Strangely Socialised

Note to self: don’t put off updating your software. Bad things can happen. Bad things didn’t happen, but the possibility was alarmingly there.

I’ve made some decisions lately, about life, the universe and everything, and last night was starting to second guess myself, but I talked to my mom today and got some much needed perspective and yes, I made the right decision.

I know it’s a tough, tough job market out there, but I’m still only going to apply for jobs I actually want, rather than everything I’m qualified for. Financially I’m set for the next few months with a job, and the truth is that I’m supporting no one but myself. I could get a job I’m disinterested in, be miserable but have a comfortable income, or cut back on things a little, hold out for what I want, and be a lot happier. I have the safety net of knowing that if worse comes to worst I have no less than four places I can go that would take me in no questions asked, but even without that I feel comfortable with my decisions.

It’s the right thing for me to do in my life right now, while I have the opportunity. I would be an idiot not to take advantage of it.

The problem with multiple identities on the internet is that sometimes one gets a lot more attention than the others, and sometimes it’s a lot more fun to be somebody else than myself. >.> And that’s enough of that.

Ruth has been here since the 16th, for three weeks this time, and we’re definitely counting down the months now till she’s finally finished her education and we get more than these little bursts of time together. But seriously, who gets their PhD and then decides they need another year of education? The woman is mad, I tell you.

Also, I got into bed with her early last night and made her scream. Not in the good way. FML.

(Apparently right this second she’s watching Alex SkarsgÃ¥rd showering. On her netbook, just to be clear.)

T-minus 7 working days till I’m unemployed, and Toronto Pride was last weekend. These two things are completely unrelated, but they’re probably the most noteworthy events in my life right now. I mean, other than Ruth’s visit, obvs. I feel like right now I’m where I should’ve been when I finished university: unsure of what I actually want to do with the rest of my life; a little scared of being adrift but relieved, too, to be out of a job that was probably devouring my soul. It paid well, though, so there was that.

Okay, yeah, that part was pretty awesome.

Also, if anyone was looking for a sign of the end times, my mother (and her sisters) are blogging. I’m not sure I ever believed this day would come, even though we managed to get her on Facebook, even if the only people she’s friended are me, my brother, my girlfriend and my uncle. Hell, I think she uses it more than I do these days.

July 1, 2009 = the five-year anniversary of the day I packed everything I owned into a moving truck and drove across the country for two days between Winnipeg and Toronto. With about $4000 in the bank and no job and just hoping for the best. Despite my now-looming layoff, I still think it all worked out pretty well.

ETA: I stand corrected. My mother has 16 Facebook friends.

Things what I learned this weekend:

• Walking for two hours in a snowstorm is beautiful, but leaves you with sore thighs.
• People who aren’t living in an apartment with minimal heat are not motivated to fix it.
• Cookie dough dries out in the fridge. Lesson learned: eat it more quickly.
• Toronto is beautiful.
• Trust your family, even when you have doubts. They can surprise you sometimes, and it’s wonderful.
• People drink more coffee when it’s cold. Arrive early if you want a seat.
• I have not gone running in far too long. I have no one but myself to blame for this.
• I need a new messenger bag, one that is not held together by willpower and safety pins. The three bleeding points on my left hand attest to this.
• I need to read the books I own before buying more.

This afternoon I had the vague memory of waking up to hearing people screaming, but I couldn’t remember whether this was something I had dreamed or something that had actually happened. The truth, as always, is somewhere in between. I did wake up (twice) to a screeching sound outside my window. But it wasn’t someone screaming, it was the sound of raccoons fighting, something that is more easily distinguishable when I’m fully awake than when I’m half asleep.

I feel like I should apologise for the lack of updates, but everything I could’ve been talking about for the past month I haven’t really wanted to. Blogging isn’t therapy, and there are some things that are nobody’s business but my own. There is one issue that has, in some senses, resolved itself though. While technically I’ve been laid off with the rest of my department, I’ve also been rehired into the same job (details pending). Which I have mixed feelings about, but I’m not in any position to be turning down a paycheque right now.

Said goodbye to mom today, which was rough but not as rough as it would have been if I hadn’t been so busy and tired and we’d given ourselves time to get emotional about it. I cried a little, though, and I know she did too when they left.

Found out my cousin is in methadone treatments for heroin addiction, which is about as far from a surprise as you can get, really, but… well, actually, I was a little surprised to hear that he was in treatment and trying to find a job, not that he was a heroin addict. That makes, what, four, five, ten recovering addicts in the family? And that’s just the ones recovering.

