I'm back at Hansard, having shed the shackles of customer service once again. I'm hard on myself when it comes to the job. I've got to learn to not be so hard on myself. I want to do well, but I have to remember that it will continue to be a learning process for a while. Hopefully this time around I'll have a steadier schedule to rely on. We'll see what this week brings. Either way, it looks like I'll have a week off in February.

I finished reading "Heavier than Heaven," and I found it to be a great, interesting read despite Cross' forays into dramatic purpose. It was hard to finish, since it's essentially the tale of a man with an almost supernatural drug habit slowly and then suddenly killing himself. Fascinating nonetheless. Kurt Cobain is a subject I seem to feel the need to revisit intently every few years to gain a newer perspective.

I've been writing music lately, far more often than I've been writing words. It's what comes out of my need to create something, and now that I have a general hold on writing music on a computer I feel like the outlet is completely in place. I think about where I might be able to take it - in the near future, a gig or three, and hopefully some studio time within the next year. I'd really like music to become as big a part of my artistic life as it once was. Lately it's been fruitful. I've recorded seven originals and three covers, the latest of which has driven up my myspace page hits by about 20% in the last two days alone. I'm looking at the songs I'm recording in my bedroom right now as demos. I'm putting them online in lieu of a demo tape to pass around. For the time being, I'm happy with the momentum I'm building.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I had quite a lot on my mind. I've been thinking a bit about Ottawa and the kind of city it's become. Lack of public transportation, lack of government and the palpable sense of a sinking morale amongst the city's art communities have made it a hard place to like lately. My perception of Ottawa has changed. It's starting to seem smaller and smaller. I've been admitting to myself quite strongly lately that I'm not going to stay here for the rest of my life. I've been making it a point to leave. Maybe not next year or the year after, but I know I won't be here forever. There is too much to see, and too much to do.

That said, I'm generally quite happy with life right now. I'm looking forward to returning to a steadier income and putting some money into traveling. It will be an eventful year, and I'm just now falling under the impression that the year has finally started.

I should update, since I'm not sure when I'll have a net connection again. I'll be getting up in about five hours to get the move going. By this time tomorrow I'll be passed out on my futon in the new apartment, thankful that I won't have to move again for the foreseeable future.

I saw Doctor Archibald today, who asked me a few questions about my back and gave me a sheet of exercises to try. He pretty much told me exactly what I was expecting - the only thing that will help my back is time, care and exercise. My back IS getting better, it's just getting better very slowly. The exercises will hopefully help it along.

I got a call from Matt Thompson, an old high school friend, and he's currently in Ottawa. We're going to have breakfast on Wednesday morning after I'm back in town. It's funny to hear from him, since I was just thinking about the letters we used to write each other, discussing big ideas, philosophizing and kicking around scientific and mathematical concepts. It was a lot more entertaining than it sounds. Matt used to have this theory that he was the center of the universe, and that everyone else was a figment of his imagination. Over time the theory grew and grew. We would spend HOURS talking about the ramifications and procedural implications of the theory. I used to have an email that detailed it, though it seems to have gone the way of an exploding star. Matt's also the first gay friend I ever had. Now he's the first doctor friend I have.

I'm worried about this U of T graduation/account balance bullcrap. I emailed Cecilia, who works in the English grad department, about it, and she told me to call her. Not a good sign. I would have much preferred a "No problem! Just do this and this to graduate! Congrats!" type email. All I can do is call her and find out what's going on.

I've looked forward to tomorrow for so long. Now it's today.

I'm back in Ottawa, though I haven't been back to the apartment yet. I dropped my stuff off at Andrea's and we went out to Gloucester to attempt to see The Dark Knight on IMAX. Despite getting there early the show was sold out and was actually selling out for TONIGHT. It's been a while since I've seen a movie garner such popularity. We grabbed tickets for the Thursday night show and went to see WALL-E instead, which I thought was fantastic and heartfelt and dazzling. I should watch more cartoons.

