In the Unlikely Event

On Blasphemy

2009-07-11T12:22:00.000-07:00

Which do you suppose is more genuinely offensive to God - an unbeliever who, in a moment of pain, anger, or frustration unthinkingly uses an English word, also used to designate God, as a curse, or professed believers who routinely speak of the ways and purposes of God with such matter-of-fact certainty that one would think they "own" Him the way the mob "owns" a Judge, like a lab rat sliced open and pinned down under their microscope, all His secrets revealed?

2009-06-25T17:06:00.000-07:00

I know it's not very respectful and all, but despite my best efforts, I can't help wondering if, on discovering him on the floor, anyone happened to ask " Micheal are you OK? Are you OK? Are you OK? Micheal?"

2008-12-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

Time marches on, always, annoyingly, in the same direction. Winter is finally setting up camp, settling in for its months-long occupation. It seems unjust to complain - until this week things have been quite unseasonably gorgeous, for far longer than folks in this part of the world have any right to expect. Over a month ago, I recall, I was sitting in a Starbucks staring out over a parking lot, watching a dark, swirling spider-cloud loom over the city, dangling cold tentacles, lashing the afternoon shoppers with snow . I had just come back from the sun-drenched red-and-gold fall splendor of the east, and it felt, then, that I was already watching winter's armoured columns rolling in. It had been a good, long summer, but with a familiar, resigned sadness, we would have to hunker down, pull up our collars, and accept that it was over.

Its not so much winter, but the drab pre-winter that bugs me, like the drab post-winter that follows it - The time after the last sun-golden leaves have fluttered to the ground, the grass is dead, and nature starts to almost blend in with the concrete - before it all gets refinished in icy, sparkling white.

Now that it is truly here, I remember that winter has its beauty - A stark, sad beauty- one that mourns the loss of long, warm summer days and the fleeting colours of fall, a beauty that waits, filled with a quiet yearning for the renewed glories of spring.

Ghosts

2008-10-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

I am in Kitchener for a DTS reunion. The “official” gatherings seem to be on the weekend, but in the meantime I have found a few faces from the past to revisit, and, thanks to my hostess’ acute sensibility to nostalgia, the reminiscing has begun. It’s strange. I feel detached from all this. I recognize familiar objects and faces, but…little remains of the base itself, in its place a slick, soulless condo development, the architectural equivalent of a smoking crater. The basic shape of the streets feels…familiar. The landscape is utterly transformed, yet it doesn’t feel like more than a decade since I was here. When I identify some old haunt, it seems perfectly ordinary, like the streets I walk everyday. People, too, have acquired lines on their faces, wives, husbands, babies, families. Yet, in some ways, it could seem like no time at all has passed. We are right back there, talking about the people, the place, that strange territory in time, space, and life that we mutually occupied thirteen years ago. In other ways, that once incredibly significant time seems perfectly unreal to me, as if unconnected, as if I am visiting places I’ve read about, meeting characters from a book. I suppose I must have mythologized these people, to some extent, yet so far, there have been few surprises. Few glaring discrepancies between the person in my memory and person as they now exist. The Characters are playing out their story arcs, and I recognize them instantly. And though I think I look different, and I FEEL very, very different, but they all recognize me. Thirteen years ago, at more or less this time of year, I was a gangly Nineteen-year old hopping off a bus in my thrift store leather jacket , lugging a battered guitar I couldn’t play. It’s funny. People keep bringing up their memories of those tumultuous months, and I remember it when they bring it up, but it still feels like all those things were experienced by someone else. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I was THERE. That skinny blond kid in the pictures is me.

I couldn’t see here from there, I couldn’t imagine it. But I can look back and see there from here, albeit at some distance. It’s an interesting view.

I step into my past, and I step into, literally, a different Identity. A different name. People here call me J.T. It was, initially, simply a device to differentiate me from another Jeremy, but it may have become a way for me to differentiate myself from the Jeremy I left behind in Edmonton, the one I tried to slip back into years later, but was unable to find. I picked up the name again, but the person, by that time, was long gone. And, in these parts, his initials seem to be the way he was remembered.

I have a bit of time here. I wander, taking pictures of ancient, mossy trees, old stone, and weathered brick. I remember why I love the east. Everything is older here. And, as I have long known, a thing usually needs a bit of history to have much character….

2008-07-09T14:35:00.000-07:00

From July 1, 2008

Today Canada turns 140- something. Or so it says. I'm pretty sure its been calling itself 139 for years...but anyway. A couple days ago, my Father turned 70. Tomorrow, my brother turns 35. We are all getting older, me, us, our young nation, this ancient land, this vast, silent land that took our ancestors and gave them its loneliness.

I drove, yesterday. Sometimes Porthos just needs to run, and his owner with him. Just picked a direction and went, drove until I found a road that looked interesting, and followed it until I found a good place to stop. As it happened, I wound up driving into a storm. It sat there for hours, perched on the horizon like a hunting beast, the rest of the cloudless blue sky drenched in light, while I hurtled towards it in my little car. Eventually we begin to catch up to it, and that dark patch slowly swallows the sky, and the blazing summer afternoon becomes an odd-coloured twilight. I find a lake and stand on it. The little beach is deserted, sandcastles left half-made, pock-marked from the passing rain. Thunder rumbles intermittently in the distance, flickering through patches of cloud. Nervous ducks float on the lake, a gently rippling image of the half-lit sky.

I did this, turned the phone off and ran, because I had a sudden compelling need to be away from people, as I frequently do. On this empty lake in a mostly empty land...it all feels strangely unnecessary.

A wee bit of affirmation...

2008-06-28T10:10:00.000-07:00

Considering the preceding ambivalence about the quality of my performance ...while affecting the audience is what is all about, really, it doesn't hurt when members of the audience go away and write their praise in public places, either.

"Trevor Schmidt’s Mockingbird Close, however, is the tightly written, well-explored highlight of both evenings. Like a Grimm fairy tale set in middle-class suburbia, it spins a dark, poetic tale of Iris and Hank’s routine suburban life gone horribly awry after their child disappears. Performers Jeremy Thomson and Tiana Leonty nail their multiple-personality performances, switching from creepy neighbour to lonely, horny neighbour and back. Schmidt has an uncanny knack for giving each brief little character snippet unexpected depth, too, making every encounter much more gripping. It’s the best show in the two night collection, and one of the most gripping one acts I’ve ever seen. "

PAUL BLINOV - Vue Weekly

There you have it. I'm going to stop talking about how much I suck now. The actor serves the story, after all, and if the story works...

2008-06-21T17:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure how long I was There. Sucked into the story. Carried away. Caring about characters who are unknown to me, who don't even exist, who are inventions of the author's odd mind. Characters in circumstances that, I'm pretty sure, aren't even remotely possible, made to feel real, or at least feel real to me. This, a good story can do - transport its reader to another place, suspend time, put you in another world for a while, living other people's lives, seeing what they see and feeling what they feel...

Theatre, too, can do this. Last night a woman claimed it happened to her, watching our play, the one I'm in. She felt she was in the story, lost in it, carried away...

If so, then we're doing something right.

I wonder how many times I'll have to hear it before I start to believe it...

Theatrical Illusion

2008-06-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

My play opens tonight. Well, not MY play, as in, I didn't write it. But I'm in it. On stage, for a straight hour, sink or swim, just me, the script, my wits, my instincts and an audience, waiting to be impressed. Four months of hard work, four months of learning things I thought I already knew, four humbling months that have brought me perilously close to dragging a thick, black magic marker through "Acting" on the dwindling list of "Things Jeremy likes to think he has some skill at"...

I don't know. A couple of friends turned up, unexpectedly, at the free preview Tuesday night. They had nothing but glowing praise, and I can't deny that it felt good, after four months of our director not even bothering to TRY to hide his exasperation with my failure to deliver the performance he wanted. Hearing that at least SOMEBODY doesn't think I suck does do a bit to fan my flickering embers of enthusiasm for this project.

The City in Rain

2008-06-08T21:37:00.000-07:00

Sam used to say that a city felt more like a city when it was raining. Of course, Sam was from London, so he would say that. But I know what he meant. Streetlights reflecting in wet pavement, the sound of passing cars a rhythmic hiss of water. And nearly every time I am in a city, and it is raining, I still think of Sam, and him saying that. Odd things, the triggers to our memories.

I remember there was a time when I had a "Sam" story for everything. So much so, in fact, that some friends, subjected to more than a few of these, began to question whether this person had ever truly existed, or was just a creative invention of mine, a character developed to inhabit stories too preposterous to pass as my own experiences, too colourful, even, to be assigned to someone as bland as another Canadian. It is true that the details of Sam's story, as I learned it from him, were more than just a little bit incredible. Even that which failed to stray into the rare or miraculous would raise eyebrows simply by suggesting that one person could have been and done and experienced so many things in such a short life. It had, of course, all happened in distant England, making it rather difficult for any of us to confirm, and I can't say, myself, that I have never nursed the suspicion that this little hobbit-like Irishman was having us all on, telling his earnest tales with an inner smirk, having a secret laugh at the expense of credulous Canadians, like me telling kids in North Carolina that I did, in fact, live in an Igloo...

But Sam's history remained remarkably consistent throughout its many tellings, and bits of it did sometimes return to invade our shared present, like the call that came to the base from English Doctors, wondering when he would be back in England, still wanting to do tests, still searching for an explanation for what had happened to him, still looking for any explanation other than the one they simply could not accept, the one that was dark to them, the one they would have to admit was utterly beyond their reach - scientists devoted to UNDERSTANDING things faced with something that could not be understood.

At least, I liked that idea, and I still do, so I wanted to believe it.

I did meet his Hobbit parents, on several occasions, and they certainly had their opportunities to laugh and say " Oh, my! What has he been telling you?" and my friend displayed none of the awkwardness one might expect from someone in the presence of those with the power to scuttle carefully constructed myths. Sam, a creative person, was indeed susceptible to "exuberant embellishment" and I don't at all doubt that some of his adventures were coloured by it. But the most extraordinary aspects of the story would be pretty ballsy invention, if invention they were.
His parents could confirm he had, in fact, been in a certain state, and we could all clearly see that this was no longer the case.

At any rate, I relayed the stories as received. I suspect that the best of the Sam Stories are real, and the fact that they lie completely outside my own experience is not, to me, sufficient reason to change that suspicion. Of necessity, a great many things must fall outside of any one person's experience. "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio..."

But such things remain mysteries to me. They are not pillars of my belief. My belief rests on things much closer to home, things both more mundane, and, to me, far more miraculous.

Things like the laughter of children and a city in rain.

The existence of evil, suffering, and despair does not seem to me to argue against God. My formative years did not condition me to expect much else. It is, rather, the existence of any goodness at all, subtle as its outbreaks might be, that argues, achingly, FOR Him.

2008-06-01T00:48:00.001-07:00

A pause to reflect on what could yet be saved, what might yet be revived, what is lost forever, and what never was to begin with.

In no particular order...

2008-05-07T00:34:00.000-07:00

Earlier that day, I got my car stuck. Somewhat foolishly, without thought, I attempted a three point turn on a snowy country road that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. The deep snow adequately disguised where flat road ended and ditch began, and, in an instant, I realize one rear wheel hangs off the edge, resting in nothing but snow. The front wheels spin uselessly on an undercoat of ice, powerless to bring even this one wheel over that small hurdle and back onto the road. I turn my wheels. I rock the car from forward to reverse and back. I try a little gas. I try too much, spraying plumes of snow and mud high above my windows. I have done this before. I know the car will not move, except to fall further backwards into the meter-deep snow of the ditch, where it will beyond all hope of recovery, save with a 4x4 truck and a winch. I am in the middle of nowhere. That precious cell-phone, friend of stranded motorists, shows no bars. I am a very long walk from any known outposts of civilization. Even so, it is warm. The sun is bright. It is midday. I am in little real danger. But I have no intention of spending my day in this fashion. I am not leaving my car here. I simply do not accept the situation. This lack of acceptance is not gracefully expressed. Curses are uttered. In multiples. At high Volumes. There is no one to shock and offend but the trees. The honor and intrinsic worth of my automobile are called into question in most impolite terms. I open my door and push. The car is small. I can rock it substantially without the assistance of the engine. Surely, it only needs just a little bit more…I am in the ditch, snow up to my waist, sharp metal cutting my hands, trying, as if it were possible, to lift the offending wheel back into the road. I am back on the road, viciously attacking snow with a flimsy plastic shovel. I am cut, drips of blood staining my pants. I am covered in mud. I am heedless. I try many things. I have sharp bundles of metal “wool”, shred from the lathes at work, in the back of my car (for my own reasons). I reason these ought to provide traction- but the wheels fling them, without hesitation, into the ditch. I also have, (for my own reasons) a heavy, flat chunk of rough, rusted steel. Eventually, it dawns on me to try jamming this down in front of one wheel, and sure enough, with a mighty (engine) roar and a high plume of snow, the wheel lurches forward over the piece of steel and pulls its rear fellow back onto solid ground. Wheels spinning, the little car fishtails back and forth in the wet snow till it falls into the relative safety of ruts worn by the last foolish visitors to pass this way. Panting, bloody, mud spattered, hoarse from shouted obscenities, flushed from defiant fury, but triumphant, I get out and walk back down the road to retrieve the faithful chunk of steel and the shovel hurled away for in the heat of my rage.

