Now that I am in my right mind, I can write an ordinary sort of post and not that nonsense of the last one. But since I never edit posts...it's up to me to leave it up. Punishment for my own indulgence in silly, silly affairs of the heart that I should have grown out of a long, long time ago.

As for the subject line, I shouldn't say soon. It could be long time in the making and god knows I change my mind often enough. But keep your eyes peeled on this page. Something is going to show up eventually and it's going to be kickass. I promise.

Just wanted to pop over here really quick and update (like I used to, daily). I have a guilty confession to make. I spent the entire day on the internet. And I mean, since I woke up until I am about to log off to try to sleep because I need to be up by 5:30.

Nuts, I know. Crazy, hells yeah. But I've been pretty absent from the internet for a few days and I like to keep in touch with everyone and everything, so I sat down for a serious session today. Got a lot done, too. Some writing. Photo editing. Made up a photobook to get printed at some point. Mostly when I feel less guilty for blowing almost 300 dollars at Amazon.com the other day, and then another 100 at Sephora.com today. But it's been awhile since I've indulged (Ireland doesn't count in this equation as I mostly bought stuff for other people). So new makeup and the entire series of The Wire will be arriving for me soon.

I wish I could say that I am more excited about the dvds, but in all honesty...I wish I had the television with which to see them better with. Insurance still hasn't gotten around to figuring out my claim and so I watch everything on my laptop. Which is fine. But...I kinda wanted to watch The Wire on a big screen.

Other news: I'm going to figure out how to make my own stretchers and stretch my own canvas if it kills me. I'm not the most dexterous person when it comes to assembling wooden things, but I'm determined. If the hardware store was open today, I would have had some kind of result by now, but nope. Must wait for more time off, even though technically I was working this weekend. I have more canvas ready to be stretched/gesso-ed bought from the hardware store the other day, so it's all in motion.

A photo of my feet, relaxing at the cliff's edge on one of the Aran Islands in Ireland.


Time for sleep. It's midnight here. I'm kind of jumpy, because I keep waiting for my beeper to go off. But I'll try for sleep in any case. I am totally liking where I am right now. The inspiration is pouring in for words, colour and photo clicks.

Stay with me, baby. I'll wake you when the telephone rings. It's all just nonsense, anyway.
Love,
Gish.

Labels: inspiration, painting, photography, sleep, work, writing

I've been listening to The Ocean by Matthew Good at work, for the past two days. It's by turns made me meloncholy for I don't know what, and also made me feel at home in this place.
The village I live in has changed from a winter wonderland without trees to a place that is carpeted with gravel and dust gets into everything. I'm constantly washing my hands because they feel coated in dust, and the windshield of my truck is always filmed in dust when I get in every morning. Atv's, trucks and other things whiz by making the dust rise up even more. A fine, fine grey dust that makes me leave ghostly footprints on the stairs when I go up to bed.

Tomorrow the weekend starts and I have all sorts of half-formed plans in mind of how to spend the time, that don't involve sleeping. My room mate has left for the summer and plans on moving in with another teacher at the beginning of the year, so I have to house to myself...to leave my dvds or books on the coffee table as I see fit.

So, I have a plan to paint a small mural in the corner of my new bedroom. I bought a set of black sheets (which seems like folly now that I know how much dust is up around here) and I thought the black tribal art and sheets would look kind of neat together.

Mind you, I have also discovered that my bed could fit in this open cubby hole. So, whether or not I will be sleeping in a cubby hole depends on how much I feel like isolating myself when the time comes for actually moving the bed. Crazy, I know.

I've been sleeping in a lot lately. I'm up at 3 a.m. and when I finally fall back to sleep, I'm almost literally unable to get out of bed when the alarm goes off at 7. I'm thinking it's a mind over matter thing, and eventually I'll trick my mind into telling my body what I freaking want it to do.
I've also given up pop. I still love it, and covet it but at the price of $37.95 for a 12 pack...I just can't in good conscience, buy it. I am chagrined.

