I messed up again.

Forgot half of an assignment. I got that I had to fill out this questionnaire. But I forgot that it was supposed to be in response to a script call Stealing Canada, and therefore my questionnaire is useless. Damn it.

I am seriously considering asking for help from the school in handling my schedule of assignments. I obviously have a problem. I am losing marks all over the place simply by being absentminded. Sure, I have a lot on my plate, but the other students seem to get it, so it’s clearly my problem. So I have to think about asking for help.

That does not come easy to me, as you regular readers know all too well. I have huge issues with asking authority for help. But this is my future we are talking about, so I can’t afford to indulge that shit at all.

And I am pretty sure I know what the school will do. They will ask one of my classmates to help me. That will be humiliating, but it will not exactly come as a surprise to them. I mess stuff up all the time, and they know it.

And at least I will stop losing marks for forgetting stuff!

I worry that this problem is getting worse, though. I handled the first term okay, and I had ten classes then. The work was a lot easier, granted, but still. Maybe the assignments were also simpler?

Maybe I just need to get better at entering all the info in my little calendar program. I don’t know.

Had a very good day of school, mental errors notwithstanding. Class was positive and fun and I feel good about my level of social interaction. Turns out that “stop thinking so hard about what you say” thing really works. I just let the conversation flow. It’s not quite chaos, because my thinky brain clicks in after about a second, and guides things somewhat.

But the first responder, so to speak, is more intuitive and natural. If I keep this up, maybe I will start sounding like a real little boy at last. Thanks, Blue Fairy!

Now make the rest of me real.

The ride home on the Skytrain was eventful. I had the pleasure of sitting next to a gen yew wine crazy lady. She was only Level 1 crazy, as her spontaneous (and possibly involuntary) verbal outbursts were occasional, as though from time to time the words building up inside her overflowed some inner dam and had to come out her mouth.

I can relate. I have a lot of words inside me too. Good thing I am a writer. I can let them out. And not just that, I can let them out in a way that can conceivably make me money.

It’s a rare and wonderful privilege we writers share only with standup comedians : the ability to get paid for doing your own therapy.

But the real excitement happened when I got to the Richmond Brighouse Skytrain Station. As I was going down the escalator, I heard someone yelling in a manner I recognize all too well : the sound of a little guy trying to start something with a big guy.

In this case, the little guy was doing the whole “You wanna fight?” routine to a very, very tall black dude. He has to be at least 6′ 5″. And when I say black I don’t mean brown. I mean black like black coffee. Dude would meet the height requirement for the NBA. He was really quite impressive.

I didn’t hear a lot of what the little guy was saying, but as I reached where they were stopped on the escalator, I heard this :

Little Guy : You should go back where you came from. Where ARE you from?
Black Dude : I am Canadian.
Little Guy : Are ya? ARE YA?

And that’s when the boxing-ring bell went off in my head and I went into what I will generously call Guardian Mode.

So I just kinda drifted into the crowd forming, never taking my eyes off the little bastard or his “sweet Jesus take me now” ugly girlfriend, who was right there with him being just as racist, if not more so. No way was I going to let some racist shit go down in my little world. My philosophy is : if I’m there, I’m involved. Period.

Black Dude just seemed to find it funny, as did his friends.

And it didn’t take long for the black guy to move on and ignore the little guy, and the little fucker gave up except for a little grumbling. He gave up just as I was getting ready to engage my Full Islander mode^[1]. I was fully prepared to take them both on.

In Islander terms, I was ready to go’er.

In fact, I am still coming down from it. This is what happens when the “fight” response is aroused with no outlet. It takes a while for your endocrine system to scrub all the adrenaline out. Until then, at least part of your mind is still in caveman mode.

In order to aid this process, I am now going to vent some of it verbally. Please forgive this descent into barbarity. All I can say in its defense is that being a man can be… complicated.

Oh, and For full effect, read this text in the following accent :

That^[2] little fucker should be glad he didn’t start anything because I would have kicked the shit out of him. And I’m not fucking around. I have a lot of memories of being bullied by little guys who had something to prove, and I am sure as hell not going to let that happen on my watch. Not in this lifetime.

And jeezus, buddy, what do you think you’re trying to pull? Just what color IS a Canadian? Because you sure as fuck don’t look like Sir John A to me.

And look at you, acting like the big man when this heaping pile of ugly with fake tits stapled on is the best that you can do. Christ, what a dog. I wouldn’t fuck her with a stolen dick. Normally, I would never call a woman a dog, but yours is acting like a bitch, so the shoe fits.

If you’re looking for someone to fight, let’s do it, right here, right now.

But if you’re just a jumped up little pussy trying to sound like the big man in front of this arse end of a diseased bulldog you call your girlfriend, then WALK. AWAY.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Phew. I feel a lot better now. Sorry you had to see that, folks, but I just had to do it.

The rest of the madness can go away when I sleep.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.