Category: Uncategorized

Rent day and I almost forgot. I made it to Raymar Realty to give them my cash 5 minutes before close. I haven’t even been a day late for paying rent since I moved in here 5 months ago. On the counter was ICBC’s statistics for the top 10 highest accident locations in the GVRD. I drove through 7 of the top 10 intersections today.

My flu/cold whatever sickness may be receding.

I have nothing really to complain about. I’m pretty content. Nay, I am pretty satisfied today right now.

I had coffee with my old sponsor a few days ago. He is moving to L.A. to make some records with a certain Metallica producer, the distance being the reason that I had to find a new sponsor. He told me that I’ve changed an unbelievable amount, the I’ve come a long way this time around, sober for 9 months. I though he was jjust flattering me so I asked for specifics. He mentioned moving in to my own place, maintaining a steady job and not just a coffee-shop job, actually doing the step work, and that I’m not a sketchy skid anymore. He said the my change has been profound and the most drastic change he’s seen in a person in that short a time. I liked hearing that. It was encouraging cause I don’t really feel I’ve changed much cause it happened so gradually from my perspective. However, in one instance I reflect on what I used to write in my blog, what I used to write a year ago. My writing style, my thinking, my feelings, my personality have totally changed as reflected in my writing.

Watching snowflakes melt on the windshield reminds me of crystalized dope melting into liquid in a blown test-tube pipe. Time the melting cycle. snowflake… 1… 2… 3… 4… liquid…. wiper…. snowflake… 1… 2… 3… 4… liquid… wiper…

Glad I blog.

I’m feeling sick. I think I am coming down with a flu. It came upon me really suddenly and now I am bundled in clothes but still really cold. my feet are freezing. my head just feels all wrong and i ache. i wish i had a girl to take care of me. make me soup and make me go to bed and tuck me in.

I bought a new computer on friday. Got paid 2200 bucks and spent 1400 on a new fast-ass comp. Funnily enough I am typing this on my PowerBook, not my new computer. Ah… living in excess… strange. I feel a little guilty. the sole purpose of my new comp is for gaming. I’m sure eventually I’ll learn how to manage my finances… but that doesn;t seem to be a part of my life yet. Better than buying an ounce of meth, i guess.

my hands are not my own. they are worker’s hands. rough and leather. i have callouses everywhere and a constant scar or two.

Jesse told me if i learn QuarkXPress i could get a job with her ad company doing pre-press work. hard to learn a program i don’t have. trying to download it but can’t find it anywhere. it’s several thousand dollars… so buying it is out. I’m sure i could learn it well within a week once i get it.

Throwing stone wheat thins in my chicken noodle soup.

maybe i’ll have to take tomorrow off work

i think it’s funny that our society smiles bearing teeth in photos. I think it’s kinda scary looking and not a very attractive pose.

did some work on my amends list this weekend. now just the willingess to overcome my fears and make my amends.

soup is mostly hot water.

i’m gonna quit smoking before my birthday

i’m gonna just write more tomorrow, when i actually feel passionate about the day’s events.

Took the train in to town today. Got on a bus to get to Uptown, a shopping district that was supposed to be cool. It was similar to Broadway in Seattle, but no where near as good. It is shocking how many black people there are in the states, and particularly this city. At one point on the bus ride the three of us were the only three caucasians onboard a full bus. I hate the state of fear of the black population that is instilled in me through the media and years of societal conditioning. I took note of the subtle fear and nervousness that I felt when surrounded by people who just had a different skin color and how when I got off the bus and back in to the mall, surrounded by white people again I felt okay. Black people down here are what asians are in Vancouver and maybe it just takes time to adjust to it.

I am looking forward to returning to Vancouver tomorrow. I do like getting out of the city. I really enjoy airports and airplanes and flying. But Minneapolis is boring and I am bored of this hotel room. I’ve spent a great deal of time lying on my bed watching American TV, ordering room service and sleeping. After a while, lying about in a hotel room makes getting some drugs a good plan.

I’m sitting in room 259 of the Minneapolis Airport Marriott in Bloomington, Minnesota. It’s cold outside. There is ice on everything. watching a man scrape ice off his windshield and I realize I haven’t seen that occurrence in a long time. There is a freeway a couple hundred yards outside the window and there is the airport a kilometer away. On the otherside of the hotel is the Mall of America and the biggest Ikea I have ever seen.

