Pre-Eulogy.

Well, I just got hired full-time at Harper’s Garden Centre. That means I won’t have a need to fool around with this book. I may not do any more, I may do some more, I don’t know.

But I’m taking my present back.

Tired!

I’m very tired. I got up at 11 when everyone was screaming for me to get the phone. (You think by now they’d realize I wear a retainer at night and can’t talk.) I got ready for the meeting at work, which I later found out was not only next week but canceled also. So I wandered around town. I caught Fred, Kenton, Dave, and Meghan at their jobs. Me and Kenton mailed a letter to Chris, paid for with as many one cent stamps would fit on the envelope. (26, for your information, plus a 25 cent stamp.)

I decided to get a cell phone. I always need one when I don’t have one. (No duh…)

The call in the morning was Harper’s Garden Centre. I go in tomorrow morning to go talk to them. I kind of would like a haircut before I go, but the only person I trust with that doesn’t work Sundays. I spent quite a bit of time reading up on water gardens to prepare for it.

I’m exhausted. I could go to sleep right now. But I’m meeting Derek in an hour, which is cool I guess.

I’m getting my grandpa’s old Dell. I’m gonna pimp it out with a new battery, a CD-Drive battery (I think the proper, cool term is a “Modular Bay Battery”), and a USB Hub, which I will then attach an analog joystick to, and maybe a few buttons, and add them into the existing laptop case (If there’s room). For emulators, of course. I’ll probably give it a new paint job after that’s done

I hope it’s not a 15″ screen, those are too big for my tastes. 14″ is just fine. And I hope it isn’t too slow. I passed up a Core 2 Duo (2.2Ghz T7000 series) with 2 gigs of ram and a good 6 hours of battery life (Thinkpad Z61t, a discontinued experimental model) for about $800-850 for this thing. It’s free, so that counts for something. Even if it only lasts a few years.

Time for dinner and a movie.

Not much to tell.

Well, I did not complete another activity from the book. I tried gazing and wondering at work, but it was really busy and I had no time, and then later I got kind of angry because everyone complains about me behind my back but never tells me what I’m doing wrong.

I’ll go people watching one day, I’ll join some old people and pigeons in a park somewhere…

Day 6? Madness!

Technically, it’s the next day, alright?

I know I’m doing them a bit out of order, but at least I plan on doing them all. You see, Day 2 requires me to “gaze at everyone wondering whether they might be the one true love of your life, the one determined for you and you alone, and whether you might be passing them by forever… Act in consequence.” Tomorrow (today?) I have work, so I’ll do it then. Day 4 I need to get on the phone with a travel agency, which I think is closed on weekends, and Day 5 requires me to go out in public once again. So here it goes… (I’ll make a list of all the complete days soon.)

Day 6: Write the opening sentence of your debut novel.

Forever, I have longed to visit the wilderness, and reunite myself with the animal inside of me.

It was not long before this opportunity was forced upon me, as our plane’s propellers ceased to spin and we crash-landed into the wilderness of western China.

(Sorry, I feel like writing a book now. Heh…)

Another day of solitude.

I enjoy being alone. It’s quiet, calming, peaceful. You can just be completely yourself.

I called around for copper pipe. No place sells it by anything except 12 foot lengths. So I’m going to make an unusual design and see how that prices out.

I played the ol’ CS: S today, I haven’t touched that game in a while, mainly because of the computer it’s on.

I applied to Harper’s also.

Morgan may come over tonight, if so we’ll play Brawl and that’s about it.

This wasn’t quite an exciting post, I know. I’ll work on that, but nothing exciting happened today. (Compare today’s application with the Timmy’s one. Understand what I mean now?)

