Blog Entry:13 cleaning rocks and my broken Honda.
April 2022-June 2022
I look through the window to see Dani and Jess on the floor. Jess is nearly crying, and Dani is not far behind her. No, no one died and they’re definitely not hurt, maybe just a little high. The source of their laughter and crying is me and although Dani normally finds humour in the random shit I do, this was on a new fucking level. At the time I was on the decking, washing rocks, and laying them out to dry…. Now before I fully explain let me confirm this was for a productive reason and had nothing to do with being baked like triple decker chocolate cheesecake, although this was making me move at ¼ the speed I usually do. We had recently registered the company and I had started to market more, I thought I needed to kit up; doubling my back drops, stands and lighting/flash equipment increasing our inventory for bigger jobs. The stands are bigger and the equipment higher priced and so I need to keep everything from crashing down….literally. I purchased black and yellow weight bags and had found that little rocks would be perfect cheap ballasts. Sand leaks easily and gets everywhere and big stones don’t mould round things well, making pebbles ideal. Only problem is I was being cheap. I got the bags at Canadian Tire as they were the cheapest, but unfortunately not the cleanest. The bag was partially full of water, mud, and silt, I thought a quick wash would work, but this ended up being a whole process of 3 washes of 6 batches and being left hours to dry. Now when I started, I was not high, and progress was quick, slick, and efficient……… 2 hours in and I had gone full Bob Marley and was moving like a 200-year-old monk with a bad leg. I think it was the accumulation of intense look on my face, due to concentration and my obsessive desire to get the rocks spotless, coupled with my now very slowed movement. This combination had pushed them over the edge and turned everyone into Chuckles the fucking Clown.
Now if you were not there, that story may have seemed a little wasted on you. The relevance is there, this is the perfect example of a situation where a simple thing (washing rocks) that turns into a half day job. This is now my life, small jobs that turn into big ones and time just disappears into a lost void. Simply put- black holes are real, if they weren’t how else do I explain where my time goes?
I’m now standing taking in a beautiful morning in Calgary, watching as the sun breaks through, poised to blind every person driving east. Normally I would miss this as I would be at work. Now there are times I go out especially for this beautifully timed view, but todays stop was most unplanned and I was defiantly going to be late for work. I say unplanned as I had not planned on my front left bottom ball joint saying “fuck you”, and separating while doing over 80KPH, in turn releasing the hub, tearing out the brake line and drive shaft, and positioning the wheel so it acted like a simple block brake at the back of some cheap plastic 90s roller-skates. I first realised I might have an issue when the car felt like I had just run over a politician on my driver’s side, followed by violent uneven braking, a total loss of drive coupled with a brake pedal that hit the floor and gave up faster than English recent run of Prime Ministers. I’m tempted, standing on the side of the road looking at the broken ball joint (the same one that is sole culprit for the carnage that just happened), wondering if I used my nail, I could peal back the silver covering and if I could, would find chocolate underneath? The single incident mark on the now separated ball joint spindle told me everything, it had just fucking snapped in two!
My mum and other were concerned for my wellbeing and make statements like “are you ok?” and “I bet that was scary” but my wife knew me better than this. Her first question was “is it repairable” second question “how much damage has it done” she knows if I’m calling, I’m fine and if I’m fine I’m going to be excessively fucked off and probably channelling my anger into what needs to be done to fix the fucking heap of shit!! She was 100% right. And my answer, enough! I now trusted this car less than a decision made in a room with Trudeau, Biden and Tony Blair. I knew I would be replacing lots before I would be happy.
The Honda did get fixed over the next two weeks, it only needed both front lower arms, both front upper arms, both inner and outer tie arms, one driveshaft, two ARB links, two new brake lines and brakes as they were on their last legs anyway. That morning I had just received a tax rebate, I should have known between Jess, Karma, and photography gear it would have got spent, but I had hoped to put that towards other things, e.g. credit cards and savings…. Oh well. But don’t worry it didn’t end there. I ended up only a week later replacing a melted catalytic converter and only three weeks laterer while getting near run off the road by a truck, I was forced into a big pothole, and it was back on a low-loader again. What made it worse was, we were coming up the hill to the Banff Hot Springs and this was meant to be our first proper day out in months, we were within walking distance of the springs. We had managed to get some lovely shots in the morning so the whole day had not been wasted, I just would have like to have finished it sitting in the springs, just floating, and letting the stress balance out. Instead I was sitting in a cab with the most boring man on the planet who was panicking we would give him the “C” word and wouldn’t even let us talk. To date, our most expensive journey home from Banff.
