Not grumpy today, though too much thought about what must be done this week might alter that...But for the present, i have imminent eating of holy cows to look forward to...

Now, i'm in the cafe...not working. I know, it seems like i never leave this place. But it functions as a little community centre, a pub, a gathering place for people i enjoy. If bored, depressed, or lonely, there's a good chance of running into someone to improve the situation...like magic, happy Elves!

I have a really great job.
I was monstrously grumpy this afternoon- exhausted, but unable to sleep, set off by something that always sets me off, but shouldn't.There are some things i've been feeling pretty good about lately, but there's still, apparently, a name, and today, a face, attached to a whole string of memories i can do without, that manages to find one of my deepest wounds, plunge in the jagged, rusty[spoon], and twist. And that brings out my least favourite side of me. Somewhere in my stumbling, simmering stupor I was probably a jerk to a friend-which made me feel guilty, which just made me grumpier. Add that to the lovely experience of rush hour traffic on the first day of snow- and i was in a rollicking good mood by the time i was ready to head off for work. Oh, yeah. rollicking. I was ready to commit some kind of war crime. Or vote for Harper. Or something REALLLY antisocial.

BUT!!!

Somewhere between my genocidal brooding when i bundled up, left the car, and launched out into the bitter wind, and my stroll down a nearly abandoned whyte avenue surrounded by streetlit flakes... the anger seemed to drain out, and it was quiet- just me , and snow, and the patter of it on my coat.and i was just...blank, for a while. and i came, finally into the warm cafe, early, and just sat-sat and thought about nothing at all, just being warm, and slowly coming back to where i was, in a bright cafe, where people are laughing, and pleasant, coffee smelling beverages are being passed around under my nose...
By the time i put on my apron and start pretending to work, i'm back. And though its been, i think, 48 hours since i last slept, i'm feeling ok. I'm actually feeling pretty good. I'm lookin g forward to sitting down and working through my physics, which must mean, in fact, that i am now so tired i am delusional.

Speaking of delusional- this morning when i went into hub mall- i could swear i was seeing things. I'm used to rushing past streams of overly made-up women and the slick boys of the university 'pick me!pick me!' meat market- but this morning everywhere i looked it was mishapen dwarfs, long-faced gouls, cackling hags ( really) like i had stepped into some bizarre alternate dimension of hub-mall, the circus side-show.In reality, its probably just exam-stressed students with bags under their eyes, pale from lack of sunlight, and bad hat-hair because of the cold- but it was surreal- everyone i saw looked ...off, deformed, in some way....
Reflection of how i felt? Or how long ago i had my glasses prescription changed...

Oh, and speaking of earlier grumpiness, now pleasantly dissapated- don't worry. I wasn't mad at any one in particular. Just myself, 'fate', Edmonton drivers, and the forces of gravity, to name a few.

It interesting to me how slight a shift it can take to move from dully exisiting to happy to be alive- just a little check in the mind, a pause, then a reorientation. Moving to where each stillness, each sensation becomes precious, valuable, to be drunk in, savoured- this is life, happening before my eyes- each moment is new, full- it will not happen again- as mundane as sitting in the cafe waiting to close might seem, this is unique life, never to be repeated. True, a similar situation will occur next week, but it will still be something new- a new entry into experience, into memory. The company, again, of a good friend ( albeit a preoccupied one) with whom one has enough understanding as to render small talk and idle chatter unecessary, i am enjoying, just as it is- there are no demands, expectations, dissatisfactions burdening our time together- it is just good human company, the often underated pleasure of being accepted, of simply being liked.
Just appreciating the ambiance of my world... don't mind me.

Slow night at the cafe....i'm not getting much done. Just relaxing in the company of good friends.
warm. Mellow music. The smell of coffee. Strangely peaceful. Lots of things, lately, strike me as strangely peaceful. I've generally been caught up in a warm happiness for the last little while - that strange sensation of feeling good about my life...odd, that.

