All Hallow's Day

Well, my dear, possibly non-existent readership, Halloween has officially come to an end. Not forever, as that quite angsty little past self of mine would have you believe, but simply for another year. Next year, I can guarantee you, Halloween will continue to be the best holiday ever. Not because of the candy, not because of the costumes, not even because of some stupid attempt to preserve one's youth. No, next year will be awesome, because I will spend it talking with the people I like, and the people I love. Next year, I will not let my own insanity get in the way of my enjoyment of the holiday. Next year, I will not be the sad, lonely Time Lord, eating miniature packages of Smarties and Aero bars, made of chocolate and shame. Next year, I will continue my tradition of not doing homework that day, (At least not intentionally...) and I will make it so that that makes it different from every other day. This, dear readers, has been my paradigm shift, my revelation, my moment of Zen, and I promise, to myself more than to you, that this is the day Kyle Scott Whittle turns over a new leaf. Next year, I promise that none of you will have to listen to my ranting and raving, ever again. Unless it happens to be particularly crazy, or awesome, that is.

P.S., On an unrelated note, I feel the need to apologize to Ms. Feick for all the cursing, and yet despite that, I will not be editing it out.

Where is Halloween?

Ok, I lied. I'm not happy. I'm not sitting on my sofa, eating chocolate, in my costume, forgetting all of my troubles. In fact, I'm in my room, fragments of Smartie shells filling the nooks and crannies of my teeth, tears streaming down my face, because I've realized a very simple, very obvious, fact of life; You can't escape your troubles, you can't hide away from essays, from unemployment, from education, from all of those big, shitty things that make up adulthood. Halloween is dead, my friends. It died with our childhoods, with our sense of wonderment, with our innocence   because you see, we're all growing up. We're all learning that life is just a colossal flood of work and responsibility, that we just can't run away from anymore. We can't just put on a mask, and escape the consequences of our actions anymore, because we're all supposed to be adults now. We don't have time for fun, frights, or frivolities. All we have time for is function, and I can't stand for that.

I know that right now, I should be doing homework, trying to write my first paragraph for Lit Studies, or maybe my as-of-now-late review for Drama. I should get started on my essay for English, as well as my three plot summaries for that very same subject. I should be doing my Physics homework, or my Media Studies homework, or studying for the DECA test tomorrow. I should be searching for a university, or a job. I should be reading Bloom and Campbell, Eco and Frye. I should be writing a short story, a novella, a book. I should, I should, I should, but I can't. I can't, because I am sitting in my room, out of my costume, out of my mind, writing to the invisible Internet people, in order to stave off a bout with a depression I didn't even know I had. So, this is what it feels like to be too sad to be productive.

Everything is just piling up, now. "Oh, Kyle," I'm sure they'll say, "You're just being a pessimist. You can still complete your work, all you need to do is set goals, mark specific time periods during which you will do your homework, and have a schedule." These people do not know me, they do not know what it is like to be me, to have a brain that refuses to cooperate with the rest of you. They do not understand what it means to procrastinate to the point where nothing ever gets done. Ever.

Or, maybe they do. Maybe, I'm lying to myself. Maybe, I can get out of this hole. Maybe I can still fix everything. Maybe, instead of complaining about the lack of time, I simply need to make some goddamn time. After all, when you live on a dead end street, you get a lot of free time.

This is Halloween.

Here I am, sitting on my leather sofa, waiting for someone to show up at my house. The best part about living on a dead-end street is, you get a lot of free time. Which is also rather depressing, when I think about it.

Y'see, I love Halloween. After all, Halloween is the night when the creepy-crawlies come to play. Halloween is the night when you get to see who people really are. After all, when everyone's wearing a mask, nobody has anything to hide. Think about it    what are the two things that Halloween is known for? Unprovoked vandalism, and going up to the houses of random people, demanding candy and we don't even question it. Truly, the costume is the most powerful of shields. After all, it protects us, not from physical harm, that's child's play. Physical harm is easy to defend against, it happens and exists solely in the present. No, the mask, the costume, the disguise, protects us from something so much more immaterial, so much more dangerous; It protects us from consequence, from the future, from age itself. People say that the tradition of dressing up for Halloween started as people dressing up to frighten away vengeful spirits of those who came before, and I would say that although this may be true, I think it goes deeper than that; the Celts, or the Gaels, or whoever the hell came up with this beautiful holiday, they weren't trying to stave off ghosts and ghouls; No, they were trying to protect themselves from something much worse, much scarier, much more awful.

They were trying to stave off age and death. They were trying to, for one day of the year, capture the youth and innocence they once had. That is why, on this particular holiday, I am not doing homework, like a responsible adult should, I am not worrying about getting a job, or applying for university, or writing essays    I am doing none of that. Instead, I am dressed as a time-traveling, space-exploring, two-hearted alien madman, eating candy, and posting on my blog, which nobody but me reads.

Like I said, when you live on a dead-end street, you get a lot of free time.

