A Bird in the Hand

Reflections on a Friday night in a filthy apartment:

I've learned to enjoy cleaning up after myself and even others. There's something undeniably gratifying about putting everything in its right place. In a world where I have no control, I've learned to take sanctuary in making the slightest changes to my surroundings. Not to mention it gives me a bit of an opportunity to hold a grudge against those you are cleaning up after. Its amazing how holding a grudge can make you feel better. Just giving yourself the tiniest bit of justification to complain about that which you cannot fully change.

Moments alone in this city are few, and far between. The most valuable skill I have acquired in my time here is learning how to be alone in a crowd of people. To be consumed by your own thoughts/reflections while the Hussle of the city does its thing in the background. Waiting for a bus in the freezing rain for 20 minutes can be pure heaven if you allow it to be. Its at the point now where when I have my place to myself, I get such a feeling of joy it can't be expressed in words. I can do whatever I want, and I often do nothing at all. Keeping up with the city is so unappealing to me. With great partying comes great responsibility. That's not really what I'm looking for right now.

creation is the most important thing in my life. Organizing my thoughts in a pleasing manner and recording them for later reference. Put the thoughts to music and you have 100% homegrown self-gratification. What may I ask, could be more important than that?

Nothing, my beard is just a little tight. That's all.

This is the first time I've really seen myself in years.
I've always hid behind things. Since I was at least 16. In order to deal with what I believed were my ineptitudes, I hid behind whatever hair I could grow. I've always been a defenceman. Its always been my position since I was thrown into 10 years of hockey.
so here I am now. Just a regular guy again. Last time I left myself wide open like this I was knocked down hard. It spawned a list of vices that streched for miles and miles. Though most of them remain, I can at least see myself a little clearer. I'm not too bad looking.
now that the lion has lost his mane what happens?
I guess I'll have to keep you posted for that one.

Discovery Keeps On Discoverin'

I've been listening to a lot of books on tape recently. I say books on tape because saying books on CD just doesn't have a nice enough flow of the tongue. The nice thing about listening to a book rather than reading it is that when reading a book, a person will generally only ready it once. When I listen I can listen as often as I want and not feel tied down by the pages. It may seem absurd, and I probably makes me sound like the laziest man in the world but I feel I get more out of literature this way. In the past 2 days I've listened to god bless you Dr kavorkian by Kurt Vonnegut 4 times. If I read the book it would have taken me longer than two days just to finish it. I get the same feeling from listening to a book that I do from reading it, it just enhances what I get out of it.
speaking of which, my new subject of research (that's what I do all day when I'm unemployed by the way. Research random things) is humanism. Its not any sort of religious dogma or anything, just a lovely granfalloon of people with the idea that we should be decent to one another without expecting any supernatural (or superficial) rewards. I would love to go into more about it but, a) I'm not a very articulate person, and b) I don't think people want to hear about it from me. Check wikipedia if you really want to know.
I'm back in Vancouver now. I have braved the glass shattering cold weather mixed with warm family love for 2 weeks, and I had a lovely time thank you. Now the honeymoon of unemployment and free living is all gone. Time to put my head down and do my best to make January fly by without noticing me.
Good Luck.
thank you.