I decided I was going to cost cut where possible; our advertising and media marketing was one area I could achieve this. I had handed in my notice at my current job and was going to be in Cochrane at a local little garage, so no more long journeys or 100KM a day and the way it worked out was I would have a week in-between. In this week I self-taught myself basic HTML coding, like a geek. But still a geek that wasn’t paying $100’s for some other fucker to do it. Anyone who has done this can confirm the most crushing moment is when you trial open what you have done, and the email is a sea ????, this means in the hundreds of lines of code I have managed to miss a “,” or put a “{“ instead of a “[“, basically, I have made a microscopic mistake and like one red sock in a sea of white laundry, it’s fucked. I got to the bottom of it, and in the end it’s another skill I have gained.
With another move comes another U-Haul rental, I’m getting good at booking these now. The nice part is at least my tools will be closer to home, the pay is less but it gives me back 2 hours a day. With this move I also makes volunteering at the Humane Society just taking photos for their website far easier. Rugby was fully into swing and being closer I was able to make training easier, this was rewarded in training, I managed to get diverted by a pad and throw clean into a full force running knee to the head. Obviously, I ignored the warnings and went to the next training session, not allowing my body to heal and it fucking me for three days where I felt sick weak, and dizzy, eventually forcing me to take a few weeks off rugby to heal. Anyway, so much for more consistency!
Around this time, we had decided to plan for a podcast, one initially intended to be on photography but very quickly turned to a couple’s chat with some photography, possibly guests and a healthy dose of fuckery called “Two Twats and a Cat”. As I write this today, the 17th November sitting in my favourite writing spot in Found Bookstore on Cochrane high street, we still don’t have a full episode done, but its imminent. I want to launch when we have time to get it as right as possible, I have set the deadline of Jan 1st for the pilot, and I’m determined to keep to it.
As a dyslexic with bad spelling and a detest for reading, it seems highly comical that I sit in a bookstore full of books, books I will probably never read, writing a blog (a task I used to despise), and even more shocking is how much I enjoy it? Found Bookstore is locally owned, with a nice random perfectly dimmed lighting, vintage shades, rows of books, and a random but perfectly placed eclectic chairs, sofas, and tables. It started off as a pivot mid covid, a tiny little store that was a travel agent which turned to bookstore, and within a year it moved, upsized, and grew it into an awesome little 90s sitcom style picturesque store, one that feels so relaxed and reminiscent to a pre-internet bookstore, unaware of the online dominance to come. It makes me smile whenever I walk in there. The most impressive part is that the owner and her staff willingly puts up with me sitting there for hours, writing and drinking coffee. Considering how much I like to randomly chat and distract her and her staff and in turn myself, that should be congratulated!
We have got yet another renter moving in downstairs, I can only hope this one is more stable. So far, we have had a steady stream of mid 20s girls that like to slam doors, yell at boys, and possess low self-sufficiency skills. Like the inability to shovel snow, cut grass, or turn any fucking lights off, it’s like a constant reality show. When did society decide to crave drama so damn much? I’m holding MTV 100% at fault, why did those cockwombles had to stop playing music which was what made them so awesome and decide to make shows highlighting useless wannabe stars with big mouths? The sort with no emotional control and less talent than the strategically placed comedy dance monkeys that can’t sing on every talent show now produced (thank you Simon Cowell) ……. Only time will tell but after hearing doors slam and kids screaming at 23:00 only a few days in, I’m holding very low expectations!
Over the next few weeks, we played baseball for the first time, Miss Nugget settled in more, we got colour changing bulbs for the downstairs, I reminded myself why I hated Fords so much and Jess and I did voluntary work as “extras” on a production being filmed in town at Found. Now my younger history was dance, acting, singing, music and stage, so the idea of doing “extra work” bought a little nostalgia back. Jess on the other hand had done none before, this was apparent as the assistant director came down to politely tell her to shut the fuck up for the third time, as my previous attempts had fallen on deaf ears. In general, I’m loud, my voice cuts through, I love to talk and I can easily fill a room. So, when I’m quiet and not talking, there’s a reason for it. Step back to the late 90s, every year without fail, I would be in the local pantomime. I would dedicate all my evenings to rehearsing and my time off over the Christmas to New Year.
