Masked Men

Don Swayze (left), looks like someone wearing a Patrick Swayze halloween mask. I don't think he can sleep at night without downing a fifth of vodka. Lords knows I can't anymore after seeing this picture.

Future Consideration

Sometime this weekend, you will be mine. I just wish I had a way to record the toy accordion + ukulele + my DS as a drum machine songs I will be able to make. Next step is replacing the drum machine DS aspect with a set of bongos. I shall create my own tiny band and take over your world.

Economic Downturn

Any conversation that begins with a phrase like "I shouldn't be telling you this" or "you didn't hear this from me" can only go downhill quite quickly. Thus was the case on Friday when my supervisor pulled me aside as I was getting ready to head home and let me know that I should spend the weekend updating my resume and looking at want ads because a round of layoffs were coming on Tuesday and, heads up, I would be one of the people let go. I don't know that he was expecting the reaction he got: a nice broad smile and "sweet, finally, thanks."

Generally I need a swift kick in the rear in order to make changes in my life. I've hated where I work for the past year or so because after some quick promotions - more like lateral movements - I realized there wasn't really anywhere else I could go in the company. Not that I really care about moving up the Corporate Ladder(TM) or anything like that. I just hate being bored when I'm working so I like to get more responsibility and learn new things. I was at that job far longer than I wanted to be and only really dipped my toe in the ocean of other employment opportunities but after that brief conversation on Friday I spent the following couple of days applying to about two dozen different positions. Mostly in office settings because that's where my experience is. When the hammer actually comes down tomorrow, though, I shall broaden my search to include those few retail outlets that I could work at without wanting to stab my eyes out. I'm not really concerned with finances and such as I have some money in the bank and a fairly hefty paycheque to come if they put a rush on adding my vacation pay to that final score.

All in all I'm pretty happy about it. I mean, it could be a lot worse. I could have worked for this guy:

When It Rains

No time like the present to ramble on this thing. I napped entirely too much today wrapped in the arms of a beautiful but ill young woman and am suffering for it in the dead of the night. Speaking of that young woman, we spent most of Sunday at the hospital due to whatever it is that is causing her to feel on the verge of blacking out for hours on end. There was nothing I could really do but offer my support and the occasional hand squeeze when needed but according to her it was more than enough. Every time she tells me how wonderful or thoughtful I am I admit that I cringe a little. I'm not at all used to such praise, especially when it's for doing something that I see no alternative course of action for. What kind of man would I be if I left the poor dear by herself in the hospital and stayed home playing Rock Band 2 or some other idiotic venture?

So when I went into work on Tuesday there was a notice up on the community board informing us that all salaried workers (ie. management) have taken a pay cut. A lengthy explanation dripping with business jargon and promises of the positive nature of corporate restructuring followed. It took everything I had not to spit on the paper. Later that same day they laid off about a dozen people, some of which had been there longer than I have. This doesn't make sense for a number of reasons. We're currently in the midst of our busiest time of the year and with the two month long public transportation strike we are struggling to stay on top of our workload as it is. They also have about twenty to thirty temp workers there whose contracts could simply have not been renewed as opposed to letting go staff that know the job inside and out and have been doing it for years. Needless to say I have dusted off my resume and am again applying to other agencies in both a similar field and a few retail outlets well outside my comfort zone. Hopefully my need for full time employment will be moot anyway come the fall.

Oh, that's right, I should have mentioned. I finally nutted up and applied for university. Because I'm a mature student I have to provide supplemental materials including a letter to each institution outlining for them exactly who the eff I think I am and why in God's name should they bother letting me into their respective Psychology programs. I finished the letter today and hopefully they will appreciate my candor and honesty throughout. Still waiting on admission packages from the two of them so I find out exactly where I am supposed to send some paperwork and such but that should be in my mailbox sometime this week if not early next week.

I've been toying with the idea of using the video recording function of my digital camera to set up a video blog on YouTube but given the frequency with which this blog is updated I doubt I will have any worthwhile material to share with the world at large. There are only so many times I can sit down and talk about how much I hate the Internet, the advancement of technology versus humanity, how the world is going to end sooner rather than later, why no one in their right mind should be using animals in any way, or how great it feels to have finally met someone that loves me for the complete putz that I am.

Leisure time has been given up to potlucks, post-holiday Secret Santa gift exchanges, laying down the funkiest of bass lines in Rock Band 2, cooking delicious foods with my lady, taking long walks in terrible weather with only my iPod and the swelling of songs left unsung to keep me warm, and failing to paint that picture that I've been working on since the fall.

