I no longer have PT and was kicked out of the skeleton farm today. (They stole a bone.)

edit, 2025 me: there was an image here, I really want to remember what it was.

I have a horrible headache. And her name is Merle.

I’m at work right now and I actually do have a headache. That was just an irresistible follow up sentence. Anyway, it’s now my spring break, or reading week if you prefer, and the big Armageddon fight that I was anticipating with Merle has come to pass. The crux of it was that she wanted to come visit for slack week and I didn’t want her to. There has been no resolution since the fight, no communication between us, no clue if she is even coming. If she was going to leave it would have been this morning on a greyhound bus, arriving here in London in just a little while ago. So I have a little mystery to discover in five or so hours at seven am. Will Goldilocks be in my bed? Papa Bear’s not going to be too pleased if she is. (yes she has keys to my place) If she isn’t there I would take it as a really constructive action. It would be a sign to me that she has been actually listening when I tell her I’m really worried about finishing my thesis and getting my degree, how I need the time off this week to put together a solid chunk of work. How I really need her to be understanding right now. I expect her to be there though. Her world is the only world. Merle has vacation and she’ll expect me to drop everything and spend the whole time with her. If I draw a hard line and resist, we’ll fight. She’ll cry, and I’ll melt and cave. I really don’t know though. I have no clue where we’re at. Chaos is my reality. March is looking primed to be a fun month. And by fun I mean excruciatingly painful.

Ohhhh oww ow ow. My head is killing me. The Advil does nothing! Something positive, I actually wrote part of my thesis today. 650 words. Not much, but a good, solid two-page double spaced introduction on which I can build. I would still be working on it if my head didn’t keep exploding. I cleaned my whole apartment today too. Head to toe. Dishes, dusting, sweeping, mopping, tub and toilet scrubbing, Xmas decoration taking downing. All kinds of good stuff, I did it to early 1970s funk too. I wonder if Mr. Clean has anything to do with this migraine. Ahhhh it hurts. I had more to write but I quit. I’m going to lie down in the darkness and moan.

Chicken little is back and he’s mellowed. My situation isn’t much better, my mood just naturally shifted. I was able to channel some of that nervous energy positively before coming down. I also did buy all those power bars and that case of Red Bull (which is surprisingly tasty, like cherry kool-aid.) As always, I found some solace in music. The Life Aquatic soundtrack is very calming. The new Stereophonics album is well done too. I give it a gold star of goodness. The one thing I haven’t cut back on has been exercising since I think it actually helps my energy level. I use the cardio room on campus where you have to reserve cross-trainers for use in thirty minute blocks. Everyone (except me) always cheats on the reservation sign-up sheets. Last time I went, “Bjorn” had reserved one thirty minute block, left a ten minute space and then re-reserved the same machine for another 30 minutes. There were no other time slots so I signed up for the open ten minutes and then wrote my name darkly overtop the first twenty minutes of Bjorn’s second block. So on the schedule sheet for cross-trainer #7 it was Bjorn for thirty minutes, then me for ten minutes, and then for twenty more minutes
Me darkly superimposed over Bjorn. So Bjorn was currently on his first time block on the machine, pumping away furiously. I got on an exercise bike to warm up and eye him until his time was up. Bjorn’s time ended and he got off and I took over (after I wiped his Nordic cooties off). The cardio room is mirrored all around so I was able to watch Bjorn go check the reservation clipboard and quickly swing his head around to me with an angry expression. Ha ha, that’s right, I overwrote you!

Obviously his plan had been to monopolize it for a whole hour. No one ever signs up for just a ten minute block. I could tell he was fuming. He got onto an exercise bike and kept looking over at me with a sour grapes face (I pretended not to notice). So my first ten minutes ended and if there was going to be a confrontation, it would be then. Bjorn got off of his bike and started to approach. I wanted to look as intimidating as possible so I put on what I hoped was a nasty, frightening scowl. I was listening to 1980 music. “Pat Benatar – Heartbreaker” was playing on Luna, something with at least a little edge. It would have been difficult to muster a good scowl if “Abba – Super Trouper” or “Lipps Inc – Funkytown” was playing. Anyway, Bjorn got close, looked right at me and….dropped his eyes and walked right by! Yeah!!! Woohoo! Triumph! Score one for the mean face. I wonder if that made any sense.

