Today was as creatively productive as days get for me. After Andrea left I made breakfast and spent the day reading, writing and working on music. The song I've been working on is ready for bass and vocals. Recording a song was the only goal I set for myself this summer and it looks like I'll accomplish it just in time.

Andrea came over last night for dinner and we watched the end of Batman Begins, which construction work at Riverside had kept us from finishing. She crashed before midnight and I tried, but ended up on the couch for a couple of hours reading. Andrea and I are on different sleep schedules right now because she's been working quite a bit. I'm back to a routine where I'm awake until 2 or 3 before I can fall asleep, and then I'm out of bed at around 11. I'm looking forward to having work back in my life, because I'm apparently happiest when I'm going to bed at sunrise on a somewhat regular basis.

I devoured the rest of Fifth Business today. It may be the best book I've read so far this year. Davies' narrative structuring and language are amazing, and he has such a wonderful flair for writing passionate dialogue. There are a few moments in the text where characters talk at length and it never once gets dull. I feel richer for having read it.

I wrote a little over a thousand words today. Every time I sit down to write I'm producing something new and different from the last time. I'm trying to get at a story. I know it's there somewhere, I just have to keep digging.

Wicked was, well, wicked. It took a few liberties with Maguire's book - Boq is NOT the Tin Woodman, Fiyero is NOT the Scarecrow, Elphaba does NOT survive and escape the Emerald City with the Scarecrow, who is actually made the ruler of Oz after the Wizard leaves. But that's my inner geek talking. Visually it was astounding, and there were moments that took me back to the wonder I experienced when I first gained an interest in the books.

Speaking of Oz, I went to the In/Words open mic last night for the first time in over a year and read from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was very nice to hang out with old friends and talk about writing. I told Peter I'd like to help out with the magazine this year in some way, shape or form, but then I sent him a message telling him I wasn't sure it would be a good idea. I have a lot of energy to do something new, something that's going to help me grow as a writer. I think In/Words is behind me at this point, though it certainly provides a nostalgia factor.

I picked up my home theater system at Canada Post yesterday and hooked it up. I put on The Matrix and gauged the surround sound. Really incredible. I've ordered a new 42" TV and it's scheduled to arrive next week. It's going to change the way I watch movies. My living room is going to be bitchin'.

I started reading Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, a book that has eluded my attention despite it being a staple in high school English classrooms. I'd read The Manticore before, but I'd forgotten how talented Davies was.

I sure drank last night. A hangover's kept me in bed all day. I definitely won't be here forever, because Andrea and I are going to see Wicked tonight, and I've been looking forward to it for two months:


Yes!

A group of us celebrated Simon's birthday (and Andrea's A- in her Poli-Sci course, preeemptively) at the Royal Oak. I got a little carried away with shot orders - Irish Car Bombs, Liquid Cocaines, Blowjobs, plus a couple of mini-pitchers of Rickards Red. A lighthearted time was had, though somewhere between the time I stumbled into Andrea's bedroom and the time I woke up a bulldozer had its way with my body.

The back exercises seem to be making my sciatica worse, so I'm going to cool it for awhile. I have to head over to Sears to pick up the blinds for my living room. I wish someone would carry me.

Lua and I are chilling out on Andrea's bed, enjoying the silence of an empty apartment. I used the laundry facilities in my building for the first time today and aside from a small hesitancy on behalf of the washing machine to work properly, my clothes are clean. I decided to retire three shirts from my rotation. While waiting for my clothes to dry, I finished reading The Sound and the Fury. Now I'm going to look up some criticisms to find out exactly what the hell it's about. My guess is that it's sort of a cross between plot elements found in A Streetcar Named Desire and Chinatown set against the Gothic south that only Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor can emulate.

I had dinner with Rachael at the diner last night and we talked for a couple of hours, though we were both kind of tired. I tried explaining to her how I've felt about writing so far this year and I got bored of listening to myself. I really don't make a whole lot of sense. Better I should just write and keep my opinions about it to myself until they're actually worth a damn.

Rachael asked me how I was doing, and I told her I was happy. And I am, to tell the truth. Everything feels nice at the moment. No complaints, no real worries. I used to worry that I was the kind of thinker who would never appreciate happiness if he found it, but I've always been too willing to criticize myself for feeling as though I'm not getting a fair shake. The shake is fair. Ottawa is becoming a new sort of home, one that doesn't stand for the negative things it used to stand for. I'm no longer driving myself as crazy as I used to, or at least I'm being crazy about better things.

