Known To The Law

Hello everyone. It's been a pretty interesting last little while. Today, I've already been out to the police station to get myself fingerprinted. This is so they can have my prints on file in case anything should happen and so they can complete my police check that everyone who volunteers with "vulnerable" people needs to get. It didn't take long at all. Nor was it a problem finding where we needed to be. I guess dad tends to think things wil be more difficult and time-consuming than they are sometimes. The process was different than I expected. I thought I'd be feeling some sort of soft velvet-like pad rather than the hard serfice where my prints presumeably ended up alright. Pretty soon, I guess even ink will be a thing of the past and everything will be digital. I can't say I heard anything very interesting while in the police station. Not really certain what I expected there but it just sounded like any other work environment I've passed through over the years. Mom and I stopped for brunch at Kora's. I hadn't eaten there in quite some time and enjoyed that thoroughly. Mom's digging into the first of the computer adventure games I've gotten her for her upcoming birthday. They're older games repackaged for WindowsXP and above. What got me started on that tack was one called The Last Express. It's a sort of adventure mystery simulation all rapped up into one and takes place on the Orient Express just before the first world war starts. She's plunging right in and seems to enjoy it so far. These more complex adventures should last her longer than the casual games she's speeding through.

Last weekend was terrific as I had visitors both friday and saturday evening. Nan and Doug plus their four sons came over for a Swiss Chalet dinner which went quite well. It was good to have the apartment so full of people for once. We had a great conversation. On saturday, I saw Mark and Wendy for dinner. I now have my brother's family's old kitchen table as my dining table capable of seeting four should the occasion demand it. It fits quite well against the wall with three of the chairs neatly tucked away. The other is in my bedroom and may occasionally come in handy in there should I have overnight company. I now have all the major permanent pieces of furnature I'll need. There are just a couple of slingback chairs for my balcony that I hope to acquire this year. There's also the tredmill which I'll eventually get from mom and dad's house as well as all my new computer stuff. Once that's all in and I've had a chance to grow accustomed to it all, this place will at last start to have that sense of stable sameness that a home ought to. I guess that process has begun already in a gradual sort of non-intrusive way. Over the past while, that sense of this being the right place for me has grown stronger. Now that I've lived here for a full year, things don't seem quite so tenuous. It was so good having friends over. I know there'll still be times when I feel isolated, disconnected and all that; Weekends where nothing at all goes on and weeks where the days start to blend together into one agonisingly long stretch of sameness. Just now though, I'm feeling remarkably whole. My life is certainly a different one than most peoples' but I no longer have such a profound sense of missing out on everything. Finally having gotten a good sleep last night without recourse to medication also helps. Things seem in their proper shape. I'll be folunteering at The Dam this afternoon in a couple of hours. It's slowly starting to become a normal part of the week. I'm still probably too driven to acomplish stuff with the kids rather than just hang out there as they seem to want me to do. It's getting better though. I'm starting to get used to doing that. I guess it'll grow and change in time as people there get to know me better slowly.

It's early in the evening now. I didn't bother at all with dinner. Just wasn't hungry after that wonderful brunch. Time at The Dam passed slowly today. I'm not quite as used to just hanging around there as I thought. Had a nice chat with some people in the states who have one of these conference line things. Skype makes it affordable for me to participate and it certainly helps the evening move along. They were quite an interesting group of people. I just get tired of wearing a headset after a while.. I'm actually pretty tired period. I'll definitely have some medication tonight to make certain I get a second good sleep in a row. Need to ditch this round of insomnia for a long while. At least now, it's biting off part of an empty evening rather than a day. It's a whole lot easier to live with that.

Insomnia Strikes Again

Hello everyone. It has been an incredibly long day. It seems I'm contending once again with insomnia. I had a very good weekend. I went to see my family at my parents' house for a very good dinner and afternoon. Ava and Amia did their usual splendid job for being cutely chaotic. They seem to like the idea of camp fires and stories. I've kept a group of audio stories for kids handy on my netbook and it at last paid off that evening. Ava particularly got into the adventures of Cactus Capour from ZBS Audio. Sunday was another great day at church with a games night I had a blast at with a bunch of the kids who attended.

There's no real rhyme or reason for not getting a stellar sleep. I have been feeling generally more up-beat about things this past while. There's no new stress in life and I believe I've finally begun to come to terms with accepting the life I have rather than spending so much time focussing on what that life lacked. This sense just grew inside me that things would indeed be getting better in their own time. Despite being very tired and having gone through a very unproductive day, I still have that new found level of hope and contentedness.