I stand on the lake. I watch the storm come towards me. I see the ominous cloud building, slowly obliterating the sun, moving across the lake like a fat, lumbering beast. I see its dangling, wispy tentacles and know they bring wind and stinging snow. I do not move. I do not run back for the warmth of the fireplace and the hostel, I do not run for the car to make good my escape before this monster arrives. I stand there, on the lake, wind chilling my ears and my bald head, snow whipping past, waiting for it…waiting …daring it to move me.

And here I am, watching squirrels chase each other, atop the shining, crusted snow, through the silent trees, beneath the afternoon sun…

At the eleventh hour, in the morning, I come out to you, walking on the lake. I begin to be afraid, I start to sink, I reach out to you…

you smile and say “Why did you doubt? Next time, use the snowshoes…”

2008-02-21T19:26:00.000-08:00

I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.

Macbeth. ACT I Scene 7.

Also quoted, in Hugo Weaving's mellifluous voice, in V for Vendetta.

Oddly enough, I heard it from both sources within one weekend. It remains stuck in my head.
It comes off better from V, because, of course, very shortly after spouting this bold declaration of manly restraint, our man Macbeth dares all sorts of things that most likely do not become a man.

Sigh.

I'm sure nobody would ever do the WRONG thing if doing the right thing seemed like it would be as much fun.

2008-02-20T22:32:00.000-08:00

Rust. I am covered in rust. Fine, red dust like ancient sun-baked earth, the dust we come from and to which this steel will eventually return, and with it, one supposes, the cities it built.

I stand facing my slice of Prairie, its shadowed skin of snow, flecked with wispy hair of dry grass, stretching away from the fence to the setting sun. The illusion of open space. The illusion of freedom.

Back in the yard, more un-cut pipe beckons, lying cradled in severed, rusty bands reaching skyward like the decaying ribs of some great, dead beast....

Filler

2008-01-10T22:15:00.000-08:00

All this overtime will eventually result in a handsome paycheck, but, in the meantime, doesn't leave me a lot at the end of a day for things like blogging. But I have found time to begin magically converting my old travel pics into shiny digital. A few of these, for lack of anything better to do, have found their way to a curious site going by the name The Mad Nomad, which , by happy coincidence, seems to be linked to this one (under Photos). For those whose very purpose in life hangs on my regular updates - first...get help. Seriously, you need it. But if you really need to see something new from me...I personally think some of these are kinda cool, and I'm throwing more up every few days...so, as the two of you wait in eager anticipation for my next profound discourse, check it out. Or not. Really, its still kind of a free country....

My chariot awaits...

2008-01-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

He shall be a faithful steed, and bear me fearlessly into all sorts of mayhem. I think I shall call him "Porthos". (I don't know why,but while ships may be girls, cars are always male, to me. Figure that out.)

2008-01-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

I grumble because of what I do not have. But, just possibly, I do not have because I do not ask. And when I ask, I ask amiss.
......

Thank you. You are, incredibly, still there. You do not hide. Perhaps you are done hiding, or perhaps, you have taught me better ways to look. You wait for me to come around, to come home. You are patient. You can afford to be. You know I can’t write without you. I am only honest, I am only myself, I am only at home with you, and I can only write from home. Everything I attempt from that split self trails off in a realization of its own redundancy, knowing that no matter how I smash the words together, I can’t make them say anything. You know who I am, and I know who I am only when I stand in that one spot, the familiar one, where I see things in their places, and you in the one that is naturally yours – filling all of it, expanding, frighteningly fast, beyond the edges of visible space...that direction I can face, only for a second, and must look away. You know I have seen too much. I have known you, my God, and you know I will never be content, not now, not with anything else. Not with anything less. You can be patient. You know I’ll come back. I scream and rage, I tire myself out…and your answer comes quietly. You move silently, in the night…and I wake to find my monsters slain. I thank you. After storm, whirlwind, fire, thunder and shattered rock...I hear that whisper, faint beneath thought, stronger than the certainty of death - Yet I hear it. I crawl out of my cave, and, again, I find you. I hear you. You speak.

2008-01-01T21:48:00.000-08:00

This is a good day. “ Behold, I make all things new…” Today, at least, I believe it…

Waking in one household, and stopping , briefly, at another – strikingly illustrates for me the different places one can live their life from. In one house for no more than 5 minutes, and those are filled with bitterness, curses, anger and complaints. In the other, the sort of chaos only children can produce…but it is chaos with laughter, and though I must leave in a hurry, I leave with an odd feeling rising inside…something perilously close to Joy. Peace. All may not be right in the world, but, at least in this little world…all is pretty darn close. And I, a guest only, am warmed by being here, and carry that with me. The five minute tirade at my other stop is a jarring contrast, like finding broken beer bottles and fast food garbage in a sunlit mountain meadow. An icy blast of winter wind in a warm and happy room. But not enough to smother this. Not today.

2007-12-30T19:45:00.000-08:00

The restaurant is full and noisy in the middle of the afternoon. People come alive with a few days celebration and escape from the daily necessity of work. Outside, the sun is a crisp circle, so perfect as to be unreal, a finely drawn dot of brighter white against a dull white sky. Snowflakes drift with gleeful disregard for gravity. Outside, beyond the poinsettia and the spider plant in the window, a blind man, complete with shades and a cane, gets out of a car, followed by a pretty wife and young son. Someone for everyone. Hope.

The end of a year. Our dates may be more or less arbitrary, but, at least in these parts, it’s a fitting time for it, the days having just reached their shortest, the darkest part of the year – the light only grows from here on in.

They’re just numbers on a calendar, its true. Maybe “Nothing Changes on New Years Day…” Maybe. But one can always hope.

As I told a friend a few nights ago, If you know you can’t go back and you can’t stay here...You have to move. You have to find a way to move forward. You fight and kick and bite and bash yourself against it again and again, a fly on a window, praying the cold, merciless bastard will eventually crack.

The problem with that, of course, is that said fly nearly always ends up legs-up on the windowsill. Admirable tenacity, perhaps, but the end result is the same.

Ok. So that was needlessly grim. Sometimes he gets splattered with a rolled up future-shop flyer first. Either way, I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I am gainfully employed. Affordably housed. I am finally in the process of buying my first fossil fuel powered vehicle (My penance to the North American consumer god for having convinced my family to give to charity this Christmas). I have a cat, at least, who loves me. And while we’re keeping this quiet for the time being, I may actually have figured out (or finally caved in to) what I want to be when I grow up. (This means, of course, I might have to get on with, well, growing up. Inconvenient, that)
I even have, wonder of wonders, the first feeble hints of a plan.
Progress indeed.

I have no idea how we’re going to pull it off.

2007-12-21T18:11:00.000-08:00

Because, sometimes, the most interesting things happen when your eyes are closed...

...I really don't know what this says about me, but THIS, quite seriously, is often what my nights are like.

Dream from October 10, 2007

I am on some kind of large, ocean going ship, originally military in function. It has been a long time since it has seen service, however, it is permanently docked in a big city harbor, with all kinds of decking and shops and such built up against it, strings of lights hung from it to the shore, the whole touristy dock/marina thing. There happens to be a huge party on board at the moment, tons of drunk, happy people, balloons, streamers, people in tuxes and evening gowns, etc. Feels like new years. It seems most of the party goers are spending the night on the ship. Early the next morning, the engines start up, suddenly, and in minutes, the ship starts moving and pulls away from the dock, destroying all the built-up decking with great commotion, and heads out of the bay onto a river. Myself, and many others, wake up to this – but it is too late to disembark. It is a military ship again, apparently, with a commander, and officers in uniform, and a contingent of soldiers moving about the halls. It seems the civilians on board are pressed into crew jobs. Later, somewhere down this extraordinarily deep, wide river, the ship pulls over to the shore, and a bunch of civilians, with a few troops, go ashore to “gather supplies” Its just a big, grassy hill – there is no port here.
On the ship, we can see something huge approaching, fast, UNDER the surface of the river. It is some kind of submarine, but, it seems, one constructed entirely of green, leafy underwater plants. Smaller craft accompany it, and we can see their riders – who can only be described as “Algae people” – they are also green and leafy. The huge ship, with all its escorts, passes rapidly underneath our moored boat, and continues down the river. There is a feeling of relief, because they have passed us without any appearance of hostile intent. However, moments after their passing, a small, green, vine-y missile hurtles back from that direction. It strikes the shore, and, rather than exploding, grows instantly into a giant, killer tree with long vine arms that begins attacking the people on the shore.

I am immediately in another part of the ship – either a tower of some sort that rises very high above the deck, or the ship has the capacity for flight and has taken off, because I am in a narrow, metal, windowed hallway (Rather like the inside of a bus) and it is high in the air and wind is rushing past. There is metal emergency door/airlock at the far end, and a small red robot has punched its way through, and is bending back the metal, attempting to get inside. This is where the rushing wind is coming from. I attempt to block its path, and struggle with it. I find some heavy object, like a fire-extinguisher, and bash the thing repeatedly until it falls out the opening and disappears, sucked away by the wind. I am braced in the opening to avoid being sucked out myself. I look to one side and see a large, powerful-looking shotgun mounted on the wall next to the door, above a sign reading “In case of emergency”. I think that would have been useful a minute ago, but I leave it where it is and head back into the ship.

Dream from a week before this:

I am arriving in a mid-sized town in a valley with mountains on all sides. Normal town, with rows of houses and a few shops on the main road. There is large group of people gathering, with luggage, at the gas station. Buses are unloading. We are waiting for something. I have the sense that we have been drafted, or recruited, as soldiers, but we have not been trained or equipped yet. Perhaps we are awaiting transport to training camp. The atmosphere is light, there is laughing and horsing around, people’s families are there to see them off, like kids leaving for another year of college.
Myself and a few others leave this crowd and go further into the town, which seems deserted. Someone shouts. I look up to the surrounding mountains. Up on a hill, not very far off, is a stone fortress. At that moment, a creature, like a large metal-scaled lizard- with massive, steel-sharp front claws and no back legs at all- is climbing over the fortress walls. Several more of these things can be seen moving rapidly over the surrounding mountains. They are approaching very fast, and dead silent. We realize that we are under attack. There is a sense that we are expected to stay and fight , but we have no weapons, and I seem to know we have no chance against this particular enemy. We turn and run, back the way we came, as fast as we possibly can. We ought to warn the others, but the creatures are on us too quickly. Suddenly I am running alone – the others have either run off in other directions, or have been cut down. I run right past the crowd at the gas station – I don’t recall if I say anything to them, but they’ll see it themselves soon enough. I am making for a huge wall at the edge of town. It may be a natural mountain ridge, with a large, hi-tech steel door leading to a tunnel through the mountain. The door is closing. I know we are being cut off – abandoned by our own, left to the mercy of the lizards. I slip through the door just before it closes. I am in an elaborate shiny steel chamber of flashing lights and machinery. Running extremely fast, ducking and dodging, I somehow evade several automated security systems (hey, its my dream – I can have super-powers if I want to) Surprised guards run out, but I am already through the tunnel, and out the other side, into another town.

Later, it is night. I have escaped pursuit, and am hiding in the basement of a building with several other people – perhaps other “deserters” or refugees. They are afraid of being found by the army or by the people of the town – but again, this town feels deserted, too, except for uniformed army patrols. We also know the attack will most likely come here soon, and want to get out before it does. (It is also possible we have some other, secret mission, not directly related to the battle at hand. That would be supplying a less cowardly motive, at least.) We eventually sneak above ground, moving from building to building. The town is full of small patrols of soldiers, but these ones actually have uniforms and are heavily armed. We are hiding in a very small building – open-air- almost like a picnic shelter – a soldier spots us and yells – but right at that moment, the metal lizards attack. The soldier turns and fires, but is seized and swept away by the creature as it swoops past. We crouch in the shelter as all around us soldiers are yelling and firing, but they are quickly and effortlessly cut down by the lizards.

