Begin Again

Dilana has lost me. It started weeks ago when she did The Who song. I hated her arrangement, thought she butchered the thing. And her whole low register rasp was getting boring. So she adds some higher notes this week on Every Breath You Take, which goes a long way to begin sucking me back in, and then she turns out to be a real bitch. Women have to be careful, they can't get away with the same kind of arrogance that a man can. Now Storm has lots of cocky arrogance, but it comes across as playful and self-assured, Dilana is just coming across as mean and bitchy. Not good. She may very well be the front runner, but I wouldn't buy a ticket to see her in concert.

Ryan Star is bringing it baby! He wants this gig and he wants it bad. He's totally winning me over and becoming my boy. Oh Lukas, Lukas, Lukas Rossi. What's going on? I think he's a really shy person or something, naturally introverted and quiet. He came on strong at first and I think it was an act, now weeks later he's settling into himself and we're all getting to see who he really is. That's my theory. With Dilana too, that now she's more comfortable and being more like herself, which in her case is not very endearing. But I still hold out hope for Lukas. He might be too short to front Supernova, but I would buy a ticket to see him. I think Magni is a front runner with Tommy Lee and the boys, and he is growing on me too, I'm not creeped out by him anymore. I really liked the Supernova track debuted this week, though I think I would've rather seen Lukas or Ryan perform it.

Trying to get my head around work and how to do things and what stuff I need that I am missing and will never have again. I just keep telling myself that it's okay. I went on the treadmill for a couple of miles awhile ago. I don't get to walk much outside when I am here, so the exercise was good. Great for the brain. Today a couple of miles, soon a marathon. How crazy will that be?! Anyway, time to work or eat or do something productive.

Mood: optimistic
Drinking: water
Listening To: Let's Get It On, Marvin Gaye
Hair: in my eyes

Crash & Burn

Sunday evening on a tea and chocolate break from an intense flurry of work activity my computer sputtered beside me and went black. Yes, the black screen of death came calling and my pc answered. I knew this wasn't good. Tuesday evening my boss picked me up to bring me and my dark hard drive back to the river for revitalization. Sadly, the computer did not pull through. I lost all my data. All the submissions for bnm, all the submissions for nb ink, all my email addresses and bookmarks, all my creative writing, all my music, my life as I know it. Some stuff can be salvaged from hard copies, discs and dvds. Some stuff is gone forever. I feel resigned. I feel like a purging was forced upon me. I feel like I was supposed to start over with a clean slate. Tear it down and build it better. Still, it's a shock. Yes, backing up is a good idea. So send me a link to your blog or website so I can find you again. Email me and let me know how to get in touch because I've lost your address and don't have many memorized in this old brain of mine. Send me anything you sent me before that I might need. Not sure how long I'll be on the Miramichi. Maybe I'll see you while I'm here.

Mood: tired
Drinking: king cole tea
Listening To: ticking clock
Hair: mother says my bangs are too long

Loose in the Asylum

So Thursday night I was asleep before 2am which, if you follow my escapades, is a decent time for me, normal, good for rest. I try not to do the alarm thing unless absolutely necessary (like to make sure I get the garbage out on Wednesday morning). For the most part though I try to let my body wake on its own. If I end up sleeping 14 hours every now and then that's fine, I figure my body must need the rest. Usually though I'm asleep somewhere between two and three and I wake up on my own around 10. I'm fairly consistent.

Anyway, Thursday night it kind of felt like I even went to bed a little early and I was so tired I was out as soon as I hit the sack, fell into a deep sleep. Woke yesterday morning before 9am feeling like I had been run over by an 18-wheeler in the night. Dragged my sorry ass out of bed though because it was Friday and I had meetings to attend and wits to collect about me beforehand and most importantly On-Air with Ryan Seacrest (no Ryan's Roses yesterday, unless I missed it, and it seemed almost to be a repeat show, tho they never announced that it was, weird). I was a frigging zombie all day, yawning and finding it really difficult to concentrate. I could not wait to go back to bed! Contemplated taking a nap, but decided it might screw up my system, better to sleep at bedtime.

And then somehow I ended up in front of the tv through Letterman and my favourite guy, Craig Ferguson. And as if that wasn't late enough I got sucked into an episode of What Not to Wear. Then I went to bed and read for at least an hour. I could've read longer, but I was dangerously close to seeing dawn and that would've been too crazy when I had been so tired all day long. So heading into 5am I fell asleep and dreamed wicked dreams of tornados and family gatherings and writing stories for bnm.

