in the past 4 nights i have slept ridiculously little to the point where as i'm about to write this, my cognitive thoughts are all scrambled into a single incoherent entity where nothing makes sense at all. it feels like the tailend of a weekend induced entirely by amphetamines. i wouldn't know exactly how that feels as i've never had such a weekend but i am sure it ain't pretty. it is at this time to fire up the ol' blog and spew the garable for the world wide web users to try and make sense of it.

several reasons have contributed to my lack of shut eye: "thriving" social life, school (hahahaha! no), job, late night channel surfing (mainly that re-enactment show of day's events in the wacko jacko trial on muchmoremusic at 2am.. best show on television right now) and the misty queen. all together these put together make me think that sleep is overrated and i am missing out on too much by wasting precious hours underneath a blankey.

take tomorrow for example. i have to be at my low-waged/unskilled job at the insane hour of 6am (eastern standard time) to prepare all the fancy displays (chunky soup for 1.49, marked down from 2.99--get it while it lasts!!). these are the same displays that customers managed to destroy earlier today. i cannot imagine how the thing looked by the time the store closed up. this afternoon i stood there almost weeping as customers went ape shit getting as much of this soup (not that great tasting mind you) that i had created hours earlier as the sun went up. the same thing will happen come tomorrow. the story of my life: whatever i create, put some effort into, almost immediately gets pummeled with little or no regard for the sacrifices i made.

okay, maybe instead of doing this i would rather be snuggled under a blankey, but hey, a man's gotta eat right?. judging by the time in the bottom right-hand corner of this screen i'm looking at, not much sleep is coming my way tonight either. i didn't do anything tonight in hopes of getting some needed rest but the glow of the computer screen drew me in to read a few blogs and and was inspiring enough to write a word or two myself. which means putting together the display in matter of hours is going to take more time than it should. a well-rested employee would do it quicker/prettier than the state i am going to be in. so my eight hours at work will be anything but productive. but their low-wages and my part-time status means they don't expect much out of me, so i won't do more than i deem appropriate.

though the destruction of my displays is always saddening when i walk by them. you should've seen my quaker oat's section last week. the thing was out of hand! apparently pepsi owns the quaker product line (who knew) and they gave our store a few dollars to make their products clearly visible. shh! don't tell anyone. i am not going to see a penny of that pepsi money but i had to put the thing together. i was given a blurry facsimile of what the pepsi folks wanted it to look like and rest was up to me. some minor changes were made but nothing that anyone would notice. it was probably was the greatest looking thing i've ever assembled and really put effort to make it look aesthetically pleasing and make you think you need this product. i marvelled at what i can do if give more than my typicall half-assed effort. the other night i glanced at it and it's a fragment of its former self. completely brutalized and raped by complete strangers unaware someone put the time and effort to actually make into something. it's like a parent looking at their child who is addicted to drugs, no future prospects but a continued downward spiral to the desolation row and wondering the parents where they went wrong. that's how i felt looking at my quaker display.

these are the reasons for low-waged jobs as whatever you do goes to waste almost immediately and in the long run doesn't make a licking difference. you are a cog in the machine filling space and formalities. i could type endless accounts of fellow employees that put decades into this type of work and have yet to uncover this economic truth and why their contribution is absolutely worthless. i kid you not. you want to tell them this but watching someone possibly have a nervous breakdown that they've accomplished nothing would be too much for my conscience to handle. besides, 3/4s of them are now in "managerial" positions and have learned to insulate their job dissatisfaction in some belief they are somebodies. their different coloured shirts are supposed to signify that they're better than me. HA! the only manager i appreciate there is the guy that knows he's means nothing and that head office suit boys with their MBAs scoff at him just like they scoff at any other employee. he's got ideas but no one listens to him till years after the university educated with their supposedly educated minds have admitted their plans failed. but they don't admit to failure, they simply restructure. having worked there a few years, ive got suggestions of my own but folks like me aren't paid to think. i just show up, put some things up on the shelf, steal their yogurts, chug milk drinks, dabble in fancy german ice cream, and call it a day.

