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Reforming Bad Habits
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 843
And that now I should be setting about reforming bad habits, getting back into the routines of meditating, diet, exercise, writing, the new routine of crystal wrapping. There is time, after all, and the excuse of "the hell of other people" is no longer valid.
But it's never quite so easy as you think, once those habits take hold. For example, the inner monologue, it's largely disappeared, formerly rich - in doubt, anxiety, anger, outrage, indignation, but also inspiration and wit, and pass a sober day and wonder where it's gone. A drink, two, and there it is again. I've reset my baseline, and not in a good way.
And the exercise - easy enough when I'm working, or on a mission to gather some rocks, explore some caves or mountains, but now, here, in the perpetual poverty of EI/CERB and rationed gas, food, well, not so. Winter is not my season.
But, nose to the grindstone, a little over two months (guaranteed) left, and I'd better get my shit together...
2 Foreigners and their 4 Pets
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 608
2 Foreigners have come to visit, giants, huge beards, covered in runic tattoos. Norse, maybe, or Quebecois, they've thick, unidentifiable accents, and they have 4 small pets between them, and they are wrapped up for the children (not mine), one bends down and pulls off the wrapping. The two in the center, yappy cute puppies of the breeds favoured by old ladies. The one on the left, a tortoise, and it's head comes out of it's shell, poised upon a long neck it catches me with it's eye, a smart, intelligent eye.
And, finally, the last one on the right is unwrapped, it's some sort of giant flattened rat, I have no clue what it is, and I'm returning from this meadow back to the house, home, but not my house, the kids have gone off to play with the animals, parents, my father, people, this house like a stage with sets that roll in and out...
***
My dreams lately, anxiety dreams, waiters nightmares, tables coming in, new job, being lost and utterly confused, not knowing what it is I'm to be doing...this is the first one worth writing down, and it isn't much, but resuming the habit will probably breed more interesting dreams.
A Very Stormy Christmas
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Stormy
- Hits: 581
Meanwhile, Christmas Day and I have to run to town to pick up Stormy. His past couple of scrolls had been bleating protestations that he didn't want to come, was afraid of icy roads, didn't like the drive, was busy, in pain, etc, etc. Nothing like having to put yourself out and then plead with your guest for the pleasure of their company. Anyways, pick him up, drive circles around his neighborhood for half an hour, he's looking to drop off a satchel full of scrolls and gifts to someone, he knows where they live, around here, so in circles again and again until he confesses that - in fact - he doesn't, and so we head out.
I've invited Chris and Ken as well, and taken the liberty of setting up my antique typewriter with a page from my novel half typed inside: "Page 236 Chapter CVXII DUNGEONS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN ... Ken lay against Chris's chest twirling his chest hairs, "lets do that again..." he suggests, "This time YOU be on top..." and so on for half a page.
Ken doesn't show, family plans, but Chris falls for the bait. "Yeah, yeah" I tell him...."I'm big into the homeo-erotica....it's not YOU and KEN, I mean, they're just names..." but he's properly disturbed.
Stormy, meanwhile, sets himself up on the sofa and begins prying out his Xmas contributions. 3 Cans of Tuna. A box of cookies. A sausage roll from 7/11. A large tin of mixed nuts, foil pulled off and then reattached with a rubber band - "to stop them from falling out...you know, the foil is never very secure..."
I empty them into a bowl.
A bunch of salted (and probably licked) chick-peas, a couple of half-eaten cookies, 2 cashews, 3 salt-water toffee's and a silica desiccation packet.
I'm pretty sure this isn't how that can of mixed nuts was supposed to work, but, out here...
Set them on the table for all to enjoy.
Meanwhile, Stormy's unbundling himself, 4 coats, carried and thrown onto the bed, he's getting comfortable on the sofa...
"You wouldn't mind if I used your bath, would you? My back...."
This, it's not an uncommon thing out here, a surprising number of people - myself frequently included, don't have access to running or hot water, a bathtub or shower. But Stormy, Stormy does, and I'm wondering what the fuck he's filled his own tub with, probably those expanding little foam animals you give to kids, or Sea-Monkeys, or god knows what, I know the few times I've been over he's forbidden me to use it.
"I brought my own soap...and after-shave...smell this...it's not the best..."
Run the bath, he checks into it. After a couple of minutes he's calling for help, look at Chris, but Stormy, he's my friend, my problem, and Chris is pretty quick to put it back on me. I shouldn't have started that novel...
It's just his laundry, a big pile, I wouldn't mind - I mean, there is a washer and dryer here? If I did his laundry...
And for sure, he stinks, it's a wretched smell that permeates his apartment, his bags of scrolls, it's intolerable, and so, sure, I'll do the laundry.
He appears, an hour later, virtually unchanged but spritzing himself down with rancid cologne, "You don't happen to have a T-Shirt I could borrow?", quickly followed by "I need some socks", and "When will my clothes be out of the laundry?".
He's heaping absurdity onto absurdity, this taking him on for Xmas, it's preposterous, outrageous, but he's in fine form, enjoying himself, the view, the sofa, getting, I'm afraid, far too comfortable. It's recalling the kids story "If you give a mouse a cookie", I'm going to have to find a copy, rewrite / illustrate a few of the pages and pass it back to him...
Dinner passes and having been regaled with a few too many Stormy stories, all of which I've heard dozens of times before but they're here recanted for Chris's benefit, and Stormy's getting sleepy, "I'll just sleep on the sofa....It's comfortable here...." and bloody hell, NO, we're going back TONIGHT it's been Christmas LONG ENOUGH.
All in all a Very Stormy Christmas.
Views from the deck
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
- Hits: 481
And, for as long as it lasts it's paradise. Never the same view twice.
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