TBT #95: Countdown to Infinite Crisis

My life is ridiculous and I think it important that everyone know exactly how it’s ridiculous. The past week alone has been an incredible cornucopia of bizarre events. It’s like each bizarre event was a petal on some sort of strange flower — the strangest flower of all time — and then, all at once, some young child blew a mighty gust of air at that flower and the petals came flying off and drifted through the air and then landed on my head all at once. Where I once was a socially-ignorant, casually-inept, generally-unkempt young adult who had no idea where his life was going, I am now a socially-ignorant, casually-inept, generally-unkempt young adult with a CAR. And a JOB. And accolades! That’s right: I have accolades!

I really don’t like to use this site to brag, and I really hope this update doesn’t come off that way, but I think it important to illustrate just where I am in my life right now and all that brings with it. Only then will you understand the mindset of this man who has written, over the past month, stories about Russian novelists, a made-up religion, a girl with (probably) a clotting disorder, and a timeless superhero who beats a homeless man to death. I actually wanted to use this update to write about Sir Charles Tupper, but found myself distracted by thoughts on my current lot in life and also my various accolades. So instead of a story that was to include some sort of metaphor about the shortest-reigning prime minister, you get to read about me. And accolades. My accolades. The ones given to me.

It will be the Best Thing for Sunday, June 18, 2006.

Where Are You Going

Here are some things you might not know about me.

• I have a car — This is insane. I have a car. It is one of those things I feel bad about. People ask me about it and I sort of shrug and then say something about how it’s not really mine and that it’s just something I sort of lucked into. Which I guess makes people think I won it in some sort of contest or something or maybe that I boosted (“stole”) it. And while either of those things would make for a far more interesting story, the truth lies somewhere in the middle: my dad gave it to me.

  But even that I qualify with a “sort of.” Because the detailed truth is that, while I would not have this car without my dad’s involvement, I am paying for it on my own. Paying my dad, I mean. But still. It’s sort of like a practice run at buying a car for real. Only my next car will probably not be anywhere near as nice. Whereas my current car has leather seats and a V6 engine (six kinds of vegetables!) and either a sun or a moon roof, depending on who you ask, a car I bought on my own would likely feature only two doors and a radio that does not work and an engine that makes sounds like rodents make.

  It strikes me that I am in a phase in my life defined by the “sort of” suffix. I constantly add it to all sorts of answers to questions. If someone asks me if I work for the government, I say “yes, sort of.” If someone asks me if I work for the school board, I say “yes, sort of.” Same goes if someone asks me if I work in web design, journalism or musical montage creation. Further, if someone asks if I’m living at home, living on my own, currently seeing someone or plan to stay in Ontario for a long time, I again give an affirmative answer followed by a qualifier: “Yes, sort of.”

  I’m not sure if that’s because everything is so tentative or because I just don’t fully believe the things in my life to be true yet.

  But with the car, it’s true. I own a car, sort of. It’s a 2002 Honda Accord. It has such things as a fan belt and a transmission and pistons, all vital components to the practice of automobiling. If you have the means, I highly recommend you buy one too. I’ll meet you at the next meeting of Honda Accord owners. I’ll be the one in the Honda jacket.

• I have a job — This, by itself, is not very interesting. Most people have jobs ((Excepting, of course, the severely disabled, the retired, the independently wealthy and Luke Adams)). Some people have more interesting jobs than I do. Some people get paid way more than I do. Were I doing something unique, like getting paid millions to test drive monster trucks or manage the careers of supermodels (or vice versa), that would be something worth writing about immediately. I would have been on the internet within days of my job start, telling everybody about my career. This blog would be renamed “Millionaire Matt’s Monster Truck & Supermodel emporium” and feature nothing but pictures, bragging and advertisements.

