I was up all night at work, working on an assignment. I felt thoroughly spaced out on the walk home. The university is so silent on Sunday mornings before 7am. I love it. It is almost like being in the woods. Such a normally busy setting, serene as can be. A little piece of sanity just for me.

I’m exhausted. I also think I’m happy. No matter how bad my situation seems, I think I just enjoy being. it is a little after seven am and I am writing for myself. I think my true voice is often lost when I write with specific readers in mind. I don’t like that. Well, I like the attention but I don’t like trying to be overly clever or cute when I usually just want to reflect and explore a little. During the previous two years before Xanga I kept a journal/diary. It is a protected document stored on my hard drive, encrypted with a long unique unguessable password that I use for nothing else in the world. I just had a look at the first entry. Wow.

My first entry into this log I am starting. It is a diary I guess, although I have always hated that word. What is prompting me to start this? Turmoil in my 3+ year relationship with Merle, A desire to increase my typing skills? I sometimes envy people with online blogs but also know that is not for me. I am too private and guarded a person. I know if I continue this “diary” one of my biggest fears will be that someone reads it before I am ready. I also think keeping a record of my life may somehow validate it and eliminate the insignificance I feel regarding my existence. I am hoping that writing this will help me figure out what I really want in life. I am feeling irritated at the moment because of Merle’s intrusion through MSN messenger. She is very demanding of my attention which causes a lot of friction between us,  I want more space and she wants less. This is an obstacle I am not sure we can overcome.

It’s super groover Thursday but I’m definitely not grooving. Today has been one long sustained panic attack. February is almost half over and I have zero words and zero lines of code written on my thesis project. Alarms are screaming in my head. So I am now cutting back on everything. The few hours of TV I watch a week are out (usually Toronto Raptor NBA games). I am not going to waste any time searching for career related jobs. Internet diversions including Xanga are toast. Maybe a post a week if things are going half decently. Don’t expect any comments any time soon. Sorry.

I’ve also decided I am not doing anything at work anymore. All I am going to do is head to the conference room and study/work on my assignments/thesis every shift, all shift. If they fire me then good. I’ll mooch off of my parents for the final two months and have more time for school. Maybe I’ll feel differently some time in the near future but I doubt it.  I’ve got six weeks and need to put in a superhuman effort.

Now excuse me, I’m off to buy a dozen boxes of power bars and a case of Red Bull.

I was a busy busy bee today. I’m tired. This will be a short little nugget of a post but hopefully a shiny one.

There is a paper mill back home in T Bay that my dad works at, previously as a millwright (industrial mechanic) now as a crew leader. It actually might be the largest paper mill in North America, a major employer for the small city. They have a university/college student hiring program that I have taken full advantage of, working there for two summers. Last time around I was paired with an eccentric mole-like man on a rewinding machine. Our job would be to roll these huge damaged rolls of paper off of a little train track, cut out the imperfections and re-wind them on this gargantuan machine. We put little black plugs into the spools of the rolls and wrapped them up for protection too. It was really fun.  Anyway, my partner was a very odd egg indeed. He had a grade four education, a huge pot belly and these half inch thick glasses. He was always telling these colorful sexually aberrant jokes and stories. So goddamn perverted, I’m actually laughing my ass off right now. We got along great though. Hmm, way too much back story for the tiny tale I wanted to tell.

So this one time after we had just finished wrapping a big paper roll, I went to the front of the machine to load the next one, leaving him to pack up the one that had just finished. After a half a minute or so, he called to me, “Hey, JayJay, come check this out!”. So I returned to the back of the machine, and my partner was there, pelvic thrusting into the spool hole of the roll (we called them cores, strong hollow cylinders the paper is wrapped around). He was humping it with intense vigor. I was very used to this type of behaviour and probably just smirked a little and shook my head at the ridiculousness of it. Then he called out again, “Wait wait! this is the best part!” and then he thrust again and the little black plug at the other end of the roll popped out. (thus implying that he had a penis of over a meter in length). I was a little perplexed but it turns out he had just put a broom handle into the core and had used that to push the plug at the other end out. I think he had been waiting weeks for a roll just the right width. A typical little slice of life on the old rewinding machine. Young men (and women I suppose) who work at a paper mill receive a very different type of education. I can’t believe I wrote so much on this stupid little incident.

OoOoooh. My belly is so full of pad Thai and spring rolls. Stuffed like a plushy. I didn’t have time to prepare food before work so it was either order or starve. The serving of pad Thai was so huge. I ate it all. Now I’m swaying and moaning like an evil scarecrow. The difference is that I’m happily full of food and not murderous spite. I’m also sitting.

