FRESHLY DRAWN CACTAI!

Wednesday morning (otherwise known as Tuesday night)

Quarter to four in the morning at the middle of winter, and I'm sitting up at my sister's house pondering things my mother said. I'm thinking about taking a direction in my life, as I often do, but it's always an ethereal thing to think. There's never any substance to being vague in your mind. A vague and cloudy mind obscured by feelings of inadequacy and apathy. I decide it's time to write in my journal.

Red Shoe Diaries comes on a soundless fuzzy channel, but I decide to watch it anyway for the beautiful breasts, which I know, will be bouncing around soon. My run-on sentence reminds me of my sexy high-school English teacher's complaints about my writing. I handed in an assignment that lacked punctuation one day and she handed it back to me refusing to read it. A stripper gives some guy on TV head in the men's washroom and his girlfriend walks in.

I think briefly about how tired I am and I want to go to bed, but I really don't feel like it. I really want something other than what I have. I don't know what it is, but I never feel right about going to bed without it. Is it Love? just a partner? a sense of selfworth? A place of my own? knowledge? more seratonin? Videotape of a heroine addict drawing pictures of Cactai? I'm sure it could really be anything, and I'm sure I don't know what it is. Two women are making love in the shower on t.v. maybe that's it.

It's 5:30 now, and I'm blessed with another episode of Red Shoe Diaries. The Following program contains scenes with nudity sexuality and course language. I decide it's time for a cigarette, and probably bedtime very shortly. Images of freshly drawn cactai fill my head. Good-night.

Thursday Morning

some stupid drunken night... 3am call to ex girlfriend(no answer), and a 4am trip halfway across the country to see her in spite of a nasty cold. I break down in tears along the highway, and scream at the heavens to answer this question: "HOW DID MY LIFE GET TO THIS POINT!!!?" My voice screeches and cracks from my virus as I contemplate ending my life here in this ditch. It would be so easy, and tragic. A few slashes of the wrist & lean up against a tree waiting for the darkness to envelope me. It has already stained my armour beyond foreseeable repair, so why not just let it take over?

I think of Hippy Girl, and wonder if maybe she'd be willing to come and pick up my pathetic package of skin and bones. I wonder if she would be my "knight in shining armour", because: I'm tired of trying, I ran out of shine, and I just don't care enough anymore... I'm more suited to being the Damsil anyway, all I have to do is pretend that the evil wizard didn't damage my virtue, and swoon alot. And women complain about their role.

I want a 'happily ever after', but when I find someone else who wants it as well I run away. It sucks, and it's also too late to redeem myself with Hippy Girl. Especially after begging to be rescued like this. But I wish that I could do it. And I wish that it would all be alright. I just want some king of light to break at the end of my dismal tunnel vision.

Blood stains the page as I write. Blood which I never earned the right to spill. I was jealous of a guy who was chosen by a girl I chose for myself. When he was chosen I went testosterone crazy and raged off, hitting all the trees that I passed by. I'm a bloody drunken mess! and I don't even deserve the right to write upon these sacred virginal pages... or even pages that were whores. It doesn't matter. I should start moving and try to do something with my life...

Thursday afternoon

Well, I kept on going anyway, and so here I am in Kelowna (well, Westbank at any rate), and I wondering whether I should keep on going today and try to make it to Calgary tonight, or wait for Nick (nick is some guy who stopped and says he'll be going the rest of the way in the morning)... I can't tell which idea is my best route of attack. I have a place to stay in town (several in fact); however, there's still plenty of sunlight left and I could probably make it there... but if I go with him in the morning, there'll be a lot less mucking about in hyperspace... no 17 hour waiting for a ride in Revelstoke or walking from Kelowna to salmon arm in the blazing summer heat (which I'll

have you know would be a very unlikely event seeing as it's the middle of the beginning of winter). Hyperspace really stinks, and it doesn't get you anywhere fast like people think, unless you're travelling intergalactic distances. It'll zap you across the vast expanse between here and Andromeda in less than the span of an average life expectancy here on this planet. Which may seem terribly slow to some of you, but that's because your tiny mind isn't able to consider the incredible distance... it's not just a far off star, it's a far off galaxy made of billions of unimaginably distant stars. Consider that it takes four years for light to travel from here to the nearest other star, and alpha proxima is only a wink away in comparison to the vast distance, which spreads itself between Andromeda and I at the moment.

