Schoolin'

September 01

Yesterday I failed to document the fact that I received a package in the mail which turned out to be the materials for a diploma program I'm enrolled in to become a "Certified Radio Copywriter" through the Radio Marketing Bureau of Canada. Sheesh... how I've survived this long without it I'll never know. I looked the materials over on my subway ride home and boy oh boy, they're not foolin' around. This puppy's comprehensive. It caused me a significant amount of anxiety because my poor undereducated brain hasn't done anything remotely school-related for 12 years! If anything it's been diminished by substance abuse and general intellectual-coasting all this time. So understandably, a 14 week course with a 2-hour exam to top it off is giving me a bit of the shakes. Why is that I wonder? After all, the entire curriculum is based on the job I've been doing for 12 years. Perhaps I'm afraid to find out I'm doing things wrong. Perhaps it's because there's very little left that compels me to keep doing what I'm doing (professionally) and I find it more than a little daunting to just start giving my all again for the sake of getting an "A" in my profession that I'd gladly leave today if I thought there was something else I was qualified to do. Ahhh life questions! It's odd writing all this inner turmoil down, but this, and several other thousand doubts are bouncing around in my head at any given moment. What a loud head I have. At any rate, I start this course on Tuesday after the long weekend, and they recommend you set aside about 5 hours per week to get it done. That in itself seems like asking too much of me. And I say "me" in particular because I always seem to feel like I'm running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. No small feat for someone who just works 9 to 5 and has no extracurricular stuff going on in his life. Til Tuesday that is.

That's as good a note as any to change the subject and start documenting the fact that I'm a dog lover. Swing batta batta, swing. ...and a miss on that particular segue. But I do love my boys nonetheless. There's Cole, our 9 year old beagle/black lab/daschund mix, and Porthos our 6 month old basset hound puppy. Both spoiled. Both more than worthy of me posting hundreds and hundreds of pictures in my space here. But sadly since I'm doing the blogging at work I'm a little limited. I can't download the picture tool without administrative permission and it's not something I'm likely to ask for since it's oh-so-not work related. I will however, download a bunch of pictures from home once I have the chance (or inkling). Cole's our little princess, yes even though he's a boy he is a bonafide, royal highness, can't-sleep-with-the-pea-under-the-mattress, locked-in-a-tower, damsel in distress, princess. And at age 9, he's not going to change. We've made him into the little diva that he is, and we're subsequently trying NOT to do the same with Porthos. But it's hard. Both Eak and I have an extreme soft-spot for dogs, and we literally do treat them like they're our children. (obvious differences aside - you wouldn't put a baby in a crate with a raw hide, or spoon-feed it beef tripe, but I ramble). Porthos is quite possibly the most stereo-typically storybook cute puppy you could every hope to see. I remember picture books as a kid that were always illustrated with Bassett Hounds whenever the story called for a puppy, and now I know why. Porthos is quite simply the most mild-mannered puppy I've ever encountered. Yeah, he's got a stubborn streak like all hounds, but this dog is very sweet and gentle as they come. He's been hard to house-train, but worth every moment of frustration he's ever caused. Tonight's going to be the test-run for Porthos sleeping on the bed with us instead of in his crate. I'm not terribly worried about it, because he is really well-behaved. I just don't want him deciding to get up in the middle of the night and deciding to get into things. He's getting a little too big for his crate, so we've got to start testing the waters of his independence. We'll see how it goes.

When I said "til Tuesday" above, it gave me the idea for a song suggestion. A very haunting, little-known ditty by Til Tuesday, morbid lyrics courtesy of gifted song-writer Aimee Mann no doubt (but I don't know that for sure). I'm not choosing it for any other reason than it's my favourite song by Til Tuesday. Much better than anything they were ever known for in my opinion. "Long Gone Buddy" by Til Tuesday. Try to find it and give it a listen.


So what if it's breaking my heart at the root
Something that could happen to anyone, I suppose
Never any comfort to get from the truth
from knowing the part of this person that no one knows

So we just cry
with hopelessness
We're making
such a mess

It's long gone, buddy, now - run and go after it
It's long gone, buddy, now - run and go after it

It's not that I'm frightened of being alone
It's just that I know what a burden this grief can be
Everything happens for something, I know
Can't understand for the moment what this could mean

That love is gone
That love is blind
That love is
so unkind

It's long gone, buddy, now - run and go after it
It's long gone, buddy, now - run and go after it

Nobody wants to be happier more than me
Nobody wants to be happier more than I do
but happiness
I must confess
I don't have

It's long gone, buddy, now - run and go after it
It's long gone, buddy, now - run and go after it