It occurred to me just now that I haven't put anything intelligent up on PoC since "The Huntress Awakens". I'm quite sure that you don't want to hear of my drunken playtimes; they grow weary to my own ears just thinking about them. I realized this fully last Saturday while sitting in the house of two of the worst losers I have come across thus far.

Imagine for a moment that you are looking forward to something, more specifically, Edge Fest. I know that some of you did, if only for the very simple reason of Tool. You are offered the chance to go up to Barrie early and you decide to go for it, figuring that you'll meet some new people and perhaps do something interesting. Instead, after almost puking in the car due to motion sickness (something I blame entirely on my weak stomach and inability to watch two moving things at once) and finding out that your dear sweet brother left the tickets at home, you find yourself at the house of someone's sister, entering with mild anticipation as to what might greet you. Instead of the well ordered, groomed house that one usually expects, you find yourself in a back living room, filled with three couches and some expensive-looking electronic equipment, and the mixed putrid stenches of stale tobacco, stale pot, stale sweat, stale beer, and worst of all, stale kitty litter. A note on the table and a small bag of weed being the only thing else to greet you, except for a permanently stoned kitten and a war zone of dirty clothes. This would be tolerable to most. I'm not sure, because while I freely admit to being a slob, one who lives in a bedroom where the floor is rarely spotted, I found that living room to be offending to my senses and distasteful to my sense of decorum. It was though the occupants of the house didn't care. It made me appreciate the inherent beauty in nature even more. This apparent lack of ambition to clean did not surprise me for long. The house reeked of pot, something which my mother was once warned (by a teacher in high school, no less) to only smoke every other weekend because it takes that long for the ambition-crushing chemicals to work their way out of your system. I was even less surprised when the two other occupants of the house dropped by. The two losers that I mentioned before were named Justin and Kyle. Justin is, apparently, a major figure in the drug traffic lanes of Barrie, while Kyle is just the one who smokes everything that Justin provides. I don't know how old Justin is, but something about Kyle made me sad. Not for him, but for what he will become. The half-wit I'm talking about was 19, on the threshold of life, and all he could do was brag about how one summer he and his buddy must have "smoked a fucking kilo" of that sweet smelling grass, or how he was "so fucking toasted" and how he's going to be "so fucking toasted tomorrow". At one point I counted up to six utterances of the word "fuck" and all it's variations springing forth from his mouth. Then I got distracted by the lightning. This was only in about thirty seconds, and only made me more sad because Kyle apparently lacked the ability to formulate sentences that didn't have the word "fuck" in there somewhere, and therefore the concepts and ideas that I and a few others express freely would be lost on him, most likely for good. What's worse is that by the end of this, the word "fuck" and others like it seemed to be etched into my vocabulary and it's taken me a week to be rid of them.

So now, after spending a great deal of time listening to Kyle blather on and on about his numerous drunken and stoned adventures, you leap at the chance to go find some food with your brother and whoever else wants to come. You step outside, joined by your brother and by Adam and Carley two people who had pretty much not spoken up until now, but have still managed to project the sort of bearing that accompanies the silent, intelligent types who really don't care for wasting one's life in booze and drugs. You welcome this break from laziness only to find that the sudden clear air after that stink hole has left you with one of the nastiest sinus headaches you've ever had and the urge to break something. Or someone, considering that the idea of stunning toads, putting fire-crackers in their mouths and placing them on car windshields when they explode has never really occurred to you as being "fun". You have found the proof that you didn't realize you were looking for, proof of the fact that while you can calmly write of the slow torturous death of human beings, and project the calm, calculated mind of a predator, you cannot and will not think of torturing and murdering animals of any sort, insects included. While you brood on these thoughts, the others are conversing on intelligent matters, things you don't remember because of your own musings. But then you look up at the sunset, and stare at the impossibly blue sky. It had rained a little bit, and you look a head and down a little bit, to somebody's lawn. An epiphany strikes you at the moment as you realize that everything has it's beauty. For there in front of you, is a patch of sunlight. Within that single striking beam is the lawn, and on each and every blade of grass, or leaf of clover, is a tiny drop of rain. It looks as though a thousand diamonds were sprinkled on the grass at the whim of some divine being. Something inside you wants to weep because of this wonder, this single thing which gives you the strength to face that house full of people who don't care. Awe can be so overwhelming, can it not?

The sunlight fades a little, and so does the beauteous wonder of that instant and you move on with fresh thoughts to occupy you. You get your food and eat it, mostly silent, before heading back to that place that seems to suck the light from your day, only to listen to more stories of drunken excesses and how "fucking wasted" somebody happened to be. You wish fervently that you were somewhere else. Anywhere else.

The remainder of the night seems to linger like a bad after taste, presenting itself before you in a procession of slouching bodies on smelly couches and images moving on a television screen. You drop off to a light sleep somewhere around two in the morning, and awaken at eight to find that at approximately four, Justin arrived home with two stoned "friends" and proceeded to have a "party", forcing others to abandon their rest in order to accommodate the newcomers. You thankfully sleep through all of this, awakening to exclamations of "Well, I don't care if they live here; it was still rude" and other various statements of that nature. After a small breakfast and changing of clothes (in a rather disgusting bathroom, I might add) it's off to Edge Fest and the line up to get in. There is one bright point to this; two really. a) A shining knight on his white horse (or rather, in his red Sunfire), has managed to acquire your tickets, and b) He and his mother have arrived. He is a welcome and much desired break from the monotony of the night before and, incidentally, has very nice eyes. You feel your mood begin to lighten and everything you have just experienced in the last few hours seems worth it as you look with anticipation towards seeing Tool, the only reason you came (with the exception of the Tea Party). A little whisper of "thank you" escapes you and travels up ward to whatever deity that cares and who happens to be listening in.

I wonder if there is a point to all this. Perhaps to point out that there is beauty even within the heart of suburbia. Perhaps to express the pity that was almost felt towards a pair or losers who will not ever become anything than what they already are: Life's Bevis and Butthead. Or maybe it was to express thanks towards that shining white knight and his mother for saving the day, and not just by brining the tickets. I realize as I am sitting in front of my computer at ten after three in the morning that I never did thank that gentle lord properly; or at all, really. It could, in a flash of genius, be to fulfill all three of those purposes. But then, in these late night musings, no one really knows what will come into one's mind. Wondering would take the fun out of it, so let it be.

For now then, I shall bid you good night. Or, rather, good morning, given the hour. Should anything that I have written though this fog of fatigue and mild depression offend anyone's sensibilities then I'll deal with it later. I have the strange urge to call Crime Stoppers and put a stop to Justin's drug trafficking, for the simple and only reason being that the rat bastard was eying me. Yeach. Were he as good looking as Clayton (or even a brick, for that matter) then I would not have cared, and might have even welcomed it. However, when he was as ugly as he was, held no intelligence and seemed to possess an aura of extreme sliminess, I find my stomach churning at the thought. I should take a moment to thank my brother for the extremely nasty glares directed in Justin's direction and for keeping me in ignorant bliss until a moment in which I could not kill the arrogant bastard myself. It saved many questions.

Well...perhaps I should really sign off this time. I am feeling the strange need to sleep; go figure. Three thirty in the morning may be early, but I am tired, so I shall leave you to any thoughts provoked by what I have just written. So to all of you, goodnight.