I recently made a post about 2002 just in passing how big the Eminem Show was that summer and it got me thinking about that whole fucking year. The fact is, it was the most insane and probably most formative year of my life. I guess I am gonna get nostalgic for a minute here. I am not really spending much time editing this, so sorry if it is a bit harder to read! Honestly it is kind of filler until I can travel blog again.
Before I get to 02 I need to set it up. In summer 2000 I moved to Edmonton from Grande Prairie. I was going to take journalism and you would all be reading my adventures when I was done. Truth be told I wasn't ready. Not responsible enough at 19. I moved down with my best friend Ditch and his girlfriend Shwa. We got a 2 bedroom in Oliver. $600. (Now they start around $1400) I cant blame them, it was my choice to be a meat head but I was terrible in school. I started at GMCC and they did fun shit like go to the water park. Which is an irresponsible kid gonna do? Plus the freedom of living on my own! Shit I could have whiskey for breakfast if I wanted. So I blew through that student loan before the first semester was done. I got a job in a kitchen working for a silver spoon motherfucker. Handed a restaurant by his mommy. Low paying and withheld tips if food cost got high. I accepted this maybe still a naïve country bumpkin I dunno. I need cash so he had me working closes when I was trying to go to class in the AM as well. Work until 1 then try and get up at 7 for school, not a great combo. Anyways easy to see it coming I dropped out. Now I have a beef with GMCC, I went to the registrar and said "Hey I have to quit. My grades suck, can we put winter semester 2001 towards fall 2001 tuition?" They fucking said yes and as 2001 started I thought take a few months, make some cash and put a real effort in, in fall 2001. That's how 01 started.
If you have watched any reality TV or read books on restaurants they are shit shows. If it is well run someone at the top is making bank and all the wait staff and kitchen is probably struggling, partying and fucking each other. That's true. That's how 2000 ended for me and 01 started. Want the truth? 2001 was a great year, summer was probably the most fun summer I ever had. However it all comes due. The credit card debt I was racking. The living pay cheque to pay cheque. Constantly being in an overdraft on the bank account, but we will get to that. Spring 2001 Ditch for some reason decided he needed to live on his own. I could understand a couple wanting me out, but to live on his own Ill never understand. So as summer 2001 started we all got our own places. Mine was a 1 bedroom off 107AVE. Even then it was sketchy. August 3rd that summer a body in a dumpster just up the road from my apartment was found lit on fire. My car was stolen from out front, I found it a few blocks away a couple days later when the EPS did nothing. Anyways I was living on my own and it was the most fun summer ever. People from my home town kept coming down to party. A waitress I had a crush on and I hooked up. My birthday people still remember and this was 24 years ago. It really was a 20 year old's dream. I should have known deep down things weren't right though. It was the first time I had panic attacks. I am great at ignoring things though. I went to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack, they explained what it was and gave me meds for it. I flushed them, who needs that shit! Come fall Shwa had spent beyond her means and asked me to be her roommate again. I guess Ditch had said no for whatever reason idk. We got a townhouse in the Dovercourt area and I went back to school but.... There was no paper work, no record of me transferring funds from one year to the next. My bad again, I should have got something in writing but again at that point I wasn't mature and I just believed people. SO I took out more student loans but couldn't get enough and continued my cycle of working too much for school. Truth of course I kept failing and this time completely dropped out of Journalism early on in the school year. So 2001 went from a fun ride to getting very depressing. I am not 100% sure but I believe I rung 2002 in, in Grande Prairie extremely drunk...... In fact if it is the year I remember, a friend and I were wrestling and we somehow accidentally unplugged his deep freeze. They found that a few days later full of rotten food. Still feel bad about that.
So our Xmas party was in early January that year after Xmas. The waitress I had hooked up with I kind of thought would have hooked up that night as well. I was wrong. Whiskey drunk and angry I got home to realize I had no keys. So in my infinite wisdom punched out a window to get in. Cut myself badly, wrapped it up and went to bed. Went to the Royal Alex the next day for stitches but after 8 hours gave up and went to work. I guess that right there should show you my mentality. I started general studies through GMCC and I don't think I made it a month. While I had some cool classes I just quit going. At some point they busted open my locker and I assume threw everything in it out, I did go back to empty it but like a month later and the lock was gone of course it was empty.
At this point all I was doing was working, drinking and sitting at home doing nothing productive. I tried writing and the fact is I did finish a story. I have 0 idea where the copy actually ended up and yes I am old enough I think it was on floppy disk. It was supposed to be an angsty story about how I felt, a modern Catcher in the Rye. I am sure if I read it now I might shutter. A typical day would be get up late, literally putz around the house. Maybe write. I would maybe go see people, I did have a group of friends lol. Mostly drinking friends but did do other things during the day. Usually be at the restaurant by 5 and start work 5 or 6 depending on if it was a midnight shift or a close shift. Now a midnight shift should have been done by 10 because we were so slow BUT the old man I worked with would make me stay 99% of the time "Just in case" I was 21 and I would guess he was in his mid maybe early 30s, so really not that old. Younger than I am now. Get off work and have a couple drinks with the bartender. At this point honestly she was my closest friend. She was nice and cared out me for sure but we were a bad duet. Both of us just encouraged the other to drink and party. The fact was she always had good tips and usually bought me a few drinks after work and of course over poured them. Repeat this 5 days a week and that was life. I don't even remember what I did on days off. It is important to know there was a couple waitresses, older like my moms age that were awfully nice as well. Some nights after close they would buy me breakfast at humptys. At this point I could see life going downhill. I kept looking at people working at the restaurant making minimum wage. Struggling to get by and I knew I did not want that life for myself but I didn't do fuck all to change it. I can't even say why, part of me just accepted I was a minimum wage kinda guy for life. Looking back part of me was okay with it. In truth, looking at it now I think I wanted a sad back story for life. Forget that I had a nice middle class childhood in a small city. I wanted that story I was from the shitty parts of Edmonton. Totally untrue but I can say it did give me an appreciation later on for having a good life.
