June 1st. Just thoughting down some last minute notes.

I finally got some more writing done on Windswept. Christ am I bad. When I read that Chabon wrote 4000 words a week I kind of cringed. Way to not be an author at all, Alex. God knows the distance separating me from the Stephenie Meyers of the world is more than the Montreal to LA, a couple of years and being driven by desire. I think. (I know?) Fuck it. It doesn't matter anyway, that's not really where I want to be, but it still weighs on me.

So I got four paragraphs out. 410 words. I kind of like how it went. I might decide to keep this rolling. (I hope.) Writing's probably going to be my main thing six months from now. I'm going to have basically one friend, give or take, probably going to be spending chunks like 50 hours or something without saying anything meaningful to anyone or hearing anything in reply. Eating poorly, sleeping worse. Just me and my desire to get straight As. That is, if Concordia even lets me come back. If not, I go nuts. (I guess.) A year of work and a terrible novel and nothing else?

(Notice, if you will, that I just called it a novel. It is no longer a short story or novella or anything else. I need it to be a novel, I need it to be long and majestic and everything I have so far been completely unable to produce. Windswept is my saving grace. I told Dan during the winter I wouldn't kill myself so long as it wasn't finished. I need to keep writing (and I mean actually writing, not just putting it off indefinitely) until either it is good or I am. That is going to be my life from here on in.)

Maybe I will make enough money to start getting the tattoos I'm going to start dreaming feverishly of. "This is the number love. This is the letter fuck." And so on.

I'm not going to get into my other problems. Mostly everything sucks right now. I take great yet tiny pleasures in my music, in my felt-protected chair feet, in my stupid candy and my ugly, broken daydream fantasies about everything. Maybe tomorrow I'll wake up and get hit by a car when I first leave the house and be spared the rest.

On second thought, it's dad's birthday tomorrow. That would be kind of a dick move on my part.

POSTERITY EDIT: The 410 words swelled quickly to 1000+. I am not a failure. Also I ended up doing lots of other little edits here and there and adding some stuff from wsadds. So... on the whole... a very positive experience.

May 1st. What have I thought in my pocket?

On my way back home from Will's and watching The Aviator, I stopped on Claremont not far south of Westmount and pissed in an alleyway. Christ, it was magnificent. Then I walked over to my Royal Bank branch and deposited my mom's winter-coat cheque and floated on home.

Today's session with Jamie was interesting. This might not get me anywhere—it hasn't so far, but I feel like maybe he's still feeling me out a bit—but it's nice to have someone listen to me while I talk. I guess that's one of my main problems at this point. I don't feel comfortable telling anyone how shitty I feel about things. No wonder being my girlfriend is no fun. At least Jamie gets paid, and he only has to deal with me 50 minutes a week. On the other hand, he says "wizout wanting to..." and it makes me laugh. Whizz out. I dunno. Wizard?

I just watched Juno last night. I told myself I was going to wait until I had someone (you know, someone) to watch it with but that's going to take forever. I'll let Atonement be my waiting movie. Anyway, Michael Cera was fantastic and I enjoyed it a lot... so much so that I watched it with the director/writer's commentary on right afterwards. And... Olivia Thirlby is hella cute.

The Habs suck. It is frustrating to be a fan of theirs right now. It could be worse, I guess. I could be a Washington or Boston or Calgary fan. I guess all the other teams' fans have had a bit more time to get over their heartbreaks. Anyway, we'll be better next year, I think. With a core of these guys, maybe a free agent or two and some grit for the playoffs... who knows. We could make it to the third round, even.

I guess the post-Seder party malaise has died down a bit. It burns bright and then pooft there's no more wick to burn. I hope? I know that's not true. But it's just gonna be embers for a bit, I guess. Until next party. I wrote like two-and-a-half songs and I listened to Piazza, New York Catcher a lot and school is over so I can sleep whatever. Plus, the apartment monkey looks like it might be off my back. That would be super. Now for a job and a place. Presto hey chango, I'm functional. (Let's not get amibitious. Semi-functional. I still do my banking at 3 a.m., for Christ's sakes.)

I'm so torn as to whether I want to be more or less like Howard Hughes. Oh for a time when 352 miles per hour made you the fastest man in the world, and you could crash land in a beet-field without fear of rap jokes from Alex Manley.

