2003-12-29 - 9:29 p.m.

I'd already turned off my computer tonight (sure enough, found it still running and connected to the net after the christmas trip), but I figured I need some practice for my new year's resolution. I think the biggest reason I had chosen not to write an entry was that after a lapse I start to feel the burden of explaining myself, or of filling the space. It can't be like that, or even if it is, I just have to ignore the pressure or realize it's inappropriate/inconsequential/irrelevant. So,

Blank page.

Of all the thoughts I was just thinking while doing the dishes, the first one that comes back is that I yelled at Jake today. In my head I'd gone through the scene, remembered details, figured out what my self-defense was, the way to relate it to favour my point of view the most. Maybe? Maybe not, perhaps it really was just the facts I was remembering. That was my aim, and I'm torn between believing that things really are as I see/saw them, and between thinking that I selectively remember what I like to make myself feel better. I think I have a fear of remembering things wrong and being that much worse a person for it.

So, on to what I've already thought/catalogued, instead of side ponderings.

We were barely out of Winnipeg and Jake was pushing on the back of my seat again. I spoke up quickly, calmly, asking him to not push on the back of my seat, please. "When he heard this, I felt him push harder against my seat". That's what I had thought while doing the dishes. Then I got off on a tangent, criticizing myself for putting thoughts in his head and assuming that he had really pushed harder in response to what I said. I countered with the thought that he's 3, that I know him, at least enough to know that it would be a typical thing for him to do, and then continued on to what happened next. I spoke up again, basically repeating what I'd just said "Jake, please don't push on the back of my seat, ok?" (I never remember in time not to say "ok") Saying it louder this time and turning my head a bit to make sure I'm understood. There's a lot of wind noise in the neon. Saara turned to him and said "Carl said 'don't push on his seat' Jake", to which he replied "No! He said 'push on his seat'". Which follows naturally according to his personality and was, I considered, supportive of my thinking that he had pushed harder in response to my first request to stop. He likes to be perverse when he's bored. It's normal, he's 3.

Well then I yelled. "JAKE... DON'T... PUSH... ON... MY... SEAT... PLEASE" in a top-of the lungs monotone. Just like in cadets when they told me it was good to use my absolute loudest tone when acknowledging my presence in response to an attendance check. Jake started crying. Alex got mad. Saara got consoling. I got quiet.

Every time I thought of something to say, I squelched it. I sat there thinking, knowing I was wrong. Feeling oddly justified.

Side thought: god it takes so long to write the least little thing out. All these thoughts are just momentary assemblings of concepts in my mind but take paragraphs to write out clearly. It's so tedious.

Yes, I felt justified. My vocal chords hurt. They still do. 9 pm now, it was 10 am then. I knew Jakey was scared of my rage, in particular that he was remembering the "pretzel monster". A long while back I made a video with the webcam at work. I was there on a saturday, trying to finish some last-minute task, and decided to make a joke video while eating pretzels. My concept was to mimic "2000 A Space Oddyssey" so I queued up "thus spake zarathustra" and made a pretzel float slowly into the picture with one hand, then had my gaping mouth approach from the other side of the picture, like the slow-motion scenes at the start of the movie. Then, after having built up a bit of suspense, I growlingly, snarlingly, fiercely devoured the pretzel with clumsy, oafish, messily chomping bites. The follow up was me backing up to stand full frame, strike a Mr Universe pose and go RRRRRAAAAAAWWWRR in victory over the pretzel, imitating the ape going bonkers near the beginning of the film when he discovers he can use bones as weapons. When Jake saw this he got very very scared. Me standing there roaring and acting fierce must have been too reminiscent of scenes he'd witnessed at home.

Amazing how kids clue into these things. He knew that even though it was a joke movie, my expression of rage couldn't be completely an act. I had to be capable of such anger. So anyway, today in the car was the realization of a much-feared eventuality. He I'm sure had hoped never to witness me getting really angry about something.

