Some Kinda Sony Day

(this is a reprint of what I printed on somecats)
So, I just got my early birthday present.
And I'm sad to say that the first song I played on it was some stupid Allman Brothers song. I downloaded my dad's music library and got everything a man born in 1951 would want to listen to. I got the Sony MP3 walkman I was going to purchase in the form of an iPod for my early birthday present. My dad got it. What a genius. I love it. The smartest part was that he managed to give it to me before I bought one.
That's the weird part. I'm not used to being able to buy things. My tax return this year had 5 T4 slips, but they added up to only $13,000, which included $6,000 in EI. A special treat for me was meat with my groceries. Or cheese. Now, I've already made enough in a month and a half to pay for the months of rent I missed, along with what would have been an iPod. Now I don't know what to spend it on. I guess I'll just keep saving it for the adventure. Or I'll buy some clothes for work.
I'm thinking I should get a digital camera, and have spending money for this supposed adventure I'm going to have.
But I have to keep in mind that I'm going to leave. I have the godlike ability to like any job I do. And I really don't get motivated to do other things when the paycheques start coming in.
I just realized I may have sounded like a flake this afternoon when I explained to one of the regional managers of FurnitureCo that I wasn't planning on making a career of bruising the hell out of my arms and hands for $15 an hour (though I did learn that the guy who's been working for the company for 5 years, and who is my boss, is making $12 an hour) because this was sort of my early-(or pre-) life crisis and I was going on a search for the greatest story ever told (or something that sounded less flaky and retarded) and that I wanted to get back into writing for money at some point, but not yet. I'm making a good impression, because I actually show up, and I actually work, but of course, it's not for me. Though I do like the slim waist and functional biceps (as opposed to the old-style droopy-when-flexed cartoon biceps) I'm developing as a result of constant 100lb+ lifting.
Anyway, I'll keep watching those paycheques roll in, and see what happens. Once the novelty of money wears off, I'll start thinking about what's going to happen.
Ah. Things can't be all that bad, though. Dad had some CCR on the computer. Dinosaur Patroller, listening to Buck Owens. Yeah.

And to sum it all up

The Gateway has somehow put all 97 years of its long and tainted history online. This means the most to me, I think, because my entire portfolio of Gateway material predates the Gateway's online publication.
This is a letter I'd almost forgotten. February 11, 1999, Mr. Derek Stephen, who I suspect had a made-up name, submitted his letter, hoping that I'd stop writing my brand of witty, pointless PAG (Personal Anecdotal Garbage, as coined by that year's opinions editor) and, I suppose, hoping I'd write something better. I don't remember what I did, but I'm sure it wasn't stop writing. I probably just verbally abused my staff, and then drank too much.
But read all my great and not-so-great work here. Between my March 9, 1995 article titled "Welcome to the BARD," which took me close to a month to write, to my final contribution on Halloween, 2002, which took about 45 seconds to compile, I tarnished that paper's good name no more than 427 times, not including all the times I ghostwrote letters (and my own obituary). Prouder and prouder.

The Greatest Request Ever Requested

Friends. Hello. I still work at a furniture store. In my rapid trek across the country, I neglected to bring any music. Knowing full well that one can only listed to CBC Radio 1 for so long before going insane, I have a request.
Send me music.
You know me. You know what I like. You know what I might like. You know what I'd hate enough to like eventually. Be nostalgic. Be proactive. Find a song we once both heard and liked. Pick that one. Find some others. Send them, too.
What I'm asking for here is mix tapes (or CDs... it doesn't matter, since I'm getting an ipod at some point). Hell, e-mail me the files, if you want (use the g-mail account nozano _at_ gee-mailedotcom (or e-mail there for my ma and pa's address) and I'll compile them all into what adds up to at least more than three hours of quality listening. And I'll make a best-of CD and mail or personally deliver one copy to each participant. Is that a fair deal? Or I'll just visit you all and we'll drive around and listen to it.
Oh, and I want some Johnny Cash. Don't make me buy a best-of compilation. I already own them all in Halifax.
And with music, comes a soundtrek, that undeniable association one makes between a song and a certain point in a journey or vacation that never leaves you. I also want some of that, too. Please help. Your country needs you. Do it for Ozanada!

And to top it all off, I'm getting sick.

So, I've managed to whittle my hours down to less than 50 per week.
Wait. Have I even mentioned that I'm working yet?
With the advent (and donation) of a 1994 Ford Ranger, I literally "ranged" (haha) my way to Camrose, where I spent 14 hours a day wrapping funriture (rather than plain "furniture"), moved matresses (using strength, rather than fecund momentum) and watched as the unwashed, uneducated, uninteresting Camrosian masses waggled, waddled, and belched through the doors of Furniture Furniture Furniture, buying drunk what they'd probably buy sober.
That was probably the highlight of my week in sub-hickdom: the guy who came in shitfaced in a taxi, bought $700 worth of junk stereo equipment and entertainment unit, and then haggled stinkily with the salesman to take eight dollars off the price. He was our best pal, he declared, reminding us that the store was just about empty (which was quite a surprise to all the other customers there), and that we'd have nothing to do (other than pick up the stuff he'd tipped over) if he left. I've got to hand it to the salesman who sold the crap to this guy, though... he put up with more than I would have. I suggested calling the police, but since three of the other employees had gone to school with the guy, they suggested I go arrest some of my own friends.
Anyway, I'm back in the City of Oil now, working at a different furniture store for far too much money (it'd be a $9/h job in Halifax--here it tops out at $22.50 during stat holidays), avoiding social interaction (I'm too tired and sore to be interesting) and waiting ---so desperately waiting--- for that first paycheque to come in. News came in that my rent cheque had bounced, my phone is going to be shut off, and Employment Insurance, my sweet summer lover, was calling for her alimony payments from our harsh breakup in December. Luckily, I've skipped town.
Also on my plate is a somewhat intriguing but not particularly attractive second interview with the Vulcan Advocate. Vulcan, for those of you unfamiliar with Star Trek, has nothing to do with Star Trek. Rather, it's about 3/8ths of a town somewhere south of Lethbridge. The position pays $4000 more than the poverty-level wage per year, requires me to run two newspapers, and offers up to two weekends per month off. Those would be the weekends where I'm not writing 15 stories per week.
Ah. And I'm getting a cold. There are so many kids here, and so many dusty, dirty pieces of furniture, and so many dumb, slow-working teenagers, that I'm constantly exposed to a barrage of filth and biota. Add to that the fact that there's nothing green in my parents' fridge that is still safe to eat, and you've got a recipe for chronic fatigue. Or scurvy. It would help if they ran their pantry the way I run my pantry-- only buy the bare minimum so that you can afford to pay rent. No meat. No starch. No processed foods. Unfortunately, that's most of what they buy. For example, on the menu tonight was leftovers, something greenishly leftover, and macaroni and hotdogs. Don't get me wrong, I ate it all, but I don't think it's going to treat me right.
Wah wah. Free food. I know. I shouldn't complain. But it's fun.
I've called Halifax quite a few times in the last few days. I really miss it. Everyone is having more fun than me. Last week they played "drunken asshole bowling." Basically, this entailed all bowling in the same lane at the same time, and seeing who could get kicked out the fastest. Good-old easy-going Oceantown mentality won that battle--nobody cared. They played, they drank, they took a cab home. What was I doing at the time? I have no idea, but it involved a mattress. I was either carrying it or sleeping on it, because that's all I'll be doing for the next month.

Zippy

I picked up my truck from my uncle's house. With farewells given to my aunt, who held back her two gigantic scary dogs while we scribbled on bills of sale, I hopped into my brand new 1994 Ford Ranger, turned the key, listened to the awkward rumble of the little engine, forced the reluctant standard transmission into gear, and stalled out the truck 40 feet from where it'd been parked for the last month.
But inside my fat-clogged north American heart, only one thought raced through my mind. It wasn't "I can't afford insurance," or "I have no money to register this truck" or even "I can't drive this truck at all." It was "freedom." Not "Freedom!" as in, "freedom isn't free," but rather "freeeeeeeeedom," like "I'm bored. I'm going to drive across the country," or "I don't want to stay in the house. I'm going to drive! somewhere." Or, most importantly, "It's -90 degrees outside. I'm going to fuck up the environment a couple more degrees by driving three blocks to the grocery store so that my broccoli doesn't freeze on the way home."
So, on three bald tires, and one mysteriously new and healthy-looking tire, I'm going to drive across the country, one province at a time, until I'm tired and sore and lost and content and all explored out. Then I'm going to take a summer off, go fishing, and put shit in the back of the truck and bring it to wherever I want it to go. Oh, and I might see about starting a painting company. I figure, a truck, plus paint, plus someone who knows how to paint, is a pretty good recipe for a pretty laid back summer. Or I might start a fishing company, "Bankruptcy Bros. Fisheries," that I'll run out of the back of the truck. Our business plan: stay out of the house all summer. Our motto: ... well, it'll probably be a quote from some Journey song.