I went to sleep a little after ten on sunday night feeling quite tired enough to nod off at my ddesk. However, I found myself wide awake and restless at ten to four this morning. I got up and started poking around the Internet. My insomnia-driven search actually bore some interesting fruit. People looking for free sleep noise mp3 files should check out:
www.cantonbecker.com
Look in the "fun projects" section. I also came across Dan Gibson's Solitudes and found a Canadian group called Dreamstate while scavenging on:
www.mp3fiesta.com
My balance on that site is geting pretty damned low but I came away with around 43 new tracks to add to my relaxation and writing music collection. Quite a good find if I do say so myself. Tonight, I'll be piping Mr. Bekcer's white noise loop through my Logitech USB speakers and netbook. I've already taken a couple of the only medication I trust not to be adictive, a cheap form of Graval. I've also been very careful to eat nothing very recently which might keep me awake. Tonight, I'm employing all the cards I have. Here's hoping I wake tomorrow a lot more combobulated at a reasonable hour.

Later this morning, I went to the Samnet virtual pub for a fairly regular chat with a group of bellow blind people. They're somewhat older and have had very different lives to what I'm experiencing but I find it breaks up the solitude. Talk drifted around sleep and then to dreams and nightmares. I'm always fascinated with other peoples' nightmares. One lady described having a dream where she asked her talking clock what time it was and was told that she would die in 1999. How creepy is that? With all the talking gadgets which have populated my own life, I'm amazed I didn't have something like that. I guess that's a common fear, learning rather more about one's fate than is desireable. I rcounted a couple of the more creapy shorter nightmares I can still remember having from back in my middle school days. During that part of the day, I experienced a kind of jittery ultra-wakefulness with a surreal off-kilter punchy tinge. Had someone grabbed me with burderous intent as I left the elevator, it almost would have felt expected in a warped kind of way. I was quite glad to actuallly have a load of laundry to do and get me out of the apartment a bit. It broke up that long stretch of morning running into afternoon nicely.

This week has a few items of interest ahead. I'll finally be hooking up with Minney again on thursday if nothing derails her plans this time. It'll be good to have her over. We'll go out for dinner also. I last got together with her a year and a half ago. Who would have thought that the only friend I would take with me from five years of attending the Clearview Christian Reform Church would be a fifty-something year old West Indian lady whose life experience is about as different from mine as you could get? Dad and I will try and catch another Martini wednesday at Symposium. Also, there's a church meeting I'll be attending tomorrow night. Nice to have a few things happening like that.

I learned this evening that Mark Dailey has died of cancer. He didn't even make it to sixty years old. I'm struck by how much I took his disembodied voice for granted. I knew absolutely nothing about him other than that he had once had a heart attack until I read the article on CBC news about him. He was a police officer before becoming a journalist and was born in Ohio. I have a sense that I ought to have known so much more about him while he was alive. His voice was such a fixture in my TV consciousness that it just seems preposterous that he's now truly never going to say anything new in that rich deep voice. It adds to the surreal quality of this whole day. I hope he's found peace.

Well folks, I believe I'd better give up the ghost and turn in for the night. I've done my rounds online for the day and really can't muster focus for much of anything. Time to put that white noise on and hope everything works. Until next time, reader; Have a good sleep and pleasant dreams.

Hitting Bottom and Starting Upward

Hello everyone. At long last, I seem to have well and truly left this latest bout of insomnia behind me. Last Saturday was utterly torturous. I woke up at a quarter past three and couldn't get back to sleep if my life had depended on it. Resigning myself to the inevitable, I got up at that ungodly hour and began puttering around. I finished Jurassic park for the second time in around seven or eight hours during the long and empty day. It had threatened to rain out and I was little more than a zombie of my usual self just trying to stave off silence and keep my brain occupied. It's on days like that when the disconnected nature of the sort of life society has tossed me into really hits home. The hours just seem to crawl past with nobody to talk to and not enough energy to initiate anything. I had truly hit bottom once again with insomnia. This time around, there were thankfully no nightmares. I still vividly remember fragments of the five-nightmare horror marathon I went through last time I hit bottom. Despite dozing off for chunks of Saturday, I still find it stupendous the kind of tricks time can play with you when you're down for the count. This made even those long anticipatory Christmas
eves seem like walks in the park. Just three or four dreamless dead hours of rest preceded the longest most boring day I can remember. There were a couple of gems. I heard an interesting show about Nostradamus on History Channel. Also, another hour was helped along with a BBC Radio documentary concerning highwaymen. I hadn't realized that in some old pubs over there, people could just open a hatch under the bar and relieve themselves into a "piss channel"[Who'd have thunk?] That was the actual name for the thing.