Of course it didn't last. Jake settled down. Alex settled down. Saara rubbed my shoulder. I started talking again. Much later, Jake said "Carl, remember when we were driving to The Pas and I kicked your seat." And I said "Yeah, and then I yelled" and he said "Yeah, and I got really mad." And I said "so did I." Yep. I'm just a child.

So, that was one of the things to record. Can I have a new blank page?

Cooking some perogies now. Washed the frying pans out. There was mould in the sink when I got in. Wasn't really bad, there was just some yellowish scum on the water that I'd left in the sink. Still, I remember leaving in a hurry and wishing I'd done them. I slept over at Saara's the night before leaving and vaguely remembered thinking I'd turn off the computer from there through VNC. Whatever, it didn't hurt to have it on. Just a little detail. I paid the rent before I left. Good boy.

Huva Poika.

Oh. Yes, that reminds me. The trip down was... eventful. The trip in its entirety was quite eventful. I can't attribute a positive or negative average or sum to the trip.

Gah. Now I don't feel like writing anymore. If that one small idea that I thought already took so much effort to record, imagine trying to capture even the 'highlights' of the trip. And then there's so much else floating around in my head. My reactions to Saara's entry. My recollection of reading over Michelle's last email to me. The stress of phoning my family and .. what.. living up to my Mom's expectation? Hearing her message tonight was just strange.

My mom left a message on Saara's machine. Sounds like she's calling a doctor's office or something. I don't know, she sounded really uncomfortable and left a strange message loaded with ... I don't know, I'm not judging it by itself, but indirectly from its impact on me. I don't want to go there right now.

Oh yeah, and then there's the future. I was thinking of Sudbury and the life I can imagine, or rather the many lives I can imagine, and which of them would be the one I would want. Then the overriding thought becomes one of pessimism, of thinking "isn't this what you thought about your future in Ottawa, Flin Flon? What is the difference this time?" I remember the thought I had while I methodically cleaned scum off my cookware: "Now is one of those times time I most wish the difference distance my self and my future self wasn't there, that I be in that place I imagine myself to be, know how I got there from here".

But that's such a wrong way to think, my newer and improved 20-minutes-later future self thinks. The future is now. I need to work now to reap then. Thinking that moving is going to solve something is a known error, called the geographical solution in the big book, even though I think of it in my of a temporal timeframe. It's a temporal solution but it's really an illusion. I think these thougts should be turning into songs.

On that note, a positive. My guitar playing has continued and improved. Bit by bit I am getting more familiar with my chosen instrument. It's a happy relationship. The thing I most want now is to put effort into finding people to play with. People to get ideas from and to share my ideas with. People to appreciate my skill, no matter how incomplete it may yet be, because there are themselves at the same awkward stage of learning, where you have to have the proper mix of dislike and awe for your fumbling attempts at what you know can be done.

Above all, though, the most important, most critical aspect of my playing is that it must not stop. I can't yet again be looking back, wondering why I quit, why I didn't start what I finished. The guitar is now a part of me.

Oh, and about you. Hmm. I have a million unanswered questions buzzing around in my mind. Trust and truth are key elements to discover. Do I know you really, or are you hiding your true self from me? I honestly feel like you might be. I want to think that I'm not hiding my true self from you, but that's not the kind of thing I trust myself to really know the truth of. Not that I'm a bad person, just that you don't ask yourself those kinds of questions.

It's ok, I wasn't seeking to answer questions tonight. I'm talking to myself now, about thoughts you can't hear cause I can't type that fast. I was thinking "I've asked more questions than I've answered" but that's good, I really do believe so. It's not about finding the answers, it's about discovering the questions. And discovering how I feel about what I know so far. I feel good. I may not feel good, but I feel good about being on the path to feeling better. And what a long road it is. Ok, no more to say. Time to eat, read, poo, sleep.

Toodles.

ps ohhhhh yeah! it was my birthday yesterday. I'm 29. Definitively the closest anything that's ever happened to me has come to the true definition of 'non-event'. That's not a bad thing, just where I'm at now.

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