something good, and something random...

today i learned that if i consistantly make good decisions, about what i do, about how i let myself feel, about the numerous flawed ways through which i evaluate my world, things stop being so completely unbearable and hopeless. i hope this is what progress looks like, because i'm tired of placebos. i've been devouring autobiographies lately, looking for hope, for the reason some people can go through so much and still want to go through more... but the only conclusion i've come to so far is that it's something different for everyone, and it's too intangible to explain or give directions to, that it's just something you have to find in yourself. i wish i wasn't so blind sometimes, it's gotta be in here somewhere. at least i believe in it now.

and now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages!!!

it's time for the first unspecified-time-interval "Random Awards". a place where unrelated categories, chosen purely on whim, are subjected to my scrutiny for no reason whatsoever.
each lucky winner receives a bronzed and personally engraved piece of random junk from a box of miscellaneous items i keep in my parents' garage, glued to a piece of plywood that's roughly square and painted a lively shade of purple. Lucky them.
in those cases where the recippient is not, in fact, a person, or, more likely still, will probably turn down my invitation to come to saskatchewan to accept this rare honor, i'll basically just leave the stuff in the box. so, in the unlikely event that you're a winner and you're reading this, it would make my life easier if you just decided you didn't need the trophy.

and now, on to the awards.

Muppet that Most Exemplifies the Song "It's Not Easy Being Green"
nominees: Kermit the Frog, Oscar the Grouch, Yoda the Whatever-he-is.
winner: although it's kermit's song, upon closer examination, his life's pretty damned easy, so the award goes to oscar the grouch, who's reduced to seeking happiness from living in a trash can and making other people miserable, and because genuine happiness makes him uncomfortable, which is a terrible affliction to have if you happen to live on sesame street with a bunch of cheery puppets.

Most Popular Crystaline Substance That You Wouldn't Want Directly in Your Eye
nominees: Drano Crystals, Tide With Bleach, Table Salt
winner: although the least irritant and potentially blinding, table salt is easily the most popluar substance nominated, and thus, wins this category hands-down.

Most Envied Fictional Handicap
nominees: King Midas, The Incredible Hulk, Remus Lupin
winner: although a lot of stupid people envy Midas' "golden touch", i'm still sure they're outnumbered by the people who realize the blatant impracticalities of a lifestyle dedicated to touching nothing. and, although a lot of gamers want to be werewolves, they really don't, they just want to pretend. not that there's anything wrong with that...
so the award goes to The Hulk, because every time something makes him mad, his body bulks up faster than mark mcgwire on steroids, after which he gets to destroy the object of his rage (and anything else he feels like destroying within a 10 block radius), and when it's over, he's blameless, because it's outside of his control. and on top of that, people call him "incredible". short of having to buy new clothes more often than most people, he's got it all.

Least Delicious Principle Export of Saskatchewan
nominees: wheat, potash, lumber, uranium
winner: in a tight race between uranium and potash, and based almost entirely on the fact that i have no concept of what uranium might taste like, the award goes to potash, for being too salty and because of it's low chewability. if someone has actually tasted uranium and is still alive, feel free to comment on this blog so that in the future, these types of meaningless decisions can at least be well-informed.

Most Enjoyable Use of Harmonica in a Song I Know
nominees: Runaround (Blues Traveller), Karma Chameleon (Culture Club), Head Over Feet (Alanis Morisette), Follow You Down (Gin Blossoms)
winner: although John Popper is without a doubt the most tallented harmonica player (or, in fact, the only legitimate harmonica player) nominated, there's something about that harmonica riff in Karma Chameleon that always makes me smile, so they win. if you don't like it, make your own awards up. it's not like it's hard.