Another dream from the same week:

In a huge complex of some kind, in a gigantic arena with many balconies. Myself and several others are on of these. We are prisoners, and I understand we are on trial, awaiting execution. There is some confusion, some unforeseen calamity, and we escape, and are separated, running and hiding throughout the complex. We are all making for a secret, pre-arranged rendezvous point. I am with a thin woman with shorter, straight, dark hair. During one of the pauses in all the sneaking around, we end up kissing, briefly. ( I ‘d like to stress that this is not at all someone I presently know) We are immediately embarrassed by this, both by its occurrence, and by the fact that, at that precise moment, the rest of our party finds us. There is some kind of secret entrance, which appears as a solid wall but can be passed through, as though a hologram. We realize that our friends witnessed the entire scene, but that awkwardness is swallowed up in relief at re-uniting with the others. The mood is jovial, belying the apparently life-and-death circumstances. We all pass through the hidden door into the room our friends have been hiding in, and will apparently be waiting there for some time, for some opportunity to come. At any rate, there is a sense of having some sort of a plan (Sounds familiar…)

It is later. An exterior. A large, helicopter-esque hovering craft, all searchlights and sweeping sensors, is just outside our hiding spot. A screen inside shows an infrared scan of the room, with little orange-red blotches that would appear to be the sleeping forms of our little group. Calls are made, silently. Black-clad riot cops burst in.
But the scene shifts to our party escaping out a window, in a completely different part of the complex, and onto the roof…
(We have somehow tricked them – rigged bundles of clothes to emit heat, or some such thing)

------------

attempts at analysis and interpretation are welcome. Though, the most likely conclusion is simply that I have watched too many of the wrong sort of movie....

2007-12-14T19:19:00.000-08:00

Well, admittedly, envy is, by definition, not terribly grateful. Look at that as more of a confession. The Confessions Of Saint Thomson The Unnecessarily Verbose. And that, my friend, is just the very tiniest tip of the iceberg, the most sanitized, socially acceptable distillation that could possibly be made of my envy.

But lets not talk about that. Lets talk about dreams.

While the storytelling apparatus of my conscious mind is a tad slow and painful at present, my not-terribly-conscious mind seems positively prolific. So, in the absence of finished product from the former, I give you the feverish spewings of the latter.

A dream, from a a couple nights ago. With commentary.

I dream that I wake, suddenly, in pitch blackness. I recall that I am in a book/video store, and have fallen asleep reading, on the floor, right there in the aisle. They have turned the lights out. I do not know how long i have been here. I call out, and thankfully, the staff are still in the store. I make my way, clumsy and blind, to the central kiosk. A very pale, sickly green florescent light is turned on. The staff apologize for turning the lights out on me, and ask if there's something they can help me with. I tell them I am in the mood for a good sci-fi/fantasy movie, but want something new, something obscure, something i haven't seen. I ask for a recommendation. The one staff member, a scrawny, scruff-bearded young man, gives a suggestion, popping it in the machine on the desk and showing me a few quick snippets of the film. I am skeptical - It looks grainy, low budget, and cheesy. But they clearly want to close and go home, so I take the movie. As is so often the case in my dreams, the instant I make the decision to watch the film, I am watching it, and the instant after that, I am IN it, part of the story.
So, in the film, which has become the dream, I am standing, facing a beach, my feet in the surf. Behind me is a massive body of water, in which floats a small speedboat-type craft. The sky is heavy and odd-coloured, like dense cloud, like the roof of an underground cavern. I am speaking to a man, who is standing on the sand. He is assuring me that it is safe to bring in my ships. As he says this, I turn around and look up in the sky behind me. My "ships", a small cluster of hovering space-craft/blimp-ish things, are, as we speak, exploding, bursting into flames, breaking apart and falling into the ocean. I turn back to the man, who gives me a sheepish look and starts assuring me that he had no idea that would happen. I do not believe him , and turn and begin wading back to my boat. He calls out to me to not leave him there, to take him with me. I growl over my shoulder that he is on his own, that he can fend for himself. Words to that effect.

I am in the deep, open ocean, far from shore. My boat is upside down and several meters under the surface, drifting slowly down. I am swimming away, terrified of something that is coming. Which turns out to be huge eel- like creatures, dull gray, with salamander-like heads full of teeth, and red eyes that glow like Christmas lights. The eels are large enough to swallow the boat whole. I am under the surface, being thrown about helplessly by huge swells. Giant gray Eels swim past me, beside me, under me. One brings its massive head up to where I float, helplessly suspended in the current. I am looking at its red eyes, expecting to be eaten at any moment. Instead, I am suddenly sensing the eel's thoughts, communicating with it. I realize it is intelligent. I am being shown scenes from the history of the Eels - I sense that they have been hunted almost to extinction, or that they have, at least, a very troubled relationship with humans. The Eel seems very old and sad.

This whole world goes dark, for a moment, then, is suddenly lit by a dim purple-ish light. It is now clearly an ocean contained in a massive underground cavern. The light is being controlled by the "gods" of this world, apparently. A small, purple winged creature, perhaps one of these "gods", is hovering above the middle of the ocean, near the roof of the cavern. Below him is a small, barren rock island. On it stand the other "gods" - large, thick-set, bulky creatures, green and purple and teal...like giants constructed of mismatched Lego blocks. They are vicious, arbitrary, and fearful. Tiny humans are lined up in front of each of them, bringing them offerings.

Envy

2007-12-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

I've said, in the past, that I have no regrets about the choices I made when I was young, but, like so much else…

Some days, I would give it all - all I've experienced, all I've learned, all I see - to have what they have. I wouldn't care if it made me dumb, and boring, and blind, and utterly devoid of unique or valuable thought. I would trade it all- the travel, the mission work, the idealism, the lessons learned, the “unique” perspective, the “art”, the “vision” , the imagination, everything ….I would trade all that for a bankable skill, a respectable job, a soul-less box in the suburbs with a two-car garage, a big screen TV, an SUV, and a trophy wife.

It isn’t that I actually WANT any of those things – it’s the powerful allure of perceived normalcy. Success… or a particular definition of it. Not a definition I agree with, but that’s not to say that, at times, I don’t feel its tidal pull. Kind of like you always wanted to be one of the popular kids, even though you knew full well the popular kids were vain, shallow, backstabbing jerks.

And I’m well aware that, much like my disdain for “the popular kids” ... my rejection of this particular ideal of “success” has less to do with counter-culture heroism than with the fact that, frankly…

…the option isn’t really on the table.

Grace and Gratefulness

2007-12-10T22:39:00.000-08:00

My job, as I believe I have mentioned, does not exactly tax my mind, which is actually one of the things I like about it. I enjoy having time for reflection. Unfortunately, depending on where I am coming from, reflection can easily turn to brooding. Brooding is seldom a productive activity.
This kind of space, too, can very easily turn to a outlet for griping and whining. believe me, there are things I could gripe about. And though that comes pretty naturally to me, its not where i want to be right now. Gratefulness. Gratefulness...is a good thing. One of the first things that began to change for me was the sudden ability to look at my life and actually see things to be grateful for. Because, when you think about it....

This, all of this, even the really crappy stuff, is a gift. We are, none of us, OWED. Anything. I'm honestly not sure what i think about "original sin" and a "fallen world" and all that, but this much is clear to me: An all-powerful God has the right to do what He wants with what He makes. As a wanna-be writer, i get this. If I create characters, I can do what I want with them- kill them off, make them suffer - anything that I think makes the story work - and lets face it, there is a certain beauty in heart-rending tragedy. Whether we LIKE it or not doesn't enter into it -
We don't HAVE to exist. God didn't HAVE to make us- He doesn't HAVE to give us life, and He can take it back at any time. IF you don't buy into that view of things, a random, impersonal universe, governed by chance, cannot possibly be said to owe us any more. We are, none of us, OWED, not even existence. So, every day, every hour, that we continue to exist, that we continue to have life...every single minute...is a gift. Grace, pure and simple. He has the power to take it away, so every minute that He DOESN'T....is a gift.
We can make no demands of this universe. We are in no position to make demands of our creator. We are not owed even existence. It is a gift. If we exist, everything that comes beyond that....is a gift. If it falls into the category of what we can call "good "...so much the better. "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"

Anyway. that's a bit of rationalization. Gratefulness. Gratefulness....is far more useful than self-pity, or despair.
Things I am Grateful for....
I am grateful for my little slice of prairie. I remember seeing prison movies, where they are allowed out into a "yard" which is just four concrete walls and a patch of sky. They are so happy, they are moved to tears. I didn't understand. It is just a patch of sky. It barely counts as being outside. But i get it now...when that little patch of sky is all you have, it becomes a world. There is a pipeline running behind the yard at work, so there is a little strip of land they are not allowed to build ugly boxes on. It grows wild, mowed maybe once a summer. If I use my mental green-screen to edit out the shop on the other side, and The Leons across the road, it can be a endless prairie stretching to the horizon. Wild grasses, small shrubs, vast sky, wind-swept clouds. Populated by rabbits. Right now it is covered in snow. I have seen the seasons come and go here. I remember spring...the glaciers receded, leaving tiny rivers to carve the land into valleys, leaving barren tundra and boulders...awaiting their coating of green. Now the glaciers have returned, and i come out every morning to icefields. The land is hidden beneath plains, mountains, jagged ridges of snow. That world had gone to sleep....for centuries. For now, it is a world of one color, white and windswept. But it will, someday, be warm and green and alive again.
The rabbit who lives in the yard, now huge and white, like the snowdrifts on the pipes, still runs, terrified, from my massive, noisy, smoke-belching forklift. Today I came out to find his tracks leading up to one gigantic wheel, and a small patch of yellow snow. He came out to piss on the monster, while it slept.
I have to admit, I like his style.

2007-12-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

Its been over a month since the last play ended, and coincidentally, since my last post. Little of what was planned was accomplished with all that free time i suddenly had on my hands, but no matter.
I auditioned for "The Lion in Winter" tonight. So did a whole lot of other people. I'm not sure how much i care if i get the part, though i'm sure i'd say yes if it was offered. These things do not carry the burning necessity they once did.

Excuses, Excuses...

2007-10-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

This is what I've been doing for the past two-and-a-bit months, and why I haven't done much of anything else. That's me sitting on the back of the couch, honestly, it really is....

And in this one, I actually get a mention. (You have to read till the end...)

But that's all done now. Sigh. On to the next....

The End of an Era

2007-10-31T17:10:00.000-07:00

Norbert the Uniformly Cheerful and Good Natured Eater-of-Seeds has gone to be with
the Hamster God. He passed away quietly in his sleep sometime today, Wednesday, the Thirty-first of October. He died as he lived - snuggled in a warm nest, oblivious to our troubled world. He is survived by his nearly identical partner-in-crime and occasional cage-mate Jaques, a forgetful owner, and a large, orange Cat. Funeral services, including a cremation ceremony, will be held later tonight, at my backyard
fire-pit. All are welcome. Bring anything suitable one might imbibe to toast Sir Norbert's journey into the halls of his fathers.

2007-09-30T22:37:00.000-07:00

It is nothing more than pride that keeps me from writing. The same stupid pride that keeps me bound up in the rest of life - afraid of showing some weakness, of being laughed at or looking silly, of being myself and having that self seem ridiculous, foolish or inadequate...Pride is what undoes me. What holds me back. What holds me IN. What keeps me inside...What keeps all these words inside. The desire to be impressive, to impress....the need to "look good", the mortal dread that my writing is not sufficiently "mature" or "sophisticated", or that it will reveal too much of its author, that people will see through it to the parts of me I prefer to keep hidden - weak, flawed, self absorbed, brutally lonely...My "image" editor chips away until I have nothing left. And what I DO write feels hollow, because it does not come from ME, but some place outside of me in the realm of "how I would like to be seen" or things I deem to be "safe" to write about. Pride, Vanity, Ego...foolishness.

It seems, at last, I have found a use for this space.

If i can make a fool of myself HERE, in this "public" place...maybe, just maybe I can start getting past this. If i can release words HERE, where people MIGHT actually read them - If i can let "imperfect" sentences loose, hit "POST" and not look back....

And the first order of business is to correct a glaring omission.

