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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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...

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.

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.

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.

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!"

Me again...

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

We are strange, strange people. Of the people in this cafe at the moment, over half are typing away on computers WHILE talking on their cellphones. There is a couple outside, standing right beside each other, each one one immersed in a cellular conversation with someone else...they've both been there for over half an hour( or, perhaps, they were talking to each other? That'd be beautifully absurd.)

Knowledge kills action; action requires the veils of illusion: that is the doctrine of Hamlet

-Nietzche

"If you were waiting for the opportune moment, that was it."

-Captain Jack Sparrow

Hope part II

I feel better. Reasons are hard to peg. I have good friends. I am thankful for them. I can tell them where i am and not have to endure self-help book advice. They are silent. They nod. They pray for me. These are good friends. Good people to have around.

I feel better about the House. Cautiously. Maybe, in one small corner of the universe, something is starting to go right. A tiny Something good just might be starting to happen.

I feel better about me. Things that used to tear me apart, bother me a lot less. I can even think they're cute. This is significant progress, and makes certain important relationships in my life a whole lot more relaxed. Almost like getting friends back, or making entirely new ones.

A great deal of ambiguity surrounds one other thing i might have to feel better about. Though hints, allegations and things left unsaid, and potential, nay, expected dissapointments can introduce a fair bit of anxiety into life, somehow, regardless of where it all comes down, it still feels good.