over my shoulder

being appreciated for my poetic efforts is, without doubt, one of the most intensely gratifying experiences. i made a comment the other day about having fans, but today began with an sms from vector saying "i just wanted to say that i was profoundly moved by that third piece you sent me. signs in the dead night."

i sat staring stupidly at my phone's screen with the biggest smile on my face, unsure of how to respond and even less sure how to take something like that.

on my way out of training i was talking to a couple of the guys i've become friendly with recently, and i mentioned slam poetry. after attempting to describe it i offered them a sample, which visibly shocked them; "that was inspiring, man", repeated one, and the other's apparently coming on sunday to see what else i've got.

shit, that feels good ^_^

---last night i went to vfmp's to watch house of cards but... that's wasn't on the cards. he and his boyfriend may or may not be breaking up, so we talked for a while and then watched an episode of parks and recreation before i had to leave. it was all rather depressing, and i tried to be as supportive and intelligent as i could but there really aren't rules to these things :(

...

i let my netbook linux upgrade before going to bed, which was a mistake as it took forever. i used the opportunity to continue critiquing my buddy's book. on the one hand, i have a lot of things to say, but on the other the quality overall is pretty good. at least i'm being entertained! and unlike other literature i don't fully approve of, i actually do have an opportunity to influence the final output. at least when it's done i won't be able to say "damn, didn't anyone proof-read this?!" because i'll know exactly what went into it :P

i slept alright, my back and neck notwithstanding - they weren't really bad, but they were annoying and i spent most of my day worrying that i was going to do something to put myself completely out of joint. i think boxing helped.
during a period of tired restlessness, i lay in bed thinking about the kind of crap i put up with as a student. one item stood out in particular.

---i played a lot of soccer as a kid. i was never very good, but i enjoyed it, mostly. even then, i understood the value of teamwork; perhaps that's where i learned it. playing a defender and always finding myself the only player between the opposing strikers and our goalkeeper because everyone else wanted to be a hero was supremely frustrating, but i never gave up. gods, i could fill chapters with soccer horror stories but two of my last experiences actually involved me scoring goals in school matches. the announcement from the first of them still haunts me.

it was an away game, and i somehow managed to take the ball across the field all the way to the opposing goals. i'd just crossed the penalty box line and found myself facing off against one of their defenders. unaware of any other options available to me, completely engrossed in the moment, i took the shot. it deflected off the defender's shin and sailed smoothly past their keeper and into the goal.

for the first time in my eight or nine years playing school and club soccer, i had scored a goal under match conditions. this was a fantastic moment, and was met with enthusiastic cheers! i was so excited! for once, i'd contributed in a noticeable way, as opposed to my usual thankless job in the background. let's not kid, nobody gives a shit about defenders.

friday morning, school assembly. the captain stands up to announce the results. i will never forgive him for this:
"and totalwaste scored an own-goal."

he was trying to play it down because he didn't like me, and rather than admit that i'd done something positive he went with my causing the other team to score an own-goal - intentionally or not, his statement did not include certain crucial details. unfortunately, not only is that absurdly petty but it's all the rest of the school would believe, and my victory turned sour as i became the subject of ridicule for being such a loser.

i'll also never forgive the sports master / coach for not correcting him. bastards.

---speaking of personal history, there was this girl in eighth grade when i was in my final year; i was good friends with one of her teachers and someone in class had caught her scribbling something about liking me. she wasn't one of the cool kids, and the next time i walked in to the class to say hello everyone got silly and tried to humiliate her by letting me know. her teacher and i took one look at each other and decided to play along; i made a point of flirting with her and that shut everyone up. even though she was too young for me, i didn't have to pretend too much 'cause she was a sweet girl and was definitely going to be good-looking given a couple more years :)

it embarrassed her at first, but a day or two later when i passed her in a corridor she'd visibly gone from zero to hero - we'd made her! and it stuck - i'm smiling widely now just thinking about it...

anyway, when i got onto facebook in 2007 and started reconnecting with all my school buddies, she was one of the first people i looked up. i had to know what she looked like! but i couldn't find her.

until today. someone connected with me on linkedin and i looked through their connections to see who else i'd know - and when i saw her name my heart skipped a beat. then i grinned, and nodded, because i was totally right.

---i spent most of the day dealing with my lack of attention span. seriously, i'm driving myself nuts - i can't focus on anything. the good news is that the project i'm working on is practically writing itself - the things i thought would be difficult? done. now i'm learning the ins and outs of leap's frames and hopefully i'll have an approach in mind soon.

before training i started on the second harry potter (in french). my kindle asked me to review the first, so i obliged... and afterwards saw that practically all the reviews on amazon are by people reading it to improve their french. no francophone readers? seriously? that's kinda odd.

training was alright, i finally met an illustrator i'd been told about and she's going to be in touch soon. i'm in two minds about linking to her webcomic (i'm still awkwardly in the closet regarding my blog's anonymity), but it had me laughing hysterically at her caricatures of the guys we train with (they're bloody accurate, i wonder if the guys themselves have authorized them) when i wasn't being amazed by how much we have in common!

i was chatting with one of the guys after training when the coach called me over to teach. so far he's been asking me to handle the first-timers, but this time he wanted to do that himself and have me take the rest of the class for fifteen minutes. that included guys who've been training longer than me... it started awkwardly, and a couple of them were convinced that i was teaching them something wrong: i explained my logic, and i felt light-bulbs turn on as they warmed up to me. by the end i was doing rounds and correcting, with one guy in bad french, even, and someone even approached me afterwards to ask me questions.

that all felt pretty good.

i rushed home to shower and go out to buy dinner, making it just in time, then put it together giggling to chris porter: ugly and angry which is brilliant. i ate watching a couple more episodes of freaks and geeks. it's bothering me that the series is going to end.
not cool, world, not cool.

---this article on quebec language policy is quite worrying. i really hope things don't devolve here...