Nurse Sean (dot) com

I just might have a date! A man who I’ve spoken to on the internet, and traded pictures with, is coming down from Edmonton. So, we’ve decided to meet for coffee. He hasn’t told me exactly when he’s coming or why, but who cares! I will get a date in December. Keep in mind that its been about three and a half years since my last date. Hopefully he’s as good looking in person as in his picture. Actually, what scares me more is whether or not he finds me attractive enough to waste a coffee date on. We’re talking about the gay community…he may point and laugh at me.

Yes, its true! To be a gay man you need enormous self-esteem. When somebody points and laughs at you, you need to be able to honestly shrug it off (key word being honetly). Not only do you spend your entire life being told how worthless you are, but by the time you work up the courage to come out of the closet, you find nothing but shallowness. Why do you think gay men and women get along so well? Its because both are completely marginalized by people if they don’t look the way they are “supposed too”.

I need RD’s whiteboard, because I’m apparantly teaching sociology now. Actually, I’m quite a natural at sociological theory. I’m actually “in” that faculty, because someone I know was amazed at my ability to analyze everything in a sociological way without any background experience. She told me I would love Sociology and she was right. Her name was Argini…I wonder whatever happened to her.

I’ve decided to start yet another novel. Its a mix of some novels I’ve started before and an idea that I dreamt last night - I actually dreamt that I should write a novel about it. If you could see my file folder you would laugh at me for saying that. I honestly have about fifteen first chapters of novels. I have to admit that each one gets better and better. One of these days I’m finally just going to keep going on one until the end. My friend Memory entered a challenge in which you write a 50, 000 word novel in a month. Perhaps I’ll have to try that next year. It may motivate me to finish one, since it focuses on completion rather than quality.

My fighting didn’t work, and I was deathly ill when I woke up for yoga this morning. I called Sandy to tell her I wouldn’t be at yoga (which is about the seventh time in a row…she’s getting mad…must make it up somehow) and then went to bed. When I woke up I felt much better, but I was still eating throught lozengers like candy all day - not to mention a continuous dizzy feeling. Now I can say that I feel almost 100% better! I know that when I wake up tomorrow I will probably not be sick at all.

It should be a busy couple of days. Tomorrow its school, then cleaning the old appartment, then master class (yikes!). Then Saturday I work, then more old appartment cleaning if needed, then I’m off to see my day perform in “Guys and Dolls”. Sunday I am off from everything. I’m going to do nothing all day and night. Why? Because then I start studying for finals…not to mention I won’t have too many days off from work…it may be my last day off for awhile.

Anyways…here’s the short beginning to my new novel…I haven’t done any serious editing…or even a spell check for that matter…but here it is:

Snow

I’m coming down with a cold. I might rise up and fight, fight FIGHT! I simply just don’t have time for a cold. I’m usualy pretty darn good at killing my illnesses. Besides working, I’ve spent the entire day - the last ten hours - in bed, drinking fluids and keeping myself hot. I was going to have a bath, but it just didn’t happen.

Okay, quite honestly I don’t really have anything to write about today. I just had a fidgety urge to get out of bed and do something. Studying seemed like too much of an effort.

Work was fairly anti-climatic. It wasn’t even that busy, and on top of that our espresso machine broke and we weren’t able to make coffee for a couple hours. There were film crews all over the place, so I thought we might get another chance to see Chevy Chase, but apparantly it was a different movie.

You know what I’m discovering…when you lie in bed and let your brain melt into the television screen for hours on end…you will most certainly lack stuff to write about. So, instead of forcing it, I think I’ll just crawl back under my blankets.

I forgot to mention that I got 95% on the midterm on Friday that I was having troubles studying for. Thank the gods for that one! As long as I continue with the same marks I’ve been getting, I’ll be getting two A’s. Thats great, because my mark in the other two classes could be pretty darn low, so they will at least be a little balanced out.

Tonight we practiced for a handfasting that twilight mysteries is doing. Its going to be absolutely amazing! I can’t wait to see what the ritual room will look like when its all nicely decorated. I love the music, I love the ritual…I just can’t wait

Actually, its been a fairly quiet weekend. I’ve taken the last two days completely off from studying, which is definately deserved…and needed! Then its time for the home stretch. We only have two weeks left of classes and then its time for final exams, which aren’t worrying me at all this semester.

I’m not exactly looking forward to Christmas break. It will be nice to have some time off of school, but I’ll be working six or seven shifts a week…which is good…but I won’t get any time to relax before the next semester starts. And even then I’ll be going to school Monday to Friday and working Saturday and Sunday. It never ends!

