Dreams we are convinced of

I’ve been trying to avoid writing about my life recently, mostly to avoid the so-called ‘emo trap’ that seeks to leave me a whiny guy in a tight T-shirt and thick black glasses and oh so much Dashboard Confessional. My Christmas is best summed up by saying that I developed a sinus infection that resulted in a cyst on my lower back. This hurt far far far more than you’d expect, and the nice surgeon in the ER told me that if I didn’t have obtrusive daily nursing care the infection would grow so large that it would, in fact, consume Tokyo.

This lack of want to write about myself has become mixed with the terrible boredom I’m feeling from being mostly housebound. I don’t WANT to write especially, but I have very little else to do! Hence, “Mister Blank Jones” and “The Snow I Walk Upon,” which you can read below. “Snow” is the December story, by the way — only 9 more months to go! Check out the crazy tense change at the end of the Mister Jones story; there’s no way I’m really able to get away with that. In addition, I’m promising everyone right now that the January story will be of a happier nature. I just need to find happy inspiration first.

I’ve also taken advantage of this medical malady in sitting down to watch many of this year’s movies that I probably otherwise wouldn’t have gotten around to watching so quickly. In the past week and a half alone, I’ve watched Shattered Glass, 21 Grams, Monster, Elephant, House of Sand and Fog, thirteen and Lost in Translation (again; and it was even better). In the queue for the next few days: Big Fish, Interolable Cruelty, Girl with a Pearl Earring and Mystic River. Still painfully eluding me: City of God, Whale Rider (Left my copy on my fileserver at school — silly me).

The point of all this: to showcase just how much of a dirty dirty pirate I am, of course! And also to say that I’ll be posting my Top 10 of the year before the week is out. Are you excited? You should be! Other excitement to come: A revised look back at my Top 10 of 2002, maybe another fiction piece and some changes to the CSS that will hopefully stop the site from breaking so much with other browsers! What a week! What a New Year! Exclamation marks mask my inner pain!

The rest of this update will be a shameful silly sinful survey that I am taking from an e-mail sent by my good friend John William Blakeley. I promised myself I’d never do one of these, but desperate times call for desperate measures and I’m about as desperate as desperate men get. SURVEY:

THREE THINGS I DON’T UNDERSTAND
1. How the world spins without me flying off into space!
2. Why I keep getting hit with things despite developing some fairly fancy footwork.
3. Casual sex.

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME
1. Uncontrollable and unchecked passion.
2. What I represent.
3. Where I’m going. (if not Idaho)

THREE THINGS I’D LIKE TO LEARN
1. How to be alone and not feel it.
2. To relax.
3. To draw pretty pretty things.

THREE THINGS I AM WEARING RIGHT NOW
1. (You don’t have to yell) A nine-day beard.
2. Jeans
3. A plain blue T-shirt

THREE THINGS ON MY DESK
1. I hate desks. I have not made use of a desk since I got my laptop, choosing instead to lounge on various couches like a silly little frog. So my desk at school is essentially a big table that I throw stuff on.
2. So screw this question, I can’t answer it!
3. An interstellar expanse of the universe composed of swirling stars, hopes, dreams and growing dark matter.

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO BEFORE I DIE
1. Find meaning in all things.
2. Find a love I can hold and keep and simplify.
3. Sleep until noon every day for a whole year.

THREE GOOD THINGS ABOUT MY PERSONALITY
1. I can list every little thing I dislike about myself. This makes me very relatable to sad and lonely people.
2. I’ve developed a rapid-fire wit and a catalogue of jokes stolen from Dave Barry, Steve Martin, Gordon Korman and various internet personalities.
3. I cherish meaningful conversations above all other interaction.

THREE BAD THINGS ABOUT MY PERSONALITY
1. I tend to think of myself as a character in a novel, and then wonder if I’d really be a likeable character.
2. I withdraw when I feel too much: afraid of letting others in.
3. I cherish meaningful conversations above all other interaction.

THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE
1. I forsake all heritage and instead race towards the new.
2. My back is crooked like a question mark! A genetic trait that runs in my family; so there!
3. Nobody in my entire extended family is divorced. How weird is that.

THREE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MY BODY
1. I have blue eyes and thus there are a bunch of songs about my eyes.
2. I am pretty tall which is good for reaching things and not having to date a girl who is taller than I am.
3. My fingernails are pretty shiny.

THREE THINGS I DON’T LIKE ABOUT MY BODY
1. My chapped lips.
2. SINUS CYST THAT WILL CONSUME US ALL
3. Facial hair that appears with the speed of the godforsaken ROAD RUNNER.