We finished the store today. It looks good. It feels good to look at the finished product and to feel the completion of this project which has been about three or four weeks long. The installation took 16 hours yesterday and another 11 today. There was our crew of 4: Ben, Chuck, Karl and me, and there was the contractors from here which added another four. the union electricians were four and the work space was about 400 square feet. It was crowded and frustrating trying to work. There was really not a lot I could do. I felt valuable during the unloading phase but the actual installation was a lot of standing around and watching.

Supposedly the Mall of America is a terrorist target, but I highly doubt anyone would waste explosives on this sack of shit place. There’s nothing here.

My lips are dry and chapped. My skin is dry and itchy. I am used to the rainforest, not the arid prairies.

After work today Ben and I napped in our room and then charged a pizza and a movie to our room. I charged internet to the room. The whole bill is picked up my Craig, owner of the store we built. I am wide awake now and it is 2:30 in the morning.

Tomorrow we are going to find a gun range and rent some guns. Never shot a gun before and I feel the need to change that.

Looking forward to the flight. I love flying and i have 7 hours of flying back to Vancouver.

Oh, i almost forgot. On the way here Ben and I went through Las Vegas. We had a few hours between flights so we took a cap to the strip. We walked through The Venetian and I marveled at the intricate interior design. All the moulding and murals that no one puts the time in to anymore in their houses. Back at the airport we played 3 bucks worth of slots and I won two pulls which totaled 8 bucks. I cashed out and commented to ben that that’s why I always win at gambling. I know when to pull my money. I think i picked that up from a lot of playing Dope Wars in grade 8.

I leave next Tuesday for Minneapolis. I received my itinerary yesterday. I am flying out of Vancouver at 6pm bound for San Francisco, layover, then to Las Vegas, layover, then to Minneapolis. I love flying and airports, so I don’t mind the 9 hour trip there or the 12 hour flight back. Incase I didn’t already make a note of it in this blog, our crew got a contract to build two stores within Sam Goody’s locations in Deptford, New Jersey and Bloomington, Minnesota. The stores we are building within the Sam Goody record stores are small versions of Bang-On stores. The design is pretty rad and they have been fun to put together. I spent an entire day fixing up the vinyl sticker “bacteria” design walls that enrobe each store. It was reminiscent of stencil cutting and I was really good at it.

So, flying around is fun. And staying at the Marriott in Minneapolis. Hitting up Camp Snoopy, the world’s largest indoor amusement park as well. Charles Schultz, creator of Peanuts was born in Minneapolis.

Our crew is also building a new Cherry Bomb, vintage clothing store on Granville between Robson and Smithe, below the current Cherry Bomb and where the old “Corner Market” used to be. Apparently the guy who owned the shop got busted running a child porn biz out of the back room and was forced to shut down the store. I personally had to gut that back room and it was creepy to say the least. I spent the day today ripping down the decrepit drywall that covered the ceiling to uncover the original celing treatment from when the building was conceived in the 20’s. Yellow stamped tin patterned ceiling tiles and moulded tin crown moulding. It looks really good and will be perfect for the new establishment going in.

I also spent a good part of the day up to my ass in rat shit to expose the bare solid-tree beams in the place. my hammer would rip off a slat holding up some sheeting and an entire rat’s nest would fall everywhere, some i would inhale even through my mask, and the rest would hang around in the air and settle on me and whoever else was around. Those animals shit an incredible amount, and wthout discretion, just wherever they feel like it. My coworker, Ben and I have been competing all week on a corpse count. He found the first, a fully-intact mummified rat carcass in the heating duct. the body measured well over 8 inches not including the tail, which doubled it’s length. In it’s hay-day that rat could have given most cats a run for their money. My entry in to the competition came with the skelton of the back half of a rat, and today I added two very dead mice to the collection. We crucified all the bodies to the wall on either side of a line drawn to mark Ben’s score and my score. Ben wins by weight, but i win my number.

I want to rant about my current stance on alcoholism and addiction on here, but I have been talking about it so much the past few days with people that I need to give it a rest.

Going to as few meetings as I can the past few days and I feel great. The meetings I regularly go to haven’t been doing it for me the past few weeks, so I decided to cut back my involvement with them for this week and see how I feel. Like i said, I feel great.

