Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Todd: Some adventure this has been...

I've been trying to work this out for weeks.

I found out about this blog not long after I left the Inn, back in July. Obviously I've been through a lot and coping with it has kept me from jumping right in and participating. I snuck little moments to read back from the beginning trying to get some hint about what had happened, some clue as to what I should do. It's been helpful but my panic isn't exactly over and done with.

My name is Todd Casey, although I don't have any photo ID to prove it. All of my cards say...

No, actually. I'll get to it later but I'd rather, at least for this writing, my introduction to whomever is reading this, just be me. I just want these words be seen as coming from my brain, without being flavoured by what, who, I have become... which I will describe later. So just picture me. Todd.

It's October and I finally have some time to myself. I've been couped up here going privately crazy, trying to express this, and now I have the chance (and the guts) to do so.

Even if I hadn't made a fateful stay at the Inn two months ago, it still would've been a spellbinding summer. See, for personal and professional reasons, I had spent early part of the summer - from May until July - adventuring up the East coast. Seeing bands, picking up girls, indulging in illicit substances, from Miami to Maine. It was my dream job.

See, I've always, been, well... proudly, a slacker. I'd been living hand-to-mouth in a ratty apartment with Bryan, my photographer, best friend and stepcousin. I worked a low-paying internship at a Toronto underground paper where I thought I was going to write about movies and music, but I was really just doing page layout.

So when I announced last winter that I was taking the summer off to bum around south of the border, my editor smiled, handed me a laptop and said, "Great. Make it an article while you're down there." He said he couldn't finance the trip, but it would be great for my career. And for two months, I lived the dream. Bry and I bounded like maniacs from place to place, sleeping anywhere we could, occasionally doing oddjobs, working for favours, stealing. It was miserable at times, to be honest, but even so it was always a thrill, and Bry was good enough at finding us places to eat and sleep that we never went cold or hungry. There were some close calls though. And week after week I'd have a new installment for the guys back home to print. Sensational.

So yeah. Before a fateful mid-July stop at this odd little joint in Maine, it was already a legendary summer. We would've been home by August if we hadn't gotten derailed, and now...

Now, I guess, the rest of the story begins.

There's been a lot of words had between me and Bry about what has happened and how to deal with it. Right now we're stuck. And maybe my life wasn't much to look at, but I'll do anything to get back to it, because it's where I belong. And this is not.

That's a story for another time.
Signing off, Todd Casey.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh come on, You can't leave it like that! The curiosity is killing me...

Anonymous said...

I agree! It's been so long since we've heard from new visitors to the Inn. Please continue!