December 14, 2003

Trevor offered me a cigarette this evening, and I accepted even though I quit smoking after grade two. “You know you’re killing me,” I told him laughing as he took turns lighting our cigarettes. I took puffs of smoke into my lungs and coughed like a bastard as we walked down the street talking about neuronal pathways, typewriters, and masturbation. “Do it with the other hand,” I told him, “it certainly spiced up my sex life.”

I ran into Trevor today by accident. He was walking down the stairs in the food court with his fedora when I stopped him and forced him to wait in line with me for half an hour while I got some tea. People kept cutting in front of us until I swore and they backed down.

Even though we were both supposed to be studying, we decided to meet later in the evening by the giant penis statues in the library and go see Elephant. Trevor knew the sculptor who erected the cocks in the library’s lobby. “He wanted to see how much he could get away with,” he said, and I smiled knowingly.

In the evening I got carried away cybering in the comments section of someone else’s journal, so I was late meeting Trevor. I took a closer look at the sculptures in the lobby and decided that the artist clearly hasn’t seen a cock before and I should probably show him mine if I ever run into him. Trevor gave me a blue plastic U that I put in my left pocket before we headed for the cinema.

Elephant had a lovely absence of narrative and structure and some of the shots were staggeringly composed. The camera followed people meticulously as they drifted through empty hallways, and all seemed aimless until the movie exploded into violence. Surreal.

Trevor is the only man who has the unearthly patience to wait until the credits finish rolling before leaving the theatre. Sitting in a cinema with no people around is strangely pleasing. The only other people in the room were two Sexuality students from University of Waterloo, who stopped by and talked about the movie. We eventually got kicked out of the cinema and drifted home through cold and lonesome streets.