To my utter surprise, I had a fantastic sleep Saturday night and was brimming with energy on Sunday. Church was a much-needed bright spot in the morning. After that, I was determined that I would go out and at least attempt to find some company for more of the day. It felt like I had been cooped up in there for a century. I also wanted to take the Trekker Breeze with new maps finally installed for more of a spin. Things didn't go as planned. I was so used to taking everything it said with a healthy grain of salt that I ignored signs of its being truthful with me until it was latently obvious I had gone well off course. Rose happened to be riding out there on her bike and got me back on track. I'm beginning to think that I'll have to re-record all my routes now that I have the new maps and software. Lunch at Symposium Cafe was certainly not a disappointment food-wise. Also, I enjoyed the snippets of conversation that the serving staff have time for. There's just that damned empty space that a friend or better yet, a special lady should occupy. I got more fortunate on the way home. The GPS worked perfectly and I was going the right way when I happened to cross paths with Pastor Sam and most of his family. They invited me back to their place for a drink and chat. I spent a good chunk of the afternoon chatting with them. Sunday more than made up for Saturday's troubles.

Over the past few days, I've consistently gotten up at around seven, or eight in today's case. Monday was a little dull but I managed to keep occupied with some online chatting and descriptive movies on Samnet. Also, I purchased the full version of Time of Conflict from GMA Games. I'm still not great with it but it does pass the time trying various strategies against the computer's forces. Yesterday was more interesting. It started with a mobility lesson which went alright. My instructor is taking a week off so I won't have one next week. I will, however, be attending a building barbeque with a new acquaintance I've made while strolling around the lake. I've been doing that more lately. It's proving to be a great way to kill time, get exercise and meet people with a bit of time on their hands. I've gotten contact information from a couple of them now. Not certain if things will go beyond basic acquaintance level but at least more people are actually taking time to ask questions and not just walking past with no more than a greeting. I certainly plan to keep at it as long as the weather's nice and I'm awake enough to make a competent effort of it. Sooner or later, if I keep it up, I'll hopefully become more engaged with the people around me. Perhaps, someone will say something that inspires me out of my writer's block. I'm certainly not there yet but it's starting to feel like I might be headed in the right direction at long last. The trip to Lake Jo is likely the best hope but perhaps, something will turn my creative wheels sooner.

Yesterday ended with the launching of a great new talk show on
www.mushroomfm.com
Jonathan and Julia are two very engaging hosts. I've always hoped they'd do a show that was mainly a talk show and not full of music. They chose "blind moments" as their first theme and had people skype in to tell the audience about those moments where blindness has led to embarrassment or funny outcomes. I shared a couple of stories including the hooded winter walk I took to English class one day while attending Erindale University. It's been quite a while before I've felt like committing to anything online but catching and participating in the Mosen and Minx show is something to look forward to each week. I introduced Sandy to Mushroom FM just before the show and haven't touched base with him yet to see what he thought. I'll be seeing him tomorrow evening to help him with his computer unless something changes that plan.

Today has been less eventful but nevertheless enjoyable. I went out to Symposium Cafe with my father for a midday meal and martinis. There was no need for supper after that so I've simply enjoyed the rest of the afternoon and evening. It felt like it was going to rain so I only stayed a short while out on the balcony with my netbook. It was terrific with that nice breeze. I took in a TV show on History channel about Alcatraz. They were investigating paranormal activity as well as the only possibly successful escape attempt. The paranormal stuff is just bunk in my opinion but is nonetheless entertaining. Not much else on TV tonight but I still have a bunch of podcasts and convention coverage to get to over the next couple of days. On Friday, I may be off to a family gathering and swim if it ends up being warm enough. Seems like it will be. Well folks, I'm off to bed now. Until next we meet, let the good times roll.

slowly winding down

Hello everyone. It's approaching eleven PM as I settle in for this blogging cession. Over the past while, my sleeping has steadily gotten worse. I hoped that I could stave off this insomnia with pure discipline, patience and perseverance. It's always such a boost to the ego when I manage to avoid having to use those Equate pills to nudge things back in the right direction. It would have been all the more a nifty ego boost now while I'm not getting much writing done. I would at least have conquered something. Sometimes though, that male machoism just sets us stubborn guys up for a rougher ride than if we let common sense prevail earlier. Thankfully, Equate isn't adictive or really all that powerful. It's a cheeper form of Gravol. I probably have that spellt wrong. Personally, I tend to want to deal with these things without resorting to pills out of some misplaced sense of fair play. This is one of those times when one must simply conceed the point and swallow both pills and pride. I need to be in as tip top mental shape as possible over the next chunk of time.

