Desperation time. I need gift ideas! I’ve got only one and have eleven more to buy. Any suggestions are most welcome. I have the most trouble with females.

(true in more ways than one). Mom, sister, co-worker (Hooray for getting presents from people I wasn’t expecting to exchange with!), gf. Help! Did you get anybody gifts you were proud of? What was it? All I’ve bought so far is an ugly sweater at the campus bookstore.  I see no humour in this. Where can I get a grabbo arm or tony stony?

I have a caffeine withdrawal headache. A little knot of tension and throbbing in my left side frontal lobe. More subtle and tolerable than the global pulsing pain I was getting last week originating from my tooth. Much less severe than a migraine, just a little irritant reminding me of my java dependence. I was so sluggish today too. I accomplished nothing. Flat out nothing.

Holiday panic is starting to creep up. I’ll be at the mall tomorrow partaking in the orgy. Throwing elbows and spacing out under that sickening artificial fluorescent retail light. Christmas fucking cards, parcel pickup, cleaning, groceries. What really makes things fun is that I have no car. Maybe I need to get back into exam mentality instead of the relaxing I thought the holidays were supposed to be about.

I hate when affluence is rubbed in my face. Just talked to an investment manager who spent the last two weeks in the Bahamas at a five star resort and in Spain living it up. Describing the opulence to me in gory detail. Doesn’t he realize I make absolutely nothing? That I could live for months off of what he spent on the bullet trains last week. So irritating. I’m cutting this rant short because it makes me feel pathetic.

I brought no food to work either because I was running late. I hate taking the fucking bus to work in the middle of winter too. It wasn’t so bad tonight though because the guys who were standing next to me at the stop had Mary Jane with them. Anyway, I thought I would have to fast tonight but the staff here receives gifts from the residents and, lucky me, I had a tin gift of what presumably contained butter cookies. Yippee! cause I was starving. I took it to the kitchen, salivating at the thought of devouring 20 to 30 cookies hungrily and immediately. I opened it and MOTHERFUCKER it wasn’t cookies. It was a goddamn fucking fruitcake. I was so hungry though, I tried eating it. It is sweet but all rubbery and weird. With every little hesitant chew, I kept trying to figure out exactly what I thought of each little taste and texture. I didn’t get through the first piece, I just decided to pick off all the glistening walnuts from the top and toss the rest of it down the garbage chute. I would probably feel guilty about that if I considered it edible. It was made by the Shriners so maybe it helped to buy one of those stupid hats. Ho ho ho.

Ok, the caffeine boycott is on, starting sixteen hours ago after that free coke I had. My brain is too overloaded with adenosine receptors, I have to let them die out and fall back to a manageable level. I’m sure there will some headaches as they vacate the grey matter. Recently I’ve had days where I lived off of chocolate, coffee and a multi-vitamin alone. Yesterday I skipped my coffee and I actually slept a full eight hours today. I was thrilled! I actually feel rested-alert as opposed to caffeinated-alert.

I think there is a tendency to underestimate how large a factor diet is in the way you feel. I’ve started eating well again. Yesterday it was thick cooked turkey slices, carrots and broccoli, mashed potatoes and a big turkey salad Tonight it’s salmon, ramen noodles and stir fry vegetables with another big salad. I cooked a big puffy oven pancake and had it with wild berry jam for breakfast. Good food really effects my mood in a positive way.

I’ve also been walking to and from work now that it is icy tundra outside and cycling is truly dangerous. Today was ridiculous. You know it’s bad when you feel your alveoli start to freeze with your first couple of steps out the door. It’s icing on the cake when you are going home at 6:30am, the absolute most frigid part of the day. I dress so warm but any little piece of exposed skin just stings. It felt like my whole face aged a year on the way home today. All dried out like a piece of leather. My sensitive lips are absorbing lots of cherry chapstick. I just checked the temp. Minus twenty.(Minus twenty-five in my home town of T. Bay Hee hee, I’m sure my dad’s lovin it.) It’s minus thirty-two here with the wind chill. The wind chill really does do it. I can stand 30 to 40 below when there is no wind. It’s a really unique experience. Your breath is all raspy and it hurts a little but everything is so quiet and still because no one will go outside even to drive. It’s like there is a surreal layer of crystallization over everything. With a strong wind though, it becomes totally unbearable and miserable. Winnipeg is the worst with those strong prairie winter winds. T.r Bay at least has mountains and forest as a windbreak.

Looks like my computer at home shut down. My banner and images are/were all broken. Using village photos now. I hope it will start back up, it has been grunting a lot lately. Phoned home, my answering machine is out too. Hopefully I wasn’t robbed.

