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Excerpt from an email to Lorea reprinted here…

The conference was amazing. I had such a good time. We got there Thursday morning, early early and our hotel check-in wasn’t until 11. We drove in to San Francisco over the Bay Bridge and the bay was fogged in so we couldn’t really see much of downtown. We drove around a little to get a taste and then tried to find Haight/Ashbury. We eventually asked for directions and got a map. I don’t think we actually found Haight and Ashbury, but we were all so sleep deprived and hungry that it didn’t even matter. We found a semi-gay part of town and partked the car. we walked down to a cafe and I had a smoothie and a buttered bagel while I read a printed copy of The Onion. I didn’t even known The Onion was printed. I only knew of the online version. Anna called Alcoholics Anonymous Central Office in San Francisco and found a morning meeting at 8:30am in downtown cause we had time to burn until the hotel would check us in. We got to the meeting – In the Tenderloin district. It is essentially the ghetto of ‘Frisco that Main and Hastings is to Vancouver. At first I was apprehensive to go in to this meeting but I’m glad I did. It turned out to be a really amazing meeting. The four of us were probably some of the most sober people in the room and we were all definitely the youngest and definitly the most well-dressed. At first I felt oddly out of place, like some rich kid that was squatting on a junkie’s meeting. But as soon as the meeting started I felt at home, I felt reminded that if this thing is a disease that I suffer from it just as much as the rest of these junkies and crackheads. More over, I have sober time and I know a solution to staying sober, thus placing me in a position to be of service to these people and in fact I felt obliged to be of service to my fellows. It was a pretty amazing experience, and definitely an unexpected highlight of the weekend.When we got our room, I passe out for several hours right away. I had just driven 18 hours through the night with little sleep.It was still thursday and the conference didn’t start until Friday night. It was nice having a day to readjust and relax prior to the weekend. Hmm, i’m rambling… and I still haven’t slept since driving back to Van since yesterday… maybe i’ll try to truncate this. There was a whole mucnh of meetings over the weekdn from the huge meeting Saturday night where they did a ‘sobriety countdown’ from 70 years down to 24 hours to smaller panel meetings, not to mention the Marathon Meetings that ran 24 hours a day all weekend in a conference room. Friday and saturday night there was two dance rooms, a hip hop room and a house room. The hip hop room was the most popular, but i can’t pretend I know how to dance to hip hop, and frankly ‘dancing’ to hip hop is boring and seems to be more about ego and attitude. So i got all raved out and danced my ass off for hours in the house room. Thinking of you the whole time, of course, and wishing you and I were dancing to together. So yeah, the speakers, the meetings, the dancing, being with my friends, and oh yeah… every morning i went running outside in the hot Cali sun for 30 minutes and then ate a banana in the pool and then hot tubbed then steamed. then went for breakfast with the Vanouver peeps and the Seattle peep at 10:30am. It was such an amazing way to wake up every morning. Wish i could always do that.

Excerpts from an email to Lorea, reprinted for purposes of record keeping…

It made me really happy to hear how you’re “all about me right now”. But really, I’m not that surprised. I feel like you and I are really connected on a deep level right now, and I actually trust you – which is a hard thing for me, and I’m kinda shocked writing it cause it’s true and i have trouble trusting people. But I do. I trust you entirely. The whole time I was on my trip I didn’t once have a jealous thought about you… I totally trust you cause I know you love me, and I love you. You said you haven’t talked to any guys down there for more than like 30 seconds… I’m the same… I’m so in to you, it’s insane… There was all these girls walking around, i mean there was 1500 young sober people at this conference, all at the hotel, and there was all these Cali girls walking around and I didn’t fucking care at all… I saw them and all i could think about was you and how fucking awesome you are and how they can’t even possibly compare to you. I just felt so “taken”. I felt so “unavailable”. ANd it was awesome. It was empowering to know that I didnt have to spend my whole weekend trying to get approval/attention/sex from all these other people cause I feel so satisifed thinking about you. A few times I went up to my hotel room and took out the stack of photos you gave me and spread them all out on the bed and just gazed at you and talked to you and then kissed the photo of you in your green fuzzy sweater and then pretended to lick your back in the super hot one of you with your back all arched and wet. It was nice to remember you by. Sitting at the pool, i wanted you with me. Walking around San Fran, I wanted you with me. I would even imagine what you would say in certain situations. Haha. Is it crazy to be having internal conversations with you when you’re not there? kind of Norman Bates style… We’ll eventually get around to travelling together and i think we’ll have an awesome time.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty bad. I actually woke up in a panic. I was dreaming that today was my first day of class at some school that I was starting at. I for some reason had to bring my computer to school, my desktop, on the bus. In my dream I was rushed and panicking first thing in the morning to catch the bus on time. I had no idea how to get to the school. I had no idea what to bring. I didn’t want to miss any classes, but it was apparent I was going to. Essentially what I was filled with was a feeling of preemptive failure. I woke up 10 minutes later – 6:45am to my alarm going off. I sat up in bed. I felt like shit. I still feel kinda shitty. Haven’t been in this routine since last Tuesday. I jsut spent the last week having a kick-ass time in Santa Clara, south of San Francisco with a few of my closest friends. I actually felt so shitty this morning that I prayed and then read Upon Awakening. I have no milk for my cereal. I have a dentist appointment at 8:30am where I’m getting two teeth drilled. After that I am working until 4pm.