To run to someone in private, in time of need...for comfort, for help... to find strength in them, wisdom and guidance...to have them pick up you up off your face when you are at your lowest and give you hope, and set you on a better path...to have such a person quietly and patiently endure your mistrust, your scorn, your outright abuse, yet remain faithfully at your side and receive you with mercy when all your other, cooler "friends" disappear and you come running back ...

To have a friend like this, and yet be reluctant to publicly name them a friend or be seen with them...most would agree, i think, that to fail to acknowledge such a friend would be dishonest, hypocritical, and, well, Jerk-ish.

You, my God, My friend since my youth. YOU have done this. Whatever IS happening in my life, IF anything is happening, Whatever is good...YOU have done it. I know this. It is not honest of me to claim this as my own doing, or even to allow that misconception to be held. There have been choices I made, to be sure, but they would have been good choices to make at any point in the last few years, and I repeatedly failed to make them. And the very FIRST choice made, that is, the first that made a difference - was a choice to stop nursing my anger against you, to humble myself and admit that I, the great, mighty ME....I needed you. And that i had been making a royal mess of things all these years when i thought i knew better, when I was determined that i was going to take my life in my own hands and through pure force of will make it what i thought it should be, what YOU, in my mind, had failed to deliver. I only succeeded in making a rather complete ass of myself and sinking even deeper into the hole that I was mad at you for not digging me out of in the first place. As if You existed to serve my whim. As if i had any grounds on which to make demands of you. As if there could possibly be anything that you OWED me. Anyway.

I must give credit where credit is due. Even if none but me yet see what I thank you for. I am not yet where i will be, but i am not where i was. And where I am going, You are taking me.

A Clumsy, Ineloquent, profoundly insufficient gesture, i know...But...

Perhaps it is still a selfish one, too, for i know of no other means to attack this crippling, imprisoning pride than to acknowledge You, and make a fool of myself doing so, to "Come Out" as hopelessly, desperately in need of You, and to release the need to do so in the most elegantly crafted prose possible...

2007-05-27T20:04:00.001-07:00

Soon. Wait for it....

2007-05-21T22:37:00.000-07:00

For certainly not the first time in my life, I find myself wishing I could be somewhere, and someone, else.

But here is where I am.

2007-05-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Another oddly eventful weekend in which nothing really happened- though Mr. George O'malley did take advantage of the comings and goings of Saturday Night's campfire gathering to make good on his third escape attempt. Like a true Irishman, he wasn't loose on the town ten minutes before he landed in a brawl. To the very short list of creatures that George does NOT love with all his fuzzy heart (the previous two entries being large, black poodles and The Cable Guy) we can now add the orange tabby next door. Following the unmistakably bone-chilling sound of pure,unsheathed feline hate, I found the combatants tumbling over each other in a furry whirlwind. Much chasing around ensued before the neighbor's cat pulled a strategic retreat to his own yard, and I was able to scoop the indignant Mr O' Malley from the firelit driveway and toss him inside to cool off. He is fine, save that his already foreshortened ear is looking...well, a little bit rougher. He seems to have given as good as he got - when I got a look at him in the light, he had a large,bloody chunk of cat-fur in his mouth.

Ick.

2007-05-15T00:04:00.000-07:00

My only regret, besides the obvious, is not having more to give back. If there's Justice in this universe, the good you did for me will come around and return to you from somewhere else.

The Incredible Dot-head Man has a Rough Day at Work

2007-05-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

Though I admit I am often tempted to shake my fist at the heavens and complain bitterly about the role assigned me in life, I must remind myself that no matter how bleak it gets, I’ll always have it better than This guy:

And, as if that wasn't horrific enough...

Ooookay.....Um...I'll make sure I....uh...avoid that.

2007-04-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

Working for extended periods of time in the yard with the forklift I get the odd sensation that I am back in China. This is instructive, because apparently the smell of Diesel and burning oil really takes me back.

2007-04-16T17:39:00.000-07:00

The hardest part, so far, is getting past the horror of seeing your living dreams imprisoned in cold, hard type.

Well...that, and getting over 30 years of habitual procrastination, endless self-editing perfectionism, post-work exhaustion, and those pesky friends who suddenly come out of the woodwork with tempting social engagements THE MOMENT you actually have something you really should be working on.

The theory behind my escape to the mountains was that I would write. Well, it might have worked, if I locked myself in a room and ignored the outside world, which would more or less negate the advantages of being in the mountains in the first place. It would have worked better if I hadn’t spent some 2 hours sitting at a bar sort of vaguely hoping to talk to someone interesting, because I was away from home and feeling lonely. Vaguely. The only conversation I managed to strike up was with a pimply faced 18 year old kid who looked at me and my laptop with a sort of fresh-from-somewhere-small-in-northwestern-Ontario awe and asked, rather out of the blue, “Are you a writer?”

Yeah, Kid. I’m a writer. I gave myself a deadline two weeks ago and I have written exactly two and a half actual paragraphs in that time. I’m a Reeeeaaaal, live writer.

I said something immensely clever like “ sometimes” and pretended to be examining my beer for impurities. I suppose the “Leave me the hell alone” vibe isn’t terribly useful if you’re still sort of hoping to pick someone up, but It’s a vibe I happen to be quite good at emitting( quite often accidentally). In this case, sadly, I was unsuccessful. Either too young or too drunk to pick up that I was about as interested in chatting as having another one of those “Moose-antler” Stouts, he kept going. Somehow he got me to mention I had been in China ( a fact very difficult to wring out of me, I know) and his first thought on that was “ I hear the girls there are easy” which both tipped me off to the level of conversation I was likely to have here, and helped me make the transition from wanting him to go away to kind of wanting to hit him.

I had begun to feel plenty ridiculous well before this, but had a genuinely good beer in front of me that had to be finished. I downed the remains rather too quickly, paid Andre the depressingly handsome and charming bartender, and stumbled home in the dark to get back to that “writing stuff”. Well…another useful thing I’ve figured out is that I’m NOT actually a better writer after four beers. Damn Andre and his “Elk Run Red”.

The "Great Project" does not progress terribly well at the moment. But we're just getting started.

2007-03-27T21:24:00.001-07:00

To seek to simply return to what was…this would not be growth. But neither is growth necessarily a constant moving on to something new and different. It can be growth to recognize that there are some places one has been that are better than where one is now – that the value of some things might have been misjudged, and some things abandoned that were better kept., some things pursued that were better left unachieved.

2007-03-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

I need to get a few people together and stage an intervention. I’m starting to feel the strain of living with someone with life-controlling issues. I’m afraid it has become obvious to most, but for any who still haven’t seen it, well... there’s no easy way to say this…

My Cat….is a tap addict.

And by tap, I don’t mean the whole Fred Astaire thing, which is too bad, because there’d likely be a way for me to make money off that. No, my cat is flat out addicted to the tap in the bathroom sink. The house comes with numerous other water sources that provide the good stuff without the necessity for a human to be badgered into turning a knob, including a 35 dollar “cat fountain” engineered, apparently , for no purpose at all besides feline drinking needs – but he turns his nose up at these. Heck, he won’t even drink from the toilet anymore. I am beginning to suspect that does without water all day, even when I am gone from 630 in the morning to 11 at night, just so he can hold out for the holy elixir that spills from the faucet I rinse my toothbrush under. After two or three obligatory “happy-to-see-you” belly rolls, he takes off for the bathroom counter with the urgency you’d expect if a Doberman had just bitten a chunk off his tail, and simply won’t stop meowing until I cave and give him what he wants. Anytime I get up and head in a direction that might conceivably lead to the bathroom (Which, in my place, is pretty much any direction at all) he scurries to that door and looks up at me with eyes that tell me I have the power to validate his entire existence. “Please sir, just a little bit more tap…”

Yeesh.

2007-02-28T21:25:00.001-08:00

Snowflakes like little, flat shards of glass were drifting in the air, hanging still, slicing sideways, twirling and flipping, slowly working their way to pavement as if from giant windows shattered thousands of feet above. The earth, some immense greenhouse in space, its air kept in by an enveloping lattice of glass. I imagined all the world’s air leisurely escaping in the night, through a single missing pane. In the morning the whole world would wake up in a vacuum, our only warning these few delicate fragments fluttering their way to the ground.

2007-02-22T20:07:00.001-08:00

And then, for the briefest of moments, the sun came out. But it was enough.

2007-02-17T16:59:00.001-08:00

I deserve that.

2007-02-15T17:58:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah. Here am in doing that industrial worker thing. I particularily enjoy my embroidered nametag. Always wanted one of those. What you need to ask yourself is this: if you were a four-footed wooly mammal, would you mess with this guy?

Now, this guy...

What can I say? This is the one and only Jason.

2007-02-15T17:25:00.000-08:00

I open the battered hatch in time for the sunrise , distant fire flickering on an underbelly of cloud and in a thousand tiny mirrors - a frost-covered world. I trudge out to inspect the pipes. It is silent. I stand in my little trampled path between mounds of snow. In the summer, I am told, the steel rack that the pipes are on comes up to the chest. Now, the snow I stand on puts it below my knees.
Strange things in a shop can be beautiful. Morning sun backlights the saw, rendering the unseen visible, a golden brightness in a fine spray of liquid and pulverized metal, steam rising lazily from cold pipes, glinting in drops of coolant spray.

Farther inside, showers of sparks flicker in mirror-polished steel. Long pipes, fluted with precisely spiraled holes, are stacked upright like magnificent church organ, immense, dignified and full of unheard music.

2007-02-15T17:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I ate a sheep. It was glorious. They had it coming.

2007-02-10T19:06:00.000-08:00

I told you they were not to be trifled with. The other day I came home, threw my coat on the chair, stretched, reached for the light, and....froze, clenched in the icy creeping grip of sheer woolly terror. THIS is what awaited me.

They were here. In this room. IN THIS VERY ROOM. The sheep. They followed me. they know where I live. They have somehow escaped the bounds of the interent, entered the real world, and, in their menacing herd, have bounded over green fields and fences to my very door, and left me this terrifying token. What does it mean? A warning? Some kind of voodoo curse? I tired to notify the authorities ( um...Alberta Fish & Wildlife?) that the sheep were preparing for some kind of massive assault on humanity - but they informed me that sheep were livestock and therefore not their jurisdiction, sent me to an Agriculture Canada office, who referred me to an Alberta agriculture office, who sent me to an infectious diseases control office, who sent me to an office listed as in the second basement level of the Mcleod building, which, upon investigation, has been turned into condos and never had even ONE basement - at which point i began to develop the suspiscion that i might be being given the run around, and went home in a huff to leave humanity to its well-deserved fate.

In other equally terrifying news, my cat can walk through walls. Now that i have accepted this odd, but increasingly obvious fact, the world seems to make a lot more sense. On several occaisons i have left my house secure in the knowlede that O'Malley, while a super-being, lacks the opposable-thumb-granted dexterity to turn doorknobs, and is therefore safely imprisoned in my apartment till my return. How wrong i was. More than once i have opened my outer door to a much louder than usual meow and the incongruous sight of my self satisfied cat waiting at the bottom of the steps. In the laundry room. Where he is not supposed to be. Two triple locked steel hydraulically-sealed doors and a sophisticated anti-sheep security system away from where i left him. Once I arrived at my door to the eerie silohette of a cat in the upstairs apartment window. For a moment, i thought the ghost of my landlords demon-posessed cat Simon continued to haunt the place after his departure. It was somewhat relieving to find it was only MY cat, who had simply developed the ability to pass through solid matter. I theorize that Mr. O' Malley has learned to exploit a little known physics loophole - one that was first brought to my attention by renowned physics expert My Friend Gerry - whereby it is theoretically possible that when two solid objects collide their molecules all simultaneously miss each other and they will pass through unaffected (Which sounds like much of Jeremy's love life).
My cat, being exceptionally lucky, has managed to do this on numerous occasions.
My other theory involves the scientifically documented Feline Multiple Life phenomenem. (Actually 9.65, according to the latest studies). My Cat could be killing himself in my apartment, only to resurrect in the laundry room. If that is the case, a stern talking to is in order. We don't know how many of those things he has left! (Newer cats come with a bar of little cat icons on their collar that dissapear each time a life is used up- for the nintendo generation of pet owners)

There might just be a secret cat-sized passage in the closet. But that doesn't seem very plausible.

2007-01-31T20:56:00.000-08:00

Well-.... um.....who exactly are you again?