Yesterday, I spoke at my church about my journey to faith as a blind person and offered some observations and perspective as a blind person. All the feedback was quite positive. In fact, I may have an opportunity to speek at a Polish church later in the year. We had a guest worship team from there who apparently enjoyed my remarks. It's always a pleasure and an honour to do things like that. I certainly have a greater sense that I am indeed where God wants me to be. I'll be able to have some positive impact in the community over the years as people come to know me through opportunities like yesterday. It certainly seemed to cause some interesting people to pop out of the woodwork. I talked to one lady named Rose who is in the process of translating the new testament. Apparently, she'll be the first woman to actually do this. Other such efforts seem to have been performed by men. That surprised me greatly. You'd think that in this day and age, some woman or other would have crossed that gender boundary some time back in the fifties at the latest. She's also had some interesting experiences ministering to criminals. That might prove very useful when I begin working on orchestrating the evil forces in Enchantment's Twilight. Another lady who suffers from Parkinson's wants to start writing down her experiences for a possible blog or book. I'll be pleased to help her do this and determine how she wants to present her work online for people. Her name is Geneva. Thinking back, I can't recall having met anybody else named after a city.

PlentyofFish has also coughed up a very interesting lady. She's another teacher who doesn't seem nearly as prone to being scared off by too much information. We've exchanged a number of lengthy emails. So far, she doesn't seem interested in me commiting crimes for her. She does seem genuinely interested in my writing and in becoming friends. What's more, she lives close enough that it would be possible to actually go out somewhere together or have her come to visit me. That would certainly be a most welcome change.

Today has largely been a writeoff due to that lack of sleep I mentionned. I've swallowed my pills but am still feeling quite wide awake. I dozed off a number of times today so I'm rather glad I had no plans or deadlines just now. I watched U 571 on my computer for the first time with my Bose Companion3 speakers rather than my prior set of 5.1 surround sound ones. The main issue I had with those was that the sub-woofer fires sound downward into the floor. Moving into an apartment, I figured that because of this, those speakers might not be such a good idea. I've seen the movie Enemy Below and have no desire to inadvertently create the real thing. Fortunately, the Bose speakers have a subwoofer which fires forward rather than down. It ought to be less likely to wreck some poor soul's day. The virtual surround sound works quite well enough for me. Another item I took care of today was obtaining the manual for my grill. It took a while to track down the model on the site. However, they had a link to the pdf manual right there. Kurzweil1000 version 12 has just proved its worth by very quickly producing an accessible copy of the information for me. It took around ten minutes at most to recognise and present twenty-one pages. I don't think many of those pages were actually in English. However, I was quite happy to discover that even the tables with cooking times for food came through splendidly. Very nifty indeed. When I start scanning my regular mail in the new apartment, I don't anticipate any difficulties at all.

Over the weekend, I got together with Mark and Wendy. They have a table that I'll be borrowing for a while for the dining area until I get a better idea of what sise table will be suitable for the apartment. We had a very good dinner at the Lion Heart which I now have in my GPS. I have to remember to bring that along and keep adding landmarks of places when possible. Now that I'm going to be living here for the long term, it makes sense to do that. They'll be coming over on the saturday to help get me settled in. It's great to have such good friends as they are.

Hopefully, I'll be better rested tomorrow. It'll be time to start working with the talking microwave and perhaps take care of some other things like that router. I'm actually starting to feel tired so I believe I'll sign off before I go and write anything too obtuse.

nearly out of the woods

Good morning, everyone. Despite not having much sleep at all, I'm actually feeling quite good. That coke I had after mom and I got back from dinner with family friends at Symposium was probably not the brightest move. It was, however, quite enjoyable at the time. I didn't think I'd get to Symposium this week. It just isn't very smart to try and cross streets which are busy or have crookedly cut curbs when you're not completely able to exercise your powers of concentration. Somehow, things finally seem to have sorted themselves out in my mind. Perhaps, the book I ended up reading, Hairstyles of the Damned, had something to do with it. It was a depiction of an American teenager's experience of essentially reaching adulthood. He tried absolutely everything in order to fit in but just never quite achieved any personal satisfaction. Frankly, I find it hard to imagine a high school experience anything like what was portrayed. All the drugs, sex, and other shenanigans should have wound the whole lot of these teens in jail. Instead, it was like all the adults just gave up the ghost and let them have at it. One aspect of the book which felt absolutely genuine to me was how the main character came of age at the most unexpected and unlikely time. He had essentially just paid for the right to have a sexual encounter but turned away from it in order to comfort an old friend who had already indicated that he had no chance of going any farther with her. All of a sudden, but quite naturally at the same time, he began thinking about the larger picture of life. The long-term consequences of actions became more important to him.

