Wasting Time

Do you know what i hate?

It's wasting time.

Today is my 47th birthday. Yeah, yeah. Happy birthday to me. Big whoops.

i'd feel better about turning this auspicious age if it was for me having wasted my 46th year on this planet.

First, why auspicious 47th birthday? Well, the number 47 has always been my inside joke. In pretty much every one of my short stories or comic books, the number 47 makes an appearance. Heck, it often appears quite by accident, but it's there. It's my magic number.

i once wrote a story  - a fake letter if you will - that i sent to my friend Rob while i was still living in Japan - all the way back in the month of March 1991. It was a birthday present for Rob, as i said i would write a letter to him for the entire month of March (his b-day is March 31st), except for weekends. Because i quickly got bored writing the standard "hi, how are you?" letters, on the third day i decided i would create a short story.

By the end of the months i was writing several a day and mailing them off to Rob, who luckily for me still has them 20 years later. i had lost quite a few over the years in a house fire and several house moves. Anyhow... it's Rob's fault i'm a writer now. i owe that dumb loveable bastard a world of thanks. 

In one story, i wrote a fake letter from one alien to another, which i am sure is how we both felt about ourselves. Tron Blarg. Remember that one Rob? It was just a stupid harmless letter in which i wanted to use an anagram (mixed up letters of a word to form new words) to state that: Evil is a live vile veil. Kind of cool, i thought. Then a thought hit me... since I had already begun using the #47 in my stories, i decided to count every 47th letter in the story to see if it spelled out a secret message. Would you believe it? It did! What it said is not important here.    

So... my magic number 47 is a prime number. That in itself sounds impressive. A prime number is a natural whole number that is greater than one (1) that has no positive dividers except for one (1) and itself - in the case of my number, it's 47.

The other reason, that very, very, very few people know, is that back when i played soccer between the ages of 7-18, the number i was was usually a 7, with a 4 tossed in. A 4 and a 7. Forty-seven. Look, that's how my mind works. 

So... that's why this upcoming year is supposed to be special. It has to be. Forty-six sucked more than all of my previous years combined and multiplied by as big a number as i can imagine - 8. My mother adored the number 8. Not only was it the day i was born - okay, maybe that was the only reason. But it's also infinity sideways. She always made sure we lived in a house with the number 8. The current house i live in - where she died 17 years ago was an 8, of a sort... it was the addition of the numbers 1+1+6 = 8. Hell, i even carried it out in my first house 5+3=8. 

The whole year of being 46 truly was awful. No one remembered my birthday. No presents. Nothing. It was like i didn't matter. I didn't exist. I was like a ghost walking the world and no one thought to look hard enough at me to give me form.

Christmas - nothing. And yet i had done nothing wrong. i was the wronged party. Yet, i got treated like shit.

New Year's day sucked... and sure enough a few days later my world was turned upside down again. Valentine's day - a massacre. Father's day? Mother's day? What the hell is that? Shouldn't every day be special? Labour day? Don't even get me started. 

It didn't matter that i tried to write more to cover up the pain. The pain still found a way to come back and slap me across the face in ways you readers can never imagine (i hope). i was just starting to get into writing my Japan - It's A Wonderful Rife blog on a near daily basis when i had to stop for a month.

Not writing killed me just as much as the other shit going on in my so-called life. And just when i think it's getting better, my own vivid imagination and great memory brings everything back - my own inner demons to conquer - that will not let me either forgive or forget. It encourages me seek vengeance. You know, like back in the old days, when you were wronged, you slapped someone across the face with a glove and challenged them to a duel. Oh how i long for the old days.

i can slap a guy across the face with a dueling glove. i can count 10 paces (8 for sure!). i'm pretty sure i can aim and fire a gun in anger - especially when justified.

But no. This is the 21st effing century and i live in Canada, so i get to see a therapist to cope with my feelings. What crap. i'm an intelligent person. i can psycho-analyze myself. but i was told not to seek vengeance. despite what so sayeth the lord.

Yeah, yeah, everyone is sorry now. Yay. That was sarcasm, by the way.


Being 46 sucked the big one. i'm pretty sure 47 will too.

Being 46 was a complete waste of my time on this planet. 


Do you know what i hate?


Wasting time.