American military bear says, “This post was boring!”

I just read a Dostoevsky essay, “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man.” It was about eight to nine thousand words long and the first time I’ve read any of his work. (It was in Adbusters and I force myself to read those mags cover to cover.)  I attempted reading his contemporary, Tolstoy last summer but found it fairly impenetrable and quit not too far in. (War and Peace). This essay was engaging and outlined a consequence of death that I don’t discount as possible truth. Something akin to having your consciousness persist after death, helpless to take any action, cemented in the same place for millions of years. A kind of idle hell. That wasn’t the point of the essay, just a place where he put vague drifting thoughts I sometimes have into print eloquently. I don’t agree with the conclusions the essay makes (as I interpret them) but in terms of imagery and craft I found it amazing.

“Staring at someone like that is very disorienting you know?”
“I’m surprised you had enough nerve to come over here.”
“…”
“You don’t recognize me do you?’
“ummm ahhh kind of… I think… no?”
“Faye!”
“Faye?”
“I used to go out with Mike!?”
“Mike?”
“You’re terrible. Saugeen? Two-lower? Faye and Mike?”
“Faye. Wow, you’ve lost a lot of weight!”
“You’re as subtle as a punch in the face.”
“You look so different. what are you still doing here?”
“I’m getting my PhD in theoretical physics. We’re doing some really interesting things in medical blah blah blah. How about you?”
“I’m crying on the inside.”
“Why?”
“I’m still in undergrad.”
“How is that even possible? Don’t they have a time limit?”
“Apparently if you keep paying, you can keep coming back.”
“So what are you going to do with your life?”
“Please don’t ask me that.”
*awkward pause*
“Your glasses are cute. I’ve always liked that style. Like Lisa Loeb”
“Are you still with Merle?”
“Kind of”
“So yes.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re clean shaven. I think you look good with stubble.”
“You know, you said the same thing to me back in second year.”
“It’s cute that you still refer to things by the year of your degree.”
“I shave on Friday and Sunday nights because of work. The old ladies like it.”
“So I just caught you on the wrong day then huh.”
“On Fridays I’m a wolfman.”
“Mmm”

Need some coffee and breakfast. Just realized I spelt breakfast wrong the other day. Yes. Break-fast makes more sense. There’s no reason to break the fest or feast. It looks cold out. Life without a car is like living as a pre-agriculture hunter-gatherer. Forced to make the cold trek through the urban winter landscape to the supermarket with my deer skin backpack. I enjoy it though., I’ll dress warm and take some good music for the walk. Trying to convince myself to get going here, it is snowing and cold and im so warm in my pajamas right now. I don’t care if this little entry is inane and rambling. Not in the mood to consider anything outside my own little world. This Superwolf album I just got is nice.

A day of decompression. There are a lot of little thoughts on my mind. I had a hard time not counting and carefully measuring the hours today.  Slipping into a less frantic state of being can’t be done so suddenly. My dayplanner/scheduler was opened for the first time since the middle of November. I had to tear out thirty or so of those little corner triangles. Things were so frantic I couldn’t deal with all the deadlines. I adopted a “just worry about one thing at a time” attitude. This is a well honed skill in my repertoire. It got me through very troubled waters over the past few weeks. In a relationship it can be a damaging attribute. Now that the blinders are off I can see signs of neglect all over this broader field of vision.

My volatile long distance girlfriend is coming for Christmas next week. I don’t talk about her much here but we have some serious issues to say the least. I once saw on a Xanga page someone name the men/boys in her life after video game characters (I asked to be Pacman and never heard back).
So I’m naming my girlfriend after an anime character, Merle, the Vision of Escaflowne catgirl (picture 4 posts down), due to personality similarities. (Think borderline personality disorder.) I’ve never met anyone who could rile me up into such a state of pure rage or on the flip side make me feel so loved. The chances of me being either broken up or engaged after the holidays are probably even odds. More likely is neither. In one, maybe two of her past relationships I think she dominated. Some guys are such pathetic lap dogs. She has actually said to me “I like how you put me in my place.” It was after she snapped at me for something trivial and I roared back at her. Women don’t want men who worship them and throw flower petals at their feet all day long. That is boring. (That’s right ladies. I’m telling you what you want.) They want someone who will proudly stand on his own with or without her. It is like that stupid book, “The Rules” in reverse.

This post has wandered into pastures I didn’t intend to visit. That ok though. On a side note, I realized I am totally out of shape tonight. I know because of how so very weak I was during my oft skipped standardized workout. I think a lot of it has to do with how poor I’ve been eating lately. My diet used to be so varied and healthy, now it has degraded into all high sugar and fat with little vegetation. I’ve also been flirting with the idea of quitting coffee for the next three weeks. The last time this stunt was attempted I felt lethargic the whole time.