P.S. Next time I'm out at 3 a.m. I think I might bring some sidewalk chalk and some poetry. No sense in sitting around not adding to the surrealism of everyone else's lives, right?

April 19th. Specks thoughting the horizon.

Regrets: I missed Paint It Black. That was terrible of me. I wish, of course, that I had someone, anyone, to go to shows like that with. Maybe the fault is my own for not asking anyone. Maybe not. But McDonald's and an OT win do not make up for a mistake like that.

Vlada is returning to Vlada. By which I mean: I can never seem to reconnect properly with her. Maybe it's something, maybe it's nothing. I have to try harder.

I'm being really bad at this tax shit. Bureaucracy is one of those things that scares me way too much to deal with. At least I can listen to The Loved Ones here and there and try to forget how tight my stomach is wound.

I'm not eating well. There's a bit of pudge, I think sticking out where my stomach used to be. I'm not fat, not by a long shot. Not even, I think, by "The Devil Wears Prada" standards. But still. I don't like it. Maybe Shirine is onto something with her "repressed anorexia" business. But: I'm afraid, deep down, of my father's post-teens weight gain, and it'll just be chickens—or, in this case, chicken wings—coming back to roost.

My loneliness doesn't help my awkwardness. The less I talk to other people the further I feel from normal when I do. And it always matters too much to me. I can't count how many times I construct conversations to improve the ones I messed up at. Maybe I'm just being overly perfectionistic.

I can't write Windswept for the life of me. God. I wonder how I always see myself as a writer. All I'm good at is coming up with cute little snatches of dialogue that I never remember long enough to type or write down. That and self-critical, soul-search blog posts.

(Oh, and the Habs suck giant monkey cock. But I guess I maybe should have seen that one coming. The number one part of being a serious nut about a sports team is you have to have a really ingrained sense of pessimism. So I'm good to go, right.)

There have been some positives, I guess.

I've been able to keep the apartment as a whole, and my room in particular, pretty damn clean.

The subletting business is going less badly than I expected it to. The superintendent's wife is bailing me out bigtime.

I got to see Brick, which is fantastic, and is now one of my favourite all-time movies.

(At this point the list hits a snag. I can't think of any other positives.)

No, I was right. That was all there were. Unless you count "still not starving despite complete and utter laziness due to the pity-in-the-form-of-money support from parents." Because I don't.

Well. That's all the pessimism-as-catharsis I can manage for tonight. Cheers.

April 7th. Got the thoughts for you.

I'm back to my old mistakes. I skipped both my classes today, and my poetry reading last night at O'Reagan's Pub (wherever that is downtown).

I've got my second psychiatrist appointment tomorrow. I don't know how that's going to go. I don't have much to say, except that I'm lazy and impossible to work with. Either as a teammate or as modeling clay.

I'm also wasting an afternoon I could be spending doing laundry, buying groceries, seeing Vlada, buying Paint It Black tickets, whatever, sitting around in my clean room with my unwashed clothes and my dirty body. Oh and also I need to pay rent.

To add to the list: I've written one, count it, one poem since I handed out my second package a month and a half or so ago, and I've made pretty close to zero progress on Windswept. I'm so glad I don't have any final exams to write or I'd have to be really worried. I guess maybe hopefully I can pull myself together for the final chapbook. God. I hate that I'm in a program where I have to make chapbooks. I hate stupid fucking workshops. I hate being scared to show up for class because I'm not willing or able to participate in honest and frank discussion of other people's work.

I wish I knew where this was going. I wish my birthday was midsummer. I could at least get a taste of being twenty before school starts (or doesn't) again. Eugh. I need a Trillian and a trip to Madagascar.

At least let me get 16 more wins. That would be nice.

March 26th. It's been a year. Thoughts?

I feel saner than I have in years. Not years, but. I guess that's what school does for me? At least, normal school. Like taking tests instead of writing poetry. Oh and also, I'm way too smart for my Linguistics class. Like I come in and be all "I drop science, mother bitches!" and the class be all "Oh Alex, even though you have only been to four classes previous to this one all semester and even though your studying for this test was, like the infamous Chappelle joke, bombed out and depleted... you still finished the test faster than everyone.*" Fuckin' right A, I did. Now, for naps.

Oh and also: what's with the four day break, NHL schedule? Laaame.

