Hello Mr. Chippy

Yesterday? Should be struck from the calendar. Sometimes I feel like I just lurch from one disaster to another, and sometimes I don't lurch- I identify the disaster, and instead of avoiding it, I roll around in it. To take away the sting, I applied liberal amounts of alcohol. Which lead to a funny conversation with my beloved roommate.

Protagitron: Did you get me a CD? And a drink? I found them on my desk.
BR: Um, yeah. Remember? I read out the titles of the songs?
Protagitron: Hmm, no.
BR: And you thought they were all depressing? And then I told you Macho Man was on it?
Protagitron: Nope, still nothing.
BR: And then you sang Macho Man for me?
Protagitron: Oh God. Are you lying to me?
BR: No.

So, I'm calling off the sauce for the next few days. I have the rest of the week off, since my summer classes don't start until next Monday. There are new prints of Last Year at Marienbad and Pierrot le Fou playing at the Cinéma du Parc. And Iron Man comes out soon. It's going to be a good week for popcorn and movies.

Speaking of Iron Man, I had the most delightful encounter at work the other day. Every so often, an old man comes in and buys fifty cents of chips. Since it's always at the end of my shift, and I'm usually pretty cracked out about what fresh hell my boss has caused me- most recently, cleaning up a moldy case of Pepsi- I'm always frighteningly peppy, so I think he's usually a little frightened of me. I call him Mr. Chippy. But the other day, we both stopped to watch the trailer for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull play. I tossed out that I was desperately looking forward to it. He said he was more excited about Iron Man. That became a fifteen minute conversation about comic books and their movies, where we found out we disagreed about Frank Miller but agreed on Neal Adams, loved X-Men but hated Spider-Man III, and that he held shares in Marvel. And was planning on going to their shareholder meeting! So, snack foods- bringing nerds together again.

Monty Living

I wrote the exam on Monday. It probably isn't the finest exam I have ever written. By the end, I was so desperate for the warmth and sunshine the open window in the exam room promised, I was barely managing to write a coherent paragraph. The last question may not even have coherent sentences. Some of them may just be sentence fragments. But I had scheduled dollar tacos and beer with my friend Erika, so I didn't really care. There's this slightly gringo Mexican resto and bar on Peel, Carlos and Pépés's, that has loonie nights- cheap pints and cheaper tacos for me. Is there really beef in those tacos? What do you care? It's a dollar!

Furthermore, that was game seven between the Habs and the Bruins. Watching a game in a bar in a real sports town is amazing. The way the bar goes nuts after every goal, even when it's the fifth, everyone dressed in jerseys and Canadiens gear, the general sense of merry, drunken, abandonment. And then, walking along Ste. Catherine after the game, you see traffic backed up for blocks and blocks. Everyone is honking the horn and screaming, waving flags and hanging out of car windows. Because an event hasn't happened until it's been Facebooked, everyone who isn't part of the revelry is taking pictures of it with their cellphone. It's too bad it descended into rioting and vandalism, but it was nice to feel a part of an imagined community for a while.

Tuesday was somewhat less eventful. I had to work, but at least pal Josh called Katie and me up and invited us over, even though I was a little whiffy with sandwich grease. He was going to make us matzo pizza if we brought over a movie (only stipulations: dry, "non-fiction.") I was initially a little wary of the matzo pizza. It sounded... unnatural. But it wasn't so bad. Tasty, even. The boys rejected our choice of documentary, "Gay Sex in the 70s", though. They preferred the crossword puzzle doc, "Wordplay." It wasn't a bad choice, but not nearly enough grinding.

Trauma and Lace

Well, let's just forget that week ever happened, alright? I'm still in recovery. Right after I had to write three essays in a week, I had to write three exams. Granted, it's my fault for not being more... studious and better at time management. But still, it was traumatic. I'm not even on solid foods yet, unless really dark stout ale counts. The other plan was some therapeutic sleeping in, which was ruined when my friend called from Boston. At 6. Because he was bored. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Helllllarrrrrggh.
Josh: Hey Protagitron, it's Josh.
Me: Wha? Ish six! I KEEEEEL YOU. [pause] How ish Boston?



Well, I'm feeling a little less homicidal now. I have yet another exam on Monday, and then a week off until my final exam on the 28th. I'm ignoring Monday's exam, however, and concentrating on my knitting, which was sadly neglected over the past few days. I love knitting this stole, since the lace is just interesting enough to keep things interesting while also being simple enough to master. I haven't seen any mistakes in the pattern yet, and it's turning out nicely. I'm hoping I'll have enough yarn left over to add some dramatic fringe. I think the stole needs sweepy fringe. Until I'm finished though, I'll just hold it up and pretend I'm a spider with a web.