Ahhh. Slept in until the crack of noon. My apartment is freezing. When it is so cold outside of bed you just don’t want to get up. I’m going to head to the University Community Center for breakfast. I’ll revel in the all the stress and cramming around me as I relax, eating my donuts and coffee.  If I see anyone I know, I’ll drop by and cheerfully inquire about what they’re studying. Haha I’m such a bastard. I’ve never, ever been finished this early. It is such a treat. Lots of snow outside. Lots to do. I feel like I have been living with a heavy gigantic turtle shell on my back for the past 4 months and now that it is off every step I take feels like a leap into the air. :p

Exams are over… I can’t even muster up an exclamation point. I just feel exhausted, spent, tattered and battered. I am going to love it tomorrow though. I have a bunch of stuff to do but none of it’s school related. Alright, maybe some celebratory bananas. 🙂

EXAMS ARE OVER

Ugg. I just wasted half hour trying to make “Kool and the Gang – Celebrate” play automatically. What a waste of time. I really am burned out. I feel nothing like those bananas. Goodnight.

I’ve got the new Adbusters magazine!!!! This is a once-every two month event so bare with me while I joyfully emote a little. I get so excited when I first open it. Especially this month because it is an extra big year end special. So many thought provoking essays and images, so much it gets me all wide-eyed and jumpy. They broke it down into categories this month. Media, Technology, Environment, umm some other ones. Yippee! (I have a small confession though. I am only 3/4 finished the last issue.) It was so doom and gloom, I have been working through gradually, I’ll get there.

I hate commercials, so obnoxious. Eminem sampled toy soldiers, annoyance. That is one of my favorite eighties songs. I also saw a video duet between Shania Twain and Mark McGrath. That sure was an insipid piece of crap. TV makes me braindead. I’ve been living with a perpetual headache since my tooth started aching. It spreads from my jaw moving backwards and up through the back of my skull, spidering down towards my temples. It’s ruining my good mood. Studied all day, snuck into a genetics presentation and created a little bit of mischief (sometimes it’s really fun to pop up where people don’t expect to see you, but still recognize you.). Last exam tomorrow, a day I have pined for with all my might. Just one more day of buckling down and I’m free like a bird. And this bird you’ll never change.

You can’t let the little motherfuckers generation gap you.

The CBC is an amazing network (I’m including CBC newsworld in this statement). The fact that this is our national network swells me with northern pride. You’re never going to get generation gapped watching the CBC.

A billion people obese, an epidemic. 800 million people starving. The hour long show Hot Type tonight examined the global food issue with a broad variety of perspectives. They had someone from Dupont arguing the benefit of GMOs such as Vitamin A enriched rice and BT protected plants. There was an argument that food is more than plentiful enough, distribution and spoilage issues are the problem. A journalist made a case that the problem was consumer ignorance. The green revolution, soil deprivation and farming with chemical dependance were examined. The business end of it and the organic food movement was discussed. They even had someone making a case for brand name chicken. It was really comprehensive. What I noted was how prominent African leaders are really calling for the technology to increase yields, ie. biotechnology and equipment to improve their poor crop outputs. It sounds hypocritical to hear experts from wealthy nations telling them no, this won’t help you, even when it has been shown to work in India and many other places dramatically. The anti-GM movement irritates me. I recognize that it is a necessary check in the system but there is a lot of ignorance and excessive fear mongering coming from their side.

Tomorrow, the same show examines the modern male and society. It looks good, if not better than tonight’s show.

Hee Hee. I had a really close call today. I submitted my final algorithms project JUST before the prof submitted the marks for the course. It was just good enough to get the mark I needed to. I feel like I’ve really dodged a bullet… because I have! It was a core course in my degree. I’ve never been so excited for such a low mark (a 60, the lowest possible mark you can have in an honors degree! Woohoo!). It is because I missed a whole 14% assignment and had a lackluster exam. That really hurt me. I’m very proud of this 60 more so than my other higher marks though. It is very difficult to find the motivation to fight for such a crummy result. It would have been much easier to have resolved myself to failure and maybe ANOTHER year in undergrad. That would have been very bad. It is almost ridiculous how much my expectations have shifted over the last few months.

I came home after submitting it and slept all day long. The marks were posted when I woke up. I watched a long interview with Paul Martin tonight too. I like him. He has honest eyes and good ideals. Sometimes I forget the Liberals held on to power in Canada. It is because I can still taste the taint of a Bush win.