I guess adulthood kind of sneaks up on all of us. It isn't a state of mind we just suddenly reach. Rather, we come into it and then, there comes a point when we stop and finally realise just how much we've changed from who we were. This week has been quite a rough ride for me. However, I feel like I've gained a kind of emotional fortitude that I've been lacking for months. Perhaps, it was all the misery I contemplated through the books I read and the email list I'm on. Perhaps, I just had to smash hard against rock bottom in order to face my current circumstances with more equanimity. Over the past while, I've put myself as much as possible in the path of other people and have gained very little as a result other than frustration. What I've finally concluded is that my life just isn't likely going to change all of a sudden. There's no stone I've left unturned in the social life improvement department now. I don't regret any steps I've taken other than eHarmony. Neither of the two ladies who showed some interest in me have followed up for a while. I doubt I'll hear from either of them again. POF seems the most likely to put me in touch with a new lady friend over the long term. I'll certainly continue to frequent that site. Meanwhile, I'll keep enjoying life as much as I can and keep ready and open to opportunities to have some sort of positive impact. For now, like it or not, that's pretty much all I can do.

In the process of trying to expand my social circle, I seem to have lost touch with a couple of good friends. I haven't heard a peep from Ron or Steve in ages. Ron's email no longer works which makes me wonder whether I actually dialled his number wrong or whether he's just moved somewhere. Now that I've at last gotten my own shit together again, I'll have to see what's become of them. Steve was having sleeping troubles but seemed to like his job alright when last we talked. Haven't seen either of them on Skype for ages. In all likely hood, I'll be seeing Adam either today or tomorrow. He's stuck it out with me despite all this frustration and insomnia. I haven't always been the most exciting of company these days. I've got to work at varying my listening somewhat. It's time to start making the most of the life I have again. I still have some sleep to catch up on, but I think the worst is finally behind me.

quite a night

Good morning everyone. I've had a rather strange night to tell you all about. Yesterday was pretty much a write-off. I spent most of it finishing the book Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler. I enjoyed it and can remember the story, but not as much as if I had read it while fully alert. I tried to play Tom Ward's new beta for Mysteries of the Ancients but shouldn't have bothered. My dulled reflexes didn't give me the ghost of a chance even on the beginner level. After dinner, I felt extremely wide awake for a few hours and was worried I wouldn't get any sleep at all. However, my energy level dropped off sharply at around ten o'clock and I had decided to go to bed by a little after ten thirty.

From then until around quarter after three in the morning, I slept pretty soundly free of charge. After that point, things changed. Each additional small chunk of sleep was paid for by having a creepy little vignette. I'll write them down here in case they might be useful later. Nothing has ever worked out well when I've tried to write horror stories but you never know. I'm feeling surprisingly wide awake and rested this morning and I may as well put that to good use.

*quarter past three:
I dreamt I was lying in bed when my father knocked on my bedroom door. I knew this was impossible since he's on a golfing trip at present. However, there he was in the doorway asking me if I had any slow music I could put on. I woke up with a bit of a start and checked my watch. Deciding that I really needed more sleep, I stayed in bed and drifted off eventually.

*Ten past four:

In my dream, I heard a man be murdered in a pub. He had parked his car such that it effectively blocked another man's car in. This horrid parking job enraged the second guy who saw that he would have a heck of a time leaving as a result of the first man's bad parking job. Both men were drunk by this point and got into a fight. The blocked man finally pulled out a credit card and killed the other man by shoving the edge into the front of his throat. Next, he left the bar and tried to get away in his car. However, he couldn't get out of the parking space before the police came and arrested him. He was put in jail where he literally rotted away and died from some strange disease. I woke up and checked the time. Seeing that it was still damned early, I decided to see if I could get any more sleep hoping no more bad dreams would be forthcoming. They were though.

*Five thirty-five:

I dreamt that I checked my watch and it was past seven in the morning. Deciding I had better get up, I put on my bath robe, got my electric shaver and headed into the bathroom. Things started out normally enough as I began shaving. However, there was a sudden funny click from the shaver. After that, my skin and the flesh underneath began to peel off and flap away from where I shaved. I stopped immediately as any sane man would but the rest of my scalp and face continued to curl off. My bath robe became drenched in blood with solidified so that there was no way to remove the garment. The process wasn't painful in the least somehow. I remember wondering how I could cover the mess over so it wouldn't frighten my two little nieces the next time they saw their Uncle Mike. There are moments when I've come up with some pretty grotesque thoughts but I doubt I'll ever top that one in my waking life. I don't recall exactly how the scenario ended but when I woke up and checked the time for real, it was around five thirty-five. I felt very tired and didn't have the will to get up.

