So, back to the grind. Well, not even the 'real' grind - it's still shutdown. But back to the plant and to the gossip and intrigues. It's so hard not to get caught up in the almost 'mob mentality' of gossip and such. When you don't like a person, or find fault with them, and someone else starts to complain about them, it's almost impossible not to chime in your own story or opinion. Definitely something I need to work on.

Not much to say about today - definitely not one of the most exciting ones. It is, however, a wonderfully sunny day - the snow is melting all over, and you can smell the heat inside the building at work, as it beats upon the windows.

No word yet on the house for rent. Still trying really hard not to be too hopeful. But it's hard. Half of the enjoyment of life is the anticip... pation of what's coming. Of course, the same can be said of half of the misery of life, too.

Well, I should go pay some attention to the cat before he starts eating the houseplants out of spite for being ignored. Happy Wednesday.

More travelling - today to Toronto to visit our glass (jars) supplier, the tech centre, and two warehouses. With the exception of the glass company, not an exciting day.

But the glass company just about made up for the lack of excitement. That place is incredible! Slugs of molten glass shooting about like something from a science fiction movie. And the heat in some places! It's one thing to know that making glass means high temperatures, and another to actually see the flames shooting out of the little window, and feel the heat buffeting you from the furnace.It was a good time.

The car ride wasn't bad, but it was a car ride with six other people - I feel drained right about now. Thank goodness for leftovers. One other positive thing about today - a friend from work told me about a house in Welland a friend of hers is looking to rent out for a good price - this could be promising. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high - I'm getting tired of disappointment. But it sounds perfect for me. No! Hopes must be low...

Found out that my papa's memorial luncheon went well. People were talking about him - memories and stories. Makes me really wish I'd gone, now. I never really got to know him as a person other than 'my crabby grandfather'. I know that there must have been more to him, but he was so unhappy that it was difficult to learn much about him by speaking to him. I'm hoping that going through the old pictures will be enlightening - I'm really looking forward to that. I hope that I can do something good with the photos - make them really usable for everyone. Sitting in boxes like they were, they weren't of much use.

Well, I'm going to play with the movies I took today. I'm hoping I can string them together into one - maybe put some music with them, since all the sound is is a big roar in the background.

Now what kind of music is good for a glass factory?

Today we went on a 'field trip'. We went to the tank farm in Delhi to see how things are done there - not a bad time. It's kind of nice to get out of the plant and see other things with your work people. And tomorrow we're going to Toronto for another field trip - to our glass supplier and the tech centre.

Ain't life a blast?

Anyway, had a good weekend, overall - a couple of friends over Friday evening for pasta, chocolate fondue, and goofing around. Just about all the rest of the weekend was spent on the computer, playing games, and watching tv. Ick. But cheap!

And having people over made me have to give the house at least a cursory cleaning - it's really so much pleasanter now that I can walk in a straight line through the living room, and don't have overflowing garbage cans of junk mail. Must do this more often.

Talking to John on Trillian right now. Nice to catch up - and talking with John is always interesting - an intriguing combination of connection and complete dissociation. My best friend - same sense of humour, lots of inside jokes and all, but he's also one of my friends who seems to dash all over the world. I never know where half these people are. But it's all good - at least I can effectively live vicariously through them - Brussels, Vienna, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Mongolia. Man.

BLOGGER
Here's something I should have thought of yesterday - people who are allergic to things should know what those things look like.

I spent some time outside today, pulling these massive weeds out of the front yard. Getting pollen, dirt and other assorted 'outside' detritus on my face, in my clothes, in my hair. Suddenly, and without warning (except that little niggling 'What are you - stupid?' voice in the back of my head) I started suffering the most massive allergy attack of my personal history. Sneezing, eyes pouring years, throat swollen and raw. Luckily, I was wearing contacts, which seem to have prevented my usual worst symptom of itchy-like-hell eyes. After I came inside and recovered for a little while, I looked up what I'd been handling. I was pulling ragweed and carrying it around my yard!

I deserve what I get.

Interesting. I look back and see that the last time I posted anything, it was the day before we started our 12-hour shifts. And now it's only a few days until we go back to our 8's. Mixed feelings. No more 4 days off at a time, but also no more stretches of days when I feel like I don't even live in my apartment. This last time I came off my 4 on, I felt like I'd been away. I missed my cat. I couldn't remember putting things where I found them. Just odd.

