Category: Uncategorized

Nothing’s meant to last forever.

Details: 3″ Passlode framing spike from an air-powered nail gun shot through my pinkie finger on my left hand exiting through the finger nail. Lots of blood. Fractured bone. Antibiotics. Popped cherry.

Worked somewhere between 90 and 100 hours in the last 9 days. 9 days and today is my first day off. I truly never thought I had the capacity to commit to a job and show up week after week. Past girlfriends I always admired because it seems they always had full-time jobs. They always worked and I waited around everyday to see them. It was like a post-nuclear family role-reversal. But now I can hardly believe that I, the fuck-up am working as much as I am. I don’t mind it. Work takes up some good sizeable chunks of my day which I would otherwise squander away.

Listening to Lou Reed’s Berlin.

I have carpal tunnel syndrome. I hadn’t had any symptoms all week till this morning. I woke up because my hand/wrist on my right side was numb and throbbing. An hour after waking up it still is. Physical injuries and illnesses are so all-encompassing and demobilizing. It’s frustrating not being able to rely on my body. The first day on the island at work I came down with a horrible flu. Felt like I was gonna pass out, ached all over and swollen glands. 18 hours in bed, sweating it out.

I dreamed about you last night again. I dream about you in total more than anyone else in total, i think. It was one of the recurring themes in dreams involving you. It’s more about the feeling that I get being with you than anything we are doing or where we are. You and I are bestest friends, like I imagine we were in the beginning, like around that time when we went hiking in Manning Park, or the time we got drunk and went to the Folk Fest afterparty together. Companionship, you’re so beautiful. In my dreams you’re clean. We’re nice to each other. We’re comfortable with each other. Very comfortable. Nothing else in the world matters except for you. But I think that maybe these dreams mean nothing about you, but instead you are the personification of my ideal girlfriend in my dream, which I guess means that atleast physically, you are.

Since Jeff transpired photos of his messy desk I decided to document the current state of my own living mess.

sitting here with a bass between my knees. gratified. satisfied. put in a lot of hours this week at work. if you want a quantitative total it works out to 59 hours in the last 7 days. bling bling i guess. but more important to me is this feeling of usefulness and productivity. i haven’t felt depressed in ages. months.

just plugged in my phone. charging the deadness. checked my messages. i love the people in my life. i really, really do. i love that i have the choice to contact who i want to and that there is a reciprocity between us.

she called having a mental breakdown, by the sounds of it. she dropped her cell phone in her oatmeal a few days ago. so poetic. i’m the only phone number she knows by heart. i feel honored, come to think of it. even though the memory of my number over all others is probably nothing more than a coincidence. but yes, she was having a mental breakdown, on the message she left me. said she was near tears. said i was her only link to the outside world. told me she just needed to talk to me. She called at 8:05.

SHE called me! I was so happy to see one missed call from her place of work. She actually called me, and she left a message too. I wish i hadn’t automatically deleted it after listening to it or maybe I wouldn’t have to recite her call for future reference. She was just calling to say hi. To tell me that she misses me. She fucking misses me. can you believe it? her tone was casual. Like nothing ever happened. Like everything is right as rain. and it is, cause she called me. She called at 8:22. I called her back right away. She called me more than three hours ago but my phone was dead. She picked up the phone. we talked for a couple minutes, the how are you, how are you nonesense. she’s calling me back in twenty.

he called me to talk but got my answering machine. the message was long. a good 4 minutes. he called to tell me that he realized he is terrified of living. he used the word terrified. I don’;t think he mentioned any specific things he was terrified of but just referred to the scarryness of being alive especially now that he’s sober. nothing to dull the pain. nothing to hide the fear. but there is things. there is always something to dull the pain and hide the fear. it seems somedays that’s all i am looking for, is that next fix. that next dose of escape and numbness. or if nothing else a distraction. but what from? what is there to be afraid of? to hide from? to escape from? is our existence really that horrific or are these feelings void, figments of our imagination? no one is hunting us down. no one is too much to handle, too powerful to be cut out of our lives. nothing is too daunting. so then what is it? what is it that you are so terrified of? he called at 10:54.

I’m back from Galiano. Tired. Very tired. My hands seixed up this morning and were numb. It took more shovelling before they returned to normal. My muscles are all stiff and hard. I think that’s a sign that they are all getting bigger and the skin hasn’t stretched to compensate yet.

Within the next year I will either enroll in the training program to become a firefighter or I will join the Canadian army. What about that $10,000 training to become a webdesigner? I dunno. What about my career as an artist? I dunno. But I do know that today I want to be either a firefighter or a combat engineer. There are lots of not combat rolls in the military. It pays really well, the work is fun and exciting. You get to travel a lot, see the things that ordinary citizens can’t see, and you get to carry guns around. Firefighter or military.