*Actually third, but the class is like 100+ people big so it's about the same.

March 24th. Thoughts in the dark.

Alternate title: "March 24th. Autothoughts, transform and roll out!"

I watched some movies. The Devil Wears Prada, Semi-Pro, Horton Hears a Who. I gave myself a haircut. Matt didn't invite me to his birthday party for me to not show. Maybe people are getting smarter. Tonight: Skittles and the Habs play the Sens. Me, fate. In that room like Keira and Matthew and just "shall we dance" bitchy-bitcheyes. And again I have my fake-confidence character, all "hell fucking YES I DID" on his chest and all "nine tymz" across his knuckles. Grarrr. A reminder: it could be worse. And another: You could be a character in Dawson's Creek. You may not deal with them well but at least you can deal with other people's mistakes at all.

Okay. Breathe.

March 21st. More thoughts.

My head hurts. The difference-gauze is fading. I'm back to the lab again. I need a job and something to keep me hopeful. And a 4-3-0 record, minimum. I can only hope Alexei Kovalev, in His wisdom, hears my prayers. Shit, it is Easter. So sue me for the religious crap. I'm going to take a nap. Let's all hope I wake up better.

I need to live in fiction for a year or more.

March 18th. Thoughts.

I'm too stupid for my own good. I have to write this all in one go because god knows I can't handle opportunities to edit. Nothing will ever be perfect enough but I feel like getting something off my head.

I haven't blogged in ages. I don't really know why I stopped, or why I started, or why I'm re-starting. It's all a matter of the little unimportant idiocies that added up build a life. My only hope is the same reason why the slowest person in a trio (in this case, Gimli) doesn't get left the fuck behind: the adaptation of pace to correct perceived deficiencies as they develop. And maybe something about cinematic intra-film logic. But then we could always blame John Ronald Reuel first, right?

Part of that of course is that Legolas and Aragorn slow down and stop occasionally. Does the same hold true in life? The jury's still out. "We've got our rope neckties. The light fixture, shedding sawdust, keeps us hanging on."

So I'm angry. Every mannequin with dyed hair and decent shoes is a life-raft. Too bad I'm no Szut. Or at least, if I am, I'm dying in the ocean without remorse. Does the fact that I got to fly a fighter plane make it okay? Or is it enough to get shot down by the Tintins of the world? Is reading fiction any stupider than reading one's life into it? And does the quality, or the maturity of the underlying thematic elements, factor into that?

Fuck. I was thinking, earlier. I think I like being confused by art because it means I don't have to bullshit my perception. "The Bank Robbery" by Steven Schutzman. "The Benefits of Thinking Out Loud" by A Wilhelm Scream. "Paprika" and parts of "Manhattan." The shit in the new collection at the MAC by Geoffrey Farmer. I can just sort of lose myself in the beauty and not psycho-analyze it to death. I'm fighting growing up.

Is that going to come up, in my therapy sessions? How old I feel? Or rather, how young I feel? Am I going to feel bad that I can talk about myself and my perceived personal problems for hours and hours on end? Will whoever has to listen to me talk about the stupid things I say to his or her friends over dinner in black and white a few nights later? I do and I don't hope so.

Am I ever going to be able to keep writing my poetry? Will "Windswept" ever take shape? And is it okay if it doesn't? What about submission and both of its meanings? And on that token, will I ever be able to write a sestina? Hopefully we'll find that one out sooner than later. But that leads to another question: Will I ever be a good student?

And will that ever even matter? So.

So I'm angry. Apparently that's obvious. I guess my obviousness filter is completely off. I just want honest opinions from everybody about myself. Is being that self-involved analogous to insanity? I'm afraid of the consequences of letting myself stop long enough to be studied. If it's not medical then I'm out of a crutch and I'm out of the illusion that I'm functional regardless. At least that means I don't have to consider how much brain shit is like or unlike "a broken elbow" or whatever stupid shit Dr. Karayan told me. I don't want to suggest that my elbow isn't as complicated as my brain (it isn't) but come on. My elbow doesn't govern all that much, in the end.

Anyway. It's late. The last track has stopped playing. I wish I could write fiction this fast, these days. I wish I could make what I'd just written fiction, even. That would be something. If only I could exorcise my demons by writing about them.

