The muse is back, and that means I’m working on my book again, and the best thing about working on any piece of fiction is that you can fall into the created universe and hang out there for hours at a time. Which works well at this time of year, since this one is a sequel set about two months after its predecessor, which puts all the action in… July!

Damn, it’s so nice. My hero just got into a fight on the top of a train and man, he’s sweating and panting and dripping, his tie is like a dog’s tongue, his enemy just lost his grip on his gun because his hands were so slick, and the iron roof is hot enough to fry an egg. Say it with me now! “Ahhhh….waaaaaarmmmmth.”

A strange thing.

I found myself wanting to put off the review of Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’ till I had finished and digested Chaim Potok’s ‘The Chosen,’ which doesn’t make any sense in the minor, literary scale of things. What two books could be less related? (Oh, all right. Solzhenitsyns’ ‘Cancer Ward’ and Petronius’ ‘Satyricon.’ Hey?)

There was a point in ‘Blood’ where I put the book down and muted my music and had to take a couple of deep breaths. I felt an all-pervasive nausea that bordered on restlessness - you know how you feel if you have the flu and are completely flattened and weak, but you still feel queasy and therefore jittery, knowing that walking around could settle your stomach. And I suddenly remembered a brief conversation I’d had with a friend circa 2001 about this book, long before any film kerfuffle. Something like the five minutes between classes:

“I tried to read that book I think four times. I’d borrow it from the library and try it and give up.”
“Why?” I was really curious. This was a guy I liked and whose taste I trusted. And didn’t Capote write ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’? “Did it get boring?”
“No.”
“Did it just get, like, too intense?”
“No. It’s hard to describe.”
“Where exactly did you stop?”
He shook his head.
“Was it at the same place each time or was it different? Like, did you keep getting further into it before you stopped?”
“No. It was at the same place.”
“Where?”
Another head shake.
“If I read it, would I stop at the same place?”
“Probably.”

Now I feel sure that I stopped exactly where he stopped. There’s always a point in horror movies (or at least there used to be, back before torture porn became the new black) where you know what tree or shack or ditch or car the killer is lurking within, and it cuts to the hero in another scene and you just want to scream out to him, “Don’t! Don’t! Jesus Christ!” And the book, it has that point too. When you get to it, you just feel an overwhelming urge to stop it there, not find out what happens next, not follow the investigation any further, not spend one more minute with the book, even though the terrible crime has been described already. You just don’t want the two to meet. Murderer and murderee.

But then take ‘The Chosen.’ I don’t think I can summarize it without making it sound painfully dull, but I suppose I could get away with quoting Larkin and just say, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” Two boys with father issues bond in New York. And that, to my mind, is why the two books had to be read together. One has stuff happening. So much stuff! So many cities, so many victims, so many investigators! Millet fields! Mexican brothels! And the other one, it just seems to sit there and smolder so that weeks or years later you’ll find yourself comparing many things in your life to the ideas in the book. Capote wrote a book about the life of man. Potok wrote a book about the life of the mind. (I’m drawn to these books in agony, knowing that there aren’t enough hours in the day to complete the necessary background reading. Saul Bellow’s ‘Ravelstein’ - which I’d summarize boringly as “A good man discusses the life of a great man” - requires thirteen shelves of books to get all the references, allusions, and jokes. It is a priceless book. You will glow when it ends. When I first read it I found myself wanting to ‘buttonhole strangers on the streets to be certain they know it’s around.’)

So without spoiling the ending of either book, I must say: Read them both. You don’t have to read them together, but do yourself a favour and read them both. Both say, “It means something to be a human being.” Both say, “It must mean something, because we do so much hand-wringing about the condition of humanity.” Both say, “Genius goes a couple of ways, you know?” Both celebrate and execrate death, which is something modern writers like to do but in which they often display a stunning lack of talent. Books written by men of a certain generation have a certain set of influences; sometimes a single context-free paragraph is enough for you to say, “This author grew up during the Great Depression.” Or the second world war or whatever.