Foreign Location That, Based Purely on Phonetics, Would Be the Most Fun in Which to Live
Nominees: Nicaragua, Alcapulco, Figi, Mozambique
winner: I really like the diphthong at the end of Nicaragua, and the repeating a's are an entertaining rhyming pattern, so they earn the award. pending interest, i may hold a pageant later in the month for any eligible residents of Nicaragua in order to determine which representative of their country should receive the trophy. so if you live in Nicaragua, please send a self-addressed, stamped postcard to
I want shawn's bronzed junk
c/o shawn's parents' house
saskatchewan

well, that wraps it up for this installment of the Random Awards. join us again whenever the flight of fancy strikes me, and we'll decide a bunch more insignificant crap together. sounds like fun to me.

typically, i hate to rhyme...

everything is barren
on the ragged edge of loss,
life is a wave,
which swallows, like a cave,
those things not prone to toss.
everything is missing
in between the things i find,
hollow spaces,
lovers without faces,
ghosts inside my mind.

everything is hopefull
for six minutes at a time,
i fell alive,
for minutes one through five,
omnipotence sublime.
everything is shattered
at the end of minute six,
all i'd found
in pieces on the ground
that even God can't fix.

everything is sorrow
as i recognize the end,
all the dreams
that slipped out through the seams
too broken now to spend.
everything is mourning
for each silent, unmarked grave.
how can i still
reach out for things that will
grow cold before they save?

everything is stagnant
as i wait for something true.
i will not take
one more convincing fake
no matter what i do.
everything is tranquil
when i find that i'm the flaw.
all that i'd gained
was pure until i maimed
it's beauty with my claw.

everything is empty
in this final aching choice,
peace and rest,
these dreams, my last, my best,
the silence of my voice.
everything is over
with one weary, tattered prayer,
Domine,
requiem, donna me.
i hope the answer's there.

everything is nothing
where the finish meets the start,
the cycle whole,
predestinated soul,
emancipated heart.
everything is finished
save one last unspoken plea,
that the God
who once loved something flawed
might still have room for me.

doomed to repetition...

first, an apology...
in the vainglorious subconscious egoism of my priorities (the subconscious nature of which persists largely due to my blatant lack of acknowledgement), i occasionally forget that my priorities do not always reflect those of everyone. in those moments, i engage in personal arguments that typically frustrate the other participant, onto whom i'm trying to force an entire evaluation system without their being aware of it. but the way i value things is not always, or even often, similar to the scales of others, and the only thing i achieve by transfering my beliefs onto them is to feel slighted and to frustrate others.
so, to a friend who only wanted to get some sleep, i'm sorry.
beware, for hidden in this apology is the understanding that you will be equally patient the next time it happens, since i'm prone forever to learn lessons repeatedly, while carrying only the barest minimum of personal change forward from each conflict.
just like the door at the 7-11.
every time, i go up to the door, and instinctively reach over to the left door, because i'm left-handed and am holding my mug in my right hand. it just makes sense. until the pull which leaves me accomplishing nothing but jarring my momentum and bitterly cursing my inabilities to learn before i open the right door and gain access to the store.
as usual, the lesson is briefly retained, since, on my way out of the store, i use the correct door immediately, not even considering the other as an option.
but lo and behold, the very next time i pull up to that 7-11, the process begins all over again, and i'm equally aggravated by my perpetual stagnation.
so, what is the secret to translating revelation to useful information, to assimilating epiphany in a way that makes it relevant and tangible, as opposed to some etherial haunting possibility that, upon each evaporation, only serves to enhance and magnify its absence?
because frankly, lack and loss are all i see when i examine the contents of my suitcases, and ironically, for all that emptiness, the luggage is surprisingly heavy.

pumpkin jam is moist nirvana...

dissarm today,
clumsy thief.
a heart-shaped box of lithium
to gel the world i know,
a bad habit,
the kids arn't alright.
a greedy fly swallowed,
a pretty noose outshined.
push for resurrection.
evolution;
better man.

why i love inventory....

so... it's been another week of 14 hour workdays, long van rides in rediculous road conditions that serve only to maximize our time on the road and delay us for the next trip, keeping us from doing regular things like sleeping in a bed or eating on a regular basis...
good times, good times.