I’m obligated to send a Valentine tomorrow. I’m going to cut out a black construction paper heart and include it with an old rotten dried out rose. The accompanying note will say, “Roses are red, violets are blue. This flower’s as dead as my love for you.” I am lying of course. I don’t have the required courage or mean spiritedness. Instead I will pick out a sappy prefabricated card, write as many sweet little lies as I can stomach on it, bundle it with a gift that I didn’t have time to pick out and send it off. I suppose the latter action might actually be crueler than the former. I could write so much on this. I don’t feel like it though.

“Aaaiii!! Superman help me! My legs are out of control, I can’t stop!!”

edit, 2025 me here: I wish I had the original image for this. I remember using these out of context superman panels, and they were funny

Maybe. is it me?

What just happened.

(1) conversation of maid cleaning.
(2) her going off on how since she cleaned in the past I should have to in the future. How she  pays to make trips to see me that I should pay
(3) I get annoyed and stop her
(4) I say I don’t want to take the Friday shift off anymore.
(5) She says she doesn’t want to come any more.
(6) I say fine.
(7) Mutual upsetness. I say goodnight and hang up.

you cant save up every little positive things you ever do and then use it to justify something else entirely different.

Maybe. is it me?

Over the past two days I have filled some private posts with reams of text. A couple were long and introspective, one was a story that I lost interest in telling about half way through and one was total nonsense that I wrote at 5am and has me yelling about eggs and involves my expired milk. Once again it’s the weekend and I am on the bi-polar down slope of a week in which I was manic but only marginally productive. I feel that my mood won’t be fixed by the simple act of having a coffee this time though. I’ve always thought that I dealt with stress well, able to laugh genuinely or flash a million dollar smile even while I felt like something was tearing up my insides. However, I’m really starting to fray right now.

On my days off this week I had insomnia. During the small amount of sleep that did occur, I had nightmares. On Tuesdays, which are my first of three consecutive days off, I take a purple pill to correct my sleeping habits until I work nights again on the week-end. For the first time ever it didn’t knock me out. That’s troublesome. I thought reading a novel in bed might help, and it has a little. Merle sent me Catch 22 by Joseph Heller but I didn’t feel like reading that so I went to the campus bookstore and picked out The Return of The Native by Thomas Hardy. Oddly enough, Catch 22 was vertically juxtaposed directly six inches below it, one shelf down. I am enjoying it so far, I still need to get the characters straightened out in my head though. I also find myself reading it aloud to help my understanding of the 19th century dialogue. Anyway, if I don’t feel like writing anything else between now and midnight I’m just going to throw that 5am post in below.

It’s 5am and I’m at work in a strange mood. In a little over an hour Matt will provide me with sweet relief. (I’m going to alias all my coworkers after the men with no arms and legs; Matt, Bob, Art, Phil and umm… Skip)

I’m walking home today because I need eggs! EGGS! After I put milk into my coffee yesterday little white chunklets swam around in it. I didn’t like that. The milk expired on the third. So I need eggs! EGGS! I require them to make puffy pancakes. PUFFY!  I’m going to try and use the corrupted milk up fast. Puffy pancakes and coffee are pretty much the only stuff I use milk for. I should attempt to make crepes, there is a ton of milk in those bad boys. I would have to get out the electric mixer out though and the recipe is gibberish written in Francais. And Je n’ai compron pas l’francais tres bien. I know I mangled the spelling of that, I can say it decent though. Speaking l’francais is a pain. My Anglophone tongue doesn’t know how to blend an l into a f. It’s a little like “luff” I guess. And thus concludes another shitty little post that will never see the light of day. But turns out I included it anyway.

    At my job I’m almost positive that I’m the least enthusiastic concierge out of our staff of six. I’m rarely cheerful and probably come off as mildly annoyed whenever a resident approaches the desk and wants something. I’ve seen the others in action, they are so artificial, fawning and patronizing it makes me want to vomit. Often, residents approach the concierge and want to chit chat about inane shit. The other guards actually perpetuate this sickening conversation. When it occurs to me, I give as many minimal monosyllabic responses as possible and let lengthy ominous silences play out while I patiently wait for the old lady to take off so I can get back to working whatever tedious assignment that is due next… hmmm, I didn’t intend on ranting. I just wanted to give a little context for the following encounter.

