I remember once when I was younger, say about nine or ten, my parents took me for a car ride. I had no idea where we were going, because I never questioned them whenever they told me to get in the car. I’ve always been a victim of humming engines, and even today I find it hard to stay awake while riding in a car. I fell asleep and eventually woke up in a parked car with my seatbelt still on, uncertain of how much time had passed or where my parents had gone. The surroundings were unfamiliar, the parking lot, half-full, even more so. I sat there, expecting my parents to come back any second.

Not knowing how much more time went by, I started to question whether or not they had purposely left me there, some decade-late, do-it-yourself, abortion. “No”, I thought, “They wouldn’t just leave the car, it’s too much money”. When I couldn’t fight against my suspicion any longer, couldn’t convince myself that they wouldn’t just leave me in this lot like a baby on a doorstep, I started to cry. I didn’t know what to do. I gathered up the courage to leave the saftey of the car, and locked the door, knowing that in doing so I wouldn’t be able to get back in, but too scared of getting in trouble if my parents were ever to find out.

Wandering around the adjacent plaza, my face a complete sobbing mess, I looked for them through the store windows. Excuses, apologies, promises to be a good kid kept racing through my mind as I wondered from store to store, being careful not to let my eyes off the car. Eventually, I found them in a light fixture store, chatting with a sales clerk about some wood grain ceiling fan. I went in, approached them, and all I could say was, “Where did you go?”. They told me, matter-of-factly, that they went shopping and that I should have stayed asleep in the car. After finishing their conversation with the clerk, they left with me, and we all went home. I was shaken, but happy that I wasn’t discarded because of poor marks of bad piano form.

And even though I wish that the entire incident didn’t happen in the first place, a part of me wonders what it would be like if I had never found them. Perhaps a resolution.

An end to the stipulations of a conditional life.

Quite a few weeks ago, on another Sunday, I woke up with Loo sleeping next to me. I could never sleep past seven because of my work hours, and Loo rarely gets to bed before 11 the night before. Our schedules were, and still are, almost an eight hour shift away from each other. This doesn’t put us in the greatest of moods, and makes us say things that we don’t mean (on my end, at least, I can’t speak for her).

Like on that Sunday, after waking up and sitting in the IKEA PELLO for an hour listening to my music, I was grumpy to say the least. I wasn’t tired enough to sleep, but I wasn’t rested enough to do anything.

I decided to just get out and walk, not suspecting how beautiful the autumn day was. Everything I loved most about the fall was in that morning; the light chill in the air, the layers of colours, the manifest atmosphere. The walk was brief, just along the canal and back, but it was a shiver of the senses that only comes out a few days of the year.

When I returned, I still wasn’t in the best of sorts. My frustration about our mismatched schedules was starting to come through. Loo got up and we argued, trying to figure out who was to blame. In the end, I realized that it wasn’t either of our faults, but we were both paying for it.

Even though we argued, we ended up resolving things, a little wiser, and still just as tired. Another hurdle jumped, another obstacle that won’t get in our way again. I like to think that only good came out of that morning, and that if it didn’t happen, I wouldn’t have experienced what I was meant to.

Like watching joggers kick up the autumn leaves strewn across the pavement.

The more you call, the less I care.

I need it to recharge and recoup. I need it to clean up the piles of clothes that have been building up on my coffee table, and to catch up on old e-mails. I need it to sleep in, and feel rested for a once. I need it to take care of myself so I can take care of Loo. I need it to relax, to write.

To think, to stop thinking.

I understand. A lack of feedback is the ultimate test of confidence, one of the many crucibles of a relationship. The strong make it through, the weak fall apart.

I have to be strong. I have to cast aside my insecurities, and not look back. I have to trust in Louise as much as she trusts in me. I have to be more open, more communicative. How can I be sure of what she thinks if I don’t speak to her first?

I have to be strong. I have to treat Louise better. She shouldn’t be paying for my bad days. I have to push through the weight, or we both pay, the vicious bad-mood cycle. I have to be firm first, or there is nothing for her to support.

