z: Time passes.

Hello everyone. The past two weeks have been very slow and frustrating. I just haven't gotten much of the fresh input or socialisation I need. The days have crawled slowly past. The weather has gotten much better particularly over the last week. However, other than practicing what I can of my route, I've had no reason to go out into it. I thought I'd be doing so much more with people this summer. Instead, I hear news of events like Taste of the Danforth and others which I'd love to attend with some good and trustworthy company. Where does one go in order to even begin the work of making friends who would actually be interested in attending such things? Festivals, science fiction conventions, or even regular nights out at some pub would do me a whole world of good presuming they were places where you could still hear yourself think. I'll give up a great deal to spend less time alone but not my hearing. There's still the whole frustration of needing more of a life beyond family. It is especially keenly felt this summer. Mom and dad are quite sympathetic and understanding. However, other than getting me to some places when they're free to, there's nothing they can really do to help change my circumstances on that score. Mom took me out to meet Nadia again last week. Due to a few circumstances, I can't see the two of us going any further than friendship. It's a strange paradox. For the two hours during which we talked, it was such a nice reprieve from feeling profoundly disconnected from everyone. It was good to have someone near my own age to talk with for that span of time. A damned frustrating shame that nobody closer to me has any interest. On the way back, I helped mom with carrying the tank for our barbecue to get it filled. The attendant mistook me for her husband. Go figure. Presuming I don't look overly old, I guess that at least made mom feel good. I try not to take my frustration with current circumstances out on them. They have enough to worry about with dad adjusting to retirement, grandkids and so-forth. The solitude and lack of a real ongoing connection to a community is slowly doing its damage though. I can feel my drive to keep trying to change things and continue working on Enchantment's Twilight slipping away from me bit by bit. The irony of working away at something which speaks to the importance of community and of looking out for each other while finding myself so stuck fast on the outside of a more full life definitely isn't lost on me. I feel like a coiled spring left to slowly rust away. I find that I'm getting more angry that nothing I do seems to actually count for anything other than perhaps an emailed acknowledgement that I've inspired someone or that my writing has had a positive impact on people too far away to meet.

All I need is for one woman who is close enough to decide that I might be worth getting to know on a more serious level than friendship. She'd get the most loyal and faithful husband, willing to jump at any opportunity open to him and willing to do whatever I could to make a marriage work. All I need is one employer to actually notice what I've done or take the time to get to know how honest and hard-working I am. For so profoundly changing my life He or she would attain my best efforts and loyal service. I've kept plugging away over the years thinking that some day, the right person would come along and my life would at last progress somehow. Lately, it's getting harder not to think that perhaps I'm the only lost soul struggling to live under some outdated notions of responsibility, morality and so-on. Everyone seems to be after sex with no commitments beyond it these days. Company loyalty seems to be a concept no longer valued at all. I just wish I could truly fit in somewhere other than my parents' house preferably before I start pushing forty. Eventually, I know that things will get better. If nothing else, it will eventually be my turn for a subsidised apartment. The wait is just so damned long! Presuming I can make friends of some of the people where I end up, I could conceivably become quite content living as a single man. Right now, I could really do with some profound change but I don't see any chance of that happening any time soon. I just have to keep going somehow.

This weekend isn't going so badly at all. I've purchased a few dvds including the Band of Brothers mini-series about World War II. The sound work in it has been absolutely first-rate so far. It comes in a tin with the dvds lifting out of it like a folded scroll. On the one hand, I'm profoundly glad I purchased this. For once, it isn't something you watch and miss the company of a special woman while doing so. It's also quite lengthy. The CNIB had a book called Beyond Band of Brothers which I read prior to starting through the dvds. Thanks to that ten or twelve hours worth of reading, I'll be able to better comprehend the battle sequences in the twelve-hour mini-series. It's worked out quite well so far. I say that having gone through the first three dvds plus the extras dvd. So far, the story tracks nicely. This wrecks the surprise but I'll take full comprehention given that choice any day.

Later this afternoon, I believe Dan and his family are coming over. We were supposed to go to Canada's Wonderland with them yesterday but poor Ava got a bad eye infection from a dastardly little mosquito. For a little while, we thought she might have to have a stay in the hospital. However, it seems that the medication she's been given has done the trick and she's apparently back to her cute self. I'll be able to observe that first hand fairly shortly unless plans change. Next week, my parents will be babysitting on most of the days and I'll probably go with them for a couple. I'll spend the other days here so I can get in some route practice and, God willing, some further writing on the game. I pretty much stalled out last week and pray I'm not in for another chunk of absolute creative freeze. I've had quite enough of that this long and lonely summer as it is thank you very much. Church ought to liven up tomorrow a bit. That's really become something I can count on. Hark! I hear a super-high-pitched Amia scream unless I miss my guess. Time for Uncle Mike to put this blog entry up there, go down and investigate.