January 8, 2024
2024-01-08 23:43
A week since my last entry. Well, that’s probably healthy. Not like I haven’t been working on this, though—for that week, most of which was taken up by 2-9:30 evening shifts, I was working on the Montreal content. Wake up, write, go to work, come home, write, go to sleep, wake up, write… etc. I got sick of it and needed to step away. Now I can take steps back again.
Since yesterday have started thinking about my short story collection as a whole work, too. It is absurd, oversized and pretent...
December 6, 2023
2024-01-05 11:34
I suppose oysters were important… and Verdun followed. Verdun also came first, but it followed too. And that’s fundemental the outline of the entire day.
In more detail:
I wake up with a hangover, (no kidding), an hour later than I would have if I’d gone to bed at a reasonable hour. Nine-ish: about the plan. I lay in bed a little bit listening to the traffic, the day out there that’s underway without me. But I get up. I let myself have a moment of standing in the middle of the kitchen lo...
December 5, 2023 cont.
2024-01-03 10:52
Le Vieux Europe is a place I used to like to go but not buy anything, only window show. I didn’t have much of a disposable income back then—although I did dispose of it plenty of ways I probably could have done without. I probably could’ve bought more there—but I would just go in and bask in it. Lots of specialty meats and cheeses, an entire wall of coffee beans from around the world behind glass screens and ready to be taken home. European Chocolates. Panettone. It lives up to its name.
I’m...
New Year's Day 2024 Poem
2024-01-01 22:48
Ali Akbar Khan plays
Raga Bhairav in 1973
And the plucked strings begin
to densify as I chop tomatoes
For tabbouleh
And I drink flattening champagne
On New Year’s day, 2024
The day never woke up
The new year starts like this
But it strangely found this focus you see
Without my help
January 1, 2024
2024-01-01 21:37
I have a ritual on New Year’s Eve—no matter where I go out to, I want to be back at home for midnight. I want to have that instant with my mom and grandpa, letting off a bottle of champagne, watching the cork fly away into the dark of the front yard, and begin another year together. It started when I lived in Montreal, and was only back for a week or two at a time, so it was that important to share these small rituals I could be there for; it continues because I know these small rituals remain i...
December 31, 2023
2023-12-31 14:59
It’s New Year’s Eve day, and the end of a busy week.
I’ve decided to cut down on how much I write these, or at least how long they are when I do write them. I am still slogging through my time in Montreal—although it’s fun to relive that, I would rather be writing about events still happening. There’s more of a crackle to that; and once it gets old, it becomes something else. Other than what this was supposed to be.
It’s been that odd week between Christmas and New Year’s. I only worked ...
December 26, 2023
2023-12-26 23:34
What did I do today?
I worked on “OVERCOMING FEAR OF EXTRATERRESTRIALS THROUGH SELF-HYPNOSIS,” that story in my collection that I want to finish. Editing a draft. It’s at the stage where I’ve printed it out and am going over it with a multicoloured pen. The first satisfying stage of the progress—I always feel like I’m beginning to understand what I’m working with when I get here. One never understands an unfinished story by simply staring at it on a computer screen: it always feels insurmoun...
December 25, 2023
2023-12-26 23:14
It’s Christmas Day, and I slept horribly last night. Kept waking up for a few seconds, but never long enough to fix whatever was the problem. Discomfort; too cold or two cold; blankets falling off. Something. I’ll never know now.
The day has been good, though. Had a coffee and went through my stocking. Then we all went and visited Grandma—she lives in a care home a few blocks away. It was a good visit; she was laughing.
Then cinnamon buns, and opening gifts. Then a few hours of normal da...
December 24, 2023
2023-12-26 23:13
Christmas Eve. Last day of work before the big day; two days off, more than usual. Last Christmas was one day of horrible fatigue and I fell asleep for an hour and a half in the late afternoon, then woke up for dinner, then had to go to bed early to wake up at 630 on Boxing Day for work. Two days this year; pleasant. (First world problems).
Got home from work today, had a shower and joined mom and grandpa to watch Alastair Sim’s Christmas Carol and then Willy Wonka and then Ed Sullivan. Had ...
December 23, 2023
2023-12-23 23:45
I am too tired to be writing this, but I’m conscious that it’s been a few days, so I’m sitting down.
It’s the day before Christmas Eve. Worked a nine hour long shift today. Didn’t get enough sleep.
I suppose I’ll write a longer entry tomorrow. I would like to. It’s been too long.
I’ve started working on the last or second to last story in my collection. I will be happy to get that done. That’s another reason I haven’t been writing these: my brain’s been focused on other projects.
...