Both books forced me to think about what I’ve been doing with my own life (as all good books do). Am I trying to live in the world, where things happen? Or am I trying to imitate a boy I once knew, who lived in his head? No, taste in books doesn’t prove anything. I like both types. But it’s very much one of those cases where what you’re good at isn’t necessarily what you are. Take the seasons, for instance. I love summer madly and passionately (and unrequitedly) and I spend every summer running around river valleys with binoculars, or frying on sidewalks not wearing much clothing, or overheating at festivals, or shaking from sleepless, oven-hot nights in one apartment or other. Whereas I loathe winter and avoid it as much as possible (it can take 90 minutes to complete a six-block journey on the Plus-15, just FYI). Yet look at my body - small, short-limbed, and compact, with as much subcutaneous fat as a seal, able to handle temperatures down to -45 without frostbite or chapping, adept at storing a roasty core in the ugliest blizzard. Summer is what I love. Winter is what I’m good at. Much like many other areas in my life. (Loyal readers will be able to name at least three without blinking.) I used to proudly consider myself sort of a hothouse orchid, when in reality I suspect I may be more like a tough little prairie crocus, which was often swapped for toilet paper leaves by native pranksters to induce hideous itching in friends’ behinds. Well, former friends.

Ohh, the night is growing late.

I’m going to go scrub out the tub. I think I’ve become addicted to the sickly smell of that all-purpose Lysol stuff in green apple scent.

I met with my psychiatrist again this morning and talked him into taking me off the drug. There actually wasn’t much convincing to do, honestly. My brilliant strategy was threefold - a sweeping pincer movement with, uh, one extra pincer.

1. “I usually have heart palpitations once every six weeks if I avoid all caffeine and excessive sugar. Since I started this drug, I’ve had them approximately every 48 hours.”
“Why didn’t you go to the ER?” he asked, astounded. I explained that chest pain is my gold standard for that kind of thing, not the palpitations, which make me gray out and feel nauseous and fluttery and dizzy but don’t actually hurt. “Has this drug ever produced cardiovascular side effects?” No, he said, but it’s a pretty new drug. Sensing victory, I strode on.

2. When I was on the half-dose, I was sleeping twenty hours a day. But when I started the full dose, I started feeling extremely jittery before bedtime and then dropping into what felt like a deeply unnatural sleep. Worse, during the last two weeks of the full dose, I’ve started to have… I don’t even know what you call them. Last Friday when it happened, I was prepared with a pad and pen by my bed, and was able to write it down, and brought it into the meeting. It said:

Cactus caratacus character cataracts catarrh attar catapult coracle carrack carrageenan character attack

But picture that as a solid chunk of words dropping into your head, or not even your head, your actual bed - picture it as a physical thing. It’s like a coiled up snake made of depleted uranium that swiftly uncoils as soon as it hits and starts slithering at Indy-500 speeds through your brain knocking grey matter out of the way until the words take up everything and you’re gibbering in anxiety and have to run out of bed and sleep on the couch. It even happened twice one night (January 4th). And what the fuck, you know? I’m pretty sure a couple of those aren’t even words. I asked Dr. G about it and he admitted it was ‘unusual.’ I said, “Unusual? ‘Unusual’? For words to keep me up? Sir, I believe that’s a sign of impending brain death.” He said I was overreacting. I wish he could spend just one night under a heavy fire of words and then he’d see what I mean. I don’t think I’m describing it very accurately here.

3. It’s not like I’m going off the drugs cold turkey (actually, I am because I don’t want to taper to the half-dose and be sedated all the dang time, but don’t tell Dr. G). I’m going off the drugs but onto a regular exercise program and onto cognitive-behavioural therapy from ‘The Feeling Good Handbook,’ which a couple of people now, including medical professionals, have recommended to me and which I finally got. I’d rather be myself and regulation nuts than drugged-up nuts (see #2).

Zo! I promise the next bunch of blog entries will have nothing to do with mental illness. I mean, I read ‘In Cold Blood’ the other day and that deserves a book review; my parents are coming up for the weekend; I’m doing a whirlwind trip to Edmonton on Wednesday for an interview. There’s lots else going on in my life besides my wacked-out neurotransmitters.

With the Chemical Brothers and Corel Photo-Paint texture fill!

Oh damn, maybe I do need a new man.

The last man I had is probably lolling in a heap of nameless blondes right now, sipping Frangelico from a thermal mug and drawling, “The resurgence of theatre really is a pipe dream, isn’t it?” to some rapt English major. (Yeah, in a basement. I still win. Don’t I? By virtue of being closer to the heavens? That’s how it worked in ‘The Time Machine,’ I thought.)

Things I bought today:

1. 1 wedge Brie de Meaux
2. 1 round Petit Reblochon de Savoie lait cru
3. 1 bar Bernard Callebaut chocolate, milk with hazelnuts
4. ‘James and the Giant Peach,’ by Roald Dahl
5. ‘Mr. Pye,’ by Mervyn Peake
6. ‘How Do You Go to the Bathroom in Space?’ by William R. Pogue
7. 1 Crave cupcake (Princess, chocolate)
8. ‘Planet Earth,’ delivered from Amazon.