THE OVERLORDS OF THE DESERT!!! NOT ONE WAS WAS MEANT TO BEEEEEEE!!!! ALL HUMAN FORCE NOW FLEEEEE! RULES OF ANATOMY LOST. RAGE INTO THE EXTREMMMME!!!! THE BEAST OF THE SAVAGE LANDS. THEY DRINK MY BLOOD!!!……… AND THE DRAGON COMES IN THE NIIIIIIIGGGGGGHTTTT!!!!!!

Michael Kamen once said that he thought that “Sad But True” (Metallica) was the perfect song for having your teeth drilled. I’m taking this advice to heart today. Even though the throbbing in my jaw is near unbearable I have no choice but to put in a strong final push on an extremely overdue project. A good friend of mine is a huge heavy metal head. The kind of guy who scorns Korn and newer Metallica because they have gone too mainstream. I have an MP3 CD I never listen to that he gave me. Lets see.. it’s got; In Flames, Nile, Kataklysm, Sentenced, Arch Enemy, Blind Guardian, Dark Tranquility, Soilwork, The Crown, Nightwish and Decapitated. As I try to finish my project, this shall be my soundtrack of the day. I’ll revel in the pain as the thick heavy riffs fall.

If I can get it done, I’m buying the new Adbusters as a reward. It is $9.95 this month. Even though I’m broke, it’s the kind of money I never feel bad spending. I’m kicking myself that I didn’t ask anyone for blackspot sneakers for Christmas.

The new strong bad email was funny. Sharp satire.

2025 me here: That Strongbad email link actually still worked, and made me laugh again.

Merle confirmed she’s going to be spending Christmas with me. I think she arrives on the twenty-third.

Update: I can no longer make light of this situation. The nerve is screaming right through the two extra strength Advils I took. I couldn’t even stand until the second one kicked in. I can’t function in any capacity right now. There is no way I could sleep or anything. I wouldn’t wish this pain onto anyone. Oh sweet Jesus this is horrible.

Ow ow ow. My tooth. ow ow ow.

A phrase that keeps repeating in my brain is “children’s chewable morphine.” I’ve been uncharacteristically munching extra strength Advils. The bottle says only take 3 a day. The last one was at 4pm so I should hold out until midnight. I have a feeling I’m going to need them for a few days.

Quoting Dr. Spagnulio after my last visit: “Let’s not kid ourselves here. This was a deep filling.” I’m mad at him.

From some website: A deep filling to restore a deep cavity can injure the pulp. When a pulp is injured, it causes a great deal of pain, and can cause the pulp to die. The nerve and blood vessels then have to be removed from the interior of the tooth, and this is known as root canal treatment.

He injured my pulp! MY PULP!

I thought he was good too (He plays DVDs on the ceiling while you’re on your back. Last time I got to watch the delusional sex scene in Vanilla Sky . Not the reason I think he’s good, just a little tidbit). He was certainly more expensive than other dentists. I should have just went to the fumbling dental school flunkies on campus and saved a grand. Now I’m probably going to have to go back and get an eight hundred dollar root canal.

I found someone on Xanga who irks me too. He makes me puff up and bristle like a Siamese fighting fish. It’s because I see a reflection too close to myself. I want to bite and tear his fins off.

Has anyone seen the Lover’s Vow part of the Tales from the Darkside movie?

I’m not schizophrenic. I promise.

At three a.m. here at my job I am supposed to do a building wide patrol checking meter readings and doing visual inspections of specific rooms (the 7th floor mechanical room, elevator rooms, roof, water rooms, high voltage room etc.). The route spans all over the property from the top floor to the underground spider webbed and occasionally bat infested storage area. I am really used to doing it so it is almost reflexive now. Certain doors I just push open, glance in for a quarter second and then shut, marking a checkmark on my list and clipboard. Tonight I opened the door that goes to the roof and let the scene reflect onto my retina for a few frames and shut the door quickly and automatically as I have done hundreds of times before. As I turn to walk away in my foggy 3am haze… it hits me. What was that? I freeze. The door is now shut and locked and I have to decide if I want to open it again or just pretend I didn’t see it. Except I can still hear it through the door. Crunching. Loudly. I decided just to walk away. I don’t think I’m going to be checking the door to the roof anymore.

Ever since I took this night job, I have been taking reality with a grain of salt. On the same patrol route there is this one door in the basement of the manor house that always bangs in its hinges every time I walk by. I keep telling myself it is me disturbing the air that somehow makes it jump outwards. I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t overthink this.

Exam number number one is coming up in about 16 hours. Been flying through the material but I know it is barely sticking. Study quality gets dangerously low after 2am. My little study break patrol certainly woke me up though. Wish me luck.