— 7:15 PM —

I just finished dinner. My dad came home with my crazy ruin-all-of-our-lives Grandma’s dog. My mom had planned a day of relaxation today after a hard week, but instead she came home to this dog, which she hates, and a story about how my dad responded to a “suicide” attempt by his totally trashed mother and how he threw her in a “clinic”. (The “clinic” will only keep her for a few days though. Nobody wants her but jail, but for some reason she hasn’t gone back there. She’s violated the terms of her bail many times over, but my dad’s too scared to send his mom to jail.)

So now she gets to drive the dog she hates for an hour and a half, dump it at my Grandma’s husband’s house,  and drive all the way back.

You may have noticed the phrases I use to define relationships, and how they’re somewhat unusual. “Dad’s mom” really symbolizes how much my Grandmother is dead to our whole family. And she’s remarried, so that explains that bit above.

Day 2: Not Yet. Day 3!

Day 2 requires me to go out in public, and since those days are currently numbered, I will get back to that one some other time.

Day 3: Throw out something you love.

Well this one is, obviously, not easy to do. Clearly I chose something that I love, but won’t miss. So I threw out  the internet. I’m just kidding, I’m not that devoted. I decided to chuck my Christmas present from Emeline, a wind-up car I got to assemble myself and a prettiful card. Byebye! I’m not good at letting go!

The book arrived today. I must say, at the very least it will be quite a laughable read.

Day 1: Warm-Up.

As this is your first day, you should warm up with an easy task that will only change your life a little bit.

Choose one of the following options:

• Do one press-up.
• Perform a striptease (in private).
• Triple-tie your shoelaces.
• Learn to play “chopsticks” on the piano.
• Increase your typing speed by three words per minute.
• Jaywalk in a pedestrian zone.
• Set all your clocks to exactly the right time.
• Whisper a white lie when no one’s listening.
• Fantasize about your partner.
• Use a different thickness comb.
• Say “yo” instead of “hello”.
• Hold the phone up to your other ear.
• Tell someone your middle name.
• Try a new sandwich filling.
• Leave work five minutes early.
• Bookmark a new website.
• Give your genitalia pet names.
• Decide which one of your toes is the prettiest.
• Insult an insect.
• Go on a one-minute hunger strike.

And for those individuals who want to dive in at the deep end:

open this book at random and perform that Day’s task.

Well, today’s task is so easy, I decided to do a few!

• I went on a hunger strike. Man, it was tough, and nobody knew about it, but it was worth it.
• My left pinky toe is the prettiest
• And my computer just blue screen of death’d me, so I’m ending this early!

An uneventful day, so far.

Today I basically sat at home doing nothing. I attempted to carve that soapstone chunk I was blabbing about but I messed it up so I stopped. I played some piano too.

I just want everyone out there to go over to www.purepwnage.com right now. It’s my single most favourite web-only series out there. It will blow your mind.

Blow your mind like POWERTHIRST

It was so funny I had to stop after half a minute. It was rather unexpected, I must say.

Tonight I’m possibly doing something with Nick and Derek. I haven’t seen Nick for a year and Derek for four, so I hope things work out. More to come.

— End of Post (6:00 PM) —

Well I didn’t see either online, and I kinda neglected to get any other kind of contact information from either of them, so I’ll have to do that and reschedule with them. So today, I got very little accomplished.

Man! Woo!

What a day! So first, I get up at around 2, although from 10:30 to 2:20 it was a bunch of lying in bed with my eyes closed.

I drew the outline of the coyote on my piece of soapstone. It’s really soft, which worries me. The particular piece I have has the consistency of about hard plaster.

I also worked a little on the piano piece “Clubbed to Death.” I’ve almost got it.

But the main event of the day started around 6:30. You see, I had a job interview at Tim Horton’s. So, I show up at Tim Horton’s 6:30 dead on, and tell them I’m there for a job interview. A few whispers and puzzled looks later, they tell me they weren’t expecting me and to have a seat and wait while the manager comes back from slacking off or whatever. She comes in, flips through some papers in the back room, and tells me I’m at the wrong one, and that there’s one by the traffic circle. So I start walking around 7PM, only to realize midway that this particular Tim Horton’s is a good 45 away. I arrive at sunset at this other particular Tim Horton’s at 7:45. I knew this was the right one because of the address!