  But I’m going to write about my job now just because it stands not as a mere job but, seemingly, as something of a career. I don’t work for the company that employs me, I work at the company that employs me. I don’t fill a position, I am a position. I have an annual salary. I go to banquets and conferences. People call me and expect me to give them answers and information. I have worn a tie twice in the last month. I shake hands like eight times a day. All of this is absurd, and becomes more absurd when occasionally I work I find myself alternating between writing very important business e-mails and reading articles on newsarama about upcoming events in the Amazing Spider-Man comic book. Or when I go in to talk to the guy I supervise, talk about work for five minutes and then spend twenty talking about new video games we both want to play.

  This is another thing I feel guilty about, as I really don’t feel I did a lot to get to the position I currently have. But then, the other day, I had a person call my name and ask me to stand up in front of 300 people. Then they talked about the work I had done. So despite my misgivings, people seem to like the things I do. Even understanding that, though, all I could do was smile, wave, and (once again) shrug. I’m not very good yet at having accolades.

• I (will) have an apartment — I am currently apartment hunting for what is really the first time ever. In the past, when I have looked for apartments with roommates and such, I have just let other people do the looking and the finding and the calling and the negotiating. I was quite content to just sit back and let the twin breezes of fate and other people’s efforts carry me any which way. But now I am on my own. I am like a wolf without a pack — a lone wolf! The only arbiter of my destiny is me. The kids gloves are off. There is no one there to hold my hand. I just have to roll up my sleeves and take on the world solo.

  This makes things far more difficult.

  I have been looking for an apartment for about two weeks. I have looked at two places so far. They have both had fatal flaws. The first was very tiny and had sloped ceilings and may have, in fact, not been a one bedroom apartment but instead two closets and a bathroom forged inside an old refrigerator. They were asking an absurd amount of money. I was very polite and expressed my interest right up until the end of the viewing, when I got in my car and cranked White Snake’s “Here I Go Again” with the windows down while peeling out of the parking lot. This was, admittedly, an entirely unintentional, weirdly coincidental, action on my part, but I bet it still looked really badass, even while I was franticly trying to regain control of my car and lunging for the volume control on my radio.

  The second place was gigantic but underground. It was like that mysterious underground cavern at the end of the Duck Tales movie only instead of being filled with gems and rubies and emeralds this was filled with a bed and a couch and a couple of chairs. I was sorely tempted to take it, even with the fact that it was located in the middle of suburban hell where old people spend hours staring through the blinds on their front window, preparing to dial 9-1-1 at the mere sight of a teenager or shifty looking dog. But the biggest downside to this place was that I got the sense that the landlady was not so much looking for a tenant as she was looking for a potential heir. She was a young woman, but she wore a shirt that said “I [heart] Mommy.” Throughout the whole conversation we had she never mentioned having children.

  And it’s not like she didn’t have opportunity. We talked extensively about her husband and her life. We also talked about my life. I told her about Halifax and graduating and did my whole spiel on that. Everyone always wants to know about Halifax. And without fail I explain how I like it, because it’s a city that feels like a town. By which I mean it has an underpopulated urban core with a ridiculous bar to person ratio. (It’s easier to get drunk than it is to recycle.) But I usually don’t tell people that part. With her, she asked lots of questions, and casually made mention of how we would be splitting laundry facilities, which I was okay with, but then she started to talk about having me up for dinner, and hanging out on the back patio together, and there was just sort of this creepy vibe to it, you know? Maybe it’s because I’m a bit anti-social but I really don’t want to be tenant to a person who always wants to be my buddy.

  So I turned them both down, and I’ve now set my sights away from in-house apartments. Now I’m looking to the sky. I feel like a highrise apartment building would be a good fit for me, offering me majestic views and a sunny balcony and a garbage chute, all things I’ve wanted to have for years.

I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do once I have the apartment. I feel like I will have no more goals after that. I will probably start collecting things, I guess. Like figurines or baseball cards or cats. Because, really, what else is there to do once you have achieved such things as transportation, employment and shelter? I guess I could shoot for further success in terms of all that following my dreams stuff but, you know, why not just collect DVDs instead? It seems way easier.

There are 5 more of these updates to go. They will all get progressively better from here on in. I promise.

Keepingly,
Matt