I woke at a quarter to six, alert and thinking it was time to rise and shine. Too early. Back to sleep and dreams of ball games and collaborating on bnm stories with my sisters. Seemed like I had been asleep forever when I looked at the clock again, a quarter to seven. Still too early. Asleep I continued writing stories for bnm and doing a line-up and working on a media kit. Surely it was time to get up now I thought. 7:30. Damn! It's Saturday! I don't have to get up that early. Back to sleep and again to the ballpark and the tournament and interviewing players with my sisters, fighting with my sisters about how to construct the stories, and then the tornado strikes and rips the shack we're in right out of the ground and I feel the wind all around me. 8:30. I give up. Rise and shine!

What is up with that? I was so tired and then I barely sleep. And now I'm not tired at all. And the dreams. Always the frigging dreams. But no moon to justify them now is there? Curious. I'm probably just stressed about work, since I worked all night in my dreams. Today I'll get lots done and sleep through the night tonight. Sleep in tomorrow morning. It'll be lovely.

Mood: weirded out
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: New World Man, Rush
Hair: getting too thick . . . again

Coulda Been Somebody

Watched "On the Waterfront" the other night and you know I don't think I've ever seen it in its entirety before. Yeah, I've seen Brando's "coulda been a contender" scene lots of times but I have never seen the film. Zip it! Rent it! Buy it! Brando is frigging amazing. I've only ever really seen him when he was older, like in Last Tango in Paris and The Godfather. I haven't seen Streetcar. But I will. Yeah, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, likely I am the last person on the face of the earth to discover Brando, but hey, better late than never.

So the headache continues. I take a Motrin and dull it somewhat for an hour or so, but I can't make the damn thing go away. It's been a week. I don't think you're supposed to have a headache for a week.

Mood: iffy
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: I Write Sins Not Tragedies, Panic! At the Disco
Hair: fluffy

Summer

Summer is practically over and I'm not sad to see it go. What a freaking terrible summer! Totally broke. Went nowhere. Did nothing. Stress up the wazoo. More time spent crying than drinking wine. What kind of a yucky summer is that?! Surely the tide has turned and fall will be better. I mean I started the year on such a high with the Toronto trip and Bon Jovi and great workshops and a fab AGM and lots of good stuff. Then summer rolled in and everything went to hell. Autumn has got to be better.

I was supposed to go to Fundy this weekend, then back to the Miramichi to be there for Stacy's party next weekend. Not happening now. Well Fundy's not. Can I afford to go home again so soon? And then what about Labour Day Weekend? There's a thing happening apparently, at my parents house. BBQ, sleep-overs, games, fireworks, etc. Sherry says come Friday the 25th and stay until after Labour Day, but dude! That's another whole week + out of the loop, and I just got home it seems. It costs so much to go. It's near impossible to get any work done there. The climate always irrates my arthritis. I dunno. I'll likely just skip everything and go the end of September or October, when I'm really missing the kids and everyone. OR I'll take into a last minute fit and just show up sometime soon. It's too much to think about right now. Head aching.

Mood: head-achy, AGAIN!
Drinking: coffee, black, dark roast, cheap generic brand
Listening To: Bullet in the Head, Rage Against the Machine
Hair: getting washed today perhaps

While I Was Out

So while I was having my spiritual crises and being generally consumed by work and family matters, the town burned to the ground around me. Literally. Yeah, I heard sirens, but I thought it was a just a super duper deadly highway accident. I frigging live here and I'm the last one to know! This guy's got all the details and pics.

I walked out there today to go to the bank, get some eggs and everything is blocked off while they excavate and cart away debris. No idea how it started. It's sad though.

Mood: melancholy
Drinking: coffee, instant, blech!
Listening To: wind
Hair: in my eyes

Why?

Three weeks ago things were normal. All was well in my family. We were looking forward to family reunions, camping trips, Fundy tides and more. Then diabetes and everything changed. Sucked the life out of everything. And now, just when one might dare believe that things would be okay, that everyone would get through this. A second niece diagnosed. Two little girls, six and four. Same sister and brother-in-law. What the fuck?! Why? I don't understand why this is happening.