Transmission ends.

P.S. I don't usually listen to anything I would consider mainstream or even remotely popular, even so far as composition and arrangement is concerned, but I haven't been able to get this song out of my head for the past couple of days. I desperately want somewhere quiet and sound dampening where I can belt it out. It's been way too long since I've been able to sing anything at what I would consider a reasonable volume. This is not something you can do under your breath or in the shower.



Stay tuned for future posts about the best present I've gotten in the past while, my stance on the OC Transpo strike, my Oscar crusade, and much much less.

Not Dead Yet

A Pickin' & A Lickin'

Suspicious Disappearance

I never know what to write here. To me, anything worth writing about comes from a place of great anger and passion. I still possess the latter, don't get me wrong, but I'm not angry anymore about anything. It's sad and cliche to say it's because I met someone. But. Well. I met someone. When I was in first grade the teacher had all the students sit in a circle and she went around asking each of us what we wanted to be when we grew up.

Most people gave stock answers. I want to be a fireman. A policeman. A ballerina. When it was my turn she asked me the question and I stopped to think about it for a minute. Now, even by an early age I had seen a lot of movies. Much more than the average kid, at any rate. And most of the films had a common thread that seemed like the be all and end all to what life was really all about. At least, it seemed perfectly logical to a seven year old. So I looked at my teacher and I said that when I grew up I wanted to be in love. Pretty naive, huh? I admit it. But I also never forgot it. Never forgot how the other kids laughed, for sure. At that age I couldn't possibly have any idea what love was. I can't say that I'm sure now. What I do know is that from almost the moment I met her face to face I was completey at ease. That every time we're together a sense of calm comes over me the likes of which I have never before experienced. That when we're together I feel that I am capable of anything. That I don't have anything to hide and whatever I say or do will be excepted at face value. That I no longer feel so damned alone in the world. And when we're curled up in bed watching an old foreign movie or a documentary I never feel so safe or secure or loved. So whatever it was I thought that love was in the first grade that captivated me so, whatever I thought about it all the days before this one, if what we're sharing isn't love then I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist.

Things I made this weekend:

- Leek And Bean Cassoulet With Biscuits

- Vegan Gingerbread Pancakes

- Crispy Chinese Salt & Pepper Tofu, Baby Bok Choy, Steamed Jasmine Rice

- Vegan Cheesecake (with Strawberry Sauce Topping)

- Lots of sweet, sweet love.

Yeah yeah, I know. My cold black heart has melted. Get over it.

Transmission ends.

Musical Interlude

Frank Reynolds, 57, Retired

Holding onto his wife for dear life as the bus skids around another corner trying to keep on schedule he can't help but stare at the high school girls that got on at the last stop. There is a hunger in his eyes he no longer has a name for, but his hands remember what it feels like to touch and to hold. He looks down at his wife in her government-funded wheelchair and thinks back to when the two of them were new. Thirty some odd years ago he wouldn't have had that hunger in his eyes for anyone else. His wife raises her arm and extends her hand toward his face, the face of the man she has woken up next to for the better part of four decades. She still has that nameless hunger, wants nothing more than to satisfy it. But while the mind if willing, the flesh is feeble. Once again leering at the forbidden fruit at the back of the bus he mistakes her gesture for simple instruction and pulls the stop request wire. When the bus lurches to a stop a few seconds later he holds firmly onto the handles of his wife's wheelchair and backs off of the bus without incident, the girls at the back all but forgotten.

Lucas

The soft aroma of genuine regret, the way she hangs her head like a child being scolded, the practiced manner in which she seems spontaneous with her words, it almost works. Smearing darkness across her face, shivering from the chill of an enemy's ghost, she offers me another nicotine apology. I've taken her poison before, but the kick isn't worth the comedown. Find a new vein, sweetheart. This one's tapped out. So I leave. Another sidewalk suicide limping toward the ever after. It should have felt good to go. Heavenly fanfare and the cosmic reach-around. I settle for a chorus of sirens and a gentle pat on the shoulder from the evening's drizzle. It's more than I deserve. Soon, I'm home. My answering machine is haunted by the last straws and you'll be sorries of a dozen jilted lovers. What's one more? I'd exorcise them all, purge the innocent device of such venomous and loathsome energies, but it's cheaper than therapy. A private gallery full of electric echoes of my most glaring flaws and most painful failures, forever at my fingertips. Have to buy a new tape soon. I make a note of it.