untitled.

i am a bean counter. a wack-a-mole. a kid in a pen, a con in a cell. i'm a thousand stupid metaphors that sound ever so profound until the moment they hit the air. i am, in truth, the guy i recently said i never want to become. but dig just a layer or two down and that guy is already well entrenched. but don't take it personally. my cynicism, my doubt and distrust and bitterness are just the outcome of too many years of various things (people, events, decisions) squashing every attempt i've made at a life of anything other than the status quo. and even now, when there is light on the horizon, i expect a mirage. i keep waiting for the axe to fall, for good old reality to reassert itself, and everything to come crashing down. i expect to be let down or betrayed or disappointed or tossed aside. as i said, nothing personal. just lessons from experience and it's said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. it feels like every time i try to push my horizons i get knocked back to my apparent rightful place. i want to tell the world where to go, but most of the time it seems like it's already there.

Wake Me Up When Winter Ends

I have a whole bunch of stuff to update y'all with!
A whole bunch of nothing, actually.
My EI claim hasn't been approved (or denied) yet. I haven't bought groceries or gas in several weeks. Once I cover end of month bills this week and home/jamhall rent in a few days, I am officially dead broke, not a cent in my bank account and no more paychecks coming. I was told EI is generally approved in about two weeks, it's been three. I suppose the economic downturn and increase in EI claims Canada-wide is the explanation there. I've already called for (and gotten) help from the food bank, but that lasts about a week and you can only call once a month. Work keeps telling me things are going to pick up in a few days, their main client is just waiting on permits for a new development and then work will get going again... but they've been saying that for weeks. I also have a tax return to do, but not all of my T4s have come in yet. I suppose the upside is rent is covered, so things wouldn't become desperate until April and I should be up and going well enough again by then. Fingers crossed.

Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

It's pretty much solely in the interest of keeping up a more regular blogging schedule that I'm writing today, as there isn't much to report, I'm afraid. Work has gotten no more stable, as a matter of fact I applied for Employment Insurance benefits today. Apparently I can get decent paycheck supplementation unless/until I work over 35 hours in a week, which I haven't done in what feels like forever. However, I won't receive any benefits for about 6 weeks, so I have to hang on by my fingernails for a little while longer. And try as I might, despite giving myself minimal spending money since last summer and budgeting like mad, I seem to be somehow unable to make any serious progress in clearing my debt. It's the 20 ton gorilla on my back.

In other news, the band has just finalized booking a pile of dates, so I'll be busy enough in March to hopefully distract myself from the passing of another birthday. I suppose it's indicative of this generation to feel old at 26 when there's 12 year old Disneyfied millionaires out there and most big new artists seem to be balancing writing their first masterpieces with finishing high school exams. Anyway, after the March dates we're heading to the east coast and back for two weeks, and then spending the whole summer writing like mad, just like last year. I'm looking forward to it.

At this point the band and Candice are the only things keeping me going. Have I mentioned I hate winter? It can't end soon enough.

Hibernation 101

Did you know January is the Worst Month For Carbon Monoxide Deaths? It's true! So, I'm going to do my part to fight impending scentless oblivion with another blog entry.

The Post-Christmas Winter Season is upon us, and I for one am kind of bored. For the last few months of each year you can console yourself in the face of the incoming slushy onslaught with the knowledge that Christmas and other assorted quasi-related holidays are following shortly thereafter. Even those of us that are older and potentially less prone to holiday cheer can look forward to a wide array of holiday foodage, if not also quality time with extended relatives and the obligatory uncle-making-inappropriate-jokes-at-dinnertime. However with all that now behind us, we are faced with the worst weather the Old Man can throw at us, with no respite until Don Getty's Family Day in February.

I cannot hide that am not a very good Canadian. I can't stand beer, don't have any particular affection for hockey, haven't skied since grade 10, and hit up Timmy's a few times a month at the most, which by now is probably a felony. I admit, I should probably just turn in my passport now.

To make matters worse, we've been hit with a cold snap in the last week or two, and with temperatures barely cracking -20 in the mornings, the concrete industry is on hold until it warms up a smidge. Aka, I've had the last week off work, which is great for my sleeping and not-so-great for my walleting, keeping in mind I also had 2 weeks off unpaid around Christmas. Candice is between jobs at present, having (quite understandably) quit her salon in Guelph, and not starting at her new place for a few weeks. So, broke and prefering to avoid hypothermia, we've been holed up at my place or hers for what seems like several eons by now. We've watched a handful of movies and at least one full season of Whose Line? with 7 more Torrenting presently, played more games of Scrabble and Monopoly than I can count, read Slaughterhouse Five and 1984 (thanks M&D) and planned out the rest of our year(s) repeatedly. The time off has been relaxing, however I'm beyond broke and straining to barely get all the bills paid, which is a frustrating situation I thought I'd finally dug out of at the end of last summer. However all hope is not lost, and I'll probably be working mad overtime next week to catch up.