*Seven ten:

This last one was by far the worst. I found myself sitting in front of a desk and a computer which weren't my own. The keyboard felt different. I discovered next that I was chained naked into a wooden chair with a long lever on the right side. The chair was on a raised platform. I had a choice to either pull the lever and effectively kill myself or not pull it and let a series of catastrophes befall an innocent family of eight people. The computer was there to permit me an opportunity to write a last message to friends and family explaining my decision. However, if I took too long, the decision would be taken out of my hands. I would die and the family would have a series of horrific events unleashed upon them. Every one of their futures was clearly etched out to me with branching probabilities and conclusions. You couldn't have orchestrated so much damage if you had an army of a hundred people in on the conspiracy. However, I was somehow utterly convinced that either I found the courage to pull the lever or every member of the family would face disaster. I had made up my mind to pull the lever and was trying to figure out what to write in order to explain my choice and provide as much comfort to those I would leave behind. A clock was ticking ominously somewhere behind me. I could also hear some sort of machinery involving gears, blades and acid which I presumed would be what did me in. The dream ended with my hand on that lever wanting to write more but fearing I was in danger of taking too long. That one woke me up quite thoroughly and I decided to get up for the day before something worse occurred to my subconscious. It was past seven anyhow. I got up to shave and was never so happy to feel only two days worth of stubble come off.

I've eaten breakfast and the energy kick from that is now starting to desert me. Today's going to be a long one. However, I think I'll get through it alright. I merely feel tired rather than the gloom I felt yesterday and the day before. I'm far from feeling in tip top condition but I believe I'm back on the way there. Under better circumstances, I might have started in on a book of ghost stories I have waiting for my attention. However, given my nocturnal musings last night, I believe I might instead read The Science Behind Sherlock Holmes. That might be a trifle safer just now.

insomnia and writer's block strike again

Hello everyone. As the title of this entry indicates, it looks like I'm in for another scrap with insomnia unless I really get lucky sleep-wise over the next while. What really twigged me to this was yesterday in church. I started to notice that my voice sounded deeper, less cheerful and more listless than it usually does to my own ears. It only hit home towards the end of my time there. Suddenly, I thought back to how often I had gotten up either much later or earlier than usual over the past week. Particularly when there's no real routine in life, insomnia has an incidious way of sneaking up on you. So many days since this whole chapter in life after Janene left me have been the same. Too damned similar and too damned solitary. I've put so much effort into changing that over the Summer but have gotten absolutely nowhere other than coming away with a few more people to email or talk to at a distance. I even tried interjecting myself into a conversation in Symposium I overheard as I prepared to head home. Big mistake. Janene seemed to do it so effortlessly but I figure there must be visual cues I'm missing there. I felt intrusive and likely just made an ass of myself. I'll still absolutely enjoy meals I have there despite the lack of company. I'm also getting to know the staff a bit better. However, I think it's safe to say that Symposium is a good place to bring people who you've somehow met elsewhere to. The next time I luck out and a woman near enough takes an interest in me, I'll have somewhere to meet her at which isn't my parent's house. That, of course, presupposes that I'll actually be noticed by someone near enough to visit and interested in at least friendship. You just really feel the irony when you meet people on the way to and from there who have all sorts of time to help you but none to get to know you. To have so many interests, be as open and outgoing as I am, and still have nobody to really share that with in person is damned frustrating and painful in a fundamental way. If there were a group of people around my age I could join even once per week for socialisation or some shared interest, it would help a great deal. There doesn't seem to be anything like that though. Everyone else on the planet seems to be too busy, already taken, or too damned far away.