the day from hell struck this friday. fresh off of a long week of london drugs counts that involve counting from 7 in the morning to about 4 in the afternoon with 2 15's and a 45 lunch, then going to a different london drugs and counting again from 6 to 10, and occasionally cramming the odd van ride in between, we felt we could do better to prove that things can always get worse.
travel advisories be damned, we decided that we could, nay, must tackle the formidable obstacle of snow, ice, and giant sea turtles masquarading as semis in our undauntable and relentless pursuit of counting more stuff.
so we're off to wadena to count co-ops. it's usually about an hour and 45 minutes, but because of the weather, it took us about 3 hours to get there. a few people skipped work, so our crew was only 6 instead of the 9 it was supposed to be.
it begins...
we counted the co-ops on relatively good time, considering being short-staffed. we were done by 6, and even stopped for lunch at 2. of course, we were supposed to already be at the saan in melfort at 6, busily counting, but there was another crew of 5 there before us, and they were already hard at it. so we headed off to melfort, taking another 2 hours of travel, in which we were almost driven off the road by a climactic combination of ice and moose. undaunted, we press on.
we get to the store at 8. and count.
and count.
and count.
our first break was 10 minutes long at about 9:45 in the evening. the next break we got was at 2 in the morning, for another 10 minutes. we finished counting at 6 in the morning. we'd been counting for 10 straight hours, more or less, with about 20 minutes of break. the store was a mess, we had to key in most of the tags rather than scanning, nothing was on file, etc. not to mention that it was now 6 in the morning, we were trapped in melfort, and none of us had eaten anything since 2 the previous afternoon.

i'm sure that there are labor laws against this type of thing. but i'm equally sure they don't matter... after all, what was i going to do? stop counting? i'm trapped in melfort anyway, and the fewer people count, the longer the others have to count, and they're suffering every bit as much as i am.

didn't help that i woke with a cold and a headache the size of a buick parked in a cavalier fasion in the handicapped spot in the middle of my forehead.

so... it was a good day. the only good thing i can say about it is that, as we pulled back into saskatoon at 9:30 (yes, it took us just over 3 hours to get here from melfort), our crew was told that another crew was going to count winners on 8th (the one we were supposed to begin counting at 7 that morning, and hence, were very late for), and we, in turn, could go home and actually get some sleep.

on the plus side...
because i can't work monday, and because both of our crews are leaving town on monday before i'm free, and not coming back until wednesday, i'm off until thursday. most of the time that monday thing is an aggravation, but this week, it's my salvation.

i swear i will never be part of another january inventory.

ever.

the cycle continues...

we have now entered what i like to think of as phase 2 of inventory in january.
phase 3 tends to be due to the fact that
a) it's the beginning of cough, cold and flu season;
b) we get sketchy, inconsistant, minimal sleep;
c) we spend our days handling a lot of merchandise that's already been handled by God alone knows how many people;
d) we then spend enclosed in vans with a bunch of people who have been doing the exact same thing, breathing their air almost exclusively;
e) we work hours that occasionally enable stress and/or exhaustion to take a firmer grip than we'd like.

the culmination of all of these factors is that one's immune system tends to scream about unfair work conditions, rant impotently for a while (which feels a little like a nervous breakdown, but that doesn't really happen until phase 4), and then pack a suitcase and spend the next month and a half in sunny acapulco.

so now we're all tired and we're all suffering from low-grade infections and sinus colds and a myriad of other ailments as we anticipate phase 3: the moment most of the new people, overwhelmed by starting in the busiest time of year possible, stressed from the amount of work and the lousy hours and their own complete incompetence (not all of them, just most), will take off, leaving us short-staffed and overwhelmed ourselves.

but that's still to be gleefully anticipated.

hooray for inventory in january.

mission: conceivable...

good morning, Smock Monkey
your mission, should you choose to accept it...

