The Rundown: Welcome to Frustration

For no real discernible reason, I've been kind of on edge and grumpy the last little while.

It seems like all kinds of little thing evoke a stronger reaction than normal and I more and more things bug me than ever did before.

Why? I don't know. Just a cycle I'm in I suppose.

As such, I thought I'd let you know the things that fire me up the most these days, you know, so you'll known how to push my buttons.

Top Five Frustrations

5. Mispronouncing the Word Frustration
Yes, I'm a bit of a stickler for this stuff because I spend a great deal of my days dealing with words and language, but c'mon people.

How you get "fustration" is about as ridiculous as saying "libary" or "axing" me a question. There are more than enough challenging words in the world for everyone to mispronounce (myself very much included) that we don't need to butcher some basics.

4. Complainers
This one is a bit dicey, because I've been known to do my own fair share of whining. I'm working on it though, one day at a time like rehab.

Too bad more people couldn't do the same.

One of the things that I've come to learn in the last few years of bouncing around the country, rocking bad jobs and making no money is that if you're unhappy with your situation, you have two options: change it or shut up.

If you don't want to work to improve your lot in life, I don't want to hear about how crappy your career, marriage, kids or anything else are.

3. Bugs
This one is completely petty and there is nexct to nothing I can do to change it, but they still make me mental.

We've been trying to get out and about more lately, enjoying Sarah's slack-ass August along with the sunshine and surroundings, but everywhere we go, bugs follow. And not just a couple flies here and there.

I'm a walking wasp magnet; the little fuckers won't leave me alone. Not when we were camping and not when we hit up the lake yesterday with the mongrel. Totally open to suggestions if anyone has some.

2. The North American Obsession with Fake Stars and Dead Stars
Why in the world is the media still talking about Michael goddamn Jackson? Dude has been dead for like six weeks now... let him be.

Jon and Kate's every move does not need to be reported on CNN, nor do the daily lives of Octomom, murderous Reality TV "stars" and countless pseudo-celebrities who get more airplay than people who actually make a difference in the world.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to live in the Middle of Nowhere, New Zealand or someplace like that, where no one gives two shits about any of this ridiculousness... provided they have the Internet.

1. Elitists
Yes, this is pretty general, but I can sum it up for you like this:

Despite what you think, you're not really better than everyone because you have money / went to a certain school / are of a certain race / have more experience at something arbitrary and if you think you are, people like me will take pleasure in reminding you that it is not the case.

This one transferred over to mixed martial arts today on Keyboard Kimura, as some fans think they're better, more real fans than others. How is that even possible?

Consider yourself appropriately warned.

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Soundtrack of My Life

Song: Fuckin' in the Bushes
Artists: Oasis
Album: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants (2000)

You know when you're pissed and just feel like closing the doors to the world, telling everyone to go fuck themselves and doing your own thing? This is the song I put on at those times and today is those times.

Work blows.

As much as I try to convince myself that the busy season is coming and it's going to get better, it's only going to take a couple more 3 hour shifts on a Friday night where I make $40 and there's way too many staff on before I just throw in the towel, lock myself in this office and write from sun up 'til sun down.

When the day comes that I actually do finish the book, walk into wherever I'm working and quit, this song will be playing in my head.

There are a couple reasons why I love this song so much despite it's lack of actual lyrics:

One - it's reminds me of the university days with Pauly and Tommy and Stu and getting blasted at The Bomber, the height of my "fuck what everybody thinks I should do" stage of life. As much as I was a colossal idiot, I loved those days and wouldn't change them for the world.

Two - it plays in the final fight scene of Snatch and it's awesome and I'm totally going to watch it tonight now.

Maybe it's just the general "like we give a fuck" attitude of Oasis that makes it even better.

I don't know really.

I just know that the minute I got home from my bullshit shift tonight, this song got turned on and cranked up.

Now all I want to do is just smash out page after page of the book so I can quit and be done and move on and hear this song play in my head as I walk out one last time...

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Can I See My Job Description?

Because I'm positive that in the job duties and responsibilities section for "Bartender" there is no mention of cleaning windows, replacing light bulbs, standing on ladders fixing ceiling grates or any of the other bullshit that dominates my days at Kelsey's as of late.

I shouldn't be that surprised though, seeing as I haven't been a bartender once in the three weeks since I started.

It truly is amazing to me how easy solutions slide right by people and they make the worst possible choice time after time.