So of course I just lit a joint.

This is where I grew up:

The walkway out to one of the vegetable gardens.

The edge of one of the fields.

The creek near the house.

Our little waterfall. Not far down the creek from here, when we were young, my brother and I and our friend from up the road lined the creekbed with bricks and pretended they were underwater pirate treasure. I looked for them today, but the area has washed out so many times I think they’re long since buried or long gone.

A bit of land between the edge of the lane and the creek.

Rockpile at the far end of the field. (God bless good zoom.) I always had an odd fascination with the rockpiles all over the local land.

More green land.

And last but not least, my daddy. He’s had a really rough year, and a really rough time yet to come, but he’s hanging in there and I love him a lot.

20080228: I was just updating the URLs for the photographs, and felt I should note that my dad passed away on January 31, 2005. This was the last day I got to spend time with him.

Just got home from a weekend out in Neepawa, and I had a lovely time, really, with both parents.

But today is father’s day and it really meant a lot to me that I got to spend it with my dad. I didn’t let myself think out the fact that it might be the last. (Won’t be the last, no.) Got to his place about 9:30 and we (along with my stepmother) headed up to the farm just to look around and take pictures. Me and dad wandered all over the place, hopping fences (which didn’t used to be there) and hopping along rocks in the creek and climbing shale hills at the end of the lane. It’s possible the most exercise that dad has gotten in ages and I was a little worried about wearing him out but he seemed to really want to go for the walk with me and I was really glad he did. As soon as I upload some of the pictures I’ll have to post them, because the place where I grew up is really beautiful, and the longer I’m away from it the more I appreciate it.

When we were down by the creek, watching the water rush by (the first time the creek has really been running in a long time) he handed me and envelope and said it was to help me with the move and inside were five hundred dollar bills. What do you even say to that? Except, wow, and thank you, a bunch of times. Yesterday, too, he gave me his old laptop, the one he doesn’t use anymore.

I would be worried that he was starting to give away his things, except he has three other computers and this laptop really was an extra that he hadn’t used in a year. The battery barely works and it only has a one gig hard drive and it’s PERFECT for me for writing on so I’m very appreciative for that, too. Makes my give of dinner for father’s day seem a bit paltry, though. :)

Lots to talk about, the trip to TO, the move, the everything falling into place and new job and everything.

But was told today that dad’s brain tumor is regrowing. And yeah, that’s that.

My experiment in flowers has, sadly, ended in failure. I adore the tulips that adorned my kitchen table for two weeks in a row, then I supported the Cancer Society and bought some lovely daffodils and discovered that I am very, very allergic to them. My kitchen table is now bereft of flowers and looks so sad.

Spring cleaning has also been a massive failure so far, because I’m a lazy fuck, but that will inevitably have to change. They (I don’t really know who “they” is, actually; perhaps it’s “The Man”) will be painting three walls of my apartment to cover up floodstains and I have to make way for them since they aren’t really allowed to touch or move my personal property while they do it. I should seriously be getting a little bit knocked off my rent for putting up with this whole thing, since it was in no way my fault. But I’m too chickenshit of confrontation to ask for it.

Other things are happening. Easter weekend will be spent out at Mom’s farm, at which time I will finally give her all the Christmas gifts that have been accumulating in my apartment since November. The more time I have, the more I buy. There will now be Valentine’s Day and Easter candy in her stocking. It’s been a very strange/non-existant Christmas all around this year, probably due to the fact that neither of us celebrates Christmas. But presents! I’ll observe any holiday that involves presents.

Or pie.

Or both!

I took a nap this afternoon for a couple of hours, and woke up some time between 4 and 4:30 from a dream in which my dad was calling for me, and needed me to come do something. It was so vague I didn’t know what, but it was unsettling. So I decided I’d call him, after dinner so I could be sure he’d be up. There was no answer, but seeing as it’s Saturday night and all, I told myself he and my stepmother had just gone out.

At 11 p.m. the phone rang, and around my place if the phone rings that late, even on Saturday, it’s almost never a good thing. The first words out of my stepmother’s mouth were not to worry, that my dad was okay, “but…” He’d had another seizure, this afternoon, some time between 4 and 4:30.

Now, he is okay, and he’ll be back home tomorrow. But still. Feeling really weird right now.