January 17, 2002

Working on this journal recently, I've spent my time updating old pages - getting them all in the same format, fixing links where possible and such. I have to say, reading my archives, that a large portion of my older material really isn't that good. Not only am I not fond of my writing style and tone in older entries, I honestly have to say that in many ways I'm not the same person who wrote those words. I read some entries and to me I come across as an arrogant prick. Perhaps it's because I didn't bother to flesh the entries out with petty things like details or explanations. Perhaps I was a lot more opinionated, self-righteous, unaccepting and inflexible than I am now. Perhaps I simply suck at writing. Who knows?

I like to say, every New Year, that I don't make resolutions. "That way, you never have to worry about breaking them," I would point out. Turns out, I'm breaking that un-resolution by choosing to make a serious effort this year to improve the quality, quantity and content of what I write here. I said in an earlier post that there people out there (Yes, you.) who inspire me to write better. I had best start living up to that claim, lest I be declared a fraud.

I had a strange dream the other night. I dreamt I was watching television (looking at screens all day isn't enough - I have to dream about them now?) and the channel I was viewing was airing The Full Monty, sort of. It was as if the censors decided to not only edit out certain parts but also rewrite the thing into a bad musical. It would go from the actual dialogue, complete with the Sheffield accents, to a badly overdubbed monotone North American voice saying lines that were contextually out of synch with the scene. The scene in the movie was the audition sequence. When it came time for Horse to audition, the in-dream censors had him break out into a horribly overdubbed song. They then would cut to the other blokes in the movie, only they were "playing" musical instruments in accompaniment. At that point my dream self said "Enough of this shit" and changed the channel.

Every other channel on my dream television was simulcasting newly released video footage of September 11th, taken from locations in and around the World Trade Center, presumably by videographers who perished when the towers collapsed. It didn't matter what channel I turned to; each one displayed the same graphic images. After a short time, my dream morphed and I was no longer watching the videotape but actually there, at Ground Zero, directly under the towers as they collapsed. My dream self then said something along the lines of "Shit. Fuck. Wake up, Ron" and I woke myself up before the millions of tons of debris crushed me, visions of falling buildings dancing in my immediate memory.

Finnegan then grounded me in reality by demanding his breakfast at 4:30am. And 4:45am. And 5:15am. I swear, those folks at the University Of Guelph fixed him a little too good. He is developing quite the attitude. Cute as bugshit still, but oooh! he can be a pain in the ass when he wants to (which lately is all the time.) Oy.

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