    My least favorite inhabitant of the building (not a resident, a leaser) is the only person their under thirty. One of two under forty in the whole place. He is an arrogant asshole. He has built a small fortune through a software company he founded during his undergrad, drives a beamer, dresses well etc. He is attending UWO as a law student. He is also globally fucked up. He talks down to the concierges. That alone would be enough to dislike him for.   

You scored as Severus Snape. Well you’re a tricky one aren’t you?  Nobody quite has you figured out and you’d probably prefer it stayed that way.  That said you are a formidable force by anyone’s reckoning, but there is certainly more to you than a frosty exterior and a bitter temper. Severus Snape 90% Harry Potter 70% Remus Lupin 70% Albus Dumbledore 70% Ginny Weasley 70% Sirius Black 65% Draco Malfoy 65% Ron Weasley 65% Hermione Granger 60% Lord Voldemort 40% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is…? created with QuizFarm.com

Valentine’s day is almost here. I have an old dried out black rose that has been on my kitchen table for a year. I think I also have some construction paper somewhere in the storage closet. I feel like cutting out a black construction paper heart, packing it up with the crumbling dead rose and sending them to Merle.

Instead I will go pick out a heart and cupid infested red card, write as many sweet little lies as I can stomach on it. Bundle it with a gift I didn’t have time to pick out and send it off.

I’ve secretly think of her as a security blanket. We’ve been together a long time, since teenagers. She’s extroverted, I’m kind of introverted. I say “kind of” because different friends/people would have differing opinions on this.  On one of the rare occasions I went out with a trio of friends last year. One of them asked me why I was being so quiet, the other hadn’t heard me talk that much in her life.

Anyway, Merle pursued me aggressively and it felt more like I caved in than consented. I know it sounds arogant of me but it was even obvious to friends/roomate back then. They jokingly told me to stay strong and not give in when she was calling three times a day. I think I grew to love her while she burned bright and fierce for me right seemingly right away. After three years we went long distance. It was actually good for us. She went to school in Buffalo to get her masters in education, I stayed here in London to convert my Biology degree into Bioinformatics. We had cohabited the previous two years and things were explosive. She wanted more of me and I wanted less of her.

Bought return of the native at the book store. Merle sent me Catch 22. Need something to read at night. Insomnia hit on each day off.

I saw a cardinal today. It looked so vivid against the snowy bushes it was perched on. Even though I’ve been living below the 49th parallel for almost seven years, spotting wildlife with such brilliant colour is still stunning and makes my pupils widen. The same thing happens with blue jays. The animals back home are all pretty drab. Little variation from black, brown and white… Still a full grown moose is pretty impressive and thrilling too. Bleah. This post is going nowhere. I’m dazed and fazed. More than half of my total lecture time for the week is crammed into a Prof-a-rific Thursday. During my two hour break I tune in and funk off to my favorite radio show, Super Groover Thursday. It is funky disco Motown stuff and I love it.

It makes me want to get into a 1976 green Monte Carlo with bad shocks, go pick up my Jamaican buddy Ricky and drive slowly down the main street in a run down, pawn shop inundated neighborhood. And when we go over the train tracks the car shakes and jiggles for five blocks while I drive slowly and lean way back with Barry White or the Bee Gees on the radio. Then we go pick up a big old bright blue couch at a discount used furniture store, strap it to the roof of the old menthol monster and head back the other way with Captain and Tennille or Parliament Funkadelic playing. And this time the car bounces even higher and longer as we cruise back over the tracks. Then we go back to his place and watch the Muppet Show on his new funky old couch. Actually, I want to watch the Muppet show right now. Specifically Pigs in Space. I could go for some Beaker and Swedish Chef action too.

Let’s see, what other random crud can I cram into this masterpiece? I had a caramel cappuccino donut at Tim Horton’s for the first time today (actually two of them with some timbits thrown in) Scrumdiddliumptious. Their best donut of the month since the now legendary chocolate snowflake, retired into the donut hall of fame with other memorable greats such as, glazed walnut and that orange and black Halloween one. What the hell were those called?… I forget but they were delicious.

I’ve been making good on my pledge to drink one glass of wine or a beer every night. There was a verified study that confirmed the health benefits of having a single drink a day. It has to do with oxidation. The practice has been causing me to wake up at 3am and have some pretty spectacular nightmares. Or it could be the stress and turmoil I suppose… February is marmoset month on my monkey calendar. Judging by his expression, I would say he’s worrying about his thesis and getting his degree.

Or maybe where he’s going to live in a few months. Still adorable though.

Last month it was a squirrel monkey who looked like he was just trying to reach an itch.