I don’t like the term quarter-life crisis. I think it’s too cute for the turmoil I’m going through. I’m experiencing pressure from too many different sources. I’ve been flirting with the idea of quitting my job. Forty hours a week in addition to full-time student commitments is an obstacle. It is during nights too. I am always run so ragged. I am meeting the most minimal of obligations right now. I don’t know if I will get my honors degree. My parents would still be proud if it was just a general BSc. but I would feel ashamed. So today, in my zombie like state I was thinking about which movie characters best represented certain people in my life. For Merle I settled on a cross between Butch’s girlfriend in Pulp Fiction (who ponders her pot belly) and Glen Close’s Fatal Attraction character.

For myself I had a hard time. It is difficult to pin down my personality. I consider myself an introvert, however if you posed this question to a few people who knew me they would laugh and disagree. Growing up, I didn’t have anything that really defined me but I floated between many worlds. I played hockey and soccer in organized leagues; football, golf and skiing for fun. I camped, rode my dirt bike and did lots of fishing. At the same I played tons of Role playing video games, was a precocious and frequent reader, did well scholastically and hung out with some pretty “nerdy” kids. In high school it was more of the same, seemingly half of the time I would sit with the dorkiest clique and talk about Universities, software programs, school marks, scholarships, anime, comic books, science fiction, rpg’s etc. Then the other half of the time I would sit at the other table and it was always girls, sports, music and snowmobiles. I was always the quiet guy at either table, contributing now and then, just happy to be around and included. I didn’t hate high school, I don’t look back with any nostalgia though either. I skipped a ton of class. I’m still proud that I was able to do that and make high marks.

In University it was more of the same I suppose. I played less sports, had a social awakening and marks that oscillated year to year from excellent to really barely hanging on. My transcript is hilarious. I have years with failures and prevailing mediocrity back to back with years filled with eighties and nineties. Coming off two of my excellent Dean’s list years, I returned home to work in a paper mill on a rewinding machine with guys who didn’t have their grade eight education. I received a different kind of education there. One of the guys was so perverted, weird and sexually… aberrant. Still I worked hard and got along great with everyone there and it was a lot of fun.

Even now at my job as a concierge, I feel like an odd gateway between two classes of society. The residents see an up and coming young man, studying exciting topics and seemingly full of optimism and drive. I often have long conversations with professors and big cheese investment guys. I sometimes chat with an MPP and the publisher of the National Post too. At night, I also talk with the guys who deliver the papers, the cab drivers and tradesmen and delivery people. They see just another schmoe working the nightshift for peanuts. I feel at home in both worlds. Duality seems to be the ongoing theme of my life.

My marks were so hideously bad in my first year of University I only had one viable choice for major, Biology. So I took it. In what was supposed to be my final year of undergraduate, I realized, “I don’t like this. I want to do something else.” So, I evaluated my options and asked myself what I would prefer and I thought maybe programming was it. Something that should be a big future industry with much opportunity. And now here I am again, three years later repeating to myself, “I don’t like this. I want to do something else.” The point being that I don’t know what the hell I want to do with my life. What I would really enjoy. What I would have passion for. Seven years of undergraduate allowed me to sample widely from many disciplines. Philosophy, psychology (child and abnormal were fun), history, english and of course all the sciences that made up my major focus. So I am not a science student that is ignorant of the arts and social theory. I don’t devalue these disciplines, a tendency I occasionally notice in my peers. Objectively, I would have to say I enjoyed history the most. Too bad I didn’t discover that until my fifth year.
I guess here is where I should tie it up with a profound statement of how there is no place for a non-specialist. How I need to find a specific talent and latch onto it instead of the drifting search I am perpetually afloat in.

Oh yeah.. I settled on John Cusak in High Fidelity as the closest match to me. I identify with him, maybe that’s why it’s one of my favorite movies. I know I didn’t justify this, I didn’t even talk about my character, mostly just social roles. Oh well. Right now, I feel like watching Drugstore Cowboy. Actually I feel like living Drugstore Cowboy.

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.