition of another person's efforts is a beautiful thing, but this award thing is getting to be more like daily affirmations affixed to one's mirror than anything else. All this nicety is, well, nice, but it's not me. At least not blogger me. In direct opposition to niceties, my M.O. seems to be thinking of un-PC verbal diarrhea and writing it down before fully pondering that I'll be up all night thinking about how I want to befriend an autistic 12 year old, so you can see where there's some contrary inspiration. This took me back to my days of being the badass slacker of my school's IB program. Both now and then, the idea of my badassery is ridiculous, however no less isolating because of it. Yes, I did so little work in grade 11 that I stayed up for 36 hours on the last two days and did an entire term's worth of homework, but I was also in choir, chamber choir, the musical and regular high school coffee house performer and still made honour roll. So even if I was a bit badass, it was in a very Tina from Glee way. A very queer Tina from Glee way. A very queer racially-stereotyping Tina from Glee way. In fact, I'm frequently rebuffed in real life for being too nice, an irony not lost on a guy whose most frequently used tag is Adventures in No Man Land.

Okay, so what's my point?

No, really, I have no idea what my point was

Maybe that I feel totally not a part of an online community of nice people cause I like really funny and/or twisted reading fodder?

Maybe that if anyone knows any other blogs like Steam Me Up Kid, Monster Apathy or Sassy Curmodgeon to pass them my way?

Ugh, I don't know.

Oh, heeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyy...

Um, Reader, is it? Yes, right. Hi.

How are things?

Gooooood, good. Glad to hear it.

Oh, not much. Just teetering ever close to a nervous breakdown.

Hmmm? Oh. Yes, yes, definitely still drinking my liquid weight in alcohol. Actually, funny you should mention that, cause the darndest thing happened last night. I was making this applecrisp martini and-...yeah, I know, they're REALLY good - anyway, I thought instead of shaking it, I'd drop an ice cube in the martini glass and mix it with a milk frother. So it got all frothy and I was all, I'm molecular gastronemy but not really embodied *church giggles*. So then *birthing-esque howls*... I pick up the glass, right...*panting and tears* and the entire bottom of the glass just falls out and lands on the counter perfectly intac-...

Is that your bus?

No, for totes, go, go... we'll catch up later, like when I have the slightest desire to write again.

Alright.

You too.

Air kisses.






Ugh, what a dickhead.

I want to produce Retarded Romper Room

For months now, I have been bothered weekly (and sometimes even more frequently) by a woman in our office and her special needs child that she brings around. I had never actually seen this kid but had heard their intangible ramblings for weeks now. While I love people with disabilities (holla at mah peeps!!), that love is generally regulated entirely to the autistic/Asbergers-y side of things, such as my much discussed Autistic Retard Girl (ARG) that I see a couple times a week on the streetcar. Today, she and her haggard, split ends-rockin' mama were openly dancing and singing while waiting for the car to arrive. I, in reaction, emerged from the shelter to stand closer to them and fantasized about them asking me to join in and all of us dancing in a Circle of Autism together. Round and round we go! Weeeeeee! Oh what fun, we would have! Unfortunately, that did not happen, but I still liked watching any way. I'm like an Autism voyeur. Trend setter, am I. You'll hear about it soon. Trust me.

Okay, back to the dickhead with the retarded kid. I do not like to know that much about the people I work with. I like to know even less about their kids. Those that work in completely unsatisfying jobs tend to make their families the centre of everything and expect others to do the same. Not only do I not believe that their families are all that and a bag o' chips, but I'm also more and more certain that I don't want any should've-been-BJs running around my pad in the future. This is a notion I have learned not to share with family oriented coworkers as they tend to look at me with a mixture of pity and incredulousness, as though their inner monologue is, "Oh you poor, misguided boy/Fuck you, hippie! My life is awesome!" and I just don't need that shit in my poor, misguided, hippie life.

So fine, enjoy your 2.3 kids and your shitty box house and your accumulating debt. Ain't no thang. Doesn't phase me. But do not - DO NOT - bring your crotch fruit around my way and expect me to revel in their mere presence. Additionally, I appreciate that having a child with special needs must be a huge Debbie Downer, but in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, "Make it work, people!"