1 and 2 are to be eaten with 8, since they require both hands. However, 3 may be consumed with 4, 5, or 6 since only one hand would be needed. 7 may be eaten after 1 or 2, since I consider either of those to have enough calories to comprise a very hearty dinner and to make up for my skipping lunch. Alternatively, 7 could be saved for tomorrow’s breakfast. Things I buy have to go together. Obviously.

PS. Haven’t read 6 yet, but in flipping through it found this gem:

“65. What would happen if your glove came off during a space walk?

“This is very unlikely to happen. The gloves were attached with a double locking mechanism, and it was easy to check that they were on properly (similarly with the helmet). It required a concentrated effort to unlock and remove the gloves and helmet.

“However, if a glove came off, all the air would leak out and the astronaut would die.”

Happy birthday, you sexy beast. When you become bored with Iman (and you know you will - I’m sure her scrawny imperiousness will grow tiresome), I’ll still be waiting here for you. Sure, it’s cold in Canada. But I know how to keep a boy warm.

Love, Premee.

I finished reading Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘The Book of Imaginary Beings’ last n… this morning as the sun was coming up and was filled to the gills with the holy fire, the old muse, the one that sends me out to buy even more Sakura Micron 0.25 mm (0.1) black drafting pens, of which number you can already imagine I own but can never find, and even more sketchbooks, God bless you Grand & Toy. It’s certainly one of the odder books I’ve read - it’s certainly almost unique in my book collection, since it’s a nonfiction book of fictional animals - and for those of you familiar with Borges’ stuff, his quiet wisdom and quiet humour is very much in evidence in this book. Which isn’t to say that it’s unfunny. But the main thing about it is that Peter Sis did some illustrations for this edition, not the full whack of imaginary beings by any means, and that left the opportunity for me to complete drawings of beings such as the Youwarkee, the Zataran, or the T’ao T’ieh:

‘The existence of this creature is unknown to poets and mythology alike, but all of us, at one time or another, have come upon it, in the corner of a capital or the center of a frieze, and have felt a slight shudder of revulsion. Orthrus, the dog that guarded the cattle of the three-bodied Geryon (and that Hercules quickly dispatched), had two heads and one body; the T’ao T’ieh inverts this image, and is even more horrible, for its huge head is attached to one body on the right and another on the left. It generally has six legs, since its forelegs serve both bodies. Its head may be that of a dragon, a tiger, or a person; historians of art call it the “ogre-mask.” It is a monster of form, inspired by the devil of symmetry in the imagination of sculptors, potters, and ceramicists. Fourteen hundred years before the Christian era, during the Shang dynasty, it already figured on ritual bronzes.

‘”T’ao-T’ieh” means “glutton.” The Chinese paint it on porcelains in order to “warn against self-indulgence.”‘

Dah! That’s so good. Where’s my sketchbook? It doesn’t matter anyway, the apartment is covered in stuff. The attempt to organize my closet caused some kind of quantum disturbance in the universe, I don’t know what you call the reverse of a black hole, but there turned out to be about fifteen cubic metres of stuff packed into a four cubic metre closet, and all of that stuff minus my two cubic metres of actual clothing is now spread out in my living room. And on the kitchen table. Plus I found a huge HMV bag full of books that slammed into my shins at unusually high speed when I dragged it loose from the stack of event t-shirts in the back of the disturbance. On the other hand, my closet now looks fantastic. It’s so clean and organized that there’s no way I can move from the apartment now. Not now after all that work.

I also started scrapbooking, kind of, with a big leatherbound ledger I bought at Winners which I think was meant to be a photo album, it has onion-leaf pages over the real thick, creamy bond sheets, and I bought some glue, and I’ve got all these photos and ticket stubs and business cards and visitor guides and drawings and fortune-cookie sayings and etc etc ad infinitum, I just thought it might be better to get it into book format since it’d be easier to store than a shoebox. Of course I lost interest after two pages and wandered off to eat some homemade coleslaw (and, I suspect, no small amount of glue) and watch the Transformers movie again, and then I lost interest in that and started to read Norman Mailer’s ‘The Castle in the Forest,’ which I picked up on sale at McNally’s on Friday.