I was raised Anglican, forced to teach Sunday school and the whole bit. My mother shoved religion down my throat and I resented her big time. Late in high school and into university I declared myself to be an atheist.

a·the·ist -- n. One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.

My father always said he didn't believe in God or heaven or any sort of a bigger picture. You live, you die, you rot in the ground, only one chance, one life to live. What I soon realised after moving to Toronto and meeting people who were "real" atheists or people who were Jewish or Muslim or practicing anything outside of christianity was that I couldn't unlearn what had been drilled into my body and mind since I was a baby. The ritual, the belief, the knowledge, was in me and there was no way to erase it. I resented my mother more for not giving me the opportunity to approach the world on my own, a blank slate, able to discover and learn about all beliefs from scratch.

Somehow I got past all my resentment and came to understand that it wasn't God I didn't believe in, it was organised religion, and not just Christianity but pretty much all of it.

ag-nos-tic n : a person who doubts truth of religion

And then I started to form my own belief system, extracting bits from here and there and coming up with something I felt comfortable with believing and something that would comfort me when times were less than bright. A higher power. Souls. Lessons to be learned for soul evolution. An after-life. Re-incarnation. A loving, compassionate God.

And it worked. I took comfort. I understood why things happened and learned the lessons. Spiritual crises over, now lets work on those interpersonal skills. Or so I thought. Until now.

With the first niece's diagnosis I could rationalise. With the second, I'm done in. I don't get it. I don't understand why. I can't see the lesson. What's the fucking point?!

And for the first time since my late teens/early twenties I'm doubting. Me! The person who sees spirits, who has out-of-body experiences, who knows without a doubt that there is something other than this life. Yet I'm having a real hard time believing there is any divine plan, that anyone signed on for this, that it serves any greater purpose. I don't get it. I don't understand. And I'm really freaking angry about it. Maybe it's too fresh. Maybe I'll find it later. Maybe I'm not looking in the right place. Maybe I'm too angry to meditate on it. Or maybe life is just a series of random events that mean nothing and nobody is running the show and nothing makes any difference anyway. Bad people get rich, buy lovers and friends and even new bodies and faces. Good people stay poor and struggle to provide the basics for their families, to keep them warm and fed and safe. There is no justice in the world. What is the point?

Mood: sad & mad
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: The Future, Leonard Cohen
Hair: messy, greasy, dirty, and i don't even care

Hola!

I survived the great rapids reunion of 2006! Though not entirely without incident. Cosmos are sneaky critters. Perhaps I won't have another one for a long, long time. It was not the fabulous time everyone raved about last year. It was damn cold. And I realised after that I hadn't even really been invited, which means I crashed my own family reunion. If I had to decide today, I would say you won't see me back there next summer, but who knows, things could change. Will return to the river again later this month for a few days, so if I didn't see you this time, perhaps next we'll connect.

I'm really tired today. Expecting showers later. Enjoying the cooler temperatures today. Be back later.

Mood: headachy
Drinking: coffee, black, luke warm
Listening To: Ryan's Roses on KIIS-FM live streaming from Los Angeles
Hair: wicked

Of Course!

My horoscope for today says:

"If you have been contemplating executing legal papers of any kind, Kellie, this is NOT the day to do it. Any contract entered into today is likely to have confusing clauses and obscure language that you may not understand and which can potentially be used to your disadvantage. This is also not the day to start or even plan a journey of any kind. It is, however, a great day for reading or meditation."

I'm supposed to stay home and meditate. Nice. Train leaves at 4:15 this afternoon. No reading or meditation for me. I'll try not to sign anything binding though.

Mood: tired
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: birds, traffic, fan, washer, dryer, me typing
Hair: I can't believe I'm about to go out in public this way!

Happy Birthday!

It's my hon's birthday! Yes, after a month and a bit of having a higher number attached to my age, Stacy catches up today. Whew! That was close. She is working today and so there will be no margaritas (or chocolate martinis) :-( I am, however, thinking I might want to sneak out later and have a gelato in her name. Sound like a plan? Hell yeah!

Gifts and all that to follow when I arrive later this week. I think we're going to go out to KD's Pick of the Vine to celebrate. No last blizzard. But we'll always have the tee dot.

Mood: chipper
Drinking: coffee
Listening To: lawnmower man part 336
Hair: wiggy