I have no idea what is wrong with me. I feel like I've been chugging scotch. I feel restless, disoriented and violent. Not a good combination...no matter how much it reflects my Scots ancestry. I don't know if it's just my soul crushing job anymore...

Maybe it's my realisation that I you can never truly KNOW anyone, cause people are so f-ing good at hiding themselves. Maybe it's that I can't get this gut wrenching weight in my chest to subside. That feeling that conjures the same movie reel in my brain of all his secrets; the real ones I've discovered and the ones I still don't know about. The ones I imagine of course are much worse. I hope. Dammit. Janet. (little hommage on this halloweenie day to Rocky Horror)

I don't know what the bloody hell is wrong with me.

OK. I have a beef. Alas, there is noone at this moment crouched over my shoulder asking "Where's the beef, slag? Where IS the beef?", but I digress. My beef is this...I KNOW Montrealers aren't used to this much rain, but perhaps someone could start some kind of crash course in umbrella carrying. Along with the woman who nearly put my eye out opening her umbrella this morning, many Montrealers seem to be umbrella-retarded. First, umbrellas are not to be held in front of the face so that you can barrel through crowds like some mediaeval jouster. It's just not nice. Also, Montrealers sans parapluies seem to find it just fine to walk narrow city sidewalks three or four people across à la Wizard of Oz and this becomes that much more bothersome when toting an umbrella. This is not a game of Red Rover, people, I just want to get to work. Preferrably with all my appendages intact.

OKAY. I know why the weather sucks. Rosa Parks died yesterday. Nuff said. Rain on.

fraud, science fiction and fromage

If I could hear myself think over the loud ranting of my Italian co-worker, I'd explain the several bizarre things that have happened to me in the last few days. Besides being prostrate atop a crimson tide and coming close to losing my mind this weekend, I suffered one of the worst bloody migraines in the history of the world. My head still feels like a bruised peach.

So work is just a gas, cause one of our clients is probably (hopefully) going to jail for fourteen years on fraud charges. And although I've been frantically searching for a new job (not so much fun being part of an organisation where bailiffs know my first name), I'm worried my frequent job switcheroos may be giving the wrong impression. You know like, that I have ADD or can't commit or something. (Oh. Right. I do. And I can't.)

Honestly I think maybe I should go against my constant need to FLEE everything and stick it out. I gave my boss a PowerPoint presentation last week for an idea to bring in clients and donate some money to the Canadian Red Cross at the same time which I'm sure she will do everything in her power to ignore...but it could be worse. I could be making 20 thou a year. Oh fuck.

Despite my raging depression over the NASTY weather, I am doubly bummed about having finished watching the last of the 'ANGEL' DVDs we bought. All done...Withdrawl is already kicking in. (Yes, I'm pathetic)

I'm also really annoyed by something I read on the Oprah website (don't judge me) where this woman actually wastes space saying that one of the things she 'resolved' to do to improve her life was to eat more cheese. PARDON ME? Is this what passes for AHA moments on Oprah now? More cheese? I mean, I like a good cheese, but WTF?

Coolest thing EVER. Finished typing my dad's stories about the Vietnam War. Turns out he drove a young man through the border in the early seventies that was none other than Henry Miller's son. So I decided to write to an email address I found for a Val Miller (supposedly Henry's daughter Valentine)since I couldn't find one for the Miller boy (man)asking that she send on my request to ask him a few questions and whether he remembered my dad. She said she'd forward my message but that she couldn't guarantee that he'd write back. BUT HE DID, folks. Said my dad was brave and very generous. My dad. Henry Freakin Miller's son. No shit. They're going to write to each other and say "HI" after like 35 years. My dad. Did I mention Henry Miller's son?


Stay fuckin weird, world.

The Weather

There is a strong possibility I've lost my mojo. My writing mojo, that is.


This happens every once in a while and I'd have to describe it as...as...ya see? I can't even describe it. They say you have to keep writing, right, get stuff down, even when its tripe...But I always have this moment where I think, "Nope. That's it. I knew I couldn't write for shit. I have nothing to say. I'm boring and all I am going to do is bore the hell out of myself and possibly others. What's the point? You didn't REALLY think you could do this did you?"

Now, I realise that noone reads this blog except those I coerce or bribe. Which does make it a little easier, I suppose. Still, when I think about writing about my co-workers or family or friends I feel I might censor myself so as not to hurt anyone's feelings. Censorship is death to a writer, especially if it's self imposed.

Maybe it's my own feelings I'm scared of bruising. It all just revolves around the same old shit I'm used to. I worry about what people think of me. So goddamned much so that I feel paralyzed. Why do I care? Nobody reads this anyway! But it's always been like that. Probably stems from my mother reading my diary when I was younger. And didn't someone say never write anything down that you don't want someone else reading? Hard to get yourself out of slagging someone off when it's on paper, let alone when it's broadcast on the net.

There is no doubt that I need countless hours of therapy to get over this. Or maybe just a big slap upside the head. I still have the self esteem of a fourteen year old. A very insecure fourteen year old.