It’s strange when somebody writes the book you simply assumed you were going to write. When I heard that he had written it, I wished extramultipleplus doom upon Mr. Mailer and his thieving mind (and then he died, oops). But anyway, I’m on page 241 and I already wrote this part of the book, I had pretty much committed Kershaw’s tour de force ‘Hitler’ books to memory years ago, the novelisation of Hitler’s early life was all there in potentia - his beekeeping dad, his smothering mother, his childhood war games, all that, all the rest, and then this book comes out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a worthwhile read, every page drips with evil and malice and even I, hardcore Hitler nut that I am, was squirming uneasily for the first fifty pages, you should buy it. The only side effect so far is a low-level nausea and a tendency to put the book down about once every chapter so I can take a hot shower, which is really slowing things down.

I owe a bunch of people e-mails, I’ll be sure to get on that this week. All of a sudden I’ve got so much energy that my eyeballs are vibrating at twenty kilohertz. This wasn’t what I ordered when I went in to get help for my ‘depression.’ Hopped-Up Premee isn’t any more what I wanted than Doped-Up Premee was. Can I just have Premee Original back, please? Also, I heard that ‘Cloverfield’ doesn’t have a monster at all and the previews are really going to let us down when the movie comes out. Somebody confirm or deny that, yo. “Holy crap,” Al said when I came home for the holidays, “you need a man.” “Shaddup,” I said, “nobody likes a smartass.” Anyway, what’s he talking about. I’ve got loads of men. My shelves are overflowing with them. Do you know, I had a dream a few nights ago about a boy. It wasn’t even a romance dream or anything, we weren’t taking each other’s shirts off in a candlelit room. He was just treating me well - just being nice to me, just nice. It’s gotten that bad. I’m dreaming about it is how bad it’s gotten. And I just remembered a day in Saskatoon that I had a raspberry bismarck hemhorrage all over my cargo pants when I was going to meet a friend for the Taste of Saskatchewan festival, wasps followed me around all evening and you know my phobia, but I remember listening to the band at sunset and being hilariously, transparently, ethereally happy, genuinely happy, and I remember that I used to feel like that fairly often back in the day. I don’t get that any more. I get chemically induced jitters, or alcohol-boosted cheer, but I’m never really happy. Jesus, when does natural selection kick in anyway?

The break was excellent, thanks to everyone who hosted parties, organized events, fed me dinner, and took me out to brunch! The only things I regret are not whipping out my camera at the Breakfast Club reunion meal, and also at the bile-filled family dinner at Sorrentino’s. And now, a retrospective best-of:

Me and Kim at Julie and Warren’s condo at the pre-New-Xmas party dinner.

Kim and Dave cuddling prior to the big fight.

Ryan enjoying Toto’s ‘Africa’ and his last shot.

Rob and Eva generally looking cute on New Year’s Eve.

“From this day, I pledge my hand, my life, my heart, my future to you and only you… forever.”

(Before I start my New Year’s resolutions, can I just say that my brother and I always used to judge our new year by our first impression when we woke up on January 1. So if it was sunny, the year would be bright; if it was a blizzard, we were in for stormy times, etc. This morning I woke up abruptly and grouchily to a wrong number on my celphone at 8 a.m. Thus 2008 has already been christened as an incredibly rude year - from the manner of my awakening.)

My New Year’s Resolutions

1. Cook more for myself, rather than relying on the holy trinity of McDonald’s, Subway, and Uptown Sushi.

2. Work for at least half an hour a day on my latest book, even if it’s just editing. Say, to plug up humungous plot holes.

3. Get at least an hour of aerobic exercise a day. Need those endorphins, people!

4. Find a job that’s challenging, stimulating, suited to my temperament and education, that makes use of my abilities and strengths, that will downplay my weaknesses, that won’t make me work more than about fifty hours a week, and won’t make me go to Manitoba.

5. Re-learn French, just in case I get stuck on an elevator with a really hot guy who turns out to be from Quebec City.

6. Learn German, in case the hot guy from #5 turns out to be from Bonn.

7. Get at least eight and no more than ten hours of sleep a night.

8. Purge my wardrobe of everything ripped, faded, holey, skanky, skin-tight, dowdy, shrunken, tacky, and oversized.

9. Always use the strap when I’m playing with my Wii.

10. Get all my voodoo dolls of friends and family out of sight and not use them more than once a month.

How about everyone else, are you bothering with new year’s resolutions? Are they the same ones you make year after year or are they usually different? How long do you tend to keep them? How do you maintain accountability?