Steps to break Procrastination.

(1) Get a coffee. Take it to the task you want to get done and drink it there. Don’t drink it while doing something else.

(2) Take 10 minutes off and meditate. Deep breathing in a comfortable
position, trying to let go of consciosness as well as you can.

(3) Stretching. The neck and choulders for five to ten minutes.

At work. Bored and unmotivated.

There is a library here full of donated books from the residents of the building. I have felt like reading this weekend so I perused the selection for the umpdredth time. The selection isn’t good. Lots of crud. Biographies of people I don’t care about, inappropriate self-help books, old history and travel, disposable eighties fiction, Patricia Cromwell’s catalog. Sometimes I find a rare gem though. I picked up and read Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes out of there. I’ve gone though all the John Grisham stuff. His books remind me of summer blockbusters, entertaining and quick but ultimately hollow. The best I could find tonight was Stephen King’s Rose Madder. bleah. I like his short stories best but I tire of him a little in longer books. I’ll give it a go I suppose.

I discovered you can play chess through MSN messenger today. If anyone wants to play sometime tonight (10pm-5am EST) go online in messenger and send me an email and your hotmail address, I’ll add you as a contact and we can play.

(1) Eat Better

(2) Read great material in silence.

(3) Collect inspiring materials that remind you of who you are and what you need to do. -meditation technique -stretching technique -organization procedures -how to maintain order

(4) Exercise regularly

(5) Keep things clean

(6) Get more acomplished at work, establish a routine where most things are completed in the first half of the shift. How to do this, avoid pitfalls.

Hello. How’s your head?

I’m ok, I only had one drink last night, vodka and blue curacao mixed with some fruit juices. Yummy and over priced.

This last week was the cat’s pajamas. Nothing academic or xangic was attended to. Ten straight days off of work were booked. I lived as an unabashed hedonist and loved it. Now that I return, this page looks a little dark and unfriendly. I associate it with stressful times.

I spent the week with my girlfriend and we slipped back into our familiar roller coaster style relationship. It was mostly wonderful but there was a pretty spectacular taint that started out with an innocent coffee shop discussion and climaxed with me yelling the best profanity and breaking an umbrella on the sidewalk of St. George street. Cold rain is the perfect environment for anger. That was the big lowlight. As expected nothing has changed between us, volatile and unpredictable as ever. Another minor lowlight was that despite all the time I put into making book lists of what I really wanted to read, no one gave me a single one for Christmas.

Highlights included sledding down the largest and steepest slopes on the University in the middle of the night. Bowling with friends and taking last place in every single game. Arcade fun. Paying to see The Incredibles at 4:40pm then sneaking into The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at 6:45pm, later going to eat delicious Prince Albert diner food downtown. (random thought: it is possible to get a prince albert for your zissou)  Trying to come up with a plausible explanation as to why I am receiving a mysterious package from South Korea containing Milhouse and Ralph Wiggum figures (and trying to hide my excitement at receiving it). Getting a chance to finally use my Simpsons chess set a bunch of times. Getting a MINI IPOD from my parents!!! Woohoooo!!!!! Oh baby, I love that gift. I am such a spoiled rotten brat for Christmas. I really have no right to complain about not getting books with the haul I brought in. My gifts were awesome too. If you are exchanging with me you better bring your A game cause even though I may not have a lot of money I’m not going to give crap. I suppose breaking my four month abstinence streak was a highlight too… actually the time after that one was more of a highlight. And Napoleon Dynamite’s dance skit. Haha. On the DVD commentary they said he freestyled it. LOL!!!

sidenote: I claimed the Ms.Pacman high score at Ace Arcade yesterday on my first and only game. I am a pacman child prodigy. I was given an Atari 2600 and the game as a wee child. My pac skillz are unrivaled in all the land. Did you know that those ghosts all have separate little brains and different strategies for catching you? I’m a Bubble Bobble gangsta too. There’s no school like the old school. I get the urge to throttle those Dance Dance Revolution geeks who have memorized the fastest songs and stomp away like they’re wild rhinos on fire.

