the greater good

I dropped out of high school in '99. Truant for so long, it seemed embarrassing to call what little school I did attend, actual enrollment. Misguided youth. Full of angst and chaos. Okay, italics aside, I wasn't *that* bad. Confused? Yes. Angry? Yes. Forced to contend with multiple situations involving devastation, grief, sexual maturity, mental illness and substance abuse long before I was emotionally prepared to do so? Hells to the Yes. But this is all merely hedgerow along my long and winding path to a point...

I spent the rest of that year attempting to sell matched luggage sets of questionable quality to economically disenfranchised suburbanites in a shopping plaza solely supported by the neighboring monolithic WalMart which had recently occupied the space voided by K-Mart and originally built for Woolworths. That summer at an REM concert at the Ampitheatre at Ontario Place, loitering by the usual outdoor festival marketing booths while my slightly older friend purchased our beer, I absently accepted a flyer for Katimavik ("Canada's Youth-Volunteer Service Program!") while crushing from afar on some dude with killer sideburns and a 'Free Tibet' t-shirt. Said flyer rested at the bottom of my canvas bag with loose tobacco, bobby-pins, pennies and Dr. Pepper Lipsmacker gloss for several weeks post-show. Somehow that glossy cardstock, creased into quarters, smudged with a summers worth of sun-tan and hash oils, ended up tacked to the dresser mirror well. Seasons changed. The new century was born. Briefly dated a born-again Christian named Jason- a beautiful, soft-spoken Jamaican-Canadian who spent his days trying to get into the Toronto Police Force and not my pants. Orange background with large white American Typewriter font and the dark silhouettes of a dozen young Canadians linked by shoulders and arms. Heads thrown back in laughter. United. A pose so reassuringly and uniformly uninteresting it could ONLY be the official graphic of what is essentially a domestic Peace Corps operating under the pillowy-soft budget of the Federal Heritage Department. Nothing controversial about it. Nothing. Just fresh air and earnestness and the greater good. I wanted in.

I received the acceptance call six minutes after quitting the luggage store. Nine days later, boarding a Via train bound for Dorval, Quebec to be collected by the Project Leader and driven north to Ste. Scholastique, I waved goodbye to the family I loved but didn't understand and braced myself for the thundering rush of Experience. Life. In my seat, luggage crammed into the appropriate compartment, jacket off, magazine open, lurching through the fields of Durham along the lake. A slash of track through arable land, watching out the windows for the shapes of home, seeing them slip away. Slowly recognizing nothing outside the window. Nothing inside either.

log-off/restart/shut-down

Laying awake knowing nothing, feeling everything... akimbo? Is that right? Askew. The smallest injustice, the faint suggestion of misery, the inevitable failures yet wrought wash over me in nauseating wave after nauseating wave.... Why is worry so infinite? I'm having trouble sleeping soundly. Sleeping, yes. Finethankyou. In the sense that I am in the dark, eyes closed and drifting. But it's not rest, pal. Oh no. It's processing, computing, filing, defragmenting my day, my week, my year, my life. Sweettittyfuckingmary, I'm (nearly)27. So much for the Oscar by thirty. No Diablo am I (less quirky-sexy-genius-capable of insufferably witty dialog).....

Time to man up. Or, uh, blog up. Or something....

I feel like this sounds:

The Silverhearts- Bad Road.