Lost, confused, and just plain broken

Today’s been a trip.

It started last night. When I was at the food court[yum] with Felicity last night, I realized I had left both my book and my tablet behind at the Bearpit (AKA Theater 2 at 420 Homer), just like I had done the last time I had been there.

I figure it’s because my bag is black and everything in the Bearpit being black (walls, floors, ceiling) and that makes it hard for me to know which end of my bag is up, so I end up picking it up upside down, and stuff falls out. And it does so silently because of the fuzzy black carpeting.

So when I figured this out, I didn’t freak out much. I knew the stuff was probably under the seat I had been sitting in, and that I could just get it back today.

The one problem was access. Like everything else at 420 Homer, the theaters are locked[click], and my student ID card can’t unlock them. Only profs and staff can. And the only time I had to get my stuff back was during lunch, and during lunch, there’s no classes in the Bearpit, so…. Catch-22.

So I went to Bon Chaz to have lunch. It’s the only place I eat in that magic four blocks between the Skytrain and school at 198 West Hastings. There’s a lot of places, but Bon Chaz is the first one I tried and I liked it so much that I haven’t tried anywhere else.

What can I say, I am not an explorer by nature. I find someplace I like, and I stay there until I have a reason to leave.

When I got back to 198 West Hastings at around 12:45, I went to Steve and asked him how I could arrange for someone to be there to open the door when class was over. He didn’t know, but told me I should go over to the Bearpit right then, and he would tell my favorite prof, Rick Drew, that I would be a little late for class.

This plan, because it involved being late for class on purpose, would not have occurred to me at my current level of mentation. I am still not firing on all cylinders, so my mind is not running at full speed yet, and I am even more clueless and confused than usual.

And that’s saying something.

Oh right, before I forget : I showed up at school at the usual time today, only to find out that I actually had no morning class and I could have just stayed home in my nice warm bed and got all the sleep I needed, and probably played some Fallout 4 as well.

Oh. I bought Fallout 4. It’s complicated, but engrossing. Currently having trouble fighting a dinosaur. As one does.

SO once more, for like the sixth time, I went into one of the classrooms and was greeting by the B group (I’m in A) and told I was in the wrong class and had to go check the posted schedule to see that, yes, I had somehow missed the big letter B after the listing and I could have just stayed home.

D’oh! Oh well. I am gradually transitioning from beating myself up over such things to just assuming it’s all part of my unique charm. “There goes Michael, with his head in the clouds as usual!”.

I hope people tell stories of my clueless behaviours when I am not around. I’d like to be the sort of person people tell stories about. That way, I can entertain them even when I am not in the room.

Plus, ya know, I am desperate for any kind of validation. Negative attention is still attention!

Anyhow, that brings me to the “broken” chapter of my tale, and that’s the hardest one because it’s the one that has affected me most on an emotional level. You see….

I broke my very awesome and expensive headphones.

And while I generally don’t get too attached to material belongings, headphones are a special case for me because they connect me with music and so I end up with a deep emotional connected with them. They become such an intimate part of my life.

But not if I keep breaking them. I don’t even know when it happened. At some point, I took them out of my bag, and the right hand side was crushed where headphone and connecting wire meet. Everything electrical is still technically intact but I am pretty sure they will be impossible to wear that way, and that’s kind of the point.

And that rips a big wet hole in my self-esteem. This is why I can’t have nice things! All I have to do is avoid destroying things by using them, and I would be a happy man. But no, I am so clueless and klutzy and absentminded that I end up stepping on it, or knocking it off a shelf, or sitting on it, or whatever.

Yes, my siblings, I now realize how I ended up breaking so much stuff when I was a wee thing. I was such a hazard.

The only stable belongings I have are things that can take that kind of abuse, like books and clothing and modern devices built to be klutz-proof. Those headphones never stood a chance. Before today I had already half-broken them, just as mysteriously. So I was already on thin ice with myself.

But today just takes the motherfucking cake. I get so frustrated with myself over this kind of thing. I try so hard, but I just keep fucking up, and it drives me crazy.

Basically, I am just plain sick and tired of putting up with my own bullshit.

But it’s not like there’s anyone else to do it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Footnotes    (↵ returns to text)

  1. Did I mention I love food courts? ‘Cause I do. So many cuisines to choose from!
  2. I don’t blame them. There’s a junkie’s wet dream of expensive equipment there. And it’s very close to the Downtown East Side, aka Vancouver’s Cracktown, so that’s a real possibility.