Wug Thoughts

I cracked on the staying sober thing. Got high Friday night, felt terrible the next morning, and then smoked some more. I do not understand my own motivation at all. Stayed sober from Sunday through today though. Maybe allow it on weekends for now. Shouldn’t do it at all, but I need an escape somehow.

Handed in my letter of resignation yesterday. The boss hasn’t spoken to me since. Whatever. This job is not worth the level of stress it’s causing. It’s not my fault that the office is so poorly managed we can no longer deliver on the promises we give our customers. I’m sick and tired of dealing with people who are legitimately angry, but there’s nothing I can do to help them.

The boss is screwed right now. His wife just left him, and his company is spiraling downward and out of control. The tighter he tries to hang on, the worse it gets. He’s heading for a nervous breakdown at this point. I hate to make it worse, but this job is killing me.

The high point of my day yesterday was discovering that the window in our bedroom has been fixed, so we can actually air the place out to some extent. The opressive orange tarp is still over our part of the building, but the construction guys say it’s supposed to be coming down this weekend. I keep dreaming that one day I’ll drive around the corner and the orange will be gone. We live on the 7th floor, but with that damn thing up we might as well be in the basement. No fresh air, no view, no balcony. It blows. Oh, and it smells very strongly of Rottweiler.

Brian and I would dearly love to skip town, but we’re just not in any position financially to do so. He’s pushing for it, but I just remember how well that went last time. I think we should spend another six months here in Calgary and then leave in the fall when we’ve got the credit card paid off and some capital built up. We’re making progress, but with me switching jobs and him pissed off at the hotel he’s working at, I can’t relax quite yet.

Phew, just got a call from Brian. He got his official one month review today, and the GM is now looking for the payroll guy’s head. They’ve been screwing him on paycheques the whole time he’s been there, and with any luck that will be changing today. There may also be work for me in the hotel accounting department. It’d be pretty funny if I didn’t miss a single day of work between jobs.

Two hours left in the Friday afternoon. They’re dragging by like molasses attempting to flow uphill in January. I ought to be filing the box of random documents that Raylene handed me, but there’s only so much of that a person can handle before the brain turns to mush and starts leaking out the ear. The upside is that as long as I look like I’m working, nobody bothers me anymore. The difficulty is that there’s not much fooling around that looks like working.

Brian talked me out of quitting my job yesterday. He’s right I know. We need to get our debts paid off before either of us can seriously consider quitting our jobs, much as we’d love to. We’re distinctly stuck right now. Sometimes I wonder if anybody’s really happy, or if all you can expect are occasional happy blips in the midst of a long series of sludge & much. I still think that if I could have a pottery studio I could truly be happy in my work. We’ll see if that’s a possibility. I start my Clay Introduction class on Sunday, and dearly hope that my wrists will be able to stand the strain. I also hope it’s as much fun as I remember. I just remember that art class in grade 12, and it being 1st period as the only reason I made it to school on time for most of the semester. I wish I’d had the sense then to go to art school instead of wasting 2 years at SFU. Then I never would’ve met Brian though, and that would’ve been a great tragedy. I don’t know what I’d do without him anymore. I’d rather not think about it.

I went to yoga again yesterday. I am so incredibly stiff, it’s sad. I feel so much better after class though. That will be my motivation to keep going. It’s also nice that the studio is right around the corner. If I had to drive there I know it would never happen. I am so sick and tired of Calgary traffic, particularly in the winter. We are NOT going to spend another winter here. We’d like to leave in the spring (April-ish) but right now everything’s still up in the air and nothing’s certain but death & taxes. We also can’t decide where we want to go. We just know we don’t want to stay here, which is kind of how we wound up here in the first place. Brian’s pulling for somewhere in the Okanagan Valley, mostly on account of the climate and wanting to eat fresh fruit. I maintain we need to do a road trip through the region before we decide, just to see what it’s like. I think Kelowna might be a good fit for us, but part of me is still stuck on Vancouver Island on account of my brothers being there. I miss them, and I really want to go see my little nephew.

I’m doing well with the whole not smoking pot thing, in the sense that I haven’t smoked anything since New Years. Already thought it’s hard to remember why I was so determined to quit. It’s bad for me, I know. I’m supposed to honour my body, that’s what my religion teaches, and I agree with that in theory. But in practice I want so badly to get high. The house reeks of it, and it’s impossible to forget. I want to come home and shut my brain off. I’m trying to give myself lots of other things to do instead (yoga, pottery, etc), but it’s hard. I’m wound up so tight from work and the whole room-mate situation, and I don’t know how else to relax anymore.

I’ve been sucked into the Lord of the Rings again. Reading that story is like visiting old friends. I haven’t read it since the movies came out, and there’s so much I’d forgotten, or that was foggy. I’m continually impressed with the beauty of Tolkien’s language and descriptions. I’m taking my time with this read, cause it’s not like I need to rush to find out what’s going to happen. So this time I get to build the scenes in my imagination, and let the magic happen at it’s own pace.

I’m also reading The Sea Witch, and old sea-faring adventure sort of book that I picked up on a whim from the used book store in Canmore. I’ve always been a sucker for sailing ship novels since 5th grade or so. At least now that I’m not stoned all the time I have the mental stamina to dive into books again. And I’m not always so exhausted anymore. Still just as depressed at the thought of getting up and going to work in the morning, but I think that has more to do with the job than anything else. Only forty-five minutes left now before home-time. Tick-tock, tick-tock. The eternal drudgery of the second hand carries on.