THREE THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ABOUT ME
1. Haha, John’s was “I have a metronome in my head” and I swear I read it (twice!) as “I have a metrognome in my bed.” Why he would keep a city-dwelling gnome in his bed is beyond me, but weirder still is that I didn’t even bat an eye at the prospect of him indeed having a gnome in his bed. In conclusion, one thing people don’t know about me is that I can’t read.
2. My new obsession with the television drama ER is so all-encompassing that I’ve watched Seasons one through five in less than a month.
3. In my more youthful days, I used to really really like pro wrestling. I still have an autographed picture of THE UNDERRRRTAKER in my room that my Dad got me.

THREE THINGS I SAY THE MOST
1. Whenever someone says “Thanks,” I’ll say “No problem” even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
2. On MSN I’ll preface a lot of sentences with “I mean” even though it’s pretty clear that what I’m saying is what I mean.
3. “Down in the New Amsterdam…”

THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO
1. New Zealand so I can pretend to a Hobbit and run across open fields towards mountains.
2. Halifax because I miss it more than I should.
3. I’d like to catch a plane to Barcelona ’cause this city’s a drag.

THREE NAMES THAT YOU GO BY
1. Matt
2. Uh. Once at Lick’s I told them my name was “Snake” and it was the highlight of my whole summer.
3. Another story: There was a night about a month or two back where we decided to call each other by our last names so that we’d feel more like athletes. Thus I was “ELLIOTT!” for like five minutes until everyone forgot that we were playing that game.

THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE OR HAD
1. Chaos911 (The firssssst)
2. Graphic_V(iolence)
3. GraphicMatt

1. What did you do in 2003 that you’d never done before?
Broke up with a girl.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolution is and will always be to make no more resolutions. It starts the year with healthy dose of failure, which is my primary source of bran.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
I feel pretty close to Nate Fisher and even though Lisa Sucks, she did have a baby.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Doggie.

5. Wha t countries did you visit?
Bounced between Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver. But never left the Canada.

6. What would you like to have in 2004 that you lacked in 2003?
Stability. I like how that word looks like it should mean the ability to stab.

7. What date from 2003 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Two and a half weeks in May.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Gathering the courage to not go back to the newspaper job, and then finding the really awesome website position.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I could have handled a lot of things better.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
GIANT SOUl-SUCKING CYST THAT IS BORING INTO MY BRAIN AND WILL SOON ASSUME CONTROL.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
$40 couch at Value Village.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I don’t know. Jessica Lynch? Way to get shot but not die, soldier! Your dumb luck is an inspiration for us all.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
My owwwwwwwwwwwn.

14. Where did most of your money go?
All-day breakfast, DVDs, blank CDs, action figures and food because I’ve forsaken the meal plan.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going to York? I got up at like 8 fucking 30!

16. What song will always remind y ou of 2003?
Five for Fighting – Superman

17. Compared to this time last year, are you
i. happier or sadder?: oh, probably sadder, but wiser.
ii. thinner or fatter? My body has been technologically engineered to remain at a constant size no matter how badly I treat it.
iii. richer or poorer? A little bit poorer. Last year I only had hot dogs and grilled cheese. This year I’ve cycled in chicken fingers and sausage rolls. Real upperclass food.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Gone on walks after midnight.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Self-loathing!

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I spent my Christmas in a labyrinth dreamscape fighting the spectral projection of the GIANT SOUL-DEVOURING CYST which was vying for control over my brain. I vanquished it with a myriad of riddles and a bright burst of soft green light which came from the clouds and warmed my soul.

22. Did you fall in love in 2003?
I certainly fell in something.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Scrubs, I think.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nah, I ain’t got the energy to be hating.

26. What was the best book you read?
“Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth” by Chris Ware.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
That I still really like Counting Crows.

28. What did you want and get?
A room with a couch and the strengthening of friendships.

29. What did you want and not get?
A simple kind of love.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Lost in Translation

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I wore a cowboy hat for part of it, and during the rest there were pigs and sheep! It was a lot of fun.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Eating breakfast for every single meal! Other than that, the year was just PERFECT!

33. How would you describe your person al fashion concept in 2003?
I wear a lot of collared T-shirts for some reason.

34. What kept you sane?
The thought that you can’t go insane until after your first novel hits. If you wait, people will just write your behaviour off and call you eccentric. If you don’t, you’ll be a crazy homeless guy selling stories for a dollar.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Sarah Silverman, maybe. I don’t really know what ‘fancy’ means but I assume it’s NAUGHTY.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
University protesting. How stupid is THAT.

37. Who did you miss?
I miss her.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
I don’t meet a lot of people because I’m worried that if I know too many people I’ll start to confuse names and faces and that just isn’t good for business. So I will say Bryan.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
The shameful and sappy truth of it all is that I have no choice but to pick lines from “Swing Swing” by The All American Rejects. It was all timing and circumstance, but nothing quite stuck with me like “Did you think that I would cry / on the phone? / Do you know what it feels like / Being Alone?” So there you go.

Holy shit never let me do THAT again.

Matt