Thursday 27 March 1986
Tommorow’s Good Friday.
And that, my friends, is mostly it for the 1986 diary entries. There is something in April to look forward to, and after this point twenty years ago, I didn’t write anything in the diary again until September.
Wednesday 26 March 1986
That story sure is long.1 Well I’m surprised with my homework gees.
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1. I have no idea what the story was, that was a part of my homework that evening.
Tuesday 25 March 1986
The house is ours!1 That’s a nice house I tell ya!
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1. I remember him with the rumpled look of the time which has been captured in some photos. The thick beard. The lumberjack clothes. He comes in the door and says its ours and my sister and I rush to hug him. We were excited about moving for all the usual reasons. The calendar tells me it was a Tuesday; we’d come home from school, and he’d been out negotiating. Worked out the deal, got the papers signed or whatever. Twenty years later he makes a show of the slowness of the corn syrup, saying it’s like molasses in January, although we have central heating now and he never eats molasses anyway. Time has shaved off the beard and etched gray into the air, and taken away a healthy plumpness which never turned obese and which I think I’ve inherited. He fills the coffee mug with the ice cream, a chore since the block is frozen hard. Then the patience of the thick corn syrup, which he’s always enjoyed with ice-cream.
Sunday 23 March 1986
We went to check out a house. Well, I think we might move.1
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1.On 1986: When I later went to artschool and was taught about Modernism I never thought I would one day apply to that idea to my life, but I see it now quite clearly as an apt was of summing up 1986. For, in my mind, there is striation of a pre-1986 world, and the post-1986 world, and for years, the post 1986 world was the Modern one. The world of now, the present, the near yesterday. Of course, this is now 20 years later, and I can look back as to why 1986 had a different flavour and immediacy because of the way this day shaped by experience.
We went to check out a house. The folks had been looking to move for a while so we’d been to other houses. I vividly remember the dandelions in Comeauville the day we went to see the house with a turret. That must have been the previous May. On this day, as we walked in the front door, I can still see the boys in the field across the street playing around their little salvaged-plywood fort. We toured the house and went home, and I don’t really remember much about that – the boys in the field is what has stayed with me clearly.
Twenty years later, I was told, I’d be sitting in a dentist’s chair, with a mask over my nose, breathing laughing gas. Twenty years from now, it’ll be a Thursday, whispered, and this is what you’ll see. Pink and yellow and blue. Their faces over you. Reminded of those silly scenes in movies where doctors look down over the camera. The pinch and the flash as the teeth are removed. I didn’t feel a thing. This isn’t a big deal. Wow. Did you get it all out? All of it? All of it, she answers. She’s very pretty, and you keep thinking that’s half the sedation right there – to have such a pretty girl to look at during the procedure. Later the freezing wears off and you’re two teeth short of a full set, but have gone through the initiation rite of our culture, to have some wisdom teeth sacrificed to the gods of good dentistry. The coincidence is a little staggering actually, isn’t it: you sacrifice your wisdom teeth to become a full adult in this culture of stupidity. Or maybe I’m just being cynical. Of course, what does recuperation consists of? Channel surfing. Too distracted by the wounds to try reading, you listen to CBC3 podcasts with the TV on mute, and go round and round and round. Like Sampson’s haircut, your dental procedure has made you vulnerable to celebrity gossip and marketing campaigns.
But twenty years before, it was the prospect of moving, which opened a new chapter into your life.
Saturday 22 March 1986
Well, it’s the last week of bowling. Next week’s a banquet.1
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1. I bowled on Saturdays and found it boring. Or maybe that was the following year … anyway, the banquet was something to look forward to. Little more than a potluck, it to, if I remember correctly, was boring.
Friday 21 March 1986
R’s1 party was the pits. The car almost didn’t start to go to that garbage.
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1. As I recall, the car almost didn’t start because of the cold. R was my best friend through gradeschool, although it seems to me that our friendship would come to a close within the year, if I remember correctly. This party was a sleepover, and I recall being in the top bunk and freaked out by the general weirdness of the thing. R’s brother was a bully who I think spent time in reform school … and then these girls showed up who were intimating sexuality in ways that I wasn’t ready for which freaked me out even more. I got mad at them and told them I wasn’t ready to have sex, although I was probably overreacting, since they were trying to seduce us or anything – they were maybe 13 or 14 themselves, but needless to say, the atmosphere wasn’t one were I felt comfortable. Hence, ‘the party was the pits’.
Thursday 20 March 1986
Good day. You know this March break is kind of boring sometimes. Goto call, going to party tonight.
Wednesday 19 March 1986
Great day. Went to Yarmouth! Got Keith (Voltron). Went to McDonalds for supper. Got a fun crossword.
Tuesday 18 March 1986
My parents got home from concert. Been coksing to go to Yarmouth demain.1
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1. Revisiting these entries twenty years later brings back at times a surprising detail of memory, while other times reminding me of things forgotten, while also recording things for which I have no memory. For example, in the past couple of days, I’d forgotten why my grandmother came to take care of us, and yet today I see it was because my parents had gone to a concert in Halifax. They’d parked the car and saw some pop star … I don’t remember who, and no point in asking them since there’s no way they’d remember anyway. What I do remember is being told that someone had broken into all the cars parked along side the road, except for theirs. But, that story may refer to another concert they went to at another time.
What I don’t remember is using the term ‘coksing’ at this age, which I find remarkable. When I first typed up these entries some time ago, I thought it might be a typo, until realizing that it was an expression that had somehow filtered into Clare from the metropoles. It was the mid-80s and cocaine, I am now told, was everywhere, to the point that 11 year olds were prone to say they were coksing to go town the next day.
Monday 17 March 1986
Well, Grand-mere came to look afer us. A1. Oh, yeah, first day of March break.