By the time I finished (age 21) I had learnt at least one thing. While people were on stage you sit downstairs quietly. A far cry from a hyperactive 4-year-old me starting on my first show, where I did not possess this knowledge. My dance instructor Sue can confirm this as it was usually her, Launa, or another mum that had volunteered sent down to shut me up. And when I started pantomime, this was upgraded to the director Belinda, who accepted even less shit! I don’t think I could have picked a better time to be involved. When I started, the world was a less PC place than now, and better for it. One with risky adult humour and alcohol backstage, for the adults, to warm up their vocals……. obviously…. Even though I would be heavily bullied, as it was still a time where dance was considered a “gay man’s” thing, if I could go back now I would do it all over again. The only thing I would do differently is to ignore the stigma more and try 4 times as hard! The enjoyment isn’t just the performances, it’s everything. From the initial read through getting the character, to the rehearsals, painting and helping build the sets, selling and promoting the tickets, helping run lighting cables, mic locations and positioning spotlight towers, stocking the bar, hanging the back drops, making comical props in secret to sabotage the final production night, and all the hilarious bloopers the audience and anyone not there will never get to see.
Therefore, I crave photograph, videography, and music so much, just like being involved in aviation or racing, all of them take you out of the matrix for that period of time. Time passes differently. While I’m involved, my head (one that constantly bounces and is normally doing ten things at once), stabilises, calms and focuses like a crisp Leica 50mm F1.4 lens! It’s those moments where I feel I’m actually being productive and growing. The feeling of being on stage and getting a unified response from hundreds of people at the same time, showing someone a photo of themselves that they didn’t think they could achieve, making music that hits deep with people or capturing on video a moment people will want to play on repeat. All these things are one-time events, every time will be slightly different, none of it is eat sleep repeat, and all of them only happen and are made better with dedication and absolute commitment.
I rounded off June by finding out they had misjudged taking me on at the garage in Cochrane and couldn’t actually support another mechanic in the shop; it was fairly small, and it made managing workload challenging. It wasn’t great timing as I was nearly debt clear and Jess would be in full time work in two months as she had made huge pushes and would finish college 6 months early as it would happen. But to be honest mechanics in Canada was far from what I had hoped for, so at least this way I could put a line in the sand and focus on other avenues, ones I actually wanted to pursue. Mechanics was only a temporary return and never the main goal, a temporary return that had reminded me how much I wanted more.
Even though I was now technically unemployed, the Banff game was upon us, and it was one I was looking forward to as we would be in Banff, we had a hotel, and the bears were hosting our rookie night. We would end up losing the game (one of only two in the whole season) but this didn’t matter as the evening would more than make up for it. The theme was Luchadores and Ring Whores…. I missed this in the group, I thought it was just fancy dress and went as the whitest Mr Motivator on the planet, coupled with a mini clip-on speaker playing RnBStylerz “Like Woo Woo” on repeat. As much as I would love to devolve the shit that happened, I feel that’s breaking an unwritten code.
Even though I was now technically unemployed, the Banff game was upon us, and it was one I was looking forward to as we would be in Banff, we had a hotel, and the bears were hosting our rookie night. We would end up losing the game (one of only two in the whole season) but this didn’t matter as the evening would more than make up for it. The theme was Luchadores and Ring Whores…. I missed this in the group, I thought it was just fancy dress and went as the whitest Mr Motivator on the planet, coupled with a mini clip-on speaker playing RnBStylerz “Like Woo Woo” on repeat. As much as I would love to devolve the shit that happened, I feel that’s breaking an unwritten code.
Well that enough for now, but don’t fear! My ever-growing insightful rant will continue next time. To come, Jess, Paul, and a neighbour draw England with chalk pens, I study at a school I don’t go to, I buy more gear, I build a make shift studio in our garage, oh and I break my hand …… TTFN friends. Next July to September 2022.