criminologist call this pilfering. internal theft is so rampant in many organization that going after its staff seems impossible and impratical. it would be like the modern day salem witch hunt and also, if companies get serious about pilfering, so would insurance companies with higher premiums. so i do not complain that i am underpaid because my expenses are moderate and a portion of daily dairy intake is free of charge. sure, more money would be nice but for that to happen, i'd have to get a real job. i suppose this can apply beyond the low-wage/unskilled sector of labour, but that's beyond our scope for the time being.

what else has contributed to my lack of sleep? thoughts. thoughts of a girl. not necessarily good thoughts.

things with misty queen have gotten weird. a normal relationship.. well.. a normal boyfriend would handle the situation gracefully and with little energy. that isn't me. it appears the another male has been drawn to the beauty and wonders of my misty queen. according to what she has told me; on my recent excursion to ottawa (where i was good and faithful), some dude tried to make his move on her. she brushed the dirt off her shoulder but he appears to be a persistent little bugger. i appreciate her honesty and regard for my feelings, but it has brought me little comfort. what have i done about it since? nothing. absolutely nothing. i've kept silent about it but emotions are stirring i'd like to do without. because if history serves me right, here is how this story has played out countless times: boy meets girl, boy woos girl, girl gets tired of boy's charming stupidity and proceeds to eliminate him. there may some subtle discrepancies with each scenerio but the gist of it is bang on. it may not be this particular fella-- who goes about his business when the boyfriend is hours away--but whoever he is, he is out there awaiting in the wings to get his crack at misty queen. at that point i become relegated from boyfriend status to an obstacle. the point is, i come to realize that emotions of affection are temporal and that someone else may be better at this than i am.

i know it's not healthy to think this way and i keep telling myself to change my ways. but old habits die hard. it's safe to say these negativities stem from self-confidence levels bordering on non-existent. one day i'll get at the root of this but as of right now i'm still trying to fit all the pieces together. maybe it'll even require a few bucks on some professional advice while lying on a leather couch but at this point, i am sort of constrained from putting these sorts of expenditures into my already megre budget. i mean, for all i know, i may not be such a bad guy after all. but failing to recognize this thing myself makes doing anything successfully more difficult than it should be. more so, it makes it difficult to maintain a healthy relationship where i do not feel like a peg leg.

misty queen is a girl that has her shit together and has a solid self-image. that way she uses her physical beauty and her english charms makes it evident this girl knows she can do and get anything she wants. it's rather brilliant and usually these people disgust me but her ways are so brilliant that i maybe one of her sitting ducks without even having the slightest clue. she's in control, has the upperhand, has her poker face on.. whatever you want to call it.

i'm not saying this defines self-confidence but at least it's a step up from my patterns. you'd think i wouldn't be drawn to such a person but below her manipulative abilities is a sincere person is looking for a companion. based on what i know, her choice of fellas over the years has not been anything close i'd be associated with. maybe she's in search of something new and so am i where someone's positiveness flows my way. i'd like to think i've done an adequate job at being her companion over the past months but as doubts enter my head, my behaviour spirals into territorities i am not proud of. i mope, become more passive than usual and forget that my charming stupidity is what keeps this girl even talking to me. i begin to question my position in this relationship and as things proceed nicely, i begin to doubt i can be what she needs in the short term and the long run. i'm afraid of getting further involved out of painful fear she'll wake up one morning regretting everything that ever happened between us.

the amazing thing is that when my relationships are clear of negative thoughts i can make the most genuine connection. i can feel almost invincible; that i am exactly what she needs and this is the most empowering feeling in the world. feeling emotionally depended is almost as good as putting on a new pair of socks. i need to learn that i can be someone's emotional blanket better than anyone else. that i am their remedy for everything at any given point in time. because it is when this gets tinkered with, i lose belief in what i am capable of and start to feel how i am right now. that i'm nothing more than a footnote in people's lives. i figure the key to it all is just ridding my mind of these insecurities. that's where the fun really begins and to be saved for another place/time.

oh yes, i was going to write about this earlier but did not for whatever reason. the story that jay leno has other people making micheal jackson jokes for him because he can't say a word outside of the courtroom is fucking pathetic. first off, if the jokes were actually good, i'd understand. but they're not, they never were and never will be. micheal jackson jokes write themselves but leno can't even do that right. here's a sample: