A Close Call

I was a hair and a breath away from accepting a job as editor in Nanton last night. I've since changed my mind, for a few reasons. Despite the fact that I would be working with some of my close friends from school down south, there's too much unfinished stuff up here for me to deal with before I decide to "advance" my career*.

So, I will be staying up here for the remainder of my planned time, as originally planned. It really is kind of a bummer, because I could've had a chance to move south again, but at the same time...

WE STILL NEED TO JAM!

Yeah, there, I said it. That, and there's still a few other things I need to wrap up here in town. I've been told that I should just look out for myself, damn what the other people think, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that I shouldn't burn any bridges at this point and time.

*By career I mean job. I have to resist the urge to laugh at anyone who says what I'm doing is a career.

Blues Eyes Goodbyes

Don't get up, I'm leaving anyway.

The desires of the heart call less for love,
and more for flight.
My heart does not beat for you anymore.

Great black wings of ebony feathers,
a hunter's eyes,
and the untamed weather.

The night and moon's companions,
I sit some hours, listening to the earth's malcontent.

We both are unhappy,
with the exploits of men and women.

But perhaps more,
we are disappointed in ourselves.

The knives in the back have become old,
bony remnants of another life.

The colours of life bled through those wounds,
pools of vibrancy left in my final throes.

There is so much hope in the world now,
carnivores at the feast.

When something good dies,
humanity gathers and rejoices,
like lions at the feast.

Ask for so much, and I will give in turn,
but there are things that I do not share.

As the planet does, there are secrets and truths
etched in plain sight, and yet always sought.

Because those who seek do not know how to read,
how to comprehend the understanding I've tried-
and failed to impart.

Perhaps the simplest truth,
I whisper on the wind.

As it brushes past your ears,
someday you might hear it.

"Wake up."
"Wake up."
"Don't get up, I'm already gone."

Pontus

Well, so comes to a close another weekend off. I've spent most of the time here asleep, or out hanging out with my friends, most of whom I haven't seen in over two months. It was a nice retreat, and I wish it could last a bit longer. I've been working on some guitar pieces too; I think I might record them when I get home this evening.

Not a whole lot to report on other than that. Work was miserable last week, so I was really looking forward to this weekend, which by and large, did not disappoint. I'm not, however, looking forward to going back to work this coming up week, lest I get a three-peat of the bullshit that's become commonplace.

In other news, I've been pre-emptively offered the editor position at another newspaper in southern Alberta. But, I think, with my experience, I'm going to have to decline it.

In fact, I may have to forcefully decline it, as I'll be about done with journalism and all it entails sometime this fall... hopefully.

I'm looking forward to being able to finish a book in the near future. Which book, doesn't matter, rather just any of my works; I'd like to see at least one finished.

A Fool for a Tool

My otherwise good day was soiled. There comes a point where misinformation becomes harmful, and what I thought was supposed to be a public meeting was actually a confidential meet. I think they thought I was there to get a scoop. I was just mistaken.

More bad blood. I imagine soon there won't be anyone left up here who doesn't say my name with scorn, something to be spat off like an over chewed piece of tobacco.

It's a kind of twisting grief, to know that you're doing the best you can, and yet it's never quite enough. It's never known if the demands or too high, or if just my skills are lacking, but none of that matters.

I'm angry. Furious. Incensed even. But somehow tonight, I kept my cool. All that anger, all that desire to turn around and just obliterate something... it feels like a bomb went off inside me. I've only had such a terrible feeling once before in my life, and I thought that would be the end of it.

On one hand, I want someone to pay dearly for all that I've been through. It's that kind of blind rage that paints everyone with the same guilt, either through their action, or inaction. But on the other, I'm telling myself to stop expecting somebody to pay up. Sure, I've seen some pretty rotten people do some pretty rotten things to myself and others, but I can't walk around like some kind of judge and put that over their heads.

Call it a fatalistic futility complex, but I just really don't see a point in anything anymore. The day is a routine, and I care less and less about what I do at work. It's becoming more and more routine, and I just become more detached by the hour. I don't put stock in anything, because it's gotten in my head that everything just ends in disappointment.

It sounds pessimistic, but it's less so when it's true.
Things will change soon, hopefully for the better. I can't imagine them being much worse. It's almost caustic that there's nobody I spend time with out here. They're all older or younger, too ready to foist their single-parent problems or highschool drama on me like I'm some kind of free therapist.

I'm not. I've just had enough experience in dealing with my own problems that I've got a good idea on how others can approach theirs.
Usually that's the only step that's needed, is to realize there's a problem, rather than just being stubborn and stupid and thinking there's nothing wrong.
Guess it's getting to be time to take my own advice and admit there's something wrong.

Quite frankly, I'm a dead man in a living body. I'm waiting for someone to throw me a line, but the skeins aren't looking good.

In any event, this week just became shit in the span of an hour. I'm going to bed to try and sleep it off.

Europan Descent

It's a trivial question to ask me, if I believe in aliens. Of course I do, I see them every hour of my waking life. They walk in human skins and claim to be human, but they aren't.

Or maybe I'm not. We'll never know.

They say the future looks bright. I really want to know how they figure that, through all the smog and dust and ash. How can the future be bright, unless of course it's lit with the glow of a million atom bombs.
Because really, that's the only way you're going to illuminate the tar-black ambitions of human kind.