It was early on in the year I had a couple random hook ups. I say this because I was hurting. I still had a major crush on this waitress but by this time if there was a "moment" it had past. Then one night I come home and there is a blonde girl sleeping on my couch. No idea who she was or why she was there, I went to bed and the next morning my roommate Shwa introduced me to C-girl. It was a well laid out plan, she stayed for a couple nights, then they pitched if she moved in, it would save us all money. So I went ya! I need some $$ saved. My only issue was, she wasn't 18. She was 17. I mean it wasn't even a big issue, I just didn't know how that worked. Like should I let her drink my whiskey? Ya of course I did but at first I was nervous about it. The fact is we started hanging out a lot, some people assumed we were dating for awhile until shit fell apart. It was also around this time I met another girl in a lounge one night. I have been told sometimes when I drink I get a little cocky. I guess women like confidence. This chick and I started hanging around a bit. 2 things, first she played into this rough background story in my head. She lived in a ghetto 1 bedroom with a couple. They had the bedroom and she had some blankets tossed on the floor behind the couch as a bed. 2, I sobered up. We hung out for maybe a month and she realized I wasn't who she thought when we met in playing pool. When she came to me a month or so into knowing her, asking me for money to help her "crackhead" father out I quit hanging out with her. Some days I wonder what happened to her, well to them. I liked her female roommate but the boyfriend was literally Stan from the Eminem song. I don't think he owned shirts that weren't wife beaters. So there is roughly my relationships or sort of relationships for 75% of that year. 1 more crazy lady and then an ongoing gf for years to end this year.
Shwa moved out. I don't remember when, I am going to say maybe April 1st or more likely May 1st. Girls am I right!?.... So it had been early in the year, I will say late January or or February when Shwa moved C-girl in. For a month it was the honeymoon phase, they were besties. Then within a month they were catty to each other behind each others back. C-girl hated that Shwas BF spent 75% of his time at our place. Eating our food, using utilities and all that shit without ever contributing anything. I didn't think about it because back then he was probably my best friend. I mean I partied with the bartender but he was the one I actually talked real shit with. However her pointing this out, I did get annoyed as well. So then Shwa announced she was moving out, in with her BF. Why they didn't do that in the fall, Ill never understand. So C-girl gets this idea we (Meaning me) should get a dog. We went to the SPCA and we got a collie and named him Obie. I am not sure if I am a good dog parent or not. I just wanted a buddy, so I didn't really ever get after him. He wasn't a bad dog, just kind of did what he wanted. All the neighborhood kids knew him cause he would burrow out of the backyard and go play with them. So somehow in a few months I went from saving money with an extra room mate to paying the same and having a dog.
It was a hang over that somehow shook me. I don't remember why or if there was a reason but I got hammered. I remember waking up, feeling like death and the only thing I wanted was to be at home. My families home in Grande Prairie. SO I wrote my work a note, left it on the counter, with a note for C-girl to please drop at my work. I packed a few days clothes, Obie and drove to GP. I just remember being so sick, getting home and visiting with my parents that night. Thinking it was all good and the next day going to visit friends. Well now I missed a work shift and didn't come in the next day either. C-girl never dropped off my note and one of those mother like waitresses I mentioned acted like a mom and called my emergency contact. My actual mom. Ya I got a phone call when I was sitting on a couch at a friends places having a drink to get my ass home. They laid into me the second I got home. Truth, I broke down. I started crying and explained I kinda hated my life and it felt like I was going nowhere. Dad by this time had a decent job and said he could get me on with a company in GP. My grandfather said maybe I could get on with the city. It was honestly overwhelming, I felt loved. When I say I have been lucky my life and always had great people around, this is what I mean. So said no to all those offers but went back to Edmonton with a clear head. I dropped of resumes at new companies in the trades, plumbing and heating. Thinking of moving on. C-girl did drop off my letter two days late. When I got back, the weaselly boss told me I still had a job but was cut from that pay periods tip out. I told him I was likely going to quit. He offered me to have a few delivery driving shift, which was decent money. So I said yes. May and June weren't terrible after that, then came July. Stage 13.
Stage 13 was a festival sort of thing back in the day. Concerts July 12 - 14. We as a group had planned to go. Me, C-girl, Shwa and the BF. That was before the falling out. After two months of cooling off, they agreed it should be fun and we would all go. The Bartender also had a ticket and a site, so truth was I went out with her. Obie stayed home, another friend Black (See old blogs if you want on him) was supposed to stay at my place and look after Obie. He didn't. Well not really. So we went to this concert. Nickelback the headliner one night, the Hip the next. Again it was a shitshow. I don't even really remember going down to the stage but I know I did for at least the Hip and Nickelback. Bartender and I shared a tent but I am 90% certain she never slept in it.... found other lodgings each night. I hung out with the group some, wandered some and the biggest thing I can remember is EVERYWHERE you went all you heard was the Eminem Show. It had dropped a month or two before and it was huge. For those who weren't around back then, I haven't heard any album that got as much radio play and seemed to be on MTV constantly. Every camp was playing Eminem, biggest memory of this shit show weekend.
Bartender and I drove home Monday early afternoon and I saw C-girl loading a truck with her stuff. I had never seen the truck or the driver before. I hopped out and went over to talk to her. I cant remember I said something like what's up and all I got was fuck you and fuck your dog. Then she speed off and the truck followed her.....
I guess this is a 2 parter next will be shorter. I do wanna get back to travel blogging.
Comments
Post a Comment