Now Hyperspace relies on a kind of momentum. Now the momentum has nothing to do with movement or velocity as you may assume, but it's a kind of a momentum in a transformation in your body. It's like once you're halfway there, the place where you started from seems alot closer to where you're going (unless it doesn't of course). But this is kind of hyperspace. And the further one travels from his place of origination, the closer far away places become.

It's not really noticeable when you're dealing with people who have only ever gone as far as 23000 kilometers at the very most from their place of origination. But if you've ever seen someone who has traveled to the moon, the different will be just barely observable by a discerning naked eye. What you should be looking for is when your moon travellor reaches for the salt at dinner time, it appears as though his arm grows, and he's able to reach something that was just slightly too far for him to have possibly reached. His arm did not grow, this is an optical illusion. What did happen was simply this: the universe shrunk for him between he and the shaker, but it stayed the same distance from your vantage point.

A master of hyperspace can do it in flashes... boom BooM BOOM... I'm there! Ha! Soon I will be a master, and soon I will conquer the known universe. Ride my noble steed across the skies and battle far off civilizations for ultimate control of EVERYTHING! MWA HA HA!!!

Thursday Evening

Wide the world was, and beautiful. I think that this is what I enjoy doing, and maybe this is what I will do for a while... I'll have to go back to Vancouver for a bit to do something with my belongings, but I should go and wander the earth and see it's breadth. Measure it against my thumb, and against my stride. Make a living by reading palms and doing websites... and maybe one day I'll be making enough money to actually get a room somewhere for at least a couple nights out of the month... well, it's time for me to move on now, and find some place warmer to sit and write my dreamy sheisen.

[I give a call to friends of mine in Kelowna, and copy down their information:

such and such so and so street
yellow house on top of the banana
take the magic bus to the 7st stop
and turn onto the 4rd street
and it's the 3th banana from the
bottom okay, I got it all]

[PS certain gaps were necessary to fill in the gaps of my diaristic story, and I chose to do so within these "[]" sorts of parenthesis. If you have any problems with that sort of thing, or this sort of meta-textual commentary, then I suggest that you go and find yourself another author to read... I can just see this device getting tiresome for the readers after a while, but I just thought that I would explain a couple of things about the story. I am really quite frank with this story, and alot of it is straight from my journal and alot of it is also fictional or product of my foggy recollection... and in parts I am really quite honest about what I was thinking at that point in time, or what I remember I was thinking about or whatever... and I'm just explaining so you're not too terribly shocked by anything you read in any of my writings... and also because I had hoped that I would be able to allow my first book to be read by all my friends and family, and I know that some of them are quite easily offended. Alright, now I'm just spouting useless irrelevant crap, so I'll apologize and get you back to the story... and if my apology isn't good enough for you, then I say bullocks to you! Bugger off and go have your own misadventures if mine aren't good enough for you! La la la... okay I really am going to get you back to the story now.]

A photograph of my friend Jake and I sitting at the kitchen table is posted on the door with a simple note that read: you have reached your destination. It was cute, I thought. It was at a Christian rock concert for me at the Bridge Cafe, and out of the blue I started thinking about how Island Girl would always orgasm before me, even when it was anal sex. I feel bad when I'm with a girl who doesn't orgasm. It makes me feel as though I'm stealing an orgasm or something. I guess that's how Island Girl must have felt.

Friday Night (otherwise known as Saturday Morning)

Me Myself and I have quite a motley crew. Among them are several natives of a little known country called Nepharia. This Nepharian population of ours is consistent of: Nefarious Daddy Mack; the Nefarious Silly Boy; and the Nefarious Incognito Jockboy. I'll tell you a story soon, which involves all of them so you can get to know them a little better.

So it is now Friday the 13th of March... sometime around Midnight I imagine. I'm sitting at Denny's in Revelstoke. I was drunk earlier this evening with a crazy arse driving an uninsured vehicle without a license. That was back in Enderby. I thought about staying there for the night, and going to the pub and try to get free drinks and a place to stay from some friendly girls... Small town girls rock! I guess I don't really think that. But they may very well rock, and I would never know, because they don't really like me all that much.