So. Ottawa. I want to keep the momentum going. A part of me is afraid it will dissipate. It will help, I think, to have a new place to myself. Not just a whole room, but two, three, four rooms. When I get bored of writing in one I can move to the other and worry only about the distractions I make for myself. I'm going to surround myself with things that will motivate me - pictures, words. People. I want to surround myself with people who will care about what I have to to say, care enough to want to help me make it better. I want to remember the three words that I heard repeated ad nauseum over the week at Humber: just do it. Write. Write the thing and fuck everything else. If I don't have output I don't have shit. I have to tap the well inside me and let it flow. I'll worry about containing it later. The other day I wrote a thousand words about a weird memory I have kicking around in my head. A flash of an image I saw on television when I was young. One thing led to another and to another and before I knew it I had words, glorious and awful and exciting and boring words, scattered on a page. I need more. I need to need more.

I need to create a schedule for myself that I can adhere to.

Wake up.
Shower.
One hour: write in journal.
Two hours: read.
Two hours: write.
Two hours: play music.
Live.
Sleep.

Something like that. Take seven hours out of each day to make and absorb art. Get things done. Then get them read.

The writer's workshop I'm helping out with is being led by a man named Richard Bausch, whom I've never read. I went to Chapters yesterday and picked up his latest book, Peace, and I'm planning to read it on the trip down. It's set against the Second World War, and I typically really enjoy books and films that comment on that time period.

I stopped by Shoppers and bought a heating bag for my back. I used it a couple of times yesterday, along with a freezing bag. If it doesn't get fully better I'm going to see a chiropractor. It's not too bad right now, but even sitting here typing is uncomfortable, and I walk with a slight limp on my left side.

I slept a lot at Andrea's yesterday. Her room feels like the most comfortable place on earth, especially with her in it. I'm going to miss her for the next week or so. I am looking forward to seeing Matt, though. He's a guy I need to talk to every now and again. Now more than ever, probably.

I'm feeling more decentered now than I thought I would after moving back to Ottawa. I thought I'd have a clearer picture of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, but it's more jumbled than ever. I think I'm just in the process of finally convincing myself that I'm the kind of person that doesn't need to be in any one place to be happy. That's the kind of person I've always wanted to be. I want to experience everything life has to offer. Right now it's a week-long job in a different city. Next it will be having my very own apartment for the first time. After that, who knows? I'm going to admit this to myself right here and now: I'm probably not going to stay in Ottawa. I'm not looking for a place I can call home and be done with it. I'm looking to expand my definition of the word and apply it to something bigger.

Lately I've been getting the impression that the pool of friends I left in Ottawa has drifted into coupled units whose primary objective is now the practice of double dating. I don't think I've ever been on a double date. I have this idea in my head of the couples starting out talking freely in every which direction before the women settle off into some gossipy tete-a-tete while the men lean back and struggle to find conversation about prime fishing locales and recent Canadian Tire purchases. This all takes place in a pub with medium yellow lighting as tumblers and daiquiri glasses pile up modestly and suit coats curtain the backs of chairs. The evenings always, always end with the farewell, "We'll have to get together this weekend!," the last words spoken until the next midweek gathering when both couples can spare the time.

I've been back in Ottawa for a little over two weeks now and I think I've come to the conclusion that the difference (because there MUST be one) between the person I was when I left and the person I am now is fundamentally this: I am now someone more concerned with doing rather than with building expectation over what he does. The difference might sound kind of slight, and I may negate it entirely by even NOTICING it, but I think I've come back with less of an image of myself. Hopefully this will allow me to enjoy what I involve myself in that much more.

That said, the town is dredging up some old ways of thinking that I don't quite know how to deal with yet. I'm feeling as though slipping into old thought patterns might line me up for disappointment, so I'm trying to take every experience I have here as something entirely new. I'm trying to look at people as though I'm meeting them for the first time, trying to go places as though they are completely new to me. I think that's the best way to discover what I want out of life next.

I started reading The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre yesterday. In the first chapter his character Mathieu observes human beings as consciousnesses that interact with one another independent of speech and location - two consciousnesses can be alone in the night regardless of the geographical position of the minds that contain them as long as they are aware of one another. There's a lot of truth to that. The people who drive us to think and feel intensely exist as strongly as though they are in front of us, especially if we feel safe in the knowledge that they are thinking of us in return.