This round of insomnia is definitely going to make the next while drag painfully. However, after what I went through when Janene broke up with me, the real danger is that I might underestimate it and let it get the upper hand. Nothing seems anywhere near as bad in comparison. Of course, I could get extremely lucky, have a few nights of good sleep and avoid it entirely. I'd have an easier time hoping for that were there more substance in my life. when there's nobody special who might want to go out somewhere, no job other than the massive project I've set for myself, and no real reason even to shave other than the dread of how damned bothersome it'll be after a few days of not doing so, it's too easy to slip into bored oblivion. As much as possible, I know I have to keep my spirits up and try to be ready for any unexpected experiences, people, or opportunities which God might send my way. Until I've fully recovered from this, I won't touch a drop of alcohol. Having it become the master of me is just not on. As always, I'll face my rough patches with a sober head. I doubt that having my usual maximum of one drink in an ordinary day would actually do any real damage. However, it isn't something I'm willing to chance. Fortunately, I'm very well stocked with podcasts, a couple of books, and whatever digital cable TV might have to offer over the next while. As long as I don't sink to that utterly torturous point where I can't focus my mind on anything, I ought to be able to get through this. If I'm very lucky, I might come away with ideas which rid me of the writer's block which has once again gotten me in its clutches. One can only hope and pray. I'm hopeful that I might be able to write down a concise version of my story for a person on a listserve I belong to where everyone is on ODSP. A collection of a thousand such stories is being collected in order to be sent to parliament in hopes that they might make a difference. That list is a kind of perverse comfort as most people who are on it have far bigger issues to deal with than I do. A lot of them have gotten into deep financial trouble, have obvious mental illness, and have become estranged from their families. There's a whole lot of utter misery out there which I know I've fortunately managed to avoid. My circumstances certainly constrain me and prevent me from engaging more fully with life. It's extremely frustrating but at least I know that my basic needs are covered. Some of these people might actually go off the rails and truly flip out. In fact, reading some of the stories which have been posted, a number of them actually have done so. I hope that my somewhat less dire story does somebody some good.

Rather than saving the various new rpg books I purchased in anticipation of a long, dull and lonely winter, I fear I'll have to start in on them earlier once this bout with insomnia is behind me. There's some hope that Atlantice Found and Subterainian, the two fictional books which seem interesting enough to help me through the next few days, may offer enough ideas which I can adapt for Enchantment's Twilight so I won't have to dig into books like the GURPS basic manual and other such sources until winter time.

Not a lot has happened over the past while. Dad's off golfing for the week and hopefully enjoying his yearly trip. Mom certainly has plenty to keep her occupied babysitting the grandkids, visiting friends, and doing her painting. I can only hope I'm that lucky when I'm her age. At times like this, it's all to easy to imagine the next thirty years going by without anything getting better for me. Short of resourting to the utterly absurd or downright criminal, there just doesn't seem to be any way to change life. I'm really not cut out for either the absurd or the criminal. You'd think I'd have sufficient cause for that kind of anger or disenchantment with society at large. However, there's that small issue of empathy. I want to be remembered for the good things I've managed to do, for being a good friend, and hopefully, for being there when I'm needed. That's just how i was made. I just have to keep ready, keep knocking on doors and wait for things to finally change. I know they will eventually. Over the shorter term, there's more social occasions at church and our upcoming trip to Winnipeg. That'll make for a nice change of pace. Also, after I'm back from that trip, I'm going to check out Mississauga Community Living as well as the local police to see if there might be any way I could be of use to those organisations. My brother thought that it might be a good idea for me to get in touch with the police since they'd certainly have the vehicles to get me to wherever they might be able to make use of me. I hadn't thought of that idea before. It's certainly worth pursuing once we're back. Having such things in the future helps a lot. I know I won't sink too far down. It's still damned annoying to have days like this where I feel this lethargic.

I caught the first episode of Flash Forward last week. It's good enough to give the next couple episodes a try. Robert J. Sawyer seems very happy with how it turned out. While I'm certainly happy for him, it just didn't hook me in all that profoundly. The book was ever so much better. I spent most of a day and a part of another rereading the book. I also listened to Crazy Dog Audio Theatre's The Stuff of Myth. It's a kind of musical commedy which I found mildly amusing. I've picked up a few new audio dramas from ZBS Audio in order to help pass some time. That raises the whole problem of my fear of becoming too much of a consumer. I'm spending money on things in order to pass time that I'd much rather spend in the company of others. There's just nothing else to do though. It's either that or sit there bored out of my skull with nothing at all new to occupy me in solitude. Podcasts, games, online discussions, documentaries and the like are the square pegs I'm sticking into round holes. Helpful but never entirely satisfactory. I need some way to connect with the wider community around me rather than all these people I'm never going to meet. You have that sense of actually making a difference when you're in a relationship. You also find it if you're lucky enough to have a meaningful career. As a single man limited in his ability to get places, the only time I find that satisfaction is occasionally through friends or when I complete one of my projects and hear from the people who it has made a difference for. Enchantment's Twilight will certainly have a good impact when it's at last ready but its such a large undertaking that I need to find something else in the interim.

