Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Days and days recorded.
I finally broke down and bought a proper daytimer today – the kind with a space to write in appointments by the hour – after frustrating myself trying to fit everything into the small agenda I got for free through work at Christmastime. I haven’t really used a daytimer since university, having found it quite acceptable since then to track dates in my head with the occasional scratch on the wall calendar. But lately, well, it’s just gotten a bit out of hand what with the constant travel and meetings and the blessing of a social life. Even when I can remember dates, I forget what hotel I am supposed to be at this time, when I’m due at the airport or what restaurant I’m meeting a friend at for dinner.
The last three weeks have actually been quite relaxing for me as I’ve been in Vancouver without too many responsibilities, and had three weekends with only fun things scheduled. This, of course, can only go on so long. According to my new daytimer, all this relaxing ends exactly this Thursday and probably won’t begin again until mid-June.
I’m calmed by the daytimer in some way, even though the pages fill up as often as my phone rings. All emotion stripped down to the basic facts of when and who noted beside the appropriate time on the correct days. Days of appointments & meetings, planes taken, movies watched, cardio workouts fulfilled, and dinners eaten in nice restaurants, perhaps even elections won (or lost), and speeches made. How simple it looks spread across the pages of this new agenda, so tidy the black ink that notes each of these events. How neat the words that say “Darren’s hearing” underneath the location – Eugene, Oregon. The demarcation of my next flight to Ottawa holds no indication of whether or not my plane will land at all, or whether our meetings there will be any sort of success. It is simply a record of location and time, the emotional filling in of these things left completely to memory. How simple it looks, this life! I can do this, no problem!
And again, as I so often ask these days – is this one really my life? Are these responsibilities mine? Did I actually have those experiences? The ink in my journal contains them, and so they must be mine, just as the simple recording of facts in the daytimer indicates part of who I am becoming. Artifacts of the minor moments that accumulate to make the sum.
Oh my and good-bye.
Kurt Vonnegut, at 84, of course it was bound to come but I find myself slightly ill with melancholy from the news anyways. I have cried more this morning for his death than for some friends who have died recently (which isn’t saying an awful lot, I rarely cry when people in my life die anymore), so close has his writing been to me. Was one of the authors I have cherished most in my life, ever since my mother first handed me a copy of Breakfast of Champions when I was fourteen. And then came Slaughterhouse Five and Welcome to the MonkeyHouse and Cat’s Cradle and Mother Night and the Sirens of Titan and Bluebeard and on and on, one book after another a part of my adolescent rise into adulthood, the development of my own sense of ironic humour and the understanding that politics could be non-dogmatic in literary expression.
Oh my and good-bye Kilgore Trout, Billy Pilgrim, and Mr. Vonnegut. We will have a drink and a smoke for you tonight. The world is a much better place for the words you gave us to mull over, no matter how pessimistic they were at times.
And so it goes.
Returning from weekend.
And a good long weekend it was, though I’m a tad unfocused today which is impeding my ability to write with any fluidity. Cotton-brain, stumbling fingers, and the annoying itch of everything I need to get to if I could just get methodical for a few hours. Although I did catch up on sleep and errands this past weekend, I managed insomnia last night that made falling asleep a bit difficult, and today is all the more trying as a result.
Meh. At least they pay me to come here even when I’m in slow-worker mode. I did manage to finish one small project this morning, file a union report and provide feedback on something else – so it’s not that I’m doing nothing. It’s just that thinking kinda hurts today, and I would rather just ditch and go outside in the sun or something. Instead I am listening to Calexico on my iPod and visualizing my work-out at the gym in between work and my union meeting this evening.
Yes, I said work-out. Cause I’ve been back at the gym for the last couple of weeks with the goal of getting fit enough to do the Marble Mountains hike with some friends at the end of the summer. Although I have been a bit achy, it does feel all around pretty good and my ankle hasn’t even been giving me too much trouble which is a hopeful sign. Today is a strength training day, and if I can fit in some time on the recumbent or elliptical afterwards then I will be feeling really accomplished. At least the rest of the week is looking pretty good for fitting in workouts (especially now that two different people canceled plans with me).
I suppose I should enjoy the free time while I have it, since the next two weekends after this are booked with union meetings, and then I start on another cycle of travel in mid-May that goes through until mid-June. I’ve realized recently that although I get worn out from traveling, it does provide me with a bit more excitement than I just get coming and going from the office every day.
Enough updating for now. I am going to the sex work show in Thursday with Jess, and Flying Folksters Alison and Jon are coming down too – so if it looks interesting to you – join us there!
Red Cedar 