I went to brunch today with Lucy, her husband Scott, Sandy and Joey. It was great, but Lucy’s adorable little boy was feeling a little hyer active and was running all over the place. So, Lucy was yelling at her kid to stop running and yelling at her husband to stop him from running…and yelling at the waitress because there was no omlet station. It was kind of embarrasing, but it was a good meal with good friends.

Well, tomorrow its off to yoga in the morning, then classes, then nap, then singing, then studying then sleep….back to the grind for me….

I think this is good for me…I’m learning some pretty damn good stress management/coping skills!

I was just reading my last post. Wow, it was as though I was writing so fast that I just decided to skip over every second word. That will teach me not to proof read my entries. Actually, I’m probably the worst for that. I’m usually so sick of writing by the end that I don’t even want to look at the computer.

I loved reading it though. I wrote it because it seemed like an important event in my life. It was. However, I can recognize now that I was being a big whiny baby and that I still have it better than a HELL of a lot of people. So, I’m glad I could recognize in my post the moment I told myself to “suck it up princess”!

I was actually afraid to post yesterday’s post. I’m always afraid of people thinking that I’m “crying out for help” or “looking for attention”. I’m not though. I seriously just felt as though I needed to right about Savannah more than the situation. And like I said, it was completely resolved.

I know that my parents would have a massive heart attack if they read that I couldn’t come to them for help. If I called my parents up and asked for help, they would be right there. What I meant was that I simply just don’t like to admit to them I need help…not that they wouldn’t gladly help me.

Anyways…I’m back to independent, strong, super me! Actually, I get pretty darn good satisfaction out of making a bad situation work out in the end.

I need to mentionthat this post may panick some people. I know if a friend of mine wrote this post I would feel the need to jump in and do something. However, it needs to be said thats things ARE as bad as they sound, but I’ve worked through it and I will in fact be okay. So, now that you’re all panicked….hehehehe….

Have you ever felt as though angels exist. I don’t mean to suggest that I know exactly where they come from, or if they are what a Christian would describe them as. What I mean is that: Have you ever had a person in your life that seems to be put here to make sure your life goes according to plan. I don’t mean through friendship, or love, or biological family. No, I mean that there is a specific feeling that this person is sent to you from a devine source.

Now, everything I write is real and is not exagerated. I’m not saying that any mystical happened. Just that there is nothing here exagerated to make the story better. It started the day that Savannah started working with me at starbucks. When she walked in, she seemed to simply glow with pure happiness. Imagine what the angels look like on “Touched by an Angel” at the end of the show when they light up, revealing themselves as angels. She has long imperfect hair and a natural, earthy beauty. She almost mediteranian, but she says she’s part aboriginal…but only a little bit. Thats what Savannah looked like then, and everyday….still.

Over the course of the last year or so I’ve know her she’s met a man, gotten married, and is now planning children. During that year, I always had this odd feeling that for some reason she was going to play a large part in my life, but I couldn’t put a finger on how or why. I still don’t know why, but it feels more and more like this everyday. As though she isn’t even real, as though she’s an imaginary friend, or a distinct personality coming from my head. She feels as though she’s floating through my life as a ghost, rather than a human being.

It should be said that she’s mormon. Not that this changes anything, but its a huge part of who she is and if I’m going to talk about her I might as well mention this. She’s very religious and follows the rules of her faith down to the very last detail. A person doesn’t get much more pure than her. so, when she seems to glow, it always seems to being in an excrutiatingly bright white colour.

A couple months ago, I was having dinner with her and I was mentioning that I wasn’t sure if I would get high enough marks to get into nursing. I remember the way she looked at me with such authority, put her hand on my knee and said in a very monotone voice, “you will get in”. It was very simple, but it honestly felt as though a devine power that was beyond Savannah’s control was reaching through her and told me everything would be okay. It felt as though fate were confirming for me that everything was on track. A very odd experience indeed, although I’ve never mentioned to Savannah that it felt this way.

So, on Wednesday I started to panick, because I had put seven hundred dollars in the bank, making my bank account stand at about one thousand dollars. I wasn’t really that scared, but when I still couldn’t get the money on Thursday I checked my account on the internet. I had three dollars. My landlord hadn’t cashed one of the checks I had given her. I’m not sure how I did this, but I made a HUGE mistake and instead of having one thousand dollars to live on until January first, I had three dollars.