i'm pretty sure that the western inventory smock is without a doubt the most useful disguise known to man. no other smock will do. starbucks' employees are recognizable as such from several miles away. not so with us. our smock, through it's pattented always-at-work technology, allows us the appearance of being ostensibly an employee of any business establishment in which we choose to stand.
it has its perks. i can't conjure a time in recent memory when i did not receive, while paying for cheap garbage at the mall food court, the coveted mall employee discount.
on the other hand, we get asked about 500 times a day (that's on average, mind you) by customers at whichever store we happen to be working in at the time, whether or not the pink flower thong comes in an extra wide, how much the the free paper at the till costs, or how many times we figure a person could flush the toilet if they use the safeway brand cleaner instead of 2000 flushes (which really only gives you 1998 flushes anyway in a desperate bid to screw the consumer...). and we tell them what we always tell them. "sorry, i don't actually work here. i'm just taking inventory." or, if we're feeling bolder, "the item you want is in aisle 3" (try it for yourself, it's almost invariably true, especially in stores without aisles, except when it's not.)
this is to be expected when we're running around counting things, grunting at our coworkers, swearing under our breath, breaking merchandise, and otherwise busying ourselves looking like employees.
but it's a whole different story when we're on a break.
like shopping during a rare lunch hour, for instance.
at one point, i was standing in a store, carrying a bag from another store, sipping on my large coke from the food court, and someone still came right up to me and asked me for a price. no word of a lie. i felt stupid by proximity for having to explain to this, the second person in as many minutes to do this to me, that i did not, in fact, work there.
nor did things improve when i went to the washrooms shortly before the end of the break, where, while waiting for a stall, i was approached by an older gent who asked me if he could use one of the stalls, or if i was cleaning them.

so i figure, i'm going to assassinate the prime minister.
i'll just walk in. a few people will ask me for directions, and instead of telling them that i don't work there, i''ll just direct them to check out some of the fine merchandise in aisle 3 and keep on walking. every once in a while i'll turn to a wall and pretend to check something, or fix something, or break something. i'll write the odd thing down. and then, suddenly, i'll be in his office, where i'll pull my WISard (glorified scanning calculator) from my front smock pocket like a malevolent mathematical kangaroo, blind him with the laser, clout him over the head with it like a wooden loon, and flee the building, stopping only momentarily to answer some question or another from the guards, who will no doubt want directions to the scene of the crime, leaving them fruitlessly searching aisle 3 as i make my brilliant getaway in a big, ugly white van.

later, eyewitnesses will all claim that it was an inside job, someone who worked for the government, maybe even for the prime minister himself. "after all, officer, he was wearing that smock."

and now, on to someone else with a similar problem. because, as we've all had the opportunity to be informed of late by our friend the media, one of the royal family is not a prince at all, but in fact, a frog. i mean, a nazi. ribbit.

i remember, in my youth, seeing children dressed on occasion as satan for the purposes of running around gathering candy on hallowe'en. little red horns. fuzzy pointed tails pinned to their bottoms. kinda cute, really, reducing the prince of darkness into a cuddly 6 year old lugging a pillowcase full of chocolate with an innocent grin.
fast forward to recently. a prince splashed all over the cover of tabloids and newspapers, apologizing profusely to the entire world as every possible corner of society takes personal offense to his latest "public spectacle". Gasp, a swastika! he must be channeling hitler in his alpha-bits! the bastard.

i thought it was a good costume, personally. and what could reduce the remaining tatters of dignity and validity from that once dreaded uniform than turning it into a costume, a farce, a masquarade of a shadow of the past?
but apparantly, we all want to hold on to our shadows so much that we instead cry like we've been wounded again, the entire world screaming and hollering in outrage at this boy, at his lack of respect, his lack of royal dignity and class, at the fact that he can't seem to take the past as cripplingly serious as everyone else wants to take it.
but come on. seriously. it's not like he wore it into a synagogue and gave a speech about burning jews. honestly. he wore it to a costume party. as a COSTUME. it makes him no more personally sympathetic to the nazi cause than it makes that 6 year old a messenger of satan every time he rings the doorbell and shouts trick or treat.
one newspaper article even went on to list this latest "embarrassment" right alongside drug use and getting into a fist fight with a photographer.
reality. perspective.

personally, i'm kinda hoping that he wears a western inventory smock to his next social event. we could use the employees.

i'm trying to post on my blog, and as usual, am tripping over the realization that i can't really be honest with anyone about most of the things that bother me... and further troubled by the fact that my honesty or lack thereof doesn't really matter, in the grand scheme of things, to anyone but myself... and troubled further still by the fact that my introspection and depressive and self-indulgent monologues are most likely doing what they always do, which is simply to make everyone tired of me... the irony being, i suppose, that i'm equally tired of myself, but without the capacity to just navigate away from the page. so i push myself away further, which is just pushing myself further into the consciousness of the few people around me who genuinely give a damn, making them all lose interest and perpetuating the cycle.
so what is learned from this?
aparantly nothing.