Fear and Loathing, Hold the Loathing.

So. What is my worst fear? The persistently consistent    Or is it consistently persistent?    thing, creature, object concept, et cetera, which fills me with an ever-pervading sense of dread, death, and doom? I'll admit, mine's pretty boring. I am an acrophobe. That is to say, I'm afraid of heights. Whenever I'm near    that is to say, within six feet of    a cliff edge, building edge, canyon edge, any sort of edge, really, I become paralyzed with fear. This may be for a couple of reasons. firstly, I'm quite tall. Tall people have a higher center of gravity than shorter people. (Although I seem to be find my center of gravity slowly getting lower and wider; but, my appetite isn't important right now.) Now, when you have a high center of gravity, things like railings, low walls, and other various waist-to-stomach high obstructions do little in the way of protection; Most times, when I lean on one these objects, I feel as if I could very easily tip right over the side, into nothingness.

This, is the first reason for my fear. Certainly though, it is not the worst reason. You see, I haven't exactly gotten to the second, vastly greater reason for my fear of heights. No, the second reason is much more terrible.

You see, I have a weird little secret. When I am faced with dizzying heights, for some reason,
I am compelled to jump.

Now, I'd like to clarify, this isn't a suicide thing; I'm not depressed, I love everything about my life, and given the chance I wouldn't change a thing. (Well, maybe a few things, but we'll get to that...) It's just that, and this is hard to really explain, but, when I am near the edge of a high place, I try to stay away from it, because I don't trust my own legs. I don't trust them to, in the spirit of discovery, find out what such a drop feels like. I don't trust my own body, how weird is that? I mean, I know I'm a curious person, and I want to experience as many things as I can, so I guess there's that. But, are there really people out there who are curious to the point of self-destruction? I mean, I guess there are drug addicts, adrenaline junkies, those people who stick forks in electrical sockets, to know what it feels like...

Oh my god, am I like them?
I'd rather not think about it.

My Pet Peeve

It's MINE! ALL MINE!!!!! MUAHAHAHA!!!!!

My number one, absolute WORST pet peeve, is when I have to use someone else's keyboard. Oh dear lord, I hate having to use anything but my wonderfully sleek, delicate laptop keyboard, with it's flat, broad, sensitive keys, and it's awesome shortcut keys, allowing me to access a calculator, or my email, at my leisure. I absolutely despise having to use this awful, irritating, inelegant afterthought of a school keyboard. Seriously, these keys are like bricks! How am I supposed to ply my craft on these small, thick, oafish keys? Every single key requires waaaayyyy too much pressure to depress, making me repress my desire to impress upon our academic congress that the stress of typing is made even more, not less, by letters lost due to my typing-by-caress, and that anyone who would detest or contest the reasoning for this depression is going to get very, very messed up. Basically, I guess I love my laptop's keyboard, and any and all others are "off", in a manner of speaking. And yes, I know talking about my keyboard in the way that I have is a little bit weird, even creepy, but you must understand, typing is a wonderfully tactile experience for me. Every keystroke, every "click" and "clack" of the keys, every small drop as the little rubber bubble under the key gives way    I love every single bit of it, and I very easily get used to it. That's why I love to hunt-and-peck and click and clack and tap on my keyboard, and no others.

My keyboard, on my laptop, feels like home.

People Talking Unconvincingly

Good morning, my invisible audience! Yesterday, I mentioned that I was atrocious at writing dialogue, so I figured that today, I'd try to remedy that, the only way I know how: Practice, practice, practice! So without further ado, I will start this scene.

Setting: A Las Vegas coffee shop.

Woman: D'you mind if I sit here?
Man: No, it's no problem at all. Shit, you look rough. Are you okay?
Her: I haven't been sleeping lately. Anyway, what are you doing in a coffee shop without any coffee?
Him: I like the atmosphere. Also, I've already got a drink.
Her: What's in that flask?
Him: Southern Comfort. You want any?
Her: It's eight in the morning!
Him: Not in Australia, it isn't.
Her: And besides that, I have to work in an hour!
Him: What do you do?
Her: Oh, I'm just a cubicle drone. Yourself?
Him: I'm a professional hypnotist. Or at least, I was.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the beginnning to a story that I was prompted with over the summer. Oddly enough, I only just got around to writing anything about it. I'll admit, this isn't exactly the longest post I've ever written, but it's the thought that counts, right? Also, as a special treat to myself, because I can't come up with ideas that well with a computer program breathing down my neck, I am providing you with no idea of how long this took, or the word count. Until my next post, I bid you adieu!

How to Write and Why

Today, my fellow observers of this freak phenomena known as life, I will be talking about something I read. A few days ago, in Studies in Literature, I read the prologue to Harold Bloom's book, "How to Read and Why". In summary, the prologue said that how one should read, is for one's own benefit, because it is impossible to read for the benefit of someone else. Consequently, why to read, is because no one else can read for your own benefit. Now, this got me to thinking;


Why do we write? Is it for reasons as self-serving as the ones for which we read? Are we simply writing to improve our own intellectual ability and standing?