We had to dig out a lot of dirt. Took three of us 36 hours of digging to grade this foundation. By hand. No fucking back hoe. Just shovels. I daydream a lot when I’m shovelling. It’s monotonous. Tough on the back. You get out of breath fast. Four shovels and you need to take one to catch up. I daydream that I am in Vietnam, digging foxholes, that Charlie are in the bushes and that mortars are exploding all around. I imagine we are digging trenches in WWI. French only 100 yards away, I’m lucky to not be shot to the ground already. It’s tough work, shovelling. As I’m typing my fingers don’t feel like my own. My knuckles are stiff and ridgid, like i have arthritis. Every muscle in my hand feels as though it were beaten with a hammer.

Got a dragonfly from the Island. Big one, two and a half inches from eye to rudder. fonna build a little taxidermic box and leave it on her doorstep with a note. Hope she likes it. Hope it makes her hate me less and think of me.

I am so fucking exhausted right now. I really need a day off. Thank god I don’t work tomorrow. I leave Sunday for Galiano. Our crew is all going there to build a house. Should be about 4 or 5 days. We are gonna work long days, 10-12 hours. And i’m gonna get paid 20/hour under the table. I like money when it is given to me. Got paid today for the last two weeks work. That takes care of rent for the next couple of months.

Today’s contribution to my fatigue was that I worked on a the set of Stargate SG-1. Not construction, as per usual. My foreman gave me the day off seeing as how we’re gonna be working Sunday, but I got a call from IATSE Dispatch this morning and decided to follow the request. The request was for the lighting department, a lighting op. I’ve never been a lighting op before. My closest experience was being head of lighting and sound in high school. However I quickly realized that the complexity of the situation on a professional production stage is about 4000x more complicated than a high school production. I don’t like feeling unknowledgable regarding work. The feeling is draining. Feeling like tits on a bull. Having to ask “What can I do?” or “How do I do this?” after and during each task. I think maybe once (if) I have more experience as a lighting op, the job could be more fun. As it was, I hated almost every minute of it. I was up in my head all day. Lacking the companionship, understanding and teamwork that I am used to working with my construction crew. I also lacked the proper tools for the job. All the other lamp ops had their toolbelts with a crescent wrench, electrical tape, zap straps, Leatherman, sharpies etc. whereas I had only a pair of pliers that the Gaffer gave me at the beginning of the day. I was constantly wishing I had a certain tool that I didn’t have for a given task. Constantly asking for the other lamp op’s tools and having them scoff at my inadequacy. The other lamp ops weren’t particularly friendly or understanding of my situation, having never done this before. So I was left to be constantly mindful of my situation to avoid any freakouts. Kept telling myself “It’s alright, you don’t have to be amazingly competant today, you’re learning. Just pray, just pray for the strength to continue.” I was unaware of the work schedule. When I could take smoke breaks, when lunch was, that we were going to be working for 12 fucking hours. I felt like i was breaking some sort of protocol when I would go out every couple of hours for a smoke. Lunch was at 2pm, which by my strict standards of lunch at 12 everyday was so late that I had hunger pains. I seriously began to doubt my ability to stay on until 8pm after lunch. I quickly crafted a manipulative lie and told the Gaffer I had an appointment at 6pm to have dinner with my mom so i would have to leave early. He then proceded to completely embarrass me infront of every available crew member by telling them all that, “Nick’s gotta go home early boys. He came late and has to go home early… To his mommie’s house for dinner,” to which the rest of the crew from lighting, construction and painting let me know how much of a pussy I was. Whatever, I laughed it off on the outside and prayed the whole time on the inside.

There is a positive side to this kind of work. I make 23.25 an hour as a lamp op. 1.5x that when I work over 8 hours, which on a 12 hour/day schedule works out to 325/day. Plus 12.996% fringe pay on top of everything. So, if i worked a full week there I’d make $1836 a week. Holy shit that is a lot of money. Today I worked 7.5 hours and made 200 bucks. If I had known then that I would be making 1.5x my rate for the last 4 hours maybe I would have just hauled ass instead of making an excuse and leaving. The food at lunch was amazing. Prawns, ribs, meatballs, pasta salad, caesar salad, and for desert, apple pie and ice cream.

However, despite the amazing pay I think after a couple weeks in today’s mindset I would seriously consider the dope to cope with the spiritual agony that would result. As of now I still haven’t showered. I still haven’t eaten dinner. I am hungry and I am beating it back with cigarettes. I suppose I should make dinner now. There’s a band playing at the Lamplighter tonight that I would like to see. I should go to that. It’s friday night and I have a day off tomorrow. Thank god I have a day off.