so here i sit, stewing in the juices of the things that i don't want to think about, instead of the things i'm supposed to think about... and all i notice is pain and distance and general lack of hope... and maybe there' a reason for that... maybe the things that god tells us to do and to think about aren't really for him at all, but for us, for our own protection and edification and enjoyment...
but that's not what i am. it's not on my list of perpetual capabilities. i do it for a little while at a time, a month or two, or a week, or whatever i can manage before losing it again...
and it's just as hard, if not harder, to have the answer and lose it again, to live with the knowledge of it's passing and absence, than it is to just deny the answer exists. it's easier to know and accept weakness than it is to build strength, because at the end of the day, weakness is reliable and consistant, and strength is not even always possible. one can be born with weak legs and, through work, strengthen and learn to use them. but one can also be born with legs that simply will not work, and wander dejectedly from hope to hope, trying only to walk, and meeting only crushing disappointment in each attempt, only to find himself, at the end, bitter and tired.

not that i want this to become a tirade. nor do i want to depersonalize it too much. i don't, in fact, know what i want to do here, what inconsequential verbal accomplishment will leave me feeling at least marginally justified in wasting the time and money to put this out there for people who don't want it, or don't want me to think that they don't want it, or secretly wish i'd shut up... or for nobody... or for myself, so i can come back later and lament my own tedious qualities like a man returning to the grave of his mother, entombed conception, the end of a beginning and the beginning of another kind of end.

bah.
i don't know.

if you got to the end of this and wondered why, then you're not alone.
sorry.

another 2-post day...

it's funny, i've still got a lot to say, but every time i get to the second post, i find myself tongue-tied...
my emotional endurance is already breaking. every stupid little thing is stressing me out. i'm relying more and more on coping skills that actually reduce my ability to cope, although they meet the base requirements for getting through the immediate situation as it arises. guilt and pressure are everywhere, like gnats around my head that i can't swat away.

doesn't really matter, i guess. am looking forward to tonight... have been anticipating some time off, even a little, surrounded by friends, all week. can't wait, actually. friends. nothing to count. time to do the few things that matter.

in the meantime, a poem i wrote a long time ago that i've been thinking about a lot lately. as long as my wishes are followed, it's more or less the only thing i want read at my funeral... one last chance for people to understand at least one more fragment of me, even if it's too late for me to watch it happen...

Last Letter to a Hero

I always wanted to be like you
Sometimes when I was alone
I would tie a jacket around my neck
and run
laughing as the wind lifted it
immagining I was flying alongside you
I would point you out to my friends
whenever i saw you
They would confuse you for a bird
or a plane
or a mild-mannered reporter
who had learned how to fly
but I knew your secret
you were a hero
my hero
maybe that's why i spent so much
time
standing on my roof
neck craned
hoping to catch a flash
of blue and red
maybe that's why I
jumped
fooled by dreams
even though the cape
wasn't real
and the "S" probably stood for
Something else
Sad
Strong
or maybe just
So Sorry
But that didn't matter
if I pretended hard enough
if I convinced myself well enough
if I just believed
I could fly
Because maybe i was
a hero
too
And maybe i knew all along
that not even a hero
can fly
forever

about the shirt my hatred wears, and why i'm not a fashion co-ordinator...

how gallantly i fail,
noble sacrifice, knowing loss inevitable,
rushing without hope,
charging with blood suspended,
pulse shredded,
red tinsel
dangling like traitor's feet
from a sharply
held breath,
oxygen baton casting about
for the downbeat
of victory,
the gasping wet discovery;
whoever loses his life
will find it.
he comes not to bring peace,
but a sword.
i come to devour that sword,
and taste the flavor
of my
peace.

not my finest work... a little labored, a little inconsistant... but the message remains intact. falling on christ's blade, falling on his spoken ideals, this prince of peace with a tongue like a sword... no wonder his words consistantly leave me wounded and bleeding, as he robes himself in the blood i gave for him... and this is peace?

