It's Been A While

Yeah, I know. Q n' D update, still living in Vancouver, with two roommates, one male and one female, both Caucasian, both Canadian. Nineteenth-floor two-bedroom apartment in the hoighty-toighty (is that how they're spelled?) part of downtown Van. Also working Security at a fairly big "entertainment" company. Well, one of the biggest in BC, I would say. Working graveyard shift, and I think I've developed some strange Vampirical tendencies. I'm not saying I drink human blood, and I won't say I HAVE drank it in the past, but don't knock it before you try it. Also, pale is the new tan, really. I'll be signing with an agent Thursday morning. With the strike still ongoing I'm blessed anyone is taking anyone on. Just like Spider-man says, everyone gets one.

I'm going to refrain from names in these Blogs, which should allow me some guilt-free ranting and raving. Or some thankless praising and preening. Either way, the anonymity will save my tuccus, I'm sure.

Got to talking with an old friend again. Well, we were more than friends at one point. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. And if you don't, pretend that you do so you don't slow-down the rest of us who are here to learn, alright? I thought that she had come to dislike me, as per our last contact with each other sometime in the summer. But we both never stopped thinking of each other. I had to wait for her to re-initiate contact, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm lousy at keeping in touch with people.

I can remember coming home from a trip which was, I believe at that time, the longest and farthest I've been from said home. Walking into the train station in a human maelstrom of hugs and reunions, I see my smiling dad, and smiling bros, and a crying mom. Whoops. Funny thing, if you don't TALK to a person while you're away for two weeks in a far-off city, they have no idea what you're up to. Having fun? Meeting people? Still alive? It was all a fun mystery to her until she saw my face again.

Y'see, I have a terrible habit of thinking people know exactly what I'm up to without telling them. Shouldn't they read my mind and know automatically? Mentally download a quick update at their convenience of everything I'm up to and all my hopes and dreams? Not in this world. In this world ya gotta use a little 'ting called "comm-mune-EE-kay-SHUN". That's what this Blog was meant to be. And I'm sure you can tell by this being my first update since March 20, 2007, communication is not my strong point. I hate answering the same questions over and over again, and yet I'm too lazy to write in the one thing that was meant to aid me in answering everyone at once. Sums me up nicely.

It's hard when you're away from home. You establish a new life in a new city. New address, new people, new commitments and concerns.

It's even harder to be left behind, because hey, life goes on for you where you are. So this person who left you meets all these new people, and all of a sudden they seem like a different person. Oh hey, look at that picture of them with their new friends in this new place I've never been. I kind of sucks. I'll trot off to my same ol' same ol' while my friend forgets all about me in their whirlwind of newness. It really sucks. Are you now less important to them than their new friends?

Really, only when you yourself leave can you understand what it's like to be on the other side. Trying to keep your promise of staying in touch with people you care about, not wanting things to change. And on top of that dealing with said newness. New town. Unfamiliarity. Strangers. (I know it's weird writing about this after I've been in Vancouver for 17 months, but bear with me). And then there's coming back home. How do you want people to see you? Did absence make their hearts grow fonder? Will people even remember you? Will people even know what you're doing? (For the record, I graduated school August 17th. The program was only a year. And I don't know when I'll be home next, summer maybe, but we'll see.) You want to show people you've changed, but in a good way. You want people to comment on your improvements, and be wowed by your foreign experiences. And you want to be a part of what's going on at home; but now you've become the outsider there. You've established a new home in exchange for your old one. Which one is worth more to you? Home doesn't quite feel like home, and neither does your new home. There's an odd half-ness that takes place, meaning you're only half-home wherever you may be. Stretched-out across thousands of miles (miles has more literary impact than kilometres, let's face it).

But this is what life is all about when you're from Nova Scotia. I love the place to death, I do, and I miss it dearly. It's embedded in me, (though I am happy to have ditched the accent. Yes we have one, and yes people will think you talk like a pirate). You can take the boy out of Nova Scotia, but you can't take the Nova Scotia out of the boy who can't take his nose out of a book of cliches.

Nova Scotia, (let's be fair and generalize the Atlantic Provinces) is a place people leave. I can say probably 2/3rds or so people that I've known and met there have left it at one point. Now, maybe that's not fair to say at my age when people typically make major life changes, go to University, backpack in Europe or altogether move to the dreaded "out west", (so funny when Nova Scotians say "out west" we mean everything west of Ontario, but when westerners say "out east" they mean Ontario.) We're a tiny forgotten land, only mentioned Nationally when tragedies occur. A rich history, but what kind of future? Now look at me talking about the place being ignored when they latest news there I can think of is the tragedy in Bathurst.

So that's where I'll end this. Scattered thoughts, and I'm sure going to feel dumb reading this tomorrow. No promises on updates, but I may have some hours to pass with nigh but an inter-webbed computer at my disposal in the coming weeks. Actually, I HAVE had that for a few months now, and it's just now I write a new entry.

So to help me squeak-out a few posts every month, please send me any questions you have. Really, send anything, and with my "no name" (great brand) policy, questioners will, of course, be anonymous. Questions, comments, rants, raves, reviews. Go nuts. Help me help you help me.

Or something.