The honeymoon is over.

I’ve been hardcore neglecting my blog lately. I have been really busy. Since I mostly recovered from that illness of death a couple weeks ago, I havce been going non-stop. Work, hanging with Lorea, eating, rocking out, writing songs, etc. etc. I like being busy, but i also like having periods of reflection with absolutely nothing to do. I hate it at the time but i think it is those moments of perceived “boredom” and “loneliness” that make me a better person overall. interesting.

I was asked by this photographer to be in a shoot this last weekend. He essentially bailed on the whole thing and didn’t have the decency or respect to call and let me know or anything of the sort. I got an email from him last night at about 10pm ‘apologizing’. I have so little tolerance for people that cannot follow through with plans they make, cannot follow schedules set out or simply flake out. It feels disrespectful and essentially is them showing me they a) don’t care enough about others to be accountable and b) are irresponsible and cannot manage their lives. Anyway, not a very professional first impression and one that will certainly take more than an apologetic email after the fact to rectify.

I am cooking a salmon for dinner. I am hypoglycemic. My blood sugar levels seem to drop really often. Right after work is one of the worst times for me, cause it’s usually been about 5 hours since eating anything and the past 5 hours spent busting my ass. I get home and I suffer some pretty harsh consequences of having low blood sugar…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoglycemia#Neuroglycopenic_Manifestations

but anyway, this salmon smells really good. oh yeah, that’s what i was gonna say… I didn’t run today cause i worked late, till about 6 so by the time i got home i was feeling like a big tired piece of shit. so, i got some lemon and onion and put it in the dish with butter, potatoes, tomato, pepper, salt and my salmon. i’m gonna shower now and then eat my fish. smells sooo fucking good. that’s one things smokers can’t do.

I am otherwise well.

I love this girl and I’m too scared to write about it.

He needs a quiet room
With a lock to keep him in
It’s just a quiet room
And he’s there

He plays an old guitar
With a coin found by the phone
It was his friend’s guitar
That he played

He’s never been in love
But he knows just what love is
He said nevermind
And no-one speaks

He thinks he drinks too much
Cos when he tells his too best friends
‘I think I drink too much’
No-one speaks
No-one speaks
No-one speaks

He plays an old guitar
With a coin found by the phone
It was his friend’s guitar
That he played

When he plays
No-one speaks
No-one speaks
When he plays
No-one speaks

we are born alone. we die alone. between that we have moments where the loneliness seems to fade and we are connected. but it is never to last.

I’m lonely.

It’s just one of those moments. I don’t consider myself scared of death. But dying alone is a frightening reality in this moment.

The other thing: I am thinking of moving. I like my apartment accept for three things: (1) It is small (2) I share a bathroom (3) I share a bathroom with an insane german man.

I want more space, er, possibilities to say, watch a movie on a couch, make art, make a mess, play bass really loud. To be creatively expressive.

Sharing a bathroom is fucking disgusting. It’s a gross bathroom to begin with, combined with thinking about the gross dude’s bathroom activities and the remnants of such that I have to clean up, or more often than not, choose not to clean up.

He is insane. He is disgusting. He yells, but not anymore cause I got the landlord to tell him to stop being such a twat or else he would have to go to the mental health board. for real. power is being more sane, or atleast able to control when I yell obscenities, or atleast being able to sick the authorities on the insane.

Pete’s place is a viable option. His roomies are all splitting, so i figure he’ll be looking for new ones. I like his place. It’s comfy, for the most part. He has a studio, which is the nice thing. I can set up my drums and play them whenever. I can record and make music. I will have ceiling height and space to make art. I will be living in Gastown again, which is convenient, but not homey – not homey like 7th and Carolina is with it’s view and trees and park and nice people out walking their nice dogs in their nice coats on a nice sunday.

Gonna think a little more about it. Wish i didn’t have to, but i do.