There has been a copy of The Tommyknockers by Stephen King sitting at the top of the lobby steps for the last week. Last night I picked it up and brought it inside and started reading it. I've only read one Stephen King book before, and it was under his Richard Bachman pseudonym, so why not?

I fired up my old desktop computer yesterday after not having turned it on for about a year to see if I could salvage anything from it - journals, songs, a drawing of the tattoo I want. It's pretty much a lost cause, and I'm willing to accept it after finding a CD I'd burned that contained the journals I wanted to keep, stuff from a website I had running from July 2000 until January 2002, which covered my last days in Oshawa and my first days in Ottawa. I'm so glad I have them back. I think there's a month's worth of entries missing, but from what I remember I had lost those some time before my computer blew up.

Moving is always a liberating experience, moving into your own place even more so. There's a unique pleasure that comes along with putting everything exactly where you want it, clearing floor space bit by bit as the things you take out of boxes find a home. I had been thinking about investigating that computer for over a year, one of those "I'll get around to it after the move" things. Now I have, and now I can abandon the thought and move on. I'm not simply clearing out one space and setting up in the next; I'm clearing out my mind of useless junk that's been hanging out for too long and opening it for something new.

I started reading Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury and forgot how hard he is to understand. I haven't read a Faulkner novel since first year University. He's a modernist who loves to write in the moment, and clarity only comes when one lets the words relate with each other. He writes about people and events without writing about them directly, only offering revelations by inference, indicating trauma and tragedy through the repetition of seemingly insignificant details. It's haunting stuff. Joe recommended I check Faulkner out in order to get a better idea of how to write multiple perspectives, and I'm beginning to see what he means. I sat down a couple days ago and wrote 1200 words on an exercise from Writing Fiction: write about an extraordinary event by describing it in great detail. Another beginning to a story I at least now have the opportunity to finish.

Lots to do today.

This marks the 100th post on 2AM Traffic. Milestones!

I went to Sofa World and the salesman Mike sold me a couch for $452 after delivery, about exactly what I wanted to spend. It's green and should snuggle nicely into the space that remains in my living room. Should be here in under two weeks. I bought a drill, put up the blinds in my bedroom and put my kitchen table together. With a tablecloth on it, it should serve as a half decent spot to write. And eat occasionally, maybe. Everything's coming together. The bigger stuff is pretty much all taken care of.

Yesterday the high school mates and I got together to take Connolley out for the day before he gets married in a couple of weeks. We went mini golfing, had lunch at Gracie O'Malley's, went to Rideau Carleton Raceway to gamble, and then back to Connolley's for barbecue and Wii. It was a pretty fun time. I won a little over 60 bucks at slots and blackjack. Being the old men that we are, everyone was kind of tired around 1 AM when I left. But that's what 13 hours of partying will do.

I still like spending time with the lads, but we all seem to be settling into the types of people we'll be for the rest of our lives. Good news in some cases, not so great in others. I don't really even know if I can say that I'll stay the same person for the rest of my life. Obviously I'll change a lot. Experience will do that to you, and I've got a pretty open mind. But there are certain folks that anyone knows that will always be the way they are. I know some people who are like that, for better or worse, and it becomes more and more apparent the longer I know them.

Andrea and I went to the Pride parade this afternoon, which ran along Wellington and down Elgin for a bit to City Hall. I'd never been before. It was fun, of course. Lots of happy faces, people reveling in the freedom to be themselves. It must be a great feeling to be able to celebrate something that a lot of people try to make you ashamed of on a daily basis.

My blinds came in yesterday. Sometimes I forget that people can see into my house from the street. Not that I care much personally, but I`m worried more about people noticing anything worth stealing.

I slept in my new bed last night. My alarm clock went off this morning and I banged my head against the wall on two occasions trying to turn it off. I have to get used to the room`s geography. My room`s looking a bit cleaner after putting away boxes of books. I also have a lot of random bits and pieces I`ve collected over the years to remind me of experiences. The stuff piles up after awhile.

Today I will hopefully be buying a couch.