I’ve never felt sicker in my life as I did that night. I’ve never felt fear like that before. I honestly had no idea how I was going to pay for rent, or bills, or most importanly food. I had three dollars and that would only be enough for a cup of coffee. I wasn’t thinking rationaly, I wasn’t thinking at all. Instead I felt pure fear like I had never felt before. To make things get worse, they were doing a S.I.N. card check at work and wouldn’t pay anybody until they had shown up with their S.I.N. card. Sounds great except that I had lost mine and didn’t know how long it would take to get one. Even worse was that I had a midterm the next day and I couldn’t focus my mind long enough to study.

I woke up the next morning very hungry. I didn’t have any food in my house to begin with because we just moved and I hadn’t gone shopping yet. I had been buying breakfast at school. I couldn’t imagine how hungry I was going to be at lunch. Well, at lunch I felt hungrier than ever before, so I used my last three dollars to get something small.

Now that I was thinking clearly, I decided I would call work and pick up extra shifts and then after school I would go and apply for a new S.I.N. card, and then I would stop by work and pick up fifteen dollars in tips that were waiting for me. Then on Monday I would go to the student food bank. They have a “no questions asked” policy. I wouldn’t have to go through the embarassment of having people why I’m such a fuck up.

So, I called work and Savannah answered. We found a shift for me that Ken was happy to give up. She asked, “Why do you need to work more shifts, I know how much you hate working.”

“I’m broke Savannah…more than broke…” I said in a low voice, feeling as though I needed to hide the fact.

She interrupted me though without hesitation though, “If you need any help at all. I’ve got some food you can have. Anything at all just say the word!”

“Its not THAT bad” I said, “okay…it is that bad…I’ll be okay though…thank you.”

I said goodbye and hung up though phone. I closed my eyes and repeated over and over to myself that “I would be okay”. I guess I thought that if I said it enough times I would believe it. I was amazed at the help she offered me and was horrified that I wasn’t sure if I would be that fast to offer help to one of my friends in need. I like to think I would, but honestly, I don’t think it woud come that fast without hesitation or question.

I walked upstairs to the foodcourt in mac hall. There were table after table set up in a square pattern. It was a silent auction to raise money for the student food bank. At that moment I remembered every single time I passed one of those boxes with my nose up in the air. I remembere how annoying the people collecting money - the ones who shake their money tins for hour after noisy hour - were. I remembered how many times I had plenty cans of food to give and never thought it was important. How many times have I ever felt frustration at people because they were too stupid to earn enough money to feed themselves.

And here I was making plans to use the food bank for myself. Could I be anymore selfish? I was reminded of the fear of the night before. When would I eat again? Will I be kicked out onto the street?

I ran to the bathroom and sat in a stall and bawled for a good ten minutes. A nice long cleansing cry. I released the fear and began to regain the rational, logical self that I knew was inside me. I grabbed a pen and paper and calculated everything I could use as a resource. I figured out a budget…and let me tell you its not pretty…but it works. And with that extra shift I’ll be able to buy eighty dollars worth of food. If I pick up an extra shift down the road, I can buy more food. If not, then I’ll need the foodbank, but I refuse to feel shame for that. Its there for this exact reason. Besides, Savannah made me feel completely comfortable in the idea of asking her for food.

Unfortunately, my plan included paychecks…which I couldn’t get. So, next step was to RUN to the Harry Hays building to get my S.I.N. card application filled out and then RUN to work. After my last class, and midterm - which went surprisingly smoothly - I went for the c-train. Fortunately students get free transit, so that was not problem.

I was turning a corner and ran right into none other than Savannah. I told her I where I was going, and again without hesitation she offered me a ride, because I could get a receipt from the government that I could use to get my paycheck, but I needed to get back to the hotel before 4:00pm to get the paycheck before human resources closed.

So into her car we go, her smiling and glowing in a bright white, me staring at her with my mouth open wondering why I couldn’t be like her. I was in awe that she was being so nice.

Like I said before, friends may do these things for each other. Family too…but with Savannah, it always seems as though her actions are a “devine intervention”. It feels almost spiritual, as though when she walks around the corner offers you help, your entire LIFE breaths a sigh of relief. You KNOW everything will be alright.

Like I said…everything has been worked out. My bills will be payed, I will eat, and I may even have a little for some fun. However, not that much fun.

I just wonder now…I feel comfortable asking Savannah for help. I feel comfortable asking most of my friends for help. I feel comfortable going to the foodbank if I have to…but I could never ever ever ever call up my parents and tell them I’ve failed and need help.

Is that their fault or mine?