If that were possible then probably nobody would know how to write. You gotta pick your battles.

In my dreams I'm giving a reading in the basement of the MMFA and all the questions are getting asked by people I know. I only ever want to be famous to impress people I've already met. Maybe I should be a fireman after all.

My dreams would all be about pulling myself out of burning buildings. Hah.

9 - veterans' day

"so next time it's three a.m. and just on a whim you want to skate or drink or swim in the soft pink light of the dim and fading memories we once shared, give me a call, let me know you care." he waited for six weeks, got no availability. by now it was the end of december. he's afraid of this week. god knows he hates his misery. by now it was the end of his temper. "one of these days" he lies to himself, "someone will put me back on the shelf." nine months on and it's gone to his health. he stares at the moon and closes his eyes. it might be too soon but he knows his sighs. he's sick of the climb. three ticks and it's time. his life flies past in a flash. "so here's a picture of me for next morning's papers. you can stick it between the sex and mourning fakers." 'cause by this point he's out of joint and he's got no missed calls and hardly any mixed messages. no one noticed all his party envy. it's a mess and it's more than he can take. he's fading fast and breathing shallow. more than he can fake. stuck in the past, and he's too callow; just not meant for the rough and tumble. he found a nice cozy bathtub and filled it up warm. he'd always trip on cuts and stumble. it's time he made something useful out of himself. a war always ends in peace. it's best that a life should end in death. he's done with the games and the being left out. a tug at the blade, a look upwards. about the light, the only one still lit, he paused, exhaled, and said, "kill it."

8 - why me? (supersoak that hoe!!!)

love is just the preamble to heartbreak, and life is just delaying the inevitable. some things must be free, and those who start late can't slide in, but we say it's destiny. it's all bull. so here's a picture for next morning's papers, a mixture of death and warning vapours, i wash my hands of this affair. i'm sick and tired of being self-aware. so spit, spit, spit, 'cause this is it. spit, spit, spit. i'm sick of this skit. so snick, snick, snick, and steal a kiss. spit, spit, spit. i'm sick of this shit. there's a gooseneck hole in my heart. it's where you sit, cold, in my art. there's a loose-part hole in my neck. it's where you start calling my act and my bluff and my love all ridiculous. i'll rip it up. this has gone on for far too long. it's gone. i'm left and you're wrong. right around this time last year, we were duo-eschewing holiday cheer. next year, right around this time, you'll have a winter free of my stupid rhymes. last year, right around this time, i was starting to think that you could be mine. right around this time next year, you'll have to walk alone, 'cause i won't be here. so slit, slit, slit, and kill a kiss. snick, snick, snick. i'm sick of this shit. spit, spit, spit, 'cause this is it. slit, slit, slit. i'm sick of this shit.

7 - "into the air like a yellow balloon."

street stays shy, but the cold air hits like a reminder. these days i don't even know where the fuck to find her. kiss kiss, bang bang. drop dead. drop dead. it's missing, gang. drop dead. drop dead. at the very least drop anger. no? caught up in rooftop anchors? it's your loss. it's your cost. it's your debt. he's heard it all before. i'll be more direct. "hi, kids: it goes like this." kiss this gang bang. drop dead. drop dead. hit it and ran. drop dead. drop dead. but today i'm making motion to sail. i'm going to leave this one-man island behind. so gone are the days of hoping you'd fail and knowing you'd be the one that i let see my insides. it's high time we fly; it's high tide. so let's let go and bellow so that they know a yellow sun is rising. in a few minutes it'll be high noon. i'm done despising. gonna close my eyes, inhale. it's my due time.

6 - flesh

he thinks he's god in the flesh. she drinks these gauze-in-defence lies that he spits. he's just a chickenshit. he's just dreaming of her leaving. strip tease. she sings about being. he can never grab ahold of months. they always pass too fast. she can never only hold him once. days always have to amass in the end so they pretend no amount of time means anything. he's out of rhymes. she's everything but pretend. she'll leave eventually. it's last call, and that's all. he's just dreaming of her leaving. strip these feelings of all meaning. soon as she's got in his flesh, she's gone in a flash, and that's all. that's all.

