Beg to Differ
Sometimes, and not all the time (certainly not when you're from Cape Breton and have to be a bit en guard about these things), drinking alone on a Friday night is exactly the right thing to do. It's perfect, blissful, and just plain lovely. Our world offers very few opportunities to fully release your emotions. Don't get me wrong, the world is very kind to me. I live in a position of power and privilege, with few restrictions. However, there are only so many opportunities in the course of the day, while maintaining proper social forms, to fully liberate whatever whimsical emotion happens to pass across your soul at a given instant. Random bouts of giddiness, sporadic dancing, and theatrical proclamations suffer severely from the weight and banality of sidewalk living - that identity you present to strangers on the street whilst your heart and mind are whirling in plan, shouting in song, and searching for commonality in the mirrored blank faces of those equally tethered souls who pass by as so many automatons.
That being said, drinking a good bit of wine and listening to Blue Rodeo is freakin' fantastic.
If there's one thing I miss about Cape Breton (though in truth there's many), it's the surety of not being heard.
Does everyone want to/need to jump to the top of that car and shout out? Is this need hardwired into every passerby, or unique to my introspective, pent-up neuroses?
ANYWAY, on to other matters.
Here are some differences I've noted between Canada and Scotland:
1. Pedestrians rule Canada. Both legally and practically, we've a much harder time of it in the UK.
2. The average fridge size is way bigger in the Great White North. On average, fridge's here are just a little better than 1/3 the size of those back home.
3. People dress better here.
4. They do not know about buying in bulk here.
5. They do not know about buying cheap liquor back home.
6. It turns out those basic standards of male communication, which I would have thought were universal, are so culturally specific as to fail between the UK and Canada. How shocked was I that the basic male understanding, by which short grunts and insults suffice for bonding, differs between such otherwise similar nations.
7. Greater class divide in Scotland.
8. Basic environmental consciousness is way retarded in Canada.
9. They drive on the left here!
10. Yes, people from Newfoundland and Labrador and Toronto sometimes can't understand each other. Sometimes people living 60 miles away from one another can't understand each other here.
So yeah, that's all I've picked up so far. Anthropologist I am not. Semiotics, however, I understand much better. Yet, I might take a distance physics degree. That could be neat.
For a little while the other day I lost all faith in universities and decided they should be disbanded, as they do waste an incredible amount of money. On the other hand, they're kind of fun. Maybe if we could combine them with laser tag?
My neighbours upstairs watch a lot of Friends. Yeah, it's a nice little show, but they watch a lot of Friends.
This is life. No more waiting. It's kind of exciting. I've spent my entire life waiting for life to start. Here it is. I have no more excuses. I could try to postpone things by claiming a lack of career, but that would be too weak an excuse at this point. I've had and loved my formal education. I have a home and a wife and now is my life. Whatever I want to accomplish, now is the hour. However I want to spend my days before they've passed, now is the time. The routines and values by which I choose to measure myself and the world should now be embraced and employed.
Love it.
Rock and roll.
That being said, drinking a good bit of wine and listening to Blue Rodeo is freakin' fantastic.
If there's one thing I miss about Cape Breton (though in truth there's many), it's the surety of not being heard.
Does everyone want to/need to jump to the top of that car and shout out? Is this need hardwired into every passerby, or unique to my introspective, pent-up neuroses?
ANYWAY, on to other matters.
Here are some differences I've noted between Canada and Scotland:
1. Pedestrians rule Canada. Both legally and practically, we've a much harder time of it in the UK.
2. The average fridge size is way bigger in the Great White North. On average, fridge's here are just a little better than 1/3 the size of those back home.
3. People dress better here.
4. They do not know about buying in bulk here.
5. They do not know about buying cheap liquor back home.
6. It turns out those basic standards of male communication, which I would have thought were universal, are so culturally specific as to fail between the UK and Canada. How shocked was I that the basic male understanding, by which short grunts and insults suffice for bonding, differs between such otherwise similar nations.
7. Greater class divide in Scotland.
8. Basic environmental consciousness is way retarded in Canada.
9. They drive on the left here!
10. Yes, people from Newfoundland and Labrador and Toronto sometimes can't understand each other. Sometimes people living 60 miles away from one another can't understand each other here.
So yeah, that's all I've picked up so far. Anthropologist I am not. Semiotics, however, I understand much better. Yet, I might take a distance physics degree. That could be neat.
For a little while the other day I lost all faith in universities and decided they should be disbanded, as they do waste an incredible amount of money. On the other hand, they're kind of fun. Maybe if we could combine them with laser tag?
My neighbours upstairs watch a lot of Friends. Yeah, it's a nice little show, but they watch a lot of Friends.
This is life. No more waiting. It's kind of exciting. I've spent my entire life waiting for life to start. Here it is. I have no more excuses. I could try to postpone things by claiming a lack of career, but that would be too weak an excuse at this point. I've had and loved my formal education. I have a home and a wife and now is my life. Whatever I want to accomplish, now is the hour. However I want to spend my days before they've passed, now is the time. The routines and values by which I choose to measure myself and the world should now be embraced and employed.
Love it.
Rock and roll.