This stretch is another boring, nothing going on kind of 4 off. Today is laundry and groceries, and maybe some more Buffy season 3 watching. My goal is to not turn on the TV until the evening. Stupid box is sucking my life away. My fault. I actually made a list of other things I can do. I seem to have this need to be perpetually entertained lately. I can't seem to do anything without something going on to amuse me.

The seasons are turning again and my favourite time is back. I love the autumn so much that it causes me to get all gooshy inside when I step out into a particularly perfect fall day. The smells, the sounds, and most of all the sights. The sun shines less harshly, the wind feels playful, as if it, too, is winding down after a hectic season, and is now glad of the time to play and move about in the coolness, flinging leaves about in cheerful patterns.

My heaven will be mostly autumn.

But there will also have to be the first snowy winter evening when the silence is palpable and tactile. When every sound seems amplified by the silence and by the perfect, still blanket that covers all the ugliness of the dying year. When the snow lies in small heaps, taking away all harsh edges and corners and leaving a smooth, softer world.

And a spring day when you can feel the earth stirring, awakening in smells of earth and water, with the first buds appearing and every crocus a miracle. When you don't know how to dress, because you feel the warmth as a delicious contrast that makes it seem balmy and comforting and invites you to shed your layers of wool and let your skin feel the sun's rays.

And a summer day full of warmth, when the air smells dry and carries on it the scents of dried grass and the songs of the crickets and the frogs swell into an outlandish and delightful cacophony of sound as darkness falls.

Here's just a thought that I may or may not expand upon later:

The 'Endads' and 'Adbuster' pop-ups that I get 30 of every day are a lot like the thing where an organised crime guy will approach businesses in the neighbourhood offering 'protection'.

Another sleepy Saturday.

I'm going to be starting a 7pm to 7 am shift Sunday night, so I stayed up very late last night, then slept in until 12:30 today. Ick. Too much sleep and too much tv makes Kirstie something something.

But I'm hoping today won't be a total washout. I'm going to go return last night's movies and maybe pick up another, and maybe I'll do some grocery shopping.

Yes, I live on the edge.

The edge of the middle of nowhere. There's really nothing else to do here, besides leave. Maybe I should sign up for ceramics classes or something. I have to DO something that gets me out of this house.

I stumbled across a blog that I find intriguing. It's a guy who's introspective and quotes people like Kierkegaard and C.S. Lewis and (as far as I can tell from the little I've read so far) is a Christian who appears to be struggling with making that a part of his daily life. I must read more.

I got to a point fairly recently where I thought I was being too introspective - where, whenever I took some time to think deeply about anything, it involved myself, my feelings, my development as a human being. Now, I think I've gone too far in the direction of just not thinking at all abstractly. Ah, well, to strive to be better is to live, is it not?

Okay, so - I lost my temper today at work and I yelled at someone. I apologized, but he's the kind of person who won't accept that as enough.

It's REALLY bothering me. First, that I blew it like that, and second - well, I'm having trouble coming up with second, actually. It bothers me that I lost my temper, that I said something I shouldn't have, that I did it in front of other people, that everyone in the plant will have their opinion of me changed (because you just know it's going to get around)...

This will keep me up tonight.

And that might be what bothers me most!! Why?!? Why am I so _bad_ at dealing with things like this? I've lost sleep for days when faced with other confrontations. It's absolutely ridiculous that it should affect me like this. My stomach is in knots and it has been all day.

Dumb.

I just got back from seeing the apartment in Binbrook. For some reason, this has slightly depressed me.

I feel like I'm in a hopeless situation. I'm really at a point in my life when I would like a house, but I can't save up while I'm paying off OSAP.

Man, I wish I were better with money. Then I could save up my down payment, and just find a bloody house, instead of this nitpicky, moving from apartment to apartment thing. I'm getting really tired of mvoing every year. It costs a lot of money!