But I guess forty dollars saved is forty dollars earned.

Labels: home improvement, money, sleep

Not really working on anything right now. I was actually looking at this photograph and missing the girl I used to be. That must be part of age, or maybe it's just egoism. I should embrace any changes that have been made to my molecular make-up and see them for what they really are: just a part of life.

But I hear the clock in this room ticking, and it feels like it's timing down to something. Like a quiet clicking race, one that I'm going to come last in. Then I feel like listening to The Tea Party, and my over-the-counter heartburn medication isn't working even though I've taken two tablets and it's supposed to be 'extra-strength'. So, I just sit here with the music on, lighting cigarettes from the ends of candles and trying to pick a movie to sleep with, but I can't because everything I've seen has already been seen and we all know what happens when they end.

My dreams are filled with the matching bed sheets of past relationships and the kisses of those that I coveted but never felt. Those pairs of brown eyes both exciting and disappointing me, at the same time. The sleeping pills maybe make these people more real than they actually were, and because it was so long ago, maybe that's true.

Or I feel like a keyboard you can click on, a link that leads you to spam pages and pop-up windows. Free cursors, smileys you don't want and ads for Viagra or penis extensions. Click, click, click. Close.

The dogs sleep at the foot of the bed, they don't know I will not be here on this day at the same time next week, that they will be sleeping alone with each other. And I wonder if they care. But that doesn't matter because that's just the way things are. That's just the way they are.

Labels: Apostle, depression, Gish, late night, melancholy, neurotic, pharmacology, sleep, underwater, we all lose in the end, writing, zopiclone

I want to say that I have bad luck when it comes to electronics, but I think that maybe I'm just a laptop breaker. Someone who just happens to break any laptop they come in contact with. Which is something I should think about since I'm borrowing my mother's laptop to write this entry (and also to watch movies in my room). My second laptop, the HP Pavillion Entertainment laptop that I got in September in place of my old Compaq, has just sputtered it's last little breath and died whilst I tried to reboot it half a dozen times, in any manner. The Compaq died in a similar way although it's death was not as final as this one appears to be.

I've been putting off burning copies of all my music and photos because I'm lazy and it takes time, but for some reason thought it a good idea to do so this afternoon. Luckily (for me, anyway), I was able to do that *just* before the old HP told me to Fuck Off in no uncertain terms. It's sitting right beside me now, probably chuckling it's revenge. I always give animation to inanimate objects. It makes me feel better.

Also, I was supposed to send the HP away for servicing (when it first started acting up awhile ago) but never did. because, again...I'm lazy to pack it up in a box and find the nearest UPS place to drop it off....no small feat when in the North of Ontario. Seriously.

So, here I am, exactly one week away from flying out of here (to an even more remote Northern location) and NO laptop of my own. Do I simply go and buy a replacement and send off the old HP? Of course, that will mean I will have 2 laptops, and who needs that. Or, do I send off the HP and wait an indeterminate amount of time for it to be fixed and sent back to me?

And call me crazy, but an 'entertainment' pc should allow one to watch unlimited movies over and over again without having various hiccups and needing to be rebooted *just* to get the internet back or even allow one to change discs. It's here I should mention I've only had the HP for about 6 months. I mean, why can't the darn thing just work, at least until it's 1 year warranty?

Something that does not outlive it's warranty does not bode well in my mind. I think I'll get a Mac.

In any event, I suppose that's the end of my rant about the laptop issue. It's probably about 3 pages shorter than it would have been had I not been able to borrow this laptop. Somehow, without a movie on, I feel lonely. Or at least the ability to have one on.

Heard from Craig the other day. He left a beautiful message on the answering machine. For some reason, I just want to tell him everything that's happening, but we can't connect. Literally. And I wonder if he will let me go, and if I'm fated to not have any stable relationships, for whatever reason. Just little things that come in at the night, when I'm trying to sleep.