Instead of having three servers and a bartender all start by 12:00 when we've had a combine 67 customers since Monday, have two people sit on their asses and read a book in the bar, "On Hold" as everyone here seems to like to say and only start them if they're really needed. Saves the company money and saves the servers the frustration of being asked to wash windows and find work to keep themselves busy.

You know what kind of work I'd like to do? Serve customers food and drinks... that is what I was hired for after all.

Couple that with the restaurant's incredible ability to have the left hand be completely in the dark about what the right hand is doing and failure to ensure that even the most basic of supplies are in stock - what restaurant runs out of tomatoes... on a Thursday? - and the situation starts to look a little grim.

Fortunately, I worked Tuesday night and for the first time since I've been here, I actually worked. I had a whopping five tables... all at once... WOW!

I kid because, well, it stops me from slitting my wrists with a butter knife every day that I stand around desperate to do a little work that falls under my job specs and instead spend my afternoon dusting and slugging a ladder around.

Everyone keeps telling me things get better once the ski season starts.

My response to that?

Hurry up and snow goddammit!

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Just When You Think We're Moving Forward...

You read that California voted Yes on Proposition 8 yesterday, reversing the legalization of Gay Marriage in the state.

I'm warning you now - if you don't like this issue and don't want to hear what I have to say, come back tomorrow, because I'm livid right now after reading this and need to jump on my soapbox and rant...

Personally, a law like this is an absolute joke to me, especially coming on the heels of the monumental achievement of Barack Obama's election last night. The election of the first Black President is something they will teach in history classes until the end of time, as I said yesterday, and now I hope that the archaic beliefs about sexuality and the institution of marriage held by 52% of voters in the State of California (and all other homophobes throughout the world) can be the next major change.

Honestly, what gives any other person the right to say who can and cannot be married? And how can you make it illegal for two men or two women or two transgendered individuals to get married? Illegal. Two dudes who love each other getting married is now against the law... same as murder and theft and selling crack.

Those in favour of this newly passed bullshit cling to the notion that marriage is at the "fundamental core of how society is organized" and that marriage should be "between a man and a woman" to "establish a family unit."

Where do I begin?

First, claiming that marriage is at the fundamental core of how society is organized is ridiculous. If marriage truly is the fundamental core of how society is organized, why do we allow people to enter into marriage flippantly and have a divorce rate hovering around 50%? This isn't my grandparents era where marriage truly was a lifetime commitment and the core of the family unit. I would wager everyone knows ten people who either are divorced themselves or have parents who are divorced, unlike even when I was a kid and I knew one kid and it was a big deal.

As for the second part - "between a man and a woman" - you've got to be kidding me. What in the name of all things holy is the difference between two men being in love with each other and willing to commit themselves to one another and a man and woman doing the same? The answer is nothing, accept that homophobic and fundamentalist belief that being gay is not acceptable continue to exist in large numbers in our world.

Harsh as this sounds, I always think about what someone who helped passed this law would do if their child came to them with a same sex partner. Then what do they do? Do you cast aside your child because of your beliefs or do you cast aside your beliefs because it's different now that it affects you personally? I count myself lucky because I will never have to make that decision. Gay, straight, bi or whatever - my kids are my kids and they can be whoever they want to be with the knowledge that they will be loved unconditionally.

The final little blip from the LA Times piece that marriage is about "establishing a family unit" is also faulty on numerous levels.

One - not all married couples have kids. Some can't, some choose not to, some just don't get around to it.

Two - why is a man and a woman adopting and "establishing a family unit" that way any different than two women doing the same? Again, it's not.

Three - all that matters, really, in the establishment of a family unit is love. Two dads, two moms, two dads and two moms or one of each, as long as those parents love their child and do everything in their power to provide for them, that is the only thing anyone should truly care about.

Beyond being an issue about marriage, this is an issue about human rights.

Because you're gay you're not allowed to get married?

How in the fuck can anyone say that is just and how is it any different than saying because you're a woman you can't do this or because you're Latino you can't do that?

I'd love to hear the difference between the two because to me there aren't any and I look forward to the day when who you choose to love is no longer an issue.

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iBlog Will Return Tomorrow

Hi.

I know I haven't posted since Friday - my 300th post BTW - but shit happens.

All kinds of shit.

Annoying shit.

Frustrating shit that makes me wish I had never come on vacation in the first place or that I was already on the red eye home so I could go to work and have a normal schedule again...

Anyway, this is about all I have time for today and I'm sorry.

