the matthew perspective

sometimes matt says things even he knows he can’t mean, and you can tell midway through whatever he is talking about he knows he shouldn’t be saying it.  he usually gets this big grin on his face, but never has he stopped talking and digging his own grave.  in fact he usually carries on far past where he should stop even when we’ve started ridiculing him.  this was one of those cases.

matt told me he wanted to go deer hunting.  apparently i agreed to come with him.  now i could have just been drunk and not paying attention at the time, or he could have made it up, but either way i don’t remember this.  now i’m not terribly against hunting, i think guns are cool, but i don’t think i’d ever kill a deer for sport.  especially a deer.  that’s kind of twisted.  i mentioned this and matt agreed.  he then thought what we should hunt instead.  after discussing a few options and landing on turkey hunting we made a detour and talked about accidental shooting.  i don’t remember exactly how he reached his final conclusion, but i sure remember what it was.  his conclusion - it would be easier to kill a human than a deer.  this was the moment i was talking about before; did he stop?  of course not.  he tried to get out of the hole he dug but didn’t really make any progress.  it became quite clear that i didn’t want to be matt’s hunting partner though.

the best part was the day before he had been fishing and had caught several fish.  the plan was to bring a big one back and we were going to gut, clean, and cook it for dinner.  matt caught several potential dinners but he tossed them back.  the kid claiming he could kill a man couldn’t even kill a fish.  

it’s taken a while for me to spend enough time with matt to make posts.  luckily for you guys there is a good chance i will be living with matt starting in september (i know what am i thinking) so look for a lot more posts in the future.

my brother and i introduced matt to rock climbing, and it took a while but we have now got him hooked.  sadly our gym got forced out of its location last monday, but before we left we went down for the final night.  thankfully matt was there to provide his unique perspective on everything.

as we were climbing matt had the opportunity to discuss some current issues he was having.  i should preface this first though.  on the way to climbing matt mentioned it was really cool that dylan and i were becoming doctors.  he now had an outlet for his natural tendancy towards being a hypochondriac.  my first thoughts: great.  i haven’t even started school and this guy is asking me for unsolicited medical advice.

later on while climbing matt tried to talk to me about this weird pain he was having in his left butt cheek.  seriously?  the kid hasn’t stretched since high school no wonder his muscles hurt.  i rolled my eyes and went on climbing.  one day i’m sure matt will come to me with something he is concerned about that is likely rubbish and when he least expects it i will convince him it’s some horrible disease.  don’t worry when i do it will be all over this blog.

last summer matt figured out that due to some price discrepencies between the us and canadian jet ski markets he could actually buy a jet ski off ebay in the states pick it up, drive it back across the border, pay duty and his gas money still manage to sell the jet ski for a substantial profit.  he did it once picking a jet ski up in upper new york about an eight hour drive away, and made a cool profit of 1200 (i am really guessing at this number as my memory isn’t great, but it would over a grand). 

later in the summer he found another jet ski for sale in tennessee about a 14 hour drive away.  matt tried to convince me to come, and i nearly did but eventually thought better of spending 30+ hours in a confined space with matt.  matt did however convince another friend to come who lived in waterloo.  the pair drove the 14 hours there, slept for 30 min in the car while waiting for the seller to show up and then picked up the jet ski and started driving home.  matt drove the whole time.  after about 26 hours matt dropped his friend off in waterloo.  to this day matt has no memory of his drive back from waterloo or the three text messages he sent me.  to sum up the messages (they were barely readable - think drunk messages) they said he was hallucinating while driving.  i was a little nervous, but lets face it matt has been in worse jams.

that second jet ski he had real trouble selling and only eventually made a profit of 500 dollars.  given the fact he had spent 30 hours driving and countless more hours researching and finding sellers, it wasn’t exactly the best use of his time.

moral of the story: you may be the able to cheat the system once or twice, but you got to know when to quit before you end up dead.  that being said summer is rapidly approaching and i am sure matt it looking up jet skis on ebay as we speak …

i got a text message from matt last night at 4:24 am, and then another at 4:25 am describing how he had just walked home from bay and bloor to his house at bayview and finch.  he said the trip was 15km.  a quick check of google maps put it at 14.2 clicks.  a hefty journey at 2:30 in the morning while he was wasted.  his inspiration: watching into the wild.  i guess he forgot the movie ended with alex dying.  he probably fell asleep for that part …

recently matt came to visit me at queen’s before i graduate.  it was a good time, and for the first time he didn’t get kicked out of the bar, get in a fight, or get arrested when he was visiting, so i would say the trip was a success.  there were countless good moments, but i think the high-light of “the matthew perspective” occurred when matt drove us back to toronto.

matt said that everyday he got older he woke up and congratulated himself for not getting a girl pregnant.  as far as he was concerned if he got a girl pregnant at 16 it would destroy his life as he knew it.  at 18 same thing, but maybe a little less.  being 22 now he was ecstatic that while it would hugely impact his life, it wouldn’t destroy it.  

its interesting to see such a blatantly different idea of getting older as avoiding the mistakes you may make when you are young.  a truly genius and refreshing idea on growing up.  matt has really helped me come to terms with my own journey into adulthood, by allowing me to see it from his perspective if only for a few moments.

a friend of mine, matt, has always been an interesting character.  i thought it would be fun to blog about his daily thoughts and perspectives whenever i get a glimpse into what is undoubtedly one of the great minds of our generation.