In a little bit of Time

Things are a bit better this week. The weather is finally co-operating. It's neither too hot nor too cold, but perhaps just a little too bright. I got some good pictures yesterday when a gentleman informed the paper that he had an apricot tree in bloom. Apricot trees are rare in Canada, and not only was his blooming, but it was already targetted by a swarm of bees. It's very likely that there will be fruit on it this year, provided no killing frosts come.

Thoughts of the week are a little less optimistic though. How are people to get anywhere with their lines of thinking? How can one try and handle another when they cannot handle themselves?
Drama Drama Drama.
Which seems to be the catchword of the spring. Being that I'm the Last Single Man in the Known Universe*, it's observation that shows me that many happy couples are anything but. As I've said numerous times before, anyone in a relationship is liable to become a fool. It's easy to behave in one's own capacity, but add another to the mix and it suddenly becomes a ritual dance of telepathy, mistaken intentions, appeasements, and bargains. Even the most altruistic man or woman becomes selfish in a relationship.

I don't know how many times I was told as I was growing up to just "be myself," and everything else will just fall into place. But the reality is this: nobody really wants me to be myself. To date someone, I have to become something they want. I have to be marketable.

I say, eat shit. I'm not putting on my "game," to pick somebody up. I'm not into ruses or make believe. I want to be able to sit around and chat with somebody as I always do, and not have to worry about saying the wrong thing, or looking good, or whatever the fuck it is that women want these days. Quite frankly, I'm well aware of my shopping-list of things that would make me a non-candidate, but all it would take is a little backbone to deal with that.

And it's at this point, I drop in the one-liner: They say future humankind will be jellyfish-like.

Yeah, no shit. We'll be so incapable with dealing with a challenge that just getting out of bed in the morning will be an effort on par with the invasion of Normandy. Nobody wants to work to get anything anymore. They just want destiny served to them on a silver platter.

Well, I've smelled destiny, and it smells a lot like shit.

*This is sarcasm, of course. As is most of this post, for those who'd rather get their pants in a bunch, post a long, screaming rant, and then realize three days later, oh, he's joking.

Dreams of Farfur

After a three hour bout of insomnia last night, sleep came as a demented affair.

In dreamland, I found myself bound to a chair in a dark room, with only a single, flickering lightbulb above my head for light. The room was grimy, and smelled of sweat, vomit, and blood. Barely visible ahead of me was the bloody but still discernable face of the Hamas Mickey ripoff, Farfur.

I spoke to him, although while my thoughts were in English, the words came out as babble. Maybe I was speaking arabic, I wouldn't know. All I know is that Farfur laughed, and then walked into the darkness. Then I could hear it. It sounded like screaming metal, but I knew right away. Somebody was sharpening a blade.

It was at this point that I heard a familiar voice talking to me, telling me what to do. I wiggled my hands free, but didn't make it look like I was untied. When Farfur came back, he held a wicked sword, probably intended for my neck. But I didn't give him a chance. I leapt from the chair and tackled him down.

Of course, the moment I tackled him, I found myself rolling down a grassy hill in the middle of a sunny afternoon. No sign of the the wayword mouse/butterfly anywhere, and the only smell was fresh grass and mountain air.

Weird. I also remember walking a perfectly straight dirt road through a rather grim looking forest, but I don't remember how that plays into either occurrence.

But anyway, yeah. I really want to know which part of my brain comes up with this shit.

A Lost Cause

My walk in the park ended up like so many other ambitions in my life.
Brushed to the wayside in favour of sushi, booze, and sleeping in.

It's clear now, that my plan isn't to stay up here. At least, not to work. I'm going to put in my year's time, and then try and find something else to be, because journalism is indeed not my calling (it never was, but everyone was in such a rush to try and find me a career that they just dropped me in the first one to come up).

I'm not going to just pack up and leave though. I'm involved with too many things up here, so even after the job is gone, there will still be things I have to do.
I'm also not about to just pack up and forget about you guys up here.

I've also come to the realization that there's more I have to deal with than can just be troddled over on some walk in the park. But I don't have time to address that all now, so it's back to burying it all until such a time comes as I either break down or I have a chance to meditate on it all.

I'm just... I'm tired, of hearing the same old things, the same old excuses, the same old encouragements. Nothing of anything changes everything or anything. I'm tired of standing still while the world goes 'round. Tired of being the same while everyone changes. I'm tired of being so out of place, and I'm thinking it's about fucking time that changed.

Even though I know it never will.

Remember when?

I don't.


I don't recall the last time anything made sense. The snakes chase their own tails, good intentions are broken by politics.

I don't remember the last time somebody gave me a straight answer. Am I so dangerous that I'm not supposed to know? Am I such an afterthought that nobody thinks to call?

There are no explanations. None that I'll accept, because they're just excuses. Absolve yourself, and look at your smiling face in the mirror. The blame's not yours, but somebody elses. It's so easy to be spineless, to slither away from responsibility. It's so easy to put the blame on somebody else. What cares the damage? It's not yours to deal with.

It is so morbid to see one crushed under a weight that should be yours to bear, but many find such irony humorous, and take great pleasure in watching another falter.

When, explain, did dullness and evil become the same? More are willing the slay the stupid than the truly evil. Guilty by accomplice, or perhaps just guilty because they don't know any better.

No answers there, either.

I've become dull, of late. I've become dull and stupid. I can't find words to talk even, I'm forever grasping at straws. And always, I'm anxious. I'm afraid, because I've seen how people are, and I'm seeing it again.

Am I unwell?
No, I'm fine.
It's them that are fucked up.