I should be working...but i've hit of a bit of a deadlock with this paper, and i do need a bit of a break. My paper is a an attack, of sorts,( or more modestly, a questioning) of what the class has mostly been about - which is fine by the prof, i know, but i don't want to make a fool of myself. This just might be the most ambitious thing i've yet attempted to write. I know i can do it, but i keep second guessing my points, and am sorely tempted to wuss out and make the paper a bit safer, aim for an easier target. The appeal, however, of many of the authors we have been reading is in their audaciousness - going after holy cows and such. MMM... cows... that reminds me i haven't eaten yet today....

I am very tired, but today was a good day. Absurdly warm for november, the afternoon lit by that golden slanting sun that i love so much. I feel am waking from a long sleep...

wait!

That's supposed to be spring-

and i can see my shadow- that's not right....

I'd best get back in my little burrow....

Which, in this case was found in the medieval silence of Rutherford, in a little cubicle, shutting out all but a small pile of books.

Sorry- i just enjoyed the irony.

So...i'm in class, and we are talking about blogs. And i'm blogging. Fun, huh? I am, at this moment, the subject of academic analysis- a subject of study. Always knew i'd make it big some day.


More on Tolstoy and related personal reflections later.

I've been asked what i am thinking about- what i care about...

Contrary to appearances, there ARE some things, and we'll aim for intelligible ones, just for you, Chuck... to fend of the 'Spoon of Democles' that hangs forever above the vague and cryptic poster...

I've been thinking about my life, particularily recent, in bemused retrospective. About the comforting unknown of the future. Where i've been. What it might have meant. where i might be going. Who i was. Who i am.

Thinking how much i love quiet. And crisp stars. And leisurely walks under them with two of the people I've grown to love dearly- and a furry third who's growing on me. How so often the only times i seem to remember who i am are like this- alone, under stars, before a vast open space and a gentle tide of moving air...but tonight, i was there, yet people were with me, and it was comforting. And returning, of course, to the inviting yellow windows. To warmth. to home.

Am i starting to be at Home?
That is a strange idea to me.

thinking about Tolstoy. Yeah, really. Last night, waiting for coffee to wear off, i was reading a biographical sketch of Tolstoy- a writer, simply a writer, a teller of stories...but a man of conscience, a man of faith... a man of many acknowledged failings who nevertheless felt a deep duty to improve himself...a man who saw things differently, who did not accept them as they were, who did his best to make things better for as many as he could - a man who inspired no less significant a soul than Ghandi....

well, that was silly. I let myself be goaded into going to a meeting tonight largely because someone i had some interest in was present. This someone turned out to be married, a determination that was not difficult to make, and i found myself oblidged to remain through the proceedings, though i will somewhat sheepishly admit that i lost interest after that. I wound up in a group with a late-night infomercial- style hyper- enthusiast for the night.I felt duly chastised for my selfishly motivated, fake 'volunteerism'. I still feel a desire to get back involved with something resembling the 'ministry' in the sense that hasn't been part of my life for a while. I'm not sure this group is my cup of tea, however, and i think i knew that before i went, and probably would have looked elsewhere, without additional enticements. Again, i feel silly.

I'm not really in that much of a hurry to get back into that sort of thing. I don't want to be anyway...Having a 'distraction' would make me less of a 'pest' about some things, but, risking a cliche, i really need to focus on me right now.

I might try something a bit out of character tonight. At the same time, i'd be moving back in a direction i adandoned quite a bit before. It still doesn't make sense to me, in fact, it makes far less sense than it ever has before - but it still feels like home. well...more on this later. As to the risk? I'll let you know how it works out.

I could never compete with that ghost who eventually took a name and a face. Not even in memory, where i become a ghost like him...Ah, but i was a ghost who stayed, too long, and in the harsh and unforgiving light of day, I lost my magic- i was seen through, and became all too ordinary.

