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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.

Here I am, fucking wasted on caffeine and no real commitments. My foreman (if you can call him that) called me this morning to tell me this latice we’ve been waiting on to finish this fence is still not ready, so he’ll call me when it is. I got up at 7am, checked my email while I waited for my morning wood to depart so I could walk to the washroom without shame. Looking in my fridge I noticed that I had’t used any of my dozen free range eggs I bought last week. They are about double the price of ordinary Lucerne eggs but they taste 4 times better. But it’s mostly to ease my conscience when I’m eating eggs. I’d rather think that I am contributing to better living conditions for a fucking disgusting and hideous animal (I’m talking about chickens) than having to think about the same fucking disgusting and hideous animal in cramped shit-lined no-beaked cages. It’s the better of two hideousities. So I made french toast, topped with mango yogurt and syrup. I always thought cooking was such a waste of time. That it was a pointless thing to waste time, money and effort on. But I guess I found the point, the point being that I feel so much better when I eat, even better when I eat good food and even better better when I eat good food that I’ve made. After eating french toast I decided to slam a really strong cup of coffee to get primed for hard physical labour. No sooner had I finished that cup of coffee then my boss (previously referred to as ‘foreman’) called to tell me the aformentioned news. After getting off the phone I really wished I had stayed up late last night and slept in this morning. But now it’s 8:30am and I’m wide awake, so i might as well stay up and make the best of this day. Afterall, god doesn’t like to be fucked around with and I already prayed to be made of maximum service so I should probably do my part and get on that.

I have a piece in a show this Saturday night at El Kartel, on Robson between Thurlow and Burrard. The show is called ‘Art & Soul’. It’s a shoe show. Each of the 30 artists were given a pair of PF Flyers (shoes) and we painted them and they are all going up for auction. See you there, or not.

I really wanted a cigarette today. I still sort of want one. I look inward to what is bothering me. What is causing me anxiety. I’m not talking about the nicotine withdwrawl. It’s harsh but it’s really not that harsh. What I think is harsher is the taste of cigarettes. The feeling in my mouth after smoking 5 in a row… dry, sore, stinky and numb. The shame of lighting up, the feeling of weakness. I think about when I did smoke how not having my pack nearby made me nervous and how when i woke up the first thing I would think about would be a cigarette. I think about how dominated my life was my cigarettes. Not to mention how expensive they are. All for what, so I voluntarily fuck myself up with chemicals that kill my cells and cause cancer and make it hard to breathe? These facts aren’t far fetched. I am just totally okay with suffering a little until this feeling of withdrawl goes away so that I can experience something much better – freedom from addiction.

I dreamt we were in the water. We were swimming and could see the boats from the shore. As we got closer we could see the distressed ships and firefighting boats. We were going to climb right up the side of one, you and me. We were a team. We cared intensely for one another. We came close to the side of the ship and I could see you had reservations. I could see you had fear.I put my arm around you, which when you’re distressed at sea is the best way to conserve warmth, you know. We tied the rope around us. You told me your father died trying to climb ships out at sea. I waved to a rescue boat to get us out, but they didn’t see us so we had to climb. I woke with the feeling of your vulnerability, how it made me feel trusted and affectionate.

I’m gonna play today like a game.

do you ever have momentary realization taht you’re alive and like, responsible for things and suddenly have a momentary panic attack?
i just had one
it kind of freaked me out
well, i was all in computer land, then i looked at my reflection in the window and saw that i’m in an apartment, the same apartment i woke up in and have beenin for two weeks, and that it’s MY apartment, that only I live here. that I have to pay its rent. that all these things around me would have no possesor if i died. I guess i feel really anxious.
anxious that I am working, and that I’m sober, and that I have responsibility and friends and am scared that i am going to fuck something up.