In any event. Glad I was able to post. If nothing shows up for a few days, at least you'll know why.

Labels: broken, Craig, drama, laptop, Manitoulin Island, Northern Ontario, relationships, sleep

Dear Chicago,
There's always something left to say. I type this, my fingers numb from cold. My fingers hitting random keys whilst I try to spell words correctly. If that happens, then maybe this time, you'll get my note.
Do you remember those fiery nights in front of the fireplace, smoke occasionally sputtering from the fire, the light allowing us to see our work. Papers upon paper, scribbles and notes all in the margins. Creased photographs and glowing red bottles of wine. It's ok. I remember enough for the most of us.

words fell like water...

Sometimes, I don't know where these words come from. Are they like that Ryan Adams song you liked so much...just merely words? Could I be reading more importance to them then it's worth?

Right now, I light my cigarettes from burning candles that are meant to be in churches, prayers said for the dead. But I'm here in my cold, little room. With these candles that burn for endless hours, even while I sleep. A cheap glimmering light that is just *there* when I need it to be. So afraid to sleep, and for it to be another day. It just means it's closer to the time I have to go. And we both know how much I love leaving.
Maybe this time will be different.
Love, Gish

Labels: David Usher, Dear Chicago, opinions, pharmacology, relationships, run, running, sleep, travelling, writing

I have lost count of the men that have called me 'Sweet Pea' in my lifetime. I don't think I resemble a leafy pink blossomed plant, but who am I to really say. I spend so little time on my appearance as of late, that I am certain it is affecting my ability to secure a job. I'm sure I look so ordinary. Maybe Ordinary can be good. Who knows.

I read a few other blogs on this dusty old internet. They make me realise that some people just don't care for me as much as I care for them. Reading that sentence back, it sounds so pathetic, but it's a reality. I feel my edges slowly returning to the sharpness they once held. Maybe it's the Fall weather...all crisp mornings and crackling leaves. Little trick or treaters that are seen running from house to house.

Those sharp edges make me talk faster, my ideas so vivid and colourful in my mind that they are in a rush to burst forth like confetti. They make me tear around the apartment in underwear and a sweater, rushing to get from place to place, no rest. No rest.

When I was in the hospital, people cared whether or not I slept. I was constantly asked if I was sleeping and if so, or if not, for how long. And then they would do everything they could to see that I slept more, and better. In the outside world, it's a whole other story. No one really cares for insomniacs. Everyone thinks it's just laziness, or perhaps the complainant is merely searching for attention (as if the way to go about seeking attention is to pretend you can't sleep...heh, pretend). These days, sleep is not as elusive as it had once been. Mostly due to medication. You get the right mix, and Hotchya! sleep action.

Funnily enough, I still aspire to be like everyone else and have the power to fall asleep after lying in bed for a mere 15 minutes.

I guess in the end, I do just want to be like everyone else.

Labels: sleep

WOO,

I know I've been absent lately, mostly due to my new work schedule and the fact that I have to drag myself out of bed at the inhuman hour of 5:45 a.m. in order to get to work on time. But last night, it was due to my being in the presence of Matthew Good at the show in London. Being good sports, my older sister and I were to catch up with Matt afterwards for a quick visit before he went to bed/headed off to Ottawa on the tour bus.

I didn't know what to say, I was tongue tied. And I didn't take any photos of his soft looking socks or tired face as we made small talk. I did however, get some pretty amazing photos during the show, which will be posted at some point (read: whenever I get off my ass and find the USB cable).

He's had a big role in my life the past few months, and it was a shame we didn't go out for dinner as we had originally thought but it was fun nonetheless. I didn't get to sleep until 1:20. I am exhausted, pretending I am the perky person in the office today when really I just want to race home and do a handstand into my bed.

Pictures posted later. Thanks for all the great comments and emails. Keep it coming.
G.

Labels: Matthew Good, sleep, work