Five Grin-Inducing Videos

1. Lindy Hop Showdown

2. Human Snake

3. What Teachers Make by Taylor Mali

4. Where The Hell Is Matt?

5. Jill and Kevin's Big Day

A Bit of Blah Blah Blah

So if you were to ask me what I did yesterday, this is how the conversation might go.

You: "What did you do yesterday?"
Michael: "What? Just like that? No hello or anything?"
You: "Oh, sorry, I thought you wanted to just, you know, get into it. I mean, that's what you kind of suggested."
Michael: "Fine. Whatever. No big deal."
(Awkward silence. Michael turns around and crosses his arms.)
You: "Are you pouting?"
Michael: "Well I'm a little hurt."
You: "Okay, you know what, I don't even care what you did yesterday. I have things to do."
(You walk away, return home. Maybe you cook dinner or something. Later on, you check this site and it reads, "This is what I did yesterday: slept 'til ten, made vegan French toast, baked a loaf of banana bread, went to the park with kids, got hit with water balloons, raced a four-year old, bought a slim keyboard and a laptop case, Thai with I., a long walk, and a long goodbye."

At this point, you might think to yourself, "Well, that was the twittiest way of going about that."

And you'd be right.

Without Limits

I have just over 200 entries on this journal in the past couple years. I have written about my own relationships, my own indecision, and conquering my own fears. I have written about the relationships of others, the obligation of authors, and my impressions of certain authors. I have symbolized my belief, literalized my belief, and tried to hide. I have written fiction, fiction, and fiction; for Hallowe'en, and Remembrance Day, and for Christmas. I have written all of these things that I am proud of and yet none of them is all I'm capable of. I am still without limits.

Thank you for reading.

Dead Rose Red

She asked me once if I would paint her.

She was so very beautiful and the first painting I finished was also beautiful. But it was not her, not completely, so I gave her roses instead.

She asked me a second time if I would paint her. This time too was imperfect. But she demanded that I paint her, roses proved nothing! So I painted her – again and again and again – but each time was wrong! I stared at her obsessively with an artist's eyes, let love move my brush, and after a hundred paintings and a thousand roses, I felt nothing.

She left me ruined with a room of roses, and it was in their wilting that I found the perfect colour for my love.

Dead rose red.

How Dangerous It Is...

By Michael Lagace

How dangerous it is to climb
When your feet are always slipping
And your only safety line
Is around your neck and gripping

How dangerous it is to start
When your mind is set on quitting
And the seed inside your heart
Only blossoms into wilting

How dangerous it is to breathe
When one day you won't be living
And with each breath you further leave
Simply slowly drifting

How dangerous it is to write
When everything read is wrong
And our thought is being wiped
As we all aid it along

How dangerous it is to smile
When we do so without reason
And we hide behind it while
Our emotions flow through weakened

How dangerous it is to be
When we're all just humans being
And we're not as nearly free
As accustomed to believing

Will Bees

Will be back in Edmonton for a brief romp through familiar neighbourhoods. There Wednesday, here Sunday. I won't have time for everyone, which is always the sour bit of a trip, but my plans as they are will be fantastic. Jason's week-old daughter will be visited, Randy's birthday will be celebrated, Moustache Weekend will be a winehouse, Eric and Sara's new house will be warmed, and I will be with my parents on their 39th anniversary.

Now, regarding thetrigger.net, which presently redirects you to mickthetrig.blogspot.com. I have a firm grasp of what I want this new site to do but not yet how it will look. Seeing as how I want this done quickly, I will likely forego anything fancy in lieu of functionality. (Which has always been my style.) Generally, it will have more of my own original content, and over time it will have music and videos available. Patience, please.

And of course, I. will be missed during this short time.

The Midnight Tide

They left the North Point lighthouse turned off since the twenties, when McReady realized that it was what brought the Midnight Tide. He was carried back out to sea with it, the secret drowning with him. For thirty-two years, the lighthouse sat abandoned on the corner of the property until finally it was bought by a couple from across the country. They had never heard of the Midnight Tide.

They lived in the enormous old house for a month before Elliot found the lighthouse while he was out exploring. It was covered in cobwebs and layers of dust, but the only reason it didn’t work, he found, was that the main power had been cut with an axe. He replaced those cables and the light was as bright as it had been fifty years earlier.

Elliot never left it turned on. There weren’t any ships that came around that part of the coastline, not since the pass was built out to the Atlantic. But there was one night in the middle of July when he did. The Armature Finals were scheduled to go that way, and the competition was fierce enough that most of the boats would sail overnight. This was why the North Point lighthouse was on that foggy night.

The O’Hares sat on the deck of the lighthouse that night drinking wine and watching the pale lights of the boats go by slowly, masts wide. The wind suddenly picked up and immediately the trees were in full bend. A few ships lowered their masts in time, but the rest capsized, and Elliot and his wife watched the pale lights disappear one at a time. The wind grew thunderous. Walls of water knocked them down the stairs as they ran for safety, and they never saw the rest of the pale lights rise high into the air before going out forever.

And the strange wind died.

The fog was blown off the sea. Every few seconds when the light came around they saw nothing out across the water. No lights, no ships. An unnerving calm. The Midnight Tide was gone.

Since those twenty-nine ships disappeared, the Armature Finals never went through that area again, and so Elliot never had a reason to leave the lighthouse on. He thought about it every now and then, because he hated to see it sit unused. It seemed like such a waste. But on the occasions when he went out to turn it on, there was a breeze of echoes that stirred by, tired. So he let them be.

"Do You Believe in God?"

I asked someone today, "Do you believe in God?"

We were already talking, you see. Or at least we had been earlier. But it was on my mind, so I asked him. He said no. So I asked him if he believed in a greater force, something we can't understand or perceive.

Earlier we'd been talking about Pemberton. He loved it because he was drunk out of his mind the entire time; I hated it because there were all sorts of drunken twits running around. It was obvious that we weren't going to see eye-to-eye, so thankfully I ended it here. But it was the words he used in his answer that confused me.

Spirituality is the greatest thing all of us have in common. Being in harmony with life only requires that you ask yourself a few questions. That you spend some time thinking about why and how you exist. And what he said seemed to me so indifferent. If he'd said no, at least he would have given it thought at some point. But he didn't say no. He didn't say yes. He didn't even say, "You know, I'm not sure."

He said, "I'm the wrong guy to ask."

It was hard for me not to look at him and see most of the youth of the world.

Independence Day

One of the hardest things to do is draw sharp lines through a blurred world. What is it exactly that makes a simple concept like good and evil so complex and gray? Surely if everyone respected natural laws we could define our morality with ease; when exactly did 'do no harm to your fellow man' contain so many unknown qualifiers?

Last night, I followed up a day of webbing with a sunset and a bottle of blush wine with my dearest. Conversations that maundered over many topics included the dilapidated state of our global conscience, the twisted way man interacts with nature, and above all, hope. Thing is, hope isn't necessarily looking for you; you have to search for it. And like many things, until you realize it for yourself, it's just something you've been told.

I think most people understand the world in a way that would surprise them, but they don't want to realize it. If you understand yourself - beliefs, ethics, imperfections - then there is no ambiguity in the world. This planet is our mother figure. It gives us everything we need to survive and yet we desire to take more. And just like a mother that you take and take and take from, if she can't survive then neither can we. When mother dies, her children die too. That will be our independence day.