What cannot be grasped will always be sought, always perfect, always intact, unchallenged...beautiful and just out of reach...

The ordinary, that which is available and can be known enough to dissapoint, will never measure up...

But that's ok, because in that impossible image, even if it were true...I still see something i never want to be.

Coffee and Claritin...

Two very useful things for one in my position. I seem to be perpetually poised on the edge of explosive sneezes - and frequently seized by spasmodic snot- expelling seizures.

I slept until nearly 2 in the afternoon. If that sounds absurdly lazy, consider that this last week was that of the triple-all-nighter...i spent the vast majority of three whole days awake. An interesting experience. Not as bad as you might think. I could actually recommend trying it for the perception altering affects it has in its later stages. Probably, as is the case with most perception altering experiences, not particularily healthy, though. For all that, i like being up when the sun comes up, and few 'creatures are stirring'.

following those bleak blogs, regular readers should know i am actually doing quite well. Good things are happenng, and not just my prof graciously granting me a days paper extension ( in light of this computer eating a nearly completed paper at 9pm the night befor eit was due...) no, life is awright, i have to say.

Recent changes are for the better. Relaxed and pressure free is better. Friendship is better. Me being free to find myself on my own terms is better. I feel free-er, and far less conflicted. Positive developments! ( and still cryptic- ah-ha! Try figuring THOSE out, Chuck!)

filling in ( temporarily) for Chuck at Dabar, thinking about Heidegger and art- well, trying to. trying to care about it. Thinking about endings, dreams and plans and futures that do not so much die as wither, fade, dwindle into quiet nothing. Thinking i should feel something. Thinking about regrets ....things done that might have been better not to, things not done that might have made some difference. Wondering whether some deaths, some endings are inevitable and contained, hidden within even their beginnings, or whether different choices could have led to different endings, whether certain choices can ever be undone, certain words unsaid- whether it matters. Whether i should still think about this, should still care. I feel a large part of time and energy for a significant period of my life has been spent on a lost cause, fighting, denying inevitabilty, refusing to accept a 'reality' that i saw clearly long ago, trying to will an impossible situation to be something else, all in the name of not "quitting" not running away, in the name of the lost cause, the faint chance, the unlikely hope... and a sense of duty, that i could still give something, i could still help. That something might be redeemed. But i'm not helping any more- i'm a weight. I have been in this place before - fighting the wrong fight, loyal to the doomed.

I know this is good. Things are stabilizing, returning to 'normal', returning to the way they should be. I have been diffused- i am slowly pulling in what had gone out from me, slowly oozing back into a whole, back into myself, or something like the self i remember, the one i used to know. The rebellion against that stability has completely run out of steam. I am back in familiar territory. That should be good, i think. I'm just trying to remember, now that it seems i may no longer hide from this... did it always feel so empty?

Had a good talk with a good friend last night. I don't know if anything is better, but a good friend is still a good thing- a very good thing, and nothing to take for granted, especially when one feels the shore getting farther and farther away....

I have slept very little, and i had a serious allegy attack on the bus from some lady's perfume - my breathing is just starting to get back to normal. But i'm actually feeling ok, or at least, in a an almost pleasant state of numbness. Hub mall is slowly coming alive, like the strange white glass and plastic village that it is, with shops opening, the sky lightening above the glass, and the quiet trickle of groggy students slowly increasing. I like being here in the morning, in this hazy dullness. It's strangely peaceful. The crowd streams in, mostly without speaking...the air is brewing coffe and a shffling feet, shuffling voices, faint echoing of indistinguishable music. Its warm...outside is biting wind and a few stray flakes, but its warm in here... i could do worse.

I have to find a stapler.

Everything i say sounds like nothing. My words trail off into to nothing the moment they are out of my mouth, or appear on the screen... if there was a truth that motivated them it is lost, and you will almost certainly take them to mean something different than what was originally meant- if i even knew that to begin with...frustrating. I want to write, i want to let you in on who i am, on what goes on inside here, but in can't...every attempt miscarries, every word is empty...