but i am still at fault. to a degree.
the things that i can't change about myself are often in direct conflict with christ.
i have begged. i have pleaded. i have offered anything to him to just take away this small but potent aresnal of self-inflicted weapons with which i can't seem to stop cutting myself, just the removal of one would make me less of a casualty to god and more of a potential disciple. but god, omnipotent, omniscient god, who theoretically has to understand how badly i require freedom, who knows how much this is tearing me apart, who "knows how to give good gifts to his children", who promises that "all those who ask will receive"... refuses me each time. and still i try to love him, still i try to quell the anger, the occasional hatred, the disgust in the knowledge that someone has the cure but will not cure me, would rather leave me diseased for reasons i can't possibly comprehend.
and that just makes me more resentful... the fact that i feel i need to understand, when really, i don't... the fact that God is perfect and his actions, whether or not we like them or comprehend them or even acknowledge them as being directed toward us, need absolutely no justification (again, all in theory). but here i am, the pot, demanding the potter explain his seemingly shabby handiwork. this earthen jar doesn't hold glory well, there are leaks everywhere, when it's under the tap it seems full, but the moment it's pulled away for even a second, the illusion of fullness evaporates, and the water spills on the floor for christ to walk on, or turn into wine for the dogs to lap up, wondering all the time why it tastes so much like vomit...
and now i'm rambling, because i don't know what to say that will make me okay with this, with any of this. i want to be fine with losing the wife that god promised to me. i want to love god despite how miserably all his plans for my life have turned out so far, my fault or not. i want to hope for more than three seconds at a time. i want to be able to accept myself regardless of what might be in my head, or even in my heart. i want to be okay with the fact that i've screwed up countless times and will undoubtedly continue to do so. i want to be okay with who i am, and who god is, and who we might one day be together.
but i'm not.
i'm a coward, and it's easier to hate because of wrong than to love in spite of it.

to what end, anyway?

the second post... where i say so much less than i'd like to say...

if you haven't read the post that came before this one, start there... this is really just here as a realization that i have ten million things that i want to say, exactly zero things that are ready for vocalization, a pocket full of contradictions that are tearing holes in my new pants, and a desperate need for things to be different than they are.
there is no plan behind this post. i find that's when i'm my most bare, although there is a consistant reality, or at least the dream of reality, throughout these posts. it's a dream that i find myself dying to relinquish, wishing i could die to relinquish, wishing i could embrace, and hoping to embrace to find a life i love.
contradictions.
i have written a goodish number of little essays and treatises on the subject, each picking a different reason for the struggle, anything from pop culture to the church coming under fire as the culprit, or one of them, at least, behind this confusion, this lack of conviction swimming and drowning in an ocean of desire for conviction.
but i don't want to sound smart here, not to you, and certainly not to myself. i'm tired of sounding smart to myself, losing myself in my own rediculous smugness, like having the answers, or even a handful of them that work once in a while, is some grand accomplishment, before going home to wonder why i hate things so much if i have so many of the solutions at my disposal just waiting for my signal to go into the battlefield of my mind and slaughter confusion in a victory for holiness and goodness and all the stuff that i don't have. and it just makes me sicker to myself when i'm capable of making others believe that i have some kind of insight, like convincing them i love being thin and i can't get enough of the taste of my own finger, while they applaud my subtle emaciation.
but if i had real answers, i would be able to use them. wouldn't i? if i had a solution for my abstract laziness, then i would be efficient... if i had a solution for my crippling insecurities, i wouldn't regress... there are so many things that would change... so many... if they could...

lately, every time my mind is not as full as it could be, i find a persistant thought lurking in the scattered vacancies... and the thought scares me. i hate god. that's what my mind is telling me. and i try to convince myself otherwise, and sometimes it works... but a lot of the time, i'm not really convinced of my own sincerity. and that's a sure sign that god can see right through me. i want to ask for prayer, but at the same time, i'm convinced that it doesn't matter, that it won't work, and that i don't want god's attention at all. i want to touch the stove... i want him to smell my hand burning... i want it to hurt him...