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1.A was my aunt
Sunday 16 March 1986
Well, it was pretty boring day. Grand-mere comes tomorrow to look after us.
From my baby-book, written by my mother:
Saturday March 15 1975He decided he liked sitting in his chair for a while each day on March 15 1975.
I think this must be a prelude to what I’ve come to enjoy as an adult: beginning the day with a cup of coffee, sitting at the table, looking outside, or otherwise quietly composing my thoughts. At the point this was writen I was a month and half old.
Eleven years later, I wrote this in my first attempt at keeping a diary:
Saturday 15 March 1986You know, I was trying to break world records today. Very good like all my Saturdays are.
I don’t remember what world records I was trying to break. Possibly something involving jumping. One shouldn’t picture anything worthy of note, but rather something foolish, pathetic and yet charming due to it coming from an 11 year old’s jouissance.
Ten years after that – and ten years ago – on 15 March 1996, I wrote:
Friday 15 March 1996. I slept in accidentally, and missed Applied Ant.1 I went to linguistics, but was late. E2 and I went to the communications lab. After, I told D3 that I needed a transcription, she said come back around 2:30. So, from 1.30 to 2 I talked with M4 on the 5th, they then had to go, so I waited around for D, who bothered me by standing too close and invading my personal space. Then I went home, and hanged out with S5, did my laundry, and talked with W6 who came for K7, who wasn’t home yet. After [they] took off I killed time until 5:40 when I went to see J8 at work. We talked, and I took off around 7, and she told me she might see me later at the Seahorse, where I went around 10:30, because I was supposed to meet Ba9 and Br10 there. I saw none of them, so I left at ten to twelve after two draught and went home and worked on my journal entry.
This alphabet of first initials consists of these letters:E, D, M, S, W, K, J, B & B. I plugged those into an anagram generator and they gave me a list of words including: bed, webs, desk, skew, sew, jew, and bmw. Nevertheless, I’ve been reduced to this alphabet perhaps due to the mistaken notion that I’m protecting the identities of those involved. Note 1: Applied Anthropology class, which I was studying at Saint Marys. Note 2: a classmate with whom I was doing a project (I think). Note 3: My professor, who a friend of mine (now a lawyer) thought was a milf, although we didn’t have that term at the time to describe her that way. Note 4: M, a girl on the 5th floor of the residence. S, the subject of Note 5, was one of my roommates, and the other roommate was Note 7, Mr. K. Mr. W, Note 6, I don’t remember. J, Note 8, was a girl I was quite fond of, which is a bit of understatement considering I was all in love with her. Love at first sight is both embarrassing and real. She was mean to me and became a lesbian and if I saw her again today, I’d fully expect her to continue being mean to me, her bitchiness both a part of her nature and one of the reasons I was attracted to her in the first place. Or perhaps she’s nice now, in which case it’d be nice to drink wine with her and catch up. Notes 9 and 10: the B-boys: friends from when we lived in the same residence.
Eight years later, on Mon. 15 March 2004 I sat where I’m sitting now, and using the same computer I’m using now, I bought my webspace, having acquired the goodreads.ca domain name the week before.
Friday 14 March 1986
Well, I got homework for the big break. All well, it’s not that bad.
Thursday 13 March 1986
Gees! Tomorrow’s Friday and this is the last Friday before March break.
The next one will be March 13th.
Wednesday 05 March 1986
Well I tell you every test I’m getting this week is nearly all F’s.1. Bad you Tim, bad boy.
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1. I remember this was because of the commotion surrounding my grandfather’s death, when homework and studying was the least of my concerns.
video art: In the late 20th Century, art had become so vague a concept that it was colonized by a variety of practices which otherwise had their own industries. Movie makers called themselves video artists. Actors called themselves performance artists. Set designers called themselves installation artists. A language centering on ‘exploration’ developed, so that there were two generations of people trying to figure out what one could do with a technology besides what it was designed for. Was a TV merely for watching tv shows? Was a video camera merely used to record the type of boring stuff one saw in TV shows? These were the types of questions being asked, so that by the time computers and digital video cameras become widely available to the mainstream, the artists had already been trying for 30 years to figure out what more one could do with it, resulting in much work that is no more watchable and comparable to great art than a scientist’s lab-notebook is comparable to great literature. It wasn’t until the capacity for unintentional masterpieces brought about by the computer and the na??ve mainstream video editor that one could begin to talk about a genuine video art. An example in addition to just about anything on Viral Video
Tuesday 04 March 1986We went to the dentist today. The fluoride wasn’t bad you know.
Coincidences: a pattern of perception which lends itself to superstition, although if one refuses to indulge in superstition, can find some amusement from them. Examples include:Bush and Quail: quails are birds that hide in bushes. An American president named Bush picked as his vice-president a man named Quayle. This president’s son, also named Bush, picked a vice-president who accidentally shot his friend while hunting quail.
Ford and the Presidents: President Lincoln was assassinated in the Ford’s Theatre in 1865. In the early 20th Century, Henry Ford made the horseless carriage affordable which revolutionized American society and created an eponymous brand, so that by 1963, President Kennedy could be assassinated while riding in a Ford Lincoln convertible.
Monday 03 March 1986
Really tired. All last week was up late – so no wonder. Had pretty much homework – I thought.
Sunday 02 March 1986
It was another good day. Was really tired today. Got lots of exercise.
Saturday 01 March 1986
Good day. Had lobster for super. Airwolf was good. Cob’s1 was good to.
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1. I was quite a fan of Airwolf. Twenty years later, I find myself watching Battlestar Galactica on Saturday nights. I remember Cob’s to have been a television show, but I’ve been unable to find anything on it through Google, which probably means that I spelled the show’s name wrong, or that it wasn’t actually called Cob’s.