There I was getting all pissed off and thinking that if I ever actually see the kid, I will turn tow and march the other way because I do not need to fake a smile and risk getting applesauce residue anywhere near my body just to make some socially inappropriate coworker feel better and the garbled voice is getting closer and closer and I hear wheels rolling which makes me think, "Aw shit, and they're in a wheelchair too?! Fuuuuuuck me," and I get out of my chair and start to make a break for it when I stop and take a look in the direction that the hard consonant-free voice is coming from and...

...I learn that our department has hired a deaf woman who does mail rounds.

*hangs head in deep, deep shame*

There are no words.

But aren't you glad that the emo softy that composed that last post and may have cried at ABBA's Knowing Me Knowing You (baaaaaaaad daaays..) is gone and the douchenozzle you know and love it back? Me too.

OMG OMG OMG I JUST GOT A 6TH ROW CENTRE TICKET TO SEE RUFUS WAINWRIGHT IN JUNE AND I KNOW NO ONE CARES BUT I CAN'T ACCESS FACEBOOK AT WORK AND I NEED TO OVERSHARE. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

I TMI'ed your mother last night

Hey, remember that time that I went back home for a work-vaca and forgot I had a blog? Yeah, me too. Lolz. But not really at all.

Are you ever about to pee in a strange washroom (e.g. in your childhood home) and you notice a really loud clock that sounds like it's yelling at you and then you can't start the pee stream going? Just me? Alright then.

I'm stalling. I just really don't have anything to blog about. This entire trip, recording this album, has essentially just been one big headache. A worthwhile headache, perhaps, but no less painful. Yesterday it took me 2 hours to record 45 seconds with five people giving me feedback but no instruction. How is that even possible? Answer: With Jews, anything is possible. I mean, we crucified the son of God for fuck's sake.

Sorry. Too soon?

This really was an unfortunate attempt. I'm going to stop now. Oh, but before I go, just a little FYI that Manwhore Winnipeg David is back, so if anyone knows any morally questionable 18 year olds or sheep, you know where the comments section is (Rabbi Berkowitz, I'm looking at you).

If I ever have a son, I'm gonna name him something that ends in an 'A'. Just to fuck with him.

OMG OMG OMG

I just found out that my company's newsletter is called New Directions

WWWWWWWWIIIIIIIINNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hehe. Nude erections.

I think I have mono. Either that or I’m just suffering from plain old exhaustion brought on by this cold, my apartment’s terrible feng shui and my inability to sleep through the night despite downing the Lorazepams like tic tacs. As a result, I have become grotesquely emotional, having openly weeped during last week's Desperate Housewives, but moreso just lazy.

My week-old beard is approaching Cast Away levels of intensity. I have been in a cyclical state of laundry since my return a week ago, refusing to commit to folding all at once and instead systematically tackling only select items based on how quickly they'll wrinkle. I’ve also refused to sweep or dust, choosing instead to think of lint balls, clothing tags and rogue pieces of diced red pepper beneath foot as “floor ornaments.” Rather than laboriously tapping out texts on my phone, I’ve opted to log onto various service providers’ websites to type out my messages there, simultaneously pissing off my friends and ensuring the survival of the Jews Are Cheap Douches stereotype (I only have 250 texts/month). Additionally, I proposed via my work’s suggestion box that we have several bidets installed in the employee bathrooms as the manual act of folding the 1.5-ply gauze they pass off as toilet paper is simply too much exertion never mind the over-exfoliation for my quickly-atrophying fingers, not to mention the over-exfoliation of my Sweet Nikki Brown. Finally, I have even gone so far as to make a movie date with the Young Portuguese at a theatre rather than having him come over, which would thereby necessitate me to manscape my party zone, as last week I delivered, at his request, a lengthy but educational power point presentation entitled “Ass & Ball Hair Maintenance: Lookit You All Shiny!”

Donations of adderall and select genus of herbal speed may be submitted via the comments section below.

