very long long weekend

Hello everyone. I'm feeling remarkably good this Sunday afternoon. My sleep is still somewhat broken up. The new sound machine seems to do alright at blocking out the damned birds but there's a kind of rhythmic element in its idea of white noise that my mind has a tendency to snag on. At least this one doesn't stop due to a non-optional timer. It also doesn't yell at me like my netbook did at around five one morning this week since I forgot to deactivate Jaws. Oh yes, folks. Sonically contending with the birds has certainly been an ongoing issue this week. The days have dragged quite a lot due to them waking me up and my inability to get a solid sleep. Last night was different though. I believe I'm finally moving in the right direction on that front.

None of my friends have been available to visit with this long weekend so far. However, I've heard from Mark and Wendy. They want me to come with them to a festival at Erindale University in a couple of weeks. It's good to have an excursion like that to look forward to at long last. Yesterday, I started reading Charles De Lint's Spirits In The Wires again. There's a surprising amount of hope and optimism packed into that book. I've only read it once before so I'm finding new things I missed the first time through it back when I was still married to Rebecca. De Lint invokes a tremendous sense of wholesome wonder which I hope I can fill my writing with. It's done a lot to dig me out of the sense of futility and lethargy the break-up with Janene threw me into. And then, there was that helpful soul on Plenty of Fish who thought to start a thread asking what our favourite thing which happened last week was. That got me to do something seriously which I hadn't thought to do in quite a while. It's important to stop and count one's blessings. As I started writing down all the positive things which were sprinkled through my week dominated by insomnia, it was like a dam broke which had held the majority of my optimism back.

Attending church this morning was another extremely helpful thing which has rekindled my overall drive to continue work on Enchantment's Twilight. The sermon was all about God putting us in the right place at the right time. Pastor Cooper gave some very contemporary examples which put everything back into proper perspective for me. I had such a sense that it wouldn't ever matter enough to anybody how hard I tried to have a positive impact in life. Having a woman who I had earnestly come to love decide to suddenly jump ship profoundly hollowed me out. I was seriously starting to question, in my sleep-deprived frustrated state, whether all those blind folks who just gave up on pretty much the whole shooting match didn't have a good point after all. You know; The ones I plan to spend the next five years working on a game which shows them that we can have a meaningful impact even when it seems we're sidelined by life? My sense of hope, vision and drive just seemed to go completely out the window for a while. Thankfully, I have it back in large measure again. During the sermon, a frustrated woman felt compelled to disagree with a point she thought the pastor was making. I decided to follow that up and asked to be brought over to her. It felt a bit strange to take that step in a community of people I'm still just starting to find my feet in. However, my life experience and different perspective on race relations as a blind person seemed to have a particular bearing on things. She apparently doesn't usually speak up at all during sermons. We had quite a good and fairly lengthy conversation. Perhaps, my perspective did some good as I thought it might. Or, perhaps, she just needed a good listener. There's a slight chance I may be able to be of further help to someone she knows. If nothing else, I feel better for having stepped forward and making the effort. Starting to go to this church was clearly a good move on my part. Being in a community who sincerely try to make a positive difference helps a lot.

I thought I'd be going to see the Star Trek film with Adam today. It turns out that he's gone off with another friend to see another movie. Yes, I've been stood up, or more precisely, left sitting here by one of my best friends. It's hard to feel too bothered by such a small scratch after Janene's recent comparative artillery shell along those lines. He apparently often goes to movies in the morning. That strikes me as one of those things which are certainly doable but daft. Rather like having beer with one's breakfast. You're just asking for trouble having beer with breakfast. There's a proper time for stuff. For movies, it's early afternoon or evening. Beer seems proper to drink possibly as early as mid-afternoon in special circumstances but should typically be drunk after five o'clock at the earliest. Pretty much all my friends, Adam included, have seen the latest Star Trek film already. That's keenly frustrating since it's one of two movies that I would very much liked to have experienced either with Janene had she not dumped me or with friends my own age. You'd think that having a free pass for another person along with free popcorn and drink would have been enough of a draw. I guess not. Dealing with the fallout from breaking up, I haven't exactly been up to gaming cessions with Adam over the past while. Far be it from me to hold his feet to the fire therefore. I'd have made dreadful company being as prone to dozing as I've been over the past while. Presuming today's not just a fluke, I'm at last over that now. Still, it would suck if he's gone to see the latest Terminator film. That's the only other current movie I've heard about which has any appeal to me. It would suck, but the way things have been lately on that front, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. It would have been damned nice to see something like that with a small group of people who had time to hang out somewhere afterwards and talk about it. My family has never really done that. After a show, we just head back home and continue with life.

It looks like I'll be going to see it with mom and dad tomorrow. They both want to take it in and it's a long weekend so it all works out. Thankfully, my parents can understand where I'm coming from wanting first and foremost to do this kind of thing with friends. They get how frustrating it can be for me not to have been able to move on in life. They're off to see the Survivor finale tonight. I haven't taken an interest in that show for a couple of years now. Come to think of it, the year Rebecca and I separated, 2007, was the last season I paid any attention to Survivor.

Presuming I've actually ditched this insomnia as I believe I have, I think I'll take a stab at picking up work on Enchantment's Twilight again tomorrow. It'll be a few weeks yet before I'm ready to do more extensive practice on the new route by myself if prior experience is any indication. There doesn't seem as much point in putting all my eggs in the mobility basket anymore. I'll still do the three routes to Symposia's, Adam's and Ron's and put in more time than I have previously over these next warmer months. The audio documentary is also going to get priority whenever I come across useful source material for it. Given what I've learned about my condition and there being no need to rush, I'll take my time and put effort into writing again as well. Going six months without touching that really wouldn't be like me at all. If I continue to be single and nothing major changes socially for me, work on writing is going to go slowly. I've reached a point where I need more interaction with my peers and some new experiences to draw upon. I'll do my best to make do with second-hand sources like books and documentaries. One way or another, the world is going to get my best creative efforts. My hope that things will eventually change for the better is back in full force. If and when somebody new decides to give me a looking over, they'll find me firing on all cylinders. Dan was write a few days ago. I should put writer in the occupation field on my profiles. Just because I haven't been paid doesn't mean I haven't done the deed.