I have to be strong. I once asked Louise for three things, and I can’t be scared to ask for others. I have to take that leap of faith, because love is nothing without risk.

Do people really become stronger from pressure? I’ve always cracked, and it feels like I’m cracking now. Is this what the strong have gone through?

No one can promise that I won’t get hurt. No one can help me.

And I have to be strong enough to deal with both.

So yeah.

Got my hair bleached blonde. I’ve always wanted very pale blonde hair, but midtone is about as far as it goes.

Trolley, Aaron, and wheaties got me Half-Life 2 for my birthday. I didn’t have a chance to really play it until this weekend, but I decided to play through Half-Life: Source first, because it was four years five years since I last finished it, and going through the game again would help me appreciate all the little details being put into the sequel. The odd thing is that I remember taking weeks to play it through, whereas I started playing HL:S Friday, played a bit last night, and am almost done now. It’s nice to be able to sit and play through a game, taking my time, not having to worry about classes, or assignments, or tests, etc. This makes me realize that I haven’t really gotten into a game like this since I finished university.

Finally get to go for some pho with Loo today. We haven’t been almost two weeks.

Aaron bought me a quadruple/quadruple from Timmies yesterday, and it was good. I’ve been trying to cut down on sugar and creme for years now, so four of each being so satiating (almost candy-like) is very scary.

I took my first puff from a cigarette yesterday. It was a Matinee Extra Mild, and it wasn’t pleasant. I was stoned, and the weed tasted way better.

The Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex tracks that Number18 sent me are amazing. She rules.

Been busy as fuck.

That’s all. I’m going back to sleep.

Yesterday I was taking the bus home, sitting in an aisle seat next to someone (the part of the bus where there are four pairs of seats, two pairs facing forward on each side of the aisle). There was a girl in the seats in front of me, with her bag next to her, preventing someone from sitting there, and two people sitting in the seats across the aisle from her. Eventually, she made like she was going to get off at the next stop, and put her bag on her lap. The guy in the aisle seat across from her (at an angle to me) saw, and looked rapaciously at the soon-to-be-vacant window seat. Then he looked back at me, and saw me eying the seat as well, and going through the motions of a Tarantino joke from Desperado (“Dick, glass. Dick, glass. Dick, glass.”), except with me and the empty seat. As soon as he realizes that he might lose the coveted window seat to me, he gets up and sits in the recently vacated space next to the girl to reserve the spot, before she even gets up to leave. Eventually, the next stop comes along, and she doesn’t get off. Instead, the person who was sitting in the window seat next to him before he moved gets up and leaves. The guy looks over to the newly vacated window spot, and, too embarrassed to move back, just stays next to the girl, stewing in the consequences of his error.

I could feel his scalp starting to itch, the way a sudden break of sweat starts to tingle the pores along the back.

And then I walked over to the window seat, and slumped down comfortably. Learning to never make assumptions and never be too anxious was easy. It was learning to live that by those rules that was the hard part.

I also touched some guys leg with my fingers later on, because he rudely shoved his knees into my legs while making his way to a standing spot. Nothing makes a man jump like challenging his heterosexuality.

I was riding the bus the other day, and a woman got on and sat in a perpendicular seat in front of me. She wore plain mary-janes, thick wool stockings, a conservative plaid skirt, and had her hair in a slightly ornamented pony-tail. I assume that she was in her late twenties, but her demeanour was almost child-like. She sat for a while, staring at nothing, carrying a perpetually innocent, apologetic expression on her face, as if she had a tiring day and was penitent to those around her for being in such an exhausted state.

Sticking out of her bag was a simple, white, letter-sized booklet with the heading “DEMOCRACY IN ACTION PROGRAM”, and I thought it was odd that a parliamentary event being held in the capital of Canada would use the American spelling of the word “programme”.

