Here are some photos from New Years Eve at Broken City.

My lovely ladies of Puberty reunited for a special show, along with good pals the Sharp Ends.

Lot's of friends home for the holidays from school, it was so wonderful to see everyone!

I must have kissed 30 people at midnight. Love all around!

Jen Clement and I <3

 Jen and Sydney: Photo by yours truly

Candid hand warming shot?

Sydney and I lookin' snazzy

Sydney, Jen and Nicole. The Pubes.

Sydney and myself filling in on vocals

Sharp Ends; Friend noise jam encore takeover

December. A series of setbacks, one after the other. I find myself 2 months behind schedule now.

Disappointed, but on the other hand, I am slightly relieved to have a little extra time to prepare. I feel useless here, I no longer have any interest in trying to make any sort of life for myself in this place, so I am left to anxiously wait out the days. My only purpose of being here right now is to work, to lessen my debt load. My frustration is increased now that my work hours have been cut from 40 hours a week to 8. As soon as I received my new schedule I booked a flight out of here, may as well if I am not working for an entire week. I know I am a resourceful person, this shouldn't be an issue for me, I have never had a problem finding work and making money when I need to. At this particular time I feel mentally exhausted, my subconscious seems to have given up on me. That little voice inside of me that kicks my ass whenever I lose my drive has left me.

 These days I find myself back and forth from work to home. When I'm not working, I only feel a desire to play guitar in my room. There isn't really much else to do and at least writing songs gives me a sense of accomplishment. The other benefit is that it serves as a major distraction from people, which tends to consume much of my thinking when I allow it to do so. I am fighting to keep myself on a stable plateau. I fear any lulls between distractions, I find myself thinking about things I should not bother even thinking about.

I remember a time, before medication, when my mind wandered always towards the negative. I have the opposite problem these days. My heart is filled with fond reminiscence, where before would have been sadness and negativity. Perhaps I am too optimistic at times, believing I have the ability to change specific circumstances. I often feel as if I could take over the world if I so wished. Most likely a result of making such a drastic life change in such a brief period of time. In this case, I often wish I would dwell more upon the negative as to focus on the lessons I should have learned.

All in all, everything is very much up in the air. Part of me likes not knowing exactly how things are going to turn out. I have always loved surprises.

Hello to all,

First of all I would like to thank everyone who took the time to express their gratitude and understanding. I cannot begin to explain how awful I felt knowing that I had unintentionally caused hurt to family and friends. I apologize for not being able to respond to everyone individually, this week has been nothing short of an emotional roller coaster. But please know that I appreciate your strength and kindness, more than I can say in words.

After commenting on a Calgary Herald article, I was contacted by a reporter from the National Post who had googled my full name. I have never been fond of journalists, and I was reluctant to agree to an interview. On one hand, I didn't want to disrespect the girls, and their families by commenting on the event. But on the other hand, I wanted to explain what happened, to give closure to those who most likely still had a lot of questions about what had happened. Most of all, I wanted to present a clear picture of just how much of a freak accident this was, to prevent the girls from being villanized by the media.

I returned the reporter's phone call, wherein I agreed to give a detailed account of the incident. I basically reiterated from the beginning what I had experienced that day, save the philosophical ramblings about the fragility of human life. I explained what we saw when we first came upon the crash, and what had ultimately led me to stop and try to help. I was careful not to say things that could potentially be exploited in order to sell more newspapers, I told only the plain facts without going into unnecessary detail.

I mentioned in passing, the affect the event had on me and how the most effective way for me to deal with my pain, is to write. I told her I had gotten drunk in order to be honest with myself and true to my emotions, and that I had written a blog entry reflecting that. I never gave the reporter permission to quote my blog entry, or post a link to it. In my mind, it was in very poor taste considering she must have read the entry and should have concluded that including my personal account of the event would be insensitive to the people who were close to the girls.

My personal blog was never meant to be read by anyone beside my close friends. The night after the crash I had no idea who any of the people involved were, and never thought that they would be people who were so incredibly close to me. The morning the National Post contacted me, I learned that 3 of the girls involved were not only friends of many of my mutual friends, but also people who I had met on several occasions. My perception seemed to turn inside out.

Before knowing their identities, I felt a sense of loneliness in all of it. In that moment you feel the purest form of love there is, love of humanity. You realize your ability to love someone regardless of their significance in your own life, you love them because in so many ways they are just like you, and more importantly, so incredibly different and unique in the world.

I wish I could reverse any damage that was caused to others by my vivid recollection of it all. The pain of those memories is for me alone, and I will carry them with me for the rest of my life. They never should have been shared with the close friends and family of the girls who were lost. I only hope that they will remember how they lived, and how happy and beautiful and incredible they were. Emma, Cayley and Joi brought so much good to those around them, and I feel those who had the opportunity to be a part of their lives, are truly truly blessed.

