Edmonton, I Love You
I'm currently sitting at one of those picnic tables with the chessboard imprinted in the middle, by a small skatepark in the neighborhood of my friend's almost old basement apartment. Inspiringly polite guys in Dickies and toques - despite the gorgeous September weather - are ollying across the flat stretch of concrete that makes up the park, surrounded by the splash park and other picnic tables crowded with their lunch kits and tallboys of Black Ice. I just biked across South Central Edmonton to get two of the four errands I needed to run today. I've been here for three days now.
Truth be told, I was nervous moving back here. My first semester at the UofA was stressful in ways I didn't express to as many people as I should, but I'm sure go without saying. I thought this city had too many bad memories for me to relax enough to spending an indefinite amount of years in. During my last week in Red Deer, I thought about finding a way to move back after my degree was finished, assuming I could do my last semester there (which is in the cards, by the way). But, unsurprisingly, that panic washed the fuck away the second I stepped foot here again.
The capital-C City is weird, and I forgot how it felt. I don't know if they have this in the States, but I'm what they call a county kid. That means I'm rural small-town but very well off. I grew up on an acreage where everyone waved to everyone else who passed them, and had to drive into town to get anything done. Now, my friends literally live across the street from me, groceries can be done via bike (will get to that later), and most places have bathroom keys. It's a way of life I forgot I was used to.
The kinds of people that live here are even weirder, too. I'm from one of the most white, most conservative regions in the country, but Edmonton is this strange lone liberal enclave in the blue Prairies (1), the only one until you reach the West Coast or the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. You get entire neighbourhoods filled with American traditional tattooed, mullet-wearing enbies and their allies. People whose primary income is from streaming on Twitch (which is especially weird when they bring it up in conversation). People I once couldn't imagine in the ethos of Alberta. Remembering that I'm thoroughly among their ranks now, no matter my dirtbag leftism, was kind of jarring.
Red Deer, among the people who live there and even love it, is described as a town you leave. This is true. It's a town most known as where you get gas when you're driving from Edmonton to Calgary. I still love it though, but it's strange being in the process of truly leaving. Especially after my unexpectedly wonderful summer of reconvening with all my old high school friends - both the ones I missed and the ones I resented - I never stop thinking about where I've come from. I hate how that phrase has been reduced to a cliche. I mean it. When I'm in the heart of the city, where IPAs are $11 and chicken sandwiches that take a half an hour to make are $25, I always think of everyone I know back home. Or, people used to know, sometimes. I don't really believe anyone is supposed to be anywhere, but my dad once told me on a drive to the gas station that I'm supposed to be where I am. Here, in E-Town. This is definitely where I can get the most of what I want done. I'm so glad it didn't beat me to death.
More important than place
-
Reading & Writing
I'm barely reading. My brain feels illiterate. I feel eager to get into something difficult. Something structural and heady, like ol' Deleuze and Guattari or something else like that. I write with too much sentiment for me to articulate everything I want to. There's very few pieces of writing I'm proud of, which I know is true for everyone. Everyone tells me that this is what I'm good at. I want to know what they mean.
-
The Woke Mob
I guess you could call me "anti-woke", but I really fuckiny hate that label. "Woke" is such a shitty, inaccurate, surprisingly racially charged replacement for political correctness. When I think of being 'woke', I think of Katt Williams. I think of people that talk about the Black Gay Mafia. That stuff, even if I'm in too different a cultural universe to completely get, is kind of cool to me. When I hear "woke", I don't think about decorum in progressive social circles, racial tokenism, the professional-managerial class, the Democratic Party, or "controlled speech". Those are things completely worth criticizing, and anyone with real nerve or heart talking about politics are, but they're not fucking Joe Rogan, no matter my white-guy appreciation of him. If such a thing exists, the average person is not buying into the fucking culture war.
However, I am a bit of an asshole, and I have to do better.
-
What's Yr Take On Cassavetes?
I saw Opening Night at the Metro the other night. Cassavetes is the fucking man. His movies are like transcendental police interrogation footage. They torrent you with this overwhelming images of intensely vulnerable, lonely people yelling and screaming and kissing and hating and loving each other until the movie ends after what feels like ten hours. They're the kinds of movies I'm always looking to find but never come across. The cinema is dead, long live the cinema.
-
Sobriety
I drink a lot. Probably as much as your average university-age Prairie Canadian male, but, still. I'm the type of guy that says he should stop but never does. I wonder if I'm addicted to alcohol. I say that in a feeble attempt to one-up alcoholics who insist they just drink enough, which give me a second-hand worry. The thought of lying to myself worries me. But I seem to be slowing down a little bit, which has made me feel better. It's rare that I'm clear-headed as it is, drugs or not so it's nice to feel like I can do it more often.
Everyone's picked up smoking over the summer, and I'm biking every day again, so I'm thinking a lot about my health. I'm also getting older. We all are. Nobody I know besides friends I have that are middle aged (crazy that I have those friends at all) are past their sexual prime just yet. Some of us are getting married, but we're still fertile, don't you worry!
-
Beautiful & Stoned
I was in Kaiden's kitchen after my friends sipped TNT and laughed hysterically about the wind turbines he spent the summer working on. I, the D.D., who sat the quietest of everyone on the balcony, sometimes feeling left out, more often very amused, walked out with Ewan to my car. Kaiden and Natalie stood still as well life, their faces blasted by the kitchen light. Kaiden, clearly the drunkest, said "Thanks for hanging out with us, guys. We thought you wouldn't make it. Can we do this every night forever?" This was the last thing I would ever expect Kaiden to say to anyone, even if he tried to make it sound like he was kidding. It was the kind of thing you would say, or at least that I would want to hear from you.
P.S. I lied about driving drunk for some reason. I said I did, but I never have. Kind of a funny thing to lie about.
(1) I know for a fact you don't know this, but in Canada, a "blue" province means conservative, and a "red" province means liberal. It's the other way around from the States. This is thanks to Britain and France.