So I trudge in, muddy as hell from the walk on the side of the highway, and ask to see the manager and explain that I had an interview forever ago. Turns out THEY weren’t expecting me either, even though I got a call to come in two days prior. So the manager plays along anyways, we chat for awhile, and she sends me on my way around 8:15 with nothing more than a job application and some false hope.

Too embarrassed and weak to ask to call home, I trudge over to Walmart, which is about 5 minutes away. I wander around looking for a pay-phone, but don’t see one. I do see Claire, however. I knew her back in grade 9. She says it’s alright to use the Customer Service phone. I call home, and coax my dad (Who is watching basketball and nearly left me to walk home) into getting me. I wait around a little chatting it up with Claire, who thought it was kind of pathetic nothing had changed. I didn’t want to tell her what had, as I wasn’t about to open up to her after what I’d just been through.

But in the end, I’m not worse off for wear. Sure, I didn’t get a job, but I didn’t lose one either. All that’s changed is I have another story to tell. And if everything goes smoothly and as planned, where’s the fun in that? And no fun, no stories! So I come home, and here I am, finishing up this blog post with a sip of a Pina Colada. Mmmmm…

Hello world!

The blog is now online. I would have liked to make my own website and everything, but hey, this is exactly what I’d end up with anyways.

My name is Kurt Bernasch. I’m 18, live at home, and am currently out of high school and enrolled in University come September. I hail from Ancaster, Ontario, Canada (For those of you who don’t know where Ontario is…). I have many problems not diagnosed by a doctor, but are quite clearly real. I suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder, a small degree of Depression (runs in the family), and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (I have a need to keep my hands very clean at all times, so much that they are red year-round, even with constant moisturizing with the best stuff. I also have a set routine in the morning and before bed that I have ALWAYS completed). But I would never consider having these diagnosed, as the medication would get rid of my imagination and creativity. I am convinced one day those will create something of great value to myself and society.

Sometimes I wish I could just stop thinking (It takes me an hour or two each night to fall asleep, even with herbal sedatives.). In real life, I’m quite quiet. I guess it’s because I’m always thinking about something, so I never have any time to spend gabbing away about nothing. As I type this I’m reading it aloud in my head (Can you do that?), as well as playing Rob D’s “Clubbed to Death” piano solo in my head.

This blog will serve two purposes: To let the world know what I do every day, and to share the book “This book will change your life” with the world.

I won’t be performing all 365 activities in the book: that’s just crazy, and would become very boring after a while. I will, however, perform and record (video and pictures, maybe; audio, definitely) select activities that suit my fancy.

Let the blogging begin:

Today I got a lot done for someone out of school and nearly out of work (7-1o hours weekly isn’t exactly enough to call work). I was woken up at the very early hour of noon by a lady from Tim Horton’s, they want me for an interview. I recently applied for a job there as the dude who makes the donuts. It’s 40 hours a week and pays $10-11 hourly, which is pretty good. Whether or not I get hired depends on how much they can stand my long hair.

I saved several pictures of coyotes on to my hard drive. They’re going to be used to help decide where to carve the small piece of soapstone I have. My grandpa is amazing at carving, and there is good money in it (I don’t think he’d sell his carvings), so I figured while I’m wasting away with nothing to do, I could try my hand at it as well.

I started to learn Rob Dougan’s “Clubbed to Death” piano solo today as well, too. It’s a very simple, relaxing, yet dramatic piece. If you listen to that song, it’s like a movie is playing. The music plays a story to you. I won’t tell you what story, because I’m sure it’s different for everyone.

Then I went to work, cleaned my hands of grease to hell, and started up this blog! Hopefully there won’t be many gigantic posts like this one, I don’t think many of you appreciate them.