But everyone is going out tomorrow and leaving me here, in peace, to finally get some work done, so I promise we'll catch up tomorrow.

Love,
Spen
XOXO

P.S. After 8 days without smokes, I'm off to the store... that should tell you where my head is at right now...

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The Rundown: I've Had A Bad Day or Two

Starting with this post, I'm getting my ducks in a row and hammering out as much writing and work from this computer as possible on a daily basis, because this is what makes me happy (aside from Sarah, puppies, babies, great movies, better books and sushi) and I'm sick of being miserable.

That being said, we're doing some cleansing today.

Warning: I'm getting real serious and personal here, so if that's not your bag... vamoose!

Five Worst Days of My Life

5. Kicked Out of University - May 1999
You think telling your parents you failed a course is hard? Try telling them the school they're paying good money to send you to has kicked you out entirely. Fuck me did this day suck. I managed to drink and party my way to a low enough average that the school didn't even want my money... and then I had to fess up to it to the 'rents. The old man told me I should just get a job in one of the Hamilton steel factories because that was all I would amount to anyway. Faye told me to stay home, go to Mac and get coddled. I moved back to Waterloo in September, worked for four months then rattled off sixteen straight months of school with a 71% average to graduate in June 2001.

4. Grandma Kyte's Funeral - November 2005
Bad for so many reasons, first of which is having to say goodbye to someone who was very, very important to me. My Grandma was crazy - she drank, she smoked non-filtered cigarettes by the truckload, she cursed more than I do. She was the best and I loved her dearly. This day gets extra awkward points for being a Kyte Family Function, meaning the extendeds whom I hadn't seen or spoken to in some time. Oh right, there was also some real nice Phil Time too.

3. The Night Before My Uncle Jack's Funeral - January 2004
That night, I decided to have a sit down with the old man after around a year of not speaking with him, wanting to get everything settled and start building something new. My cousins were never going to be able to speak to their father again and I didn't talk to mine by choice and that was ridiculous to me. So I tried... and failed... miserably. When conversations end with the one person (my old man) hollering at the top of his lungs (in public too) for the other person (me) to "Go Fuck Yourself," it's not really a very good evening. I've said seven words to him since.

2. Two Sunday's Ago - March 9, 2008
My brother ended a conversation with me in the same manner as my old man did, telling me to "Go Fuck Myself" and the worst part of all? He sounded just like the old man always did - He's right, you're wrong and if you can't see that, why bother with you? I got one brother and I don't want to lose him the way I have lost my old man...

1. Divorce Announcement - November 1999
See, I contend that it sucks more at age 21 than it does at age 6, because at 21, you know what all the problems they're talking about are. When you're younger, you can't comprehend these things and eventually it just becomes the way things have "always" been. Learning there was a whole lot of lying going on throughout your formative years really sucks balls. At least, to me it does.

* * * * * * * * * *
"Do it now 'cause tomorrow ain't promised today"
- Christopher Brian Bridges... Stand Up!

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I Know Which Dwarf I Am...

Grumpy.

I'm at that point where I'm just tired of everything.

I'm tired of being a moron who wastes a great night out all dressed up with his girlfriend getting shitcanned and announcing to a room full of strangers that, "I'm Spencer and I'm awesome because I have a mohawk!"

I'm sick of busting my ass at Blockbuster effing Video for the last nine months to find out that that transfer they assured me would happen whenever I wanted to move back to Ontario isn't as assured as originally advertised.

I'm pissed that I've spent countless months talking about all the ideas I have for a book and a movie and writing and haven't done shit about it. Not one single word.

I'm grumpy as fuck and d'you know what?

It's about goddamn time too!

Reaching the point of total and utter frustration moves you in one of two ways:

1. Prolonged periods of laying on the couch in the fetal position watching old movies and crying
2. Sitting at this computer every spare minute I have either trying to find a better job that shilling movies or writing the book / movie that will make me never have to shill another movie ever again.
   

I'm not much for the fetal position, so starting NOW, the search is on for a different job and the writing starts first thing tomorrow morning.

Schedules. Routine. Habit. Timelines. That is the only way these ideas that have been bouncing around inside my head for the better part of the last year are ever going to become whatever they are meant to become. I just need to sit down and do it.

No more Baseball Mogul 2008.

No more three hour cycles of The Score.

No more laying around watching old movies.

Writing, writing and more writing.

P.S. You don't want to mess with Grumpy... consider yourself warned.

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