5 - semper fugitive

i said, "kill the lights," he said, "hit the switch." i said, "thrill delights," he said, "hit this bitch upside her face." it's such a disgrace. but i did it anyway. and i didn't even say, "hit the lights." and he didn't even say, "kill the switch." instead, i said, "time, it flies." and he said, "kill this witch." and i did. i ruined it. upon waking i made a vow. keep on taking, i'll make it out. i'll be on the run forever. it doesn't bother me. my heart is only as head-strong as the rest of my body.

4 - misty

spending these winter nights with this miss-splintered sight, i blink my eyes, and i drink my cries. guess cold and sadness are just in vogue. all the memories that lust invokes. i cough and swear, and my lungs are bare. two months and forever. he's stumped and i'm severed. funny how things work out—i was the vain one and he was the wildlife. hum it, or sing about another pain: when am i gonna smile like the way i used to just last year, when i was fucking honest? these days i guess you must not hear when i alone will call you on it. spending these winter nights with this miss-splintered sight, i spit and tear at this heart i bear. two months and forever. he's stumped and i'm severed. funny how things work out—i was the vain one and he was the wildlife. hum it, or sing about another pain: when am i gonna smile like the way i used to just last year, when i wasn't so haunted? these days i guess you must not hear that i am all you fucking wanted.

3 - rip movie nights/dead poet's sobriety

she keeps trying to smile harder, but he's every time a firestarter, feeling more and more like a tired martyr. he's angry for no fucking reason but even though she's always in season, well, he just can't keep his heart from seizing up. he works so much for so little to no touch. he's so brittle. she keeps her attire formal and smarter than the next girl. he sleeps while on fire, normal, and heart-burns when the sex works its way right out of such a bright picture. makes him wonder why he goes on every night hanging at the light fixture waiting for her slightest come-ons. he's a 'no-downers, no-uppers' case who never uses capitals. she can't slow down her 'so-outer-space' blues, and her youth is passing slow. she's wasting it on him. minute by minute by minute. she's wasting her life with him. the days go by and he's still in it. he flushes. "so, what do you, with armour, uh, plan on doing now?" she doesn't know what to rue. the camera pans. she's climbing out.

2 - not one but two pairs of pliers

i'm forever going to picture us as we never were: happy and in love. trusty and so mature. clapping, hand-in-glove. is that wrong? so lock me up and swallow the key. it'd be more or less par for the course. so, like me, i'll keep wallowing see; you can be whore, or dress up for the remorse. it's so wrong. so kiss me deadly, risky red meat, whiskey when we, tipsy, set free all of your black doves. all that you hacked off. i'm hollow, you're packed up. leaving. it's autumn, that makes sense. me, then, kissed god, and back breaks end. hiss. so long.

1 - november pain

hold on a sec, just need some rest and relapsation from this pace that's such a maze and gotta keep the music playing so i can't hear the sounds always emanating from your room at the end of the hall, the sex and the crying and all the phone calls, the goodnight fuck and the judas-miss. my fistfight luck that you dismiss. just wish i wasn't in stasis, in places that her memory erases. drowning in bathtubs that won't drain, sounding off dead loves that don't stain. it's enough to make you stop and think and drop and drink your way to the floor on the way out the door. go ahead. call me a whore again. i'm just in it for the rent money. my landlord can't fix this dent but he can give me those weary looks i was wearily looking for. swallow these teary rooks. what was she really looking for?

part two of day four

Character sighed and walked back to his room. His life was a swiftly sinking gannet. If only he could get the oil stains out of his eyes. He blinked a few times and pulled thumb and forefinger from his temples to the bridge of his nose, ruffling pink manhole covers on the way. It was a mess. He was far too much one for melodrama anyway, but it was still a mess. He wished it wasn't always two or three in the morning. It was too hard to think, and the refrigerator hum, and the sink drip, and

He woke up the next morning. His computer was still on, and Rushmore was still in the open tray of the DVD player. There was a grease smudge on the top side, but it wasn't quite worth either cleaning up or mentioning upon return. That was just the way of the world. "So you're not attracted to me. C'est la vie." Anyway the guy at the video rental place was a bit of a dick. Character lulled down the hallway, hardly touching the floor, feeling pulled slightly by something behind him and a few feet to his upper right. There was no mail. It was a Saturday, of course. Saturday morning. Afternoon. What time was it?

