Guess?

 Drive soundtrack.  I don't eat.  I don't sleep.  I do nothing but think of you.  You keep me under your spell.  You keep me under your spell.  You keep me under your spell.

 A little eighties naughty nighty spell...that movie worked its magick on me.  Its subject matter completely at odds with the memories it invoked.

 I recall gradeschool insomnia...orange streetlights arcing through my venetian blinds at three in the morning, me desperately trying to keep my volume low...Power 99FM all the way baby...

what is that I smell?  Scincere nostalgia?  You don't say?

ToBeginAgain

"...no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself.  He felt keenly conscious of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment"; from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Wilde.  

A life dedicated to the fulfillment of subjective ideals and desires may appear to be opaque, foolish, or monstrous to the outside observer.  Confusion/dissolution may result when the individual forgets what exactly he or she has dedicated him or herself to.

The test of a mode of being--how does it contribute to personal evolution?

minus the forty

At the start of the first cold snap of the year.  Hovering around minus forty with the windchill for the next week or so....

Operation: OrganizeLife proceeds apace.  Papers sorted and filed.  One last load of recycling.  Flat has ceased to resemble a grade school storage locker/liberal arts undergrad bedsit.

Mah truck returned from its insurance claim work, only for the rear brakes to freeze up whilst attempting to drive to Prince Albert.  Nine hundred dollars later everything is all good!

It's been a quiet month.

Spent a couple of hours out in the cold this past Sunday, jogging and hiking on the banks of the river.  The sun all light and no warmth, the air icy and diamond hard.  

Lance in my pants

I never believed Armstrong when he claimed to be clean.  I didn't find his denials particularly disturbing or noteworthy; I think I just accepted them...as what?  His duty as a cheating athlete, one amongst the thousands who inject the extra edge.  My prurient nose was tickled once the scandal began to coalesce in the public mind however, and I've been following it ever since.  I admit I admire his accomplishments, drugged or no.  That EPOs were (are?) ubiquitous in pro cycling is a given, and the argument that he was just doing what everyone else was is a fair one.

What fascinates me is his character.  His vehement denials and vengeful litigations.  A person slightly unhinged, puffy with power, oozing an oxygen-rich egotistical slime.  It's like the dark side of his drive to conquer cancer and the Tour.

The public backlash is predictable and indicates we need to stop looking 'out there' for invincible heroes.

Fast Friends Hate Dead Ends

 How exciting--a new year!  A really new year!  So totally different from the one that went before!  Elk Island will now become a distant memory, a coyote howl echo sliding down the memory hole.

 Re-entry to Saskatoon after eight months of working away in Waskesiu and E.I. has been good.  Like, so good.  Man.  So.  Good.

 I began a necessary duty: cleaning and organizing my flat.  It has been used as a storage bin with a bathroom for far too long.  Got the recycling organized--recycling is all well and good if the recyclables actually make it to the depot.  I have at least two bagged and packed truck loads waiting for the return of the tacoma.

 The next job was to go through the mish-mash of treasures and junk that have been crouched and waiting for me the past two years or so, then onto a cleaning and re-stacking of the book shelves.

 Finally, a filing and purging of a shopping bag full of receipts, pay stubs, bills, tax forms, and related bureaucratic ephemera.  Can't wait.  But it will feel very good once it's done.  It feels like a practical way to start this year.  No fabulous psychedelic NYE epiphanies that segue into a year of boundless revelation and wonder--o goodness gracious no!  I am going to get my damn affairs in order!

 I will miss E.I.  Silence and loneliness, fresh air and a distinct lack of options--

 --skeleton trees creaking their bony knees round twilight trails.

  

 But it is nice to be around the people you love.