Happy Valentine’s Day.  I would like to say first, that I am very proud of myself for making it through this week without having a complete breakdown, getting physically sick, or dealing with an explosive temperment.  Although, I did have to sit down and sit for a moment the other day while I was preparing food for myself, as I started shaking rather badly while trying to cut up some chicken.  I hate losing control of myself, even for a moment, because my life used to rely on my ability to maintain composure regardless of what insanity was going on around me….  so I get the two-three-four punch of a) feeling overwhelmed by life and therefore showing physical symptoms of being overwhelmed, b) being terrified by loss of control and also the fear of what the consequence of that is going to be, c) disgusted by myself for losing control and for being afraid, particularly as this usually happens when I am alone and there’s nothing and no one there to hurt me, and then d) fighting the desire to just say “fuck it” to whatever action I was performing when this happened. I might understand the psychology behind everything happening, but that doesn’t make it any easier or more pleasant.

Earlier this week I fell really quite hard on a pile of logs and ended up seriously re-aggravating all my battle wounds, so I’ve been both dealing with rehabilitating my body — which is like a never ending battle, since I should by all logic be paralyzed instead of just living with nerve damage and a fractured shin bone, and doing a lot of cognitive therapy to deal with the demons I associate with my battle wounds.

On Thursday I went for coffee at Bings in Stony Plain with M.  I love M; she’s so easy going and non judgemental and warm.  Like…  the best thing that’s ever happened to me was meeting her.  Anyways, we caught up on the gossip — and no, this lady is not going to kiss and tell on her blog — and then talked politics for a bit.  After that I went and people watched downtown for awhile.  It was nice to just get out of the house for a bit, and not work.

Dropped in at a place called the Dojo, which aside from having meditation classes, also has Reiki workshops.  I think I used to be buddies with one of the owners of the place, but I’m not sure.  Then hung out in a little Vietnamese restaurant called Pho Seng inside a place called Kelly’s Hall — it used to be a dance hall back in the ?30s or 40s — and drank Chai while I read my email and worked on a piece involving rituals and stress management techniques.  Stony Plain is an interesting place; it has a rich history which the town planners have generally managed to incorporate in it’s design, and generally feels a lot like something out of a picturebook or something.  The murals help a lot with the keeping the history alive.

In the afternoon, I dropped by the Legion and this time, instead of sitting in a corner with my laptop and jamming away, decided to actually take a leap of faith and hang out with the local occupants.  I was introduced by the bartender as “being trained as a policy analyst” which more or less satisfies the equation, had four rum and cokes and some overly fried chicken wings (they were good though), and brought up the Mefloquine issue with the gang.  A few of them had been on in it while stationed on their missions, and knew EXACTLY what I was talking about.  Then I just sort of sat there and politely observed things and realized what an abominable workaholic I really am.

On the way home from the Legion, I read an article talking about how the Legion is failing to meet the needs of the younger veterans from operational theatres of war post-Korea, and how despite the fact that it was incorporated originally to advocate on behalf of veterans, it was failing to fulfill it’s intended objectives.  Now, I really don’t have much experience at all with the Legion, having only been there twice, but I did ask about what programs might be available (No sports, no real volunteer work that I can tell, etc) through it, and my experience there was much like my Facebook experience…  that is to say, a bunch of people who’ve seen and experienced a lot of crazy shit just sitting around smiling politely and laughing at crazy stories.  The thoughts related to that are going to have to go in another blog post.

Slept around the clock for like the last two days, except for eating and taking Da Vinci out.  And there’s nothing wrong with that; the order of the day is to listen to what my body is telling me.  And it says “Please stop being cruel to yourself, the world is full of people ready to do that for you”.  And it’s right.