Today I wanted to go into work to make up for some time I owe. Or ride the bus to the serger repair place with my broken machine. Or to the cheese shop in my neighbourhood that recently opened for their grand opening. Or outside my house at all.

The light is falling and I haven't left my house.

You might imagine that means I'm doing something useful in my house. I'm not; I haven't done anything today. I'm completely unmotivated to do the stuff that normal people would do around the house. There's just no real reason to do anything. I'm the only one who will see my apartment, the only one who eats here, the only one who has to live with the piles. What I do or don't do doesn't actually matter.

But this is starting to carry over into whatever life I have outside of my house. It doesn't matter if I leave my house on days like today because, even if I do, my interactions will be with strangers. It makes sense to just go to work instead of everything else because at least I'll be productive. And I can't even convince myself to do that today.

The thing is... It's become clearer that my life is always about 5 months from nothingness. I've got work for a while, but the end of each contract is always on my mind. It's never not on my mind. So it seems pointless to do anything around the house when I know I might lose it all in a few months. Irrational? I have no idea; it is a real possibility.

If I don't have a full-time job by the end of April that's it for me; my opportunities are done here. With my contracts done and nothing more permanent, I'm fucked. How do you convince yourself to do anything when you can't even imagine your life in 5 months, when there's just nothing there?

giving up (for real)

Today I realised that every guy I've dated the last few years is now in a committed relationship. Sigh. Bring out the dancing horses.

Years and years ago, an ex-boyfriend thanked me for giving him the confidence to date his (now) wife. Apparently I have some sort of magical skill in building up the men I'm with. I see it as a shift in power: I give them part of mine so they have lots and I have none. Recently someone I dated off and on informed me that he's going to commit with an old ex-girlfriend because, dating me, he realised he had the best connection with her and he was glad that I helped him realise that.

Wouldn't it be nice if I was the one thanking some guy for helping me find the person I fit with? But, based on the males I've known, that's never going to happen because these relationships are never about me; they're always about how it's going to help him. Of course I want the person I'm with to be happy. I would just prefer him to be happy with me instead of someone else. Yet it never feels very reciprocal. After I crumble, it always becomes apparent that it was one-sided, that I put in too much effort with not a lot of results.

So. I just give up. I'm going to hide at work and hide at home and then I don't have to worry about another disaster waiting to happen. My childhood friend told me this week that it only takes one guy to be the right one. Unfortunately I don't think I can wait anymore for him to get his shit together and find me.

quite the switch

Lately I've really not minded working. High praise.

At one of my jobs today, I was watching a film reel, trying to figure out when it was filmed and who the players were. This can often be a nightmare, with the reporter not bothering to say the name of the person at all and my knowledge of pre-1977 being a void (being soft-brained at that time and all). Sometimes, like today, it can be a fun little treasure hunt.

When there is audio, this makes things infinitely easier because you can sometimes pick stuff up based on what people are talking about, even if names aren't involved. Today's film was in that category. It was a film about SFU, likely from the spring of 1968, about the chaotic student protests at SFU. Leading the cause on the film reel was a mouthy student with an Irish(?) accent who spoke of social justice and giving educational access to people from all classes, rich or poor, since everyone deserved the right to an education. He went on and on. After a bit of research, it became apparent that this student was Martin Loney.

Who is he? you may ask yourself. From articles and brief bios attached to writing, he's now a neo-conservative writer/policy advisor who, despite having a PhD, hasn't been able to secure a stable academic posting in Canada. I just can't figure out how a seemingly liberal radical winds up writing about how terrible pay equity is and how minorities don't deserve special representation in a workplace. Social justice kept spewing (literally, spewing, as he barked the words out) from his lips in the film and, yet, seems to support the boys' club of the past now.

This might be a long-term research project when I have a bit more time around the three jobs I have to work to keep myself afloat. There must be more to this story than what reviewers have focused on. Because, going by those reports, he got an extreme version of what he was fighting for in the '60s and now doesn't want it.

call me crazy

OK, so I read a story about a woman who dated a psychopath. Not one of those stabby psychopaths that boil bunnies or anything like that. It was just a man she dated for 4 years, who was adoring and convinced her to buy a cottage with him and took care of her because he loved her so much, but said at the end of one day that he was done with the relationship, a day after the last payment for cottage renos. I did a mental catalogue search of the men I've dated over the years, to see if they had any of the signs.

And I discovered that I might actually be a psychopath. I mean, I do basically know right from wrong, but I don't always have guilt about certain things when the social norm would. I blame other people for what I do wrong sometimes, don't make long-term plans, don't have long-term relationships, am manipulative, am self-centred... There are more, but I don't really want to expose all the bad behaviours I have. Just... if you look at a checklist, it's possible I have many/most of those traits.

This would actually be somewhat comforting, being defined as a psychopath. It would give me a good excuse for never getting married.

substance abuse

I've alluded to the fact I'm working more than usual the last while. It's just what I need to do to get stuff in order and done. I hate it, though. I don't like sleeping for 5 hours, if I'm lucky, and eating one meal a day. Can't wait for next Thursday.

