The Pit of Pat

Sometimes I start thinking about the kind of life I would like to live. What my autobiography would read like. Most of the time it starts off in another time. Like 1949. Or the mid-seventies. In any event, the truth is usually dreadfully dull by comparison, but I’m working on it.

Was born March 15th, 1981 in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. Moved to Smiths Falls, Ontario when I was three where I went on an infinite number of Hershey Factory Tours and enjoyed what came with being the smartest kid in my kindergarten class.

We moved to Orleans, a suburb of Ottawa, where I went to school at Henry Larsen Elementary, learning French, winning spelling bees and being tested. My poor handwriting kept me from skipping grade one, and socially the awkwardness and inability to relate to my fellow students became more noticeable. I had few friends, developed hopeless infatuations and was generally picked on, my weight being a much more convenient target than my intelligence. We had a psychologically abusive teacher for awhile, and not too long after that we moved to Prince Edward Island - 1991 I believe. By that time I was settled into a deep desire to become a marine biologist, which displaced my previous chosen profession of cybernetic engineer. Yeah, I know.

They gave me the choice of going into grade five as I was meant to, or skipping to grade six, and to avoid any additional social complications I went into grade five. Probably a good thing, as I would later find out just how xenophobic and ignorant that particular grade six class was. My grade five teacher introduced me to Tolkien via the Hobbit, my grade six teacher to Michael Crichton via Jurassic Park, and my grade seven teacher to agreeable Christians, as she was a very cool nun. My grade eight teacher was my grade six teacher, but I befriended the librarian slash resource teacher and they got me some help for the boredom and unstimulating classes. I worked on computers, doing advanced math, some gaming and a bit of programming, and helped a student with special needs. It worked out pretty well, in that I had a much more flexible schedule and could pursue more of my interests.

At home we were running a bed & breakfast at that time, and the steady influx of interesting visitors helped germinate my desire to travel, and my love of languages. I was speaking Japanese at a beginner level in the early nineties, but unfortunately I don’t remember most of it. I was going through some heavy Petrarch-y unrequited love shit and was generally pretty miserable and confused. I started writing a lot, won some awards and began a private journal which would be close to 10,000 pages when it finally ran out of steam, years later. I met my first real friend, who lived nice and close, and realized that I wasn’t the only oddball who didn’t feel like he fit in. I can’t really imagine life without him, and I really wouldn’t want to. Later another friend appeared and suddenly the inseparable trinity was complete, though it was to be fleeting.

I think it was this time that my longstanding fear of mortality and aging gave way to a more sinister and refined terror. It became apparent that there was no black and white separation between adult and child, and that the transition we think of as maturation wasn’t just subtle, it was for the most part non-existant. The classmates I knew emulated their older brothers and sisters who emulated their parents and perpetuated an identical lifestyle, an identical set of limitations and prejudices and when enough financial and social responsibilities had been accumulated, the community at large agreed that they had grown up. No great spiritual, intellectual or emotional transformation required. This troubled me, and I vowed to make sure I wouldn’t go quietly - the child who had always raced to become an adult now realized how empty and false adulthood was. Yowzah.

Grade nine brought about a wonderful teacher who helped to further define the genius as unapologetic individual which would serve as a model in the years to come. At the time I was still heavily engrossed in morbid, self-destructive and melodramatic obsessiveness, but things were improving without my really knowing it. Most of my spare time was spent writing, using the computer or reading. I watched the X-Files religiously; the show’s marriage of paranormal investigation, UFOlogy and a hot, intellectual redhead seemed too good to be true. Having found acceptance, even with a couple others, was enough for me to indulge my geekiness without abandon.