I am not mad. I am not angry at anyone. I am not displeased that my plans have been thwarted, nor do i feel i am not being treated fairly....this would actuallybe something significant, because it seems for a lengthy chunk of time i've been used to being mad, i've identified myself with anger at the world for not being what it should be, for not having any place for me, for saddling me with this misfit nature that cannot be at home anywhere, that cannot be satsfied, that belongs nowhere, that doesn't "fit" anywhere, in any role, that cannot slip into a comfortable pre-destined, well-travelled rut and coast along. That simple acts of relation and communication that seem to be second nature to everyone are alien landscape to me. That i am never myself, but trading in carefully processed surfaces- that i am always hiding. That intent and action seem to be seperated by this vast gulf. That i am never understood, not even by myself... that i do what i am supposed to do,I try to play the game, i take risks, and for a while, it seems as if i am actually living, actually present in my life and experiencing it, not standing back and watching it happen to me, i think i am acting and impacting and participating, and that turns out to be yet again only surfaces, calculated sheilding fictions....That i can get completely lost in something, chasing it for that blurry, uncertain glimpse of it dissapearing around corners, always thinking maybe around the next one, focusing all my dwindling energy on one object, hoping to to see the effect, the change i could cause that would prove i exist, thinking i've finally got some grip that will enable me to move, some friction...only to pass through, again, inconclusive, insubstantial...

actually, i'm clearly still AM angry about those things, which might be good, because acceptance, resignation, defeat...these are far too tempting...anger seems to me preferable to sadness, which seems my dominant state, my norm, to be always accompanied by the dull ache of the loss of that which i've never had...but what should i be angry at? What do i overthrow? What can i overthrow without becoming it?

I'm tired of people. Tired of words. Tired of trying to guess which ones i'm supposed to ignore, tired of them contradicting themselves and rendering each other meaningless. Yet, words,once uttered, even if absolutely retracted or superceded, qualified or denied, are never without effect- even if we say we didn't mean them...even if we mean them at the time but change our minds, even if we hear them as trivial or insignificant, they stay there, dormant, in memory, waiting to strike...We cannot act on them,cannot count on them, for they are never what they appear to be...but we can't avoid counting on them, neither words OR people...I'm tired of the effort involved in figuring them out, in translating - i'm so tired of bad translations, sick of us not getting each other, misconstruing and missing, misleading and being mislead...shoring up each other's delusions.
I'm hate my own words as much, probably far more, than anybody elses. Sometimes they are pried from me like my firstborn children, and i begrudge every one, i hate their imposition on the silence- yet silence is never silence to me- it is always full of words. True, full, absolute silence, stillness- i long for it like death, and probably fear it just as much.
and sometimes, like now, they just pour out of me,unstoppable, the most ludicrous things, the most trite, the vilest, the most unsupportable, unthought, unprocssed nonsense. So often i want to say nothing, or say what i think will pass as an acceptable answer, because to try to say what i want to say...i cannot make sense of it, and i know before it is said that it will be misunderstood-or just ignored, or translated into something that means more or less the same as what my audience expects me to say...

Tired of not writing or speaking because it will either be a disjointed attempt that never gets to its point, or a shallow waste of time- but this is not about wrtiter's block- not at all, in fact...

I keep writing and deleting sentences because i can't decide which version of me to pretend to let you in on.

This is a bloody serious blog.I'm sorry. It might be depressing. I wish it was funny. I'm not.

A few days ago, An old friend and i were talking about our mutual discontent with life. We both knew exactly what we needed to do to pull out of it - we both know and understand the choice, the intentional perspective adjustment involved, ... but for some reason, we weren't doing it. It's a bit of a challenge- i don't want to write her again and still be in the same place.

