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like a clock with no hands

My internal clock is all fucked up today. I drifted in and out of sleep in my recliner last night while reading my book, and didn’t pass out all the way until about 4am.

I woke up to a (wonderful) phone call this morning around nine (I think), and then fell back asleep until about quarter-to-two int he afternoon, about eight hours past my usual wake-up-time.

I still can’t hold very much food down. Today my big conquest was managing to melt a couple pieces of cheese on a bagel and mow on that for about sixty minutes.

I used to always wonder how people who lived toward the polar extremes managed to not go absolutely insane having six months of darkness, or six months of sunshine, or whatever. I remember thinking that you’d stop believing that every day was a “new” day, that if you had a shitty night on a friday, since the sun never set or rose again, you’d feel just as shitty on Saturday morning, lik enothing had changed.

My mind was never made up about it, I guess, or at least,

as you might say,

things change.

Now, I look north to the Yukon with an envious eye. When days and nights blend together, anxiety doesn’t get the chance to set in over and over again. I felt calmer than usual today, opening the blinds after being awake already for a few hours, and already seeing that the sun was mostly set in the sky.

I don’t know, though. Don’t take my advice. My internal time is all fucked up and I feel eerily like a clock with no hands.

back in the desert

Woke up in the middle of the night last night and got sick a bunch of times over the course of a few hours. Had to make a gametime decision about getting on my flight back to Phoenix or trying to find a later takeoff.

Waited in line at the Canada/US border for 90 minutes and finally got to Detroit Metro airport, only to find my plane delayed for another hour.

I’ve been on a diet of apple juice and mandarin oranges (and I”m about to make some chicken noodle soup). I hate being sick, but it least it held itself off until after Christmas.

It was good to see my friends in Windsor. We went out to our favourite tavern and did what we used to do on a daily basis back when I was strictly a Canuck: played video games and drank cheap beer.

Got to see a bit of snowfall on Christmas Eve, but most of the snow was already on the ground when I got into town.

Went and saw the Lions win a game. Detroit still stinks just the way I like it.

I don’t think some of you will believe me when I write this,

but there is something frankly relaxing about driving through dead factory towns west of Detroit’s downtown.

So, that’s how I spent my holidays. I miss it back home already.

home for the holidays

In a few hours I’ll catch a cab to Phoenix Sky Harbor airport and hop on an overnight flight to Detroit (rock city, as it were) and cross the border into Canada to spend the holidays with my family and friends.

It’s been six months since I’ve moved out to the desert, and as the day goes by, I find myself getting genuinely nervous about going home again. I spent twenty-three years in varying large houses all within a 5-mile radius of eachother, and now I’ve setup shop in a two-bedroom condominium in Scottsdale.

Very little is familiar about this place, but I’ve been trying to work myself in gradually. Going to the dentist in this country is a lot more of a hassle (ps: got a root canal last thursday. Felt just dandy)

And, you know, lots of other things. I do my own groceries now and frankly, to make them seem less awkward, I try to time myself (I can do a week’s worth, from door to door, in about 8 minutes flat on a low-aisle-traffic day) and beat previous bests. There are all sorts of public-awkwardnesses that I can afford myself in a city where I really don’t know anybody outside of work (which has been absolutely fantastic).

So, I’m going back home for six days after being away for six months. I’m starting to worry if my accent has changed (I’m sensitive to my pronounciation of “about”), and I’m not sure it’s even dawned on me that I’ll have to cut back on the amount of time I walk around in my underpants.

So, here’s to a Merry Christmas. Bon Voyage and all that. If I don’t manage to post from Windsor, I’ll be back in Phoenix by the 27th.