The apartment was pretty good, but I'm not in love with it. For one thing, it's an upstairs apartment, with all that implies. Good - I get the heat from downstairs. Bad - I have to cart everything up a flight of stairs every time I go home. Bad - it's a 26 minute drive (well, 24 minutes maybe) - but that's also good. Good - it's only 10 minutes away from the edge of Hamilton. Bad - it's on a busy street. Bad - there is no yard that I would have access to - just a little strip of grass along the house, beside the gravel driveway. Good - the landlord people seem really, really nice and responsible and open to help in any way. Bad - need $1200 for first and last.

Maybe I should just stick here for another while, and see what comes up. Maybe I'll get a different job. Maybe a house will come up for rent in my price range. I don't know.

Grr.

I just got home.

I went out to lunch with Rosalie and Marissa in St. Catharine's, then tooled all over the Niagara/Hamilton/Burlington region in quest of scrapbooking supplies. I want to do something good with my Paris and Belgium pictures. And after spending that much money on some very basic supplies, I'd better keep taking pictures.

Not a problem.

I also spotted an apartment for rent in Binbrook. It's 2 bedrooms, and the rent is $600/month plus utilities. It bears thinking about. I'm going to be going to see it tomorrow night. I think I'll bring the camera, so I can keep the details fresh.

It's such a hard decision - moving farther away from work seems so backward, but I really don't enjoy living in Dunnville. But will my life change by moving 25 minutes away? The only benefit will be being closer to my cell group - but we haven't even met in months!

But there are other advantages. I'll be closer to amenities - like movie theatres, video rental places, malls, stores etc. I'll have to keep thinking about it. There's a lot to consider. Including the whole rigarmarole of moving - giving notice, having everything moved, changing over utilities. And then I'll be spending more on gas, too. But hopefully less on heating.

I'll leave this decision until after I see the apartment. Maybe I'll love it - maybe I'll hate it. Either way, it will push me in some direction.

Same day, same hour, same chair.

Okay, so now I want to see what I can do with this. Can I put in pictures, for example?

Nope, guess not. Hmm. Idea less appealing. But not completely so. I wonder if there would be a way to do that. I'll have to look into it. But for now, this will do.

It's the start of another summer and I'm still at Bick's. The corporate axe is still swinging, and it's dripping from yesterday's crop. A big one - the plant manager. It kind of puts fear in your heart. But I think that my head is still too low to be removed by a wayward 'thwack'. And would I be terribly upset? Hard to say...yes.

While I would of course mourn the loss of income, it would energize me to find something new, something I enjoy, something where I don't have to check my brain at the door for fear of offending my boss.

Ah, here's something I really, really shouldn't get into. I wouldn't even really know where to start, thank goodness.

For now... for now I am just spending another Friday night at home, alone, about to watch a rented movie - Legally Blonde, at John's suggestion. I've been told to expect pink, but that it's fun. It took John's opinion to get me to watch it, I have to say. I really trust his opinion.

And I miss having a friend that I connect with in the way that he and I do. We don't connect in all ways - there are actually some issues that, when encountered, feel like we're driving over the lump in the road where they paved over the dead deer. But it's the little things - like the fact that he noticed that my signature has changed. Who else would EVER have noticed that, or known that it was true?

A lump in my throat and my eyes bright with unshed tears.

Gag.

But true.

Okay, so here it is.

I've been kind of intrigued by the idea of blogging, I have to admit. The thought of taking my personal musings and incidental thoughts and putting them out there for the world to see is a little scary, but somehow tempting at the same time.

I've just answered a knock at the door. It was two people from the little church across the street. They were doing a survey for their Sunday school. It kind of flopped after the first (and apparently key) question of 'Do you have any children under the age of 12?'. Since my answer was 'no', they apparently had nothing else to say or ask. Interesting. I'm not really interested in going to that church, mainly because it _is_ across the street. If any kind of uncomfortable situation erupts, they know where I am.

Yes. I am paranoid.

And I think that this would be a good time to admit, too, that my biggest fear may be confrontation. For some reason, an uncomfortable situation, a heated argument, hurt feelings - all are reasons to lose sleep, feel ill or be otherwise terribly stressed out. Don't really know why.

So, this seems to be starting out alright.

Who knows? Maybe someday I'll even make this blog public. :-)

It will require heavy editing, methinks.

Maybe.