Soon, she pulled out a set of plastic, bulky Sony headphones (the ones with the oversized foam that actually come with a music device), and searched her bag for the tape player attached at the end of the cord. Now, I admit that I’m already generally attracted to older, homely looking women, but it was the fact that she had such a pure look of simple bliss on her face when she put on the headphones, as if she was waiting all day to listen to her music, that I found most attractive.

I wonder if anyone understands how much the release of HL 2 means to me. I wonder if anyone can understand how emotional I get just seeing the concept art. The first Half-Life defined more than a year of my life, the way decades have defined phases for previous generations. Half-Life was my favourite game of all time, not even second to Chrono Trigger. It was an experience, a journey, not just a game, and the sequel is being released tomorrow.

I formatted my machine yesterday (something I haven’t done in over a year, even though I used to every quarter before the release of XP), to clean up my system in preparation. I’m hoping I’ll be able to run it on a decent graphics setting; my video card is a little dated now, but it’s still a DirectX 9 generation ATI Radeon.

I can’t wait. The entire idea that something I’ve been waiting more than four years for will be released tomorrow hasn’t quite set in my head yet.

Knowing that I love someone may make me strong, but knowing that someone loves me makes me stronger.

The day was going so well. It’s the end of the week, work hasn’t been too stressful, and tonight is supposed to be fun.

One tiny fucking thing had to ruin it.

I can’t believe I almost broke down here. I can’t even cry, when it feels like letting go and bawling my eyes out would be the only way to get it all out of my system. I can only sit here, my eyes swollen and tired, and force myself to work. I don’t know how other people deal with their problems, because I’m not the only one. I just seem to be the only one who hasn’t come to terms with it all.

Am I just a naturally weak person? How are others, who seem to have gone through the same thing, not be affected by it? Will this ever go away?

Before, I simply hated. Then, for years, I believed that I came to terms with it. Now, I simply question why.

Why is it so hard for me to get over this?

Trolley left his Tuborg in my room tonight, but I purposely didn’t tell him so that I could have a chance to talk with him when he remembered where it was.

Coolest thing about a girlfriend who’s a registered massage therapist: general health and medical training means that she can distinguish between the different gaits and kinetics of the thirteen different Eternal Darkness characters.

Oh yeah, and the pro massages.

PRO.

Last week, Aaron and Karen got a nine-week old kitten, named Chaos. I had the pleasure of checking up on him over the weekend. He was extremely nervous about meeting me at first, but he eventually warmed up enough to play with a mousie that I once bought for Dolly. I can already start to see parts of his personality coming through; he’s a little shy, but really enjoys human attention, and can spend hours just batting things around.

Some people turn to pills and things
To help them through the day
To take them up or down or just
To ease the blues away
But me I really want to feel
The ups and downs of life so real
Happy or sad emotions reign
My tears flow just the same

—Lamb, I Cry

I had been trying to write this for nearly a month, but couldn’t get it down until I really listened to the lyrics of I Cry on the walk home past the power lines. I decided to split this up into two separate entries, after realizing that I have two similar ideas in my head, but two very distinct issues. Perhaps it just took a few extra rough days of work to force me to think about this. All the things falling apart that I have to fix, responsibilities, deadlines, and tons of other miscellaneous things are definitely making me think of ways to get the tension out of my arms and shoulders.

Sometimes, when I come home, all I want to do is get piss drunk or mindlessly stoned. Maybe go recklessly buy a bunch of things I don’t need, to make myself feel better for that little amount of time. Sometimes I just feel like doing something irrational, even though I have no idea what or why, simply because I believe it would get my mind of things. And yet I don’t do any of this, especially when I’m having a particularly bad day, because I don’t want to be dependent on anything.

I don’t want to rely on narcotics, or material goods, or self-mutilation, or anything at all to make myself feel better. I want to be sure that I can handle things, no matter what, on my own. I force myself to feel every stressful, miserable, forlorn emotion, so that I know that I can get through them.

Sometimes, every day can be a test. Music and writing are the only things that I allow myself.

And sometimes I have to tell myself that it’s enough.