I like to cook sometimes.

Yet you still find it necessary
to give me those looks acting so very
bewildered by the hurt that you’ve caused

try to disinfect me
stitched up in synthetic concern
the side effects are temporary
and it’s the only way you’ll learn

the detachment is the solution, not the problem.

and i figure that if what really bothers me about x and y relationship is my dependency upon her and the resulting disapointment then maybe i should just disconnect.

I felt the same way with you until it was discussed openly and honestly and I could detach and boundaries were set.

i guess i’ve just been thinking a lot about the company i keep and how much i loathe it so much of the time because of the expectation i place on it to change the way i feel or to have it not change the way i feel and for it to affect me regardless. it’s bullshit. i want it to stop. it’s fucking killing me inside. so… i dunno. i guess i’m really detaching from everyone. So that’s what I’ve been doing, detaching, becoming the master of myself and spending any free time i do have by myself, writing, recording songs, reading, cooking.

i can’t deal with being controlled by other peoples intetntional or unintentional influence upon me.

i see it as me becoming more independant, stronger as an individual. if i can take care of myself, my own internal then maybe i’ll actually have something to contribute to the relationships i am in.

i rarely find human connection an amazing thing. It’s been that way as long as I can remember. Up till I was 15 or so I hardly ever hung out with friends after school like the other kids. I preferred to be alone. Companionship has always been a stress and a chore.

watching you two in your interactions, your cute glances and kissy faces makes me sad cause i want someone to care that much about me (even though it may look unhealthy to me at times). But i know that that jelousy is my own defect.

but i think a lot of my fear surrounding our relationship (and others) comes back to this dependancy thing. like i really don’t know how to be emotionally detatched and unneedy in relationships. so, i am reluctant to trust you cause i know that means giving you the power to make me feel like shit.

on other dependancy issues… i miss breanna. but maybe i think i don’t miss her.

i miss the idea of having someone thinking about me all the time, mad about me, giving me attention, affection.

i wouldn’t call her. she doesn’t want to hear from me.

it’s not about her then, it’s about me. but even if it is about me, the way i feel, it is still caused by her:

i think we’re interconnected, right. it’s not like it’s never anyone else’s fault. other people totally “fault” me all the time. “fault” is a perceptional thing. to them they’re not faulting me. but to me they are. but that only occurs cause something in me is being affected by their actions. but they are their actions, they always are. they just can’t really be blamed.

still whacking off a lot?
‘d rather get myself off than use someone else to do it.
i’m better at it.
i am so celebate it’s sick.

If they kill you on their TV
You’re a martyr and a Lamb of God.

thank you for initiating this conversation, Anna.

Dependency sucks.

Last night I dreamt that I was riding around in a superficial Hollywood with Jay-Z and Madonna. Madonna and I were cuddling in the back of the Escalade with tinted windows. Jay-Z and I were discussing production techniques. Madonna got out at a red light and kissed me goodbye. Jay-Z and I rolled to his studio. When we got there he put a fat damp wad of bills in my hand. I told him I wasn’t expecting money to just hang out with him. He told me that if he didn’t have to bail it easily would have cost him that much anyway, as in if we were sipping Chrys at a club and doing coke all night. As we pulled away from his studio i felt a wad in the bills and on closer inspection saw that it was infact a bag of about 5 grams of weed and about 2 grams of some unknown yellow powder. We stopped at the beach and suddenly I found myself walking along this futuristic boardwalk along the ocean. Other beach-walkers were passing me and coming towards me all around me but i wasn’t anxious. 50 yards out on the water there was large pylons with symbols every 500 yards or so up the beach, each one an indicator for that particular airline’s or cruise’s hotel zone. JAL Air. KLM. Lufthansa. Northwest Airlines. Royal Dutch. I could only remember a flight card that said some flight starting with M, so I kept walking. On my walk it was nightime, but the sky was still painted with the markings of a illustrious sunset. Or maybe sunrise. Three 16 year old girls stopped me and we sat on a bench together. They wanted to know if I could boot for them. Remembering that I had a mickey of vodka on me I knew I could help them out. They were drinking slurpees and were already somewhat inebriated. I looked up to see two cops looking over me. I was surprised at how they had suddenly appeared without me even noticing their arrival. “Hello Sir, how are you this evening?” “I’m fine officer, how are you?” “Very well. Had anything to drink tonight?” “No, officer. Nothing at all.” Which was the truth. However I suddenly became conscious of the mysterious yellow powder in my pocket and the weed that Jay-Z had given me. This only really seemed to be a problem because I was in the States. I thought maybe my fame and lawyers could get me out of this one. My fear made the dream vanish and I chased it through my head eager to know how the story ended.