But my sadness isn't about that. Not the same old tired 'I'm not where i want to be'...not this time. Perhaps i am mourning all the little deaths, all the possibilities that die daily with my choices, all the things i have tried and failed, and need to be let go...

well, I did much better on my "Semiotic Analysis of the Canopy" than i expected. My Prof liked it, said it was very well written. My biggest problem with it was the abruptness of the conclusion, leaving several interesting ideas undeveloped, which makes sense, knowing that i finished it at 10 in the morning, when it was due at 11. He liked the intro a lot, which is good, because that intro took the majority of my writing time. NOT bombing this is a huge releif, because in my sleep deprived state, i wasn't sure if what i was writing made any sense at all. And i've been afraid to reexamine it since. Now that I have the prof's approval, i've been emboldened to go back in there, and really, surprisingly, its not that bad at all. I mean, that's not to say that with a little revision and some less groggy-minded thought, that it couldn't have been a lot better. But i am encouraged. And yes, J, now that i know its not UTTER crap, i think i will post it, at least here. (I'm not sure The Canopy site is appropriate- my prof thinks its quite sympathetic to the church, but i'm not sure it would come off that way to an avid Canopy-booster, and i don't want to hurt anybody.) Because i'm a perfectionist, at least in regards to things with my name on them (vanity!) i may rework the ending before i post it- as if i don't have enough current papers to work on- but, have patience- it will appear in due time.
all half decent semiotic analyses come to those who wait.

my eyes!

My eye is actually much better- which is good. I don't think i could have stood to have it continue the way it was for the first couple of days. I may seem to have a high tolerance for pain of a more emotional nature- at least, i seldom, if certainly not never, notice it anymore- but when it comes to physical discomfort, i'm still a wuss.

I am somewaht melancholy today. I don't want to say depressed, because i don't think i am, but melancholy. Melancholy, i think, can be OK. Just a little sad. It is unrerasonable( and frustrating) to expect to be happy all the time. everybody at the house seems a bit down, which likely comes from a variety of circumstances, the realization that what we are trying to do here really is quite difficult, and does not happen automatically. Maybe that's it. Maybe its theweather- we'd be fools to think it wouldn't affect us. The last of the green is bleeding out of everything, the leaves have lost their fire and have subsided to dead yellow ashes on the ground, the trees are black, burned out skeletons, and the sky remains, for days at a time, opressive, grey, and cold. The land, or what remains of it squeezed in between dirty concrete, is beginnning to hunker down for the winter, and people seem to be doing the same thing. Bundling up, wrapping scarves around their faces, pulling hats down, hunching over to duck biting wind, hurrying from shelter to shelter....

Maybe its me, taking stock of where i am, as a person, who i am, who i wanted to be....have i progressed or regressed? is school progressing towards something, or a distraction, a world to immerse in , another, more socially acceptable, form of escape?

So...right now i'm in more pain than i have been in for a very long time, and i'm not dealing with it very well. My eye infection has returned, a continual, near unbearable burning....you know what its like when you accidentally poke yourself in the eye? Imagine that, only that it doesn't go away. for a second. ever. I tried to go get my eyedrops, but of course, quickly realized i shouldn't be driving, bliknking continually, unable to stand the daylight, unable to keep my left eye open, too painful to shut it...I barely survived long enough to make it to a safe parking spot, and i called for a ride.
LOng story short, i 've got the eyedrops, and while i know that last time they cleared this up quickly, i wish they'd damn well get on with it. I'm only supposed to use them twice a day, and i'm finding it very hard to resist pouring every chemical i've got into this thing in the hopes that SOMETHING will make it stop. Note to various covert orginizations, for their recruting purposes: i would not stand up to torture. I would sell my grandmother ( if i had any left) to make this eye let up for just a minute.. I think i have a cold as well, i'm sniffling, i'm dizzy, my head hurts, i have a million things to do and they all involve intense staring at pages to understand them, andf i can't keep my eyes open without searing pain....i can only write this because i look at the desk while i type....

I guess there ARE things worse than Physics....