There's a hellish kind of gloom hanging over me. I know intelectually that things must eventually get better. Affordable housing will finally come through and I'll actually have a place of my own if nothing else. This dark tunnel will at last end or change radically in character. It just seems like such a damned long walk through a thick fog which cancels out one's efforts. I've literally done everything possible to change things and have gotten nowhere. It's truly in God's hands now. I'm as ready and able to serve as I can be.

these early hours

Hello everyone. It seems my victory over insomnia might well have been prematurely declared. As I begin writing this entry, the majestic swell of John Debney's new age piece Resurrection enthrals my headphone-covered ears at around three thirty AM. I couldn't sleep now if my very life depended on it. I was dead tired at around ten thirty and suppose I slept pretty solidly from around a quarter to eleven right through until near two thirty. I lay there hoping to drift back into sleep only to find I was propelled in the opposite damned direction for no good reason. Grump! Snap! Snarl! Roar! There. Got that out of my system. I feel ever so much better now.

I suppose the first thing to do is to update everyone on the few things which have actually happened over the past couple of days. The mobility lesson went pretty well Wednesday. I got a good recording of the route back from Symposium on my digital recorder. Whether our attempt to get it properly into the Trekker Breeze was successful remains to be seen. There was a part relatively near to home where the GPS seemed to lose me for a bit. I hope it hasn't recorded that erratic stuff as part of the route. Thank goodness it's during a stretch which is relatively simple where I don't really need its guidance so much. Still, it would be better to have both ways recorded properly before I'm done with these lessons. My memory of the route might not hold up so well over the Winter when I expect it'll be too dangerous for me to walk it. I shudder to think of crossing Battleford under even rainy weather let alone snow and everything. It's one of those six-lane monster crossings. It's somewhat like Trafalgar in Oakville but doesn't impart quite the same sense of being inches away from death as one crosses. It's just too damned wide. I'm getting more used to it in good weather but wouldn't ever feel comfortable crossing something like that in rain or snow. I was going to go out and test that earlier part of the return route which I worry hasn't been correctly recorded by the Trekker Breeze but the weather is against me. It rained quite a bit yesterday and is supposed to do likewise today. The air has a stuffy humid quality which seems to be effecting me more than it has in the past. I hope I can see some friends this weekend. I haven't seen anyone other than my instructor outside of family all week. I dearly need a more active social life. Online chats and the forums on Plenty of Fish have actually been quite interesting this week but it all begins to seem very empty. Is there nothing more out there for me? There must be! God must have something more in mind. I just have to try to be patient and positive despite feeling simultaneously like time is dragging along at a snail's pace and my youth is slipping away without its full potential being tapped. As usual, I've been provided with just enough interesting material to keep chugging along.

I've heard back from a woman who i contacted regarding a transportation service which sounded promising. It still ultimately may turn into something I can use but isn't at all set up for that right away. They're focusing on getting people to and from all-day programs for various cognitive and physical disabilities. However, she was apparently impressed enough with my email to want to share it with other people. Maybe, some good will ultimately come of it. I can only hope my online efforts eventually open up more of the offline world to me. It's becoming more and more tempting to forego shaving and such these days. Other than my general dislike of feeling too scruffy, there seems damned little point when you never interact with people and nothing changes. If somebody comes up with a treatment which forever obviates the need for shaving other than something extreme like death, I'm all for it. My only reservation would be any side effects caused by not manufacturing all that facial hair. Where would all that extra protein end up?

Yesterday, I thought I'd look at:
www.audiobookradio.net
I heard what I believe to be an abridged version of a book on Sherlock Holmes. This included the thoughts of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Interesting in and of itself, I was moved to look in the CNIB digital library for more on Doyle and Holmes. Two items caught my immediate attention. One was a book on the science behind Sherlock Holmes's mysteries. I'm saving that one for an occasion when I'm in desperate need of something new and captivating to dig me out of a theoretically blue funk. Such an occasion may not be all that far off if the rain and lack of social life continue. Additionally, I found "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" available in mp3s and actually read by a very good narrator. There were something like a hundred files to snarf down but I did it immediately and backed up both excellent finds. I've read A Study In Scarlet as well as the preface which was quite well done indeed. It's good to have the complete stories as well as the audio dramas. I should have looked for The Complete Sherlock Holmes ages ago.

It's around a quarter after five now. I've been anything but brimming with industrious energy these past couple of hours. However, I've attained that state of consciousness where it might be possible to get something done. My body is telling me in no uncertain terms: "be grateful for the modicum of sleep thou hast enjoyed and count thyself fortunate!" As always, I'll attempt to do just that and make the best of another very long day.