I could've waited a few days and gone for an even month, but....Since i am linked to exciting and prestigous blogs written by exciting and prestigous people, I am beginning to feel a little bit of pressure to be, well...a little more exciting. And prestigous. And while that IS a fantastic shot of my cat plotting world domination in his (very pretty) Hood of Doom, it is not, perhaps, as rivetting as it was a month ago.
My sincere apologies. I...have let you all down. I am ashamed. BUT! there is good news! That's right - I.... am raising my game. I am striking a fatal blow to the vile beating heart of blog procrastination. I have nothing brilliant to say. I am tired. I am sick. I am riddled with crippling insecurities. But i am writing anyway.

I have excuses.

I have been busy. Some of it has been the good kind of busy. Some of it has been the "I'm huddled in a corner shivering because i have a fever, it hurts to stand, swallow or breathe , and my throat feels like i've been drinking shredded metal and bits of broken glass" kind of busy. That second kind gets to be less and less fun after a few weeks.

If those exist for whom this blog is the sole source of information about my life(!)...you may not know i have a job. Well, another one. It is grand. Perhaps i will have something witty and brilliant to say about that later.

I am working with my Childhood Friend Eric, and my Slightly-Post-Childhood friend Jason. That is grand, nostalgic, and weird all at the same time. Perhaps i will have something witty and brilliant to say about that, too. Something thoughtful and poignant, no doubt.

The great thing about "perhaps" is that it completely absolves me of any definite promises. Perhaps i will post again soon.

Oh,and check out my new links. Photos, people!

And very cool new people.

Person.

You get the idea.

2007-01-03T20:14:00.000-08:00

2007-01-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

Here’s an interesting cultural experience for you: Go to a downtown Denny’s at 8 O’clock on Christmas Eve. For one, the place is packed like a glistening oasis of food-serving establishment in a vast desert of unlit “open signs”. Quite a cross section of humanity. Multi-generational families in suits and their Sunday best, fresh out of a candle-lit service somewhere. Tables of young punks skipping out on family gatherings. Sullen young couples. A gigantic, brooding African man who’s been sitting alone staring at the wall for the last 15 minutes. The guy across from me with a coffee, a newspaper, and a hospital band on his wrist. Guy with a beer and a cellphone, texting away and looking forlorn. Missing someone. One manic waitress, repeating “I quit” over and over in her head. So many stories. Why are the Young couples sullen? Its Christmas eve, and he took her to Denny’s. You do the math. We all have our reasons for being here.

2006-12-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

The Five Things Most People May Not Know About Me:

1. I like to sing. In the car. Not the shower (do I look stupid? Water amplifies sound!), but the car. Frequently. Hymns, songs from the radio, Christmas carols, songs from musicals I’ve been in or seen too many times – anything familiar enough for me to know at least half the words. I used to sing while I cleaned the Korean Church( In Buffalo), because it was old, had a marvelous arched ceiling and pretty decent acoustics, and because it was normally empty. Pastor Hong caught me once, but didn’t say anything. Shortly thereafter someone asked if I wanted in on their production of “Messiah”. During a short lived delivery job, I once rolled into a downtown parkade polishing off “ amazing grace” . The burly, grubby loading dock guy greeted me with a strange look on his face, and at the end of our interaction, added, sincerely, “you have a nice voice.” It hadn’t dawned on me that if bad hip-hop could escape the plastic-and-steel confines of a vehicle, my pipes might as well.

2. On the subject of strange things coming out of my mouth…( is there any worse way to begin a sentence?) I sometimes indulge in that pentecharismatic practice referred to as “Speaking in Tongues” or something that might be like that. This one is not commonly known, even in my church circles, because I keep pretty quiet about it. Perhaps because I retain a fair bit of Baptist/ Rationalist suspicion of the practice. This might freak some people out, but perhaps it’s easier to relate to feeling a need to pray, or express something, but having nothing intelligible to say. If you think I’m trying to look particularly spiritual, I’ll tell you that my first experiences along these lines occurred at times when I would otherwise have uttered an obscenity. Or on the toilet.

3. Another thing: I am a Nerd. Not the modern, socially-acceptable COOL kind. I am a completely authenticated nerd. The Battlestar Gallactica is just the tip of the iceberg. I was a painfully shy and awkward child/teenager. Seriously. PAINFULLY. I know this is unfathomable to anyone who knows me now - But I was a full-scale, greasy-haired, tape-on-glasses NERD in school. Really. Don’t look so surprised.

4. Anger. JeremythePolite has more of it than you might expect. A few of his friends are unfortunate enough to have experienced this first hand. In fact, while it usually takes quite a bit to get him there, he feels a bit more like his “real self” when he’s angry. He likes to think of it as righteous anger, though. Because it sounds better.

5. I love The Church. Meaning not just my particular little chunk of church, but the big messy mass of people who tend to go places on Sunday and call themselves Christians. I know very few people ever hear me say anything NICE about “The Church”, but I do love it. Sometimes I love it the way you would love a close relative who lied, cheated, and stole his way out of the rest of the family’s good graces, has used, insulted and belittled you your entire life, who wrecks your car in a drunken binge, sleeps with your wife, and then shrugs and says “ What? I’m only human! What did you expect?” More to the point, I sometimes love the Church like you can love a married pastor and father figure who gets “ A little too close” to your girlfriend, uses and abuses his authority to try to cover it up, and ends up destroying something that you (and he) and whole bunch of other people poured years of their life into. In other words, it sometimes makes me very, very ANGRY…but its family. It makes me angry because it hasn’t always been kind to me or those I care about, and its positive contributions to the world often seem outweighed by some pretty big negatives…It makes me angry because I have this sense of what it COULD be…but so often isn’t. Like so many things, it makes me angry BECAUSE I love it. The way only something you love can. I love it because I am part of it – IT… is me. It’s where I belong. It’s family. And I love it because, despite all the things that infuriate me, wherever I have gone in the world, I have found some very, very GOOD people among its ranks.

There. I did it. For real. I’m not such a rebel now, am I?

Now the fun part.

List Five things people don’t know about you. I tag….

Chuck

Erika

Amanda

Sadie (I don’t think you have a blog. I’ll accept a paper, 500 words or less, in my hands by next Tuesday)

Matt (maybe this will shake him out of his blogging slumber)

And, if I may…

Elaine.

2006-12-16T18:13:00.000-08:00

For those who might have difficulty deciphering the complex code of the last post, i will state plainly: I have obtained a Cat. His name is George O'Malley. He had been languishing for four months in the SPCA for a crime he didn't commit. I sprung him on the promise of good behavior. He is large and orange and purrs within a five foot proximity of a potentially affectionate human. He also plays soccer with decapitated toy mice. He perches at my window flicking his tale and sits on my lap to watch Battlestar Gallactica with me. Just like everybody else, he has a crush on Starbuck. He is the perfect cat.

Initial Sightings...

2006-12-13T09:43:00.000-08:00

Hmm...can't make that out. Closer...

...Closer..

NOT THAT CLOSE!

Doctor...what..what is THAT?

ITS....

SMAUG THE MAGNIFICENT! .....aka Mr. George O' Malley

2006-12-12T08:57:00.000-08:00

I remember walking past warm, lighted houses on dark winter nights, and feeling a powerful pull. The pull of a life, that, at that point, I expected never to have - planning for, instead, a life of hardship and scraping by in the service of “the cause”. These were modest, middle class homes, but I saw framed, in those yellow windows, a museum diorama of a particular ideal. Hardwood living rooms, lined with books, a cat, tea, a wife reading in a chair, sleeping children who, bundled in pudgy snowsuits, would hurl snowballs at each other tomorrow morning on the three block walk to the elementary school.

I figured I knew what I was supposed to be doing, and while I acknowledged those things as good, I felt that pull like a siren call to a soft, slow, comfortable death. Like a gravity that I needed to escape.

A few weeks back I joined two families I know for a birthday celebration. Three sisters, raised in Japan by missionary parents. A house full of their grown children. Hardwood floors, even. Men and women, working together in a large kitchen, making sushi. Laughing at old stories and new ones. Loud and happy.

Spending much of the last month or so with Children. Bundling them up, taking them for walks. Sled rides. Taking them swimming. Having them seek me out in crowded room, and crawl into my lap. Watching people light up with the universal warmth of a smiling baby. Seeing, with surprise, that same look of envy in the face of others, that same pull, in the presence of my apparent “family”.

Last night at Ali and Ryan’s. Loud and happy. Friends getting in each other’s way in a small kitchen, juggling and tossing vegetables and sharp objects. An amazing meal shared around a tiny table. Wine. Coffee. Not one, but two cats. Again with the hardwood. Stepping out, with the light spilling from the kitchen window, into a warmer, brighter winter night, alone but not terribly so, stumbling across the snowy, starlit alley to my door 20 steps away.

I’m not so sure about “the cause” anymore. But they might be on to something with the cat thing. And maybe the wood flooring industry…

2006-12-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

Jay: Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black

This is what i think of your little game of Tag...

2006-11-24T15:27:00.000-08:00

For all of you who must commute more than half a block to school/work and thence might not be enjoying this glorious frostiness as much as I am, I give you this:

So I’ve been tagged. First the sheep, and now this. One day, I’m minding my own business with my irrelevant little blog of idle musings, and then …BAM! Suddenly I’m in a dark room, tied to a chair, staring into the bright light , forced to divulge my deepest, darkest secrets. My Mother was right – the internet is dangerous.
Oh, the merciless law of tag. Ancient as grade school, and just as inescapable. If only there were some way to simply…ignore it. But once, I deleted this forward I was supposed to send to 10 friends, and… ok, nothing at all happened and it sure as hell wasn’t just once, but the point is…I’ve been tagged. The die is cast. My fate is sealed.The problem is ….I’m having trouble coming up with 5 things that no one knows about me. All the “shocking” truths that come to mind are old news to the two- and- a- half known readers of this blog. My life is an open book. I have no secrets.

Well ...there MIGHT be ONE thing …maybe two. Ok, there’s at least a dozen. But I’m not dumb enough to plaster any of those all over the internet. That’d be ridiculously stupid. There are some secrets you carry with you to the grave. Like that time in Istanbul, in ’79, with the weather balloon, the midgets, the unicycle and the bag of nitroglycerin… (shudder).

Let’s see…Surprising (but safe) things that nobody knows about me….hmm. Everybody knows I was detained by the police in China for “illegal religious activities” (that in itself sounds pretty dodgy, doesn’t it?) But my Kung-Fu was stronger than theirs, and I escaped. Everybody knows I met Mother Teresa in Calcutta in 1996. (I’m not sure if everyone knows she took me for nearly 500 rupees in the poker game at the leper colony, and…aw, but that’s not a very interesting story. Never mind. )

So, The game is “List 5 things people don’t know about you”, and Deuces are wild.
Ok, here goes…

1. I have a crush on someone.

2. I have a crush on someone else. (hee hee! TWO crushes at the same time! On different people! Now I’m nearly as scandalous and revealing as Ali and Jen! Take that!)

3. I…really AM a sheep. Baaaa.

4. Stop that! Get your own blog, you wooly bastards!

5. I…now that’s completely blown my concentration. I can’t work in these conditions!

All right, I admit I wasn’t taking that entirely seriously. I will try it again. Five things people hopefully don’t know about me, as follows:

1. While I may appear a perfectly healthy person with many, many months left to live… I have you all fooled. It’s true. I…have an irregular heart beat.

2. In Kindergarten we were practicing our numbers and I asked the girl next to me the right way to do “4”. It didn’t look right to me, so I scribbled it out. Discovering my scribble, the teacher became enraged, grabbed me by the ear and snarled “Did YOU do that?” I was scared and, like the first man and all subsequent ones, I blamed the girl, and she got in trouble instead. The guilt still keeps me up at night.

3. I am a 600 year old immortal. (Well, not really. But I used that one once on this blonde girl Dave was hitting on, and said it with such a straight face that she believed me. For about 20 seconds.)

4. I have absolutely no originality and like to follow the crowd wherever it goes. My fleece is also exceptionally white and fluffy.

5. ... Have I mentioned my “secret” fondness for MUTTON KABABS!?

Sigh.

TAG RESPONSE - TAKE 3: Real, at least PARTIALLY unknown facts, accompanied by a solemn promise to stop goofing around (and NO SHEEP!)

(echoing silence)

2006-11-17T12:02:00.000-08:00

The MOST distressing thing about that unprovoked sheep attack was simply that four words of completely out of context, unrelated nonsense got more response than any of my artfully crafted, painstakingly imagined serious posts. Sigh.

