Holiday Consumption:

It can leave you hollow and empty (and drunk), or full and happy.

Polar bears, vodka shots, rockstars, jager bombs, gin and gingers, gin and tonics, red wines, white wines, a singular bloody mary, a plethora of beer, and of course, whiskey sours. Making bad decisions all the time. I've come to Guelph to recover from the hangover that has been accumulating since the twelve shots of Christmas.

I can blame this on celebration: all the Kane kids reunited, a last hurrah for P.I. in Oakville, Christmas eve, and Friday. There are varying degrees of legitimacy, yet there always seems to be justification. The consequences? Besides the obvious health related problems, not much. Some drunken emails, a blog post (since deleted) where I sloppily declared my love to friends scattered across Canada, giving shout-outs to "peeps" in the East and West coast, nothing too embarrassing. Blackouts aside, it was a memorable Christmas.

I'm kidding about the blackout part, but the memorable part is true. Everything resumes with Alan and Will as though they never left. Alan still has me walk across his back. I still scratch behind his ears. He still calls me cute and makes fun of my ankles. Will still hasn't found that filter that most people have. The regular order, think then speak, is reversed. This seems disastrous, but it ensures honesty. He's also just as convincing as ever. From the mouth of the cell phone hating vegan, "If I were a rooster I'd want to be a cockfighter" and "If I were to buy a cellphone I'd get that PC one".

On Christmas morning my Grandma opened a toy plastic gorilla from Will and loved it as though it were diamond earrings. I opened an envelope full of old photographs from my grandmother and loved them more than cash (which was in the next present from her). Alan received two copies of Steve Martin's Born Standing Up so he wound wrapping paper around one copy and passed it to Ben. Ben accepted it as thankfully as if Alan had planned and purchased the gift specially for him. I purchased the materials for my gifts from the Re-Use Center (cheaper than the salvation army, more organized than the dump) and still, despite some shoddy workmanship, the presents were loved.

Responsible gift giving, irresponsible drinking.
One last day of the year to justify. Tomorrow I will celebrate a birthday with Will, a new year with friends, and a reunion with friends who are family. Cheers.

After Whiskey Sours

Ho-hum, the holiday season.
Drowsy eyes and worn out smiles.

Mixed Signals

I have made two mix cds in my 19-year-old lifetime. The first, filled with songs about distance that resonate with almost uncomfortable closeness, was likely never listened to. Radio Cure by Wilco, Those to Come by The Shins, Sweep Up by Andre Ethier, Season of the Shark by Yo La Tengo and What More Can I Say by Jay-Z, all appropriately butted heads and meshed. Those songs spoke volumes, but remain quietly stored on an i-pod in another province.

I received my first mix cd from my older brother Alan. He drew a happy face on the cd, wrote "Songs to make you smile", and filled it with music that I absorbed into my self. Newly acquainted to The Weakerthans and Is This It, I went to highschool and set out to meet friends with whom I could share songs, and found Smith and Snetsinger. Smith is a master of the mix cd, and gave me Dylan that got me to work and back this past summer.

Another mix cd that stands out is the one given to me by Suzanne during my first semester at Guelph. It's been listened to endlessly. When I hear one of the songs she placed on that album alongside any other song in any other context it feels as though the song is away from the home where it belongs. Devendra needs to be before Clap Your Hands Say Yeah which needs to be next to the Islands. Suzanne also put Is This It on the cd, a cover by Royal City, and it still makes me smile.

Today I gave away my second mix cd and received another in return. Mix cds are like collections of short stories. The meaning of a song stands alone in a bigger unseen setting, but rests on all the other songs in it's new environment. It's intimidating, because for a while you think you have control over the direction, flow, message, etc. and then you realize it's almost entirely out of your hands.

In respect to losing control of direction, I seem to have lost control of the images I've been posting and am unequally representing my siblings. I'll work on this. Here's Ben Kane. I call it "CowboyBenbop". Next week: Alan.

Miranda July in My December

There's been too much "verbal hip wiggling". This blog is becoming sedentary. I'm falling into a pattern, and I need some spice (really I do, we only have curry powder left).
My writing ebbs and flows, so please allow me to ebb now.
Let Miranda July catch your attention. Watch her move in that little you-tube box.

Presence for Christmas

Likes: I like riding the bus.

A few nights ago on my bus ride home from campus I sat across from 3 students, 1 girl and 2 boys, presumably in their later years of high school. The boy on the right was absorbed in a video game (of the playstation sort). The boy in the middle was tenderly looking at and holding the girl's hand. The girl, with her other hand, was texting someone with her cellphone.