There are times where we need to do things for our own sanity. Moments where we do not expect to receive what we ultimately wish for but rather just hope to alleviate the pressures self-imposed on our mental health. These pressures can bear down on the soul so hard that they can cause us to make decisions with implications far worse than anything we might do or say to alleviate the pressure, like a tumor deep inside the brain placing dampers on basic rational functions. These are the things we do to guard ourselves, small battles that we forfeit in order to win the war, as we've all lost wars and know that the reparations are far greater than that of one fight. And if the war is indeed worthy of the guns and soldiers and families that you throw into it, these sacrifices will make it all worth while in the end. An overactive mind truly is a battlefield and you've got to be careful when removing mines and keeping your head clear. And one day, if you are smart and self-preserving, you will gaze onto this mineless mind field and feel that it has paid off as the flowers begin to grow again.

You have to be so careful it hurts. When 98% percent of your sensory experience becomes about plastic and glass, it really is a danger zone. There's no real emotional damage, not if you're well adjusted enough, but you begin to see or imagine things that might not really be happening, like you're hallucinating on solitude. To say that there's no damage here is to imply that there isn't necessary unhappiness, which is good. It's nice to know that you're balanced enough to rationalize what needs to be rationalized in periods of uncertainty and transition. On the other hand, without growth seeds, no happiness blooms anew and so you begin to see false buds and vines in the remaining 2% of your experience. It isn't really even about what you've conjured versus what's really there; evidence is almost a non-issue. In fact, the real point is that you lead yourself to these imaginings without evidence in either direction and you fill in what you lack. If you have a surplus of Female, you find blossoms of the Male; if you have a lot of the Old, you grow the New; and if you're surrounded by the Impersonal and the Superficial, the ground hurls up huge redwoods of Passion and Intimacy. It is entirely unjust, to you, to the subjects of these waking dreams and to the very ideas of what you really do want.

But congratulations because you've discovered the mirage, Houdini's Garden of Eden. You recognize what's really there and what you're simply using for bargaining with the Universe. And you realize it more and more quickly, too, leading to fewer and lesser disappointments, missteps with shorter strides. You free yourself of the vines sooner and perhaps at this point you prevent others from getting entwined at all. This is a welcome change and you should celebrate. This may not make you any happier, but at least it's real.

Despite opinions to the contrary, I do not feel even remotely brave laying on this bed in my relatives' house where I've been holed up for the past two days. While I have met some of my goals for this move out east, I generally feel fed up and demoralized with the whole process. I haven't worked in two and half months and while there's no monetary urgency to find employment, I have far too much time on my hands. In the past when I had but a fraction of my day unscheduled, leisure time was like gold and I would spend it accordingly. This summer's lack of regimen has produced nothing but fool's gold, mostly in the form of far too much you tube - six seasons of Golden Girls in a month; three seasons of Britain's Next Top Model in 5 days. My sense of adventure has completely waned along with my social life, to the point where I've even stopped going to the Y, justifying this in my head with thoughts that I'll soon be two doors down from my new building's fitness room. This apathy really began with the funk that occurred after June's serendipitous meeting, but unlike my desire for physical prowess, it has stuck around for going on two months now. There have been some truly great times in there, such as my final week with Chai (a 3 hankie affair), my parents' brief but timely visit this week and my newfound addiction to IKEA. Still, my funk (yes, I'm claiming ownership) has produced some truly weird moments.

With all this free time I even stopped blogging, partially because there's not a whole lot to say, but mostly because I spend so much time with my own thoughts that their publication seems unnecessary. 5 possible unrealized subjects:

-My mother's discovery of text messaging and unfortunate accompanied discovery of my generations cellular spelling: "Wood u take fin out 2nite."

Seriously.

I had to explain to the woman that the director of education at the MB Law Society could afford the 4 or 5 extra characters necessary to make adult sentences. Granted, I also had to explain that there was more punctuation available then just periods.

-The random conversations I've been having with strangers while I've been here. I went on an interview to do subscription sales for the TSO and while waiting I had this really cool conversation with this chick about sexuality in art, municipal pride and race post Obama. I didn't get the job so I'll never see her again, but it was oddly motivating.