In other news, band stuff continues to chug along; we have 2 new songs mostly written and lots planned for the upcoming months. My personal dilemma is that any short-term touring puts my job at risk, and without steady work at a good wage I'll never get out of debt soon enough for the band to be able to reach full-time touring mode. However if we wait until my (and Hutton's) debt is paid off we sacrifice the momentum we've achieved up to this point, and we may not be able to build it back up. As Eminem once wisely said, you often get "one chance, one opportunity..." So, it's going to be a very delicate balancing act to get through the rest of this year supporting both the band and my own bottom line, however I have the best of teammates in my lady and my boys, so I'm not too worried. Alas, I'm just going to have to put my full body tattoo project on hold.

I'd Take It All Back, To Start Over Again

Alright, first post of the new year, let's get right to it.

For starters, I'm not a very good writer. I have a number of friends with blogs that write these big artsy abstract entries, and I guess that's just not me, I just write what's on my mind plainly and that's that. My apologies therefore if it's less interesting or entertaining... I already wrote and scrapped 3 different first paragraphs. Stick to what you're good at.

All blathering aside, here's some of my plans and good old New Years' Resolutions for 09.

-First, regardless of literary value, blog more. I managed once a month in 08, I think twice a month is doable and maybe I'll get around to once a week if I can find any writing talent for cheap on ebay.

-Second, somewhat contradictorily, spend less time on the computer, or rather, waste less time. My behavioral inertia is such that once I fall into a rut of sitting here for any decent period of time, getting away and doing something more useful or productive becomes that much harder. I talked with Candice about putting a timer on/beside my laptop, and giving myself a 1 hour limit unless I'm doing something with a specific purpose. It's probably a wise idea.

-Read more. And articles on digg.com don't count. I believe I included plans to start reading 'classic' literature in a previous blog, part of an attempt to be more culturally well-rounded. I'm off to a decent start this year, I've already gotten through Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, which to be honest I wasn't particularly into. I'm obviously no literary critic, but I couldn't see from that novel alone why KV is so venerated. Anyway, I'm on to 1984, which I never read in highschool, and it's pretty good so far. I've substituted reading while sitting waiting in the truck for watching Prison Break while sitting waiting in the truck, and that takes up a fair chunk of time every week. So I should be able to plough through a good list of books this year. Suggestions for good novels (or nonfiction) are welcome.

-Get back to the gym, even if only once a week. Behavioral inertia is a big factor on this one,.. when I went, I was 3x a week, solid... but as soon as I took a day off, poof- willpower goes out the window and I haven't gone since. I think I just need someone to help my motivation, to light a fire under my ass and not let me get lazy. I don't know why it's so easy for me to be complacent, but I don't want to live like that. As for the gym itself, I'm probably going to just go to classes, just something to counteract the sedentary nature that I've fallen into from sitting and/or lying down for far too much of the average day.

-Get back into eating healthily again. Since slacking at the gym, I've slacked here as well, but it's not that hard, I've just had to tighten my belt in terms of grocery budgeting lately. Now that I've gotten rid of (read: inhaled) all the junk food from Christmas, it shouldn't be too hard to do better here.

-Find new, good, interesting bands. Ill say it straight out- 2008 was a bad year for music, for me. I was disappointed or underwhelmed by new releases by Thrice, Underoath and Misery Signals and haven't found any bands or albums that impacted me as strongly or immediately as Artist In The Ambulance, Define The Great Line, or Mirrors. I guess I just need to look more. My previously favorite bands may not be that way for much longer.

-Practice drums wayyy more! This is probably the most important one, and for some reason it's the hardest for me to make any progress on whatsoever. I moved to the specific house I live in now primarily due to its proximity to my band's jam spot, which is just down the street, mostly so I could have easier access to my gear and less reasons not to practice. I've been here for 4 months now, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've gone to the hall for solo practice. Of anything in all of 08, I'm the most disappointed in myself regarding this. However, I now have plans in place which should help here.

-Declutter, clean and simplify. In the last few years I began to prefer a slightly more spartan lifestyle, materialistically speaking. I simply don't need or want a lot of stuff, I feel like it weighs me down somehow. So this is a minor point, just to continue what I've done in 08 in terms of trimming the fat, so to speak.

-And this one should be obvious- GET OUT OF DEBT! Probably actually the most important of all. I've gone significantly better in the last year or two at budgeting and spending wisely, however I have the consequences of the previous 5 years' worth of unwise money management weighing on me now, and I want out asap. Part of this resolution entails getting a new job in mid-spring with better pay, closer to home, and dumping the budgetary savings right on my loans. I have to face the fact that in all likelihood, it's going to take me the better part of 2 years to clear it all away, with airtight money planning and very little spending cash, but I'd rather be free then, than still digging out when I'm 30, by living less frugally now. The specter of that terrifies me.

There may be more. But these are the big ones. I think I'll probably still have this blog a year from now, so I can look back in 12 months and see how I did. I aim to make Future Me proud.