When I'm not staring at a blank page or a blank computer screen it's easy for me to think of myself as a writer. The tiniest details in my life are catalogued and dissected to prepare them for the written page. And then I find a web page where the drummer of my old band has written a bloody book and I want to sit in a corner and cry like a child. I've read his stuff...it's craptastic! But he did it. Yes, with very little success, but at least he DID it. I have no such claim. I start it and then invariably stop. Because I get scared or bored. Fear and boredom. Fuck fear and loathing, Hunter! Boredom is the killer. Boredom and routine.


I said I wanted to stay in all weekend. It's been raining here for days and the damp gray made me want to hole up and do little but watch television and talk about nothing in particular. But then it occured to me that it seems to be all I do. I get angry at myself for not writing as much as I should but once the weekend comes or the day releases me from my soul crushing job, I have nothing left. I can't expect him to understand. I tell myself sometimes it's because he's a scientist and that he has difficulty with my haphazard ways. Perhaps it's that I keep trying to adhere to some kind of life I'm not sure I can live. I don't know if I can when my mind is always swimming with puzzle pieces for this grand plan for a book. Maybe being me, being a writer, is something I wish I could forget. As if it could be something I can un-learn.

But it wasn't anything I learned in the first place! It has always been like a bodily function, a reflex I have no control over. And maybe that's it. I have to find a way to conrtol this beast, this nagging, that convinces me I am capable enough to make something of it. I desperately want to believe that I have the brio to pursue my real dreams, but of late I'm reminded of how insecure my nature is. Every time I think of my failures at school and my paralysis in writing and singing I hear my mother say, as she did, "Maybe you should go to secretarial school..." Can I really hope for more? Or am I just some tired gobshite who'll end up regretting that I never took a chance, never tried?

I told you not to F%&k With Canadian Geese

A Swedish hunter spent two days in bed after being knocked unconscious by a Canada goose that landed on his head moments after his son shot it dead. The goose had been flying about 20 metres up in the air when it was shot by Carl Johan Ilback, along a stream in eastern Sweden in August. When the goose dropped from the sky, it hit Ulf Ilback in the head and knocked him out, he said. "It wanted to exact its revenge, I assume," Ulf told a local newspaper. "If it had gotten a better hit, it could have broken my neck." Ilback spent two days in bed with severe headaches before returning to work. "The story brought about a lot of laughter at work," he was quoted as saying, adding that during this month's moose hunt, he may wear a helmet.

sick as a bitch

A head cold from hell is preventing me from formulating thoughts properly, so this will be short. A good time was had by all on Friday at my buddy Mike's birthday. I believe he truly liked his gift too. (I got an 'I Love The Illuminati' embroidered on the back of a comfy navy blue hoodie...COPYRIGHT, ME!!!!!!!!). With laughs from some local comics, booze from our fair bartender(and maid)and karaoke tunes from the tuneless, the evening proved to be a well deserved end to the week. And now, alas, I am sick. Nothing drastic, no need to call the paramedics yet, but enough of a slap in the face to knock me for a little loop. Anybody have any cold remedies they'd like to share? PLEEEZTH I'M BREALLY BREALLY SSTUFFED UP!

Father Knows Best

Right now, I am taking a break. I am transcribing my father's stories surrounding the Vietnam War and it is taking a definite toll on me. The silly man is actually paying me to do this (money I certainly need, but feel awful taking). Besides the fact that I believe I am the only person in existence who can decipher his handwriting, this has proven to be an eye opening experience. When you think you know your parents, I promise you that you haven't even scratched the surface!

I'm a bit pissed at him actually, reading these stories. Why hasn't he told me them before? Maybe I would have thought he were less of an old fart if he had. But, in retrospect, maybe not. That sounds awful to say, but having parents who are decidely much older than those of my friends and peers has proved to be somewhat of a difficulty throughout my life. Or so I thought.

I feel like I grew up faster, and that much more was expected of me than from the rest of the kids my age. I've always felt that. But reading his words and his descriptions of what he did and how he lived are incredibly humbling. I just wish he had told me.

I called my brother today. He is techincally my half brother (not that there is anything technical about our confusing relationship), to wish his daughter a happy birthday. I told him that I was transcribing Dad's stories. He seemed as sursprised as I was that he had even started this project without anyone's knowledge. When I read his writing I think, with an opinion unsullied by the fact that he's my dad, how good the writing is; how he could definitely publish it. But do people still want to hear about the Vietnam War? My mother contends not. She says it isn't current and that the interest in his writing would be minimal. I would hate that to be true, especially considering my father's métier of historian. We ALL need to hear this man's stories, especially in the light of what is being forced upon us everyday from an amnesiac United States of America. Why the hell are we so passive now?
When I consider the things my father did to stand up for what he believed in I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed that my generation has abandoned any hope of fighting against the evils we are presented with. There will always be the nay-sayers who aim to call us idealists or foolish, but what of the force that used to come from leadership, empathy and peace? Is it lost forever in our branded mentality to consume at all costs? The only way we are foolish is that we believe that nothing bad will come of our laissez faire attitude. The way we keep being drawn in by marketing and product over what is right and how they are hurting all of us.

Fuck...I'll agree that I am feeling conspiratorial right now. I am feeling as if we have already lost our souls, we have lost what the people my father worked with aimed to tell us. It's because we have the impression they lost the battle. It's because we think there is no point in fighting. Who told YOU that?

All I know is that my father, God bless him, never told ME that.