It was not until a few days later that Character and Analae first talked. She was putting a sock on her left foot, pulling it up her calf, and Character, again, was stepping back into the apartment from checking the mail. There was a package for him, a blue and black houndstooth scarf that he had ordered online some weeks prior. Her other sock was a different colour and her cheeks were somewhat flushed. She glanced from him, to his package, and then to the walls.

"Are you the uh the guy who wrote this stuff?"

Character was startled a little. "Yeah that's me."

"Yeah cause I asked Harry and he said it was one of his roommates and that it was probably the skinny one. I uh wasn't sure if you were more or less skinny than your other roommate."

Character nodded.

"I mean I haven't really seen him." A breath. "Yet." Another. "I mean I don't mean that you're too skinny or that it's a bad thing or that

Character raised his right hand, half in protest, half in absolution. He wasn't used to much dialogue anymore, but deep inside he knew it didn't matter how skinny he was really. He nodded blearily.

"But yeah... I read it all last time I was over. It's really..." she paused and lent to her voice a certain gravitas "interesting. I mean is it original?"

"Yeah. Um. I don't know. It just sorta came to me one night. For all I know I was just channelling some eighties tv show or something. You should copy a line or two and google it just to make sure."

She adjusted her hair. "I did. Um. I wrote it all down." She bit her lip. "Last time I was here. I was just so impressed. I fell in love with it a bit and then I thought i mean what if the landlord comes in and orders you to paint over it? Or something dumb like that. And then the next time I come back it's gone forever. I'd just keep remembering it at random times for the rest of my life and wishing I'd written it down. And i thought about that and it made me want to cry like a stupid eight-year old girl. So I copied it down right then and there so I could have it... you know... concretely. I didn't think to google it though." Another pause. "Although I suppose it could have been... not ... written by you... and still... not on the internet." She half-smiled, seemingly unintentionally. The wildlife guidebook of the wallflower. "It's really good, though." In Character's head "Ooh La La" started playing again. That song never put out. A piano melody like that, and a two-rhyme chorus. Pah. She half-smiled again. "Does it have... a title?"

Character blinked and turned his head a little. "Yeah. It's called." Again, a pause. "Uhm. 'What" He pointed at the closed door behind her, "are you doing with a guy like him?'" Again, a half-smile, this time with the other side of her mouth. She turned her face down a little, then brightened up and faced him.

"I like being contradictory." She leaned in and kissed him quickly on the cheek, reached behind him, and opened the door. "Well. Goodbye then."

As she was opening the front door to the building, Character called after her. "At least I had the balls not to make a dick joke of that!" and she laughed in a way that set off the marble floor of the entrance way. He closed the door with the space in between his shoulder blades and leaned on it, wistfully. "C'est la vie." he muttered to himself, and part of him was sad because it felt more trite than anything. He sauntered back to the bathroom to shower. "Shoot me on the lips. Kiss me in the face." In the tub he sat crouched in the fetal position for a few minutes before actually washing himself. There was red, frizzy hair in the drain so the water slowly licked up his toe-inlets and the thick veins on the top of his feet. He wondered about wrinkling, but not about aging. He'd never figured on living long enough to grow old. By the time he was done, Antimony had woken up, anyway, and was knocking on the bathroom door. So it goes, huh.

to something permanent

it kills like pink elephants. it rings like pill telephones. false or not at all. all sore, caught, and i'll waste my days away like this. i'll waste my ways. a day like this? call me a dumb waiter, all i have on my hands is time and signs. call-up—a scrum player—but i love her demands and diamond eyes and she hates my dying sighs. i'll read, i'll redial and speed-wile while speeding around in circles. i'll bleed in the ground she hurdles with such grace, lips, marchpane, a starch pace in this stark race. with pea-coat kisses and remote misses i'll touch faith in such places, lose face. i'm bruised, tasteless and from the landing banged up. please take my hand, don't hang up.

from sleep

dear me: by the time you get this letter you'll be free, and i suppose it's for the better. you need sleep, but these dreams will never be clean, or, for that matter, stop getting wetter and believe me, you'll never get her sweet screams or even the measly pleasure of getting to bed her mean streets. drums beat to something permanent: the numb deeps or at least a burning end. come, steep in something permanent. unclean but at least you're born again. her gleam's peaks, her mean streaks. you teen freak, you weak fiend, you keen creep. you speak? please. get yourself back together. sincerely, your indebtor, real me.