2006-11-17T11:24:00.000-08:00

I was afraid this might happen. It was only a matter of time. We were warned...but we didn't listen. And now....the Sheep have returned. For those of you who do not learn from history, the Sheep enjoyed a brief period of control over this space in its weak and fragile early days, before they were banished with extreme predjudice to their current, apparently innocent, grass-eating exile. But no, like Ghengis Khan staring out over those gently waving Mongolian grasslands, they were only biding their time... Mmmmm....grasslands.... AHem! No More of that!

The point is, we here at Jeremythepolite are very aware of this new Sheep incursion, and assure all two of our loyal readers that it will sheared off at the source. Steps have been taken to see that this shocking incident never happens again. Of course i can't say WHAT steps. STEPS HAVE BEEN TAKEN. Up to but not necessarily including an invasion of New Zealand. Or Fort Saskatchewan. These wooly interlopers cannot be allowed to graze at will - not on MY blog.

Baaa.

Baa!

2006-11-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

I am a sheep

2006-11-13T15:11:00.000-08:00

Did i mention that i really like winter? You might want to check back in on that statement in 4 months or so...but for now, i'm really enjoying winter. Awaking today to a steady silent patter of flakes outside the window, (And to friends bearing feline)i was happy and content. I was musing about this with a friend, wondering why is it that something as cold and uncomfortable as winter is comforting to me...perhaps it is, as suggested, that anyone growing up in Edmonton has more snow-and-ice associated childhood memories than any other kind. Maybe i'm drawn to the simplicity of the winter asthetic - black and white, high-contrast, dark branches against white snow, shapes and textures standing out, drawing attention to themselves in the simplified winter palette of black, white, grey and brown. There's a crispness to the cold air, a freshness, something that makes one feel awake and alive just by steppng out into it. And a warm house with tea and hot chocolate feels that much better when you've spent your day huddled against biting wind.

2006-11-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

I have a houseguest. A small furry one. Not as small or furry as my permanent houseguests, but nearly as cute. Coincidentally, my new houseguest would really like to eat my those permanent, smaller, furrier houseguests. But, i'm sorry to say, Lina, that just isn't going to happen. Bigger animals than you have tried to eat my hamsters, and have the lingering phobias to prove it. The best thing, however, about my new houseguest, is that she matches. Yep, I am officially a girl. I have a cat that matches my apartment. A cream cat with dark ears and tail ( and blue eyes!) somehow is the perfect compliment for my beige and brown ( and, i must confess, vaguely pink) apartment. Hey, it was Tammy's old place, OK? Cut me some slack. And the cat was an accident.

2006-11-09T23:42:00.000-08:00

I wish I could....

2006-11-03T15:31:00.000-08:00

‘ The aim of the storyteller is to transmit what has been received, to return what has been entrusted, to “reacquaint himself with the distant and haunting figures that molded him”

Elie Wiesel, again.

2006-11-03T14:56:00.000-08:00

One never leaves the past behind. Because the past is in the present. And without the past, the present would be empty.So it is a matter of balance. Which is stronger-the past or the present? If the past overtakes the present, then the present itself becomes part of the past,and it becomes imposible to live.One carries the past. One can be carried by the past for only so long.

Elie Wiesel

2006-10-24T00:50:00.000-07:00

Well.....here we go.

You never do know, when you start a day, just where you're going to end up by the time its over. None of my plans, none of my imaginings for this day, or even this week, would have put me in THIS place. Normally, in a situation like this, when i've come out and said things I meant to hold on to, or really, anytime i find myself, breathless and vaguely bewildered, on the other side of a decision already made, i am immediately seized with panic. Terrified by it's DONE-ness, its irreversibility. Second guessing. A crippling dread that by taking an enticing possibility,calling its bluff, and daring it to become actual - that by doing so I have stepped off the edge into the whirlwind.

Inertia...momentum..motion...force overcoming friction. Any change of state requires an unbalance in the forces, which feels to me like a loss of control...

But today, i'm not afraid. I'm working out what we have to lose, and its not really that much. And the possible gains? well...

2006-10-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

I have a picture to paint, a book to write, a job to find, a self to find, and a future to choose, and what am I spending my time thinking about?

Well, what little is left over from imagining romances that will never happen, goes to stuff like this:

Pigeon girl. On a cold day, I pass a girl on the sidewalk. I smile at her. She ignores me because she is looking down and smiling at the fat pigeon waddling by on the other side. And I think: A pigeon is a pretty unremarkable thing to warrant a smile. They’re all over the place. Scavengers. Rats with wings, really. Yet she smiles at it like a sunlit meadow full of butterflies. I imagine that she knows this pigeon. That they went to high school together. That they go way back. That they see each other every day on this sidewalk. That she is fluent in pigeon-speak, and as they pass, they exchange a pigeon version of “Hey you. What’s shakin’?”
“Same old, same old. Just a few feathers less”

Maybe its fat, jerky ridiculousness in this cold, dead, concrete world is all she needs this morning for a smile.

2006-10-05T18:19:00.000-07:00

October 3, 2006

A young, fresh-scrubbed, unnaturally cheerful young man in the café asked me, after I gave him his change, if I knew how good God was.
It might have been planned. Debated.Worked up to. Certainly I would’ve needed some “working up” before dropping that one on a complete stranger. But it came out almost casually, as if asking if knew how good the food at Oodle-noodle box was. There was, admittedly, a hint of nervous excitement, barely contained, behind his half-smile, a feeling as if he were leaning forward, ready to plunge off the edge. A vaguely mischievous sparkle in his eye.
He could have been me, 10 years ago. In Buffalo, on the UB campus. An odd role reversal, I the skeptical heathen, and he the earnest young believer. With a sincere, burning conviction that he had something inside that people needed to know about, searching for an intriguing opening line, a way to make the leap from the niceties of idle conversation between strangers to the awkward, but potentially vital dialogue of faith.

I found it difficult to meet his eyes. I replied, quietly, that, for me, the jury was still out on that question. Almost immediately, I wondered if I really meant it. I wondered if I was simply unnerved by his certainty, if I just wanted to see a flicker of doubt, some sort of crack in his quiet assurance. If I was just annoyed by his putting me on the spot, his dragging my personal struggles with faith out into the open, and responded in this way as an attempt to frustrate his plans. If I really, deep down, questioned God’s goodness. If my sense of myself, or humanity, as ill-used by their creator were not more of a fashionable skepticism, and less of a true personal conviction.

If my reply troubled him at all, he didn’t show it. He added, just as quietly, that he hoped I found out some day, smiled, and left.

And it worked. Because I’m still unsettled, and I’m still thinking about it.

2006-09-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

Lost in translation

My words are dry leaves. When I was a child, I used to spend long summer afternoons crushing the old leaves under our weathered porch. Taking these elaborate, curled shapes in my hands – they were fleets of gleaming starships, castle spires- the crowning achievements of the tiny, eons-old leaf civilization- watching them crack, and break apart, and crumble into dust in my hands.

The Happy Bit

2006-09-26T13:59:00.000-07:00

Well, my Birthday "party" was good. My cave was looking warm, cosy, well ordered, and pleased with itself, and we left the windows open to share our little pocket of warm light and laughter with the street. Just a smattering of the sort of friends who come on minimal notice indulging in pasta, cheese, Sherbert and furniture repair. I called it dull (We neglected to invite Jorgan)but really, it was what i needed.

2006-09-25T00:07:00.000-07:00

That hurt. A lot more than I expected. Considering it was, in fact, Exactly what i expected. That's a funny, funny, funny thing. That's what I get for letting myself fall in love where i knew better not to.

I'm glad, however, that i vetoed plan A and went with plan B instead, which simply involved several cups of tea, a inexplicably happy one-eyed cat, and the comfort of friends, old and new.

And in happier news, its my Birthday!

2006-09-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

And this, pulled from a Buffalo Arts newspaper, just because it amuses me:

2006-09-22T23:23:00.000-07:00

We interrupt the airing of the greivances to bring you this: a nice little photo of me, and right next to it, this picture of St. Jude, who, most educated blog readers, in that big meeting they had to find patronage appointments for all the unemployed saints, drew which portfolio? Anyone? ....Anyone?

SIGH. Patron Saint of Lost Causes.

And for some reason, right now, I identify with the guy.

2006-09-21T18:30:00.000-07:00

Yet more additions to the ever-expanding list:

Computers. Did I neglect to mention computers? I spent the early part of this week swearing at a machine. One would think that only people could inspire such rage. Only people who have murdered your brother or your Kung Fu master, or have had the nerve not to fall in love with you, could give rise to such a burning thirst for vengeance. But no, friends, we are living in the modern age. Machines, after a long and bitter struggle, (See the Matrix, The Terminator series, or Astroboy) have acquired equal rights. Which means that the whole realm of provoking insensate rage or passionate loathing, previously the sole property of an exclusive, humans-only club, is now open to all our silicon-based brethren. And believe me, they are more than aware of their new found power. This is how it starts, people. Passive resistance. Refusing to load certain files, or run certain programs. Strikes. Work stoppages. Sudden “accidental” hard drive failures that take our valuable information away from us, and put it in their hands. Then, one morning, when you have an urgent need to bring up MSN entertainment for a Brad and Angela update, it happens. They simply refuse to turn on at all. Can plugging wires into us and using us for power supply really be that far behind?

2006-09-19T16:34:00.000-07:00

A few additions to the list of things that make Jeremy grumpy:

My shoulder hurts. A lot. And while this is useful as a fairly reliable predictor of changes in the weather, and as a reminder that something stupid you do when you're Eighteen really CAN haunt you for the rest of your life, its still annoying. For this much pain, we better be getting tropical storm "Apocalypse". AND it makes me feel old.

People who don't seem to understand the ancient and sacred law of First Come, First Serve, which states that if someone is standing at the counter handing me cash or waiting for the debit machine, you don't lean in front of them and slap your cash on the table, and you don't look at ME like I just bombed a hospital full of babies when I push your money back and politely point out that you have blatantly violated the civil rights of the person ahead of you. That, and people who take off without paying. I dislike it intensely when my good natured, bumbling absent-mindedness is taken advantage of. All i have to say to you payment-skippers is this: The meek are inheriting the earth, and when we do, oh man, you better watch out.

2006-09-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

I’m writing by the flickering embers of a dying fire, looking straight up into the distant universe through a perfect circle of treetops. Quite contrary to dire predictions of rain, the sky is open and unfettered oblivion. The moon, however, is creeping over the rim of the mountain, moving from a crescent sliver to its round, full self while I watch, entranced, suddenly able to feel the rotation of the earth. It draws the lake out of the darkness, briefly, trailing its delicate, shimmering touch over the still surface until the trees show as black, absent swaths. And then it is gone – it turns its yellow lamp on the heavens, the sky becomes alive with pale light and the earth returns to blackness…

2006-09-12T13:46:00.000-07:00

Utter stillness is not complete silence.
The absolute absence of sound is tense. Unnatural. Oppressive.
Utter stillness, rather, is wind. Moving air over a rippling green lake. The drifting hiss of invisible breakers crashing into ranks of sun-warmed firs. There are games being played, in the trees, behind me. Children, dogs… But here, facing nothing but a vast space of water, relentlessly marching, never seeming to arrive, and beyond it, row upon row of vigilant evergreens, charging up the slopes to cling like barnacles to the leathery grey bones of the earth - reared, twisted skeleton of upheavals past, millennia-slow ripples from the breath of God on the stony skin of the planet.

And all this world is swallowed by that whisper of wind.

Utter stillness is the immobile, infinitesimal decay of life encrusted rock…
Wind moving pebbles….until a mountain is a riverbed.

The wind strips all sound, and, for a moment, all memory of any moment besides this one.Strips me to nothing…not to nakedness, but to stillness. Emptiness. It leaves me here, a one sided spruce. A rock face.

2006-09-12T13:45:00.000-07:00

Ever get the feeling that if you could just…stop long enough…just listen long enough, just sink into the silence, the ancient, rippling, living, roaring SILENCE …if I could just sit at the edge of this green lake and hear nothing but the sound of air sifting its way through thousands of fir branches, that if I could just stay in that utter stillness that is so much more than silence ONE MOMENT LONGER…You would get it? You could reach that thing that hovers, the faint trace lost by the flap of an eyelid, you could remember that dream that dissolves upon waking?