Yours truly,
00000000

quoted from an email sent to a friend of mine:

“I don’t think I interact with females very well. I have what i think could be thought of as a complex where I need attention (communicative, emotional, physical or sexual) from women and when I get it it’s okay, but if i don’t get it then i suddenly mount a resentment towards them for not providing me with that. if i sense a lack of attention, I grow resentful and act out childishly with a “i’ll hurt you before you can hurt me” atttitude.

I am really not proud of this behavior and I really dislike this part of myself. I’d like to know how to change. Over time the reaction has remained as a reliable defect. My efforts to change it have not worked. I am curious as to how I can change this behavior and hope to have deep, healthy relationships with women without manipulating and hurting them and as a result never feeling satisfied in the relationship.

I don’t really know why i’m telling you this, other than to try to stimulate some sort of intellectual conversation that may deepen our relationship. however, i can see how you being female and me discussing my female complexities with you could make you uncomfortable. if this is the case, i’m sorry.”

i’m actually quite happy right now.
i can imagine that there is an underlying depression beneath this happiness.
but i think it’s just my imagination.

I think cause i have to
I’m trying to find a way out
Sick of being unhappy
controlled by pain and fear
forces uncontrollable.

I’m gonna find a way
it may not be original
i may not be the first
i know i won’t stop looking
why can’t i just settle

I’ll precede this post by saying that I think questionaires are boring to read. But I like doing them. Mostly for record keeping, i think.

10 Favorites…
Favorite Color: the orange light of a setting sun cast on everythinbreaking through clouds of a rainy sky and the grey of the sky that encases the orange.

Favorite Food: Pasta of all varieties, Panago chicken club pizza, fuckin rare steak

Favorite Band: Aphex Twin (not really a “band”)

Favorite Movie: Apocalypse Now or Clockwork Orange

Favorite Sport: Ultimate – haven’t played in years

Favorite Season: Summer

Favorite Day Of the Week: Saturday

Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Rollo

9 Currents…
Current Mood: depressive and inquisitive

Current Taste: cigarettes

Current Clothes: nothing but mint green hospital pants

Current Computer: PowerBook G4 (15″)

Current Finger/Tonail polish: none

Current Time: 12:19am

Current Surroundings: hella messy desk, looking out my window at a rainy brick wall.

Current Annoyance(s): people who say “exetra” instead of et-cetera, “expresso”, “expecially”, “excapades”

8 Firsts…

1. First Best Friend: Matthew Said, 7 years old
2. First Screen Name: Dr. Who on KangaChat circa 1992
3. First Pet: Suki, the Basenji
5. First Piercing: left eyebrow, age 13
6. First Crush: Laura Brooke, grade 7
7. First Music: Ace of Base’s “The Sign”, Soundtrack to Rainman
8. First time: Annie Wright, 16

7 Lasts

1. Last Cry: the last time i got high, 8 months ago
2. Last Drink: Grande med roast in a Venti cup
3. Last Car ride: driving home from a birthday party, 3 hours ago.
4. Last Text Message: To Breanna “but you’ve never experienced it”
5. Last Movie Seen: Prozac Nation. horrible movie.
6. Last Phone call: Jeff Dircks
7. Last CD Played: Aphex Twin, Words & Music

6 have You Ever….

1. Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Friends: yes
2. Have You Ever Broken the Law: yes, that’s easy to do
3. Have You Ever Been Arrested: yes
4. Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: yes
5. Have You Ever Been on TV: no
6. Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn’t Know: no

5 Things….
You Did Last Night:
1. wrote
2. made pasta
3. went to a meeting
4. left the meeting at half-time
5. watched Prozac Nation with Laure

4 Places You’ve Been Last…home doesn’t count
1. my work’s warehouse
2. Alano Club
3. Rob’s house
4. Breanna’s house

3 People you can tell anything to
1. Jeff
2. Anna
3. my blog

2 Choices…
1. night or day: Night
2. shakespeare or salinger: shakespeare

1 Person You’d Do Anything For:
1. –

The next five posts were written at once, as one post. I decided to break it up in to sections for the sake of being more readable, but if you are so inclined they read right through. Thanks for reading, without you I would write anyway.