Writer of fiction, poetry, etc - based in Vancouver BC
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.
I’m too tired to do much more on this. I promise to write out more tomorrow. I do need a good night’s sleep tonight.
This is the harshest week of the year to be working retail. Tiring. Customers everywhere, asking all kinds of questions. Management on edge and constantly irritated at you. Everything is a mess.
I at least have a lot of good days off. I even have New Year’s Eve off. I hope to accumulate as many quiet days as possible, and maybe I’ll even be able to be home at midnight and open the bottle of Champagne off the porch, welcome in the new year. But it depends on if anything else comes up that keeps me until midnight. I don’t know. My thoughts are dark tinged when I’m tired, and that’s where this is coming from.
It’ll be fine if I’m not there. I value holding onto that, but it’ll be fine. I’ll probably be someone good, if I’m elsewhere.
There were a few things from the past few days I wanted to write about, but they’re slipping. That’s why it’s better to try to keep this up, I realize. It’s an exercise so I get disciplined about writing everything out, then I get used to retaining stuff and planning stuff out, etc, and I can transfer that back over to other projects.
Hm. What to talk about:
Met a friend at an Ethiopian place on the drive. Harambe Restaurant—a place I’d been wanting to go back to for ages, used to go there a lot when I was at VCC, which is just one SkyTrain station away. Nostalgia. Good food. Friend was Mango, coming in from out of Surrey. Met him last month, first time seen him since. Then we got cinnamon buns and walked through McSpadden Park in the dark. I don’t get out to the Drive enough and it was nice to be over there.
I wish I had written about that when it was still fresh in my mind. It was a good evening. It reminded me of the kind of times I had in lives I often forget I had.
Finished Christmas shopping, and wrapped all the gifts I had lying around to wrap. Put them under the tree. I did a better job properly Christmas shopping this year, partially thanks to Expozine, and I’m pleased about that. I enjoy gift giving—I enjoy picking these items out and I enjoy passing them to their final destination. It’s a sort of reflection on who’s there in your life and what it is about them. Etc. It’s a reminder to yourself that you’re here and you’re among others. It’s nice.
My friend Aby (who was the one who invited me to Coquitlam a couple weeks ago) came by to drop off his gift to me yesterday. I got him cheesecake in return. It was the first time he’d been over to the house. I’d just finished rewatching the Barbie movie with mom and it was just before I retired to my basement suite to crash asleep. It was a good way to end the day.
I’ll have to write down some more details of my living situation someday. I’m not going to do it during this ramble, but I’ve thought about that.
I still have some backlog on this I need to get through, too. The second half of my Montreal trip. I went downtown one day with Cali and I haven’t finished that, either. Entries like these you’re reading I don’t care so much about, they’re meant to be off the cuff like this, but there are times like those above that I want to get… just right.
Evan was visiting from the Island, I think I mentioned that. He came by the other day, he had lunch and then we went for a walk. I passed him a book for Christmas. It was good to see him. I’ll have to go see him over on the Island sometime.
Ken is having a Christmas party next week. I’m looking forward to that.
It’s 11:30. I should sleep soon.
Resuming the Ben Okri reading that was paused. I think I’d like to reread part of it, but then again I am also enjoying Our Lady of Mile End and might prefer to stick with that. I’ll decide in the morning.
The podcast I’m listening to, Revolutions (I don’t listen to podcasts, generally; I only like this podcast. Mike Duncan is one of the great raconteurs of our time) is progressing. I just finished the life of Simon Bolivar and am beginning the lead up to the July Revolution. Learning about these great upheavals is a good education; I feel I know better how to respond to the chaos of the world around me, knowing how these chaoses went.
I am tired. I will post this and sleep. Thank you for listening.