As always, I send all my love to those who have to grieve the loss of Emma Ransom, Cayley Chapman, and Joi Edgar. Three beautiful angels in heaven, and they are guiding you with all of their strength love, and grace.

The entry regarding the crash south of Nanton has been removed out of respect to the family and friend's of the beautiful, talented, young girls who lost their lives on Saturday.


No permission was given to quote this blog or post a link to it anywhere.


I am so sorry, from the bottom of my heart, to those whom I hurt.


I will post a longer entry later tonight once I get myself together.

What am I thinking about?

I'm hungry. This is for sure, I can feel it.
My eyes are burning a little, I must be tired.

I'm having difficulty distinguishing between thought processes. When I sleep I am dreaming of myself as a 11 year old boy, moving between dimensions deciphering ancient magic code. Guarding the ones I love from evil entities. I forget what I am while awake. I feel part of nothing, of no real use to anyone or thing.

I wish I could erase certain people from my memory entirely. I feel uncomfortably unbalanced in the world when I find those, who think nothing of my existence, wandering into my own mind. I can't compare this particular sensation to anything else. It is as if I am sending a signal and receiving nothing but static, causing me to feel utter worthlessness throughout my entire being. Even worse is the speculation that they feel disgust at the very thought of me.

I have no need for this uncomfortable feeling, it serves no purpose or opportunity to learn. The only times this desire to remove someone from my memory is present, is when one person is significant enough to me to skew my perception or force me to question what I want in life. It is difficult to reverse these revelations, and even more so difficult to forget the ones who encouraged them.

Setting the analytical aside, being forgotten so easily by those I allowed myself to care for feels like hell and makes me feel like a damn fool. The incessant weight of loneliness is deepened, and I feel desperate to get it out of my mind. Most of the time, I do well to keep it out of my mind. The flood of memories that cause the heart to ache is usually triggered entirely by accident. Reading a message, a photo, then the door is open and you remember the warmth of skin, butterflies and tingling, unusual comfort, laughing, and worst of all; feeling hopeful.

I am tired of my own pathetic tirades.

It's 2:30am. I'm starving, as is the usual around this time of night. I feel uninterested in food these days, nothing appeals to me, and I eat only as necessity. The hunger doesn't bother me so much, I find a sort of comfort in the physical sensation of emptiness.

I feel myself rapidly approaching a breaking point, yet I don't see myself crumbling like I have in the past. In fact, I predict the very opposite. All this time I have been fighting my predisposition toward isolation, when what I should have done long ago, was embrace it. I perform all of these odd little gestures and daily activities as if I were playing a character. Examining, studying and then mimicking. I have spent so much of my life trying to understand what I need to be doing in order to fit in, or at least to avoid detection of my awkwardness, I have lost my self in the process.

Driving alone down the west coast, it never occurred to me how much I was emotionally displacing myself from all of that, how detached I was becoming of my rituals and habits involving social situations. During that time I did not realize how free I was in every sense of my existence. It was not until the fear of returning to that imprisonment, did I come to grasp all that had become open to me. And even more so, upon returning home and even feeling detached from objects, and what I previously associated with 'home'.

The revelation; after everything, is that I need nothing but myself. For I find no happiness in trying to understand the complexities of 'people', and it only serves to cause me grief. I have everything I need available to me, or at least the ability to obtain what I need. I see no cause for getting caught up in a whirlwind of drama concerning other people, when I could be utilizing the resources around me in order to accomplish what I want to do.

Simply put, I am no longer going to be a victim of loneliness and isolation. From now on, it is going to be on my terms.

bow and arrow

Caught up in all of it; feeling sorry for myself and rehashing old failures.
Seldom these days, but the fear still finds it's way into my psyche, and my body feels weak all over.
Am I so naive, after every thing? Could it possible be - fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice... and so forth. A disheartening notion. Perhaps my sense of sagacity is more of a detriment than an advantage at this particular point in time, holding my head up so high that I fail to see the carpet pulled out from under me.

I find myself coming back to the notion of accomplishment, and furthermore - self fulfillment. Am I really genuinely seeking self fulfillment, or simply embracing isolation? For the latter, I could think of nothing else I could do at this point other than run away from what makes me feel the most isolated. I found much joy in solitude, but only with the knowledge of its impermanence. Knowing that I would soon find myself back in my old, repulsive comfort zones, the people and places I know so well but do not bring me happiness. It's tolerable, mediocre, comfortable. Yet being able to move around with eyes closed leaves time for too much thinking, analyzing, trying to figure out if it is me, or them.

Real, I find, is not good enough for most people. I find myself constantly falling short of people's expectations, their idealistic notions. I am far too stubborn to attempt to romanticize my persona in an attempt to hold one's attention, and I don't think I could keep up the act. I would always eventually give myself away and turn out to be just be as plain and boring as anyone else. In other cases I feel there is an addiction to the pursuit and the rush, once someone becomes routine then the interest is lost.

I am exhausted by this game.