In the morning a day or so later, I saw the couple on the bus again. The boy was still holding her hand and looking tenderly at it, but this time in the girl's other hand she held an mp3 player. They shared the headphones and had their eyes closed. Sometimes I saw both of their mouths move at the same time to the words.

This is as close to sentimental as I'm going to get. I wrote a bunch about all the bus trips during Bronte Creek, and thought a lot about all the other ones that accurately summed up parts of my life. I tried to tell myself, "I'm allowed to be hokey, it's Christmas", but I don't know, I can get pretty cheesy for a vegan (like right there, that's what I mean). I'm sighing and squinting. It's noon and I'm in pajamas. Kristy went out to "determine her future", Suzanne is napping, S.C. is at the library with so many sandwiches, and Sarah is probably napping too, oh wait, nope, she's awake. She just came into my room, and I quote "I hate that my life is sleeping in 'til noon everyday. It's terrible". She also showed me her mummy-like toe. It's gross.

Red Hot Drops

My roommate, to some degree, lives by a credo, or perhaps it's simply an explanation. Either way, "Making bad decisions all the time" can sometimes result in wonderful moments. Decisions you make at a "Cake and Spandex" dance party can hardly be expected to be rational in the first place. Following and because of said (er, rather unsaid) decisions I received the biggest, warmest, most loving and caring embrace from Suzanne.

Most would say, and I can't really disagree, that walking home in the pouring rain in December at 9:00 at night is a "poor decision". When feeling under the weather, it's probably not a bright idea to put yourself under bad weather. But if I hadn't I wouldn't have seen Johnson Green lit up with that nighttime winter red sky. The geese at the river (shouldn't they have flown south by now?) sat or stood half on the ice and half on the water. Accordingly, it appeared that some were frozen while others moved slowly. Dave End and Chad Vangaalen personally serenaded me on the way home, perfectly in sync with mood and weather. Chad made me mellow and Dave made me love everything.

Now, I need to make it quite clear that "Making bad decisions all the time" does not always lead to such harmonious conclusions. As a disclaimer I should state, bad decisions are called "bad" for a reason. My punishment: Oil of Oregano must become part of my diet for the next few days. Also, my boots are wet, and my hair has that "too soft" feeling from rainwater that is lovely to touch, but now I look like a 12 year old boy.

Posting this on my 'blog', or 'online journal' as some prefer to call it, also probably isn't very clever of me. Another bad decision. Mum, the Kane children's number 1 blog fan, will be none too pleased at my rainy evening escapades. Sorry Lori.

From my cave to my grave

On Monday night I retreated into a homemade womb with Suzanne. We think that babies listen to muffled Sigur Ros.

I make a point not to lift my feet from the ground while crossing Johnson Green. It's pure joy. I haven't fallen yet but those who know my clumsy nature know that I'm playing with fire (on ice).

I eat ants on a log almost every single day. I ran out of peanut butter so now the sunmaid raisin ants crawl along almond butter. Delicious.

Last night Sarah and I looked up "Cat using fork" on youtube.

I'm ready for bed at 9:30, but I stay up late 'cause all my friends are doing it.

Listless

I'm making a comprehensive list of my likes and dislikes. Freshly added to the list: Gender-bending photographer Claude Cahun, cold veggie ground-round, choosing desktop backgrounds, disco-ball snow, and cinnamon in coffee. Notably, I'd like to add that untangling the cord of stereo-headphones while wearing them is delightful. The hollow sound it makes reminds me of jumping into a cold lake and swimming far too deep. Today that particular underwater sound makes the top of my list of likes.

The cherry on top of my list of dislikes today is unfriendly library neighbours. We're all in this library together. And yes I know it's cold by that window and it's a friday evening, but the least you can do is crack a small smile or even a sympathetic glance. Heck, I'd settle for a smirk. I like the drawings you're doing of cells and I take pleasure from peeking at them but I don't think that warrants giving me that cold-hearted glare. And don't judge me if I want to lie my head down on my "Male Fantasies" book and nap for an hour. There are two volumes; if you ask politely you can lay your head down on volume two.

One more 'like' and then I'll leave you alone. I like reading passages that I underlined in books 2 years ago and wondering why. From Robbins, to me, to you: "Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation".

Sprinkles

I like the hands of the boy on the right. I'm listening to Zombies Care of Cell 44 right now. It's not at all suited to my sleepy brooding mood. I'm noticing that my room looks like a golden scrapbook. 'Scrapbook' without an 's' is crapbook, and 'photo' without the 'h' & 't' is poo. Soon I'm going to start calling myself a literary genius. The female John Milton. The epic blogger.