I for one, think that the writer is in fact, in general, just as self-serving as the reader; I think that the true writer, in fact, needs to write (connecting back to my thoughts on the idea of a "Creator's Itch"), and that any and all benefits given to the reader are, in fact, nothing but a side-effect. I say this, because I believe that the motives for art are either one or both of two separate reasons. I believe that the artist can be either a god, a creator of infinite majesty, of worlds, people, events, who controls how these things interact and coexist, like a child with toy soldiers, or an adult with actual soldiers. Or, an artist can be the alternative: A chronicler of events that have already come to pass. The story a chronicler creates appears in his/her mind fully formed, the events and story completely fixed in time, like a prehistoric insect, trapped in amber, and it is their job to retell and detail these events as closely as they can.

In this way, the artist is something of a slave to his creations.

In this way, they are not necessarily his creations at all.

Now, while I have heard of a number of authors who are firmly in the camp of the chronicler, I tend to find myself gravitating, more often than not, into the role of God. When I create a character, I tend to be in very strict control of what this character says and does, and I must say, it is rather intoxicating. Admittedly, this tight degree of control does tend to result in less "flowing" dialogue, which is certainly not my strong suit to begin with. But, I must say that, when I write, no matter how much control I have over the characters I'm writing, I never write for anyone but myself. I only write for me, for my own personal gain, so I can benefit from the existence, and the recording of, my story. So, if there is a single thing you can pull from this nigh-incomprehensible rant, it is this;


When you write, write for you. If you do that, everything tends to work out from there.

 But, enough about my opinions, why do you think people should, or do, write?

484 words,
24 minutes.

Kyle's Corner of Cooking!

Today, ladies and gentlemen, I tried my hand at serious cooking. I'd like to preface this by saying that I haven't ever cooked much, or been into cooking in the past; I'd make some stir fry here, some frozen fish there, nothing especially major or interesting. Today, however, I decided I'd try something new; Today, I made Butternut Squash soup. And it. Was. Awesome! I started out by following this beautiful recipe, which took me a good... I don't know, hour or so, to complete. From there, I chopped up a miscellaneous hot pepper, which I have yet to identify, much to my chagrin. I let that simmer for like, ten minutes, all the while adding a couple pinches of salt, as well as a dash of pepper. The result, I must say, was absolutely Feicking delicious. I put my beautiful concoction in a bowl, added sour cream and a bit of the aforementioned hot pepper to garnish, and what resulted was this.

It's... It's beautiful...

And it tasted delicious, too! The fattiness of the sour cream balanced out the spiciness to a more than tolerable level, and the creamy texture of the soup mixed with the inherent twinge of saltiness in the sour cream to create an absolutely gorgeous mixture of flavour and feeling. I have quite honestly, fallen in love with the culinary arts, and I'm sure I will dabble in them again in the future. And with that, good readers, I must bid you adieu! I have things to do, and ponies to watch.



258 words, 10 minutes.

Friendship is Magic

Ladies and Gentlemen of the blogosphere, I am a brony. The word "Brony" is internet slang, for a grown male who enjoys the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. So, right about now, I assume there are some raised eyebrows. This, I understand. After all, My Little Pony is for girls, right? And since MLP is a girl's show, it can't be viewed by anyone other than seven-year-old girls. After all, a girl's show can't be funny, or well written, or in any way entertaining to any person without the mental capacity of a little girl. Right? Well, I would disagree. Y'see, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is directed and developed by Lauren Faust. You know, Lauren Faust? Powerpuff Girls, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Codename: Kids Next Door, The Iron Freaking Giant? But no, My Little Pony can't be good, because even though the creator is a fantastic artist whose creations many of us grew up with, there is not a single way to make My Little Pony appealing or interesting, at all, ever. Well, thousands of teenage to middle-age men and women around the world would disagree. These people should be made fun of, because it is perfectly alright to make fun of someone because of there taste in media, and because of a show which they watch, despite being an otherwise. Obviously, these kind people deserve your ire, because they watch a show that you don't. That is a perfectly logical way to think.

249 words, 15 minutes.

Dammit, Janet!

If I had to choose an age to go back to in my life, I'd probably choose age 4, before my life was burdened with any sort of responsibility. Age 4, back when I hadn't a care in the world, when I didn't have to worry about school, or university, or getting a job. When I was four, I lived in Ottawa, which is still to this day, one of my favourite cities in the world. Ottawa is beautiful, it's like most large cities, in that there is a lot of things to do and places to see, and yet it is distinct in the sense that it is abnormally peaceful, for a city of its size. I would go back to the days when I went to... preschool, I think? Or maybe Junior Kindergarten, I kind of forget. Either way, I miss when school moved at a pace at which I could easily keep up with it. All-in-all, I think that a day at age 4 would be just what I need; A nice holiday.

176 words.
9 minutes.