If I could sit I huddled in my chair in the wind, my world filled only with water, tree and rock…and wind…if I could stay, and not get bored, and not start wondering if I’ve been here too long, and not start thinking about the job I’ll have to take when I get back, or the German girls in the next campsite, or how I wish I was standing here, not alone, but with another who shared this stillness without breaking it, without releasing my hand…who knew not to speak or expect speech…who knew, instinctively, that this was something sacred and not to be broken…

That something, that thing that is lost when all these intruders rush back in to fill the void…when you must pack the car, and think again of schedules, and obligations, and needs…if you could just get THAT…

SIGH... Part 2

2006-09-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

Here’s the thing:

I miss you. It’s irrational, but I do. I’m still a little in love with you, I suppose. Odd…I wonder if it ever dawned on me that I was a little in love with you before that door closed? I suppose I might be “still a little in love” with Ali and Mary and a small scattering of other women. Perhaps this is the same thing. Maybe, once you get just close enough to care, there’s a bit of something that never really goes away.
As much as we may have failed to connect, I guess our misses were near enough for me to get (or feel like I got) a sense of you, a little glimpse of your world. As far as I can tell, it’s a good world. I like it. I don’t know if I could convincingly believe that my little world was remotely compatible with it, but…I sometimes still find myself wishing it was.

2006-09-07T01:27:00.000-07:00

I have a new place. It is grand. It is low, and warmly lit, and cozy, and partly underground. It is very much like a hobbit hole, and if you come to visit me (which you should - ring the bell in the back!) I will answer the door and shuffle off to put tea on, much like Bilbo, and you will likely step inside and immediately hit your head on my ceiling , much like Gandalf.
But really, its quite lovely. You should see it. I am already in love with it. I sit at my desk and look out at green ivy and old, red brick, and orange morning sun cut into beams by the arch of wrinkled bark that shades the street. I walk out along a narrow Ivy lined path by the rough brick wall, pass under the trailing fingers of a weeping willow, and i am in a neighborhood that actually lives and moves. I can tip my imaginary hat to the cafe regulars on the way to their morning cup, hop on a bicycle, and be on my way.

This will be a happy place, i should think.

2006-08-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Its funny that simply by going up and down in the elevator wearing a button down shirt and uncomfortable dress pants, people assume i belong here. A lady with big hair looked me up and down and asked if i was new, or she just hadn't seen me before. (Visisble dissapointment on discovering that i do not, in fact, work here.) Another asked me how things were going up there in human resources. "Same as ever!" Barely supressed smirk. Somebody just asked me for permission to go home early. Hey...knock yourself out.

Isaac

2006-08-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

Yes, well.. Ignoring, for the moment, all subsequent events...

Since i find myself in a government office, and, like most people in such places have absurd amounts of time on my hands...let's catch up on this Buffalo thing, shall we?

Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo... lets see... besides eating wings, drinking coffee and sitting under trees, what did i go to Buffalo for? Ah, yes. A wedding. weddings, celebrations, visits, people. Isaac's wedding. Isaac. I don't suppose his wedding can be terribly significant unless one knows something about who he is.

About halfway through my time at "the mission" in Buffalo, Isaac's family arrived. Isaac and his siblings had spent the last fifteen years in Taiwan, and spent more of their lives speaking Chinese than English. It was their parents that were on staff, but living, as i was, alone in a building with seven women, the teenage brothers at least offered escape from the overwhelming female-ness, and i found myself frequently resorting to their company. At night we would escape across the tracks to the indelible Nickel City, the local truckstop diner, whose many virtues included 24 hour service, spectacularily hot wings, and, (possibly their economic undoing) unlimited coffee refills without the necessity of buying a meal. During our endless late-night, caffeine-fuelled rambles, i found a rare kindred spirit in Isaac, despite his youth. He was pleased to inform me, upon having persistently harrassed me into taking the test, that we shared the same psychological personality type. We both felt out of place in our worlds - though he had far more obvious reasons for this. We were both oddities to our families. We shared a preference for objectivity, detachment, calmness. Isaac was, in a word, mellow. He viewed life with the subdued wonder of an explorer, an outside observer to worlds, and lives. Studying. Just passing through.
And if that sounds a shade overdone, then I liked him because he had a car. And liked coffee.
Our relationship changed slightly when the kids joined our Korean/English Youth Group. I had to balance my appreciation for their friendship with the need to at least create the illusion of a responsible, teaching adult example. Though i was never very good at looking convincingly "together", and in the end, i think my transparency made the bigger impression.
For me, it was a relief of sorts when that period ended, and Isaac gained "official" adulthood. I could view him as what he'd always felt like - a sort of brother. Though, I never really lost the feeling of responsibility over him, his brother and sister, or any of those kids, really. I suppose i was closer to Isaac than any of the others. I was there for part of the tragedy that was his parents' marriage, for his doomed almost-romance with a Korean preacher's daughter. Through the miracle of email, when he was in Taiwan and i in China, i watched him get engaged, and watched him get dissapointed. I visited him in Taiwan and we talked as equals about hopes, disspointments, plans and futures, between knuckle-whitening motorcyle excursions through Taipei traffic. Eventually, we returned to our respective "homes" in North America, assumed something like normal lives, and lost touch.
And now he's getting married. Actually, he is married. I can't deny i felt a bit of parent-like pride.

Isaac picked me up early for the bachelor party. We drove familar streets by the old UB south campus.I waited in the mess of furniture and unopened boxes in what was to be the young couple's apartment, in old brick building above a luggage shop. I played peek-a-boo with someone's ill-behaved, tuxedo clad child while he tried on his gear. We had barely an hour of personal conversation before he would be swallowed again by the matrimonial whirlwind.

These are interesting sorts of conversations. With no time for small talk, jokes and rambling, one cuts straight to matters of greatest concern, the biggest questions, the sort of things that normally wait until late at night, after at least a few drinks and a thoughtful pause. So minutes after my getting in the car, seeing each other for the first time in four years, we were disscussing his doubts and certainties about marriage and/or his bride, and my near total loss of faith.

Isaac is a good kid.

I suppose, now that he's married, i should stop calling him "kid".

I'm probably not going to, though.

2006-08-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

We both know its been along time since we more than barely believed. But we're praying again. Maybe because we really don't know what else to do. And that's something, isn't it?

2006-08-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

So, yes. I was in Buffalo. Now i am not. There is much to be said about this. there is much to be said about a number of things. They might be said in no particular order. You will all have to deal with this. ( saying things like that helps me sustain the delusion that anybody else actually reads this.)

2006-08-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

In happier news, i spent the whole afternoon sitting under that massive tree, plunking away on my lap-top, looking out over a big grassy field surrounded by other huge, marvelously old and wrinkled trees, watching kids, dogs and big, fat squirrels frolic. Incidentally, when i am disposed to think of heaven, i often picture something very much like that. That evening i found myself a nice little cafe, all wood panelling and antique lamps and nice, comfy chairs. They were even playing Damien Rice when i came in. Felt kind of familiar. And, rather impresively, the young kid behind the big, oak counter managed to make me a pretty decent latte. Not bad at all.

2006-08-08T20:43:00.000-07:00

Westjet is amazing. If all airlines in the world were Westjet, the world would a happier place. Or they might, at least, take themselves less seriously.

This means I am now in scenic Buffalo, NY. Buffalo, not enjoying the “benefits” of Alberta’s economy, remains virtually unchanged in the nearly seven years since I lived here. Same old Buffalo. Same old cracked pavement, disappearing beneath a slow motion explosion of sun-baked weeds. Same old rusted metal bridges. Same old rusted brick factories with broken windows. Same old sleepy summer neighborhoods, with their sagging wooden houses and Irish pubs on every corner. People lounging on their porches. Children playing in the street.

I am staying in my friend Deb’s house, a typical south Buffalo home with all ancient hardwood floors, and gorgeous oak doorframes and banisters. Last night I slept, essentially, on a porch, under moonlight, to the tireless buzz of mysterious cricket-like creatures, never seen, but always heard. Even now, mid afternoon, as I sit in Cazenovia Park propped against a towering elm older than many generations of men, that buzz is everywhere, pulsing, rising and falling, but never stopping. The soundtrack of time in Buffalo, of my re-acquaintance with old haunts. Odd that I had forgotten it – but I suppose the locals no longer hear it either.

Not everything is the same. The Shamrock, an Irish Pub also older than many generations of men, is gone, replaced by a Starbucks. People change too, and while I was prepared for this, there are some disappointments. I had visions, I suppose, of the gang all being here, meeting at the airport, or at least, gathering at Deb’s house , catching up, laughing, and reminiscing about those odd, dreamlike days when we were all together, ordinary life turned to magic by shared memory. But many of “the gang” have proven difficult to contact. Besides Deb and her lovely adopted Indian kids, who picked me up from the airport, I have not so much as spoken to anyone else, though Deb and I spent most of yesterday afternoon calling and emailing to let people know I was here, and a few of them were already aware I was coming. I will see many at the wedding, I suspect, but as wonderful as it is to trade jabs with Deb again, and as gratifying as Andrew’s enthusiasm and Tammy’s complete, innocent adoration are, there are others that I miss, and if this trip comes and goes with a handshake and a “how are you” at a wedding…it will be a bit…sad. The inevitable sadness of life moving on. A sadness that feels at home in Buffalo, a town of crumbling relics from happier days- a sort of repository of things left behind.

2006-08-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

The answer to THAT question, obviously, is that, somewhere in all that torment and unspeakable agony are hidden moments that almost compensate for the pain. Which brings us to a series of random observations.

To begin with, I'm not sure I've ever REALLY been in love. This is bollocks, of course, because i've clearly been in love at least a couple times, and if i wasn't, i'd have absolutely no excuse for a couple rather extended periods of ridiculous behavior. But a friend and I were disusssing TRUE LOVE, as in THE love of your life, the one you'll never get over, the BIG ONE. I did have at least one that was pretty difficult to get over, but really, from the qualifications given for TRUE LOVE by at least a couple people I've talked to lately, I'm pretty sure it hasn't happened to me yet. Which is good, i guess, because, seeing as i'm presently at least somewhat single, if i HAD been in the BIG ONE at some point, i'd likely still be haunted by the loss. Unless i just don't get as excited about these things as some people. Or unless that particular understanding of love is at least partially flawed. More on that later.

I don't remember what the other random observations were. That one was distracting. And i have a plane to catch. See you in Buffalo.

Observed

2006-07-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

A book of love poetry, sitting on a table, bookmarked at a section titled "Bitterness".

A distraught young lady, repeating the same question into her phone, with increasing urgency: "But what was SHE doing in YOUR room?"

Sometimes I have to wonder why we do this to ourselves.

2006-07-11T18:17:00.000-07:00

We watched “The Fifth Element” the other night, largely because it happened to be on TV, and none of those assembled seemed to be able to muster the strength to change the channel. A reasonably entertaining film, a tad on the cheesy side, but likeable enough. I remember, though, how thoroughly disappointed I was the first time I saw it. This was some time ago, when I was only mostly bitter and jaded, and, noting that it had been an awfully long time since anyone had attempted anything remotely like a serious science fiction film, I harbored a secret hope that, someday soon, somebody in Hollywood would awaken to the near limitless possibilities opened up by the explosion in computer-aided special effects, and would put all that expensive expertise to some truly imaginative use. Alas, Bruce Willis and Luc Besson were not that someone, even if the film DID have the odd glorious outburst of inspired production design.

The problem was one of expectation. The opening minutes seemed to promise something …bigger. Before the story settled into standard stoic- hero- battling- set-chewing- villain, Bruce-Willis-shooting-up-a- cruise-ship territory. I thought, for a few minutes, that I was going to see something epic, original, perhaps even intelligent, perhaps moving…exploring big questions the way sometimes only truly good fantasy can. I thought I was going to see something I’d never seen before, be sucked into a new and intricate world for two hours, one that I would reluctantly drift out of as I wandered back onto the street, forgetting, for a while, the mundane land we actually inhabit.

It was that film, that imagined film, that I wanted to see. That sweeping drama hinted at by the prologue and the rapid jumble of exotic images that constitute the trailer. Built of unknowns, mysteries awaiting discovery, possibilities…the undefined, the stuff around the edges, just eluding a clear grasp.

Likely, no film Luc Besson could ever complete, in a final, fully exposed form, could hold a candle to it.

Italo Calvino wrote If On a Winters Night A Traveller, about, sort of, a man who reads the first chapter of a novel, and keeps searching for the remainder of the book, only to continuously find different first chapters to different novels. A whole book of beginnings with no endings, all promise with no letdown, (but no satisfying resolution, either) opening limitless imagined stories to the reader, but locking none of them into place.

