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.
...
December 5, 2023
2023-12-21 09:36
Today has been an eventful day, easily the most eventful of the trip so far: it’s nearly 4AM on the 6th now, and the day hasn’t ended. I just got back. I am well and drunk, and it’s far too late to write about any of this. Let me try again tomorrow, or later. Perhaps on the plane. I don’t know when the next time will be: this end of the trip is so compressed, and there is so much happening that these last days, as I look back at them (I’m back in Vancouver now, I couldn’t even finish this on the...
December 4, 2023
2023-12-19 23:39
I am in Cafe Olimpico on St-Viateur. This is a place I’ve wanted to go since the time when I lived here but have never before got around to visiting. It’s good. Old-fashioned decor, the way cafes used to be in the golden ages, but shiny and loved not a speck of dust; not a theme park either, this is a neighbourhood cafe (even if there’s the odd souvenir to take)—it’s busy, but not overcrowded (I’m able to get a table both times I’m here, no trouble; it’s a comfy kind of busy, a bustle), and frie...
December 18, 2023
2023-12-18 23:47
Sitting now in Grounds for Coffee, at what had been the last free table in the place, with a chai latte. It’s five o’clock, and I’m here largely because I wasn’t in the mood to just collapse and be tired in my pyjamas having done all that I needed to do today.
Or, most of what I needed to do. The minimum I could tolerate having gotten done.
I sound silly; I am silly. It’s prep for Christmas, plus some more work on my website. It has an “About Me” page now, and a couple more backlogged po...
December 3, 2023
2023-12-18 15:26
This was the morning of Montreal’s first snowfall of the season. I felt blessed to be there for it: it had been six years since I’d been present for a first snowfall here.
I laid in for awhile in the morning, staring out at the closed curtains the street traffic was behind. I don’t know how I knew there was snow out there, but I did, or maybe that’s a false memory (but a good one, so let me have it.) I think it was actually peaceful, despite my heavy eyes. Then the fishhooks came—I remember ...