sidenote #2: I loved the Life Aquatic. Disregard the negative critics. It is worth it just to see Willem Dafoe’s Klaus character alone. Bill Murray’s a little hit and miss in it, still good though. Napolean Dynamite was funny too. Offbeat. My girlfriend hated it. I like to associate people with styles of movies so I can say “That’s an Evan movie” for something like American Pie (Evan’s a friend) or “That’s a Merle movie.” for something like Chocolat. I wouldn’t object if someone said The Life Aquatic and Napoleon Dynamite are my type of movies.

sidenote #3: On my first shift back I received a phone call from a terrified babysitter at 1:30am from the top floor of the manor house (I work at a condo complex that has a main building and an old Victorian manor house split into three condos). She wanted to know if there was anyone above them because it sounded like there were footprints on the ceiling or movement coming from inside the walls. I assured her it was just a squirrel that ventured in through the eaves. I know better though. It never stops at that place.

sidenote #4: Did anyone miss me?

I think I’m taking a break from Xanga for a while. Here is a great short story that I loved. Have a happy holiday season everyone. See you in 2005! 

2025 me here: Link doesn’t work. Shocking that a GeoCities link doesn’t work anymore right? I had a GeoCities page before Xanga. I posted mid-nineties teenage things. I wish I still had that page and writing archived too.

Cold apartment. Cold hands and feet. Warm coffee. My little boycott is over. I needed something warm. I should stop listening to slow music it is making me all melancholy. Sometimes I can’t tolerate indie music. The six 2005 albums I have grabbed are all introspective slow songs. Styles I really enjoy but I need variety. I just put AlexisOnFire on. Much more agreeable right now.

I haven’t been too happy lately, last night especially. Sometimes I wish I was a more expressive writer. I had insomnia and felt like writing about it but couldn’t get it out. It isn’t good to be alone during the holidays (my gf is coming but this brings with it a whole different set of complications). I wonder if caffeine withdrawal increases risk of depression. There is a psych Masters thesis for someone. The crux of my unhappiness was the realization that I’m going to have to compromise on my lofty goals and dreams. It’s clear that grad school is going to be out of reach for a while and unfortunately in the bioinformatics field there aren’t too many opportunities for someone with a bachelor’s degree. I’m twenty-five and feel like I’m being left in the dust by all my peers. My friends from first year are in the Bahamas, Europe, South America all starting out on promising careers. I’m stuck here, in a situation where I’ve bit off more than I can comfortably chew once again, struggling to get by. I need to learn to set the bar lower so I can feel good exceeding it. I still haven’t found anything I have a passion for. Last week I was asked, “So what are you going to do with your life?” If you want to mess with someone, ask them this question. If they’re anything like me, it catches up to them eventually.

One coffee really turned my mood around. I now feel like an unconquerable monster. (ridiculous isn’t it?)

Mall shopping. Not done but I dented the list, not panicking anymore just tired. With some luck I can wrap most of it up tomorrow. I felt so bewildered in a lot of the stores. It must have showed too because I usually attracted may-I-help-you people within seconds of entering, which wasn’t the worst thing because I was pretty lost. My most unique gift was probably leg warmers from campus crew. Everything else was pretty standard. Socks, chocolate covered blueberries, white sweatpants from roots, a pink western sweater, some yummy candy sticks, bug, stars and frog stickers. Bows and wrapping paper. I’ll visit Chapters and a comic book store tomorrow. I want to buy one of these head massagers too but can’t find one. I got a ton of Christmas cards too so if anyone wants one email me your address and you’ll get it sometime in January.

When I was at bulk barn (one of those bulk food bin places) I wanted to get some chocolate marshmallow wafer things so bad. Sooo bad. I resisted and just replaced my coffee supply. Just smelling the delicious hazelnut cream aroma from grinding the beans made my mouth water and triggered an instant withdrawal headache that I still have. The boycott is still strong though. Tomorrow morning will be tempting with my fresh supply in hand. Maybe I’ll just try smelling it.

Seems like all my subscriptions have been talking about dreams lately. I had a bizarre one last night. Involving little tiny monsters that looked a lot like pale flesh coloured wrinkly iszes. Little two-foot monsters that are all mouth and tiny little arms. The setting shifted and blended in typical dream like fashion to the various places that have been active in my consciousness; Workplace, campus buildings and tunnels, apartment and hometown. They kept biting into things and people effortlessly. Cleaving through anything. I was indifferent and horrified at the same time.  There was more to it but that’s all I remember. Iszes eating stuff.

PS: I could still use gift Ideas 

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”