Bow before the Earl of Grey.

Hi. Head full of goo, can't hear so well out of my left ear. Working with the public and taking their money is very, very dangerous.

Wanted you to know I've booked some shows, so check out the calendar by clicking on the thing over there ===> that says upcoming shows.

I also wanted you to know that it took me a while to realize that it's not that I turn to this blog when I have no coping skills, but that this blog IS a coping skill. When I feel low, or confused, sad or lonely, there it is, waiting patiently for me to have a place to unravel the tangled up yarns.

So I have a kitchen table and the internet at home. Just in time for the onset of Gun In Mouth Weather season. (Affectionately so dubbed by Garnet.) Possibly this cozy little apartment will save me this grey and chilly time around.

Last night I dreamed about my bike. I dreamed I stole it back from a junkie. Probably more prescient than anything else. Since likely it's a junkie who has it. I've been walking home from work lately, it's kind of a good length of walk, and noticing all the homeless and cracked out people who seem to have really nice bikes. Too nice. We should just have free bikes in this city that you leave unlocked wherever you are and when you're ready to go you just take one that's close by. Save everyone all the tears.

Mm...back to bed with tea and crossword puzzles.

xo
r.

Oh, Audrey, I'll miss you.

Thank you all for your kind words of late. There is no doubt that, for various reasons, I am in a challenging time. Lots of good things and good times have happened to me and around me since I last wrote, and yet it seems as though I only turn to this blog when I have the least coping skills.

My bike was stolen two days ago. Remember my bike? The red one with a bell and a Detroit Red Wings sticker? The fastest bike in the world? MY bike. I have imbued the bicycle with too much meaning. I am mourning it for serious and couldn't figure out why until I realized that I have come to rely on it as a very pet or family member. That it represents to me an unconditional love, a trust, and all the things I have been working on and towards this year. Everything I have accomplished was revealed to me anew each time I got on that bike. Audrey was her name.

I just talked to my mum for 20 minutes, curled up on the bench seat at the coffee shop where I am writing this. Fetal positioned. I'm sitting back up now and my mum kind of cheered me up, even in the face of all this mourning going on around me. Not just me for my bike, but a lovely local woman died this week in a plane crash in Thailand and many of my loved ones are feeling the loss very deeply. My empathic ways are such that I absorb all this from the atmosphere around me and take it into my heart. I do not know how not to do that. I do not know how to keep myself for myself and not give myself away so much that I have nothing left to answer my own questions. I am currently seeking some kind of therapy and healing, some guidance so I don't have to feel like I have to make everything happen myself. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be pleased to hear them.

Last night I dreamed I was back in the hospital and it really brings into sharp relief how scared I am of the winter darkness and rain. How scared I am, really, of feeling anything, lest it undo me completely and I find myself somewhere I can not get back from. I am going to go walk on the seawall in the frigid, windy, sunshiny day with my friend's dog and see if that helps.

If anyone out there wants to just quietly hold me for a while, that would probably help, too.

xo
r.

Storing up my nuts for winter.

Okay. Bouncing back. Not all the way yet, but had a cry and some sushi and a nice visit with a couple of friends. Still, though, a bit miffed that I actually have to feel things. This being a human thing, I don't know. Next time I'm coming back as a squirrel.

ow

My horoscope said that today I would likely experience agony and ecstasy. Waiting for the better half of that to kick in. Who would have thought I could feel so low when the sky is so pretty?

I am down down down today. Totally waiting for the flood of tears, totally can't make it happen. Have considered throwing the bad art I've been making at something or someone instead of crying. Anything. I am twisting in the wind today, waiting for this blackness to pass. I guess that's the new bit of things in my life. Understanding that it will pass. I fucking hope it passes, cause my heart is crumbling into dust and that dust is filling up my lungs and making it hard to breathe or think.

I don't know how honest to be with you. I have been trying so hard to stay focused on my health, and the last couple of months I have really let things go to pot. Literally. I've been drinking, smoking dope, staying up late, doing too many things...it was fun for a while, but then I was on the hamster wheel and it just got gross. I have the feeling no one has noticed a difference in me, I mean, I go to work, I do shows, I get out...but this pain in my heart, I'm sure it's why I've been doing it. To avoid this very feeling right now. I have known that there was a love I would have to give up sooner or later, and when it was obvious that it was on the brink, I guess I didn't want to feel it. But now, today, after cleaning up my act a bit I can feel every goddamned thing and it fucking sucks. I don't even know how to get past it. It has been such a long time since I faced this particular kind of loss. Somewhere in me I suppose I thought that after my dad died nothing would be able to cause me pain, but lo and behold.

I am so lonesome right now, and stupidly sure that I will grow old by myself in this one bedroom apartment, get a stinky little dog and make the neighbours' business my own. How is this where things have led me? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a good round of tears will be helpful, and, by the way, here they come. Good thing the internet isn't made of paper or this entry would be soaked.

I have to go and have this cry. Fucksack.

August gigs.

Okay. I got it together to update not only my facebook, but also my myspace, so now you can click on that thing to the right there and see my upcoming shows. I'll put them here, too.


Friday, August 24th, 8pm showtime, Sawbuck's Pub, 1626 152nd Street, Surrey!!

8pm Monday, August 27th, Myles of Beans, 7010 Kingsway near the Edmonds Skytrain Station - I do 7-10 minutes.

9:30pm Thursday, August 30th, Howie's Bar and Grill, 2830 Bainbridge Avenue, Burnaby. Corner of Lougheed and Bainbridge, near the Burnaby Lake skytrain.

Will send you September as it becomes clear.

xo
r.