Watch the north end die

and sing "I love this town."

6:29 am.

I will be expected to wake up in four hours and one minute. I've been some kind of awake for the last sixteen hours but my body doesn't seem to notice the time. I think I understand addictions to sleeping pills. I've been waiting for my Benadryl to kick for the last hour but it seems to be taking its time. That's alright. I've got all of that in the world.

I was in Canada for the (significantly) better part of the last week. Two nights in Montreal and two in Toronto, an hour and change at Niagra Falls and already the memory is blurring. Nothing to do with any activities participated in over the border, but just the same fade the best times tend to suffer. The morning after your seventh birthday party-- nothing to do but scrub cheeto out of the carpet and remember how thrilled you were twenty-four hours ago. I won't bore anyone with the rundown of exactly what we did during our visit to our neighbors up north. With any luck I'll have a video chronicling the whole thing put together before too long. And besides that it's probably exactly what you'd expect.

Things I learned in Canada:
-Canadian girls are stunningly beautiful. However, Montreal girl edge Toronto girls out by a considerable margin.
-ERGO, Montreal > Toronto
-Zombies are bad, but Hurricanes and Screaming Orgasms are quite good.
-Late night television consists of awesome shows that were cancelled after one American season.
-It is not at all difficult to find a Wii in Canada.
-Most of the news is about America. I probably heard about Spitzer before you did.
-Sidewalk plows exist.
-Tim Horton has Ronald McDonald running for his loonies.
-Pints of Guiness make you strong. Eventually.
-New York isn't that expensive.
-Coins can have significant value.
-Motherfucking poutine is a world-rocker.
-I will probably drink anything with Amaretto and/or Bailey's in it.
-Most of the time, perhaps in defiance of probability, they'll pick "no deal."
and probably some other shit.

I had a great time, but being away even for just 5 days reminded me how reliant I am on communication. 5 days without AIM or cell usage beyond a few idle messages (25 cents to send, 20 to recieve) is beautiful the way camping is beautiful. You can focus on something, a task or a view or whatever, without interference. But at the same time, too much isolation leads easily to lonliness (even in excellent company) for me. It's not really a good thing and I think it's safe to say a lot of people, myself of course included, could benefit from stints away from home with the cell phone packed away.

Pretty much every paragraph in this post thus far has begun with "I." I am the quintessential narcissist-- without being so at all.

So, excited for spring break to be over? Yes and no. Sure, I miss my Ramapo guys and girls but there are too many people back home I love that I haven't gotten to see yet. Or that I've gotten to see so briefly its like a tease. I went to see my high school's theatical production of Peter Pan tonight (last night?). It was fantastic and it's bizarre how proud I am of underclassmen I've never met. And how much I miss the stage sometimes. Not just the shows themselves, but "circling up" before each performance or fooling around between shows on Saturday. Antics with cameras and impromptu trips to Burger King. 13-year-olds and 18-year-olds talking shit or pissing themselves laughing or crying or comforting or whatever.

I remember Saturday night Pirates of Penzance with Eric and Dustin, getting snot all over each other and promising we'd never lose it. That thing we had that made us. Impossible-- together--

We were titans, man. We were giants that night.

And I believe in a world that can cry when something sails. That can sing when something sinks and drifts apart like sailors on scattered floorboards. Squeezing eyes tight so as not to forget the ship as it divides ourward into a million little trajectories, as things do.

7:19 am. And the world spins madly on.


Bomb the blogosphere,
Mike