i'm still not really saying anything... all i'm saying i guess is that, as usual, i'm immensely tired from all the struggle, i don't see the point, i'm tired of being a hypocrite, i'm tired of caring whether or not i seem like one most days, i'm tired of believing a set of things that i can't seem to uphold one day only to believe a different set that i can accomplish with ease but can't live with the next day, i'm tired of being too immoral to change but too moral to shield myself in a comfortable indifference.

and i'm tired of failing. it's all just a little too perpetual for my tastes. i enjoy the taste of my own blood enough to cut myself over and over again, but i hate the months in between as they heal and itch and get ignored by the people who i just want to ask the right question so that i can tell them that i'm not okay, that i want to scratch, that i wish some days i had no arms so that the option and the choice and the power wouldn't have to be mine, that sometimes i look at the chainsaw in the garage and a glimmer comes into my eye that i can feel spreading into my heart and mind...

anyway... like i said at the beginning, i'm really saying nothing... and i'm doing it in such a whining, petulant way that i'm sure to alienate anyone who might have once thought my blog something worth reading... and that's fine, this is really just one of those posts for me, where i can vent safely to the computer and not have to deal with all the terrifying mess of talking to an actual person. at least windows, when it chooses to reject me, has an explainable reason, even if it's not one that i immediately understand.

if you want someting more concrete, you'll just have to wait.
i have work to get to.

i'm so tired.
and it's only january...

some posts... post number 1...

i've been working like it's january in the inventory business... how strangely apt... or perhaps it's not strange at all, and all the supposed strangeness is just my ability to function coming apart at the seams in a disturbing way that lets the freezing saskatchewan wind lick between the cracks in a sweater that i thought for sure would last me for years, since it was too big when for me when i bought it and i've stopped growing...
gah...
randomness...
and to think, i had things to say...

and so the first post. i'm not going to have a chance to do this again until monday, and then probably not again until the monday following... i'm grateful to my employers for understanding that i need mondays off, even if i had to fight for it, and even though those days will often seem less like days off than the days i work, or the days during which i spend 6 or more hours in a van...
gah... again...

so...
for this post, an analogy that i can't shake out of my head, and so lodge here in the hopes that the spirits of interpretation, so vacant from the lot of my life, will dance by swinging conprehension and coherance in the form of wrecking balls, tearing down the condemned junk that stands where a shiny and functional edifice could be erected if only the funds were available...

gah.... third time's the charm...

so, my uncle owns a chocolate factory. he loves it, it's more or less a part of his family, his legacy.
this never used to be awkward for me. but a few years ago, it was discovered that i was, in secret, a chocolate kleptomaniac. my fixation for the brown confection knew no limits that could be bound by law, and i transgressed society in favor of satisfying my own needs.
my uncle is on his deathbed. in his will, unchanged despite the altered situation, he has decided to leave the factory to me and my brother.
i loved my uncle. i love my brother. i would like nothing more than to join in the family business, to make my family proud, to uphold the honorable name of my relatives. but at the same time, i'm terrified. not of my own weaknesses, staggering though they may be. not even of temptation, in its various forms, or the consequences of failure. no, the thing that i'm most afraid of is the look that i'm going to get all the time, the way my family, my brother, anyone who knows my past, will look at me as i work in the factory, that sideways glance, that suspicion.
i would be okay with them watching. i have been watched. i have been supervised. but it's that total lack of trust that i fear, and that i virtually know is coming... the questioning of motives... their thoughts about why i'm going to the factory at all, what i'm thinking, what i might be fantasizing about later that night... but i so desperately want to be a part of it, for the right reasons, just to show my love in any way i still can, without the horrible look in the eyes that feels so much like judgment, like condemnation, like they can read my thoughts, and that it's a valid basis for prediction of my actions.
i will not get caught with my hand in the chocolate. but it makes me so sad that everyone is going to expect it, and treat me like my fingers are already dark regardless.

how do i show them that i love my family? how do i show that, even if i would steal a chocolate bar from some random, faceless store, i would never do it to someone i loved?

how can i be accepted enough to make the contribution that is mine to make? so much love is wasted.