The thing is I've also done extra stuff to ensure I don't have a second to myself. I'm volunteering for OLIO Festival on Friday night and there are a couple of afterparties I'd like to check out, meaning very little sleep. On Saturday I'm volunteering for the Vancouver Specials tour and hoping to get to the houses before they close. I'm also trying to not have to resign from one of my on-call jobs because my availability is so sketchy. (Note to self: lie the next time someone asks you your availability. Honesty results in phone calls and emails.) And I have to put in extra hours at one of my jobs to catch up from illnesses/days away/the Olympics that have accumulated since March.

To combat this jam-packed schedule, I've turned to artificial means to see me through. Not drugs, at least not illegal ones. I'm on The Coffee. But it isn't really having much of an effect. I chugged a tepid milky, sugary coffee this morning and I'm still feeling a bit sluggish. I was going to take one of those iced coffee packets from Sbucks (and by take I mean drink), but then worried that much coffee in my bloodstream might cause my heart to explode out of my chest. Still... I would like to stay awake until my workday ends later tonight...

I still don't see myself carrying a coffee mug around, drinking The Coffee daily or even weekly. The amount of cream and sugar required to make that stuff palpable makes it less coffee, more melted coffee ice cream.

vacuous information

The last while I've been working more than usual, trying to juggle a few jobs with increased requirements and time on the job. Perhaps due to my lack of sleep/proper nutrition, I find myself filling up on crap. Not food-related crap; cultural crap.

I've always been a bit weird about pseudo-entertainment news programs like Entertainment Tonight and TMZ. When I don't want to think (which is pretty much any time I'm not at work these days), I turn to these trashy "news" sources to keep up-to-date with things that, in the whole scheme of things, don't matter. By and large, these people aren't doing anything more significant than what I do. They just have a lot of money and stylists and cameras fixed on them all the time.

One thing I've been following unconsciously is the dating drama of the Jonas brothers. This probably started ages ago when People was readily available in one of my workplaces and Miley and Nick broke up the first time. I can't pinpoint it exactly. Their publicists were just *so good* at getting them into entertainment news that they always seemed to just *be* there all the time.

I was surprised to hear these boys have (had?) promise rings, showing their commitment to their virginity. Like Brittany Spears. And Jessica Simpson. Like being pure means just not having sex. I keep hoping a sex scandal will come to light and another child star can fall. (I don't know why I want complete strangers to become tarnished. Perhaps jealousy. Perhaps it would be nice to see people in the spotlight appear to struggle through life like the rest of us. This is why I feel for LiLo.) And I have every confidence, if it's going to happen to a Jonas, it's going to be Joe.

See, the problem with Joe is he keeps dating famous girls. And he inevitably does something dinkish to end these relationships, which means the other person, being as famous if not more, has the same access to the media. When he broke up with Taylor Swift by cell, there was no way that wasn't going to get out. Because she's so charming, she totally made him look like a jackass. (No idea if he is. He is, however, the least talented of that family.) Today Demi Lovato mentioned how disrespectful it is that he's brought his latest girlfriend (some girl from Twilight) on the tour the brothers asked her (read: agents) to join. Is it necessary to have your girlfriend with you constantly for months at a time? No. Is it a good way to piss off your ex-girlfriend, whom you have to work with every single day for months? Yes. And, yet, this 18-year-old Disney talento is behaving significantly better than the 21-year-old dinkwad she dated. So I'm really rooting for Joe Jonas to, literally, fuck up.

If not with this latest girlfriend, then the next. Let's see... The next one has to be a singer, right? That's his pattern? Singer, actress, singer, actress...

Why do I even care about this? Why can't I sleep more so this won't be in my thoughts ever again? How the hell am I going to work 13 hour days for another week?

collection

My, my, it's been a while. Blaming summer and the weather is all well and good, but, really, I haven't felt much like writing anything for quite some time. And I don't even really feel like writing now. Vanity pushes me, though, guilting me. Someone must care that I haven't written, mustn't they?

September always seems like a new start, much more than January or the fiscal new year (May?) or any other time. It's the time to hunker down and ready for winter, holding safe the collection of memories gathered over the last months, meant to sustain the dreariness of the winter. Have I collected enough? Yearly, I realise around March that I haven't and the doldrums set in and I wrestle with them until the temperature or sun or spring buds get close enough to tag them in.

The problem with September also seems to be that my body refuses to let me have a fresh start. The start of school meant a late summer cold, and the trend followed me into university. And now I have a cold. I dislike it because it messes up my work and leaves me playing catch up more than I already do. I'm downing 16 Vitamin C tablets to try to boost the cold out of my body. Vitamin C makes me grumpy.

But once this cold is done, I can go back to juggling four jobs and trying to see friends until something happens. I've planned a trip to Chicago and am excited about that. I'm hoping to get to Seattle in November for a weekender. A visit to my parents', too. Hopefully these will top up my collection so I can get through to spring intact.