Sorry about any spelling/grammer problems. I need to sleep more than you need to see correctly spelt words…

I truly don’t think I’ve experienced a busier time in my life than I have in the last few weeks. In fact, I’m SO busy that I’m just going to jot down a few updates.

The biggest news I suppose is that one of my cats died. His name was Noel, and he was about seventeen years old. We rescued him when he was just a kitten with dirty hair and bruises. He’s always been the big tomcat “man” of our cat family. He always got into fights with neighbours cats and was never clean. About a week and a half ago I was visiting my parents and I looked into his eyes and I “knew” he was dying. There was a one dimensional aspect to his eyes that made it seem as though he was giving up and that he was simply waiting for physical death. I told my parents they should take him in and when they did the vet said he has a tumour in his mouth and they would half to amputate half his jaw, as well, he was pretty sure he was experiencing renal failure and would need surgery. Well, when a cat is seventeen, this means quite obviously that he is put down.

As for moving…we’re done…sort of. We have all the actual stuff moved over and all thats left is a little unpacking and cleaning of the old appartment. Actually, all my stuff was moved last Thursday, and for the last week we’ve been moving load after load of Jason’s stuff. My stuff was also unpacked and put away last Thursday, so all we’ve been doing is unpacking Jason’s CRAP! My fuse is getting shorter and shorter because he refuses to get rid of ANYTHING…I won’t go into detail, but normal people just don’t keep this kind of garbage. Also, I thought that moving in to this place would make a more egalitarian roomate situation, because we moved in at the same time, instead of me moving into his place last time. Well, nooooope! Again, I don’t have time to describe the crap he says to me, but I’ll just say that although I’m paying half the rent, I only feel like a guest in his home.

That being said…I am happier than EVER in our new home. Although I made it sound bad, we are completely in love with our new place and all I want to do is spend every waking moment enjoying the amazing atmosphere of our little place. I can’t describe how much I love it there, and we’re especially excited about decorating the outside of our house for Christmas! We may be here for many many years to come.

Work…well…work is horrible as always, it just seems to get in the way of everything else going on in life. However, with the rest of my life feeling as though I’m floating in space not knowing what direction I’m going, I try to count on work to be the one thing I can do with my eyes closed. It represents stability. Unfortunately, people keep quitting, people keep not showing up for work, and the person who took over from me is a disappointment (To me anyways, his head is WAY up our manager’s ASS!). So, even work is a source of stress, because I’m continually having to take over my old duties when all I want to do is be a pee-on

Yoga…I don’t know how that is…its the fartheset down on my list of priorities, so it has been getting skipped lately. I’m just so busy that at least one thing had to give, and yoga had to be it. I’ll return to it soon enough.

Singing lessons! ACK! What can I say except pure terror at the though that there’s only about three weeks until the recital and I’m nowherhe NEAR being prepared. I’m very afraid that I will be making a fool out of myself. We had a master class and I had to sing in front of people (who were all amazing singers) and I definately wasn’t good. I know I haven’t been doing this for long, but if there’s one thing I’m a perfectionist in, its music. So, not being the best at something musical is traumatizing. I refuse to quit though, I’ve taken that route out in life WAY too many times. In fact I’m just about to go and practice for a little while. Perhaps it will simply be humbling to get up on stage and try this. If thats the only lesson I get out of this, then so be it!

School…Somehow I fit school into all this, and somehow I’m doing okay. I didn’t do so good in an exam today, but it wasn’t worth many marks, so I’m not really stressed out about it. I’m doing extremely well in that class already. I do have three more midterms in the next few days.

Sorry I seem so distant everyone. With this much on my mind, trying to fit everything in and give everything one hundred pecent, I find myself becoming super flaky and unable to perform the simplest mundane tasks. I’m always thinking three days ahead of what is actually going on in front of me.

Unfortunately, a day off from everything doesn’t seem to be anywhere in the future, unless I quit my job. Once school’s done I will probably be working every single day for a month. Including Christmas day.

Okay, if you made it this far…thanks for listening…and have a good day!

It feels nice to be back into the swing of things. I forgot how much I enjoyed simply sitting down and expressing myself. Even if the grammar is bad, the spelling is gastly (I’m even too lazy for spell checkers), or nothing makes even slight sense, I still feel as though I’m leaving a mark on the world, miniscule or not. If someone out there is reading this, then it means I’ve done what I’ve come here to do.