-My intense dream about and consequent desire to see the jerk from last June. And October. And January. As cathartic as my reunion dreams can be, they usually force me in love with the person for a 48 hour period that leads to rather awful thoughts, if not actions. I later feel disgust for these feelings, almost like a bad emotional one night stand, but when faced with a reality, subconscious as it was, that brought true happiness at the end of a rather brutal conscious past, it's understandable that these thoughts would occur.

-How saying goodbye to you for the second was inconceivably worse than the first time. Who knew? Honestly, it was the only one that actually made me sad.

-How despite a two month absence, I seriously have nothing to blog about. Sorry. I'll try harder.

Know what I learned today? There are 27 potted plants in my building.

This guy is gonna need his own tag pretty soon.

Yesterday I was riding the bus, decked out in my new-old vintage finery, freshly inspired by wunderkind, Patrick Wolf. By itself, public transportation on a Sunday is enough to nearly inspire a Freudian fit, but then I glanced down to take an inventory of the items I was transporting:

- a shoebox containing gorgeous new Brown's boots, on route to be sprayed with leather conditioner
- my Louis Vuitton wallet, beginning to fray at the edges after nearly six years of abuse
- a martini shaker, containing various tonics destined for embibement later that night
- Tzatziki

All were being transported in a plastic purple Superstore tub. And then, right there on the 18 Corydon-Tuxedo, I had an existential break down. How the fuck did I end up on public transit carrying various luxury items, mixed drinks and tapas? I was filled with a mixture of pride and repulsion, odd bedfellows to say the least. Like the contents of my cocktail shaker, what assortment of ingredients had made me into the uber-stylin' superfreak sitting next to Halytosis McPee-Stain onboard Winnipeg's finest?

There's a certain amount of pride that comes with the knowledge that one has successfully bucked the mainstream. Actually, let me reconsider that. There's a certain pride that comes of not fitting into the mainstream, carving your own niche and knowing that you are so much more satisfied with the life you've made than the one they would have offered you. Does it suck to be the queer, gimpy Jewish boy with the odd hairline and body image issues enough to kickstart bulemia if he was any less lazy? Yes. Frequently. But then you find a killer jacket at Chateau V.V. or finish a book that was last checked out the library in 1979 or write a pop song with chromatic disonance and you smile knowing that the vast majority of the populace has no understanding of the thing you've just done. If this sounds like a Me-Generation-aren't-I-amazing?-Love-me!-I'm-unique! diatribe, well, it is. I realize it's self-congratulatory, but if one, by force or by choice, lives, works and plays outside of the global mainframe, it really is cause for survivalist celebration. We'll be serving tapas.

I imagine that there will come a point in my life, probably by the time I am, say, thirty-five - forty-ish, at which I will have done most of my evolving and I will be my essential self for the remainder of my life. I will probably look back at these times of ever-changing selves and think, "My God, am I ever glad that I am done that!"

However, my current self disagrees with future David. I am having such a good time becoming a new person every few months. It's so stimulating, challenging to want to be and do a million things all at once and to know that in your own eyes, you are better, more than you were a season ago. I think what this boils down to is that I just got over not being 18 anymore. Quite literally in the last 7 seconds, and let me tell you, kids: it's absolutely brilliant. There were a couple of years there (up until 7...no wait - eight seconds ago) where I secretly bemoaned the loss of my jail-bait status, but now I feel like the fucking warden.

In a related yet separate vein, it occurs to me that I live in such a way that my goals occasionally opposed themselves and because I want to experience so much, these experiences have the potential to prevent other ones. I feel that up until this point I have been very successful in balancing my goals with my love of newness and I feel that I will be able to continue to have mind-shattering experiences while still acheiving my goals. So before I get to my point, let it be known that David is very stable and committed to his long-term goals. Still, I know that it is all too human to falter and I recognize that there is potential, no matter how small, for a person to lose focus of what they want in the long term due to their short-term fancies. If I were to ever veer close to that precipice, I hope that the people near and dear to me would enlighten me to the potential dangers of gravity. This is not a cry for help, just a suggestion that if anyone has any concerns at any point in the future, that we talk and assess if their fears are warranted. I like to think that if the need arose, my dear ones would allow me to do the same for them.