Oh the other thing… I had this thought yesterday. I was at Devitt’s house, and we were fucking around on his computer and my the topic of my sickness came up, and i mentioned how I’ve been badly sick three times since the beginning of december, which i thought was a lot for me. I was thinking outloud saying, “what the fuck is up with my immune system? it’s shitting the bed.” and then I said jokingly, “maybe I have the HIV” and then I got thinking…. What if i did have the HIV. then I asked myself, if I knew my time on this earth was super limited like that, what would I be doing differently? what came to mind first was, I would take all my savings and move to somewhere hot. my second thought was, I would not be moping around waiting for life to happen. I would not be living in a one bedroom apartment. Since that thought about my life being limited my whole perception has sort of reflected that dire mode… A part of me that would have held back and go cautiously died. A part of me that presses urgency and importance grew stronger. Life is short. I’ve almost been sober a year, and it’s gone by so fast. Before I know it my twenties will be gone and I’ll be thirty. I feel an urgency to get living and get things done. I think maybe this is a trend for me, a feeling of urgency preceded by a period of dark depression, the urgency resurrecting me from my sedated depression to go out and forge new directions. Or maybe not. I’ll check back later.

I just applied to UBC! So yeah, I have considered it for a while, a few months I guess and I just took the action that will preciptate change. While I don’t need to decide yet, I am considering studying phychology. It was either that or philosophy, and I think psych is more useful and practical. It’s strange, cause I have no career goal or expectation going in to this. My motivation for going back to university is one of personal gain. I have been thinking about growing old lately. I don’t want to be 40 and look back and have not accomplished this. Getting a degree is just an important thing to me that I need to remind myself that I am not a scumbag, that I can achieve great things and that I am an intelligent, thinking being. I need it to validate my existence. I expect that graduating with a BA will not really expand my career opportunities. I think careers are hard to come by no matter what. But what I will have when I graduate is knowing that I put the time and effort in to getting something and learning a great deal about a subject. After that I can still do whatever it is I want.

There is some apprehension as I write this, thinking about the future. 2010 Olympics mean a great deal of work in the trades up until then, the next four years. Right now is such a good time to get in to the trades in BC. Work is abundant and pays relatively well. Carpenter helpers and framers are making $20 under the table. But here’s the thing, while that path would guarantee me money and employment stabilty for the next few years, I would have to live everyday with the fact that I am the same as those dudes I see hammering nails and lifting wood on every constuction site I see, and have to live with the fact that I don’t have a BA and haven’t studied psych. I just want to know that I still have a brain. I don’t want to be my worst nightmare – a 40 year old living in with a mortgage on a shitty home out in the ‘burbs married to some whench, with a bunch of responsibilites aged 8-12, and my life consisting of hammering nails every day and going to AA meetings that remind me that I’m genetically defective and socialy inept. That life sounds like suicide, and it is not my picture of a healthy, comfortable life.

When I was in treatment I met a bunch of people. Some of them were young but many were older, of all ages. This was when I really starting talking to people that were 45+ other than my parents and feeling comfortable about it – seeing them as ordinary people like me. Well, I met this old guy named Sam. He must have been 65. He was in there for heavy drinking that nearly killed him and destroyed his home life. He was president of this company specializing in marine radar systems. He did very well for himself and had a nice home in Sydney (the Victoria one, not the Australia one). I talked with him a lot and we became good friends. We were on our daily walks one day, a few days before he was to be discharged and we were talking like friends do. He said something to me that I still remember.
He said, “Nick, you’re so young. So young. You are so immensely lucky to have the rest of your life ahead of you.”
Curious, I asked him if he could give one piece of wisdom to someone my age on how to have a good life, what would it be.
He said, “Go to university. Get a degree. It doesn’t matter in what. All that matters is that you get a degree. I never did, and I still regret it to this day. It expands you, makes you a fuller person, and a more aware member of the world.”
I really appreciated his response evidently, cause I don’t usually remember anything, and we had that conversation over two years ago.

I have only applied. I may not even get in, but I think it is likely that I will be accepted. My first program choice was the Bachelor of Arts. I had to pick a second choice program, and the only other thing that looked remotely interesting was a Bachelor of Fine Arts in which I selected a Major in Creative Writing. So if I don’t get in to the BA progam, i may still be accepted in the BFA program, which I would not really be so in to, but i had to have a second choice.

Going to go try to eat breakfast at Reno’s. My throat still really hurts. Maybe a 5 out of the 10 that it was. So it’s gotten better, but it’s not better. Anyway. Gonna try to slam it with a whole bunch of solid food. Ha. Stupid fucking throat. trying to starve this human. I don’t think so. Biatch throat. I fucking kill you.