That’s only one percent of why I write here. I’m pretty darn sure that 99% of the reason is free therapy. If you think about it, its practically like psychoanalysis (okay, a very simplified version), in that I sit down and let my brain spew forth whatever it is feeling; long rambling free association. Truly I believe that I’ve grown as a person and have learned about myself - deeply - because of this therapy. I know that what draws me to do this is the mental exhabitionist in me that loves to have people looking at my brain…or sometimes simply simply viewing the world as I do.

Anyways, its boring to free associate about writing in my journal. If you are reading this than its likely that you have one too and know exactly what I’m talking about. So, instead I suppose I’ll talk a little about my day.

I moved stuff from the appartment to the house…

What? Did you think it was going to be absolutely fascinating. Its true, I’ve become so busy on the mundane level that the mental level is suffering. When I do any mental work, its basically just me shoving definitions and concepts in it from whichever text book is in front of me.

I miss reading books, I miss going for coffe or movies whenever I want to. I miss not having a new plate passed to me every time I finish eating off one. However, I am super amazed at how my coping skills are improved, and really, its coping skills that I’m gaining. That is the true lesson I think university gives you. They throw hundreds of hours worth of work at you, and then expect it done while life crashes down around you. Eventually you reach a point where nothing could possibly stress you out because you’ve learned to just deal with it with no fuss or pain.

On a completely different note. I’ve decided to try out for a musical in January. Its called “The Gondoliers” by Gilbert and Sullivan. I’m not an amazing singer(yet), but I’d love to just BE in a musical. So, I’m going to just audition for a chorus part. This is twelve hours of extra work I’d be throwing into my week. However, it is simply something I want to do. I love how much I’ve been branching out and doing new things lately. I really feel physically, mentally and spiritually rewarded.

Now, if I could only get the marks in school that I need, life would be perfect!

After what seems like an eternity of not writing in my journal, sitting here and typing my thoughts is nearly painful. I find that the more I don’t write about what’s going on in my head, the more I tend to repress it. Of course, we all know what happens next….neurosis.

Okay, honestly, I don’t think I’m overly neurotic right now. In fact I feel quite the opposite. I’ve reached such an amazing calm amidst the chaos that is running my life right now, that I’m fearful that I’m doing something wrong.

I’m living in my sister’s house - housesitting - while I move all my stuff out of my one appartment, and into my new house. I’ve been spending upwards of hours a day moving box after box after box. Somewhere in there I’ve been somehow managing to keep completely (but barely) up to date with my readings. On top of this all, a co-worker of mine quit, and I’ve been forced to work three or more shifts a week. Don’t forget I have yoga, and singing lessons, and CCOP. These last three are what I’m now calling my “forced leisure”, because I absolutely adore every moment of them, but I also know that if I didn’t partake, I’d probably never simply….stop.

I know I wrote in my last journal (okay, I didn’t actually check, perhaps I just thought it) that I wasn’t going to write again until I had nothing to wine about. I was on a stress spiral that I sometimes find myself on. I tell myself I’m stressed out, so I get stressed out. Then I get even more stressed because I’ve become stressed, so I stress out about that, which in turn makes me even more stressed out. What I mean is that I think I’m stressed, therefore I am…and it gets worse and worse until eventually I hit what I call my “stress rock bottom”. Well, I hit that bottom and took a hard look at my life and simply tooka giant universal breath and let all the stress out as though it were air in a balloon.

My point is that I’m no longer whining. Instead, what was whining before has simply become my daily routine, and now I’m climbing my way back up the stress spiral. I’m no longer having “Charlie Brown days” because the little things that made it appear as though the world was against me have simply become little things again. My mental vew is no longer that it is unfare that the world is against me and keeps throwing crap at me. Instead I can look at the sky and yell, “IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT? I DARE YOU TO GIVE ME MORE!”.

A big part of it was realizing that my dream really is just a dream. I may or may not fulfill it, but I know that one way or another I’m going to end up where I’m supposed to be. I’ve learned to let go of the idea that is is the only possibilty in life. I’ve allowed other paths to be seen. Just because one path looks prettier, doesn’t mean it leads to my destiny. So, I’m still trying to be a nurse, but I’ve come to terms quite gently that this simply may not happen.

As for everything in my life alltogether. I wish, honestly, that I could give more effort to everything. I know that everything, even school sometimes, is getting only a half assed effort and that traumatizes the perfectionist in me. Especially my singing, because I know I could do so much better if I could simply find time to practice. I mean REALLY practice, whith focus on the music and keyboard in hands…rather than shouting at myself in the car.

Life is good…I think…but I know it could be better. And I know it will be better soon.