Not much traffic here on the King's highway tonight, so I'm trying to keep out of the rain by being at a little 24h diner; hopefully, I'll be able to stay long enough for the rain to stop. I'm hoping for a Magic Hobo Bus to be out there right when I get back out on the road that's going all the way to Calgary tonight. All the way downtown so I can call up Whats Hisname and head to his place for breakfast or something. And then we can spend the day being sickies together.

I can't tell if I have a fever or if it's part of the coffee buzz or maybe just a facial hallucination like my 'manual hallucination' in my dream this morning in the banana house.

[Some of things in this story don't even make any sense to me anymore, but I thought that I'd better include them in case they happen to be important]

I've been recounting now the previous few years of my life, and all the people I've taken advantage of and abused. The only people who I haven't, are the ones that abused my. Maybe that's the way it works. Maybe in this world you have only two choices when a new relationship is initiated, either abuse or be abused. It can't be like that though, can it?

These two locals just left, but on their way out they left me with several cigarettes. The guy kept on looking over at me with a look of intrigue intermingled with concern. On their way out the girl handed me the cigarettes and told me to pay her back by helping someone else out one day. Then I have another cup of coffee and start writing all that ficken CRAP about being abused or abusing, and then Amber the lovely Waitress brings me a sandwich and says that the local couple had paid for it. I then proceeded to apologize for not being able to eat it, because it wasn't vegetarian, but they were cool with that and they brought me a veggie burger to replace it. I shouldn't be so jaded, but I seem to be getting more and more that way. It's from hanging out with too many Red Necks and Gutter Punks at the Ivanhoe. I think that I'm letting myself turn into a drunken punk. I guess not, because I'm actually just "Incognito Jockboy" from nepharia. My long hair and twenty hole Doc's disguise my shallow Jockness from the world, so that I'm free to pick up punk and hippie girls and take advantage of their exotic beauty, and drunken openness. Only superhero Manitoba Punkgirl has the super power to see past my disguise, and has a plan to expose my nefarious ways to the punk world. But she'll let me continue to stalk the loathed HIPPIES unchecked... That girl frustrates me so much. I like a Girl named Manitoba Cactus, and I'm sure she likes me too... BLAH!!! I don't know why she has to be such a bitch about it, and then still be attracted to me... I hate that... I'm a crazy ass...

I wonder if my drunken good-bye letter was coherent enough & not so stupid for My Sister and her Roommate???

I believe that it's time for me to attend the washroom and then I'll be right back to continue to spew useless genius all over these pages. It's a wild ride to be Cweth, but I recommend it... Nine out of Ten Cweths interviewed recommend it to youngsters as a good career choice.

I wonder how long they'll let me sit here vamping their coffeepot. Breaking the backs of the poor Colombian serfs. I'm abusing people I've never even met before. Partaking in the oppressive nature of the Roman Empire Unfallen. I think I should probably head out of here soon. I've been sitting here whipping to Colombian Dogs for the last two hours now and I think I'll probably be good for me to get back out on the highway. Especially since the bar crowds will be in here soon. I don't really feel like being surrounded by a bunch of drunks in Revelstoke. But maybe if I do stay, some drunk girl will take a fancy to me and take me to bed Fur die Nacht.

I am a master of all that is on this planet, but I never asked for this power. I starve, and still I eat better then most of the world. All because Rome has made me its citizen... well I guess it's time to hit the road... la la la... I wish that I had have written down that Ragae song I wrote in Vernon... it was fun. But I do remember my Doors rip off:

Snowbound caravan
take me to Calgary
take me past Banff.

I've got coffee gutrot, and I'm feeling sick and weary. Not wanting to get going, but knowing that it's the inevitable end for my soon to be completed visit to Denny's Revelstoke. Alright, it's full of drunks now. Time to leave soon... Hopefully this cofee'll keep me going all night.

I could sing some Leonard Cohen and stand beneath the streetlight with images of freshly drawn cactai in my head, knowing that everything is all right... WooHoo!!!!!

OKAY, I'm really going to go now. I'm going to have another cigarette, finish my last coffee and get my waning moon outta here.

I'm putting you away now sweet beautiful book, but that doesn't mean I love you any less...