What could keep me here?

I grew up in Edmonton. And for the first time in almost five years, I'm here with no definite plans. I know at some point, I'll have to return to my home, to Halifax, at very least to clean my room out.
But I went for a walk this evening. Edmonton is a big, busy, ugly city during the day. But, if you follow the right path, up the right street, it's hard to imagine the city as anything but beautiful. Walking across the Dawson Bridge, built (like everything else in Edmonton) by developers in the 1920s who wanted to convert cheap farmland to expensive home lots, the silence of the river valley washed over me. The streetlights dimmed, and I looked out over the river, still covered with ice, and breathed in. I couldn't smell the refineries. I couldn't see the condo developments. I couldn't hear any traffic. It was calm, and quiet. It was the lazy city I remembered as a kid.
Walking up the hill into the Forest Heights area, the familiarity of everything was relaxing, and endearing. A few people sat lazily inside the incredibly dated Hilltop Pub, which I'd never been to, but always wondered about. And further down, the little grocery store, where I used to deliver icecream, and watch the icecream truck driver argue with the East Indian store owners, sat quietly, waiting for the next friendly sucker to pend $3.00 for a bag of Doritos. Still further, on the street where one of my best friends used to live, his mother's old house sat empty, long since sold and exchanged for a condo.
And on the walk went. The bridge over what was once the Capilano Freeway still called for me to throw snow and gravel down onto the passing cars, and on the other side, our aptly named Suicide Hill cried out for the old red aluminum toboggan that once aided our attempts at self-destruction far too well (though it was never me who ended up in a cast).
And so on. Hardisty Swimming Pool. Hardisty High School. Mean-Kids Junior High, which was just down the block from St. Kevin's Junior High, which was also my elementary school between kindergarten and grade 2.
Now, Halifax has a lot of good memories for me, too, but not these types of memories. The memories that flooded back to me on this walk were much deeper, much more involuntary. Each step brought back different images, different snippets of my own personal history that invariably made me who I am today, whoever that is. Little fragments of myself, scattered around these southeastern suburbs, crying out to be remembered, and perhaps, at some point, through someone else, much younger, much less tainted, relived.
Could I live for good in Edmonton? Even after that walk, I'm not sure I could. It is a bigger city. And it's a much uglier city than I remember. But if these little fragments of memory remain, and if they're any incentive to stay in a family-filled, prosperous city, maybe I could stay a while longer. Maybe getting reattached to the city that made me much of what I am would do me a world of good.

Where I Started

So, I'm sitting at the surplus computer desk my dad brought home from work almost 20 years ago, typing in the spot where a steady chain of computers, each progressively more powerful, has sat. The old orange monochrome monitor is long gone, and so is the old 7Mhz 8086 computer. But somehow, the 25-year-old metal power bar is still the primary supplier of surge-protection.
The clutter of 24 years of home ownership surrounds me here in my parents' basement; as my sisters and I move from place to place, our lives' shrapnel collects here against the south wall. In spots, the cardboard boxes are stacked taller than I am. Somewhere in there, my kindergarten papers are moldering. Higher up, my comic books are crying, unread. Right behind the bound editions from my years of student newspapering, in a big, long box, sits my telescope.
The telescope seems like a weird thing to be writing about. My first girlfriend bought it for me in 2002 or 2003 as an early birthday present, telling me that she knew I'd never have bought it on my own if she hadn't. She was probably right. Self-denial of extravagances (in this category, everything but food lives) is an ongoing problem/necessity for me. But she bought it, and I used it, and in 2003, Jupiter was at its closest it would ever be for the next 10,000 years. With little help, and with fantastic excitement, I saw for the first time a quartet of Roman namesakes that revolve around the ruler of the gods: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. There were two on each side, and in the middle, almost big enough to discern stripes, was the mighty gas giant.
I'd never seen anything like this in the real world before. I'd seen it on TV, and I'd seen it at what was then the Edmonton Space Sciences Centre. But the reality of seeing it for real (lame) struck me.
I guess now you think I'll try to tie having a telescope to wanting to see THE WORLD for myself rather than on TV.
And maybe that's what's justifying this cross-country trip.
Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll think about this more and get back to you. Oh, and for context, read this.