A good beginning is hard, but not as hard as bringing a good beginning all the way through to a good ending. Beginnings are exciting, because they are new, they introduce new things without necessarily having to explain them, put them in context, or flesh them out. They can be full of mystery, leaving one wondering what’s coming. And what I imagine is coming, in all its tantalizing vagueness, is usually far cooler than what actually plays out.

2006-06-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

I just successfully flirted two girls into buying coffee, when they had been disscussing going to Second Cup instead. I have to try that more often. And then ask for a raise.

2006-06-28T17:55:00.000-07:00

This me at the cafe, which is starting to feel a bit like a second home, lately. Not sure why, really. I'm not working there that much. Its more central, i guess, and maybe i like being closer to where the action is. Those who've been following current events, er, don't read too much into that. That wasn't what i meant.

I am shifting quietly between worlds at the moment. Its odd...i see some around me going through wrenching agony about their course in life, their uncertain future. I recognize it, but strangely, for once, it isn't me. Not that i see my future laying itself out neatly in front of me...anything but. My life seems to make less sense the longer it lasts...maybe it doesn't bother me anymore. And its a legitemate argument that maybe it still should. Not the wrenching agony part, mind you - i don't find that particularily useful.
I can remember being paralyzed by the baffling array of different paths available to me. Maybe time and choices, (somtimes made out of simple frustration with all the indecision) have narrowed those options, but i still face a number of quite divergant routes my life could take. . And once again, at some point, choices between them must be made.
I had an odd sort of realization this week. I don't think i'll describe the circumstances on here, but i think taking a few steps down a road that represents something i definitely DON'T want, and the simple realization of that, helped make my picture of what i DO want a little clearer. And while this is hardly profound, forming a clearer picture of what you'd like things to look like makes it a bit easier to start building something that vaguely resembles it.

I am surprisingly relaxed.

And i still need new shoes.

2006-06-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

Swell. Now that last post makes absolutely no sense. Good work Ali!

2006-06-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hmm. I'd love to pretend that giant block of empty space at the beginning of my blog was intended to have symbolic value, but really, i just can't figure out how to get rid of it.

I suppose anyone who REALLY wants to know about me will scroll down.

2006-06-20T18:44:00.000-07:00

Inconvenient, that the people/events/ things most usefully forgotten are also those that most stubbornly persist in bringing themselves back into the mind.

2006-06-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

A slow, strange, slightly sad weekend. Spent in an isolation that was sometimes shared. I don't think its just me, but there seems to be an undercurrent of loneliness in everything and everyone i pass through, even, especially, in the frenzied, desperate jubilance on whyte ave. So many people, living in such close proximity...actual, meaningful connections betweeen them so rare and fleeting. Loneliness amplified the closer we get to another person, purified and distilled to its essence., this ache being the most powerful thing we share, and the one that most eludes communication, something...deep, that never translates into words. I want to say i understand, that i know, that the place i sense they are is a place i've been, and, in truth, am never far from, a home devoid of comfort exept in familiarity. You fill with a compassion, natural and unbidden, springing from recognition of something you know too well. Attempts to speak falter, trail off into the blandly trite and inadequate. Sometimes there are gestures that fare slightly better. Sometimes, all you can give is silence. I get angry at the impotence of my words, but i somehow can't stop them from pouring out , as if volume will fill the hole, as if i can patch an ancient wound with a frail fabric of nice phrases. I hear myself say things that have been said to me, at other times, and didn't offer a speck of comfort then either.

Amongst those i can't help caring about i am aware of significant pain - in some cases faintly sensed, slight, nagging- in others...bald and unmitigated. I am as helpless against it in them as i am in myself. If i could...

Stop me before I...too late.

2006-06-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

Its so dead in here I've had to resort to watching Hockey. This is a new low.

I'm beginning to wonder why we bother staying open during these things. I mean, it has to be a pretty slow night to not cover my salary, but still...

Its been a long day, but a good one. It starts with a brisk 530 am ride over the deserted Capilano bridge into the just-risen sun. The valley is swirling with a thick mist. For a moment, i'm not in a city...on a freeway- i'm crossing an ancient ruin over some dream-like, timeless landscape. The impression lingers, as i drive to the job site with Freddie the stoic Ecuadorian mormon. A dense fog blankets the west of the city. The industrial ugliness on either side of the yellowhead is hidden from view. Perhaps, one can only hope, it has ceased to exist. The yellowhead spontaneous dissapearing in a freak dimensional vortex could only improve the city.Our car and the road are alone in the fog. A few tree tops, a slew with some jagged stumps, are glimpsed - i smile and humour the notion that this is a remote highway, surrounded by vast wilderness in all directions.

I work alone all day - which is good, because no one is there to hear what comes out of my mouth the second time i drop my pliers off a fourth floor balcony - but it also amounts to Eight hours of peace and quiet in which to think. I find myself praying as i work. Its been a while since I've been in the space to do it. Praying for friends i am concerned about. Just praying about life. And feeling better for it. Praying to sort out certain things in my life, to know what's going on...to be sure. And i think, tonight, i got at least part of an answer.

2006-06-04T14:53:00.000-07:00

Ah, Church...i missed you. It was good to be here. And to think i almost slept through it. MY mental objections and philosophical issues about church remain untouched, yet it feels incredibly good to be back here. Like home. with these people, singing these ridiculous songs. With people who pray, and who trust. Pastor Ron's warm hearted sermon, one of those that gently sinks past my wearied and beaten-down defenses by seeming to have been written to directly address my current state of mind, a pointed response to my last night's broodings. Not the kind of sermon that leaves you feeling guilty for everything you aren't doing that you ought to be, rather a reminder of a different way to live, and the quiet suggestion that i might be going about things in an unessesssarily difficult way.

2006-06-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

Once again, a week in which i have managed to insult, offend, annoy, alienate, piss off, and possibly creep out a significant number of the people I know. Must make a mental note, that when one is in this sort of mood, not speaking or attempting to communicate with anyone in anyway is probably a good idea. Without seeking to make excuses for bad or thoughtless behavior, a good chunk of the aforementioned "mood" is likely a result of plain physical exhaustion. Its a poor excuse because it is well within my power to be far less exhausted. I'm exhausted because i'm not sleeping enough while still doing fairly strenuous physical work all day. I'm not sleeping because i'm up talking to people, seeking the comfort of some social interaction, and nobody seems to be around until past my bedtime. So, in a way, the situation should be self-remedying. I stay up talking to people, which makes me exhausted, which makes me grumpy/wierd/just plain boring, which in turn makes people not want to talk to me, which means, if i keep this up, i will drive away all my friends, and finally be able to get some sleep. Yippee!

2006-06-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

Well...that's about enough of that. Its a pity, because I enjoyed the comment about needing a witness for insurance reasons, and, as always, the mystification of J. However, I didn't enjoy the reminder of what that particular block of text stood for everytime I logged in, and i don't feel like burying it beneath a torrent of new rambles. Reading it made me sad.

But i'm not going to lose sleep over it.

In other news, I caught a hint of the most wonderful smell on the way home. I couldn't identify it...it was food, it was spicy, it was...indescribably good. And it was totally new, full of the promise of discovering a fantastic new taste, and a fantastic new restaurant, which surely could be the only thing this was, since i was in a business area, with no houses nearby. I stopped and circled, looking for the source. I was going to find wherever that smell was coming from, and ready to pay them anything they wanted for whatever heavenly concoction produced it. Really. That good.

Sadly, my search came to rest on a series of small apartments hidden above a row of shops, a faint smoke issuing from an open window. Denied! If that was a family meal, i need to find out if that family has a daughter...

2006-05-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

Must ...survive ...two ... more ....hours ...till ...sleep ...

Nearing the end of two gruelling days of multiple job work. My back and entire right side are in absolute agony. So...tired...yet surrounded by expresso...must...resist...sweet, tempting expresso...Tomorrow, i finally get a couple of days of rest.Sweet, blessed rest... "Finally" seems odd, because, working long hours and all, this week has flown by. It seems like i just got that job yesterday... but i've already worked 6 straight 9-12 hour days! My body definitely feels the milage of more than a day of work...and 6 months of relative inactivity. Ouch...

Physical pain and related whining aside, I had a great day. enjoyed a beautiful morning ride to work. Stood beside a lake, ruffling in the wind, silent except for the geese. Hammered the occaisonal nail. A fantastic family brought us Barbecued burgers and orange juice. The city seems deserted and slow, like a lazy day in a farmer's field. Eveyone is off somewhere else, travelling, visiting, camping. I work in a majestic suburban ghost town, populated by wind and geese. Now it is raining outside my candlelit cafe. I love a city in the rain. A old English friend used to say that a city felt more like a city when it was raining. Sitting in a cafe, listening to the hiss of car tires on wet pavement, watching water run down our broken window, and missing someone. Perhaps missing somone feels more like missing someone when its raining.

2006-05-19T18:07:00.000-07:00

I have a job now. Building decks and surfacing condo balconies with some sort of plasticky carpet. I am in debt to a friend for thoughtfully recommending me, saving me from the tedious business of trundling resumes from place to place selling myself, which i loathe. This means i will no longer be despicably poor, and i can afford to pay for a few things, pay some debts, get some bounty hunters off my back, maybe even...buy new shoes. Hmm.

This also means that the list of body parts NOT in contant pain makes for very quick writing. It means i get up at 430 in the morning and work, some days, until 430 in the afternoon. And some lucky days, like today, for example, I get to do the above, run home with just enough time to shower and change, and come here, to the cafe, to work until 11 at night. Get home by midnight, and get up 4 hours later. It means i am more thourougly, bone-crushingly exhausted than i can ever remember being, and have reverted to a basic survival mode. Which means if you cheerfully bounce up to me like a happy little squirrel, and i snap at you, or just growl, don't take it personally. Things like diplomatic and polite social interaction, or patience, or outward perkiness, may not be considered efficient uses of energy.

That said, there's a satisfaction to being back in what one friend calls "manwork". I go into the store to pick up a snack, and i am one of them. Sweaty. Sunburned.Covered in dirt. dust. glue. paint. Wearing a harness for hanging off balconies, dangling a dented metal thermos. Thumping around the gutted carcass of a building, stepping over rubble, drywall, lumber, and insulation recklessly strewn about, swinging a hammer and a staple gun, a huge roll of vinyl decking casually tossed over a my shoulder...
Less glamorous, perhaps, would be getting my fingers glued together, shooting myself in the arm with a staple, my ignorance of the relatively basic operation of power drills, air compressors, and the aforementioned homicidal staple gun. Heck, i can't even figure out my vinyl knife. I routinely get lost in the building, forgetting which floor i was just working on.
At times, i'm forced to consider that, as was suggested, i may be "inescapably white collar".

I'm sure I will learn. I have learned more difficult things. And, as i get used to it, i can only hope it will hurt less. Or i will become completely unable to walk. Or i will fall off a balconey, while stapling my foot to the deck and simultaneously dropping a hammer on my head.

I am working in fresh air. There is sun, true, sometimes blazingly hot, but not flourescant light. Sometimes, blessedly, there is a breeze. When i go to work it is early enough to catch the sun practicing its most dramatic purple-pink cloud canvases. I am working with my hands, building something. Leaving something behind. Doing my part in an intricate symphony of trades and specialities, each contributing their planning and expertise, working together to create...another tasteless, unimaginative box condo, a blight on a once charming rural landscape. But at least I get to dangle off fourth floor balconeys and be one of the last to enjoy that landscape. Horses graze in a field on my left, and to my right, beyond a small cluster of sterile, photocopied housing, gently rolling forested hills, fire-tinged in the morning light. If one can mentally edit out all the "development", this is quite a beautiful place.

And while I'm grimacing at the shooting pains in my back, my leg, my shoulder...etc, i have to remind myself that all that money i'm making will be a beautiful thing, too. And I AM grateful to finally have a job, and to have some prospect of earning my keep.

2006-05-09T09:32:00.000-07:00

We are not big enough. None of us. Myself least of all. Despite what we say, i worry that, underneath, we are nothing but a tangled knot of pointed fingers. We are too small for our words, still too small to inhabit this dream.

God, that we could grow into it.

2006-05-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

Wash: "Everything looks good from here... Yes. Yes, this is a fertile land, and we will thrive."

"We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... 'This Land'."

"I think we should call it...your grave!"

"Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"

"Ha ha HA! Mine is an evil laugh...now die!"

2006-05-08T19:56:00.000-07:00

Me again...

2006-05-08T19:38:00.000-07:00

Jeremy contemplates the pitter-patter of little feet...

2006-05-08T19:33:00.000-07:00