[I just had a thought that all this meta-textualizing a diaristic story is probably a little bit confusing. When I switch over from being the narrator to the author. At any rate, it's late in real life as well... six in the morning, and I just thought I'd warn you that things get pretty weird when I'm tired. You never know, I may end up being fine, but I may also end up going completely crazy and remembering all kinds of crazy aliens taking me into sheds to show me how to properly use a woodchipper, or something like that. Well, you saw what happened with the heroine addict and his drawings.]

Saturday Night

Vanitas Vanitum!!!!

Monday Morning

Monday in Red Deer. It's pretty nice today. Snow covering the parks where I used to play. I'm stopped to enjoy a cigarette where I always stop. At the bench by the cliff down the hill from the mall in the forest. I know that I'll be passing by Hippy Girl's house soon, and this is where I always used to stop with her. I miss her touch, yes very much... But if I ask for it, I'll beg, so I'll stay away. If she's even back in town. If she is, I'd like to see her, but I don't want to be like a dog in heat is all.

My cigarette is done, so I think I'll walk... and maybe I'll knock upon her door...

[there's a number of female characters in this story, and none of them have real names... almost like Shakespeare... this is primarily a story about a boy, and very little about the world around him. There are less egoistic stories in this book, but you won't find any real lofty searches for truth or anything here... you'll see a boy whose best friend is his sketchbook, in which he documents in picture and word all kinds of junk that he encounters in a totally selfish and foolish adventure in which the only goal is to satisfy his machismo by being thought of as desirable and intelligent]

Thursday Morning (otherwise known as REALLY late Tuesday night)

A visit with my mom is pretty standard stuff. Not that I don't enjoy it, because I do. I love my mother very much, but I just mean that it's always pretty much the same thing, and maybe that's what I like about it. If I go and visit somebody else, I don't know what to expect. A new apartment, and new roommate, a new facial piercing, a breast job, a haircut, a complete and utter personality transfusion... it could be anything with anybody else. But with my mother it's always pretty much the same. It's her and my little brother, and I just try to ignore whatever man she's seeing (not that there's many, but it's just not important to me, and it's better to ignore them than to not get along with them in my opinion). We act silly together, and play crib before bedtime, and then I proceed to stay up all night drawing pictures or writing my journal. I go out a couple times, and probably end up with some nice young lady and so on... I just know what to expect, you know?

So that's pretty much how it went... Hippy Girl wasn't in Town, so that made things easy on me. It was a little disappointing, but I got over it. I did go out a couple times, and I did end up meeting a nice girl who invited me to go visit her in Edmonton, but my ex girlfriend GothGirl got a hold of me, and made me fall in love with her again... I'm seriously retarded when it comes to love, by the way, and not at all like a penguin but I wish I could be.

Well, it's so late on my Tuesday night that it's already Thursday morning for everyone else. I'm planning on leaving tomorrow, so I should probably get some sleep, so I think that that means it's bedtime right now. Good night.

Friday Night (otherwise known as Cold As Hell)

My hands are so frozen that I can't believe they're capable of speech. I don't know how long they'll be able to keep it up. I'm in Banff. I was coming to meet a friend of mine from Calgary, but I missed my rendez vous with him. I don't want my hands to be frozen like this, it's hardly comfortable, but oh well...

The craziest thing happened to me though, as I was looking for my friend. I saw what looked like Jim Morrison walking down the street in his sexy sort of doped way, and with his curly hair... but his hips were too MmmmMmmm, and his skin too mmmm, and I knew it was Hippy Girl.

She seemed pretty stunned and not at all happy to see me. I hope that either I don't run into her again tonight, or that she becomes less scared by it. I suppose it is kind of unnerving, but I'm accustomed to running into people that I know everywhere.

I bum a cigarette off of a passerby.

I knew she was here, and maybe my decision to try to meet up with my friend here was really just my subconscious saying that I'd really like to see her again. I do miss her often, but I knew she'd never miss me... I grow weary of this world, and think that maybe it's time for the high-way... I remember when I was with her, I was a complete person. I was working, and doing artwork and supporting myself, and had a girlfriend. I felt secure in everything, but then the Wanderlust of Windigo (Sp?) took hold of me and transformed me into the depressed beast that I am. Maybe I do like her alot, but she's not my freshly drawn Cactus. She's just a part of that time when I was holding strong, and doing well for myself. She represents, to me, the time when I was happy. Maybe. Or maybe I'm full of sheisen...