the end of a chapter

[reluctance]

(LiveJournal post started, from the looks of things, in January, and incrementally added to over months of coffee breaks without ever getting any closer to being "finished" -- likely because, as an arbitrary dip into the stream of consciousness with no beginning and no end, it didn't need to be said at all. (But I like writing it, the same way

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[reluctance]

It wasn't your first year at Cap, I registered you for your classes the year you went to Scandinavia to cruise the demo scene

Let's see, we graduated high school June '97, I skipped college until fall '98; the Demo Cruise was summer '99 (no regrets: it probably bumped the year up from No Satisfactory Outcomes to Mostly Unsatisfactory Outcomes.) You may have actually physically registered me for fall '99, but I have a vivid memory of you sitting down with me at my kitchen table on Dunbar Street going "(sigh) look, just put your name down for one of these, one of those, look, I'm in this one and that one and you can be in them with me (art history and creative writing), OK, and you can put up with two of these." That was more of a holding my hand while I ticked the boxes; I had forgotten your actually physically registering on my behalf, so you were personally responsible for at least two of my terms.

I hadn't been up to speed with the UBC entry requirement business you invoke with such instant recall; I merely expected crappy selection and so when that's what I got, I wasn't surprised or disappointed -- it hadn't occurred to me that external forces also played into the toiletness of the school experience. Term after term of crappy selection (or zero selection: by the time my turn came up one year, the only classes open were Chinese 2 and Spanish 3, both of which required earlier prerequisites I did not have -- costuming sounds fun by comparison! My father dropped me off to register that morning, during the bus strike, and I spent all day walking home, then walking to the Varsity to watch Baise-Moi with Travis, then walking home. Long walks -- from Cap to UBC to Chinatown -- with much opportunity to contemplate where one went so horribly wrong) certainly served well as drag chutes on my post-secondary mis-starts, kind of like subduing a self-harmer with physical restraints. Except I'm not sure that the restraints ever came off. But no, I had a clean start at Langara night classes with interesting courses available again and I still couldn't make it happen: I was my restraints.

Well you can see for yourself: that is not a paragraph formed by the orderly style of mind that structures essays correctly and submits them on schedule. I indulged far too drastically in Self, and thus became unsuitable for any fruitful undertaking.

But really, this is free-associating around the least-interesting part of my post. (I am of course endlessly fascinated by anything that revolves entire around me, but even I can see that.)